Gays Will Be Gays

It's not very often that the Republican National Convention comes to a place like New York City, so I've felt compelled to participate. That is the reason I ended up at an RNC event last night. Well, OK, that and the free booze. It was hosted by the Human Rights Campaign and Victory in association with the Log Cabin Republicans. And it was in Chelsea. Which means it was pretty gay. Sure, it was a bunch of gay Republicans and so they were dressed slightly less whorish than your average queer, but when push came to shove, everyone else was there for the free booze as well. And by the end of the evening it had more or less turned into any gay bar in the city, only with more neckties.

And as I said, gays will be gays. When Rep. Christopher Shays (from my homestate!) made a comment about his very young looking college intern (who was in the room) having to lick envelopes, the guy behind me said, quite audibly, "He can lick anything he wants..." I guess you can take the liberal out of the fag but you can't take the fag out of the Republican.

Area Code Angst

So for sixth months I've been paying for a phone line that I don't use because my phone is broken. I kept it around because I thought that some day I'd get a new computer and start using my dial-up service again. Now that I have a new computer, I've decided that dial-up is too slow and now I want Road Runner. I can't afford to pay for a high-speed internet connection and a phone I don't use. But....

I don't want to give up my 212 area code. Whatever is a boy to do?

Tashalee...

... is a big fat doody-head. Just thought you should know.

All My Sons

While certainly very similar in many respects, America and Britain can be worlds apart sometimes. Today we have Bush and Blair, who could never be mistaken for each other. But back in the day we had Reagan and Thatcher, two peas in a pod who worked steadfastedly to bring the threat of Communism crashing down. But what are their inheritors doing today? Fighting the good fight, of course. But in very different ways.

Ron Reagan, Jr. is fighting the good fight by being the poster-boy for embryonic stem cell research, thereby protecting the AARP from the grisly fate of senility. Mark Thatcher, on the other hand, is financing military coups to overthrow brutal African dictators, thereby protecting entire populations from massive human rights violations. Way to go, boys!

Big Couch Cushions...

... contain big amounts of change. Not feeling as if the selling of my bodily fluids would get me through the week, I finally decided to get rid of all of the change I've been collecting in my apartment. When I get home at the end of the day I usually just dump the change from my pockets either on the table, the floor or somewhere in my closet. Well, kiddies, last night I collected it all into a large mason jar and a Zip-Lock bag and this afternoon took it to Commerce Bank where they have this nifty little Penny Arcade. I returned just under three thousand coins for a grand total of $158.42.

All I can say is: I'm in the money! I'm in the money!

Cash Poor, Blood Rich

Right now I am cash poor. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not broke. I have plenty of money. I have a few checks on deposit, an approved loan that is stuck in paperwork and thousands of dollars of credit on my Visa card. Which is all fine and good for big things, like a computer or a sofa or a night at Sushi Samba. It's not OK for things like, oh, lunch which generally requires cash. Fortuantely for me, shortly before lunchtime I received a very important phone call from a guy in an immunology lab downstairs. You see, for certain scientific studies you need your cells to be fresh. Very fresh. And when I say very fresh, I mean straight out of the vein fresh. And fortunately for me, I got nice veins. Veins that earn $4 per 10 cc. And I don't mind getting stuck every now and then.

So suffice it to say, I will be able to eat lunch today. And maybe even dinner. And maybe breakfast tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe, by that time one of my checks will have cleared because I'm feeling a bit lightheaded....

Wildhorn's Latest Suck-Fest

I've been wanting to see the new musical, Dracula, for some time now, mainly because it stars Tom Hewitt and Melissa Errico. Although I haven't been paying much attention to theater news of late so I had no idea that it was a Frank Wildhorn show. I was wondering what he was up to after that major suck-fest, "The Civil War." Apparently making a bigger suck-fest. As Ben Brantley puts it:

Expectations were exceedingly low for this latest offering from the unstoppable Mr. Wildhorn — the composer of the expensively dressed clunkers "Jekyll and Hyde," "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "The Civil War" — and expectations have not been disappointed. So go ahead. Take your shots. Say something, if you must, about toothlessness or bloodlessness or the kindness of hammering stakes into the hearts of undead shows. Think of every appropriate variation you can involving the verbs to bite and to suck.

It definitely makes me wish I'd appreciated "Dance of the Vampires" more. A pop-song writer (Jim Steineman, of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" fame) making a cheezy musical about vampires is much more appealing than a cheezy musical writer making a boring serious musical about vampires set to pop-songs.

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

My friend was visiting from England this week, after having finished his work teaching soccer at a camp in New Hampshire for pre-teen Jewish girls. For the purposes of this tale we'll call him Dickie, mainly because that's his name. So Dickie, Timmy, the boy and I all went out last night for a rockin' good time. At least that's what Dickie wanted. We headed down to the Village for some beer and, um, a rockin' good time. After going to a couple of places, Dickie began to get bummed (i.e. whingy and mopey) because, I believe, the bar we were currently at was clearing out. This was not surprising because this was a Thursday night and contrary to popular belief not everyone in New York has nothing to do on a Friday morning. Granted you can always find a party at any hour, but at 2 am even the Village begins to empty. You need to know where to go to find the action. Now, of course, I knew where to go, but I wasn't about to suggest it. We needed to stumble on it.

So off we went to walk up Avenue A in an attempt to find a decent scene. Dickie continued to whinge that we were walking too far and what was wrong with all the places we'd passed. Of course, if Dickie had looked into any of them he would have seen that they were as empty (if not more so) than the bar we'd just left. (Of course, I must now point out that none of these places were really empty by any measure of the word; they just weren't wall to wall people).

But lo! What's that we see across the street? Loud music and a bunch of people heading in to a darkened bar. I ask Dickie if he wants to check it out. He readily agrees because at that moment a tall, leggy blonde woman whose ass was hanging out of her thong was going in and Dickie said he definitely wanted to check that out. Well, at least he thought it was woman. I'm not saying that I knew Dickie had just suggested that we go into a notoriously seedy gay bar called The Cock and I'm not saying that I didn't know. All I will say is that Dickie is the one who wanted to go in. It's not my fault he was chasing transvestite tail.

Suffice it to say that the look on Dickie's face was priceless when he realized, which didn't take him very long. I'm not sure if it was the snogging men in the corner, the butt-ugly trannies or the man masturbating in nothing but a jock-strap on stage.

I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that Dickie is the nephew of a very high-ranking official with British Intelligence, so if you happen to be a sleezy tabloid I'm willing to sell. Dickie doesn't know this, but I have pictures of him dangerous close to a penis.

Why Are You Here?

One of my favorite things that I like to do with my blog is find out how people get here. I don't get a significant amount of traffic because most of my loyal readers are my friends and I don't employ any rouse to get people to surf on over. But I do have the luxury of looking at referring pages, including what Google searches get people to come on over to my neck of the woods.

Apparently most people who randomly stumble onto this blog via search engines are looking for pictures of the Gotti boys, information on Ed Heeney or for Charisma Carpenter's e-mail address. However, my personal fav is that I am Google's number one match for "doll's head ingestion".

So, if you got here looking for Hotti Gotti pics, homo-nausea or Cordelia Chase, I'm sorry to dissappoint but I hope you stay awhile and poke around here at ThirdoftheMonth. Make yourself at home; we enjoy the company. But if you came looking for some good ol' fashioned anal autoerotic gratification, well then according to Google you've come to the right place.

It doesn't matter why you're here, really, or even how you got here. But since you made it, throw on some plaid, grab a moist towelette and revel in the beauty that is you. Because here, every day is the Third of the Month.

Highfalutin Panhandling

This one goes under the category of "Only In New York"...

So it's about 1:00 am on Sunday night / Monday morning. I've got some friends in town so we're still out, chilling at the Auction House, surprised that we aren't the only people who apparently have nothing to do the next morning. We're standing outside for a smoke (frickin' ban) when this panhandler comes up to us, about the third one all night. Usually they want spare change or a spare fag. Or, if they want to sell you something it's usually magazines or batteries. But not this one. No, this one asks us if we like books. Books! At 1 am. Turns out the man is selling books out of his knapsack in the middle of the night. And not just any books, mind you. No, these are books for a special audience. He was selling Beowulf. And a book on the ancient Chinese art of foot-binding. And a few other titles in that vein. In the middle of night. Now granted, we were at a bar called the Auction House. And we almost actually did by Beowulf but it wasn't a good translation.

Fat and Hippies

So I just got back from Ithaca where I was at a "retreat". Well, a retreat in the scientific sense whereby you go to some remote local with some sort of "nature" (hence the Ithaca) and stay inside, in the dark, all day listening to people talk in excrutiating detail about excrutiatingly detailed topics. The retreat was on the molecular biophysics of signal transduction which means that the topics ranged from lipids to proteins in lipids to proteins modified by lipids to proteins that sense lipids to proteins that make lipids. And phase diagrams.

We did get to stay in the Statler hotel, however, which is staffed by gays and Mormons. They also make the best cheesecake in the world. Not so much with the pastries.

They did let us out for an afternoon which was exciting because I got to see my friend Amy who never comes to visit me in the City because she's a dirty hippy who lives in a co-op with a three-legged cat and tree-huggers with names like "Grasshopper" and will probably write something nasty in my comment box because I've insulted her fragile sensibility and collarbone. She did, however, take me and Deirdre on a hike around Six Mile Creek. "Oh, it's just a short walk," she says. Um, yeah. Anyway, for those of you who don't know Ithaca very well, it is all up-hill. I know this sounds physically impossible but trust me; I walked everywhere and never went down.

So, anyway, we're walking along, getting attacked by dragonflies (I hate bugs, but dragonflies are the worst! They are ugly and nasty and I haven't figured out what they are useful for yet), when Amy realizes she took us a different way than she was planning and we might have to do a "bit of climbing." Um, yeah. Suffice it to say we did manage to scale the cliff we needed to scale in order to get to the naked man. I actually don't know why this 60 year old man was lying naked on a rock, balls to the wind, reading The Nanny Diaries, nor do I know why he gave us a dirty look when we walked by his naked ass. It wasn't like by lying naked he'd laid claim to that rock or anything, like that guy who licks the car door handle in that Volkswagen commercial. I don't know, maybe he didn't want us looking at his dick. Whatever. It's Ithaca. On our way back to campus (up-hill, of course) we passed a guy in his boxers climbing through the second-floor window of his apartment, which of course makes perfect sense. I mean, where are you going to carry your keys if all you're wearing is your underwear?

I was happy to get back to the City, though, even if the boy made me start running this morning. Thirty minutes and eighteen leg cramps later I still felt like crap. Endorphins, my buttocks. But at least I've found a good use for my $100 pair of running shoes. Violently kicking my boyfriend in the ass.

Don't Hate the Player...

... hate boring, pedestrian "scripties"! Reality TV is where it's at! Still!

First, there's The Player, which premiered last night on the UPN. Now, you may ask, what is so original about twenty guys living in a house and trying to win a date with a hot woman via a series of eliminations? What makes The Player different? Well, these guys aren't your average reality TV show contestents; these guys are all Players! That is to say they are overly quaffed and overly muscled and overly full of themselves, some of them to the point where they could jump into a pool fully clothed and their hair wouldn't move. If you can get through the many various urban accents of Dawn (the prize) and the over used "Don't hate the player, hate the game" that is sure to be the next office cooler catch-phrase, check out The Player, if only for my fav playah, J.J., the gotta-be-gay wigger from the West Side (of Phoenix).

And speaking of gotta-be-gay, if you haven't checked out the new season of The Joe Schmo Show on Spike TV then you haven't lived. Instead of a Big Brother-like show, this time they're duping both a man and a woman into believing they're on a reality dating show called "Last Chance For Love" where there are many challenges and "Falcon Twists". The two hour finale is next week. Watch it. And while you're at it, rent the first season which is out on DVD now.

Lastly, since it appears as though every other cable network has a reality show featuring the life of a celebrity, why not A&E? Growing Up Gotti has got to be the biggest disappointment in celebrity reality television. First of all Victoria Gotti is not crazy, a la Anna Nicole; she's kinda just normal. If I wanted to see an ugly middle aged celebrity deal with their job, family and oversensitiveness to their own wacky existence I'd watch Family Business because at least that has titties. The one upside is she's got three hot teenaged boys, if by hot you mean over-tanned, over-gelled and overly bitchy Long Island man-whores. But if all you want to do is ogle underaged spoiled brats, save yourself the trouble of watching the show and check out Hotti Gotti where you can go for all your Gotti boy-toy screensavers. You know you want to....

So remember, just when you thought reality television was dead, the networks (all the networks) have managed to scrap the bottom of the barrel to bring you more of what you crave: man-sluts.

Except I'm serious about Joe Schmo 2. Check that shit out. Like now.

Oh Those Silly Californians...

According to a wonderful article in Slate this week, apparently most SUVs are banned on residential streets in California, due to the fact that they weigh more than 6 tons. Now, I'm torn by this. On the one hand, I hate government involvement in my life. On the other hand, I loathe SUVs, probably because I lived across the street from Kappa Kappa Gamma, where I believe ownership of one was manditory for membership (along with leather high heal knee-high boots which were oh so useful in the New Hampshire winter). And since I don't own one, and never plan to, the government isn't actually involving itself in my life with this one.

However, what I loathe even more than both of those things is people having their cake and eating it too. So, if SUV owners can register their SUVs as trucks, follow different quality regulations than pedestrian vehicles, get tax breaks if they use it for "work" and damage the road just as much as other trucks of that size, why should they be exempt from following traffic regulations other trucks have to? That is, they shouldn't get all the benefits and not have any of the inconveniences.

Of course this also means that those Hummers aren't allowed on the Brooklyn Bridge. I'd love to see that one enforced. No, really, I'd love to see that one enforced. Those fuckers should be inconvenienced. And frequently.

It's the Third of the Month...

... do you know where your moist towelette is?

So, I was in the shower this morning thinking about how long it's been since I've been celebrating this holiday in an official capacity. Believe it or not, the Third of the Month has been around for over six years! That's a lot of moist towelettes! And now, with the Third of the Month online, you can celebrate this noble holiday any day of the week. It's amazing how much we've grown.

I also realized that I've pretty much run out of ways to tell you to be good to yourself and love yourself. Which is fine, because I have other people out there to do it for me. Like NAAFA, the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance, but not fun fat like PUFAs. They want us to accept actual fat people for who they are and not look down on them, even the fat people who stand in the aisle taking pictures and using their fat ass to block your otherwise perfectly good view of a wedding ceremony. But that's great! Fat people are really discriminated against. Of course, like all activists, NAAFA is craaaazzzzy (and probably financially supported by McDonald's), denying a lot of the negative health consequences of being obese and stuff like that. But at least they're trying to feel good about themselves and isn't that what this day is about? Feeling good about yourself?

So whether you're feeling down and out or your life just couldn't be better, take a moment out of your day, just a moment, and think about all of your good qualities. Think about all of the people that love you. Think about how I love you. And I do. Love you. Each and every one of you crazy monkeys. And sometimes I think about how much I love each and every one of you when I think about how much I love myself. And when I'm thinking about loving myself I think about how one of you may be thinking of loving me at the same time. And then I get this warm fuzzy feeling that leaves me dizzy and panting with self-contentment. And that, my friends, is what this day is all about.

Oh, that, and plaid.