If Airlines Sold Paint

Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?

Clerk: Well, sir, that all depends on
quite a lot of things.

Customer: Can you give me a guess? Is
there an average price?

Clerk: Our lowest price is $12 a gallon,
and we have 60 different prices up to $200
a gallon.

Customer: What's the difference in the paint?

Clerk: Oh, there isn't any difference; it's
all the same paint.

Customer: Well, then I'd like some of that
$12 paint.

Clerk: When do you intend to use the paint?

Customer: I want to paint tomorrow. It's my
day off.

Clerk: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the
$200 paint.

Customer: When would I have to paint to get
the $12 paint?

Clerk: You would have to start very late at
night in about 3 weeks. But you will have to
agree to start painting before Friday of that
week and continue painting until at least
Sunday. You must paint on a Saturday night.

Customer: You've got to be *&%#@* kidding!

Clerk: I'll check and see if we have any paint
available.

Customer: You have shelves FULL of paint! I
can see it!

Clerk: But it doesn't mean that we have paint
available. We sell only a certain number of
gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the
way,the price per gallon just went to $16.
We don't have any more $12 paint.

Customer: The price went up as we were talking?

Clerk: Yes, sir. We change the prices and rules
hundreds of times a day, and since you haven't
actually walked out of the store with your paint
yet, we just decided to change. I suggest you
purchase your paint as soon as possible. How
many gallons do you want?

Customer: Well, maybe five gallons. Make that
six, so I'll have enough.

Clerk: Oh no, sir, you can't do that. If you
buy paint and don't use it, there are penalties
and possible confiscation of the paint you already
have.

Customer: WHAT?

Clerk: We can sell enough paint to do your kitchen,
bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop
painting before you do the bedroom, you will lose
your remaining gallons of paint.

Customer: What does it matter whether I use all
the paint? I already paid you for it!

Clerk: We make plans based upon the idea that all
our paint is used, every drop. If you don't, it causes
us all sorts of problems.

Customer: This is crazy!! I suppose something terrible
happens if I don't keep painting until after Saturday night!

Clerk: Oh yes! Every gallon you bought automatically
becomes the $200 paint.

Customer: But what are all these, "Paint on sale
from $10 a liter" signs?

Clerk: Well that's for our budget paint. It only
comes in half-gallons. One $5 half-gallon will do
half a room. The second half-gallon to complete the
room is $20. None of the cans have labels, some are empty
and there are no refunds, even on the empty cans.

Customer: To hell with this! I'll buy what I need
somewhere else!

Clerk: I don't think so, sir. You may be able to
buy paint for your bathroom and bedrooms, and your
kitchen and dining room from someone else, but you
won't be able to paint your connecting hall and stairway
from anyone but us. And I should point out, sir,
that if you paint in only one direction, it will
be $300 a gallon.

Customer: I thought your most expensive paint was $200!

Clerk: That's if you paint around the room to the
point at which youstarted. A hallway is different.

Customer: And if I buy $200 paint for the hall, but
only paint in onedirection, you'll confiscate the
remaining paint.

Clerk: No, we'll charge you an extra use fee plus
the difference on your next gallon of paint. But I
believe you're getting it now, sir.

Customer: You're insane!

Clerk: Thanks for painting with United.

Exercises in Folding and Stowage 2

Exercise 2: The Super-pack

Having learned new and interesting ways to fold clothes and save space I naturally started packing that way too. And I got really good at it… I have had friends ask me to come over to their house to help them pack because of what I can fit into a carry-on suitcase.

Here, I will show you… Last month my friend Gary came to visit. Like always happens when he visits I made him buy an entirely new wardrobe. I hate shopping for myself but I’ll tell you, I got a talent for helping other people pick out the hottest clothes.

So when Gary left I had to pack his bag for him. One standard sized carry-on bag, this is what I was able to fit into it:

15 shirts (both t-shirt and button down)
7 pairs of underwear
7 pairs of jeans
5 pairs of socks
4 Tank Tops
3 pairs of shoes
2 Belts
1 Toilet Bag
1 Electric Razor

Here is how to do it...

Step 1: First put in the shoes. Heel to toe across one side of the suitcase.


Step 2: Using the shirt fold I already taught you, put as many shirts as you can fit between the shoes and the other side of the suitcase. You will be able to stack two levels of shirts this way.


Step 3: Roll up the pants as shown below and lay them over the shoes. Like the shirts, you will be making two stacks of pants. Fold your underwear into squares and put them in the gap between your shirts and the wall of the suitcase.


Step 4: When you have all shirts, pants, underwear and shoes in the suitcase roll up your belts. Sometimes it helps to put a rubberband around them. Lay them on top of your underwear.


Step 5: My recommendation to you is to find a decent sized toiletries bag like this one. You don't need to take your entire bathroom with you every time you travel. My rule of thumb is to take the essentials: toothbrush, hair product, toothpaste, condoms and some little lube packets maybe, and whatever medication you may need. Things like shampoo, toothpaste and what not you can get when you get to wherever.

Lay the bag on top of your shirts. Socks go into the shoe pockets on the lid of the suitcase, and tank tops get folded into squares and put in the top zipper on the lid. This is also a good place to put any extra shirts like you see in the picture.


Step 6: Zip bag. As you can see the extendable zipper is still zipped so you should have no problem carrying this onto the plane. If you have loose small stuff than you can either put them into the outside compartment of the suitcase on in your other carry-on. You can have two, a suitcase and a small personal case/laptop case.


If you are going on vacation, this is a good way to pack, but you may run into problems if you buy a lot of souvenirs. If you do get a lot than you can always just buy a separate bag to put all your new stuff into and check this one.

The faces that have worn me...

Halloween 2007: Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook

Halloween 2006: The Wicked Witch of the West and her Naughty Flying Monkey



Halloween 2005: Shrek

Halloween 2004: Batman & Robin

Halloween 2003: Boring 'ol Sailor

Halloween 2001: Cruella DeVille


I missed all the Halloweens while I was in the Navy, although they tell me that I was dressing up for Halloween, I was dressing up like a sailor... now go to work!! My last civilian costume was as a Witch and Warlock. Before I really learned how to dress up properly.

I have done drag exactly twice for my chorus: Singing "You're Timeless to Me" from Hairspray, My Edna Turnblad looked like Divine and Dolly Parton had a baby... not pretty. The other time was even worse. I was in scag drag playing the title role in the kd lang song "Big Boned Gal"... oh yeah, sat on a little old lady, a priest and a woman in a wheelchair during that song... oy gay!!!

Drinking with Crazy Horse

Puerto Vallarta

On vacation in Puerto Vallarta, some friends of mine decided to go on a booze cruise. Now I have done my fair share of drinking, but I have issues about drinking while the room itself is moving. However majority ruled and so we set out to find a good cruise that would suit everyone. We found one that included the cruise, the booze, a scuba lesson, lunch at a beach front restaurant and a horse ride to some local waterfalls.

The first stop on the cruise was the scuba lesson. Because of the oxygen mixture, scuba gear, and other such scientific explanations I didn’t quite get, we couldn’t drink until after the lesson. Now I have done my fair share of drinking, but unlike most of my friends, I was unable to maintain my composure after about two beers. I was never so relieved to pull my head out of a trash can as I was the moment I saw the boat pulling up to the restaurant.

After a very nice meal we all set off down the road with the other cruisers looking for the stables. My friends decided to walk to the falls. I however was going to get the full service tour. I paid for a horse ride and I was going to get one! That may have been the worst decision I made on that vacation. You see, I am not a small man. I stand six feet, five inches tall and weigh in at… well, let’s just say at the time I was around 230lbs. So the guy at the stables looks at me and then looks over all his horses. Finally he picks one out saddles it up and brings her over to me.


If it’s possible to see emotion in a horse’s eye, I saw it that day. Not only fear at the thought of having to bear me, but clear hatred for her master. Of course at that moment I was completely oblivious. I got right up on that horse and directed her toward the falls. With a little kick we were on our way, and the stable guy told me to hang on tight as we trotted away. He wasn’t kidding. He had given me the crazy horse, and she wanted me the hell off her back.

She dominated the trail to the falls by pushing other horses off the path. One of the other riders was knocked to the ground when his horse was shoved off the path. I was screaming WHOA! But she was having none of it. She was on a mission; she wanted me off. When we finally reached the falls, after a hundred apologies to other riders, I leapt off her and kissed the ground.

When I looked up I got this weird sense of Déjà vu. That was when I realized I had seen these waterfalls before. I had seen them when Arnold Schwarzenegger was jumping over them trying to get away from the “Predator”.

two tears in a bucket... mutha phuket

Phuket, Thailand... that is.

I was five minutes off the boat and there was a line of taxi’s waiting to take people into downtown Phuket. I hired a woman named Penny and her brother Aroon, who made their living as taxi driving tour guides. On a very tight budget, Penny and her brother managed to show me in five days more than I had ever expected.

While I was getting the locals tour of the island we drove by a beach that had a sailboat abandoned on it. I asked why it was there and Penny told me the story. The boat had belonged to a Russian man. He and his son had gone on a round the world trip only to be stranded when the old clunker broke down out to sea.

They had floated around the ocean with no food and very little water for several weeks until the Thailand coast guard found them and dragged the boat to land. They both made full recoveries and were released after a couple of weeks. They flew home leaving the abandoned boat on the beach, where it still remained months later when I took this picture.


While trekking through the countryside in search of a secluded empty beach I started to get a little hungry. Penny decided to stop at her parents’ house, where she got me some fried bananas and cracked open a coconut for me to drink. After making dinner plans for later that evening we continued our search and eventually found a beautiful deserted beach where they dropped me off for a few hours of relaxing and swimming in the eighty degree water.

My five days spent with Penny and Aroon made for an amazing adventure in a foreign land. They treated me so well I felt like family. From wake up calls and door to door service to taking me to their family home for an authentic Thai dinner, my time in Thailand was an amazing adventure. So far outside of the “tourist” trap of bars and beaches, I got to see the real Thailand, the people and the places of the everyday.

A few of my favorite.... um... films.

For those of you who don’t know, I am what the media would call a cinephile. Get your minds out of the gutter… it means I love movies. Dirty. I can tell you an actors name and at least five movies he has been in. In fact one of my favorite things to do to pass the time is play six degree’s of separation.

I’m good too… I can go from Sir Lawrence Oliver (greatest actor in history) to Haley Joel Osment (the kid from the Sixth Sense) using only two other actors. Oliver was in “Clash of the Titans” as Zeus with Maggie Smith as Hera. Maggie Smith was in both the “Sister Act” movies with Whoopie Goldberg (also known as Caren Johnson… seriously, that’s her birth name). Whoopie was in a movie called “Bogus” with Haley Joel Osment and Gerard Depardieu. See, told you I was good… They used to try to stump me in the navy, but never did.

So I have compiled a list of movies here that I would recommend to pretty much everyone. I like to think during my movies, so if you are a blow-em-up, shoot-em-dead movie lover, this probably won’t be the list for you… Dad!!

My Top 10:

1. “All About My Mother”: This movie is from acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. While I would recommend all of his movies because he makes his actors real living people, this movie takes the cake in story line, plot, acting and script. Trust me when I say that you will never find more realistic characters than the ones in this movie. Not to mention that it won best foreign film in 2000. And by the way... that girl in the beige dress is Penelope Cruz and needless to say she absolutely can act in her own language.

2. “Contact”: This movie is long and arduous and really requires that you follow every plot point. The acting is supurb even from Matthew McConaughey. It was written by Carl Sagan who is no doubt one of the smartest rocket scientists of the last century. The plot is fantastical and completely out of this world, aliens send us a message with instructions to build a space travel machine, while still remaining truthful to the human race. With the politics and betrayal in this movie it makes it all the more realistic when I could easily see our current administration pulling some of the cover up tactics detailed in this movie.

A lot of people didn’t like the ending with the father… and I understand them, but I think you should look at the overall movie and the need to make the alien familiar and it makes sense. While watching this movie you begin to feed on the panic and tension and want to know who is out there, as does everyone on the planet. People can be disappointed if you don’t give them what they want, and what they don’t give you in this movie is an easy answer.

3. “Muriel’s Wedding”: This Australian import made me feel so good that I saw it seven times… in the theater. It was one of those movies that I had to take everyone I know to. I don’t know if it was because I saw so much of myself in Muriel or because it was such an outstanding movie. This is the first time I met two of the best actresses alive today: Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths. Toni went on to be nominated for an Oscar for playing the Jersey mother in “The Sixth Sense” and Rachel went on to star in two very successful tv shows: “Six Feet Under” and “Brothers and Sisters”. It is one of those coming to terms with the life you built yourself and changing it movies. You will laugh through tears.

4. “October Sky”: This was the first time I saw Jake Gyllenhaal. Yeah, ok… total hottie. I didn’t choose this movie, my mom did. I just went along because it had a hot guy on the poster. It is the true story of four boys from a coal mining town in West Virginia in the fifties that single handedly invented a rocket part that got the American Space program off the ground. If you ever get depressed about the state of our world today, I recommend you watch this movie. It is a testament to the everyman and what you can do with support. All in all this and the next movie are on my list because they make me feel good about the human condition. They give the one greatest thing a movie can give you: hope.

5. “Gattaca”: This movie, much like “October Sky” is a movie about the human condition. While October Sky shows us where we have been this movie serves more as a warning for where we will end up if we aren’t more careful. This movie takes place in the not so distant future. It still looks much like the Earth we know today, they have advanced space travel to include manned missions to other planets and they have mapped the entire human genome. Which leads to a question that no human has yet been able to answer properly: If we have the technology and know how to do a thing, does that mean we should do that thing?

The thing in this movie is alter human DNA to make sure that people don’t get diseases, fix bad eyes, know the date, time and cause of your death the moment you are born. It creates a new lower class of people, those with perfect DNA and those who were born “out of love” ( the love children become the new poor class). But human kindness and hope do show their heads before the end of the movie, I promise.

6. “Talk to Her”: Almodovar’s follow up to All About My Mother broke two Oscar records. Almodovar was nominated for Best Director without his movie being nominated for best picture, and for the first time in history a foreign language film won the award for best original screenplay. This is the story of two men that form a friendship while their respective ladies are in a coma together in the same hospital. Some of the things that these men go through and some of the things they put each other through defy description. You probably won’t cry in this movie, but if you are not moved or filled with some emotion at the end of it, I would be greatly surprised.

7. “Hero”: The Jet Li movie, not the Dustin Hoffman/Geena Davis movie. While that one is very good and entertaining the Jet Li movie is remarkable in a couple other ways. First it is by far the most stunningly beautiful movie I have ever seen. At points it transcends martial arts and borders on ballet. The choreography is amazing and the cinematography holds some of the most beautiful images I have ever seen. The way the director uses color to tell the story is also quite unique. The same story is told three times, the first time is a lie and everyone in the flashbacks is wearing red. The second time it is a supposition and everyone is wearing greens and blues. The final time is the truth of the story and everyone is wearing white.

But I have one rule for watching this movie. It is a very important rule. Do NOT rent the American version. That is the version you will find in Blockbuster. Find the original Chinese version, the studio that released it stateside changed the translations and almost ruined the movie. You will know you have the good version if all of the characters at one point say “How Swift Thy Sword”. If you can only find the bad version let me know, I will tell you what the most important line of the movie is. They changed it to the opposite of what it really means in the American version.

8. “V for Vendetta”: This movie surprised the hell out of me. I went into it expecting just your run of the mill comic book movie. I didn’t expect it to hit me so hard. It wasn’t just that out of nowhere there was a small gay storyline that spoke volumes, but it was how real it all seemed. How close to that the world we live in has become. It took bits of actual history and meshed it beautifully into a statement movie. Hitler is there burning down his own building so that they can declare not war, but martial law. Bush is there controlling what we need to know. There is the church telling us not only what to believe, but whom to believe and who to condemn. Cheney is there pulling all the strings. It is at once terrifying and completely unsurprising. And then there is the idea of a man that is all of us, that brings them all to justice.

9. “Reefer Madness”: No, I’m not talking about the 1936 shockumentary here. I am talking about the 2005 movie musical made by Showtime. The cast is outstanding, Alan Cumming, Christian and Neve Campbell, Steven Weber, SNL’s Ana Gasteyer and Veronica Mars herself Kristen Bell. It is a parody not only of the original film, but of the things that followed it in real life, McCarthyism, fundamentalism, racism and various other ethical pathologies. The film does not promote marijuana use, but does play up the absurdity of the arguments that make it appear to be more harmful than, for example, cigarettes, alcohol, heroin. The songs are painfully funny with titles like: Romeo & Juliet, The Stuff, Jimmy Takes a Hit, Lonely Pew, Listen to Jesus Jimmy, The Brownie Song, Little Mary Sunshine, and Tell ‘em the Truth. If you have a free night and need to laugh… rent this.

10. “Yankee Doodle Dandy”: This movie is about my hero. A man that is all but forgotten in today’s entertainment industry. It is about the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan. He remains the only actor in history to receive the Congressional Gold Medal for singing and dancing. To this day a statue of him can still be found in Times Square, in fact the only statue of any actor in all of New York. This movie won James Cagney his only Oscar.

It is one scene that never leaves my mind from this movie. I see it every time I walk down a flight of stairs. Near the end of the movie, Cagney is leaving the white house after receiving his award from Roosevelt; he comes to the top of the stairs and starts walking down. Somewhere around halfway down he starts doing this little tap dance. His feet are like butterflies, barely skimming each stair as he descends, somehow tapping his feet somewhere in the vicinity of eight times on each stair. In the making of documentary we learn that this amazing moment was completely improvised by Cagney. It is one of the most amazing pieces of footwork I have ever seen. And some of the other most impressive dances are also in this movie.

10 Movies that didn’t make the cut…Barely:
Last of the Mohicans
Blood in Blood out
Children of Men
Courage Under Fire
Shaun of the Dead
Kung Fu Hustle
Sleepers
Love Actually
Dirty Love
In the Name of the Father

3 Movies every gay man should watch:
And the band played on
Longtime Companion
Beautiful Thing

3 Movies that consistently make me cry:
Running on Empty
Without a Trace
The Color Purple

3 Movies that gave me nightmares:
Legend
It
Grizzly Man

3 Movie Classics everyone should watch:
Captains Courageous
East of Eden
Citizen Cane

Beautiful Boys #04

This is my beautiful friend Gary from Pittsburgh.

Exercises in Folding and Stowage 1

Exercise 1: The T-Shirt fold

In boot camp we used to have these folding and stowing exercises all the time. Each recruit got one third of one stand up locker. In the color portion of the picture below you can see the amount of space that we were supposed to fit all of our uniforms into. For you who think it is no biggie… remember that we were issued 5 pairs of jeans, 5 work shirts, 4 dress uniform tops, 4 dress uniform bottoms, 10 t-shirts, 1 sweater, 2 towels, 10 pairs socks, 5 pairs underwear, 4 pairs of shoes, 1 sweat suit, 2 pair workout shorts, and a canteen, bringing it all up to a grand total of fifty four articles of clothing. Now, if you can see half that in the picture than you are good.

They spent literally three weeks of boot camp teaching us how to fold our clothes and how to stow it so that it took up the least amount of room. What you don’t see in the pictures are the 3 jackets we had, and the socks. We put the socks in net bags and hung them on our racks. There are 2 pairs of shoes in the shot, the dress black shoes and the shower shoes. The other two pairs were kept on top of the locker and on our feet.

They would play some games with us during folding and stowing time. One instructor would be pleasant and tell everyone how good a job they were doing while the other was wreaking havoc on piles of clothes he came across. It got to a point where you would have to get your t-shirt pile checked by both of them and one would say “Outstanding, Excellent fold”… and then you take the exact same stack over to the other DI and he would take it in his hands and scream “What the fuck is this shit??? This is the worst fold job I have ever seen!!! This is what you brought me to be checked??? Go long… Go really long…” And with that he would throw the pile of t-shirts as far as he could… scaring everyone around him.

I found this absolutely hilarious! He and I, of course, felt an immediate kinship. His “job” was to break us down and retrain us. I just needed to be told what to do. So yeah, we got on famously. In fact one of the first things he taught me was how to forge his signature so that I could run to the commissary any time I needed. The most useful thing I learned in boot camp was how to fold a shirt. It is the one thing I still do to this very day. I am going to teach you how to do it.

Folding a shirt in this fashion is an amazing way to save space and to pack. As you can see from the picture below, a shirt folds up very small. I have used a dollar bill to show you a size scale, and remember this is my shirt, so yours will fold up even smaller.

Step 1: Lay the shirt flat out with the front down

Step 2: Fold the sleeves into the body of the shirt, fold in from the arm seam

Step 3: Fold the bottom of the shirt up to the top

Step 4: Fold up from the bottom three times

Step 5: Fold in half

As you can see from the first picture I fold all my shirts this way. I can usually fit 40 t-shirts per drawer by doing it this way. If you are like me and most of your shirts have designs or logo's on them. This is still a great way to fold your shirt because, as you can see in the picture below, you can see the logo of the shirt by looking down at it when it is stacked up-right. Let me know if this helps you at all…