Remember when republicans were all about individual "states' rights" when they wanted to control the denial of gay marriages?

They seem to have conveniently abandoned that philosophy now that they want to control the denial of personal autonomy.

Things I’ve accomplished today:

• Had my first formal voice lesson in 30 years, and already determined some bad habits I can start working on unlearning
• Went to Target and bought only what was on my list
• Did my first leg workout since I started running last spring ... and freaking KILLED my legs without sacrificing proper form
• Accepted a very romantic marriage proposal from one of my 934 freakishly hunky gym crushes as all the rest of the guys in the gym struggled to mask their jealousy through forced smiles and wan applause*
• Attended a Full Monty line bash where I remembered more of my lines than I’d expected
• Sat down and actually played the piano for the first time in months as an overture (for lack of a less obvious metaphor) to my New Year’s resolution to practice with specific regularity
• Made it to my 11th day without having Diet Coke
• Wrote a blog post that doesn’t use the word “boobies”
• Oops
• Didn’t kill anyone intentionally
• Did some laundry without expecting a gold star on my chores chart
• Boobies
• Oops again

* This one is a total fucking lie

Backstage at My Fair Lady!

So each week our costumes get washed and pressed and hung in our dressing areas—except our socks, which get paired and balled and put in this Communal Bin Of Delightful-Smelling Clean Socks for us to dig through every Clean Sock Day to find the delightful-smelling clean socks that are best psychographically matched to our individual characters.

I usually get here early on Clean Sock Day—as I did tonight—which affords me early pickin’s from the Communal Bin Of Delightful-Smelling Clean Socks—which I, to my present horror, totally forgot to do tonight. Because there were free tacos in the green room. SO CAN YOU BLAME ME?

FREE. TACOS.

Anyway, I didn’t even think about visiting the Communal Bin Of Delightful-Smelling Clean Socks tonight until I was tending to my foot apparel 15 minutes before our curtain. And to my eternally scarring horror, ALL THAT WERE LEFT IN THE BIN WERE SHEER-ISH, LIGHTWEIGHT, NOT-UN-PANTYHOSE-LIKE, DISTURBINGLY BREEZY LADY SOCKS.

LA. DY. SOCKS. SSSSSSSSSS. S.

So I’ve been condemned to try being SHIT-KICKIN’ MACHO as I gavotted through my deliciously florid musical all night when I secretly feel SILKY AND SEXY in my FEET and ANKLES and CALVES and did I mention ANKLES and OH MY GOD I’M FEELING SO DELICIOUSLY SAUCY RIGHT NOW DRAW ME LIKE YOUR FRENCH GIRLS DRAW ME DRAW ME DRAW ME!

Plus wispy socks = slip-slidin’ in my shoes. WHICH IS WEIRD AND DISCONCERTING.

AND DELICIOUSLY SAUCY.

Plus—PLUS!—once you and your character psychographically match yourselves to a pair of delightful-smelling clean socks from the Communal Bin Of Delightful-Smelling Clean Socks, YOU’RE STUCK WITH THOSE SOCKS UNTIL THE NEXT CLEAN SOCK DAY.

And since this is our final weekend of My Fair Lady, MY NEXT CLEAN SOCK DAY WON’T HAPPEN UNTIL ELF THE MUSICAL OPENS IN NOVEMBER.

NO. VEM. BER. SSSSSSSSS. S.

* * * * *

HORRIFYING ADDENDUM: I just accidentally caught the bouquet at the end of “I’m Getting Married in the Morning.” Though it’s always a toss-up (ahem) regarding who catches it onstage, it’s never been launched anywhere NEAR my general direction before. It’s like there was some mysterious force drawing it to me like a magnet. A SHEER-ISH, LIGHTWEIGHT, NOT-UN-PANTYHOSE-LIKE, DISTURBINGLY BREEZY MAGNET.

I am now and forever cursed with silken deliciousness. Which I guess might come in handy since my bouquet and I are getting married next.

P.S. Framing this as some kind of epic promise/fulfillment accomplishment makes you look as incapable as he is, shitwad

What the hell do gay people have to be proud of?

On this, the Gay High Holidays of the Tony Awards, I offer again my annual explanation and celebration of what gay pride means from my own journey and my own experience and my own big-ol’-proud-gay-man perspective:

We’re proud because despite relentless persecution everywhere we turn—when organized religion viciously attacks and censures and vilifies us in the name of selective morality, when our families disown us, when our elected officials bargain away our equality for hate votes they try to disguise as so-called “religious liberty,” when communities and cities and entire states codify our families into second-class citizenship, when small-importance bakers with the backing of the big-money hate industry take their unhinged loathing of us all the way to the Supreme Court, when our employers fire us, when our landlords evict us, when our police harass us, when our neighbors and colleagues and fellow citizens openly insult and condemn and mock and berate and even beat and kill us—we continue to survive.

We’re proud because pride is the opposite of shame—and despite what systemic bigotry and the ugliest sides of organized religion work so hard to make the world believe, there is nothing shameful about being gay. We’re proud because—thanks to the incredible bravery shown by gay people who lived their lives openly sometimes to the point of being defiantly in the decades before us—we can live our lives more and more openly at home, at work, with our families, on social media … and even on national television.

We're proud because we've worked tirelessly to achieve legal equality in marriage, adoption, parental rights and many other ways that make our families recognized as Families in our states and across our country. And though we have much more to accomplish—and though bigotry disguised as morality and religion and the supposed mandates of constituents work and sometimes succeed at eroding our newfound equalities—we have the momentum and intelligence and drive and humanity and ability to keep driving back the hate as we continue to drive forward with both our newfound and future equalities.

We’re proud because through our tireless work and the prevailing powers of common sense and compassion, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Proposition Hate and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act have collapsed in on their illogical, immoral, meritless foundations—and new legislative attempts to dehumanize us gain little to no traction or visibility and soon die on the trash heap as well.

We’re proud because we are smart enough to overcome the self-loathing that our venomous, mindlessly theocratic society forces on us, and we have the power to stop its destructive cycle by fighting back and by making intelligent choices involving sex and drugs and money and relationships and the way we live our lives—and by using our lives as examples of success and humanity and love that other gay people can see and respect and emulate and achieve more and more easily.

We’re proud because after all we’ve been through, the world increasingly continues to notice and respect us and enthusiastically appropriate the often fabulous culture we’ve assembled from the common struggles and glorious diversity of our disparate lives.

We’re proud because more and more often and in more and more contexts our country and our culture see the fact that we’re gay as frankly boring.

We’re proud because especially this month and always all year we’re celebrating with parties and street fairs and parades overflowing with drag queens, leather queens, muscle queens, dad-bod queens, glitter queens, you’d-never-even-know-they-were-queens queens and even straight-but-honorary-queens-for-a-day queens, and together we can see beyond the pride in the parades of our lives and together celebrate the underlying Pride in the parades of our lives.

Quite simply, we’re proud that we have so incredibly much to be proud of.

Guess which two people in this horror movie just filed for divorce

Gah!

I just accidentally saw clips of The Bachelor’s totally-real-not-at-all-manufactured-seeds-of-a-healthy-straight-white-people-only-marriage-scandal-SCANDAL-SCANDAL! finale.

Now I’m afraid I’m going to catch stupid. Or heterosexual. Or droopy St. Bernard face.

What are my favorite things, everyone? Let's all say them together now:

1. Newsies
2. "Shut Up and Dance with Me"
3. The cute guys in Newsies
4. The cute guys in Newsies who can tap
5. The cute guys in Newsies who tap while the other cute guys in Newsies sing "Shut Up and Dance with Me"
6. Lists
7. The tapper in the brown shirt
8. The singer in the white shirt
9. Marriage proposals from any of the tappers and singers in Newsies
10. Making a list that stops at an even 10
11. Oops

#GymTales: Pipes And Tats Edition

There’s a guy at my gym who looks like this photo except he doesn’t totally look like this photo because he has a head and one of those ridiculous disgusting long Millennial goatherder beards but anyway he has massive pipes that are covered in tattoos which is total catnip to me but he always wears a hat and earphones and stares at the floor which are all international gymbro code for leave me alone so I always leave him alone because I’m a total gymbro but I still totally want to be his boyfriend just so I don’t have to be secretly subversive about using the mirrors to stare at his arms when he walks by me staring intently at the floor as if he’s fascinated by a sprinting ant or something but since I clearly will never be his it’s-not-creepy-to-stare-at-his-arms boyfriend I’ve always been at least hoping to get one of those imperceptible gymbro nods from him where your eyes accidentally meet so you do that a tiny spasm in the back of your neck that lifts your face one degree as if to say hey gymbro I acknowledge your existence gymbro and I guess I don’t totally secretly want you to die gymbro so here’s a perfunctory hey gymbro and now get the hell out of my way and never lock eyes with me again gymbro but my muscle tattoo pipes gymbro dude here never even gives me that polite gymbro courtesy so I assume I’m totally invisible to him so anyway I was minding my own beeswax doing deadlifts today while he was doing chest things halfway across the room and I was on my fifth rep when I heard someone shout hey from his general area and it had to be him because the only other person in the gym was a woman who clearly had done her hair up fancy and nice just to get it all sweaty on the treadmill which isn’t my problem but seriously what’s the point of going to all that trouble to fix your hair up nice in the morning only to ruin it a few hours later in a deluge of head sweat but like I said not my problem and anyway that big bellowing manly hey clearly wasn’t from her so oh my god my muscle tattoo pipes gymbro dude not only noticed me but he was actually heying me which made me panic and do a quick mental inventory of how my butt and lats might look in the gym clothes I was wearing because that was the view he had and if I had on my especially cool gymbro shoes which I did so thank goodness for that small miracle but anyway he was actually heying me and play it cool Jake play it cool because he probably wants a date so don’t look too eager or excited and even though it was technically rude and distracting and uncool and even kind of dangerous to hey me in the middle of a set of deadlifts he gets a pass because I mean just look at him and then he said hey again and I knew here comes the marriage proposal because he’s totally impressed with my butt and my lats and my especially cool gymbro shoes and my form which is especially hard to maintain when you’re doing deadlifts and he clearly thinks I’m a rockstar at it and play it cool Jake play it cool because at this point he’s all yours and there’s no way he’ll ever say anything bad or critical about you and here comes the marriage proposal here it comes here it comes but instead he yells pull your shoulders back you’re gonna hurt yourself in a voice that had the subtext of you’re a stupid idiot and stop it with your stupid idiotness and that’s pretty much the opposite of a marriage proposal and even though technically this meant he’d noticed me I was crushed and well shit.

Proposed taglines for trump.dating

StrKKKts only!
Taking sheep breeding to the next level!
Swipe Reich!
Take a break from inbreeding!
Have sex for less than $130 million!
Three-wife limit!
Where “happily married people” count as “local singles”!
Date local married singles!
Grab him by the bone spur!
Red hats, white sheets and who cares if you’re already married?
A new way to fuck the whole country!
Where it doesn’t matter how small your hands are!
I do-tard!
Where shitholes meet!

#RelationshipGoals

More pathological Republican moral hypocrisy

Read about the piece of shit here ... if you even need to

I'm not even going to read this article or google this subhuman filth to check my facts before I state with absolute certainty that this abortion-demanding adulterer has repeatedly barked out his allegiance to the following tiredly predictable, ultimately meaningless party-line positions designed to inflame the passions of his ignorant, uneducated voter base:
* pro-family
* pro-marriage
* pro-sanctity-of-marriage
* pro-"religious liberty" (which we all know is pathetically lazy code for "we hate the gays")
* pro-life (yet pro-assault-weapon)
* pro-ten-commandments
* anti-abortion
* pro-"this is a personal matter, don't ask me any questions, show some respect for my family and personal life"

Whatever your name is, you interchangeable republican moral hypocrite, I hate you. I hope today's comprehensively unsurprising revelations cause you and everyone you love ten times the staggering, crushing pain that you and your words and your votes and your sociopolitical influence have inflicted on every gay person and every terrified pregnant woman and every victim of gun violence in this country.

Hindsight ...

#GoldDigger
#FLOTUS in name only
#FailureRunsInTheFamily
#HowsYourTirelessCrusadeToEndCyberbullyingComingAlong?

#dotards

Republicans made Kim Davis a hero for voicing her beliefs at work, and because they agreed with those beliefs they pushed or dragged (or both) her into making them into a political statement. 

Now they're whining and cursing filling their diapers because other people are voicing their beliefs at work and making them into a political statement -- and THESE beliefs are ones that Republicans disagree with so hatefully that they're deliberately misinterpreting them into a narrative that other infantile Republicans can rally behind.

I hate Republicans.

Today in Anti-Gay "Christian" "Pro-Marriage" Republicans Who Inevitably Commit Adultery:

Just killed a man

DAMNIT! I finally learn how to pronounce Reince and his career is suddenly over faster than a trump marriage. Or a Scaramucci marriage. *THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING!*

Speaking of having an off week, ol' self-fellatin' Scaramucci also carelessly let everyone on Twitter know today that he follows gay porn stars -- which I'm sure has NOTHING to do with his wife filing to divorce him -- so as soon as I learn how to pronounce HIS name, maybe I could do some of that sweet-talkin' we all know he likes and he and I could do the fandango.

YOU are disturbing

Technically, that photo is neither a mother nor a wife nor a human being. Grammar! And technically, you appear to be a wife in name only. You chose to marry him, you chose to have a child with him, you had over a year of an ugly campaign to understand exactly the level of scrutiny and expectation you'd face if you became his first lady -- which now makes you fair game for all that scrutiny -- and now you have chosen to very publicly not live with your husband-in-name-only at tremendous expense to the public. I agree with you that the photo is disturbing, but don't insult us by playing the wife card in your feigned indignance. And if you're so desperate to hide in your gilded tower out of the public eye, then stop making pointless tweets and giving perfunctory interviews to the media your husband-in-name-only so vehemently attacks. I don't respect you, I don't feel sorry for you and I don't have any interest in the tone-deaf meaninglessness you bring to the public discourse.

Six marriages. Under God.

Learn how to send a whore to the Vatican here

Thrice (so far!)-married serial-adulterer Donald Trump, who just yesterday bellowed "In America we don’t worship government, we worship God!" to thunderous, effusive cheering at his commencement address at Jerry Falwell Jr.'s "faith-based" Liberty University and who today played golf instead of spending Mother's Day with any of the three mothers of his five known children, is appointing the one-time mistress and now third (so far!) wife of fellow serial-adulterer Newt Gingrich as the United States ambassador to the "faith-based" Vatican.

There are more faith-based family values on the bottom of my shoe than in the entirety of that last sentence.

The great mothers indeed

Our puerile, inarticulate man-boy president is so beneath contempt that he thinks this meaningless garbage tweet brings value to the country, to "the great mothers out there," to the sentiment of the holiday and/or to his third marriage. 

Judging by the comments on his tweet, his base is so beneath contempt that it agrees with him.

Things the president has said or done that are praiseworthy

As requested by The New York Times:

• He knows more about ISIS than the generals do.
• He could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn't lose any voters.
• He's so good at leadership and deal-making that he almost brought his entire majority party together to pass a piece of legislation that didn't involve an executive order.
• He could have prevented the Civil War if Andrew Jackson would have just trusted those deal-making skills.
• He bombed Syria. Or Iraq. Whatever.
• He traveled through time to the year 3010, fought the evil robot kings and saved the human race again.
• He's fathered the eminent scientist and knockoff shoe designer Ivanka Trump, who as we speak is packing her vast, unbiased scientific knowledge into a genuine alligator clutch with a logo-jacquard lining and a pearl-inlay pinch clasp trimmed in signature rose gold to meet with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to review the United States’ commitment to the Paris Climate Change agreement.
• Speaking of the eminent scientist and knockoff shoe designer Ivanka Trump, he's so open-minded that he let a Jew into his family. Still no word on his approval of the blacks, though.
• Speaking of eminent, he's an eminent (as all Trumps are) scholar of religion who's learned enough to pronounce it "Two Corinthians."
• He ushered in an exciting new hairstyle that put an end to the man-bun.
• He saved himself money by having all his pro-American-jobs campaign hats made in China.
• He saved the whole country money by golfing in New Jersey instead of New York last weekend.
• He somehow made Kellyanne Conway go away.
• Speaking of disappearing women, has anyone seen our First Lady? Has anyone seen ANY praiseworthy evidence of Trump's third marriage?
• Speaking of Trump's marriages, he generously pays his used wives so much money that they never need to talk to anyone about their relationships with and insights into him, the president of the entire United States.
• He can probably name all of his wives and children. In order.
• He opened a state-of-the-art Holocaust center.
• He gave an entire generation of parents the opportunity to explain to their young children what a pussy is.