Not a Famous Jewish Athlete

There is a television commercial I cannot stand about a once-a-year osteoporosis medicine called Reclast. A middle-aged woman in a garden shop pushes a wheelbarrow, goes swimming with her friend, buys a tacky, lavender sequined dress, and wears the dress for dinner that evening. The part that annoys me more than anything is how it begins with the woman saying, “Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m an on-the-go woman. I’ve been active all my life.”

The reason it annoys me is that I am Jane! I have even bought a tacky dress and worn it to dinner, but in my defense, I never wore lavender sequins.

Although I have been active all my life, I am hardly an athlete for two reasons. Guess what they are? Having trouble? What is the title of this blog? Now, you got it.

When I was nine years old, Mrs. Kroskin, my friend Suzanne’s mother (and I have known Suzanne since infancy), decided to produce a show for our Rodef Sholom Temple Hebrew School about famous Jews in show business. The first draft had the show going on for forty days and forty nights. She and I butted heads over creative differences. I think Mrs. Kroskin was not used to such an opinionated and obnoxious child, who had a flair for the dramatic. I was such a diva. However, she did recognize talent and asked me to impersonate Al Jolsen singing “Rock a Bye Your Baby.” I did sing it on one knee, but I refused to wear black face.

Her first inclination was to produce a show about famous Jewish athletes, but that program only lasted ten minutes.

Now, whenever anyone discussed the lack of famous Jewish athletes before 1972, someone was bound to mention Sandy Koufax, who refused to pitch the first game of the World Series in 1965 because it fell on Yom Kippur. My argument was you only mentioned one Jewish athlete, and although my first pet was a Repenomamus,* the esteemed Mr. Koufax was before my time.

Currently, Sandy Koufax serves as a member of the advisory board of the Baseball Assistance Team, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to helping former Major League, Minor League, and Negro League players through financial and medical difficulties.

After 1972, we had Mark Spitz, a great athlete, who was also blessed with good looks and a pre-Tom Selleck, porn star mustache, who did more for Speedos than anyone else in history. But, he suffered the curse of all Jewish athletes – a Jewish mother. Although accepted to dental school, he decided to pursue other options after the Olympics. To this day, his mother says about her record-breaking son, who made Jews everywhere proud, “He could have been a dentist.”

This reminds me of the joke my friend Bill told me years ago. The first Jewish President of the United States invites his mother to the White House for the weekend. His mother tells her friend about the invitation.

“My son invited me down for the weekend.”

“Your son the doctor!?!”

“No, the other one.”

I was born with a Jewish body. Jewish bodies are not designed for tossing balls, running laps or hitting things with sticks – except rocks if you are Moses and you’re angry. They are designed for sitting in a room and studying. As the late Totie Fields said, “All Jews have bad eyesight and bad feet.”

Do you know the boy who hits puberty, fills out like Tarzan, and is blessed with natural athletic abilities? He isn’t Jewish. And if he is; he’s adopted.

I was born with the least athletic body God ever created. I know what you’re thinking. But Milton, you are so sexy and hot and a vision of health and vigor, how can that be? Oh … you weren’t thinking that?

By the time I reached puberty, I had a body like McLean Stevenson’s, who is also dead – narrow shoulders, droopy boobs and wide hips. A classmate said of me when we were getting weighed in ninth grade, “You are built like a girl.” She wasn’t lying. I was built like my Nana, whom I have mentioned I look exactly like in drag.

In spite of my Venus de Milo shape, I was determined from an early age to work with what I had. I played football, but due to poor eyesight and lack of coordination, I played center. All I had to do was hike the ball and mow down whoever was in front of me. Since I was a foot taller than everyone else, I excelled in this position. They tried making me a receiver, but I couldn’t see the ball until it either smacked me in the face or flew over my head.

With the mention of football, I have to say something about little league football. Why is it every little league coach makes his son the quarterback of the team regardless of his abilities? My little league coach’s son was named Dookey. I am not kidding; that was his name. And, you doubted my Southern roots. By the coach’s own admission, Dookey had more penalties than any other player in the league, and he sucked at football! But in every game, he was the first-string quarterback. I cannot begin to estimate how many balls I hiked to him that he dropped. As a result, the South Morrison Vikings lost all but one game.

I liked football because my father was so far away from the action that you couldn’t hear him criticizing me on the few occasions he was sober and came to a game. Basketball was another story.

Playing center in footbll is an easy way to hide one’s lack of athletic ability. Unfortunately, in basketball, this is impossible. Hating basketball was also a factor. Buy me tickets to any sporting event, and I’ll go. I don't like to watch them on television, but I do like live sports. Buy me tickets to a basketball game, and I don’t care if the seats are next to Jack Nicholson, I will pass.

When you’re tall, everyone wants you to play basketball. Ucccchhhhhhh. I played two seasons for the Jewish Community Center team. I was forced to play the first season and tricked by my mother into playing the second. I forget what our mascot was – maybe a gefilte fish. What’s worse is that on a church league, which this was, the basketball courts are only a few feet from the bleachers. My father, who was usually drunk, would sit courtside and scream at me to pay attention, go this way, go that way, do this, do that, the entire game. He was obnoxious and relentless. Other parents would tell him to calm down. Then, he would scream at me the entire ride home about how bad I was. I had to take a Milltown after each game. Did I chain smoke then?

I often wonder how I didn’t turn out to be a serial killer.

Ironically, Grandma, his mother, would relay stories about how he couldn’t even make a team because coaches would laugh at his lack of athletics or ability. But, my issues with Mr. Macho and my masculinity are between me and my pharmacist, bartender, and kick shield.

Interestingly, every team I ever made, not just the South Morrison Vikings, was always the worst in the league. Without fail, the season would end with our losing all but one game. I think we once lost to a school for the blind in a blowout. My high school football team had the worst record in the entire state.

At the age of fifteen I began my quest to turn this Dodge Aspen of a body into an Imperial. I did what every gay boy did back then. I bought a weight set after the Charles Atlas program didn’t work.

I have never quite made it to Imperial, but I have managed Chrysler Newport a few times in my life.

With discipline and training, I transformed my pear shape into one that on Manhunt would be described as athletic and on Girlhunt would be called big boned. Unfortunately, what I ended up with were gay muscles.

For those of you who prefer the opposite sex, gay muscles are only for show. They look great in a tight T-shirt, but they are useless when it comes to sports and most day-to-day tasks. This is why gay people never rent a U-Haul; we hire movers. Have you ever asked a gay person to help you move a couch? If he says yes, film it. You will see a guy who can bench press 250 pounds for reps having trouble picking up one end of a sofa. It is a phenomenon that scientist cannot explain.

These shortcomings have not stopped me from pushing my body to do things it was never designed to do. In my twenties, in spite of Jewish bad feet, I took up powerlifting, and I joined a volleyball team. When I spiked a ball, people got hurt. In my thirties, in spite of my lack of coordination, I learned modern, ballet and tap dancing, and I became a long-distance runner, while starring in my own cable-access talk show – The Milton Rose Show, filmed in West Palm Beach, Florida. Did you catch it when it was on?

In my early- to mid-forties, I wrote five books and more than four dozen short stories, all of which were published. I had to prove I was still Jewish and preserve my spot in the afterlife by having intellectual pursuits for awhile.

When I first began any of the above activities, I wasn’t just terrible, I was a disaster waiting for a place to happen. But I had a few things going for me, determination and a pushy personality, and even though I love being in charge and barking orders, whenever I am trying something new, especially something athletic, I assume I know nothing and listen and take directions very well. It's OK that it will take me longer than everyone else to get it. That is how I became a good center on the football team, an experience I always draw from when pushing this body that was made for drag to do something only a straight guy would do. Also, my previously mentioned demographic, straight men, love helping me succeed at sports – it is the strangest thing.

As if Krav Maga wasn’t enough punishment for me (and by the way, the instructor says I am doing really well – or he likes the fact that I pay my monthly dues on time; I don’t know), I decided to do something I had not done in more than a quarter century, join a team.

It would have made sense for me to join a volleyball team or a swim team (I did that, too), or even a flag football team, but for some weird reason, I chose a sport I have never played – softball. I have not swung a bat since … seriously, I can’t remember.

So, I bought a glove, a bat, cleats, and batting gloves (Walmart has a great sporting goods department), and wearing a color coordinated outfit with my hair perfectly coiffed as usual, I showed up for my first practice. Was I good? No, I sucked lemons, but the coach, who is one of those guys you know was born with a naturally athletic body, worked with me, and I was able to hit the ball – twice! I actually caught it a few times, too.

After our first practice, we had lunch and a meeting to discuss the season and uniforms. The uniform discussion took up most of the meeting. Did I tell you it was a gay softball team in a gay softball league? Thank God! The uniforms will be both tasteful and flattering.

Being a gay team means at least half of the players across the league, especially the ones with gay muscles, will probably suck as much as I do!

Do you suck at sports? Follow me, join me, tell your friends – I need my own reality show!

* A three-foot long, thirty-pound dog-like prehistoric mammal that roamed the earth with dinosaurs and was known to attack them in packs and eat them. As a point of reference: Esmeralda weighs 26 pounds.

I Used to Be Hot

There was a time in my life when I marveled at the fact that I had friends going back ten years. Now, I have friends going back as long as forty years (at least that is as far as I will admit). I am not bothered by this; however, I will never get used to having friends my age who are grandparents. How in the hell did that happen?

When you don’t have kids, your sense of time is a bit off. For example, when my friend Johnise’s daughter went to college and cashed in the matured savings bond I gave her mother when she was born, I was befuddled. I am rarely befuddled; dumbfounded, yes, but rarely befuddled. How could she be that old, and how could a savings bond I bought be mature? Where had the years gone?

The mirror is not a good indicator of aging – unless you’ve really let yourself go. In that case, I can’t help you. You’re done.

The first time I realized how much I had aged was when I had to renew my passport five years ago. After comparing the photo from my twenties to the one of me in my early … never mind which decade, I spent the next two days studying my face in the mirror and saying, “When did that happen? How did that get there?”

I have one thing going for me as far as aging, and one going against me – kind of a blessing and a curse. On my mother’s side, we don’t age drastically and tend to look younger than most people our age. On my biological father’s side, the men have not lived past fifty-eight. So while we continue to look youthful, we make a beautiful corpse.

“Wow, look at him. He looks younger than I do, and he’s dead!”

“He’s better looking, too!”

Aging for average people is easier. For beautiful people, aging is hell. These are the people who keep plastic surgeons in business. Lately, I have observed a new trend in Hollywood facelifts. There is a surgeon out there who is making everyone look like Donald Duck. I was watching Happily Divorced last week, and Morgan Fairchild was a guest star, but I didn’t know it was Morgan Fairchild until she spoke. Her cheeks were puffed out, her mouth had a permanent grin, and her eyes were slits. The same thing happened when Delta Burke was a guest on Drop Dead Diva. Barry Manilow has also taken a trip to the same doctor, but his results are the most drastic. He can no longer open his mouth! I am a fan of Barry Manilow’s, but the last thing a man should do is get a facelift. They just come out looking like old lesbians.

My how times have changed. In the 1970s, Aunt Dorothy’s sister got a facelift, and they pulled her so tight that she couldn’t close her eyes. Now, they pull someone so tight, they cannot open or close their mouths either.

The strange thing is none of these people look younger or even better. They look scary. What do they see in the mirror? Do they have an urge to go pantless in sailor suit?

My friend Frank has a neighbor who is in her sixties. We were heading out one day, and he stopped to speak to her. I could tell she never had any work done. As he drove away, I remarked that she was a very attractive woman. He agreed. Sure she looked her age, but she looked fantastic. She had aged gracefully. We both commented on how she had obviously had no work done and shouldn’t.

Now, all of us have that moment, as I mentioned above, when we realize we no longer look eighteen … or twenty-nine.

Do you want to know how you’ll look in ten years? Look at yourself first thing in the morning. You hate me now, don’t you?

When I first came out, I must have looked good because every guy over forty would buy my drinks in a bar. Having a Jewish liver, it didn’t cost them much. The first time I had to buy my own drink was the last time I think I went out to a bar.

I figured I was no longer young and hot. In the gay world, I was considered middle-aged. I had turned thirty!

Unlike many gay men, I accepted my new status and moved on. The thirties are a difficult time for gay men. You are no longer a boy toy or fresh meat or that term I hate more than any other – a twink. You also aren’t old enough to be a daddy.

Then, your first gray hair comes in, then another and another, and all of a sudden, twenty-year-olds, who just a few birthdays ago wouldn’t give you a second look want to be your boyfriend. Oy vay.

Strangely, I have never been attracted to twenty-year-olds, even when I was one. I always liked men in their forties. However, I am still attracted to men in their forties, which concerns me because I don’t want to be the eighty-year-old troll who inappropriately grabs forty-year-old men. Wait a minute. My genes say I’ll be dead long before then, so I’m cool.

I asked my friend Danny what was the stage between Daddy and troll, and he said, “Last week.”

The forties are another strange time. This is the last decade when you can tell people your age, and they say, “You don’t look that old.”

Until …

You hit forty-nine. That is when God plays a cruel trick. Until forty-nine, the aging process is quite subtle. A slight change here, a slight change there, then BAM!

You look in the mirror one day and scream, “What the fuck!”

That is what happened to me. Despite all the years of moisturizer, night creams, and sleeping in a vat of formaldehyde, in one year, I aged ten years. I knew I had aged rapidly when someone asked me how old I was and when I told him, he just nodded.

At first, it was difficult. I wore a veil whenever I had a social engagement, and I only used twenty-watt pink bulbs in my house. As a matter of fact, I avoided all situations with bad lighting, and I never, I mean NEVER, looked down. This is when you go from being versatile to being a strict bottom. Believe me, you’ll look better. If not, then you will never have sex in the daytime again!

However, I soon learned to accept my aging face. But there are times …

The other day, I ran into an old friend from more than twenty years ago at an event, and we were having lunch with a bunch of other people afterward. While we were catching up, someone asked him how we met. He relayed to them the story and said, “Milton was in his twenties then, and he was hot.”

To which I replied, “Yes, I used to be hot.”

Instead of smiles, I got looks of pity.

Then, I swigged my Geritol with a vodka chaser and ordered another – a double.

If you no longer look in the mirror, follow me, join my email list, tell your old, old, old friends.

Poop War of 2012

I believe more people are concerned about dog poop than any other issue facing our nation today. Not only is the owner concerned when his dog does not poop or poops too often, but also not a day goes by for a yardless dog owner without someone making a comment about where or when his dog poops.

David Letterman once made a joke that if an alien landed on Earth and saw a man walking his dog and witnessed the man bending over and cleaning up the dog’s poop, he would consider the dog the more intelligent being.

I would never in a million years want to change a diaper, but I have no problem putting a plastic bag over my hand and picking up dog poop, which is also when the Jewish mother in me comes out, for I am concerned with firmness, consistency and color. After all, the colon is the window to your health. This is why whenever you come back from the bathroom in a Jewish home, everyone asks, “Are you ok?”

As an apartment dweller and now a trailer park queen, I have never had the luxury of opening a door and letting my dog go out into the yard. That means, by my crude calculation, in twenty-six years I have bagged 23,725 pounds of poop. That is a lot of shit.

I am so glad I always had small dogs. I do have a rule: I will never have a dog whose poop is bigger than mine.

My friend Charles has a very large and beautiful chocolate lab named Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella for short. Ella is now sixteen and still going strong. She also tap dances when she is excited. Once when I was staying at his house for a book signing, I remarked that having a dog that large was like having a pet horse. Ella’s head is as big as mine. I offered to walk Ella and my Serena together, and he said take a large bag because her poop is enormous. I prayed she would not have to go. Unfortunately, she did. For the first time in my life, I gagged while cleaning up poop. I should have brought a shovel and a cart.

My friend Ed once had a Great Dane, named Gable, in a New Jersey apartment! He told me he mastered the art of holding a Hefty bag below his dogs poop chute and catching all he had to offer. That story made me gag.

The worst thing, however, is when you take your dog for a walk and three blocks from your house you realize you forgot to grab a bag. This is also the time your dog decides to take a dump in the mean old man with a shotgun’s yard. And just as your dog finishes evacuating, he steps out his front door, and you say as quickly as possible, “I forgot my bag; I’ll get one right now and be right back.”

The beauty of having a small dog is that you can pick her up, run home, grab a bag, come back, and clean it up before he has a chance to reload.

Having female dogs presents its own problem. Amazingly, people who don’t own dogs do not understand biology. They think all dogs lift a leg when they pee. If they see a female dog squatting to pee, they assume a present is being left for them. Once in Mount Pleasant, a lady screamed at me, “Are you going to clean that up?”

I screamed back, “Not without a sponge.” She then ran out to her yard to find the offending shit pile but was shocked when nothing was there. She thought I was a magician.

Esmeralda doesn’t just pee. She has to find the perfect spot and then perform figure eights for a minute before finally squatting and taking a long luxurious piss. More than once in my new neighborhood, I have had to explain that she is a female dog and they squat rather than lift a leg.

One night after dinner with a friend, we were walking Esmeralda, and she started her Dorothy Hamill compulsory figures. I had just remarked about how friendly my neighbors were when this old man with an oxygen tank yelled at me, “That dog isn’t going to shit in my yard is it?”

We immediately walked to another spot, and my friend remarked that not everyone was friendly. I informed him that every neighborhood has the mean old man with a shotgun, or in our case, an oxygen tank. Did I mention he was smoking at the time? Another reason we chose to scurry out of there.

Before she poops, Esmeralda trots laps back and forth then walks in circles. When I first adopted her, I didn’t know this, and I thought she was trying to walk in the other direction rather than where we were heading. I don’t know how many times I nudged her back in the direction we were going and wondering if she would ever poop outside rather then immediately upon returning to our horrible apartment in Rockville.

The first time I realized what she was doing and she finally did pooped outside, I said jokingly, “Praise Jesus.” That was a mistake. “Praise Jesus” became our command for taking a poop, and even though I am Jewish, I prayed to Jesus that no one would ever hear me say that to make her poop outside. Fortunately, she quickly got the hang of things, I figured out her bowel movement schedule, and pooping was no longer a religious experience.

Once we moved into the park, with the exception of mean old man with an oxygen tank, things were going well, until …

My dog walker, Mrs. M, adopted the most adorable beagle basset mix, we’ll call Buddy because that is his name. Buddy, also a rescue, is two years old and has epilepsy. He loves Mrs. M, but he won’t go near anyone else. He and Esmeralda are boyfriend and girlfriend – she, the older woman, he, the younger man.

Mrs. M soon discovered that Buddy found two spots where he loved to poop, Mary’s yard and Madge’s yard. Good citizen that she is, Mrs. M always cleans up after Buddy, but someone in the neighborhood was not doing his or her duty, and feces was discovered in both of their yards.

That is when the Poop War of 2012 began. Mary accused Mrs. M of leaving a present in her yard, which of course, Mrs. M denied. Then Madge declared that Mrs. M and Miss K, who happens to have a beagle puppy, are not welcome to walk their dogs near her yard. Madge said she does not like dogs and as the first person to move into the community seventeen years ago, she feels she has a right to establish her rented as off limits to dogs.

I have declared neutrality in the Poop War of 2012. Esmeralda pees in Mary’s yard all the time, and Mary has not said a word. I think giving Mary some of my truckload of mulch didn’t hurt. Madge’s yard is not convenient for walking, so we have never had an issue.

But when the women folk get to arguing, beware of your alliances.

My being so young, charming and handsome does have its advantages.

One day, I was at the mailboxes, and Madge pulled up in her rather large and old SUV, stepped out and made nice, nice with Esmeralda. I thought this strange since Mrs. M and Miss K both told me she doesn’t like dogs. We chatted for a second about nothing in particular and went our separate ways.

As I was walking back to my house, Mrs. M and Miss K approached and both asked what she said to me. I said nothing really. She talked to Esmeralda and that was it. Something told me neither was happy with that answer. I think they wanted me to declare war on Madge.

My being so young, charming and handsome can at times be a disadvantage.

Fortunately so far, no one is angry with Esmeralda or me.

I just hope I am not called in to mediate a truce. Getting into the middle of a poop war seems like a pretty shitty prospect to me.

If you have handled your share of poop, follow me, join me, get on my email list.

Look Who Got Old and Fat!

The good thing about Facebook is you get to become a self-centered narcissistic ass who thinks every aspect of your dull existence is worth sharing with the world in the hopes of getting a reality show based on your life. Of course, that thought never occurred to me.

Ahem.

The other good thing about Facebook is that you can look through the photo albums of past flames and remark on their non-graceful aging and expanding waistlines. Of course, I would never do that.

Ahem.

A recent study showed that people who have more friends on Facebook have higher self-esteem, and many people base their self-worth on how many Facebook friends they have. Of course, I would never base my self-worth on the number of Facebook friends I have.

Reality check.

I use Facebook to promote my books and blog and to write bizarre posts about the crazy things – and people – I encounter as I lead my bizarre, everyday life. And, I base my self-esteem on how many people comment on my posts. I also like to post pictures of my landscaping attempts around my trailer. After all, I am the Gay Jew in the Trailer Park, so you must – absolutely must – see what I am doing to flame up my single-wide, whether you like it or not. Hint: click on the “Like” button.

Facebook uses me to see how long it takes an optimist can become a bitter old queen. According to the results of this experiment, it takes about three minutes for the conversion to be complete. Some would argue there is no conversion to complete.

A lot of us use social networking to catch up with – or more specifically – find old friends from our past, and this is where our parents had it a lot easier. There is something about losing touch with people that makes life so much better. But in our world of constant contact and updates on our everyday comings and goings, too much information is definitely contributing to our shorter lifespans. See, it has nothing to do with the economy or the national debt or lack of universal health care.

There is a reason God made the Earth so big: so we could move away and not look back. Did we learn nothing from Mrs. Lot? Salt causes hypertension, and so does looking up your old friends and lovers.

Take it from someone who is approaching fifty and still single; stop looking back!

Here is how our parents received an update on an old flame:

“Remember that redhead you dated in high school with the big tits?”

“Yes. How is she?”

“Dead.”

See. No drama, no curiosity. Just the facts.

As an historical researcher, I cannot help but look up old friends to find out where they are, what they are doing, whom they have married and divorced, how many kids they have, and lately, who is now a grandparent. I still refuse to believe I am old enough to have contemporaries with grandchildren. They must be foster grandchildren or there is a typo in the photo captions.

In my research, this is what I have discovered.

The guy who told me he couldn’t see me anymore because he found Jesus and had become straight and was going to marry a woman married a woman, had a kid, moved to the northwest, divorced the woman, married a man, put on at least fifty pounds, and has not aged well.

The guy who told me he couldn’t see me anymore because he met someone else, moved to the Midwest with his new boyfriend, broke up with him, moved to the West Coast, is on his third boyfriend, put on at least fifty pounds, and has not aged well.

The guy who told me he couldn’t see me anymore because he was actually dating someone else at the same time, just celebrated a milestone anniversary, travelled the world, and bought a house with his Mister Man. And yes, he put on at least fifty pounds and has not aged well.

Actually, he is more buff than ever, but his unattractive face does look much older.

To me, none of them look happy. Oh sure, they are smiling in all their photographs, but I can see the pain and misery they are experiencing. I know unhappiness when I see it.

As Queen Elizabeth I said, “We have no need of the looking glass! The look on your face says enough.”

If you look me up, you will notice I have not put on a pound and have not aged a minute. Using a high school picture of me on the beach as my profile photo doesn’t hurt matters. However, it might be difficult to believe my dog, Daisy, is thirty-one now.

Surprisingly, with the exception of the ex-gay who became gay, finding the old nasty ass bastards didn’t bother me. The problem with Mr. Ex-Gay was over the years he would send letters to my family looking for me, and they would forward these strange letters where he professed his love of Jesus and how happy being straight was for him. Included in each letter was a picture of him running a marathon or doing some other physical activity shirtless. Talk about confusing. Now, he is a big old gay man living on a ranch with his flamer of a husband. I have never met his husband, but from the pictures, I can tell he is a flamer. The smile and head angle always give it away. However, he is still a homophobe and has a real problem with any outward appearance of gayness as one can observe from his Facebook rants.

A piece of advice. If you use a current profile picture, delete any photos of you on Facebook that are more than three years old. There is no reason for anyone to see how much you’ve aged. If you can see them; they can see you.

You could do what I do. In the car collector world, I am known as a twenty-footer. I do not allow close-ups. I have a contract like Lucille Ball’s in Here’s Lucy – no close ups and always use a filter.

Past lovers and friends aside, there is another aspect of Facebook that drives me crazy. I call it “The Invitation Was Lost in the Mail” album, and it appears every Monday morning.

There you are sitting at your desk, eating a muffin (that is as big as your ass) as quickly as possible before any of your officemates arrive. You are perfectly rested because other than running a few errands, you had no weekend plans and stayed home Saturday night eating an order of sesame chicken and a pint of Chunky Monkey while watching Keeping Up Appearances on PBS. You log onto Facebook, and what do you see? A friend of yours, and not just a Facebook friend, has posted pictures from a party he attended. Not only do you know the host, but also every other goddam nasty ass guest who was there.

How nice for him. How nice for everyone.

If it weren’t for Facebook, you would probably have a good Monday, but now, all you can think is “Why wasn’t I invited?” “Did I offend someone? Oh, that couldn’t be it. I offend everyone.” “What is wrong with me?” “Why am I not loved?”

Then, you sniff your armpits. No, everything smells all right there.

Now, if you had fewer Facebook friends, you would find fewer pictures of your friends attending parties, and you would have higher self-esteem. So you see that whole theory about the number of Facebook friends is bullshit.

I am convinced all those people holding red plastic cups and smiling while attending their fabulous parties aren’t really happy and are full of shit as well.

Bitter, party of one!

If you base your self-esteem on my fabulous life, get on my email list, follow me, become my friend!

I Know Why the Straight Man Sings

I like boobs.

There, I said it. The fact is I know a lot of gay men who like boobs. It isn’t a sexual thing; it’s an appreciation for thing of beauty … and power. Surprisingly, I know a lot of lesbians who also like boobs. Who knew?

Why do guys like me like boobs? One reason – jealousy. I am jealous because women can accentuate the one thing that makes straight men crazy anywhere, any place, any time and not get in trouble.

Mary Jo on Designing Women discovered the power of big boobs when she tried on a pair of falsies. Men did anything she asked. As a co-worker of mine said, “You got the goods; you get the service.”

Do you have a big presentation in front of room full of potential male clients? Ask Sally Rogers for her low cut V-neck dress. Chances are you’ll not only get the contract, but also referrals.

Harriet Lane, niece of President James Buchanan, the first woman to be called First Lady, and subject of the book, HarrietLane, America’s First Lady by Milton Stern (I’ve heard of him), learned early on the power of her bosom. She had the neckline on her inaugural gown lowered two and a half inches. By doing so, she became the most influential fashion icon of her time, and the most powerful woman to live in the Executive Mansion during the nineteenth century. She convinced many a Congressman to push legislation through the chamber. If you don’t believe me, buy my book.

Men can’t do this. We can’t walk into a room full of potential female clients wearing a pair of pants with a low cut V-neck … uh waist. That would be sexual harassment. And if a man has nice hairy pecs, he can’t wear an open shirt to get attention unless he takes a time machine back to 1975 and wears a leisure suit to work.

Want to distract a straight man and turn him into a babbling idiot? Have a big breasted woman stand in front of him. Works every time.

Which brings me to my second reason we like boobs. People look at them. You think they can help themselves, but they can’t. Even straight women look at boobs. Of course, when they look at them they are asking themselves, “I wonder if those are real?”

When I would do drag, I made sure I had the biggest, firmest rack you ever saw. And even though I was a six-foot-nine-inch man in a dress, my boobs still got the most attention. Straight guys would grab them, lesbians would drool over them, and gay men would compliment them. And these weren’t those horrible breast plate titties the drag queens pay hundreds of dollars for today, these were plush dog toys stuffed into a size 52, double-E bra! I didn’t even have nipples!

Even though Serena was wondering what happened to two of her soccer balls while I was out, I still enjoyed the power of big boobs. My jugs had everyone’s attention.

The third reason I like boobs is they are beautiful. When I see a sex scene in a movie, I cannot stop studying the breasts, and I have learned to appreciate nice breasts. I went with my friends Mindy and Ellen to see Frida, starring Salma Hayek. When she first took off her top, I said to Ellen, “Now that is a nice pair of breasts.” And she said, “They certainly are.” Ellen also has a nice rack.

Once on the Metro, this young woman was standing with her boobs at my eye level and wearing a tight sweater. She had the most perfectly shaped and sized breasts, and I wanted so badly to touch them. I don’t know why. It isn’t as if I had never touched boobs, although it has been more than twenty-five years. The last girl whose boobs I touched is a reader of this blog, and I can honestly say they were very nice breasts, and I am sure they still are!

My boob obsession almost got me in trouble the other day in the office. One of our clients, as we call the government employees for whom we as contractors provide a service, is a young, attractive, recent college graduate who is a real go getter and really gets things done – a rarity in the federal workforce. She also wears fashionable clothes and rather low cut tops. I am not sure whose attention she is trying to get because in her agency, the majority of the workforce is middle-aged women and a sprinkling of some of the most unattractive men on the planet earth. She does wear minimal to no make-up and a fashionably short hairstyle. Maybe she’s into middle-aged women. Or, she dresses like that to get things done.

I had some materials for her that were too large to email, so she came down to get a CD from me. I didn’t know she was standing behind me until she said my name. I grabbed the CD and swung my chair around, and the next thing I knew my nose was within inches of her beautiful cleavage. Her top was cut to almost the bottom of her sternum. In those few seconds, I realized a few things.

God has blessed her with a bounty of mammary goodness. Not only are her breasts large, they are perfectly formed and firm, and I'll bet anything they are real. Of course, she is at that age when all the body parts are still where they are supposed to be as opposed to my age when everything is a few miles south of its original location.

If I walk around the house naked, I get rug burns on my testicles.

I also realized that I couldn’t lift my eyes from the sight before me. While I was holding and waving the CD above my head in the hopes she could grab it, I continued to stare at those lovely tits. They were just magnificent.

It is a good thing she was in a hurry because the last thing I realized surprised me. I wanted to bury my face in that fertile valley and play motor boat.

Now, I know why the straight man sings.

One last thing: I was a bottle baby.

If you like tits, follow me, join me, get on my email list.

Never Leave the House without Lipstick

Aunt Minnie once told me that she and her sisters, Aunt Honey and Grandma, never left the house without wearing lipstick. Nana told me she never walked down the street without a hat and gloves. My mother said that when her father found out she took up smoking he told her never to walk down the street smoking a cigarette – only hookers do that.

Judging from how people dress these days and their other habits, you would think they were all just a bunch of trashy hookers. And that includes the men as well.

I love the TV shows of the 1950s and early 1960s when everyone dressed up to do anything including yardwork. Remember the opening sequence of Leave It to Beaver when he is mowing the grass? He is wearing kakis! High water kakis, but kakis nonetheless and a button down shirt. Remember when Lucy got her head stuck in a lovey cup? Ethel wouldn’t go on the subway with her until she changed out of her jeans. I love that episode.

Have you seen what people wear on the Metro? Now we are lucky if their jeans are pulled up past the bottom of their asses. I absolutely hate that look. I don’t get it. It is unattractive. It looks stupid. Will it ever end? Have you seen one of those teenagers (and since it has been around for more than twenty years – adults) try to walk or run? If they only knew that their solidarity with prison folk has to do with taking it up the ass, they might go back to wearing high-waisted pants. I heard that there is a whole generation with hip problems from trying to walk in pants that are cinched at the knees. Good. Dumb asses.

Anyway …

Since my parents never gave me any advice, except to not have children. Well, they never said that, but after living with them while growing up, I surmised that was the wisdom they wished to impart. Most if not all of my sage advice came from my grandmothers and other elderly aunts. My grandfathers died before I was born, so my biggest influences were gray-haired or wig wearing old Jewish women with too much lipstick and always appearing surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke. I was almost eleven years old before I realized neither grandmother, nor their sisters, were related to Endora.

And you wonder how I turned out the way I did. It is no mystery to me.

Of the many things I learned was that one never went out without wearing a girdle, had her or his face on, and your hair done. I cannot imagine what they would think if they were alive today. I can proudly say I try never to leave the house without all three.

You want to see slobs; go to a supermarket in the middle of the day, during the week. You would think these were the people who work from home. Oh no. These are housewives … excuse me … stay at home moms. It is a sea of faded ripped jeans, flip flops and fried red hair. What is it with dying your hair a cross between magenta and burnt sienna and then never bothering to wash or comb it? Seriously?

The strangest thing is all of them, and I mean all of them, have manicured nails. The nails are green, blue, black, and purple, but I’ll be damned if they are not professionally manicured. So, they don’t have a comb at the beauty parlor where you get your nails painted?

Even when I am running a quick errand at 6:00 am after the gym, I am put together, and I have a hat on to cover my bed head. As a matter of fact, I am the only guy in the gym at 5:00 am who wears a hat to cover my undone hair, but you can be assured that the hat coordinates with my choice of shorts and shirt on any particular day. Since Krav Maga classes take place mid-morning, by then, I have showered and primped. I usually win best hair, and no matter how much I sweat, my hair remains in place. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yes, my Krav Maga outfit is also color coordinated although one day I made an odd choice of a yellow T-shirt with charcoal sweat pants. I was experimenting. Fortunately, no one commented, but I still won best hair.

With the exception of the 6:00 am grocery run that takes place maybe once a month, I have never run even the simplest errand without having the three elements mentioned above … until recently.

Yesterday, I decided to be creative and put pebbles under my deck inside my walkway to spruce up my front yard, so I showered, put on an outfit Beaver Cleaver would have worn to mow the grass, kakis and a button-down shirt, and drove over to Lowe’s to pick up nine bags of pebbles. Amazingly, well not that amazing if you know me, I managed to load the bags on a cart then wheel them to my car and load that 450 pounds of pebbles into my car without getting a speck of dirt on me or breaking a sweat.

Honey, they don’t call me a flaming queen for nothing. Being Jewish doesn’t hurt either.

Once, I arrived home, I changed into an old pair of sweats and a stained sweatshirt I save for these lawn care tasks in fifty-degree weather and proceeded with my project. Depending on temperature and humidity level, I have just the right outfit, including coordinated older pairs of Chuck Taylors. You never know who is going to drive by!

After an hour, it became quite obvious that I did not have enough pebbles, and by them I was covered in a layer of pebble dust, my hair was no longer perfect, and I didn’t even want to know how my face looked, but I needed to return to Lowe’s for more rocks. Esmeralda, who was lying in the grass observing me, managed to stay perfectly coiffed and looking pretty as ever the entire time.

Time was limited since I had dinner plans with my friend Frank, so I did something unthinkable. After taking Esmeralda inside and grabbing my wallet and keys, I hopped into the car, looking as if I just crawled out from under my deck, which I actually did, and drove over to Lowe’s for nine more bags of pebbles.

Quick shopper that I am, I rushed into the garden center, grabbed a cart and went straight back to the pebble area. The store was empty, so I was able to load up another 450 pounds of pebbles, wheel the cart up front and pay in less than fifteen minutes. Then, I quickly wheeled the cart to my car, and no sooner had I opened the liftgate and started loading the bags, when I heard, “Milton!”

Damn me for driving a thirty-year-old station wagon! You just can’t hide something like that.

I turned around, and standing there was a guy I dated briefly a few years ago, and next to him was his life partner or lover or latest boyfriend or trick from the previous night.

“How have you been? This is Rod.” Or did he say Robert or Rocky or Richard?

“I’ve been good.”

We chatted for just a few seconds, and as they walked away, I heard Ricky, or was it Ralph or Renaldo, say to him, “Looks like you dodged a bullet.”

At that moment, I felt Grandma, Nana, Aunt Minnie, Aunt Rose, Aunt Anita, Aunt Flossie, and Aunt Renee roll over in their graves in unison, and I swear I saw a large cloud of tobacco-smoke materialize overhead. Even Endora was disappointed.

If you never leave the house without lipstick, follow me, join me, get on my email list.

The Whore of Babylon

Elaine Boosler is one of my favorite comedians, and she used to have a routine about coming home after a one-night stand, wearing the same black dress, and mother’s shielding their children’s eyes while they watched her do the walk of shame like the Whore of Babylon.

All of us have done the walk of shame, but depending on where you live, the level of shame varies quite a bit. In the city, the only onlookers who warrant your concern are the homeless people, and chances are some of them have showered more recently than you have. Most of them also have a hat to cover the headboard bump in their hair. How many times have you said, “Why didn’t I put a hat in my purse?”

If there is room for last night’s underwear, there is room for a hat.

My mother dated Seymour at around the same time my father dated Devera. Then by some strange crossing of stars, my parents were married and Devera and Seymour were married within two weeks of each other. Through the years, we always heard the story of my mother’s hose ending up in Seymour’s glove compartment after a wild night of drinking. Due to the ickiness of anyone’s parents’ sex life, I never asked any of the involved parties to elaborate.

There was also the story of Mother and Devera driving one car while Dad and Seymour drove behind them. Mother looked in the rearview mirror and Dad was driving, then she looked again, and Seymour was driving. Those were the days of bench seats; but still, the visual was disturbing for any number of apparent reasons.

But again, I digress ….

Back in the day, I did any number of walks of shame, but that was back in my twenties. Remember your twenties? You could be out all night, come home, get one hour’s sleep, shower, dress for work, and put in a double shift then do the whole thing all over again the next night.

Then you turn thirty, and your body betrays you immediately. All of a sudden you need to get to sleep. You are still working the same job, but for the first time in your life, you say, “I have to work in the morning.”

Your potential repeat casual sex partner, whose name you still have not requested and wouldn’t have remembered anyway says, “Didn’t you have to work in the morning last week?”

“Yes, but last week, I was twenty-nine years old.”

“Oh, happy birthday … how about a quicky in the parking lot?”

Unless you own a Nash Ambassador (the car that turns into a bedroom), I have no possibility of doing it with you in a parking lot. I have always been too tall for the back seat, and don’t even try the front.

When I did the walk of shame, it was in an apartment complex. Nobody cared or noticed what time I came in or left. This has advantages. You never have to explain where you were or whom you were with, and depending on your closeted status, you don’t have to change Bob’s name to Betty.

The disadvantage is that on the off-chance your one night stand was the best sex you ever had, no one is there to ask you where you were last night, so you can tell him about the wild fabulous sex you had while being tied to a bed and tickled with a feather duster.

Do you know what S&M would be for someone like me with Joan Crawfordish OCD? Tying me to the bed and rearranging my furniture.

I once had a trick who moved two items on my coffee table while I was in the kitchen getting us drinks, and when I sat down, I put them back where they were without saying a word. I’ll bet he was scared at that point – probably thought I was a serial killer. I get that a lot.

When I think of the tricks whom I invited to my home or vice versa back in the days before the Internet and cell phones, it is a wonder I was never robbed. Actually, it isn’t. Whenever I got lucky, I made sure to tell a friend, have the friend make a mental picture of my latest conquest before we left the bar, and reminded that friend to call me first thing in the morning to be sure I was alive.

For those of you who do the internet pick-ups, be sure to have the person you are hooking up with call you, so his number is on your cell phone. Then write the number down and put it in a place where the coroner or detectives will find it.

And you thought you wouldn’t learn anything today.

My tricking days are long gone. Sometimes I feel like Shelly Winters, who said after a life of debauchery and sleeping with every well-hung leading man in Hollywood, “I am done with sex,” and from age fifty-two to the end of her life, she no longer had relations. However, after reading both her autobiographies, I think her vagina was just tired. 

When we put my father in an assisted living facility after the onset of Alzheimer’s, he became the Casanova of the senile set. While his mind was gone, his body was that of a man twenty years younger, and he was the only man in the place who wasn’t in a wheelchair. He did more women than a sex addict at a sorority reunion. He also had the advantage of not having to remember their names, and if he did one twice, it was a whole new experience. My brother nicknamed him “Yencing Matilda.”

When he died, every woman in there sat shiva, and it wasn’t even a Jewish facility.

There is no walk of shame in a nursing home either. His mother, Grandma, also had Alzheimer’s, and she had a boyfriend who used to wait for her in her bed. They were introduced every night.

In a mobile home community, things are a bit different. All of us know each other’s business just by seeing whose car is parked out front … and for how long.

For example, Ms. K has a boyfriend who owns his own plumbing company. His truck is out front all the time, but one morning, there was a Chrysler 300, and Mrs. M said to me, “Well, looks like she picked up a new one.”

I immediately thought about how I would handle explaining a strange car in front of my house all night.

When I was dating Mr. Wrong (and no, I still have not heard from him), he stayed overnight after the second date. When he left, he texted me that two of my neighbors across the street were watching him from their windows.

I knew who, Mrs. M and Ms. K.

I also knew someone would ask me something.

Before she did, I had to wonder how this would affect our relationship. Mrs. M is Esmeralda’s dog walker, who is also a devout Catholic and a good friend now, but I knw nothing of her politics. Her husband is crazy about me because of my old cars and my love of gadgets that sell for only two easy payments of $19.99, and as you know, straight men are one of my demographics, but Mrs. M is not a middle-age Jewish woman, my other demographic. However, she has been to a party at my house when it was full of queens and dykes, and she fit in just fine. But this would be the first time she would encounter gay sex on her block. Or would it?

Mrs. M came over within fifteen minutes with the excuse of having a smoke behind my house, so her husband wouldn’t catch her. I still cannot believe he doesn’t smell her Marlboro Lights on her person.

“Did you and your friend have a good time last night?”

“Yes, we ate dinner at this really nice Asian restaurant then saw a movie.”

“We were wondering if those are ski racks on his truck?”

“Yes.”

Imagine if I answered, “Yes, we fucked all night. It’s a wonder I can walk the dog this morning!” Don’t you wish you could do that just once?

Apparently, she wasn’t freaked out at all. And when his truck no longer appeared in the hood, she didn’t ask any questions either, but there is something curious going on because …

This past weekend, a friend of mine drove quite a distance to see a play with me, and I told him to stay overnight since he wouldn’t get home until after 2:00 am if he drove back.

The next morning, we went out to breakfast early then came back to my house before he left.

Fifteen minutes later, I was taking Esmeralda out for her second walk, and Mrs. M drove around the corner and pulled up next to us and asked, “Did you have a good time last night?”

While there were no details worth sharing besides seeing a play and having dinner, do you think she was just hoping to get something juicy? Or is a Gay Jew in a Trailer Park something she never before encountered?

Next time, I’ll give her all the details. Unfortunately, I am so boring in bed, she might wish she never asked.

If you are a whore, or was, or wish you were, follow me, get on my email list, tell your friends.