Not Taking Care Of Business

“Diminishing profits, you say? Poor readership? I know what to do! Let’s make our product less relevant and harder to obtain!

Morons.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: I believe you mean “Morans”.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Don’t forget “let’s let go of all of our good, long-time reporters who know where the bodies are buried.”

PS: If the “e” at the end is not silent, Hunke (the CEO) sounds very close to honky. My random 2 second amusement.

“Honor box”! Oooooh, you and yer fancy newspaper-circulation language!

As my circulation-manager dad told me, an empty box is a sign of failure. You ideally want one left the next morning, which shows you sold every paper possible.

@homofascist: @rptrcub: I stand corrected.

Seriously though, did I cross into some twilight zone or something? Billion dollar ponzi schemes, Banks failing right and left, congressmen allowing millions of people to go out of work so they can destroy something as basic to fundamental liberty as the right to organize, a beloved comedy magazine under investigation for securities fraud, Al Frankin poised to take a senate seat, and to top it all off, a president so loathed abroad that people are literally throwing shoes at him.

Strange days indeed.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: I am OBSESSED with the Ponzi scheme story – my online reading about it is approaching full on addiction. And also the NYC bigwig lawyer guy who was arrested for selling fake notes, and when they looked at the books of his big ass law firm, investigators found that he had stopped making payments for malpractice and health insurance for the 250 attorneys on his staff. Oops!

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Cue the Doctor Who theme. Your TARDIS indeed has gone through a strange dimension. Sorry to geek out; I’m just having David Tennant fantasies right now….

@homofascist: So, I can has Revolution nao?

@rptrcub:
I think the Haldron Superduper Collider did indeed destroy the Universe and we’ve been thrown thru the HSC created black hole Event Horizon and into the Bizzaro-verse.

Let me know when Mr mxyplxy shows up.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: And a brilliant, accomplished young black man is elected president.

Hmmm.

@nojo: In New Zealand, they really were honesty boxes back in the day. The papers were folded and set with the lead story facing up and out, standing in a rank atop a shelf in the open air with a coin box attached. You plucked your paper and plunked your coin. It was a scandal in 1988 when it appeared people were taking the papers without paying. People were well and truly shocked!

Ponzi schemes are now in vogue. I just *knew* my time in Amway would translate to a CEO position.

For any potential employers, I will need to post two weeks notice – no need to burn any bridges amiright?

@ManchuCandidate: I think that’s Mxyzptlc, from ancient memory.

@skyeking: Oh gawd, Amway. A few lifetimes ago, I attended one of their indoctrination sessions with a friend, and it felt like a revival meeting. Everyone would stand up and tell their success stories, and everyone else would applaud.

This was about the time of the Body Snatchers remake. Comparisons were easily at hand.

@homofascist:

The Ponzi fraud scheme is especially horrifying because of all of the foundations that have been completely decimated by the fraud and that were investing their money with the guy.
And it is doubly so for the nonprofits across the country that rely upon the foundations for grants, and that have just seen promised grants for next year go poof into the air.

@nojo:
So I’m not the only one?

When I got fired from a job, one of the accountants took pity on me and brought me to an Amway meeting. Invasion of the Body Snatchers indeed. I did not sell anything because I wasn’t going to afflict my friends with the stuff if I wanted to still be their friend.

It felt like a revival meeting because it was a revival meeting. Amway is heavy into the Xtian Fundamentalism. The CEO of “Not a Pyramid Scheme but rather Network Marketing” is big fan of the Bushes and Jeebus

I also sold vacuum cleaners door to door for a whole month during the summer when I was in school-no engineering jobs for the disconnected or bad grades you know. I actually sold 3 of them, but I made about $0 when you factor out all the time, doors slammed in my face and expenses.

Awkward moments?
1) A married woman put the full court press on me in front of her husband.
2) My boss’ wife took a shine to me and started being my mentor. I think if I had sold a vacuum cleaner then she would have jumped my bones. Boss knew this and assigned his rat faced assistant to join us. Fortunately, it was my last week or it would have turned an already surreal experience even more surreal.

Breaking HARD: Fed sez “FREE MONEY!” Nobody comes running.

@SanFranLefty:
That’s why I can’t laugh too much about Maddoff.

@manchu – had a similar experience selling them. i tend to think big so i started knocking doors at local motels. had a manager on the hook for 6 of ’em then the dickheads from the office had to get involved and fucked the deal all to hell.

swore right then i’d never be involved in a sales position where i couldnt close the deal myself.

it’s served me well in my career as a network engineer. not.

@ManchuCandidate:

Please don’t laugh about it. PLEASE no schadenfreude about the collapse. It’s not just Palm Beach rich people who are getting nailed, there are others getting indirectly nailed by it.

Let’s just say it hits really close for me, and leave it at that.

And it’s not like there are a lot of jobs out there, what with two law firms here imploding in the past two months, and associates being laid off left and right (some quietly, others not so quietly).

Good thing I waited tables and tended bar for six years. Skills I can always fall back on, and frankly some of the best money I’ve ever made in my life.

@SanFranLefty: Are their reports of affected non-profits yet? This guy can’t even get people (besides his wife and brother) to sign for the bond on his bail.

@SanFranLefty: And speaking of your avatar, Nancy’s suddenly discovering her backbone:

Pelosi has told Emanuel that she wants to know when representatives of the incoming administration have any contact with her rank-and-file Democrats — and why, sources say…

Pelosi “is not going to allow Obama to triangulate her,” said a Democratic source close to the leadership. “It’s not going to happen to her.”

How nice of the Wizard to hand her Courage when it’s no longer required.

@homofascist:

The guy defrauded Elie Weisel’s charity, for Chrissake!

And Steven Spielberg’s foundation. And the JCC! And many other foundations.

@nojo:
Bitter PUMA, I would guess?

@SanFranLefty: A lot of these defunding situations are likely permanent and likely a real relief to the neocon death cult which wants to reduce America to a feudal nightmare of the ultrarich and the starving, the way things ought to be, in their minds. Progressive advocacy? Hahahaha. DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!

@chicago bureau: If the banks would stop fucking hoarding the bailout money and actually loan money to consumers and small businesses, this would have some sort of positive effect, perhaps.

@SanFranLefty:
The charities are what stopped the schadenfreude cold about this story. Most of the Palm Beachers not so much.

@rptrcub: They’re terrified that the housing valuations will drop another 30-50 percent and, at the same time, they’re slathering at the opportunities to buy up dying institutions. By 2012 they figure there will be two banks left standing, charging people $10 to write a check or $5 to look at their balances.

@SanFranLefty: The part about the foundations sucks the schadenfreude right out of the situation. Add to that the fact that Madoff’s investors were known for their philanthropy, and the thousand points of light start to go out fast. The thing I find most fascinating: He confessed to his two sons, who then had to call the Feds.

@Mistress Cynica:
Yes, I imagine the first night of Hannukah will be awfully uncomfortable this year in the Madoff household.

@FlyingChainSaw: If they’re not careful, no one will have any money to even put in a bank, as we’ll all have gone to a system where we trade clams like on the Flinstones, or tree bark, or wampum as currency instead.

@rptrcub:

Dude, I can totes out-geek you: The whole shoe affair reminds me of V: The Final Battle when Julie–heroic leader of the Resistance–rips off Commander John’s human-mask and revealed him to be the man-sized iguana that he was for the world to see. The only difference is that it wasn’t immediately followed by our Minister of Propaganda (Dana Perino) getting laser-zapped while confessing the whole thing on live teevee, though apparently she was assaulted by a terrahist microphone.

Akshally, maybe the last hellish eight years have been more like an alternate reality Doctor Who ep. Did you see last season’s excellent “Turn Left?”

Oh wow, here it is. This is what the Iraqis are living through right now. Ask and YouTube shall deliver:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GccknBnFfTk

And Jeebus, I love YouTube comments:

Man, everyone back home was so afraid of this series back then. Everyone is just afraid of tyrant lizards, especially if they came from space.

So very, very true…

@SanFranLefty: A grand jury here this week indicted a former non-profit accountant for embezzlement of $400,000 from a local educational non-profit.

@FlyingChainSaw: There is an honor box for The Santa Fe New Mexican at the east entrance of the NM state capitol building, where I started my day.

@SanFranLefty: Activate the golem (the one from Jewish myth, not the LOTR guy). The community is under threat.

@nojo: Yep. Stand up to the Democratic president. Hack.

@nojo: Mrs RML says the same thing about empty racks.

@SanFranLefty: @Mistress Cynica: One of the theories in my reading is that he told his sons so they could quickly offload some money into an untouchable, offshore account so that his family may be able to access it later.

@Mistress Cynica:

How do you start that conversation? “Uh, boys, remember the excessive lifestyle, your privileged childhoods, college educations, cars, weddings, luxury boxes, et al? All on somebody else’s dime….”

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: “I worked really, really hard to get them suckers to give me their money.”

And here’s the exact clip @ 7:30 of Preznit Boosh—er, Commander John—getting his human disguise ripped off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQTGlO0Bsug&feature=related

Egads, it’s like all these years the Bushbots have been operating off scripts derived from 1984, It Can’t Happen Here, and of course V.

@Original Andrew: Don’t forget V for Vendetta.

@rptrcub:

Hell yeah. Wish we had a US Guy Fawkes equivalent. That’s be a million march I’d wanna be part of.

And don’t forget: Everyone is just afraid of tyrant lizards, especially if they came from space.

@Original Andrew:
And their preference for eating live prey.

I guess there’s Patrick Henry of “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” fame who was quite radical in his day, but would the general public today have any idea who he is?

Patrick Henry: Mooslem commie terrahist.

@ManchuCandidate:

Cheney’s jaw fully separates so that he can devour his victims whole. It’s why we’ve never been allowed to see him feed eat.

Well, that and the fact that his victims’ horrifying screams are a real downer at fancy DC dinner parties.

@Original Andrew:
And don’t forget that radical Thomas Paine.

@rptrcub: OR the dried internal organs of bank executives, torn from their bodies on ESPN before the power fails and the rats eat throw the rubber on the power lines.

@redmanlaw: Open top? No door?

The Fed dropped its rate to 0.25% today — the lowest ever, including during the Great (but maybe not as great as this one) Depression. I think in Japan they lowered their rate to zero, and even then it took years for things to brighten up. Wookie, I have a bad feeling about this.

@Dodgerblue: We’re turning Japanese. Free money won’ fix it this time, though. Buy ammo by the pallet, rice by the ton, bury it and learn to kill without remorse because in 3-18 months, it’s cannibal anarchy, the complete dissolution of the US and the end of western civilization. Neocons are regrouping in heavily armed enclaves in S America to wait out the next 1-3 generations of permanent economic and environmental catastrophe. In 24 months, no one will care who the president is or remember why anyone could ever care. The first to go will be any communities near armed services bases as servicemen with access to advanced ordnance realize that the only things left to eat are things they can kill or things they take away from other human beings – or other human beings. After being driven insane in Iraq, it will seem almost natural to these guys to tear the head off of another human being and dig for the sweet meats. It’ll make the Omega Man look like the Sound of Music.

@FlyingChainSaw:
I’m watching Charlie Brown Christmas special right now. Granted Charlie Brown captures my pessimism, but you are harshing my mellow, dude.

@Nojo, thanks for the shout out to my (and Jamie’s) secret boyfriend Keiff Oh. I enjoyed that moment.

@FlyingChainSaw:

Nothing like a little pep talk…

Best I could get in Sock and Awe was 7. This would be more fun if the Caligutard were in a small cage and you had a nail gun, a can of gasoline and a Zippo.

@FlyingChainSaw: Open rack, 1 qt plastic bucket taped to it for paying for the paper.

Hey RML, what’s the best weapon for self-defense from crazed, hungry anarchists? I recall that the Black Panthers favored shotguns. Wouldn’t that be better for defense against a group attack than a handgun, even though you could (or could you?) fire the handgun faster?

@Dodgerblue: Flame thrower. People freak out when they smell the flesh burning, though by the time they get to you, they might not perceive anything but hunger. How close are you to Pendleton?

@Dodgerblue & FlyingChainSaw:

I was gonna go with sarcasm and biting wit, but I guess a flamethrower’ll do.

@FlyingChainSaw: Pollyanna.

@Dodgerblue: Best for all around use, from my church burning post:

“The most versatile, cost effective and useful firearm you could get? Probably a Mossberg 500 12 ga. pump action. I got one new a few weeks ago for $364, and it’s all tricked out for turkey. Durable, good value and proven in the field. The military buys a ton of them for CQB. Ammo and shotgun available at Wal-Mart.” (I got mine at Tina’s Range Gear in Santa Fe.)

Plus, you can go non-lethal with rubber buckshot or slugs like riot police use, or super lethal with a soft pointed slug or buckshot. I’ve gone hunting for birds, turkey and rabbit with my 20 ga Mossberg, and am learning to shoot clays with it, too. You could hunt deer with a 12 ga and slugs at ranges up to 100 yards.

But for in the house, get a .357 mag. revolver from Ruger or other reputable maker. I have both a GP 100 and an SP 101 (also purchased locally from an independent shop). I shoot .38s most of the time with it, which even Mrs. RML can handle. You also won’t have to worry about local gun laws regarding magazine size, capacity, etc. You can use hollow points in .38 special or .38 +P and can have some serious heat on hand, with the versatility to use .357s if you want or come across some (Note: .38 S&W is not the same as the .38 special.) You can pick up any of these models used and in good condition from a good shop.

Get the above with a .22 LR pistol like a Ruger Mark II, III or 22/45 or a Single Six revolver or a .22LR rifle like a Ruger 10/22 and you’ll have a totally cool and respectable three gun battery, todos hecho en US American, tambien.

@FlyingChainSaw: And as a bonus, your meat is already cooked!

@FlyingChainSaw: An hour and a half. I could sneak in via the San Onofre nuclear plant. Good surfing down there, btw, and the water is warm near the outflow. You can get an x-ray taken while you wait for the next set.

@redmanlaw: Thanks. I’ve never shot anything bigger than a .22, and I figured that wouldn’t stop anything unless I got real lucky.

@FlyingChainSaw:

I just made a big pot of South Texas-style chili and a side of cornbread and now I read about burning flesh? Are you trying to kill me?

/time to watch Mary Poppins on cable for 2 hours of saccharine

@Dodgerblue: Some ranges rent guns by the hour and you can see what you like, or come out for shooting, fishing, camping and drankin’

@redmanlaw: I don’t think the fourth thing on your list (drankin’) should occur with the first thing (shootin’).

Fishing and camping under the influence, OTOH, totally okay.

I forgot what an anti-feminist movie Mary Poppins is. But I still love it and know the words to all the songs. And best news of all….10 days until Sing-a-long Sound of Music at the Castro Theatre!! (Yes I am a musical freak). Bring your flashlight and dress like your favorite nun

@Dodgerblue: Certainly the yuppie range in the Seattle area, Wade’s Guns in Bellevue, rents a wide variety of handguns, although they’ve had enough suicides lately that you have to bring your own or be recommended by someone known to the staff before they’ll let you in. Kind of a catch 22, but chances are good you know someone who’ll let you borrow grandpa’s .22 single shot rifle as your entry pass.

tj/Richardson Walks Out on Grand Jury Questions

@SanFranLefty: You know I know they don’t mix. Tying flies after a few in the evening, on the other hand, is always challenging, sometimes creative.

@SanFranLefty:

that link was unintentionaly fun-nee. here’s what i want: the fiddler on the roof chess set. put tevya in check? take out golda? how fun.

http://www.dorldorjudaicainc.com/Item.asp?ID=AV_932&my_ID=373575&afid=

jew on jew crime. the new black– on black?

@SanFranLefty:

i just realized i wrote that on the wrong thread. par.

@SanFranLefty: How spicy do you usually make your chili? I usually just get a can of Hormel and douse it with Tabasco sauce instead, mainly because I’m lazy and also because all of my dishes have been packed up since late October after the Great Fumigation Thanks To Nasty Neighbors. Thank the FSM I’m moving soon.

@SanFranLefty: Fine film, expertly directed by the great Robert Wise.

Best line: “What is it, you cunt face?” Mother Abbess (played by Peggy Wood, great star of operettas in London in the 3-4s and 40s) to Maria.

Not a fan much of the show but living as we do in the age of Shrek: the Musical one can only regard with envy a time that still allowed for the expertise of R&H.

@rptrcub:
Very spicy. But no Tabasco. I’m old school – I use cumin, chili powder, black pepper, five garlic cloves, an onion, a couple tablespoons of flour, and about five or six dried chiles along with several cans of tomatoes and one can of kidney beans. I add all that and a few cans of water after cooking the ground meat in the onions and sliced garlic and put it on the stove on a low boil for an hour or so.

@baked: OMG, I love the Fiddler on the Roof chess set!

@SanFranLefty: Singalong Sound of Music, I’m jealous! The Music Box theater here does singalong movies occasionally, but the last one was Grease. Meh. MUCH prefer the prospect of belting out “You are sixteen, going on seventeen” with the gheys.

@SanFranLefty: I shovelled snow and built snowmenpeople with the kidz then we huddled with hot chocolate in our jammies in front of Charlie Brown last night. It was too late for them to stay up for Poppins, however, which is secretly my second favorite kids movie (after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). “I love to laugh, loud and long and clear!”

/returns to super-serious-cynical mode.

@flippin eck:
It is so much fun!! You should see all the gheyz dressed up as the Countess. They always have a costume contest before the show for the kids and adults in separate categories. Generally four or five little girls dressed up like Gretel, and four or five men dressed up like the Countess or Maria. And yes, the gheyz are in love with “You are sixteen, going on seventeen” – the other crowd favorite is the Mother Abbess singing “Climb every mountain” because of the line about flying your flag and being true to yourself – generally it inspires a few in the audience to wave rainbow flags. I imagine this year in the post-Prop. 8 drama we will be handed rainbow flags at the door.

@redmanlaw: Oh no, Mr. Bill!

@flippin eck: We have a Sound of Music singalong at the Hollywood Bowl (outdoors) in the summer. Hugely popular.

@flippin eck: The Music Box does do The Sound of Music from time to time. My friend Phil has the perfect Countess dress and another friend Joe gets hired to help lead the signing. Some people even go as brown paper packages (tied up with string). The gheyz can interpret that in SO many ways…

@homofascist: What the hell is Eleanor Parker wearing? And what was Edith Head thinking?

My favorite moment is watching Marnie Nixon and a bunch of nuns sainging “Maria makes me… laugh!” And then they all shriek with laughter.

Oh, and the fact that C Plummer’s pants are way tighter around the ass than is absolutely called for in the plot.

@SanFranLefty: @homofascist: @Benedick: Love it. Talk about subtext for the grown-ups that goes right over the kids’ heads. Here’s a burning question for the masses though: Is it possible to have a musical that’s not gay-friendly, or is that an inherent part of the genre? I think the fact that they all involve bursting into song and choreographed dance is probably a big factor in that regard.

@SanFranLefty: I’m seriously considering a spring trip to EssEff. Possibly spring break (grad school, m’dears, not drunken undergrad) during the second week of March. If so, I can haz Chiliz?

@baked: I think Madoff has raised jew-on-jew crime to an art form.
@SanFranLefty: They even have a TSOM singalong in OKC, at the “art house” theater. Almost all my gay friends sing in choirs (yay, Episcopal church) so the singing was fab-u-lous. For costumes, however, I preferred the Halloween showing of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with all the Audrey wannabes.

@flippin eck: I could see a faint argument being made that “The Producers” isn’t terribly gay-friendly, although it’s certainly not that unfriendly.

@rptrcub:

I only make the chili when it’s ass-cold outside, so the answer is it depends.
You had so much fun here this spring you decided to come back for more?

@Cynica:
I pray that nobody tries to dress up as Mickey Rooney in that movie.

@SanFranLefty: Perhaps. I’m still afraid about when the other Iraqi shoe is going to drop on the economy — I need to wait until the Ga. legislature goes into session to see if things are reasonably secure with my employment.

Government employees are not under contract here, not unionized and are “at-will.” Evacuation of this state, I promise, brothers and sisters, will eventually come, but not until after I get my tuition-benefitted nearly free master’s in information systems from the state, then turn around and give Gov. Perdue the finger.

@SanFranLefty:
sing along sound of music at the castro?
i am at a loss to think of anything i’d rather attend.
AWESOME.

@flippin eck:
the sailor queens from south pacific singing and dancing “there’s nothing like a dame” never fails to make me giggle.
also the macho jets and sharks leaping and pirouetting around nyc.

@rptrcub: Hormel? Dude, seriously.

@flippin eck: “Oklahoma” is manly as hell, ‘specially when Wolverine plays the lead.

@Benedick: I met Edith Head a couple of times. My Dad knew her.

@Mistress Cynica: If jew-on-jew crime didn’t have a 3500 year history, the 10 commandments wouldn’t be in the Torah.

@Dodgerblue: I got to congratulate Kirk Ellis on his Emmy for “John Adams” at a party for cutting edge Hispanic artists over the weekend.

@flippin eck: Springtime for Hitler!

IanJ, Flippin and @FlyingChainSaw:

from the producers:

Roger De Bris: [sung] The theatre’s so obsessed / With dramas so depressed / It’s hard to sell a ticket on Broadway / Shows should be more pretty / Shows should be more witty / Shows should be more…
[spoken]
Roger De Bris: What’s the word?
Leo Bloom: Gay?
Roger De Bris: Exactly!
Carmen Ghia: And so the rule is, when mounting a… play. Keep it gay, keep it gay, keep it gay.

@redmanlaw: Teh Lazy. I has it.

@flippin eck: I think you need to differentiate beteen writing and production aspects. As far as writing goes I think Berlin wasn’t all that friendly. However, is that him or his librettists? The whole city of NY was pretty gay unfriendly in the 40s and 50s when the classic shows were written. So the gay element, as it were, was usually unspoken or coded so that an audience in the know would get it. Hence the sailors in South Pacific, though that’s really us reading modern attitudes backwards into the past. The original production opened in 49, just a few years after the end of the war. So the men on a beach would have much more impact in a real sense. Now it’s mostly camp. But most R&H shows are pretty ungay in the writing, I would say.

Agnes deMille was extremely homophobic and let it be known she didn’t like to work with queers. Even though she married one. Or perhaps because. Fosse was extremely masculine and devised a whole language for men to dance in a way that wasn’t at all gay. However, put that into Chicago and it’s gay as Christmas because of the writing.

@IanJ: Mel Brooks always makes me queasy. He’s wonderful but very contemptuous of gay men. I didn’t see The Producers but again, as soon as you’ve got William Ivey Long doing the clothes you should pretty much book your float for the Pride parade.

It seems to me that the fascination with musical theatre among gay men is merely an update to the fascination with opera experienced by older generations. What’s the new fascination? Britney’s videos? Madge’s lip-synching? What’s behind it? Outsiderness? A fundamental attitude towards what is ‘feminine’? I wonder what the guys at Lurid Digs would have to say.

The movie which I think really deserves a midnight special in the Castro is Staying Alive. Quite apart from the near naked John Travolta cavorting about, oiled and glistening it is the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen about the theatre. It is so funny (in parts, it’s also very boring in others) it makes you sick from laughter. Plus there are terrible musical numbers, close-ups of Travolta’s crotch, and more camp than Liza Minelli put together.

Now I should get to work. As is obvious, I’m avoiding it while I play here.

@Benedick:
contemptuous? mel?
i always read into his mocking of gays as no different from his mocking of any and everyone else. there isn’t a group he hasn’t skewered.
he is the sacsha baron cohen of his day, with intention to expose prejudice in the best way possible. to be hilarious and smart and pissed.

btw, i worship the musical theater/plays. oh to sit by your knee in front of a fire with drinks and hear your stories……

@baked:

I’m not entirely sure about that. While I feel like Mel Brooks has a nuanced sense of humor about Jewish culture and identity, his parodies of other minorities tend to be a bit flat (and sometimes offensive) to me. The Producers was like that for me…I saw it in San Francisco in one of its’ many bus and truck productions, and was HORRIFIED by “Make It Gay”- it would simply have been a ministrel show if he had treated blacks with such broad stereotypes, so why is that ok when he does it to the gheys? I’ve worked in the theatre, and if you have to put a dress on a gay director to make him funny then you simply aren’t trying very hard.

Or maybe I’m just a dour, middle-aged queen. It could always be that.

@baked: I know that’s what they say…

It’s a date.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: “Or maybe I’m just a dour, middle-aged queen. It could always be that.” Oh no, not you…

I feel the same way. I don’t mind being ridiculed but I mind being treated with contempt. It was very much the mind-set of NYC when he was in his prime. Woody Allen is the same. Comedy and jazz were both very un gay-friendly. Comedy has evolved. I’m not sure that jazz has.

But Brooks can be brilliant. And I love to watch him acting.

@baked: @Tommmcatt Yet Again: @Benedick: For what it is worth, the gay men’s chorus I used to sing with did a kick-ass, fully staged production of ‘Keep It Gay’. In that context it was hilarious.

@SanFranLefty: Pray all you want, missy. Your FSM can’t help you now.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Is it bad that I think Blazing Saddles is one of the funniest movies ever? There’s something to offend everyone.

@Mistress Cynica:

Nah, to each their own. I love Blazing Saddles too. Political correctness stops at the bedroom door, as Kate Davy used to say.

@Mistress Cynica: “Scuse me while I whip this out!” Nearly as good as: “Where the white women at?”

@Dodgerblue:
Unicorn can still use either or both of those lines at Inauguration.

@Dodgerblue: If I were there, I’d be shouting “The President is NEAR!”
@SanFranLefty: That would be awesome.

@Mistress Cynica: Co-written by Richard Pryor.