Beginning Pride Month with a Harvey Milk Stamp

Eddie and Ed with Danny Nicoletta

June is Pride Month for many places around the country. We got an early jump on it with the unveiling of the Harvey Milk forever stamp. On Harvey’s birthday, May 22, the stamp was publicly presented at a White House in a first day of issue ceremony. Speaking at the event was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senator Tammy Baldwin, Representative John Lewis, Deputy Postmaster General Ronald A. Stroman, and other distinguished guests including the Co-Founders of the Harvey Milk Foundation, Stuart Milk and Anne Kronenberg.

One of the cool things for us is that our friend Danny Nicoletta took the photo of Harvey used on the stamp. Danny worked in Harvey’s camera store in the 1970s and went on to become a photojournalist, artist and gay rights activist.

San Francisco held a public ceremony in city hall to honor the legacy of Harvey Milk on May 28. Many dignitaries spoke (SF Mayor Edwin Lee, SF Supervisors David Campos and Scott Wiener, CA State Attorney General Kamala Harris, Anne Kronenberg and Stuart Milk) and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang two numbers: “San Francisco” (from Andrew Lippa's "I Am Harvey Milk") and “Give 'Em Hope.” My talented husband, Eddie, sang with the chorus and attended the reception afterwards.

To get your Harvey Milk stamps either visit your local post office or order on line from USPS.COM here. Order quickly because USPS commemorative stamps are printed in limited quantities and are sold until supplies are gone.

More on gay men on postage stamps here: http://guydads.blogspot.com/2014/04/gay-and-bisexual-men-on-us-postage.html

San Francisco City Hall

Former Ambassador James Hormel

Harvey Milk's nephew, Stuart Milk who is co-founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation

TMI Questions: POTTY HUMOR

This is a meme that is near and dear to my heart and loved by my butt! Since my colon cancer surgery 4.5 years I’ve become a toilet paper and restroom aficionado.

1. Toilet Paper - over or under? Has to be over. I will reset the roll if I find it under.

2. Who replaces the empty roll in your house? Me, myself and I. I also make sure we have plenty of rolls on stock in all bathrooms. There are also spare rolls in the car trunk, garage shelves and my man-bag I carry around.

3. What do you use if you run out of toilet paper at home? This almost never happens but if it does, tissues or flushable moist wipes.

4. Seat up or down? It use to be seat up but since my unpleasant surgery, it is mostly seat down these days.

5. Do you leave the door open? No, door should always be closed. Not everything has to be shared in a relationship. We already talk incessantly about my bathroom habits ever since my colorectal surgery.

6. Does your love leave it open? No. The only appropriate exception to this is peeing. Urinating with another man present is a male birthright. Most men have done that since they were young boys.

7. Do you wait until you are alone in a public restroom? No, don’t have that luxury.

< rant > Men are insensitive, careless, filthy pigs in public bathrooms. Since I have to poop all the time and standing and peeing at a urinal often triggers a need to poop, I use the stall. Pee-shy guys drive me nuts because they tie up the stall I need to use and even worse just let loose with a stream of urine all over the place. Just because they are in a Men’s room devoid of women, they can disregard everything their mothers/wives/girlfriends taught them: “Put up the god damn seat and aim before you shoot.”< /rant >

8. Do you always check for toilet paper first in a public stall? Of course. I also usually test the toilet to see if it will flush properly. And I always check where the nearest bathroom is when I enter a public space, restaurant, hotel, mall or store. I am always surprised how often a fancy restaurant has a dumpy or dirty toilet.

9. What do you use if you run out of toilet paper in a public restroom? Tissues, seat covers, paper towels or napkins.

BONUS

Sex in a public restroom? I have seen it supposedly done in a porn video. Does that count? Otherwise, it would have to be a really classy restroom with a lockable door.

Flesh or Plastic: the Human Ken Doll

One of the fun parts of traveling is meeting interesting and unusual people. People you would not have met if you stayed home. Sometimes you meet important leaders: politicians, executives, and activists. Sometimes it is a performer, artist, or writer. And on other occasions, it is just an unusual, different kind of person. A number of years ago we did a Caribbean gay cruise. On this small ship cruise there was this stunning looking guy, Justin Jedlica. It was obvious he had some cosmetic surgery done. We didn’t have a chance to socialize much with him during the cruise except for an evening dinner at the end of the cruise. We had a delightful conservation with him and his traveling companion. The evening was spent talking about families, traveling and seeing Broadway shows. We found that our first impression of him were wrong. We assumed he would be a stuck-up, twinky, drama queen. Instead we found him to be sincere, engaging and friendly. Several years later we bumped into him on a New York street corner while we were walking back from a Broadway show. He was just as friendly in our 10-minute street corner conservation as he had been at dinner several years before.

Last month I happened across a series of stories about him on the Internet. He has a new business he is promoting. He is offering his services as a plastic surgery consultant. Justin has had over 100 cosmetic procedures done on him. Some of the work he has had includes: rhinoplasty, chest implants, shoulder implants, bicep implants, triceps implants, brow shaving and lifts, cheek augmentations, subpectoral implants, thigh implants, gluteoplasty, lip augmentations and calf implants.

These days he is marketing himself under the moniker “the Human Ken Doll” in various media appearances and write-ups. In several profiles, he says that the “Ken” nickname wasn’t his idea. It came from in a 20/20 that set him as a matching counterpoint to a female model that was promoting and impersonating herself as a real-life Barbie doll.

I wish him well. It can’t be easy trying to make a career out of your passion for plastic surgery.

Justin’s website and several stories:
Justin Jedlica http://justinjedlica.com/index.html
The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/15/justin-jedlica-the-human-ken-doll.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
Us Weekly: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/human-ken-doll-justin-jedlica-five-things-to-know-2014164

Quiz: Separate the Challah Bread from the Shredded Abs

One of the best things about Friday evening is the start of Shabbat or the Jewish Sabbath. Our tradition is to stay home and have a wonderful, leisurely dinner prepared by my talented husband. We light candles, say Kiddush over the wine and bless the bread. And the bread we have is the soft, braided, yeast-risen, Challah bread.

Can you pick out the bread from the abs?
Isn’t it a Mitzvah to separate the dough from the abdominals? Is it the staff of life, a source of sustenance, and the call to share a meal?
In any case, it definitely makes for part of a tasty feast.

Challah Massage...oy vey

The rest of the week I love rolls and baguettes.