Bobservations

Last week I had a nasty head cold. I wanted to simply stay in bed and get it out of me, but on Friday we had several errands and so, being the chauffer, I drove Carlos around Smallville.

I had one caveat: stop at a drug store and have Carlos get me some Cherry-flavored Nyquil. Nyquil knocks me out, let’s me sleep, and without fail, I wake in the morning feeling almost human. Carlos went into Walgreens while I waited in the car, and after a bit he came out with a bag of, what I’d hoped, was Heaven.

We got home and I asked where the Nyquil was, and he said he’d put it in the bathroom. And so, later in the night, as I got ready for bed, I thought of that cherry liquid and feeling better in the morning. I entered the bathroom and found the bag on the counter. Inside was a small jar of Vicks Vap-o-Rub, or, as Carlos calls it, in that accent, Bic Boppa Rue, and alongside that was a bottle of …

Walgreens Generic Brand cold and flu and nasal congestion relief. Not only wasn’t it Nyquil, but it wasn’t even Cherry; it was some neon blue shiz in a bottle marked … and this is where I could kill him … non-drowsy formula for daytime use.

Cherry-flavored Nighttime Nyquil. And he got Walgreens blue shiz Non-Drowsy Daytime. The only plus was that as I lay awake most of the night, struggling to breathe, and rubbing my forehead and trying to erase the headache and stuffiness and congestion, was that I could plot his demise.

He has surgery next week and Nurse Ratched will be home taking care of him.

Karma, like me, is a bitch.

Being completely honest, and why not, I have a huge crush on Stanley Tucci, who epitomizes the Hot Bald Gay Nerd ideal in my head. Oh, I know Tucci is, sadly, heterosexual, but I can dream, eh?

And my dream came true … Stanley Tucci will be playing gay in his latest film, Supernova, alongside Colin Firth as his longtime lover, traveling across England in their old RV visiting friends, family and places from their past. Tucci’s character suffers from early-onset dementia so the trip is the most important thing they have. As the trip progresses, their ideas for the future clash, secrets come out, and their love for each other is tested as never before.

Sounds sad, but also sweet, and it has La Tucci!

Now, a tale of one sane person and two crazy people.

John Kelly, former chief of staff to _____, recently said that he had warned the president before he left the White House not to replace him with a “yes man” because it would lead to _____’s impeachment.

And look what happened, right? But now, _____ is denying that Kelly ever delivered that warning: 

“John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office.”

But the best comment was from White House Press Liar, Stephanie Grisham said:

“He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does. I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.”

Clearly, she drinks on the job … still.

More crazy? Okay … In just a few weeks Henderson Kentucky’s Central Park will be the site for a Day of the Dead celebration. Most people think it’s a good opportunity for people to learn about Hispanic culture, but City Commissioner Patti Bugg has a different take:

“I’d say 99 percent of the day of the dead is probably innocent. I think that’s fine. I think if you want to honor your loved ones. I think the only challenge is if they actually try to summons [sic]somebody else, you know, a loved one from the grave, then I think they’re asking for some serious stuff. As a Christian, I don’t think they can do that.”

Seriously. Seriously? Seriously.

Pete Buttigieg was recently in South Carolina and, well, he’s having a bit of trouble connecting with Black voters because, yup, The Gay,

At an event, there were about 24 uncommitted black voters who said they were deeply uncomfortable discussing Buttigieg’s sexual orientation and did not like that he was “flaunting” his sexuality by talking about his husband.

Are straight people flaunting their orientation when they talk about their spouses or are they, and Pete Buttigieg, just talking about their lives.

C’mon, it’s 2019. We’re here; we’re queer; we’re running for president. And some of us have husbands.

Sorry for flaunting that.

Police Sergeant Keith Wildhaber, a St. Louis County police officer, who says the department passed him over for promotions because he is gay was awarded $19 million in a discrimination lawsuit.

Wildhaber filed the lawsuit against the St. Louis County Police Department in 2017 after he was told to “tone down your gayness” if he wanted to be promoted to lieutenant.

Again … here, queer, and some of us are police officers.

In news that makes me squeeeeeee like a little gay boy, there is talk that a growing number of Republicans are privately warning of increasing fears of a total wipeout in 2020: House, Senate, and White House.

From their moths to the voting booth.

Let’s do this!

In last week’s I Ain’t One To Gossip But … I posted that photo up there of septuagenarian Suzanne Somers posing topless in the weeds for her birthday.

Commenter den81164 said:

“first thing i thought of when i saw suzanne's picture was "janice" the girl muppet in the rock and roll band on the muppet show. google it and you'll may see it too.”

Den was so right. High-lariously right!

Over the weekend we watched Mary, Queen of Scots starring the delicious Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robie as Elizabeth. Good film poor Mary; girl lost her head, um, Spoiler Alert?

Anyway, the film also starred the oh-so-delicious Jack Lowden as Mary’s second husband, Henry Darnley, who ay have been gay, or may have been bisexual or may have been fluid but was hot any which way you tell it.

Dreamy ginger, with an English accent. He could give Hot Prince Ginger a run for his money.

Architecture Wednesday: Residence JP

Since we went cold and snowy last week—and Steven whined about it—I thought we’d head to warmer climes this week: Brazil!

Sitting alongside a lagoon is the JP Residence—perhaps named for our across-the-pond blogger JP and if this is his home, with the delightful Guido, where’s my invite?—in Araçatuba, Brazil.

It’s a uniquely shaped home, designed to blend the indoor and outdoor spaces by bringing greenery around the home, and inside the home.

I don’t know if I love the wide-open spaces and the walls of glass, or the gorgeous pool and outdoor kitchen, or the sleek modernity of it all.

I just know that as winter approaches, this would be a great escape.

Click to emBIGGERate ...

HomeDSGN

The Pure Fakery of The GOP Lapdogs

After GOP Clown Car held their illegal, and ridiculous, five-hour sit-in, which included a pizza party … seriously … but did not derail the testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper, the Occupy SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] crew left.

The “performance” was meant to highlight the GOP's attacks on the process that House Democrats are using to gather preliminary information, which already includes some damaging revelations about _____..

Here are the lowlights of the GOP goose-stepping to the orders of _____:

• Despite the GOP complaints that this is a secret partisan inquiry, in addition to the 59 Democrats on the three committees, there are 48 Republicans, and yet a third of those goose-steppers did not attend the meeting but joined a protest to demand to know what was going on inside the meetings. Um, asshats? Maybe if you’d show up and put on your listening ears, you’d know what was happening and you’d and would veer away from the phony theatrics.
• Those GOP goose-steppers wanted the be arrested, and some Democrats wanted to have them arrested, but decided against it. Some in the mob of unruly asshats wanted to be arrested so they could secure a photo op to advance their "GOP narrative."
• GOP Clown Car ringleader Matt Gaetz, whose head is so far up _____’s ass that Lindsey Graham is a jealous schoolgirl, brought along his own film crew from HBO's The Swamp and some uncredentialed reporters, and had his staff give out expired congressional passes to them so they could enter the secure room. Clearly, for Gaetz it was all about getting his ass-kissing mug on TV.
• It appears that _____ knew about, sanctioned, and may have asked that the GOP Clown Car storm the hearings. _____ hosted about 30 House Republicans on Tuesday and told them to be more "tough" in defending him against impeachment.
• Lastly, here’s a photo of the mob storming the hearings, walking right by a sign that denies access to anyone with recording devices or cameras, and this asshat has his phone. The GOP respect for the rule of law is all but gone under this Asshat in Chief.

This wasn’t some mob intent on defending America against an out-of-control Democratic hearing. It was show biz and reality TV, ordered by a reality TV show narcissist who cannot stand anyone, anyone, questioning him.

But question him we must because if we don’t, we become a dictatorship; we become a one-party country.

We are no longer free and the Clown Car rules.

Tuesday Thought #3

Tuesday Thought #2

Tuesday Thought #1

I Should Be Laughing: Harry's Rock

On the edge of the bluff behind the house, over a hundred feet above the sea, Wyatt stared at the water. Jimmy was right; there was a trail from the end of the yard down to the coastline below; a tricky footpath that wound like a snake to an awkward strip of sand and stone hounded by the ocean. Wyatt’s eyes tripped along the surf, following a small arm of rocks until he found Harry, sitting on his rock, his back to the shore and the house. Harry, with his knees pulled tightly to his chest, his chin resting on crossed forearms. Harry on the rocks, gazing listlessly at the sea.

Wyatt tried shouting, but the coarse winds and strong surf only carried his words back toward the house where they were useless, and he realized there was no other choice than to begin walking down the craggy path. Carefully he picked his way down the side of the cliff, twisting and turning back and forth until he was able to jump the last few feet to the rock strewn beach. Once at sea level, he immediately saw how Harry had managed a walk so far out into the cove; the lumpy arc of stones created a natural trail from the beach to the last large boulder upon which his lover sat.

Calling Harry’s name again, Wyatt discovered that, as pointless as his efforts were atop the bluff, here by the sea, they were utterly meaningless; the sea roared stronger and the winds howled louder. So, he started out slowly, stepping from pebble to stone, slipping on the slick wet surfaces. The sea spray dampened his skin and sent chills through his body, and the stronger waves taunted him, threatening to toss him into the water more than once.

After losing his balance, and stepping knee deep into a tide pool about halfway out, Wyatt finally got near enough for Harry to hear his shouts. But when he turned, although he wore sunglasses—a pair of crimson circles bought for two-ninety-nine at an Arco station in Daly City—Wyatt could see that Harry had been crying. The tears, however, had seemingly ended, for Harry grinned broadly when Wyatt clambered onto the boulder, shaking the salt water from his hands and wiping them on his shirtfront. Pushing the glasses into his hair, and rubbing a wrist over both eyes, Harry scrambled over the stone to hold out a hand; taking it, he pulled Wyatt to his side.

“Morning” Wyatt said as he settled in next to Harry, throwing his arm over Harry’s shoulders and planting a small kiss on his cheek.

“How’d you know I was here?” Harry hollered above the bawling surf.

“Jimmy came by.” Wyatt shouted back as the waves and winds died for a moment; then he spoke more calmly. “He said you used to come out here a lot.”

“Yeah, I did.” Harry rubbed his palm against Wyatt’s thigh and tugged at a loose thread along the inseam. For all the times he had come to the rock, all the days he sat and wondered who he was and where, if anywhere, he fit in the world, he had never sat beside anyone. He’d always considered it his spot, but now, like so many things in his life, be it a place, something special, a movie or piece of music, a thought or dream, he could share it with the man he loved. “This was the one spot where I didn’t feel so alone. I would spend hours out here, even in the rain…”

“You didn’t feel alone here?” Wyatt asked, looking around, taking in the dramatic, but essentially barren view. Though the rock was sheltered in the relative safety of the cove, it was set far enough from the shore that, if you looked straight ahead, you saw nothing but ocean and sky. Only by turning your head one way or the other, could you even see land at all; only by craning your neck all the way around did the house at the end of Skeleton Road come into view. “How could you not feel alone out here? There’s nothing out here.”

Harry laughed. “That’s exactly why.” His eyes followed the thin line separating the sapphire Pacific from the pristine pale sky of morning. “When I was a little boy, I felt so different from everybody. I didn’t know what gay was and I certainly didn’t know any gay people…”

“No ‘funny’ uncles?”

“No uncles, period.” Harry laughed again, though this time it was more melancholy. “I started coming here to watch the sea and think, but mostly to get away from…her. You know, if you look out there,” Harry flung his hand at the horizon, “you can’t see a thing. No people and rarely any boats. It’s all…nothing….” Harry’s words flew away on the wind.

“And that made you feel less lonely?”

“Sure it did. See…out here, there were no kids pushing me into lockers or calling me names. There were no little brothers who…made fun of me. No mothers who would…well, no mothers at all. When I came out here, it was only me, and I was gay. I mean, how could that be wrong. If I was the only person and I was gay, what was wrong with that? Out here, everyone was gay, even if it was only me…”

“I can’t believe you didn’t have anyone to talk to about this.”

“Well, there might have been someone if I hadn’t been so afraid to look, so afraid of what people might say. Look at it this way, Wyatt, I lived at the end of a road to nowhere with a mother everyone knew was a crazy drunk. I was the kid whose father disappeared without a word, whose sister ran out on him, too.  How was I supposed to say, ‘Oh, by the way, I kinda like boys.’ “Harry laughed at the idea and Wyatt leaned into him, slipping his hand into Harry’s.  ”Out here on the rock, everyone liked boys.”

“And they still do.” Wyatt said, as a flock of gulls soared overhead, squawking their disapproval at the two interlopers on the rock. Together they watched the sea drift by, and marveled at the seamlessness between the azure ocean and the wan sky, sitting on a rock all by themselves.

The Funny Papers

Steve Sack, Adam Zyglis, Dave Whamond, Bill Bramhall, Matt Wuerker, Bill Day, David Fitzsimmons, Ann Telnae, Joe Heller, Darrin Bell, Jim Morin, Nick Anderson, Kevin Siers

I Ain't One To Gossip But ...

I adore Patti LuPone. She’s talented, brassy, ballsy, bold and has exactly zero fucks left to give. Even when it comes to old feuds like her decades long-running tiff with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

La LuPone, as I call her, is returning to Broadway this spring with the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company and so she’s doing some press; and whenever Patti does press her tiff with ALW comes up. Now, Patti dished ALW in her 2011 memoir Patti LuPone: A Memoir and last year he countered with memories of her in his own book Unmasked: A Memoir, in which he dragged La LuPone for her diction. As you know, and if you don’t WTF is wrong with you, La LuPone was the original Evita and ALW still had a few notes for her about her performance.

Here’s how Patti found that out in a recent interview:

Did you read Andrew Lloyd Webber’s memoir?

No. Am I in it?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, dear.

The interviewer tells her that Andy “rehashed the expected stuff” like their falling out when ALW fired her from the Broadway production of Sunset Boulevard and replaced her with Glenn Close, and the interviewer says Andy “made a point of criticizing” La LuPone’s diction. Now, Patti wasn’t surprised by that, and even acknowledged it saying:

“You don’t know, when you’re in the moment, that you’re not enunciating.”

She added that John Houseman used to call her “flannel mouth” back in the day. So, she was fine with the diction comments until she realized he was talking about her performance in Evita:

“How could he talk about “Evita”? The whole thing is sung. He’s a jerk. He’s a sad sack. He is the definition of sad sack. I never wanted to do “Evita,” because it was the most bizarre music I’d ever heard. You’re raised on Rodgers and Hammerstein, Meredith Willson, Lerner and Loewe, and then you hear that? I heard the “Evita” concept album, and I went, ‘Ow, my ear.’”

But then she added:

“I thought ‘Evita’ was the best thing he and Tim Rice did. But the rest of it is schmaltz.”

That’s why I love La LuPone, a compliment and a dig going hand-in-hand.

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When Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan announced they were divorcing after nine years of marriage, they both released the same no-drama statement about their split, saying how much they loved each other, but that they just weren’t going to be married anymore.

How quickly things change … Jenna, who has a book, Gracefully You: Finding Beauty and Balance in the Everyday, to publicize, is now crying about how she found out that Channing and Jessie J were dating … like all of us, or some of us, or none of us … by reading it on the internet.

But here’s the rub … Channing and Jessie J started dating after the Tatum’s split up, so why she is now acting like the scorned spouse is odd … except she has a book to sell and coins to make.

“I was in a state of shock. One week I’d be doing really well and the next I was slammed with a whole new slew of emotions. The rumor mill was churning out story after story. There were many times I hid under the covers, wondering what was next. The pain hit me like a tumbling avalanche. I was completely overcome with fear and sadness. It took many moments of sitting alone with my grief to force me into surrendering to my roller coaster of a situation.”

Funny, all that pain, and that wild roller coaster of an emotional ride didn’t stop Jenna from meeting and dating and hooking up with and having a baby with  Broadway actor Steve Kazee. I wonder if she called Channing to let him know, or if that’s just a one-sided thing … when you have a book to sell.

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Lori Loughlin is hilarious. She’s currently awaiting trial for her :::cough::: ALLEGED role in Operation Varsity Blues where rich people used illegal bribes to get their kids into prestigious universities. Lori stands accused of paying $500,000 to fake some rowing credentials for her daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli to get them into USC because they weren’t smart enough to get in on their own merits.

But that’s not the funny part; Loughlin pled not guilty, where others—like Felicity Huffman—pled out, and were given very light sentences. And then ,even funnier, Loughlin has now been hit with more charges and funniest of all is that Lori Loughlin has been watching Felicity Huffman’s 13-day prison stay and wants to know what it’s like because she thinks she’ll get the same deal.

Oh Lori, you’ll be going to a Fuller Big House.

For a longer time, too, honey.

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What do you do if you’re tasked with playing a role in a film, like say, oh, I dunno, The Joker, in Suicide Squad, and think you’re gonna ride that part to an Oscar like Heath Ledger did in that Batman movie? And then you don’t. But then you think you’ll take the part on again and play it in a stand-alone film about The Joker’s origin story and you learn that Joaquin Phoenix has gotten your part?

Well, if you’re  Jared Leto you try and try and try … and try to stop the film from happening. And you fail. Kinda because Suicide Squad sucked, and many of your scenes were chopped from the film, and so no one wanted Jared Leto back on film in that role except for Jared Leto. And now, in 2019, that Joker film is killing it at the box office and it looks like its star, Joaquin Phoenix, might get that Joker Oscar.

According to sources familiar with Leto’s behavior, when the Oscar-winning actor—for Dallas Buyer’s Club—learned of the Todd Phillips project, he not only complained to his agents at CAA, who also represent Phillips, but asked his music manager, Irving Azoff, to call the leader of Warners parent company to get Warners to kill the Phillips film if he didn’t get the lead. Sources say Leto felt his agents should have told him about the Phillips project earlier and fought harder for his version of Joker, or at least stopped the rival project, arguing that Leto wasn’t being treated properly as an Oscar winner.

Everyone said, ‘No,’ and now Jared is no longer represented by CAA or Azoff.

Oops.

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What’s that smell? 

It smells like aging Miley Cyrus desperate for attention, but it’s actually 73-year-old Suzanne Somers celebrating her 73rd birthday by posting a picture of herself in her literal birthday suit.

Oh Suzanne, desperation smells terrible at age 26 and even worse at 73.

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What smells glorious is 74-year-old Hellen Mirren at the premiere of her latest film, The Good Liar.

Somers should take notes.

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