Bobservations

Carlos has been given ESL classes over Zoom for a while now, and every so often, between his students and him, he has issues getting on the Zoom call. He was telling me the other day that he thought he had finally mastered it, but then his student was having issues:

“I said, ‘Can you see me?’ … ‘Can you hear me?’”

And then he saw the look in my eyes and even he knew what was coming next … I went full Yentl on his ass:

“Papa can you hear me? Papa can you me? Papa can you help me not be frightened.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Looking at the sky I seem to see a million eyes which ones are yours? …”

“STOP.”

He still does not get it that you cannot stop a Showtune Queen.

Adidas cut ties; Anna Wintour, too; his ex-wife has denounced him; his divorce lawyers have quit over it; Gap, CAA and Balenciaga have severed ties with him. But Republicans stay silent.

Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, two right-wingnut conspiracy theorists who placed thousands of robocalls lying to minority and Democratic voters in Cleveland in the months before the November 2020 election pleaded guilty to a felony charge and face up to one year in prison.

They still face similar felony charges in Michigan and, in a separate action, the FCC has recommended a $5.1 million fine for the robocalls.

Sorry not sorry.

After we took Tuxedo to the vet last week, we learned he basically had the same cold-flu thing Consuelo had, and the doctor prescribed anti-biotics. She also wanted a urine sample and couldn’t get one in the office, so we were sent home with a plastic tray, a small bag of sand, and a dropper and vial to collect the urine. Tuxedo was going to spend the night in the guest bathroom—to keep Consuelo from contaminating his sample with hers—and he seemed fine with it, but at around two o’clock in the morning I woke up to find Tuxedo on the bed with us; I roused Carlos and asked if he’d let Tuxedo out and he said, ‘No.’ In the morning we could see that Tuxedo was able to push open two doors to get out of the bathroom.

Luckily, he did leave a sample for us.

Leslie Jordan, the beloved actor and comedian, probably best known for playing Beverly Leslie on Will & Grace died this week. It is suspected he suffered some sort of medical emergency and crashed his BMW into the side of a building.

Thank you for the laughs, on W&G, and every other show you appeared on, and the riotous video posts you created during the pandemic. Thank you for giving me one of my go-to lines:

“Well well well if it isn’t [insert name here]. I thought I smelled Gin and regret.”

RIP

It’s been twenty-two days since Hurricane Ian hit Florida and forged a path of destruction across the state, and the amount of federal recovery aid distributed to the state just sailed past the $1 billion mark.

Funny, since the governor of Florida called such monies a form of socialism until his state needed them.

Tuxedo was also given anti-biotics at the vet and trying to give them orally is a feat in and of itself.

It requires Carlos to ready the dropper full of medication, a towel to wrap around Tuxedo, and his Nice Daddy—that’d be me—to hold him in the towel and lie him down on the counter on his side so Carlos can force open his mouth and give him the meds.

It’s a battle, I tell you, because Tuxedo, even at 19, is till agile and strong and wily and cunning, but we have been managing to do it, twice a day, and as soon as he’s taken the meds he slithers from the towel and crawls up on my shoulder and hugs me.

Masculine icon and tough guy Ted ‘Rafael’ Cruz hid in a supply closet during the January 6, 2021 riots on the U.S. Capitol that he helped spur on by catering to Thing 45 and The Big Lie.

After the 2020 election, Cruz repeated the numerous unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, supported a lawsuit to void absentee ballots and approved of an attempt to stop four states—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin—from using the election’s results to appoint electors. These two efforts failed.

And during the riot he ran and hid while the people he egged on attacked the building and this country.

Fucking traitorous hypocrite bitch.

Ozzo also saw the vet last week, just to see how he’s faring; the eyesight is bad, the hearing is awful, and there’s arthritis in the hind legs. So the doctor prescribed CBD gel caps for his arthritis pain and Carlos seemed fine with that until I told him that CBD is from :::gasp::: cannabis—though you can’t get high from it—and good for pain.

I think Carlos instantly pictured Ozzo lighting up a joint in the back yard behind the shed.

Upside, there has been a noticeable improvement in his mobility, and the doctor called with his test results and said he is the healthiest, semi-blind, semi-deaf, arthritic nineteen-year-old dog she’s ever seen.

This is Fabien Sassier, a big old French piece of beefcake who, from what I saw while checking him out, has a big old piece of beefcake that he doesn’t mind showing off, but that is not the question: Would You Hit It?

File Under: Jack Burkman Is An Idiot

Boy oh boy, there are quite a few idiots out there jumping on the Don’t Serve The Gays ... or Jail The Gays ... or Kill The Gays, ... or Ban The Gays bandwagon, and yet none of them seem to be aware that their actions have repercussions.

Folks, gay folks and straight folks who dislike discrimination of any kind, big business, the National Football League, Apple, Delta, and many others are calling for a boycott of all things Arizona if the Don’t Serve The Gays bill gets signed by Arizona’s idiot governor, Jan Brewer.

For her part, Brewer says she’ll do what’s best for Arizona, meaning she’ll do what’s best for her own personal political agenda. But I digress. This post isn’t about Arizona, or Indiana — whose Hate The Gays bill is now dead — or even Georgia — whose Hate The Gays bill is on life-support — it’s about idiotic Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman who announced earlier this week that he would push for legislation to prohibit the National Football League from employing gay players:

“If the NFL has no morals and no values, then Congress must find values for it.”

Oh.Yes.He.Did.

Burkman later admitted it was all a publicity stunt, though how one gets publicity by being a bigoted homophobic douchebag is a new one to me, but it seems as though his stunt has backfired.

See, a lot of Burkman’s clients aren’t keen on his stunt — he represents mostly companies in fields like medical devices, clean energy, and pharmaceuticals — and several of his clients — many of whom are LGBT pro-equality allies — now believe his efforts no longer represent their interests, .

Bruce Brimacombe, founder and CEO of GOE3:

“I believe in doing things that will bring this country together, not pull it apart.”

Ed St. Amour of the international business company G-PROP:

“I think those positions are a little bizarre. It certainly wouldn’t be anything the company would participate in, [they're] not our values at all.”

David Sher of Greenbacker Renewable Energy:

“I personally do not agree with his positions nor are they the positions of Greenbacker.”

Daniel Penchina, a principal at The Raben Group and president of Q Street, an association of LGBT lobbyists and advocates:

“Burkman’s clients should not only be concerned with being associated with his views, but also his judgment and competence as an advocate. Ultimately, he’s promoting his public image at the expense of his clients. That raises real questions about whether he can adequately represent his clients’ interests before policymakers.”

Now, to be fair, this act of Burkman’s should really come as no surprise to his clients. He once argued that parents should remove their children from Boy Scouts of America because they now allow openly gay youth in the organization and he once said women should not be allowed to serve in the military, become doctors or lawyers because they should be home raising children.

Oh.Yes.He.Did.

Michael Sam got into the fray, as well, Tweeting that Burkman would “need a Delorian [a reference to the Back to the Future time machine], not some bogus bill, if he wants to prevent gay athletes from being in the locker room.” And even Jack Burkman’s openly gay brother weighed in with his own Tweet that Jack was “being an ass.”

Well, and a bigot and a homophobe, too.

Still, though some of his family and most of America denounced Burkman for his statement, nearly all his many of his clients decided to stick with him except one ...

CEO Jeffrey Carpoff and COO Paulette Carpoff of DC Solar Solutions, Inc., a California-based green energy company, released a joint statement:

“DC Solar does not condone or support Mr. Burkman’s homophobic views, and since learning about his misguided efforts to write legislation banning gay athletes from the NFL, we have ended our relationship with him. DC Solar values diversity within our company and within our communities, and we do not tolerate discrimination of any sort. As a company working to address issues about our country’s future, we have no intention of working with those who are stuck in the past.”

That was good to hear, though it is dismaying to hear other companies denounce him for his ridiculous views, publicity stunt or otherwise and yet keep him on the payroll. So, good on DC Solar for standing up against intolerance, and bad on all those other businesses that talk and talk but do nothing.

But here's the real deal: in a world where some countries want to literally jail people for being gay, and other countries want to kill people for being gay and here in America, where some states are trying to allow legalized discrimination of gay people, this kind of publicity stunt is not funny or amusing or cute.

It;'s dangerous and stupid, and I only wish more companies that employed Jack Burkman had the balls to fire his ass.

via ThinkProgress