Yeah, my brother is pretty funny

My brother posted an ad on Craigslist in which he said he was trying to reconnect with a woman whom he had seen picking her nose at an intersection. He got some good responses.

Which is funny, because it wasn't real.

I made it up - as in, I didn't see anyone doing it and wasn't on clayton road that day. I just made something up to see who'd respond. She wrote back and said "It might've been me, I've been sneezy lately. I'm not a digger, so if someone was going to town it wasn't me, but I do have a white car and I'm blonde."

I told her I'd made it up and she said she figured that but thought it was "an interesting way for a guy to pick up babes."

Real man of genius. Raise one up for my brother John. I will be laughing about this for months.

So, I've decided that I might have to come up with some possible ads myself, just to see who responds. Possibilities include:

*The woman yelling at her mullet-wearing kids in Wal-Mart
*The woman talking on her cell phone at Popeye's
*The pervert at the coffee house checking out teenagers
*The guy dancing by himself at a club
*The woman scratching her butt in the elevator
*The woman pushing a door that reads "Pull"
*The guy jerking off in the public restroom

Suggestions welcome.

And speaking of things Web-related...

Czech this out. The MacBook. Not to be confused with the Mac Lethal. Or the Bernie Mac. But on which I could download both Mac Lethal *AND* Bernie Mac. But not Mac and Mac on the same track. That would be whack.

Actually, that would be pretty cool. Almost as cool as hanging out by the cooler. And the stick.

And speaking of things Web-related, part deux...

Have the Strong Bad e-mails jumped the shark? Strong Bad is a character who has his own weekly web cartoon centered on him being a guy who answers e-mails. It's bizarre and quite hysterical. But some of the recent ones have been not so good.

That being said, Susan, Jenn and I are still having a Labor Day-bor party. This Labor Day. San Marco, Jax. Be there.

Sayeth the Jake, expert on all things Strong Bad:

"They've jumped the shark before, and then they've come back. If they come out with something not as funny, they'll manage to come back around."

And speaking of things Web-related, part trois...

Did you see Jake in the New York Times?

Of course you did. Everyone sent out e-mails. I'm proud to say I lived with him not once, but twice, and that I'm also proud to say he'll be doing some fantastic work at his new job. Kudos to Jake.

And thus ends the Web-heavy post.

"There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers;
The revolution will be live."
--Gil Scott-Heron, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

An LGBT-friendly magazine (maybe The Advocate) published an op-ed piece last year saying that the current gay rights movement can't be compared to the civil rights movement in the 1960s because being gay and being black aren't the same thing. There weren't laws saying that gays couldn't drink from straight drinking fountains. I can't think of any other differences they mentioned.

I've tried to Google the piece in the hopes of putting an excerpt up here, but I can't find the piece. What I have found, though, is an overwhelming number of articles that do compare the two movements. I don't find this surprising, and it's not rocket science. I've heard a lot of people make the comparisons, and, well, a good chunk of my stand-up routine was based on the "gays and blacks in the same boat" motif.

We have learned so much from the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Two of the most publicized deaths in the last year were of civil rights pioneers. Coretta Scott King worked with her husband to preach change and Rosa Parks, well, she just didn't want to give in to a stupid law.

Will modern gay rights crusaders get the same sort of recognition when they die?

Only if their work amounts to anything.

And I think it will. Just as the civil rights movement was aided by the eventual death of its staunch opponents and the steadfast efforts of the activists, I think same sex marriage will be aided by the eventual death of its opponents. Chances are that our parents are more liberal than their parents were and that our kids will be even more liberal than we are. Fred Phelps will eventually die and I'm sure there will still be people who think "God Hates Fags," but I have hope, too. My sister says that it shocks her how much has changed since she was a student. Kids then would never come out. Coming out is never going to be "fun," but it's certainly not as shun-worthy as it once was.

I'm looking forward to the day when same sex marriage is legalized. When the religious hypocrites realize that gays, bis and lesbians are not the enemy they should be pursuing. When the Santorums, the Dubyas, the Blunts and the Phelpses are spinning in their graves because the homos, dykes and bis are finally getting married. Like normal people.

To get there, though, we can't cower in the corner and do nothing. We can't be like PETA and be in everyone's face, either. We must call people on their insensitivity and point out that sexual orientation is not a gimmick that the networks (or John Kerry) can exploit to look open-minded. Being open-minded means being open to viewpoints other than your own. You don't have to believe what others say, but you have to at least listen. And I'm mainly speaking to liberals who shut out "conservatives."

Because if we (gay, straight, bi, lesbians, heteroflexibles, bored college chicks, whomever) who identify as "blue" voters only buy the line that being gay is genetic and that everyone who disagrees needs to be shot, we will lose even more states to same sex marriage bans. We have to listen and show that people sensitive to gay rights issues are not just dykes who like Tori and the Indigo Girls and vapid faggots who suck cock in between Ecstasy pills and Madonna songs. I identify as bi/H.F., for those of you keeping score at home, by the way.

All this being said, listening to alternative points of view does not mean backing down, per se. It just means not acting like some reactionary fuck who decries Bush and corporate America just because some actor went on MTV and said it was cool to do so.

But Bush and Kerry spinning in their graves because the boy-kissers won? That's OK.

"[When] we put ourselves out there, we show people that we are gay and we're not going to hurt you. We live, we love, we have children, we get married. We are people. I love being a gay person — a lesbian in 2006."
Melissa Etheridge at the GLAAD Awards

"He met this girl in a bar and they went home and ya know... several times... Had a great time. A week or two later, he's in a bar and sees a hot chick with only one arm, and it turns out that it's the same one he had gone home with the week before. He'd been so drunk he hadn't noticed."

Which led the teller of that story to ask me:

Would you rather have sex with someone with no arms or with someone with no legs?

The possibilities are endless. Unlike the stumps.

WBBP post #302

The Do-Not-Date List

The ladies of JAX (two of them, that is) have started a list of characteristics a guy can and cannot have in order for him to be date-worthy. Some of them are best on general pet peeves, some are based on bad dates from, oh, five days ago. This is not the exact recreation of the list, and you may feel free to add to this list. I did.

A guy/girl who is date-worthy cannot be...

*A non-gradual kisser (only if he's a guy dating a girl)
*An "R U" e-mail/IM typer
*Married
*Married with a kid
*21 years old
*A giver of gifts at every single date
*An "I don't know what to do, what do you want to do"-er
*A non-drinker-at-all-er (who doesn't know why he doesn't drink)
*A guy with an army haircut
*A four-times-a-day caller
*A no-times-a-week caller
*Gay (again, only if it's a guy dating a girl)
*Homo- or bi-phobic
*A "What are you thinking?"-er
*A war criminal
*On fire
*Hacked up to pieces
*Dead

As you can see, the ladies and I just only recently got to work on this list. But I present it to you, my three readers, as an open document, one you can add to as much as you'd like.

What else should we put on this list?