Love and Marriage

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Love is in the air ... along with heavy metals and ozone and pollen. But forget the particulate matter, love is in the air!

In a few hours, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin will marry in San Francisco. Phyllis and Del have been partners for 55 years. Tonight they'll be newlyweds.

Fifty-five years, readers. I haven't been married half that long, and it seems like I've been married forever.

The difference between me and Mr. Johnson and Del and Phyllis is that I'm a woman, and Mr. Johnson is a man. Del and Phyllis are both women.

To me this gender thing is inconsequential. Totally. If you meet someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you should be able to marry him, her, or it.

It, you say? Well, Decibel the Parrot could live to be 100 years old. Shouldn't I be able to make provisions for poor dear polly?

Maybe that's a stretch, but we at "The Gods Are Bored" endorse marriage as the union of two souls and as an economic reality. Unlike the sanctimonious ex-senator Rick Santorum, we do not view gay marriage as the end of civilized society as we have know it. We at "The Gods Are Bored" view gay marriage as a sacred covenant between two people who love each other.

And if you've loved the same person for 55 years, you shouldn't have to wait until you're in your 80s to tie the knot. Just think how stale that wedding cake will be! For the love of fruit flies, let's let people love each other however the spirit moves them!

Best wishes to Phyllis and Del for many decades of happy marriage!

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Happy 101st Birthday, Alice B. Toklas!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where you should not feel so all alone! Everybody must get .... emmmm ..... never mind.

Today is the 101st birthday of Alice B. Toklas, famous companion and beloved of writer Gertrude Stein. In honor of the event, my daughter The Heir and I will toddle into Camden, New Jersey tonight for our monthly meeting of Pizza and Poetry. It's Alice B. Toklas Night.

I baked some brownies for the occasion. I haven't tasted them yet. They don't have ganj in them. It's illegal. And we at "The Gods Are Bored" aren't big on breaking the law. We can't gas up the car, so where would we get money for reefer ... and the fines you have to pay if you're caught with it? Forget it.

At the same time, we at "The Gods Are Bored" are strongly in favor of the re-legalization of marijuana. I say re-legalization because pot wasn't made illegal until the 1930s, largely due to a PR campaign against it by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. (Hearst wanted to sell his pulpwood for newspaper production and therefore wanted the cheaper, more environmentally sound hemp taken off the market.)

Recent studies have shown that today's super-strength weed, consumed in quantity, causes brain damage. Ya think? Well, if something's illegal, it's unregulated. You don't know what's in that baggie, son. Steer clear.

However, if pot was legal, it would be inspected by those masters of efficiency, the Food and Drug Administration. The skunk hybrid stuff would be out, and the more benign cannabis in. Bought in packs. With filters. Must show valid ID, etc. etc.

Benign? Yes indeedy, the old-time stuff was benign. Just ask George Washington how he cured his toothache. Midwives used it to ease labor pains. And given the choice between a confrontation with someone who's toked and someone who's been downing martinis all evening, I choose the toker. Every time.

Pot causes brain damage? Probably. But so does booze. I would tell you how booze causes brain damage, but I can't remember. Ah, but this reminds me to go to the totally legal liquor store and buy a bottle of wine for Pizza and Poetry! If I don't forget. I think you see my point, but if you don't, I'll have forgotten making it by tomorrow.

I'm not going to hold my breath until reefer gets legalized in this country. So on to the other Alice B. Toklas crusade.

Alice really, really, really loved Gertrude. And vice versa. They had fabulous parties and fabulous friends. Like Picasso. It seems Picasso enjoyed their company so much that he gave them a couple of paintings. Which Gertrude's family legally confiscated from Toklas at Gertrude's death. Alice died a pauper.

For the love of fruit flies, can't we recognize gay couples with the same legal protections we fling at straight couples? Is that asking too much, Kansas? A little old-age security for someone whose dying words were, "Will I see Gertrude in heaven?"

Oh yeah. Gay people don't go to heaven. No, wait. False. False. False. Gay people are warmly welcome in Sidhe and also by the Greek pantheon. So if you're gay, just pick a queer-friendly heaven. It's not hard to do.

And while you're alive, as far as we at "The Gods Are Bored" are concerned, you should be rewarded for fidelity to a partner the same way myself or Mr. Johnson will be rewarded when one of us passes on, leaving the other to make his own coffee (or mow her own grass).

Hoping Alice B. Toklas would approve of this post I remain,

Your faithful servant,

ANNE J. JOHNSON

"Gods Are Bored" Iowa Endorsement

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" on Iowa Caucus day! It's time for us to endorse a candidate! And ah, it's so difficult. So many fine morons from which to choose. So many wealthy and influential folks with big, fat war chests for commercials in which they sell themselves like breakfast cereals. How can we separate the wheat from the chaff?

Can't. So, with no further ado, we at "The Gods Are Bored" endorse Mike Huckabee as the next president of the United States of America.

Mike is the only candidate who exhibits the same low level brain activity as our current sitting president. If elected, he would certainly continue the ridiculously wasteful and ill-conceived war in Iraq. We might ambitiously expect that he would be braver than the current administration and just shove our nation's aggression into Iran.

Mike's domestic agenda is simple enough. White men own things, women stay barefoot and pregnant, and everybody must go to Christian church (preferably not one of those mushy churches like the Methodists, and certainly nothing as radical as the UUs). Dust off that Bible, because the government will be coming to your house to make sure you're reading it to your kids every night at dinnertime.

If you vote for Mike, which I hope you will, you'll also be saving yourself from melanoma. Because you'll want to stay out of the sunshine, so that no one will confuse you with those brown people who will be deported. You'll want your skin to be lily white. Except if you're black. But if you're black, you'll be okay if you go to church and work for the Man.

Mike Huckabee will rid this nation of all the nasty, mentally ill homosexuals who choose to live a dirty, unnatural lifestyle. Well, okay. If you're gay you can stay, as long as you choose to be celibate, or if you marry someone of the other gender and have a healthy, normal, Christian family. If you don't think this can be done, you don't listen to Focus on the Family.

Finally -- and vitally important to us at "The Gods Are Bored" -- Mike Huckabee will shut down these pesky labor unions once and for all. Just look how daintily he crossed a picket line to be on Jay Leno's show last night! Striking workers should be deported along with the brown people! Then America would get back all the jobs the Chinese are doing for 14 cents an hour, because Americans would be willing to work for 14 cents an hour.

Oh, and I almost forgot. As president, Mike Huckabee will pardon all convicted rapists. After all, these men are just doing the human race a favor, trying to create more little humans inside the bodies of the inferior gender.

Only a moron of epic magnitude could compare with George W. Bush. We at "The Gods Are Bored" are convinced that Mike Huckabee is that moron. So vote for him, because things in this country won't begin to change until times become so desperate that desperate measures will be taken. The French Revolution springs to mind.

Huckabee in '08. Stay the disastrous course!

New Jersey and You - Perfectly Rainbow

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," broadcasting live from New Jersey, the Asphalt State. We get no respect here in Jersey. We give you Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen, you give us your toxic waste.

Forget the part about the toxic waste. Because New Jersey is really the Garden State, and if you're gay, we want you!

If you live in Mississippi or Kansas, or some other dreadful Red State, and you're blissfully in love with your same-gender partner, then pack up the old kit bag and move to New Jersey! We've got brand new civil union laws that will provide your loved one with peace of mind in his or her old age.

And hey. Once you get around these mammoth property taxes, you can get yourself a really nice little bungalow, fix it up, and get along great with your broad-minded neighbors!

Gay Americans, New Jersey wants you! We know how to judge character here. Heck, it's a lot easier than judging the commuting time from Clifton to Wall Street.