Part five in my series of posts on the expression “that’s so gay.”   Wanda Sykes speaks out on the subject:

In honor of the Olympics… I present you with this hilarious Christopher Guest skit is from the mid 1980s:

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders had promised to veto a City Council resolution supporting gay marriage. At the eleventh hour, with the resolution on his desk, he changed his mind. In an emotional speech, Mayor Sanders explains why he reversed his position.

With his wife by his side and holding back tears, Mayor Sanders reveals that his daughter Lisa is a lesbian. Speaking of her, and of the gay and lesbian members of his staff, he says:

“In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships — their very lives — were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife, Rana.”

I remember when I was a child, we drove by a restaurant with the name “The Pink Pear.” My father chuckled, mentioning something about there being a double meaning to the restaurant name. An upscale Hooters, essentially. Try as I might, I didn’t see the double meaning — perhaps this was an early sign of gayness.

And perhaps a more recent sign of gayness is that I should enjoy a cocktail with these ingredients:

THE PINK PEAR:

• Grey Goose pear flavored vodka (”Grey Goose La Poire“)

• Soda water

• Splash of cranberry juice

As you might imagine, I intend no chest-related double meaning here. Instead, the only double meaning is perhaps a suggestion that you order two at once.

Also, I recommend that you not substitute the Grey Goose pear vodka with the more common Absolut pear vodka. Both vodkas taste of pear, but in my opinion Absolut Pear has hints of an underripe pear laced with DDT.

[There might already a drink called the Pink Pear, but since I don't know about it, I'm crediting myself with inventing the name. Add another second to my 15 minutes of fame! Justin gets a h/t for introducing me to Grey Goose Pear vodka. Mmmm.]

During the Miss Teen USA 2007 competition, contestant Caitlin Upton (Ms. South Carolina) was asked the following question:

“Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Her answer was spectacular:

If you think about it for a minute, Caitlin Upton’s answer does provide valuable insight into some of the root causes of the problem.

For your enjoyment, here’s an attempted transcript:

“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so, because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and I believe that our education like such as South Africa and The Iraq and everywhere like, such as, and I believe that they should — our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. — er — should help South Africa, and should help The Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our ch–.”

“U.S. Americans?” “The Iraq?”

h/t to Larry M.

Funny stuff. Max Blumenthal visits a College Republican convention, and after hearing the expected GOP pro-war talking points (”what people don’t understand is if it’s not faught in iraq and we don’t win over there, it’s gonna happen here.”), Blumenthal asks:

“If you support the war, why aren’t you serving in the military?”

The results are hilarious.

Blumenthal doesn’t just cover the war in his visit with the Chickenhawk College Republicans. When he interviews some Republicans about their feelings about gays, at first there’s some old fashioned GOP anti-gay garbage. But it gets really interesting when a member of the College Republicans lets us know that he’s been dealing with some suppressed feelings:

Republican Guy: “Everybody at one time in their life has had the inclination towards the other — uh — towards the same sex. . . . But just because you have the inclination does not mean you’re gay because if you have the inclination because you’re curious and stuff like that. . . . But if you accept it, and then suppress your feelings and you pray about it to god, and know that you’re not — are are so much stronger than some other people.”

Max Blumenthal: “Have you accepted it?”

Republican Guy: “Yes, I have accepted it, I have prayed about it to God, and I know for a fact that I am not gay.”

Not quite convincing… but funny to watch.

Anyway, here’s the video:

I had the privilege of meeting Elizabeth Edwards at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in San Francisco this weekend, and seeing her deliver this moving speech. How can you not love this woman?

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. They didn’t ban gay people. They banned “The Gays.” That is, people with the last name “Gay.”

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Australian version of Facebook (the social networking website) rejects membership for anyone with the last name “Gay.” The paper reports that any attempt to register a Facebook membership under the last name “Gay” results in the following error message:

“Please enter a legitimate name.”

Ouch! As if the inevitable playground taunts weren’t bad enough for children with that last name, now this.

Clearly, Facebook isn’t trying to discriminate against The Gays. The problem is no doubt the result of some oversensitive software filters. I’m sure Rudolf Lipschitz would have faced a similar challenge had he survived long enough to create a Facebook profile.

On the other hand, why is “gay” on the list of terms that are filtered out? I’ve made the point before, but the word “gay” is not a profane term. It doesn’t need filtering.

You would have thought that the software filter gurus would have learned this lesson after the “Enola Homosexual” incident. This incident occurred on September 5, 1994, when the Northwest Herald (a paper in suburban Chicago) ran a story with the following headline:

“ATOMIC BOMBERS CRITICIZE ENOLA HOMOSEXUAL EXHIBIT”

This nonsensical headline resulted when the word “gay” was mistakenly replaced with “homosexual.” The Northwest Herald’s story was actually about a planned exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, where part of the fuselage of the famous plane the Enola Gay was to be placed on display. For younger readers, the Enola Gay — not the Enola Homosexual — is famous for being the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare, over Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.

FREE BONUS MATERIAL!
Training material for newspaper editors and Facebook IT employees:
How to tell when “gay” means “homosexual”

Example 1: “Gay” doesn’t mean “homosexual”

Example 2: “Gay” means “homosexual”

There’s something a bit “off” about Mitt Romney. He looks and sounds like a normal person, but you might say there’s a certain something missing. He seems hollow somehow.

Thanks to YouTube we’ve seen that Mitt Romney can movingly (and with the appearance of the deepest sincerity) express the exact opposite opinion from one he movingly expressed a few months before.

One could argue that this flip-floppery doesn’t set Romney apart from other politicians. But to me, Romney does seems different. His hollowness goes deeper, it’s more complete.

For example, what kind of a person puts a pet dog into a carrier, straps the carrier to the roof of the car, and then drives for 12 hours?

Yeah, according to the Boston Globe, that’s exactly what Romney did back in 1983. As if that wasn’t strange enough, the Boston Globe adds this disgusting but revealing detail:

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway.

I mean, I’m sure the station wagon was crowded, but who treats the family dog like a suitcase?

I’ll get behind Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination, but I hope she doesn’t. Why? Because she, unlike Edwards or Obama, is deeply associated with the inaptly named “Democratic Leadership Council,” or DLC.

The DLC is not the Democratic Party. It’s a separate organization, run by a group of people who wrongly see themselves as leaders of an effort to “modernize” Democratic politics. Up until the 2006 election, they had tremendous influence on the direction and campaign strategies of Democratic politicans and candidates. They steered our party the wrong way in every election since 1994.

The DLC was useful once, back in the early 1990’s. But ten years later and they’re woefully out of touch. Just look at this comment made last April by Harold Ford, homophobe and new Chairman of the DLC:

“we should all remember that the DLC played an instrumental role in giving Bill Clinton - then an Arkansas governor - a policy platform to campaign on and from in 1991.”

That’s the problem in a nutshell.

The DLC is stuck in 1991, seeing every election through an aged and dusty lens. They fail to recognize the changes in the GOP and in the American electorate in the intervening period. After helping bring us victory in 1992, their myopia brought us a nearly unbroken string of election disasters starting with the unimaginable loss of the House of Representatives in 1994, the razor thin Gore victory in 2000 (stolen by the Supreme Court), and a nearly hegemonic GOP by 2004.

Following the DLC’s playbook, we lost an election in 2004 that should have been ours by a landslide.

It’s hard to imagine it now, but until very recently the DLC was convinced that the Democratic party would suffer terribly if Democratic politicians and candidates spoke out publicly against the war in Iraq. The DLC considered it dangerous for democrats to be seen as “anti-war.” In their minds, being anti-war means hippies, marijuana, flower children, and John Lennon. Bad images that they thought would be off-putting for the rest of the country. “Too liberal,” they said.

The GOP has been governing solely to their base for the last six years, maybe longer. Under the DLC’s direction, the Democratic Party has done the opposite. Embarrassed by, ignoring, and discounting the base. This was slowly driving the party into the ground, creating a party that stands for nothing at worst, or “Republican Lite” at best.

The Party largely followed the DLC’s deadly advice on the Iraq war until John Murtha, Howard Dean and a few other started ignoring the DLC’s advice. And guess what happened? We started winning.

The 2006 election was the first moment in a decade where the Party slipped from the DLC’s death grip.

Try and forget for a moment how morally wrong the DLC’s advice was on the war. Ignore temporarily how wrong and harmful it was to the country and the world for so many Democrats to sit quietly while Bush steered the country into disaster. With that out of your mind, focus on the how absurdly wrong the DLC was in their claim that being “anti-war” would cause the democrats to lose elections. In other words, not only was their advice immoral and damaging, it actually hurt the party at the ballot box. They can’t even do Machiavellian politics right.

Just look at how a confident Bob Shrum, Democratic political adviser, recalls his profoundly dim-witted and Machiavellian advice to then-Senator John Edwards to vote for the Iraq war:

“…But Edwards didn’t want to look “liberal” and out of the mainstream; he was, after all, the southern candidate and thought of himself as Clintonesque. He valued the advice and prized the support of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council…” [source: TMP memo emphasis added]

By any objective measure, this was horrible advice. In sum: Support the war because you don’t want to look like a sissy and because you want the support of the DLC.

It’s hard to imagine that any Democrat would still listen to the DLC. Yet some Democrats do. Hillary Clinton does. This is the main reason why I won’t — I can’t — vote for her in the primary.

The 2006 election was the first nail in the DLC’s coffin. If Hillary Clinton wins, she’s going to pry open that coffin and bring all of her DLC advisers and policy people back into the White House and back to the top of Party leadership, where they can start messing things up again. We need a candidate that repudiate the DLC’s backward ways, and move the Party — and the country — forward.

George W. Bush and Paris Hilton have this much in common: They were both born into a world of privilege and power unimaginable to most Americans. They come from elite, wealthy families, yet they are famously disdainful of sophisticated thought. Good fortune has made neither humble — instead, they both act with confidence and swagger, emboldening them to do what few others would dare. Neither seem particularly concerned with helping those who are not equally fortunate. And finally, both seem to believe that they are above the law.

Chiffon margarine ran a series of popular TV commercials in the 1970s, where Mother Nature is fooled into believing that Chiffon Margarine is actually “sweet, creamy” butter.

No doubt fed up with other attacks on nature that were taking place in the 1970s (e.g., polyester), Mother Nature always loses her temper after she mistakes Chiffon for real butter, stirring up wind and lightning and uttering her famous line: “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

In the version posted below, the scene opens as Mother Nature (apparently taking a break from controlling the seasons and the crop cycle) reads “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to seemingly random mix of animals.

Modern audiences are not impressed by a little wind and flash of lightning. If the commercial were re-made today, CGI graphics would show lightning bolts shooting out of her hands, perhaps even striking and killing the TV announcer to punish him for his trickery.

*This entry is part of a continuing series, dedicated to using the phrase “that’s so gay” as a compliment rather than an insult. Eat your heart out, Rebeka Rice!.*

Take yourself back to a time when Liberace was seen as an eccentric heterosexual with a penchant for fur and candelabras.

The video below was produced during the waning days of what I call the Paul Lynde Era — a time when a person could appear on television in full gay flame, and still be considered heterosexual by the most people.

That Era is clearly over. When you watch the video below, try and take yourself back to the mid-1980’s, when it was still widely believed that George Michael was a heterosexual. I don’t think this could happen today.

(Not sufficiently gay? If the opening sequence doesn’t convince you, make sure you check out the shorts and gloves he’s wearing near the middle of the video.)

According to wikipedia, Amanda Lear was a disco queen of the 1970s. Unfortunately for me, I’d never heard of Ms. Lear until my friend Mary sent me the clip below.

Now I wouldn’t say that Amanda Lear is talented — in fact I’d describe her singing style as a disco-muppet version of Marlene Dietrich. However, she’s incredibly fun to watch. This video was apparently made for Italian TV in 1983. Dig that 80s style!

Enjoy this 1954 Alice in Wonderland themed TV commercial for Jell-O. It makes no sense at all. It tells us: “For energy, for color, or for playing games, there’s nothing quite like Jell-O.” I didn’t realize that was the trio of qualities one looked for in a desert.

When Alice asks: “Are you the smile my Jell-O or are you the smile on the Cheshire Cat?” I want to respond: “Neither! You’ve overdosed on LSD. Call 911!”
[Thanks to Justin for sending me this video]

In the video below, evangelical minister Ray Comfort talks about God and evolution with his fellow evangelical Christian Kirk Cameron (the former child actor).

Sporting a bold 1970’s-style gay mustache and holding a banana, Mr. Comfort earnestly sets out on his theological journey. But somehow, the presence of a large banana in his hand, the words Mr. Comfort uses to describe the banana, the facial expressions he makes while looking at the banana, all combine to make the video seem very much like a Saturday Night live spoof.

I’d give this video a PG-13 rating for unintentional sexual innuendo. Keep that in mind if you watch at work:

This video, made in 1987 by soap opera star Brenda Dickson, is so full of bad advice that it defies the imagination. The first video is about fashion, and contains such nuggets as: “I think it’s important for you to know that… anything goes, today.” The second video (below) is about eating healthy. According to Brenda, alfalfa sprouts are loaded with energy because “they’re still growing,” and she also preaches that sugar causes wrinkles.

Part 1: “Fashion is something that is acquired by looking at a lot of different fashions.”

Part 2: “Sugar causes wrinkles.”

Thanks, Mary, for letting me know about this video.

Regular readers may know that I have an ongoing series of blog entries featuring my favorite bits of corporate jargon (click here to read them). I’ve decided to start a new series, entitled That’s So Gay!

Unlike my teenage nemesis, Rebeka Rice, I use the phrase “that’s so gay” in a purely complimentary way. The idea behind the That’s So Gay! series is to use the highlight funny or clever things that are, well, really gay.

The first entry in the That’s So Gay! series is available HERE.

If you have suggestions for future entries, please let me know by posting a comment here, or by emailing me at:

Only rated-G or PG submissions, please :-)

Rebeka Rice, a high school student in California, was disciplined by the school principal after using the phrase “that’s so gay” in a derogatory way.

Her parents have sued.

Rebeka Rice argues that she wasn’t being hateful. Instead, she said that she only meant: “That’s so stupid, that’s so silly, that’s so dumb.”

Hmmm. Isn’t there something hateful about using the word “gay” as a synonym for “stupid, silly, or dumb?” That’s so Rebeka Rice, if you ask me. And by that I mean, “what an idiot.”

I think it’s time to turn the phrase “that’s so gay” into a compliment. Why not? I love The Gays! In that spirit, I submit for you what I believe is the gayest music video I’ve ever seen. I mean that entirely as a compliment. Love it or hate it, how can you watch this video and not think “that’s so gay?”

(Don’t worry, it’s rated G. Or at least PG.)

In an earlier post, I claimed that Small Wonder was the worst TV show of all time. Perhaps I was wrong.

Below, I’ve posted a clip of the opening credits to the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. This was the ill-conceived and short-lived follow up to the popular sitcom. It is so absurdly horrible that it begs the question: “What drugs could have produced something like this?”

My favorite touches: (1) the use of kazoos (kazoos!!) for the musical background, (2) the arthritic choreography, (3) the affectionless kiss between TV Mom (Florence Henderson) and TV Dad (the closet-case homosexual Robert Reed), and (4) the producers lame attempt to cut the song short by having the “singers” awkwardly repeat the words “baby face” at the end of the clip. Enjoy:

Here’s the Valentine’s Day edition of Mad TV’s Lillian Verner game show. It’s not as funny as the original Lillian Verner Game Show sketch, but it has a laugh or two:

UPDATE (3/30/2007): Unfortunately, the video was removed from YouTube. Sorry!

Hard core fans of “Dreamgirls” are debating the following question: Which singer/actress did a better job portraying the character of “Effie”, Jennifer Holliday or Jennifer Hudson? Jennifer Holliday had the role in the original 1980’s Broadway production, and Jennifer Hudson played Effie in the recent Hollywood movie.

While I haven’t taken sides in the debate (both performances were fabulous, see Jennifer Holiday’s performance by clicking here), I must admit that the video posted below does not help Jennifer Hudson’s cause. As they say in the South, bless her heart! She’s sweet to put out this message, but heaven help her, doesn’t she have a publicist? That makeup and hair! Sitting with that dog in her lap, so close to the camera that her eyes are practically crossing. Oy vey.

Wanna know how to make Dick Cheney angry? Say something positive and affirming about his daughter, Mary.

It won’t make him angry if you merely criticize his daughter for being a lesbian, or if you try to strip gays and lesbians of equal rights.

For example, notice the Vice President’s reaction when Focus on the Family (a pro-Bush organization) issued the following statement:

“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children. Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean that it’s best for the child.”

Focus on the Family wasn’t merely making a general statement about gay rights. They were directly attacking Dick Cheney’s daughter. Out of line, don’t you think?

One might expect our preternaturally combative Vice President to respond to Focus on the Family’s focus on his family. But he did not. The Vice President said nothing. No public expression of outrage.

He didn’t even give the Bush allies over at Focus on the Family one of his trademark snarls.

Contrast this with his reaction when Wolf Blitzer asked the Vice President if he wanted to respond to these anti-gay critics. After prefacing his question with friendly and supportive comments about Mary, including “all of us are happy she’s going to have a baby,” Blitzer asked the Vice President if he wanted to respond to these attacks on his daughter.

Here’s the Vice President’s reaction. In Dick Cheney’s view, the offense is asking a question about his daughter, not the attack issued by the Administration’s anti-gay allies over at Focus on the Family:

“Small Wonder” — the 80’s sitcom about a family with an adopted robot daughter — was so terrible that it crossed over the line into being funny, back over to terrible, and then back to funny again.

The little girl in the show is supposed to be a robot, so she walks around with a flat expression on her face and never smiles or laughs. She speaks in a demonic monotone, usually repeating verbatim what she’s just heard. A laugh track blasts after each line she utters.

A plastic control panel is attached sloppily to the back of the robot girl’s baby doll dress.

The other characters of the show are happy and cheery, but in a painfully forced and awkward way. Sort of like Disneyland employees.

Throw in horrible dialogue, bad 80’s clothes, and a creepy opening sequence in which each of the characters smiles vacantly at the camera as the credits are displayed (incidentally, this is the one time the robot girl ever smiles), and you have a perfect formula for the worst show in history.

The clip below is a bit long, but you only need to watch the first minute or 2 (the show’s opening credits) to get the flavor.

Enjoy!