Vacation Post: Boycott Makes Kraft Even Zestier

Companies have been using sex to sell everything from toothpaste to motor oil for decades, though it used to be that the ads featured mostly nubile young women looking all sexy and bendy and stuff.

But now one company, Kraft, has taken a new approach and is suing a hot male model, Anderson Davis — often shirtless with a hint of nudity — to sell salad dressing, in Kraft's new Let's Get Zesty ad campaign.

And these ads naturally struck the nerve of One Million Moms, AKA More Like 58,000 Moms, who began urging their minions followers to boycott Kraft because of their "offensive" campaign.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the boycott; The OMM, AKA the ML58,000M, actually generated so much interest in ads—which had already run their course—that Kraft decided to keep the campaign going.

In the new campaign, the Zesty Guy poses on a tennis court, on a mechanical bull, out picking fruit, lounging on the beach, and buried in the sand. In other words, the undressed salad dressing dude can take the heat but still got out of the kitchen.

Kinda makes me wanna toss my salad.

Thanks OMM, AKA ML58,000M!

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Random Musings

I’m always a fan of debate, even, at times, arguing, with someone over political and social issues. I like the discussion because, well, I have an opinion and don’t mind sharing it.

But I loathe what I call The Lame Argument™—you  know, the one where just because you say it, I should think it’s true. It’s like when people said, and some still say, that same-sex marriage will ruin traditional marriage as we know it and when you ask them how, you get crickets.

And one of the chief purveyors of The Lame Argument™ in the National Organization for Marriage [Nom] who never met a lie, or a non-fact that they didn’t use to spread their message of fear and loathing and intolerance.

Here’s their newest one: NOM is trying to say, via pseudo-scientific data, that same-sex marriage will lead to a rise in single motherhood, children in poverty, and—and this one is a doozy—the idea that men will leave their wives because they can marry other men.

Now, to be fair, this is kinda true, because maybe men who are gay, and deeply closeted, who married women because they felt a certain pressure, familial, societal, internal, to do so, might decide to leave that marriage because they are, wait for it, GAY!

But NOM doesn’t say that, they say ‘men’ will leave their wives meaning all men, all straight men will suddenly turn toward The Gay because, well, they can.

The Lame Argument™ courtesy of NOM.

Michelle Williams, brilliant actress and Oscar® nominee, is the new spokesperson for Louis Vuitton. That’s her in a new ad for the company and she looks pretty fierce.

Sadly though, this ad didn’t make the cut. Better luck next time Lindsay.

Let’s talk about Weiner. Not dick, though he’s kind of a dick, but Anthony Weiner.

When he was in Washington, I liked him, a lot. I liked that he stood for something and fought for something. And when the story first came out that maybe he was a serial sexter, and maybe he sent pictures of his bulging Calvin’s out over the internet, I thought it was an attack on him because he dined it from here to kingdom come. And people demanded he resign and IO believed him when he said it wasn’t him, except …

Then he admitted it that it was, and that he had and that he did. Then I wanted him gone, too, because he lied.

Now, he’s done it again, and once again he’s asking us to kind of ignore it, except …

He.Didn’t.Learn.The.First.Time.

Get help, Anthony. You have a problem that has already ruined you in DC and may well ruin you in New York, but all that matters for nothing because it may well ruin your marriage because you don’t seem to realize you have an issue with sexting strangers and sending out pictures of your man bits.

Get out. Get help.

Now, onto some good news ….

Congratulations to Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson who married his boyfriend Justin Mikita last week in New York.

After the ceremony—officiated by Tony Kushner—Ferguson Tweeted:"Never been happier."

Congrats, guys!

Lotsa folks up in arms because President Obama said this about Trayvon Martin and reactions to the George Zimmerman verdict:

"When Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is that Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. When you think about in the African-American community, there’s a lot of pain around this. It’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away. And I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. There are very few African-African men who haven’t had the experience of being followed in a department store. That includes me.”

People said he should say nothing, but you what? He has every right to say something. And you know what else; he wasn’t speaking as the President, trying to politicize the story. He was speaking as a Black man in America who knows what it’s like to be feared for your skin color, to be followed around a department store, to have people cross to the other side of the street when they see you coming.

He was letting all of us know that, even in America, even a man who could someday become president can still be a victim of racism on a daily basis.

That should be the discussion, not whether or not he should have said something.

Last week, while talking about the homoeroticsm, and the Man Candy, on MTV's Teen Wolf, I missed mentioning Ian Bohen.

Beef.Cake.

The Royal Baby.

I was over the story about 5 seconds after I heard Kate was pregnant. The only good thing about this birth is that people are no longer talking about the Kash Kow and Kanye demon spawn.

Boy oh boycott.

Folks are saying that The Gays should boycott the movie Ender's Game because the book upon which the film is based was written by a virulently anti-LGBT writer, and NOM board member, Orson Scott Card.

Well, count me in among those who boycott, though mainly I won't go because I have no desire to see the film, which seems like a Hunger Game's knock-off.

But, had I wished to see the film, I'd still boycott because, and this is the same logic I use for boycotting Chick-fil-A-hole, if I spend my ten bucks to see this film, part of that money will go into the bank account of a man who works tirelessly to deny me equality.

Just like if I eat that bigot chicken sandwich.

So, I'll keep my money, but, but, if you wish to see Ender's Game because, well, you wanna see it, go on and go, but maybe, just before going, you shoot off a donation to one of the many pro-equality groups for the price of the ticket. That way the pennies you give to Card will be outweighed by the dollars you give to Marriage Equality.

Just sayin'.

Now, that doesn't mean you can still go to Chick-fil-A-hole and send the price of a sammich to equality groups. You can get a chicken sandwich anywhere.

So, Caspar sent out that Tweet for JLo’s birthday and it makes me wonder, JLo is a bear? 

Who knew? But more than that, I thought to myself, that tweet is the 2013 equivalent of the construction paper coupon I gave to my mother when I was six for a Free Hug.

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Random Musings

Okay, so while I’m still on a high from yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and dismissing Prop H8 I found a truly wonderful story about the impact of the decisions.

Steven and Sean Brooks, a binational gay couple, were in court yesterday, in front of an immigration judge, whose ruling could have split up the couple because of DOMA.

According to Lavi Soloway, who represented the couple: “A copy of the 77-page Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor was delivered to the court by our summer intern, Gabe, who ran five blocks and made it in time for the decision to be submitted to the Immigration Judge and to serve a copy on the Immigration & Customs Enforcement Assistant Chief Counsel.”

‘DOMA is DEAD’ it announced.

The judge threw out the case against Mr. and Mr. Brooks because they are a legally married couple in America, entitled to all the rights of legally married couples.

I’m still grinning.

Kris Jenner, fame-whoring, daughter pimping, sex tape fronting, married to a woman—or so it seems on the surface—Kris Jenner is getting a talk show this summer.

Since all Kris can do is talk about her daughters, I’m wondering how long it will take her to whore our her latest grandbaby meal-ticket, and then how long before the show is cancelled.

In the words of Margaret Cho, “This is gonna be a Kardastrophe!”

We had a Free HBO weekend a couple of weeks back, so I went mad DVRing movies from that channel.

One was, of course, Behind The Candelabra, about Liberace’s love affair, and bad breakup, with Scott Thorsen.

I found it good, but sad; it wasn’t until Liberace’s mother passed away that he felt he could truly be free as a gay man, though he remained deeply closeted until his death, and even afterwards.

That said, the shallow part of me, which I love, is beginning to run an ad campaign to see that Matt Damon’s Ass gets an Emmy nod.

It was real, and it was spectacular.

A little more on DOMA? Okay.

Some who are much more familiar with the rulings are looking very closely at the decision, for clues on how the court might rule on future challenges to state laws barring gay marriage. And they think they’ve found something ….

Buried in the decision is a reference to the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia, in which SCOTUS struck down a state law against interracial marriage as unconstitutional. To LGBT advocates, that reference looks as if it might signal a readiness on the Court’s part to do the same to state laws banning gay marriage.

In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Virginia law outlawing interracial marriage was unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, ruling that the freedom to marry must not be limited by discrimination and that the Virginia law had no legitimate purpose other than maintaining discrimination.

And that’s exactly the argument that lawyers in the Prop 8 case made in asking the Court to strike that law down. Now, SCOTUS declined to take a position on Prop 8, invoking standing issues, and it did not directly address the question of whether states could or couldn’t continue to refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples, and it did not declare a constitutional right to marriage.

But the DOMA decision made an expansive case against discrimination based on sexual orientation, and more specifically, the citation of Loving v. Virginia which could be an encouraging signal.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

So, the other day I’m watching TV and one of those wacky commercials came on, this time for something called the Air Curler. It’s an attachment to a blow dryer that looks like it has a plastic pitcher on the end of it. You, um, insert your hair into the pitcher, turn on the blow dryer, and your hair is magically spun into delightful curls.

Stupid? Of course. But then I saw something else when they removed the Air Curler from the blow dryer.

To put it bluntly, it looks like one of those Cock Sleeves that some men—and I ain’t naming names—slip over their penis and then proceed to, um, jack off pleasure themselves, until they cum into the patented Cum pitcher.

Sorry for the mental image, but it had to be said.

But … speaking of that device, Carlos and I have started watching Hannibal, having DVR’d the season.

It’s quite gruesome, so far—but I expected no less—and really interesting.

It doesn’t hurt that it stars the Pia Z’adorbale Hugh Dancy. Oh, he’s not Hannibal—that would be –he’s the FBI investigator who begins working with Dr. Lecter.

But he’s a delightfully cute man.

In Light of the deaths of DOMA and Prop H8, here's a little refresher course on what to say, and not say, to The Straights.

I got caught up in the Jodi Arias movie on Lifetime the other day.

Back story: I had the shingle on my face about three years ago. Shingles affects the nerves and, in some cases, the sufferer endures constant nerve pain for the rest of their lives. I do not; I do, however, get very bad, very bad, headaches located in the same spot where I had the shingles. I used to get them about once a month, and then less often and less often, to the point where I’d forgotten about them, Until Monday night when one struck, turning me into a light-sensitive vampire, who sits in a dark dark room until the pain subsides, generally 24 hours later.

Which was why I was channel surfing and came upon the Jodi Arias Lifetime movie.

All I gots to say about that is: Bitch was cray. Way cray.

So cray I am surprised that her attorneys didn’t use the insanity defense.

Cray.

Gee, ain't it funny? 

Just when you think things have changed .... The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

Paula Deen. Her restaurants are packed, her books are flying off the shelves, but she’s losing some big deals, y’all. And I kinda wish I had a Way Back Machine, so I could travel back in time and apply for a job as one of Paula Deen’s minions and tell her, as nicely as I could, to STFU before she opened her yap.

The Food Network said Pack her knives and go … literally … and now Smithfield, whose products Paula used to hawk, have canned her ham … see what I did there? … and rumor has it that QVC will quickly follow suit.

There is also talk that Deen’s publisher, Random House, may close the book on her, and diabetes drug makers Novo Nordisk and Sears Holdings are said to be “monitoring the situation.” Then, let’s toss in Harrah’s Hotels and Casinos, which have Paula Deen Restaurants in their casinos, who have decided to rebrand her restaurants as something other than Paula. Even WalMart … Wal-freaking-Mart … has decided to take Paul’s dishware and cookware off their shelves.

Now, you can say that this is all a lot of Who shot John? Over words Paula Deen may have used decades back, but it’s also about a history of Paula Deen and her treatment of African America employees at her businesses.

I recently caught sight of a video from 2012—last year—and taped by the New York Times, where Paula was asked about her ancestors who were slave owners and the story of her great-grandfather who killed himself when his slaves were set free: “Between the death of his son and losing all the workers, he went out into his barn and shot himself because he couldn’t deal with those kind of changes…Back then, black folk were such an integral part of our lives. They were like our family, and for that reason we didn’t see ourselves as prejudiced.”

Trouble is, after that bit, she then tells the interviewer and the audience that she has black people in her employ who are just like family. One, and I think she said his name was Hollis Johnson, was a particularly dark-skinned man, or, as Paula put it, pointing to a black wall behind her, “He’s as black as that.”

Yes. She did. And then she dug herself in deeper. When asked if Hollis was there with her that day, Paula looks around and asks, “Hollie? Hollie? Where are you? Oh, get away from that black wall, we can’t see you.”

Yes. She did. I was all about giving Deen the benefit of the doubt for her use of the n-word, thinking about when she said it, where she lived and how she was raised, and that she said it, apparently, so long ago. But, while she may not toss about the n-word as handily as those old days, the way she speaks of African Americans—even the ones she considers “like family’”—and the way she treats her African American employees, makes me hope that everyone cuts ties with Deen. And fast.

Like I said, though, I would have liked to have access to a Way back Machine and given Paula, and anyone else who thinks and speaks like she does, a heads up about their future. Maybe then they’d think twice, and speak less.

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Random Musings

This week Pope Francis lamented about the “gay lobby” that was at work at the Vatican in private remarks to the leadership of a key Latin American church group.

In related news, I can confirm that the sun rose in the east this morning.

Up there in the big city, New York City, residents of a certain building are living in fear for their lives and have filed suit to stop a …. Wait for it …. Denny’s restaurant from opening in their building.’

The condo board at 150 Nassau St. has portrayed, ahem, cough cough, “America’s diner” as unfit for their upscale address—where a 3-bedroom unit recently sold for $3.5 million. The suit contends Denny’s restaurants are a “haven for violence, disorderly conduct, and alcohol-drenched patrons.”

Your point? I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I was drunk and disorderly in a Denny’s I could’a bought that three million dollar condo.

Just sayin’.

Without a single landslide, earthquake, or volcanic eruption, more than 2,400 gay and lesbian couples have gotten married in Washington state since the state’s voter-approved same-sex marriage law took effect last December.

According to the Department of Health:

—Same-sex marriages occurred in 35 of the state’s 39 counties

—Same-sex marriages represented more than 20 percent of the 11,661 marriages that took place during that same period of time.

—King County had the highest number of same-sex marriages, with 1,321.

—63% of same-sex marriages were female couples.

—14% of the weddings were for couples who had traveled to Washington state from other states.

And, like I said, Washington is still standing.

Wildwood, New Jersey Mayor Ernest Troiano Jr. thinks he's found a way to put one of the town's problems, um, for lack of a better word, behind it.

He is set to ban, ban, BAN overly saggy pants; no ifs, ands or butts. The city is set to pass yet another law regulating how people dress on its boardwalk; it already bans shirtless folks, and shoeless folks, and now, baggy drawered folks, too.

But who determines the amount of acceptable sag? Well, apparently the rule will be pants that sag more than 3 inches below the hips, exposing either skin or underwear.

I think I might have found my calling: Saggy Pant Measurer.

Troiano said:  "When you have good families who call you up and say, 'I've been coming here 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and I'm not going to any longer because I'm not going to subject my children or my parents or grandparents to seeing some kid walk down the boardwalk with their butt hanging out,' you have to do something," he said. "I'm not one of the Fruit of the Loom underwear inspectors; I'm not one of the grapes. I don't want to see it."

I’m.Not.One.Of.The.Grapes?

LeAnn Rimes is all over TV plugging her newest album, and talking about her marriage to Eddie Cibrian, whom she met and f**ked while they were both married to other people.

She said that, while it was hard … hee hee hard …. She admitted to her family and her husband at the time, that she had made the mistake of cheating.

Really LeAnn? I know you’re a songwriter, but now you’re also a history re-writer?

Your ‘admission’ of infidelity came when the tabloids began publishing pictures of you and the married-to-someone-else-too Eddie getting’ all snoggy at an LA coffee shop. This makes one think that if you hadn’t gotten caught, you never would have admitted a thing. Then she goes on to say that she trusts Eddie, and he trusts her.

Two people who screwed around on their spouses trust one another.

I.Laugh. And then I ask LeAnn to STFU.

And, since we’ve already discussed same-sex marriage in Washington, let’s look at some good news out of California.

A new poll in the LA Times reveals that 58% of the state's registered voters believe same-sex marriage should be legal, compared with 36% against. Just three years ago, the numbers were 52% in favor and 40% against.

It’s gonna happen people.

So, there’s this thing called a Purity Ball, where fathers get to take their virgin daughters:

Dads, escort your daughter to an unforgettable event where hundreds of young ladies dressed in formal attire and their dashing fathers will celebrate purity! This extraordinary evening includes an elegant atmosphere, pictures, gourmet dinner and dessert, flowers, music and other surprises sure to delight both father and daughter. Legacy’s President and popular speaker, Carrie Abbott, will deliver a unique message to dads and daughters and our Master of Ceremonies will facilitate a purity covenant.

Yeah, whatever, but ….

What’s funny is the price: $69. Yes, fathers and daughters and 69. Seriously, did know one at Purity Central think maybe they should have changed that to $68.95?

Henry Cavill.

Super.Man.

I am not really big on the cartoon-cum-feature-film genre and usually wait to see them on TV, but there’s something about Henry that I just can’t put my finger on which makes me wanna see this one of the big peen, er, screen.

I wish I could put my finger on it. Hell, I’d need both hands.

Ever made a mistake at work? I have. My first mistake was taking the job. I kid.

But this guy, over there to Germany, made the most amazing mistake ever.

The man, an employee of a German bank, was in the middle of transferring 62.40 euros from a customer’s bank account when he fell asleep at the keyboard and his head mashed the number 2 key, turning that 62.40 transfer into one of 222,222,222.22 euros, AKA $300 million!

And I thought I had f**ked up on occasion!

Speaking of millions, the group One Million Moms—which, according to their Facebook page, actually number in the 56,000 range, but Fifty-Six Thousand Moms doesn’t sound so powerful—is going after Kraft foods for that ad right there:

‘Last week's issue of People Magazine had the most disgusting ad on the inside front cover that we have ever seen Kraft produce. A full 2-page ad features a n*ked man lying on a picnic blanket with only a small portion of the blanket barely covering his g*nitals. It is easy to see what the ad is really selling. A person has to look closely to see the item the company is marketing because the salad dressing bottle is so small next to the male model, picnic basket and other food items. There is also a small Kraft logo in the upper corners with the words "Silverware Optional - Let's Get Zesty." The website getmezesty.com is listed in the bottom corner.

Kraft has gone too far and will push away loyal, conservative customers with this new ad campaign. Christians will not be able to buy Kraft dressings or any of their products until they clean up their advertising. The consumers they are attempting to attract - women and mothers - are the very ones they are driving away. Who will want Kraft products in their fridge or pantry if this vulgarity is what they represent? One Million Moms cannot get over the gall of this company. It is unnecessary for Kraft to use s*x to sell salad dressing!’

PS the little asterisks in the words naked and sex and genitals are there because, as the OMM says, their word can get out against browsers that filter against those words.

Or, because OMM gets all hot-n-bothered typing naked sex genitals.

Hillary’s on Twitter y’all, and her first Tweet was to the guys who created the Texts from Hillary craze. I can’t wait till she’s President.

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