I Should Be Laughing

When Carlos was born one of his aunts gave Baby Carlos a ring, and he’s held onto it lo these many years and now he wants to know what it’s worth.

So we took it to a local jeweler who couldn’t tell us the kind of metal … maybe 14k gold … because in Mexico they don’t mark the metals. But he did tell us that the diamond in the ring is about 1/3 of a carat and worth a little more than $3,000 which was a surprise to him. On the way home Carlos said he might take the ring and make it into a nice cock ring and I said:

“Well, at least you won’t have to have it resized.”

His howler monkey screech stopped traffic.

PS This is the ring next to an actual nickel.

This Tuxedo Memory is from April 2020:

"Under lockdown, I grow bored, so I have been making a series of ‘Tuxedo Says’ posts for Facebook. He is gathering quite the following and so I thought I’d share some here."

That’s my boy.

On last week’s Graham Norton show, Demi Moore talked about her little dog, Pilaf, and how she takes him everywhere and he gets all the attention.

So much so that Dogue magazine—like Vogue but Dogue—asked to have Pilaf on the cover and here he is:

Gizmodo—a tech website—submitted a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request with the FTC for consumer complaints filed about The Felon’s Truth Social. People say they were signed up for mailing lists they never wanted to be on, but it’s the complaints about scams that are the most shocking, given the large sums of money involved.

One person says they lost $170,000 after initially being scammed on a different site and then meeting someone on Truth Social who claimed they could help get their money back. That turned out to be a scam as well. But more often, the victims are first contacted on Truth Social before being told to take the conversation somewhere else, like WhatsApp. Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.

Wait, y’all, you went on a site owned by a convicted felon and are now complaining you got scammed? Oh for the love of the Baby Cheeses, think, people, think!

Drew Stever, a transgender minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in California, is one of the few out transgender clergy members to be ordained by a Christian institution. Now a pastor at Hope Lutheran in Hollywood, Stever was recently featured on CBS Mornings' The State of Spirituality with Lisa Ling, using the opportunity to reflect on his journey:

"I grew up female and in the female context, and I just never felt like that worked for me. There were definitely times where [I thought], 'If I can't exist in one way, I don't want to exist at all. I would just be better off not alive.' [But] there was a moment where I woke up in the morning, and the words that came to my mind were, 'You don't have to be angry anymore.' It was almost like God just took a snowball and threw it at my face."

Always feeling a calling towards spiritual teachings, Stever attended seminary school, and ended up coming to terms with his identity during his time there. As he describes it, he went into seminary as a woman but came out "not a woman." And so to those who don't believe trans people have a place in Christianity, or that scripture denies the existence of trans people, Stever's response is:

"It's hard to relate [that] to modern day times, because it wasn't written for 2024. It was written for then. When we read in scripture that God created man and woman—yes, and God created everyone else as well."

To LGBTQ+ people who feel they've been rejected by the church, Stever would like to apologize:

"My first response is, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that the church missed you. I would say specifically to folks of color, to people living with disabilities, to LGBTQ people—you are good. Nothing is wrong with you. You are good and you don't need the church to tell you that."

It’s like I always say, God is love, and if you don’t believe in God, then maybe just Love is love.

Speaking of Good Christians, Dolly Parton partnered with several Sevier County attractions and Walmart to make a significant donation to Hurricane Helene flood relief.

Parton announced she was making a $1 million donation to the Mountain Ways Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing immediate assistance to Hurricane Helene flood victims. And, on top of that, Parton’s East Tennessee businesses, Dollywood Parks & Resorts, Dolly Parton’s Stampede, and Pirates Voyage Dinner & Show, and the Dollywood Foundation, matched her donation, bringing the total contributions made to Mountain Ways $2 million.

Of note, I have yet to hear of one of those megachurch pastors donating to victims of Helene … Osteen? Osteen? Anyone? So, if you choose to call yourself a Christian, be a Dolly Christian and not a Joel Christian.

I do not know what it is about bald men but I do find a great many of them to be scorchingly hot.

And now, speaking of Hurricane Helene, this past week 35 Republicans voted against FEMA funding and eight are up for reelection:

John Barrasso, Wisconsin.

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee.

Kevin Cramer, North Dakota.

Ted Cruz, Texas.

Deb Fischer, Nebraska.

Josh Hawley, Missouri.

Rick Scott, Florida.

Roger Wicker, Mississippi.

VOTE.THEM.OUT.

Martiño Rivas López, AKA Martiño Rivas, AKA Martin Rivas, is a 39-year-old Spanish actor; so, Would You Hit It, and if so, under which name?