I’ve decided to forgo Christmas this year. With my home remodel stalled in a Kafka-like legal snag, many good friends out of town, several family members in jail and a boyfriend who’s a former, no-holiday-celebrating Jehovah’s Witness, it felt futile to try and fire up my festive fires.

The upside of Scrooging? I’d save money on gifting.

Hardly. Several days in the city to run errands last week and I was shopping like a meth-fueled Ivana Trump.

But shopping for myself.

Here then is my list of highly recommended items to give yourself for Christmas this year. Because to love yourself is — indeed — the greatest love of all.
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Like many of you I was giddy and dizzy and buzzing and floating on air last night. But I’d approached the evening with lots of trepidation. Minimizing hope until it started to resemble a form of Delusion-Lite. Who could blame me?

After Bush was elected (we think) in 2004 I spiraled into a horrid three-week depression. I was waylaid so hard it actually surprised me. I hadn’t realized I’d cared that much about politics.

In retrospect I can see I was freaked-out after realizing how I’d been used, like millions of other gay men and women, as a spook show prop to rustle fat-assed scolds and Bible-quoting dimwits into the voting booths to protect the sanctity of marriage.

Voting for Bush while they were at it.

The same Christers had also voted for nutcases like Rick “man-on-dog” Santorum (above with family and the creepiest weeping child on earth, during his concession speech after losing his Senate seat). A politician who also secured his job (and dream of running for President one day) by blathering on about queers and Jesus and the notion that the right to privacy doesn’t exist in the United States Constitution. (more…)

But enough about you…let’s talk about us.

It’s official! Nightcharm is a cultural phenomenon. How do we know? Well, we’ve just been on Oprah.

I was munching a burrito and channel surfing when the face of a tear-streaked blonde brought me to a complete standstill. The woman was talking about the shock — the disorienting shock — of finding out that her marriage had been a sham.

A wail went up from the audience. The camera dove into the crowd and settled on an gaggle of housewives, all misting up and getting ready to blow.

I settled back into the couch with delight! Yep, I had stepped into the middle of a big ole Oprah Cry Fest.

The remote dropped from my hand and I hunkered deep into the couch, as rapt as a cat.

Just then the show broke for a commercial and the title of the episode came up — It was then that I knew I would be there for the entire fucking hour:

My Husband Is Gay!

I counted the minutes as the feminine hygiene commercial ran its course in a burst of animated daisies and butterflies. Then the episode resumed. The gay husband was speaking. No more than four words were out of his mouth when his image faded into one of those famous Oprah reenactment montages. There he was, banging away at a computer keyboard, hungrily searching the monitor for — something. (more…)

The 70s were dying. But from the ashes of disco and its druggy debacuh rose, like a phoenix, a fabulous television show called Solid Gold. And the 80s were born.

The show beamed into homes like a stealthy Trojan Horse, full of twitchy-bitchy sexuality, along with studly helpings of man-ass wiggling for the camera.

It was genius! And the surprise of it all was that neither Aaron Spelling nor Allan Carr had anything to do with this primetime hit: The show ran for nine years!

Solid Gold gave birth to a phenomena we now call Porn Creep — in which pornographic titillation is sneaked into the living room in such small, incremental ways that everyone gets a glow-on and grandma doesn’t have a heart attack.

Grannies and kids loved Solid Gold. Aerobic enthusiasts, invalids, gays — and particularly straight guys. Suddenly everyone could watch together unapologetically without a twinge of anxiety. Pupils dilated with the joy of near-nude gyrations and grindings — week after week, hit after hit. (more…)

Televangelism is nothing without its prophets. And on Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world’s largest evangelical TV conglomerate, it has something more than a prophet, it has a S*T*A*R:

The Cher of God TV, the pink-haired Lady of Galilee – Jan Crouch.

I’ll admit I make repeated pilgrimages to TBN, usually late at night when I’m frustrated with all the infomercials and text-messaging hookup ads. I tune in and fall under Jan’s dizzy, drunken spell.

Jan’s garish image is kaleidoscopic, never the same woman twice. There she is dressed in cotillion white while ministering to the drug-addled Born Agains in Houston. Jump Cut: There she is a disheveled, frighteningly sleep-deprived Jan cuddling black children in the slums of Haiti. Jump Cut: Back to the bright lit Rococo TBN studios where Jan sits on her throne chair and shares tales of how Jesus touched her life personally: He once raised her pet chicken from the dead. Someone in the audience cries “Praise the Lord!” (more…)

As Henry James once noted: “Summer afternoon. Summer afternoon … the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

‘Tis true: Time and light elongate, clothing slides off, the air gets lazy, breezy — and so do I.

Here are four discs guaranteed to provide the perfect soundtrack for an unwound summer. Two are new, while the others I’ve pulled from storage because summer just wouldn’t be summer without them. (more…)

Considering whether I would watch last night’s American Idol showdown reminded me of one of Samuel Goldwyn’s classic malapropisms: “You’ve got to take the bitter with the sour.”

Preferring to do neither, the boyfriend and I skipped the battle of the dullards. We will, however, TIVO tonight’s finale because Elliott Yamin is scheduled to perform with the new Queen of Soul, Mary J. Blige — Fuckin’ A, E!

Yesterday my bitter mood regarding Elliott’s ouster finally lifted. I got sane and started to rethink things — to reevaluate the play of the Fates. Soon a lot of silver linings began to sparkle through the cloud cover, and I began to feel that my boy pulled off the best of all possible outcomes for himself. He matured as a man, deepened as a vocalist, earned a gigantic fan base, and, by placing third, escaped the clutches of the vampiric Clive Davis and the draconian contract from American Idol’s 19 Management. All of that made me happy. Which made me reflect on all of the qualities I came to appreciate about Elliott Yamin throughout the competition.

Here then are 10 Reasons Why I Love Elliott Yamin and why I’ll remember him long after this season of Idol fades to blah. (more…)

Of course I’m making reference to the small patch of land that became infamous following JFK’s assassination in 1963. It has been speculated that extra gunshots were fired — in synch with Lee Harvey Oswald’s — from the bushes of the knoll, doubly insuring the president’s demise. In a similar conspiratorial spirit I offer you my observations about last night’s big Idol sing-off and why hidden forces worked extra hard to guarantee that Elliott Yamin would not be back for his well-deserved Kodak Theater moment.

It’s a freaky coincidence how the first singer to begin each year’s Final Three show is the Idollette voted off the following evening. This mystery has proven true since Idol debuted four years ago. Elliott, of course, went first last night.

The AI band, lovingly referred to by detractors as Bandzilla, was set on stun and destroy whenever Elliott took the stage. The effect was like watching a small boat negotiate gigantic waves and treacherous tides on its journey home. To stay the course Elliott had to push his voice hard and then compensate for the extra effort by losing some of his natural flair. Even with the extra contorting, he never wavered — despite the higher key he used to churn out the cheese during Count Chocula’s pick for him: Journey’s Open Arms. (more…)