How Gay Are You?

Years ago on Saturday Night Live, they had a game show skit called, “Quien Esta Mas Macho?” They would put up a photo of two famous people, and you had to guess. For example, Kathleen Turner and Edie Falco. Ponder that for a minute. I remember Lloyd Bridges was considered more macho than Robert Conrad, but I don’t remember why. Maybe it had something to do with the battery on Robert's shoulder because it takes poise to balance a D-cell.

Personally, I wanted them to play “Quien Esta Mas Homosexual?” My friend Christian told me the word is the same in Spanish and English, just pronounced differently – in Spanish: “homoseksual” with an accent on “al” if I remember correctly. It sounds more like a lifestyle in Spanish and a choice in English even though I was born that way. I would then put up a picture of Tom Cruise and George Clooney. Tough choice.

The thing is as much as I don’t know about designers and flowers and Broadway, I come off as the winner in ninety percent of the pairings. I continue to lose to George Michael and Beiberbelieberassholeteenageslouchypantswearingnotalentlesbianlookingtwink.

What if there were a quiz you could take to find out how gay you are? Of if you are straight curious, whether you might in fact be a friend of Dorothy … or Lucy … or Barbra ….

For example. Who is your favorite Angel? If you said Gabriel. Why are you reading my blog? If you said Sabrina Duncan, you are in fact, very gay. Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan provides us with the most basic test for gayness. She is the favorite of both gay men and lesbians!

If you said Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett, you are bisexual.

If you said Farrah Fawcett as Jill Munroe, you are hopelessly heterosexual. However, once she burned that bed, all gay men and lesbians glammed onto her. Who hasn’t wanted to burn an ex’s bed? You haven’t? Oh. Neither have I.

Here is another one, Chevrolet Vega or Ford Pinto? Pinto of course. Sabrina drove a Pinto!

How about Laura Ashley or Martha Stewart? Who gives a shit?

Here are some more questions?

Do you know the difference between a duvet and a sham? A duvet is a cocktail and a sham was when Tyra Sanchez won RuPaul’s Drag Race. Oh wait. That is Dubonnet. I told you I knew nothing about decorating.

If you were offered tickets to see Celine Dion or Barry Manilow, which would you accept? Barry Manilow, of course, so you could watch his face and see if it moves then dish on him with your friends after the concert. For the record, I am a huge Barry Manilow fan, but I still razz on his face. Come to think of it, no one has razzed on my face in years.

What are your pet’s names? I remember going to a gay comedy show years ago, and one of the comics said that gay men's pets run away because of the names we give them. Then he imitated a flaming queen running through the park screaming, “Lorna, Joey, Liza, come back!”

By the way, if you know who Lorna, Joey and Liza are, you are sooooo gay. My dogs were named after characters on Bewitched. Need I say more?

My favorites are the macho gays. I have an old friend into wrestling and boxing and mixed martial arts, and we used to date when dinosaurs roamed the earth and K-cars were all the rage. Needless to say, relations with him were quite active and sweaty with lots of grunting and tests of strength and growling and … excuse me for a second. It was getting warm in here. Anyway, once the session was over, he would start talking about movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, and this hairy, muscular, macho ape would have nothing but purses and pearls flying out of his mouth. Some found it off-putting, but I found it refreshing.

I still talk to him on the phone every once in a while, and he can go from Lloyd Bridges to Tom Cruise in a heartbeat.

I have another acquaintance who talks like a creepy kindergarten teacher, rhyming every other word in a very high-pitched voice. At the insistence of several friends, we once went on an actual date, which in the gay world means you will end up in the bedroom at some point either before or after dinner. Once there, he turned into a dark dungeon master. To this day, I still can’t decide who was creepier, Mrs. Landers by day or Vincent Price by night – who by the way was not gay.

The worst part is when you find out that one of your most fem friends is a scary creature in the bedroom. I have an old acquaintance, who has a reputation for sleeping around, to put it mildly. By day, he is this happy go lucky accountant who makes light hearted jokes and loves to bake fruity desserts with lots of flair. However, I know of a few people who have had relations with him, and what they have told me creeped me out. In the bedroom, he either whispers or says in a very low voice, “Who’s my boy? Yeah. Are you my boy? Yeah. You want Daddy to …” I can’t go on. Just the thought of him acting like that gives me the willies.

I always wanted to see if I could get kindergarten teacher and happy go lucky together and record just the sound then play it in the background of a haunted house.

Somebody in a gym years ago said he could tell gay people by the shoes they wore. According to him, they all wore pointy-toed shoes. So, I guess Robin Hood was gay. Maid Marian must have been a drag queen.

Another theorized that you could tell if a guy was gay if he talked a lot with his hands flailing around. That means all Italian men are gay. If only that were true.

My favorite of course was the theory that all gay men had loud domineering mothers and emotionally distant fathers. That would make every Jewish man in America gay. Come to think of it, whenever they seek out a spokesman from a gay organization for the evening newscast, he is always somebody named Greenberg, Steinberg or Weinstein. He is also always some nebishy queen with a whiny voice. I wonder why I am never called for a sound bite. 

Here is one last one for the road.

You go to buy a car and you can have one of two options but not both – seat warmers or a sunroof.

Think about it.

That is so gay. Follow me, join my email list, buy my books: www.miltonstern.com.

Wiping Away the Years

Yesterday while unraveling my extension cord, I got to thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter. I was getting ready to use that evil lawn care tool – the Weedeater. What you are thinking about uses batteries. Otherwise, I would go crazy during a black out. Although I carefully wind up my extension cord after every use, I still end up spending at least ten minutes unraveling it and spreading it out, or I end up all tangled up while trimming. OK, that did sound a little dirty.

Anyway, that ten minutes could be spent doing something more useful, and before you suggest a gas powered Weedeater, I don’t like the idea of hanging an internal combustion engine off my shoulder and storing it in a shed that is only feet from two very large, space shuttle sized propane tanks. That is why my lawnmower is a reel mower with no engine. I already have a thirty-year-old station wagon that could spontaneously combust at any moment, I don’t need to worry about lawn care equipment as well. I once lent my extension cord to a neighbor back when I lived in Dutch Village in Newport News, and he returned it all tangled up. How inconsiderate. This is why I don’t like lending people my things. They do not take care of their stuff the way I do. Yes, I know, my mother rushed my potty training, and all of you are paying the price for it.

As I was saying before I interrupted myself, that ten minutes spreading out my chord could be put to better use. I am known for my time management skills. I can get more done by 10:00 am on a Friday morning than most can get done in an entire weekend, so I am bothered by those things in life that take up valuable time. I work two jobs, run a home-based business, write a column for a magazine, edit a newsletter for a car club, write this stupid blog for which I don’t get paid, and I am working on a book, yet I still find myself with time to clean, organize closets and cabinets, do laundry, wash and detail my cars, and do lawn work. Nana used to say I was busier than a blue-assed fly. I still don’t know what that means.

The cicadas are returning after a seventeen year hiatus, and in a day or two, they have to come out of the ground, learn how to fly, find a mate, have wild fly-like sex, enjoy a post-coitus meal, land on a leaf and die, leaving a shell that would make a fabulous earring. Once ground temperature reaches sixty-four degrees and they emerge, I will check to see if they have blue asses because they are busy.

There are a lot of things in life that take up time. For instance, eating. I have not missed a meal since 1962, which is why my safe word is “dinner.” I am like a panda. I eat all day long, I have sex once a year, and I usually don’t do it correctly.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of dining with me notices that I eat like a prisoner. I clean my plate before Manfred from cell-block B can come over and dump my tray over my head, then drag me back to his cage for wild fly-like sex. Thank God, I am a law abiding citizen. I always say I am too pretty for prison. Not to mention that I attract the crazies, so sit back and imagine that for a while.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Yeah, prison sex – everyone’s fantasy from straight guys wanting to be a guard in an all-female prison to gay guys wanting to be a guard when Jeff Stryker is incarcerated. That is until you think about how long the usual sentence lasts and you realize this is one fantasy that goes on and on and on.

Back to food. Yes, I eat fast. I have been known to clean my plate before the waiter finishes serving everyone at the table, and that is when it is just two of us. If you do dine with me, and you are a slow eater, be prepared to hear me say, “Are you going to eat that?” If you don’t answer quickly enough, my fork will be stabbing whatever that is on your plate. I once had dinner with Ed’s sister, and she didn’t eat her broccoli, so I used my fork, like a gentleman of course, and took one floret. She about went ballistic. This surprised me because I thought she was Jewish. If you eat dinner with a Jewish person, be prepared to have him take a bite of your meal before he takes a bite of his. Seriously, I am more concerned with what you ordered than I am with mine because that means I can taste something else from the menu.

My father used to cough on his brother’s food when he was a kid, so he could have a double portion. I have yet to reach those classy heights.

Another thing that takes up a lot of valuable time is sleep. I don’t nap. I have never been able to nap. When I try to nap, all I think about is all the things I could be cleaning and folding. Then I get up and clean or fold something. You have been warned if you ever take a nap with me while naked. Think about it.

Years ago, I read David Brenner’s autobiography, Soft Pretzels with Mustard. Did you know he has made more talk show appearances than anyone in history? Do you even know who he is? Did you know he has been engaged to Tai Babilonia for eight years? Do you know who she is? In his book, he talked about how he only slept for three hours a night because he hated wasting time in bed. I tried this. First thing I found out was if you call your friends at three in the morning to see if they want to go grab a bite at a diner, they get a little annoyed. These were the days before cell phones and caller ID, so ringers usually weren’t turned off. The second thing I learned was that no one can live off three hours of sleep a night. For the one and only time in my life, I took a nap. Unfortunately, I was also driving. No one was hurt, and there was no damage to the car, which is surprising since I was about seven hundred feet into that corn field when I woke up. Have you ever tried to drive out of a corn field quickly while being chased by an angry farmer on a combine?

The one thing that takes up too much time is going to the bathroom, especially the paperwork. I dated a guy who only evacuated his bowels once a week. Thank God I was never around when that happened. But seriously, once a week? Obviously, he was not Jewish. Eight-seven percent of the people who have irritable bowel syndrome are Jewish. The other thirteen percent are converts.

I go at least three times a day, usually five. I know, too much information, but I calculated how much time I spend in the bathroom. At fifteen minutes a trip, and five a day, that is 1,368,750 minutes, which works out to 22,812 hours or 950 days. Half that time is spent wiping my ass, so I have spent 475 days or 1.3 years wiping my ass. How many of you work in an office where they have the John Wayne toilet paper? The kind that is rough as hell and won’t take shit off anyone. You can double your wiping time, unless you do what I do – carry a bag of baby wipes with you every time you go. I am not kidding.

Every time I have one of those evacuation orders that requires extra paper work, all I keep repeating to myself is, “I don’t have time for this! I don’t have time for this!” Now that I realize I have spent 1.3 years with my hand back there cleaning the remnants of yet another prisonlike meal, I am even more annoyed.

Do you know what I could have accomplished in 1.3 years?

Has anyone invented a portable bidet? Can they install a bidet in a mobile home?

Are you reading this on the toilet? Follow me, get on my email list, buy my books: www.miltonstern.com. 

You Know What You Should Do?

On an episode of Seinfeld, he had to deal with a heckler, so he went to her place of employment and heckled her. I loved it.

While certain jobs invite heckling and criticism, not all heckling and criticism are welcome. Just saying.

As a writer, I understand being criticized and reviewed and trashed by strangers. If you don’t have a thick skin, don’t go into any creative field. You will also have to deal with those who are close to you sometimes being your worst critics.

Acquaintances have called me on the phone and spent an hour telling me how much they hated my books. Yes, that happened twice. One explained every sentence that bothered him, and the other explained to me how I should outline my book and create profiles of my characters. Funny thing is neither of them are writers or creative. Then there was the one who came up to me before Shabbat services to tell me how much she hated my book. I asked her if she bought a copy, and she said she borrowed it. I yelled at the woman who lent it to her. If I am going to be criticized, I at least deserve my 73 cent royalty!

In each situation, I just listened and said thank you and hung up, or with the cheapskate, who didn’t buy a copy, walked away and yelled at the book loan officer.

I know all of them felt as if they were doing me a favor, but Mother would always say, “Don’t do me any favors.”

I have friends who are artists and writers, and I have never walked up to or called one of them to criticize his work. I know what it takes to create, so if I really have nothing nice to say, I keep my big mouth shut. As caddy as I can be, I do draw the line with people I know personally.

This does not mean I won’t say something behind their backs, but I am sure to say it to someone who doesn’t know them for obvious reasons. If you know me and have nothing nice to say about my writing, say it behind my back. I don’t need to hear it.  

Recently, I was offered a paying writing job, and one person’s reaction was, “It’s more than you get for writing that stupid blog.”

You know how I always repeat what Beverly Sills said about how you will have two to three good friends in life and the rest are acquaintances, and how you need to get rid of all the negative influences, too? Yeah, it’s like that.

None of these people bother me. They are just a bunch of unhappy, ugly, old, bitter, musty smelling queens who have nothing better to do than belittle other people to make them feel better about themselves and their insignificant lives.

I do have one good friend whose only comment was, “The sentences are too long, and I don’t understand them.” Poor thing can only read a coloring book. I forgave him because one should always be kind to the intellectually impaired.

He is pretty, but can he type?

If you are a negative person, you will dwell upon all the criticism. Most waiters only recall every lousy, rude and nasty customer but cannot remember any of the nice ones even though only about five percent are rude. I waited on tables for twenty years, and I can understand this.

Those three people and a couple of assholes on Amazon are the only ones who extensively criticized my books. For the most part, I received good comments – to my face.

However, the people who do bother me are the ones who say, “You know what you should do?”

I always respond, “Oh God, what?”

After my first book was published, a co-worker came up to me and told me I should write a book about the man who designed the sewage system for Baltimore City. He went on and on for an hour about how wonderful this book would be. When he finished, I said, “How fascinating. I have been to Baltimore, and from what I could tell, they don’t have a working sewage system.”

 

Why on God’s green earth would I write a book about how excrement flows through the Charm City? My first book was about President James Buchanan. How did he go from the White House to shit? Nevermind.

Get this. He never read my book. He just thought he was doing me a favor by suggesting the topic for my next book. I didn’t feel like telling him I had been commissioned to write a book about Harriet Lane, President Buchanan’s niece. That is the weird thing about me. As much as I like to brag, when someone comes up to me and says something that deserves a “put you in your place” comeback, I weigh whether they are worthy of it. Usually, they aren’t.

That was my first experience with someone telling me what I should write. But here is the thing. What if I came to your job and told you what to do? A friend of mine is an artist, and it would never occur to me to tell him, “You know. You should paint a bowl of fruit. There aren’t enough paintings of fruit.” If I did that, I would imagine a paint brush sticking out of my eye in my immediate future.

Among my favorites are acquaintances who have what they think is an extraordinary sexual experience (a common trick if you will) and insist I write an erotic story about it – under one of my three pseudonyms of course. My response, “Yes, I already have a title. ‘Sex – It Isn’t for Everyone.’” Why should I write about how you picked up a guy in the doctor’s waiting room, took him home, had sloppy sex for three and a half minutes and noticed your iPad was missing after he left?

 

Meanwhile, while I am spending my weekend writing an erotic story about your lame sex life, you are attending another party or brunch where my invitation was lost in the mail. Facebook pictures of all of you holding red plastic cups to follow.

A day doesn’t go by when I am not told I should write about this or that. Even with this stupid blog for which I don’t get paid, I am often told what my next topic should be.

As Mother also said, “Who asked you?”

Bitter, party of one!

If have a topic you want me to discuss, tell anyone but me, but get on my email list or buy my books: www.miltonstern.com.

The Cleanest Oven in the Trailer Park

When I managed a restaurant in Delray Beach, Florida, I was always amused by my tribe-mates who would entertain by taking their guests out to dinner for the early bird special. Seriously, they would call to make a reservation, and the conversation would go like this:

“This is Mrs. Feinstein. I am entertaining my friends Saturday night. We would like a round table for ten at 5:30.”

“I am sorry, Mrs. Feinstein, our largest round table only seats eight.”

In the background, and quite loudly: “Artie, tell the Greenbergs we decided to go out of town this weekend,” then to me, “We will take a round table for eight.”

It was always funny when the Greenbergs would show up at the same time on the same night.

Mrs. Feinstein told me she had the cleanest oven in Boca. She never turned it on.

At the time, I could not understand entertaining your guests outside your home. Over the years, I had thrown my share of dinner parties, many, many dinner parties. I would cook and serve and clean up. I couldn’t wait for my guests to arrive, and I couldn’t wait for them to leave. I also threw my fair share of Mary Richards parties. Last year, I threw a party and instead of cooking, I ordered trays from the grocery store, and for once I enjoyed myself, and for once my guests didn’t spit food into their napkins and toss them into the houseplants. Once, a plant spit it back. Even my cooking makes bad fertilizer.

That is when I came to a realization. Not all Gay men have to be great cooks or even like to cook or DVR Barefoot Contessa. I don’t consider myself a cook. I consider myself a survivalist in the kitchen. I cook like a Mid-Century Modern housewife, which if I had my way, I would be, complete with Thursday afternoon Mah Jongg games and a pink and white 1960 Ambassador by Rambler Cross Country station wagon in front of my split-level, three bedroom, two and half bath home with all the newest Westinghouse appliances

I can roast a chicken, make a tuna casserole, boil pasta, bake fish, and make a cake for your birthday if you wish. However, I have never blanched, braised, pureed or even emulsified. My spice rack is a section of the cabinet with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and Italian seasonings. I have never bought a garlic clove. I worked as a sous chef at one time, and I learned how to sauté and other things I have no idea how to pronounce. While I enjoyed my work, I didn’t love it or want to make a career of it. I just threw whatever they told me into the pan and served it up.

However, I am surrounded by people who love to cook, and while at a time I felt inadequate, I have come to accept the fact that this is one more hole on my Gay card that can’t be punched along with knowing the names of flowers, designers and the cast of Glee. Although, I dare you to name all the actors who appeared on Bewitched!

While I admire their love of the culinary arts, it can become quite annoying to have so many kitchen mechanics in my social circle.

My brother loves to cook, and he is very good at it. I don’t know where he gets this. Alex is always trying new recipes, and he watches the Food Network. His marriage is a perfect one because he cooks and Julie cleans.

We were convinced that our mother was a good cook, mostly by our mother, but she wasn’t. Between the oily cakes and burnt offerings of chuck roasts to the God of fire, the only dish she made well was chicken cacciatore. But, one dish does not make you a good cook. Grandma baked great mandel bread, but her tuna salad was made with butter! The only thing Nana ever made was a reservation at the Hot Shoppe. When people tell me about dinner at their grandmother’s house, I just look at them with wonder at such an occurrence.

Every day, I discover one more way I am Nana redux. As I always say, I look like her in drag, and I am only one Kent cigarette and a Reed’s mint (I finally mentioned the Reed’s mints, Alex) from saying “Oh My God” and ordering custom made wigs from Don’s Wig Shop in Newport News. If the Hot Shoppe were still around, I would eat there every night.

I used to watch Rachael Ray’s show, but I soon realized that to make one of her thirty-minute meals, I would have to shop for thirty days to get all thirty ingredients. Who has that kind of time … or patience? And if you cook one of her meals, do you have to be as equally annoying? 

My friend, Ed, is a good cook, and if you don’t think so, just ask him. “I made a marvelous mushroom lasagna, and it was a hit. Everyone wanted to know who made and it and asked for the recipe.” I once hosted a Passover Seder. After cooking everything for the main meal, he made homemade macaroons. They were to die for, but I was not happy. While everyone was oohing and aahing his goddamn macaroons, they had completely forgotten about the crappy meal I prepared. I put a Sephardic curse on all of them, and his macaroons didn’t pass for twenty-eight days.

I wasn’t bitter.

My friend, Ted, is apparently a great cook with the most beautiful presentations ever. I say apparently because the only thing he has ever served me was tepid water. He is going to be pissed now! He posts more pictures of the food he has prepared than Paula Deen. All of the pictures are works of art. He keeps promising to cook for me. We did go to a fundraiser together where they served expired appetizers from the Costco freezer. I hadn’t spit out that much food since my last dinner party.

Frank, whose house looks like a centerfold from a 1963 issue of Architectural Digest, is probably the best of them all. He is the Martha Stewart of McLean. If you tell Frank you are having an impromptu cookout in two hours, he will show up with a gourmet side-dish made from the rarest of ingredients he just happened to throw together along with a homemade chocolate cake. There isn’t a supermarket within ten miles of his home, so I am convinced he is a warlock. He also has an extra oven, refrigerator and freezer. And, I have never seen him sweat.

I used to cook for boyfriends to show them how domesticated I was. Ironically, I wonder why I am still single. However, since moving to the trailer park and having what is the largest and most efficiently laid out kitchen of my lifetime, I have stopped cooking for other people. I make all my own meals, which are simple fare, but no longer do I subject the innocent to my gastronomical atrocities.

I am comfortable with the fact that I really do not enjoy cooking. After all, if God had meant for me to cook, I would have been born with aluminum hands.

This past weekend, I had dinner with a friend of mine from my Newport News days, who recently moved to the area. He had been a guest at more than a few of my dinner parties back in the day. When I told him we would go out to eat, his response was, “Thank God.”

Mrs. Feinstein, upon reaching age fifty, I finally get you, and I will no longer make fun of old Jewish women who entertain their guests at the early bird in Delray Beach.

I have the cleanest oven in the trailer park. I’ve never used it.

If you hate to cook, follow me, join me, get on my email list, buy my books: www.miltonstern.com

F*** You Facebook

This morning, for the third and final time, Facebook has banned me for ridiculous reasons.

The first time was after I posted, “I wish Sarah Palin would disappear.” That punishment lasted until I agreed to a policy prohibiting threats. Really, a threat? A threat would have been, “I wish I had a canon, so I could blow up Sarah Palin’s house, and she could no longer see Russia from her bedroom while riding her idiot husband’s tiny penis in attempt to make more babies and name them after mathematical theorems.” Now, that is a threat. And, the world doesn’t need another Pythagoras Palin. Can you imagine him on Dancing with the Stars? And what makes Boom Boom Bristol Palin a star? I wish someone would knock me up, so I could get on a reality competition show.

The second time was because I either sent a friend request to someone I did not know outside of Facebook or someone I didn’t know outside of Facebook sent me a request and I accepted it. That punishment lasted until I agree to a policy only to friend people I knew outside of Facebook. Seriously? So you are telling me that all these other people with 2,000 and 3,000 and even 5,000 friends know all those people outside of Facebook? My favorites are the suggested friends on the right-hand column. I would send a friend request and get a note telling me they have too many friends, yet some had 1,500 friends. Who makes these determinations?

Isn’t the purpose of Facebook so you can connect with people all over the world and make new friends? Apparently not. If I see someone in France with shared interests, I need to book a flight, visit him, fly home, and send him a friend request, hoping he doesn’t forget who I was and report me for requesting a friendship with a stranger. I guess that meeting better be memorable with a happy ending.

I signed the agreement, but then I was not allowed to send requests for fourteen days or message anyone. What was more frustrating was they went through my friend list and unfriended about twenty percent of my friends, so then I received messages accusing me of unfriending people. Who decided which friends I was allowed to keep?

Today was the icing on the cake. I work for a publisher of gay erotica, so we arrange for and have a lot of images that are not for everyone’s eyes; however, some are harmless enough not to offend, or so I thought. We had a picture of a naked mechanic working on a car. All you saw was full backal. The caption was, “My new mechanic.” The comments and likes were many and positive, but then, someone from Facebook removed the picture.

My Facebook friends, whom I know personally and have touched in many ways, were appalled. One even sent me a dozen photos he found on Facebook, which depicted sex acts by any number of combinations of genders and species – all of them posted on people’s pages. There is a page called “Gay Porn.” Literally! You should check it out. I can’t.

In order to log back on to Facebook and reactivate my profile, I was asked to sign an agreement not to post any pictures that I did not own the rights to and that all my pictures were of people I know and contained a date and time stamp.

My reply to Facebook?

FUCK YOU!

They claimed I did not have the rights and permissions to post that picture. What a bunch of dicks. I was at the photo shoot. I know the model. I know the photographer. I drew up their contracts. I received permission to use the image.

By the way, I love my job. It doesn’t pay much, but for some reason, I don’t care.

So was it banned because they thought I didn’t own it? Or was it offensive? Or ….

Does someone on Zuckerberg’s team have something against me? Did I piss off someone years ago, and that person works for him and has nothing better to do than watch my profile? Is Cynarra, my stalker from college, the vice president of morality and standards at Facebook? Do they have morality and standards at Facebook? 

I have the most honest profile – or at least I did until this morning . My pictures include my face. I use my real name. I post pictures I took with my own camera and phone or ones I witnessed being taken. Do they know how many of those Craig’s List headless profiles are fake?

I had a guy contact me last week with the last name Stern. He had a headless shot for a profile picture. It turns out after telling me we were related that Stern wasn’t even his name. I had already figured that out, but I wanted to see how far he would go. And have mercy, did he go far. You can’t catfish me!

This isn’t the first time they have removed images from my page. You know those Blunt Cards that people post constantly? I apparently am not allowed to post them. Every time I did, they removed it. Literally. A friend made one his cover photo. I told him what happened to me, and he said they never questioned him.

Our publishing company has run into the same problem on Amazon. For the last four years, Amazon Kindle has randomly banned books for questionable content, and the reasons never make sense. We have a book called Muscle Worshipers, which was published so many years ago that it was the first Gay erotic book ever on Amazon Kindle. It is also the tamest erotic book ever. It is nothing but stories about guys admiring each other’s bodies. There are no anal sex scenes in it, and everyone is of age. This book is so tame that it was panned by hard core fans and reviewers of erotica for being too vanilla and boring. Two weeks ago, we got a notice that it was banned. We were stunned. There are books on Kindle that are downright disgusting but still available.

We are convinced that the Church Lady is one of their reviewers, and every once in a while, she picks up one of our books and decides to ban it. We would fight it, but then we risk having all of our books banned. The books are all in the erotica category, and one must be eighteen to order them. All the characters in the books are eighteen. Who determines what is questionable or not? And if erotica is not allowable, why is it one of the categories? This makes no sense.

Funny, we never had these problems when a Republican was in the White House. Go figure.

As I learned during my decision to go on weekend Facebook hiatus, this social media site does little for book sales and only drives about five percent of the traffic to this blog.

I can live without it on Saturdays and Sundays, so how hard will it be to live without seeing pictures of cats and knowing someone woke up with a headache on any given Tuesday or drove in traffic on a Thursday evening?

So long Facebook and your fascist, nonsensical policies. As far as I am concerned. You are so last year.  

If you find me offensive and don’t know me outside this blog, join me, get on my email list, or buy my books at www.miltonstern.com.

Everyone Is a Drag Queen

When you really think about it, all of us are drag queens, especially the recently retired Pope. Seriously, big gold hat, flowing white dress, red shoes? Who the hell are you fooling? And your home! How many illegal immigrants does it take to clean all those stained glass windows, not to mention all the paintings of bodybuilders touching each other on the ceiling and walls? Where do illegal immigrants to Vatican City come from? Armenia?

Pope Hitler being no exception, all of us are drag queens. You may not wear a dress (although you may be wearing your wife’s panties right now), but whatever uniform you are wearing is your drag.

By the way, DRAG means Dude Resembles A Girl. It is from Shakespeare, and I learned that on Rupaul’s Drag Race, and if Jujubee said it, it has to be true. But for our purposes, Drag represents any costume you wear for a specific occasion.

There is painter drag. Nicely fitting, white painter’s pants that hug your butt just so with all those fabulous hoops and pockets, white T-shirt, and white hat.

I have often wondered why painters wear white. If I were a painter, I would wear rainbow colors in a psychedelic pattern, so when the paint splattered on my clothes, no one would know. I am the world’s worst painter. You wouldn’t believe I have OCD and put everything in its place and keep a spotless home by the way I paint. When I paint a room, it looks as if a blind man with Parkinson’s disease completed the job. I paint over outlets, light switches, windows, small dogs. I once painted a kitchen orange, including the ceiling, and when a neighbor walked by and peaked into my window, she called the fire department. They kept telling me the shade would get darker with each coat of paint, but it just got flamier and flamier after five coats. The room kept getting smaller, too.

There is corporate drag. Dark suit, blue shirt, print tie. You don’t think it is drag? Take the print on that tie, and make a shirt out of it. Would you wear that? Did you know a necktie is just an evolution of what was once a napkin meant to catch the food that fell from your mouth? That is why my best linen napkins are actually silk neckties. Remember in the 1970s when men wore scarves? Neither do I – it was before my time. I saw it on a retrospective of the Tonight Show on PBS. Now there is a style I would like to see return. The question is do you knot it on the right or left, and what is the significance?

Construction drag is among my favorites. Cut off shorts, suede boots, no shirt, and a hard hat. Need I say more? Find yourself an Indian and a cop, and you have a nice boy band.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. No matter what you do for a living, you are in drag. Get over it, especially if you are a drag queen.

Being in drag carries into your social life as well. You have club drag, bridge game drag, Mah Jongg drag. What is Mah Jongg drag? Big Aquanet hair, theatrical make-up with lipstick on your teeth, a black top with gold lame and applique, more gold jewelry than Mr. T, stretch pants, and rhinestone encrusted reading glasses. Not unlike how I dress for the grocery store.

And all you straight daddies out there, you have golf drag! Oh my God, the most dreaded drag of all. Curiously, the most macho heterosexual on the planet, who wouldn’t be caught dead in any color but blue or black during the week, will spend five hours on a Saturday, driving a subcompact, electric convertible with a striped canvas top, chasing a little white ball, wearing pink and yellow plaid pants, a pink shirt, a yellow hat, and adorable two-tone yellow and white golf shoes with tassels. For them, Hartmarx still makes Sansabelt slacks – those beltless wonders of polyester, which show too much bulge, sit too high on the waist, and give every man who wears them a wedgie.

Your social life morphs into your sex life, and then you have a whole new world of drag, especially if you are into leather. I have never understood leather drag, especially the ubiquitous harness. What exactly does the harness do? Esmeralda, may she rest in peace, wore a canvas harness when I walked her, but she wanted nothing to do with BDSM. While I have seen my fair share of leathermen in harnesses, I have never seen one with a leash attached. Anytime one had a leash, it was attached to a collar.

Another thing I don’t understand is why the leather is necessary. I am perfectly happy being handcuffed to a bed in a nice cotton-poly blend. It’s wrinkle resistant and machine washable. I don’t need a collar to eat out of a dog dish. The food tastes the same without the drag.

I will never forget my last trip to the Eagle to see their Halloween costume contest. There were at least twenty men wearing harnesses and dress pants. So, you came directly from the office. While you remembered to pack your harness, you somehow forgot your jeans or leather pants? I work in a government building, so my first thought was what happens when that thing you are wearing under your suit beeps? This being DC, I am sure this happens at least a dozen times a day in any given federal building.

That evening, the costume contest was called off because they couldn’t figure out who was in costume and who was dressed for a typical night at the Eagle. Another thing about leather drag I don’t understand is that most if not all of it is intended for the bedroom, so why are you wearing it to a bar? That would be the equivalent of my wearing a black lace Teddy to Ruby Tuesdays.

Did you just get a visual?

One of the hats I wear is editor of Gay erotica – a job I have been doing for almost eight years. During that time, I have done my share of research. I either consult an expert, or if I can’t find one, I do my research hands on, and I really enjoy my job. For example, for my military BDSM collection, I consulted with a friend who was former military and a Dungeon Master. The things I learned just from interviewing him were enough to fill two volumes.

For the book on prison love, I spoke to several friends; apparently, I need a better class of friends. For the book about cowboys, I attended a few rodeos, and I studied up on Cowboy drag. The team sports book was the easiest since I attempted to play team sports all my life, and I have worn my share of pads, helmets, and cups and sometimes actually on a playing field. Also, there isn’t a Gay man on the planet who doesn’t own a jock strap.

I need to pause for a second. To all my Gay friends of a certain age: if you put on a jock strap, and you can no longer see the straps as they are hidden under the folds of your ass, that means you can no longer wear a jock strap. For me that moment arrived on August 21, 2009, at approximately 2:53 pm. That is why my friend Charles still has not received a picture of me in a jock strap.

The next book we are compiling is a collection of short stories on wrestling fantasies. I have quite a few friends who are into wrestling, so I thought this would be easy, but wrestling is something you have to do in order to describe the action – much like Mah Jongg, which can be just as competitive. There is a scene in On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg, where they are talking to each other while tossing and picking up tiles and playing an actual hand. Since I know how to play Mah Jongg (my friend Marlene would argue otherwise), I was able to map out the game, seat the girls correctly around the table, and write the scene accurately.

Wrestling is one of those Gay fetishes that is extremely butch. Guys all sweaty, grappling and choking and punching. There is a lot of grunting and body slamming. They yell at each other and call each other names just to make their opponents more aggressive. There is no equipment in wrestling. Just muscle and skill. Nothing is more masculine and testosterone filled than wrestling.

I need a cigarette … where was I?

I started to go down my list of wrestling friends, which is much larger than I realized and found one who actually performs as a professional wrestler as well as wrestles men in his basement for fun. I asked him if he could show me some wrestling moves, so I could properly write a wrestling fantasy story as well as edit those that are submitted.

He asked me if I had any gear. For those who don’t know, gear is what you wear when you wrestle. It usually consists of a singlet or a Speedo. Some wear boots, but that is only if you are into the professional wrestling fantasy. I told him I didn’t have any gear.

I was starting to feel like a drag queen with no red pumps. Funny how when I did drag, I had plenty of gear. Now I just wanted someone to wrestle with me, and I needed gear.

He then asked if I had a Speedo, Lycra, spandex, or a singlet. Spandex and Lyra are a privilege not a right, and I never earned that privilege; I doubt if I could find a singlet in my size in the ready-to-wear section at Lane Bryant; and the last time I wore a Speedo, I was a member of the Jewish Community Center swim team – the Stingrays – and I had no right to wear it then, not to mention now!

So I informed him that I had no gear, and his answer was, “This won’t work.” That was it. No lesson.

Oh my God! How Gay is that? I can’t even take a wrestling lesson unless I show up in drag? These guys may be the most macho of all the Gay men, but they are also the biggest queens of all! I forgot to mention that all of these guys have a singlet or Speedo fetish. They are more excited about the gear than the match.

Before you ask, he wouldn’t even entertain the notion of naked wrestling. What would the ancient Greeks think of him? They would be proud of me because I even offered to provide the olive oil.

If you require drag to achieve an orgasm, join me, follow me, get on my email list and buy my books: www.miltonstern.com.

Gay Men Can’t Read

If Joan Rivers were working the red carpet at the annual M4M parade of profiles, she would stop every guy and ask, “What are you into?”

You will get that joke if you have ever posted an online profile on a pick-up site. Notice I did not say dating site because when was the last time two Gay men met online, went to dinner and a movie, kissed good night on the porch, and went their separate ways?

Tuesday in a trailer park.

Let’s face it. If you have a profile on any of the available sites and apps out there, you are not just on there to look at the pretty pictures. You are looking to find someone to help you relieve yourself of all that built-up tension from a hard week at work, or you are just looking to spray your load on someone’s back. The reason you want to spray it on his back is that after you go back and forth chatting for an hour and examine his pictures, he will show up at your door fifteen years and fifteen pounds later. By that point, you have already committed yourself to having relations, so you decide the only way to achieve a climax is to avoid looking at his face and to keep the lights as low as possible. There is a reason old couples get cataracts.

There are times when you realize there aren’t enough light blocking curtains at Bed, Bath & Beyond to go from flaccid to turgid. That is when the little blue pill comes in handy. Just be sure you haven’t accidentally taken an Aleve, or you will be doing your Bonobo monkey face as you try to beat your little friend into something everyone can enjoy.

Closing the deal, engaging in man-on-man action within the hour, changing the sheets, showering and peeing, and trying to forget what just happened are not the only parts of online hook-up sites that are time consuming and a pain in the ass.

Getting through the initial bull shit is a large part of what makes the difference between a solo appearance and a group effort.

While online hook-up sites enable you to have a more elaborate profile with more pictures of yourself than your parents took during your first year of life – and you thought they took a lot of pictures of your naked ass in a bathtub – the app sites like Scruff and Grindr provide you with a more concise way of making your presentation and highlighting the benefits of twenty-three minutes of passion in your boudoir.

Or so I thought …

All of us have a fetish. Don’t tell me you don’t. You may say you are vanilla, but there are many different types of vanilla, and the most popular is French. In addition, all of us have at least one thing we won’t do.

I have thirty-seven.

Thanks to the internet, some of us with weird fetishes have found each other, and we no longer feel alone. Remember when you thought you were the only Gay man in the world? Now you feel as if you are the only man who wants to get pounded into next week by a man dressed like Joan Crawford who quotes lines from Mommie Dearest.

I know one guy who has just experienced a tightening in his pants.

I used to have three things I wouldn’t do, but every week, something new comes along, and I have to clarify that I have no interest in covering myself in cookie dough and saying, “Have you been a good boy?” to a guy wearing a diaper and lying in an oversized bassinet.

All seriousness aside, the profiles that fascinate me the most are the ones that read like a manifesto. There are profiles online that are at least seven-hundred words – or that many paragraphs. These guys list their philosophy on life and what they prefer in the bedroom and where they see themselves in five years and what music they prefer and what inspires them the most and where they have traveled. Funny thing is these are the ones who tell you they are not looking for a hook-up but turn out to be the biggest sluts in town. Which begs the question: When do they find the time between tricks to write all this crap?

You would think with the apps like Scruff and Grindr, they wouldn’t go to the trouble of writing an essay, especially since you have to use a virtual keyboard, but that doesn’t stop them! How blistered are their thumbs? I can’t reply to a text without misspelling every other word. Granted I have big hands – oh, I need to mention that in my profile.

More importantly, don’t these self-absorbed, narcissistic whores know that Gay men can’t read?

All Gay men can do is spot a hot picture, click on the “woof” icon and hope for a response. Also, why woof? I thought the prominent mammal in the Gay community was a bear? Not dogs. Bears growl. Shouldn’t it be the “grrr” icon?

Do straight people go through all this?

My profile is clear and concise, and it is only two sentences. “I have a fetish, and I would love to find someone who would engage in it with me. I do not engage in this, that or the other thing, so don’t ask if I will.” As a matter of fact, my fetish is in my profile name so as not to confuse anyone.

With two sentences, you would think I am able to cut through all the bull shit. Well, you are most definitely wrong. At least ninety percent of the guys who contact me ask me if I will engage in this, that or the other thing. I always respond, “Read my profile.” Then they respond, “Oh.” Then, they ask me why I won’t engage in this that or the other thing. That is when I ignore them.

I am fifty-fucking years old. If I don’t want to engage in this, that, or the other thing, I won’t.

There are the ones who don’t ask you anything but send you pictures of various body parts, some of them actually theirs. Just when I thought I had seen everything, the other day I was sent a bunch of pictures from someone I know who has a high-level job in a certain country’s government. In every picture, he was engaged in a sex act. Of course, I looked at the pictures and marveled at how flexible he was for a fifty-year-old with a big belly. But, doesn’t this idiot know that I can save every one of those pictures on my phone? When I sell them to the Enquirer, he will claim someone spammed his account. Yeah right.

My favorite is when they ask me, “What are you into?” Seriously? It is in my profile name.

Lately, I have been answering the “what are you into” question with, “Marchesa, Spring 2013.”

I don’t watch Fashion Police for nothing.

Am I worried about someone looking for my profile and figuring out my fetish. No because Gay men can’t read! And apparently, they don’t have boundaries either.

Anyone want to see those pictures? Give me your PayPal ID, and I will invoice you. Hey, a girl has to make a buck.

If you are illiterate, buy my book, you can look at the pretty pictures. Go to www.miltonstern.com.