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I was raised Catholic and grew up in your traditional Catholic household. Church every weekend and on Holy Days, no meat on Fridays during lent, and confession for my sins on a regular basis. By the time I was a teenager, I’d become rebellious and enjoyed pushing the limits of my religious confinements… as many young Catholics do. I went through many struggles with my religious identity, which continued into my adulthood. Today, at age 26, I consider myself a “forward thinking Catholic”. I’ve denounced the strict beliefs of the church, but embraced my own personal beliefs of compassion and love that I believe to be truly “spiritual”. I never go to the services, not even with my family on holidays. It’s just too difficult. But recently my Mom was in town, without my Dad. She usually goes to church with him, but this time I was the transportation and I took her to the church to drop her off. I had my Nintendo DS Lite with me, and planned to play a game in the parking lot while I waited for her. It was no problem at all, I didn’t mind waiting. But she gave me that hurt expression that Mom’s are so good at. “You don’t want to come in?” she asked. “No, thanks. You know how I feel. But I’ll be fine. You go ahead and I’ll be here when you get out,” I said cheerfully. “Oh, okay,” she said, hanging her head low and getting out of the car. Arghhh! No matter how old I get, my Mom knows how to get my soft spot every time. I slammed my Nintendo shut and walked cautiously inside. When she saw me, her face lit up with a smile. It was a nice service with Mom, I enjoyed it. A few weeks later, I felt sentimental and decided to go to church alone. I had such a nice time with Mom, I thought maybe I would enjoy it by myself. I walked in, and everything felt different. I was a gay man and everything around me felt so “straight”. I felt un-welcome, like everyone knew and didn’t want me there. It was my imagination, I know it. I was just a guy in the back row. Nobody cared. But I felt uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. I didn’t believe the same things they believed. I felt like an imposter. I kept telling myself you don’t belong here. Then I started thinking about when I was younger, and went to church with my family and my grandparents. Those days are done. Grandpa and Grandma are dead now. Mom and Dad are miles away. I’m just a guy… on my own. I don’t belong here. Nobody who made me feel safe and secure was around to protect me. I felt tears surfacing. I can’t explain why. It was just emotional to know that the past is past, and there are so many feelings associated with the Catholic Church. I waited until the time was right, and then I discreetly got up and slipped out. As I walked outside, the smell of rain filled my senses. The fresh air, the cool breeze. I felt as if I’d escaped. I drove home and sat down on the couch next to Rodney. He held my hand and I cried. I don’t know why, but that’s okay. All that mattered was I belong here.
But I digress… I’ve been a loyal Mariah since 1990, and I suspect I always will be. Clearly somebody is buying her music… just nobody that reads my blog. (Except for you Alexsander.) So her new CD is coming out, and I do believe my advice is helping. Look at Janet Jackson. I wrote several spirited posts back in 2006 giving her tips on how to make better music, and I think she took notes. That woman has completely turned it around. Good for you, Miss Jackson. I’m glad I could help you. Now that brings me to my beautiful Mariah… you know you’re the only woman I’d switch for. But we need to talk about these rappers. Let’s stroll back to 1995 when you did the “Fantasy” remix with ODB. Yeah, that was edgy. You were a pop princess living in Tommy-land, and collaborating with a rapper pissed off all the right people. It was a new sound for the Mariah we’d all known, and we liked it. It was a #1 hit. Good for you. By 1997, the rap was going a little overboard. To this day, I don’t understand why people allow Jermaine Dupri to talk on their songs. “JD, y’all” is not singing… it’s not even rapping. He’s just this freakishly short man who says his name in the middle of songs, and ruins the whole damn thing for me. Really, Mariah… what value does he bring to the table?
We’ll bypass the early 2000’s because I think the media was incredibly harsh on you. So let’s just move on to to your most recent albums. You’ve survived the storms, you’ve grown up now, and you’re wiser and stronger. Why haven’t you ditched the annoying rappers? Honey, you can out-sing anyone. You’ve been in this industry for nearly 2 decades! Why, oh why, do you feel like you have to share the stage with these rappers? You have enough talent to fill a 4 minute song on your own.
The song was great. You were doing very well on your own. And you looked fantastic. I see no reason why this clown had to jump on stage 3 minutes into the song and start jumping around. Then you started dirty dancing with him. Bleh… If you want my professional opinion; you should delay the album release and remove the rappers from the songs. Re-release it in May and let it be a true Mariah Carey album that features you and you alone. Come on… you’ve earned it! Just look what my advice did for Janet. Madonna… we’ll get to you next week…
At first I thought they had watered down my quote, but then I realized I was the one who watered it down. I had originally written a very long-winded analysis, but erased it and submitted the short and sweet version that made it to the magazine. I guess it worked, because there I am. My quote: Oh, come on. I love Mika, but no straight men ever makes that big of a deal about his sexuality, so at minimum he’s bisexual. But more than likely he’s 100% gay. Perhaps he’s stuck in that unfortunate phase where you secretly know you’re gay, but in public you try to rationalize that you might be straight because you enjoy the company of women. Enjoying their company is not the same as being attracted to them. His interviews remind me very much of the ones from Darren Hayes’ early days. Darren just refused to “label” or discuss his sexuality, and tried to make it this big mystery for years. For the record, nobody cared when he finally did come out, and he wrote the most amazingly beautiful record after he was “free” to be himself. ——- Thanks to Chris at Hunk du Jour for bringing it to my attention that my comment was published!
YouTube has compiled some of its top videos for 2007 and categorized them for voting. I highly recommend checking them out; these are some really great videos! Here are two of my favorites: Naked Gay Ted: Mario - Game Over:
Now I understand why elderly people cover all their furniture in vinyl and never take it off. When we first moved into our house in 2006, we had three distinct bedrooms - the largest, which became the master bedroom, the middle sized that became my office, and the smallest, which became the guest bedroom. The guest bedroom was really nice at one time. We had new sheets, tables, lamps. Even the bathroom next door was coordinated to match. I guess we made it so cozy that our 2 cats decided to make it their room. It started when we put their litter box in the guest room. We put it in the closet so they wouldn’t be tracking litter all over the house. So after they did their business, they liked to hop up onto the guest bed and settle in for a nap in the sun. That’s fine, I suppose. We do clean the sheets before company comes. But then there is the issue of vomiting. If you have a cat, you know they vomit. Sometimes it’s a hairball, other times it’s just a way to pass a rainy day. There is no rhyme or reason to our cats vomiting. They just spit up a little and go back to what they were doing. In a perfect world, they would walk downstairs and vomit on the kitchen floor so it would be easy to clean up. But noooo, they have to vomit right on the bed’s comforter… which has to be dry cleaned. So that got old, and we removed the comforter… then the sheets… then everything… 2 years later, and we just throw an old blanket on the mattress and consider it done. What started out as a nice place for guests to sleep has now become “the girls’ room”. I never planned for it, but I guess you could say our cats have their own queen size bed. Enter the vinyl! Rodney had the bright idea of buying a vinyl mattress cover. It’s perfect! I don’t care what they do now. They can puke all they want on the bed, and it just wipes right off. Now I want vinyl for the couch, the chairs, everything! Vinyl is my new best friend. I know it sounds crazy, but once you go vinyl, you won’t go back. It just makes everything easier to clean. That’s the joy of vinyl.
Oh how I love hearing a classic song get butchered. Is it fair to assume we’ve all heard Mariah Carey’s cover of the song “Without You” from 1993? It’s one of those perfect pop ballads that can so easily turn into a karaoke disaster. But I think this version takes the cake. During an audition of Bulgarian Idol, a contestant thought the song was called “Ken Lee” (she was confusing the lyrics “can’t live” with “Ken Lee”). So watch what happens when she comes in for an audition, thinking she’s singing a song called “Ken Lee”… But wait… It gets worse! The words she was singing are not a foreign language! She thinks she’s singing in English and this is her translation of the song. That’s why the judges are in stitches — because the contestant isn’t even singing in a real language. It’s one of those clips that gets funnier every time you watch it!
My most recent article in Out & About Newspaper deals with this problem on both a local and national level. But the question remains — what can we do to restore gay culture, or does it even matter anymore?
Last fall, I mentioned a book called The Four Agreements, but I never followed up to say how it turned out. I think it’s a really great book, very inspiring. I didn’t agree with the author’s perspective 100%, but I think it’s worth a read. Here is a particular passage that really touched me… —- “My teacher opened his chest and took out his heart, and he took a beautiful flame from his heart. Then he opened up my chest, opened my heart, and he put that little flame inside it. He put my heart back in my chest, and as soon as my heart was inside me, I felt intense love, because the flame he put in my heart was his own love. That flame grew in my heart and became a big, big fire - a fire that doesn’t burn, but purifies everything that it touches. And that fire touched each one of the cells of my body, and the cells of my body loved me back. I became one with my body, but my love grew even more. That fire touched every emotion of my mind, and all the emotions transformed into a strong and intense love. And I loved myself, completely and unconditionally. But the fire kept burning and I had the need to share my love… [I’m skipping some paragraphs] … And I put a little piece of my love in every human and I became one with the whole of humanity. Wherever I go, whomever I meet, I see myself in their eyes, because I am part of everything, because I love.”
Okay, I have a secret. In January, I was thinking about changing careers after being a website designer for the past 10 years. I was given the opportunity to start work as a mobile dog groomer. Do you know what those are? They have a trailer attached to the back of a truck, complete with its own power and water supply, and you can bathe and groom dogs inside. It’s a huge new trend, where you come right to the home of dog owners and do the job. Customers are more than willing to shell out the extra cash and it’s a very lucrative industry. The starting salary is $70,000 per year and experienced groomers make somewhere in the $90,000 range. They showed me the date books and I did the math, and yes, it’s really true. That’s enough to make anyone stop in their tracks and really think about their current job vs. a job of grooming dogs. Plus they usually just work 3-4 days a week and repeat business is often guaranteed since dogs need groomed regularly. It might seem far fetched for a website designer to become a dog groomer, but actually isn’t too odd. My job requires me to start with a blank canvas and put together a vision for the final product. Dog grooming requires the same, and they are both detail oriented jobs. The owners of this particular business loved me. They raved on and on about how perfect my personality was because I come off as loving, patient, and calming, which is a must-have when you’re dealing with nervous dogs. So I was really excited and into this when I went out for my first day of observing. Everything went pretty well. The dogs were so lovable and some of the ones that wouldn’t go up to anybody came straight to me. So clearly I’m a magnet for dogs. There were a few that threw tantrums, but I could deal with them. Watching them get their toenails clipped really freaked me out though. Yikes! After just one day, I was obsessed. I was paying attention to every dog I saw, and I was ready to jump on board with this new career. But being the practical business man I am, I took a solid month to really think about things, then I scheduled another day to go out and observe. The clients on this day were very swanky. Million dollar mansions in the richest parts of Nashville. I got to go inside their homes, and I even used the toilet in one of them. Nicest toilet I’ve ever pissed in. But the types of dogs were very different this time around: - A deaf dog that screamed and howled the entire time he was being groomed. He wasn’t in pain, he just liked howling. - A dog with a massive tumor that couldn’t be removed, so it was just shaved around. - A dog so old, she had to be lifted up and she shook the whole time. - Dogs that cried and jerked, and one that even got cut because it was so squirmy. That one about sent me away crying. (Don’t worry, it was fine. Just a small scrape, but I hated seeing it bleed.) So my sentiments quickly changed about this business. I realize that every business has its downsides, but some of these were just too emotional for me. I don’t think I’m strong enough to handle dogs like that without getting upset. That’s the story of how I almost switched careers. I still think it’s an awesome business to get into if you can handle it, and definitely has financial benefits. But the emotional ups and downs were too much for me. I’m glad I went for that second session of observing!
NOTE: This post was a joke, and I’m not sure if that came across. I would never really send an e-mail like this to someone. But I wrote it because it made me feel better. It’s funny that hundreds of strangers get to read it, but my ex never will. —— Dear Ex, My first love… the one I’ve compared all others to. The one I’ve felt like nobody could ever replace or live up to… Tonight I was feeling kind of sad about a fight I’d had earlier, so I went on MySpace looking for you. I know it sounds kind of messed up, but whenever I have a fight with my partner Rodney, I like to go online and check up on my exes. If nothing else, it’s just fun to keep tabs. But you’ve been the hardest to find. Do you know that you left me 10 years ago and never even gave me the chance to say goodbye? You already had another guy lined up in another town, and it really hurt me. 1 full decade, and I have never completely gotten over you. Tonight, the search ended when I finally found you on MySpace. Seeing you now makes it all better… because now I see what a schmuck you’ve become. At first it made me sick to read all that things you say to your current boyfriend. “Soulmate”, “love of my life”, all the things you used to say to me. The ring you’re wearing even looks similar to the one I gave you. But after reading into your current life, and checking out your photos, I finally feel better. You really are a total waste of air, and time has been cruel to you. The fact that you’ve lost all your hair is just icing on the cake because I know how much you used to love your hair. There was so much I’ve wanted to say to you to get closure for myself. So many walls I wanted to break down. All those words just disappeared tonight. I think this photo of you summarizes it all:
You’re free to go from my heart now… You’re no longer the man I saw as the love of my life. Instead, you’re just the man in drag on MySpace who got shit on my dick the first time I had sex. Farewell, Nathan
 ©2005-2008 Nathan Exposed . All Rights Reserved Meet the Cast
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Catholicism. It’s a religion that evokes very strong feelings, whether they be positive or negative.
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Add this to my collection of Mariah Carey posts. Yes, I know you dear readers hate the woman. The gays turned on her somewhere around 1998. I can only speculate, but I think it was the poodle hair she sported in Hawaii. It was right then and there that the gays threw in the towel. By 1999, I couldn’t get one gay friend to say they liked her anymore, and it was all downhill from there.
As we moved into 1999, things got really crazy. There were just random guys screaming on your songs. No reason, they just screamed at really inappropriate times. The concept of rapping had went out the window. But I could still forgive you, because I understood that you were doing your independent thing, trying to find your place in the world, and all that good stuff.
Last night, you appeared on Saturday Night Live with T-Pain, who looked like a homeless guy you picked up in an alley on your way to the show. Why???
