Former Member

Okay. That explains it. No judgement on my part, I just don’t follow his stories. ;–)

François Clemmons who played Officer Clemmons on Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood is Gay! But Fred Rogers keep that fact secret because he didn’t want the distraction that having an Openly Gay actor on a children’s show would bring. PBS might not have advertisers who get nervous about things like that, but they do get some funding from the US Congress through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other government agencies. François Clemmons’ sexual orientation was mentioned on ABC’s Nightline (June 8, 2018) and is also included on his Wikipedia page.

There is a rude name for straight girls who ‘have a thing for gay guys.’ I’m not aware of any neutral or nice names for the phenomenon. I don’t think I need to mention it since it doesn’t add anything to the conversation. I cannot imagine ever falling for a woman myself. This is not to say that I believe everyone is either straight or Gay since I believe many people are bisexual. I just think that there really are people who are at the two extremes. I believe there are all sorts of variations in human sexuality and orientation. But I’m no expert. Most of what I know comes from documentaries created by people who are not like me. They have exposed me to concepts that I’d never have considered on my own based on my personal experiences. I’ve been awakened.

A few years ago, Pink Saturday, an evening street party in The Castro on the day before the San Francisco LGBTQ Pride Parade, was cancelled due to someone being shot. This sort of thing happens even in the Bay Area. As usual, it involved teenaged boys. On several occasions in the past, homophobic teens had bashed people in The Castro. They were usually from one of the outlying communities on the edge of the Bay Area – the home of the only operating military base in the Bay Area and has the most affordable housing in the nine-county region. Teenaged boys often feel the need to ‘prove’ their masculinity by attacking those who transgress their concept of manhood. Lower levels of economics and education are often intertwined with homophobia.

Kids with their big thumbs on little cellphone screens… ;–)

Now Kyle knows three Gay boys! And Kyle’s dad has learned about how the school deals with bullying – or not. At least Mavis got Buddy out of his mother’s trailer. Maybe Kyle’s family could pay to get Mavis' water heater fixed as a sort of restitution… ;–)

The Santa Rosa CityBus system released footage from buses used to evacuate residents in the middle of the night during the catastrophic wildfires in the Napa & Sonoma County area in October. Apparently, drivers were called up at 2am and asked if they could drive – 6 showed up and evacuated about 400 seniors and people with disabilities. None of these people signed up to be bus drivers expecting to be driving around in the middle of a wildfire!

Reader's Digest has a regular column of man's stupidity to man. Here's one from the webpage: - A man illegally brought a gun into a bar, got injured in a fight, and then sued the bar for not searching him for a weapon. Check them out. https://www.rd.com/funny-stuff/thats-outrageous/

I saw them both at Frameline. I expect to see similar movies at Frameline42 in a couple weeks. LGBTQ film festivals are the very best way to see these sorts of movies – usually before they’re released any other way! Support your local LGBTQ film festival, you might be surprised to find there’s one nearby! Interestingly enough, being a member of Frameline means that they inform me of LGBTQ films showing in other local film festivals (the San Francisco Bay Area has dozens of them) including films showing in the SF Jewish, CAAMFest (Asian-American), SF International, Berlin & Beyond (German/Austrian/Swiss), Mill Valley, and many others. I would never have known about most of them otherwise. In a few cases, they've provided an additional chance to see a movie I’ve missed.

But we need to read about Leon dating in his teen years and when he finally settles down and decides between marrying Chris, Brooke, or Sasha! ;–)

You won’t be able to finish the story within a decade? That’s okay! We’ll let you slide! ;–)

And that will be… ten years from now? ;–)

I like Leon, Connor, and Joel as a family! ;–)

It only takes one confused Comment to confuse others. You’re right. @Canuk used the wrong name and @chris191070 misremembered along with him! ;–) I know I’ve been the one to get the name wrong before and I’ve also been the one to be incorrectly influenced too! I don’t know about anyone else, but I always claim that I read too many stories on GA. (But it’s just as likely to be my extremely advanced age.) ;–)

…and some people are just born that way (sorry Lady Gaga). ;–)

Good news! It’s never going to end! @Bndmetl's going to be writing new chapters for at least another couple decades. Maybe more… ;–)

You should have sent Chet to Makarovia where they had christmas for months on end! I think he would have enjoyed being treated royally instead of being forced to endure his evil grandparents! He would have felt right at home with Prince Eric! ;–)

People who have never worked in customer service have no idea what it’s like. They seem to think that the person standing in front of them is the company they’re mad at! They scream and rant and rave about things that the customer service person has no control over. They don't even seem to realize that they're screaming at a person! ;–) When I worked in a computer store, I got blamed by unhappy customers when their computer equipment and software wasn't interacting properly. I’d get blamed for bugs and incompatibilities. It was always my fault even if I hadn’t sold them anything that they were complaining about. ;–) But there were some amusing times during those complaints. A guy came in to return a Star Wars CD-ROM game that suddenly stopped working. That seemed odd to me, so I turned the disc over to look at the data side. It was all scratched up. When one son wanted to play a different game, he’d take the disc out and just drop it on the desk. The kids didn’t realize that the important side was the shiny side – to them, the pretty side with the picture printed on it was more important. The guy was so embarrassed when he saw the reason the disc stopped working and the boys got a (mild) scolding on the spot. ;–)

Wow! When I worked retail, except for the day before or after Thanksgiving or Christmas, a little more than a week or so was enough advance warning for time off. Vacations, on the other hand, were usually several months in advance, but not usually six months! We usually had to decide in mid-spring when we’d be taking vacations that year. I never had a problem getting time off for Frameline around the end of June because everyone wanted to go later in the season. ;–) When I worked at Mervyn’s, they had just started using computerized scheduling (probably borrowed from at-the-time sister-company Target). Up until then most of my managers tried to schedule me to work as many of the difficult sale days as possible during the worst hours because they relied on me to get the job done. The computerized scheduling took that away from managers. The computer randomly assigned hours to people without regard to their skills or abilities. Theoretically, that could mean that all the weakest employees (skills-wise or physically) were scheduled to work together. The priority became having bodies in the store when they predicted customers would be there. We’d get very odd start and end times in the middle of the day. Inconvenient for employees, supposedly more efficient for the company. ;–) All of my jobs between Mervyn’s and Target used less sophisticated methods of scheduling. At the computer stores, we had a semi-permanent schedule with only the holiday season affecting our hours. Having managers write their department’s schedules could either allow a vindictive manager to punish an employee or allow a skillful manager to best deploy their employees. At various times, I had both! ;–)

San Francisco’s KQED is notorious for not following PBS’s recommended schedule, but they will be showing two LGBTQ programs during primetime in June. Independent Lens is showing The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin. Frontline is showing Growing Up Trans. KQED World will show Local USA: The Guys Next Door. World will also run the Frontline and the Independent Lens programs. PBS Newshour might also have features on LGBTQ issues this month. There are almost certainly other LGBTQ programs that are being shown on KQED during non-primetime hours. Your local PBS station might preempt these programs if you live in a particularly LGBTQ-unfriendly area. Check your local station’s listings, you might be surprised at what they show this month! You might not need to leave the house to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month! ;–)

Do! Not! Work! Yourself! Until! You! Get! Sick! Are you hourly or salaried? If you’re not management, they can’t force you to work that many hours! If they have even the slightest bit of compassion, they’d know they can’t keep doing this to you!

It’s a relief that Buddy survived! But now it looks like he has some competition for Kyle, even if Donnie claims otherwise. It’s amazing how efficiently gossip spreads, but interesting how big the gaps in information are. ;–) The gossip wildfire reminds me of the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon & Amy try leaking gossip to see how quickly it gets around their circle of friends. The salacious stuff is talked about immediately, but the mundane stuff is ignored. The socially awkward Sheldon & Amy are very surprised by their findings where most viewers are amused by their naïveté. ;–) I wonder what Kyle’s dad’s motive is for insisting that Kyle visit Buddy with him?

Just a process of elimination. Russian, in this universe (so no Makarovians), not a wrestler (so no Raging Bull), not Sasha (so no Sashas). No one else is left! ;–)

Alik is joining VUN? ;–)

So, a Russian who isn’t a wrestler: Sasha! ;–) I suppose it could be Alik too, but he’s still a little young, isn’t he?