Betty Crocker – Page 5

We are all Untermeyer Fountain Sprites tonight.

Does that look like a Gawker refugee camp to you? I didn’t think so. But if a brilliant German sculptor in 1910 sought to capture what Crasstalk is about to become, he would have produced this.

This is Untermeyer Fountain, in the North Garden at NYC’s Central Park. With a slight pang about my beloved Bethesda Fountain’s tender feelings, I declare it to be my favorite fountain in the entire Park.

Like Crasstalk, it’s simple, elegant and uncluttered. Like Crasstalk commenters, it’s joie de vivre incarnate. And also like our beautiful commenting ladies and gents, they’re keeping it real. See? The ladies are dancing barefoot. It’s almost as though that wonderful garden spun around a few times and generated this wonderful thing that makes you say “Wow!” every time you see it. That’s what Crasstalk might become.

I am glad that so many of my fellow former Gawkers came over here. But this is no refugee camp. It’s a big noisy party with a lot of truly intellectual, curious, decent-hearted people in it. And in my head it looks like this fountain.

So glad you all came over. So glad we can continue to do meetups, HumpDay posts, book reviews, wine commentary (Mom3, I’m looking at you.), mockery of the absurd, and most of all… the really joyous stuff that happens when a few smart people dance around an idea.

Now let’s turn up that water, crank up the music, and shake what our Mommas gave us.

Valentine’s Gay 2011: Meat And Cheese

65 comments

My favorite version of the Valentine’s Day story is the one where poor jailed Val picked heart-shaped violet leaves and poked holes in them to send love notes to the jailer’s blind daughter, who was then able to see.

Well, as most of you know, I’m gay married to a cop and we’ve been together almost 8 years. And after 8 years, I’ve washed enough underwear, listened to enough dirty jokes and moved enough coffee cups to the (goddam) dishwasher from the (f’n) sink to fill a warehouse. Like most enduring relationships, it becomes stronger when you see your beloved for who he really is. It’s hard to picture a knight in shining armor using a nose hair trimmer, but they all do. Imagine if they didn’t! So I’m stuck with Cap’n, nose hair removal and all, and he’s a wonderful man who would do anything for me… except pick up after his own damn self. He tries, but the gerbil on the wheel in his head gets distracted by shiny things on the way to the laundry hamper. We fight about the socks on the floor, then he wraps two big arms around me and I realize that nothing bad can happen to me, ever again, and what was I thinking about and why is my shirt now on the floor with the socks?

Things like this ratchet up the difficulty of selecting a Valentine’s Day gift. Cliches won’t work.

Cap’n Crocker is a man of particular tastes and not all of them are refined, which should make it easy, right? No. He loves tulips, so last year I got him 100 of them. His allergic reaction was truly amazing. His poor nose was like Victoria Falls. Lovely! They graced the desk in our condo’s lobby for 10 days.

The prior year I threw a Valentine’s Day cocktail party for just us. I forgot that what I was using as a mixer for the Aphrodisia-tinis already had vodka in it. We woke up at 3 AM, cotton-mouthed and fully clothed in the living room. There was one candle still lit, and Edmund Pevensie (one of our cats) had indulged in the gravlax left on my plate and puked in my shoe. Lucy Pevensie (Edmund’s sister) was looking at us with feline pity. Romance – and cat barf – was in the air.

What to do? Well, after wracking my brain, I came up with an idea. Cap’n is a social butterfly at his precinct, and while he does go on patrol from time to time, he’s mostly in an open office with about a dozen other cops. They just completed a huge project today, and cops love to eat together, so I sent a Valentine’s treat basket of cheeses, salami, fruit and crackers to Cap’n at the precinct to be delivered tomorrow. The card?

Dear Mike, I hope you think this isn’t cheesy. You can share with your friends or hide the salami. They say you are what you eat, but don’t turn into a cracker. You are a big fruit. Love, Me.

He will be teased and pretend to be irked when his Commanding Officer grabs the card and reads it out loud in a Brooklyn accent, which could make a fortune cookie hilarious. But he will be all happy that I thought of his friends. And we’ll still go out for dinner on Sunday and make lurve.

But 8 years in, you have to get creative.

Where Are We Going, And What’s With The Handbasket?

176 comments

We’re here because we’re smart and funny and lovable. All of us. We like talking about issues of the day, books and movies, and bitching about our spouses or lack thereof. We give each other advice and support. We post pictures of hot guys and gals, posh rooms and clothes, incredible shoes and cars. There’s a recipe exchange. Can’t find a backsplash tile? Post a picture of it and someone will track down the manufacturer. What should you wear to a summer wedding? Post your budget and preferred hemline and I bet you’ll have it narrowed down to three by lunch. How to deal with a bitchy coworker? Everything from going to HR to toxic tahini will be suggested. Did your kitty die? The Rainbow Bridge ends right here. (PS – when you’re ready, rescue another kitty from a shelter, k?)

If Crasstalk was a party, it would be A-list. Not because we exclude others, but because we include them. Yes, most of us are liberals from a social standpoint, at least. But a rational conservative wouldn’t be given the side-eye. Just no bigotry, plz.

Being told that we are worthless to
Gawker, despite the fact that we have enriched everyone that works there both monetarily and intellectually, had to hurt a little. I know I was offended. But there’s some satisfaction:

We know that Gawker will now be a place more akin to a zoo because we aren’t there. Congratulations, Nick! You said we made this place a ghetto and were peasants. Now you have feces-flinging angermonkeys instead. Hold onto your banana, and good luck posting another Peyser hit piece.

I will never ever again have to deconstruct a moronic post made by a whingy-whiny above-the-law social misfit who got a well-deserved speeding ticket and therefore thinks all cops are bad. Also, my efforts to educate people about how to behave during a road stop to reduce the likelihood of getting a summons will now only be given to people who deserve it. Though you all probably know this already.

We won’t be limited by comment boxes.

Creativity will be encouraged.

We can actually do something about trolls rather than trying to shame them.

No more Cheetos and Black Swans and Spartacus ads slowing pages as they load.

And best of all, we won’t be lining the pockets of people who treat us with contempt.

Welcome.