At last! The quartet is complete again.

While these four men lived to varying degrees as ridiculous gay stereotypes on stage, TV and screen--at least from today's perspectives--they still managed to carve out their unique and rather successful niches in an industry and a world that frankly hated gay people. I was at once fascinated and amused and sometimes horrified by what they seemed to represent when I was a kid--but Paul Lynde played Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and my middle name is Arthur and I felt a kinship with him that I couldn't easily articulate in my early teens and that was all enough to make us soul brothers as far as I was concerned. These four made me feel less alone in the late 1970s and early 1980s as I figured out I was gay and what gay meant in the larger world. I know some of them lived tortured personal lives because of their homosexuality, but I thank them for what they gave me and I hope they're finally at peace ... and unapologetically gayin' it up together again wherever they are.

Accouterments of patriotism

Seems legit

I assume he had a separate team of caftan wranglers though; those things are a bitch to fold.

Wasn't he the host of The Dating Qame?

Plus NOT QUILTY sounds vaguely homophobic. I find this to be totally rude.

Tossed salad and scrambled eggs indeed

Nine years ago tonight after seeing Sondheim on Sondheim at Studio 54 (where I just saw an appallingly lackluster Kiss Me, Kate tonight), I found myself seated at a table next to Kelsey Grammar at an après-Sondheim dinner at noted celebrity-sighting restaurant Joe Allen. I’d heard Kelsey was kind of a dick, but he demonstrated on no uncertain terms how he’d earned that reputation when also-celebrities Tony Shalhoub and Kathy Baker made an appearance at the other end of the restaurant. Kelsey jumped up from his table and pushed his way toward the two of them while yelling their names and knocking my coat off the back of my chair as he stumbled by. He stopped in his tracks, looked back at my coat on the floor, did some quick cost-benefit calculations, decided taking two seconds to pick it up wasn’t worth the effort, shrugged, and continued on his quest to meet up with his socially valuable celebrity friends.

Dick.

Wating in line. Being on TV.

I often write little notes to both friends and total strangers on Instagram when I have something (hopefully) interesting to say ...

all with no expectation that they’ll ever write me back, which is good because they never do. EXCEPT I SENT A NOTE TO DREAMY BROADWAY STAR JASON DANIELEY TODAY TO CONGRATULATE HIM ON A HALF-MARATHON PR AND HE JUST RESPONDED AND BASICALLY I JUST TALKED SHOP WITH JASON DANIELEY ABOUT RUNNING THE NEW YORK MARATHON AND HOLY SHIT SOMEONE FETCH ME MY SMELLING SALTS AND HEART MEDICATION.

Throwing cheese at baby rapers

R. Kelly first appeared on my radar in the early 2000s as the world was first finding out about his proclivity for videotaping himself having sex with--and peeing on--young girls. I belonged to Crunch Gym in the basement of my Chicago office building at Grand and State (coincidentally across the street from the back entrance to Nordstrom). The Crunch chain of gyms was relatively new and extremely trendy and often populated with celebrities, and R. Kelly and his posse worked out at my Crunch location every day at the same time I did: noon. And by "worked out" I mean "showed up, sat around doing nothing on all the benches in the locker room, sat around doing nothing on all the equipment in the gym, mumbled things to each other that constantly ended with 'You know what I'm sayin'?' and generally pissed (ahem) off everyone at the gym."

But there's more!

The gym was in the basement of the building, spread out below a tiny lobby facing the sidewalk. The neighborhood was the newly booming River North, just (as you might imagine) north of the river and just west of the Mag Mile, which is the high-end-retail section of North Michigan Avenue. Street parking was restricted and very rare. But R. Kelly was above the laws of street parking, and he parked his massive Hummer on the street right in front of the lobby door ... and he parked one poor schmuck from his posse in the lonely little lobby presumably to keep an eye on the Hummer and fend off anyone who might stop to ticket or tow it as R. and the rest of his posse "worked out" in the basement below.

So let's review all the reasons from this story alone that R. Kelly is an entitled piece of shit: Having sex with little girls. Peeing on little girls. Videotaping it. Spreading out all over the gym and preventing people from working out on their lunch hours. Parking his Hummer on a street with no parking. Owning a Hummer. Making one of his posse sit and watch the Hummer to potentially bribe any authorities who might ticket or tow it.

Oh yeah: And everyone who witnessed all of this universally agreed that his Hummer was literally the color of ... wait for it ... pee.

I had a dream last night

that I was giving some sort of symposium on some sort of public policy and I noticed that Taylor Swift was sitting in the second row of the audience next to a woman I was pretty sure was Kathy Griffin but I wasn’t really sure and I didn’t want to ask and look stupid because of course I should know who Kathy Griffin is and it was weird that I knew who Taylor Swift was because I really know very little about her but anyway I got to a part in my presentation where I discussed people who are polarizing and I decided for some reason that I had no choice but to use Taylor Swift as an example so I called her out on being a polarizing public figure even though as I said I barely know anything about her but I couldn’t call out the woman who may or may not have been Kathy Griffin as a polarizing figure because again I wasn’t entirely sure the woman was indeed Kathy Griffin and again I didn’t want to look stupid even though Kathy Griffin is very much a polarizing figure and she would have been a much better example to call out and the look on Taylor Swift’s face when I called her out as being a polarizing figure was a mix of unwelcome shock and uncomfortable embarrassment and I kept saying she was a polarizing figure anyway and I don’t remember how the dream ended but here’s a picture of Bitch Kitty in a box:

#TotallyCrushing

And not just because of that super-cool jacket.

My blood starts pumpin'

I hate to brag, but eight years ago when I saw the 9 to 5 Broadway tour in Chicago, not only did Dolly Parton walk right by me in the lobby, but it was her birthday and I *personally* (well, along with 1,799 dear friends) sang “Happy Birthday” to her.

RIP, Miss Channing

I’m wearing my natty bow tie to the Kristin Chenoweth concert tonight because that’s how to make the evening extra-gay

I’m wearing my new Scream socks because my sister got them for me for Christmas and not because I’m hoping that’s the way Kristin will be singing.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody except Christina

I’m in my start corral!

We provide our estimated finishing times when we register for the race, which groups us with similar-paced runners into lettered starting corrals. The corrals for this race are lettered A through H for Afastest to Hslowest. I’m F for Fnoteveninthetophalf:

I haven’t heard a total runner number, but the group in front of me just in my starting corral is ENORMOUS:

Cool surprise: Jeff Galloway is on the stage chatting with the pre-race announcers as I type this. His Galloway Training Method propelled me through all four AIDS Marathons I ran in Chicago. And they introduced him by saying he’s run all 25 Disney marathons. Plus they just introduced some people who’ve run 100+ Disney races. The vibe here is SO COOL.

Except ... it just started raining. We have our work cut out for us.

The starting-line fireworks are in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

If this doesn't make you laugh involuntarily, you are roadkill to me

OMG

It took me five thinks and one sayoutloud to finally get this terrible-but-timely pun

There's laughter calling for you if you figure it out ...

Don't invite us to all your tedious A-list New Year's Eve parties again this year

because we're already booked to spend New Year's Eve DANCING THROUGH LIFE WITH KRISTIN CHENOWETH AT HANCHER! 

I made a meme!