To My Beautiful Husband, On Our 15th Wedding Anniversary ~

June 24, 2000. Signing the ketubah. Notice how my father is the only person paying any attention to the rabbi. My mother is rubbing Rick's bald head, for luck I guess.

I’ve reached the conclusion recently that couples should spend their lives together first , and then get married. Later. After everything has happened and the whole grand opera is coming to an end.

Life is hard. It’s trial by fire. And sometimes marriage is trial by friendly fire. I think it’s important to see how someone handles stress and hurt and loss and joy and winning and losing before making that most weighty of commitments. I think one should experience how their partner deals with being stuck in traffic, with dog vomit on the new rug, when the job comes to an unscripted end, when a parent [continue reading...]

June 24, 2015
All, Inside Voice
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The Day I Got Schooled by a Tony-Winning Diva Backstage at the Tonys

In 2004, I was fortunate enough to be on the Tonys with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof. It was a moment in my life I’ll never forget, for many reasons. One of those reasons is because I got a smackdown by a Broadway diva and Tony winner.

Randy Graff was playing Golde to Alfred Molina’s Tevye in that production and it just so happened that I was standing next to her backstage at Radio City during a Tony rehearsal. It was the same year that Wicked opened and while we were waiting in the wings, Idina was singing Defying Gravity. I thought she sounded a little rough around the edges and for some reason I felt compelled to share that opinion with Randy. She was having none of me. She turned to me, annoyed, and [continue reading...]

June 6, 2015
Arts & Entertainment, Inside Voice
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We Shouldn’t Be Boycotting Ian & Mati’s Businesses? Oh, Please.

Senator Ted Cruz and Mati Weiderpass, Credit – Facebook

If I read one more thread, comment, post, or article about how the gay community shouldn’t be boycotting Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner’s businesses, my head is going to explode.

Some wish to frame this conversation as a “who we are allowed to talk to” debate. For the sake of argument, let’s do that. Who are we allowed to talk to? We’re allowed to talk to anyone we wish. We can invite anyone to our home for dinner. To everyone who keeps writing that we must speak to the opposition, fair enough. You can speak to anyone you’d like. You will be neither arrested nor censored. So, in the interest of absolute clarity, you are absolutely allowed to associate with Ted Cruz. By the exact same token, the LGBT community is allowed to respond in any way we so choose. That is not [continue reading...]

April 30, 2015
All, Featured Posts
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Dear Giorgio ~

Recently, you said:

“A homosexual man is a man 100%. He does not need to dress homosexual…When homosexuality is exhibited to the extreme — to say, ‘Ah, you know I’m homosexual,’ — that has nothing to do with me. A man has to be a man.”

Let me tell you a little story, Giorgio. I am Jewish. I don’t believe in God and I am not religious, but I am Jewish. As far back as my family tree goes, on both sides, I am Jewish. I wasn’t raised particularly religious, but we were Jewish. As I was growing up I came to understand that my father was both an atheist and someone who abhorred all organized religion. At one point I said to him, “We don’t believe in God. We don’t go to shul very much. We’re not Jewish.” That didn’t go well. He looked me right in the eyes and said, [continue reading...]

April 21, 2015
Inside Voice, Write the Power
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Episode III: What Did…I Do?

Zap!

Ow!

Oh, come on! Stop it, pixie Valerie Perrine! I’m getting married. Can’t we do this later?!?!?

She smacked me hard across the face.

Whap!!!

Get it together, she scolded.

I was suddenly über-conscious of the fact that I was standing before friends and family, witnesses. I wondered, are they witnessing this?

Frantically searching the room I found only gentle smiles, soft tears, long-time couples holding hands, welcoming us into the fold. But not a concerned face to be found. Nothing.

I checked back in with my very-soon-to-be husband. Using his eyes again as anchor, safe, and compass, I regained my balance, placed myself in context, took a deep breath. A wedding. My wedding. Guests. Nausea. Breath. He, too, registered nothing of my experience. Shaking my head vigorously, I Etch-a-Sketched away the bad dream and questioned the intelligence of getting stoned and falling into a Village People [continue reading...]

January 26, 2015
Arts & Entertainment, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts, Uncategorized
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Episode II: Do You, Magnus…

I have found asylum in your eyes. They swirl like warm cigar smoke and when the world is too much I curl up in their curls. I wonder if you see me differently through each pattern. If I change as you change. I wonder. I know you have unanswered questions about me too, for it’s our mysteries as much if not more than our compatibilities that accounts for our electricity.  And it is our electricity that has led us here, to trade I for we. Officially. Legally. Eternally.

I love you. That’s all I know. I love you. I want you by my side as my unknowns become known. And I want to stand by you as you experience the same thing. That’s it. It’s so simple. That is the entire scope of my dream: that we should discover this life together.

I found this recently, crumpled in the back [continue reading...]

January 19, 2015
All, Arts & Entertainment, Featured Posts, Uncategorized
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Episode I: Another Coming Out

I don’t remember it all that well.
It’s hazy.
Comes in waves, like heat off a desert highway.
It doesn’t feel real. Or like it happened to me.
These are the lies I tell. The lies that have assumed the shape of truth. I’ve tried telling the truth, but have been greeted with skepticism. A furrowed brow. A tilted head. A voice that pitches up or eyes that narrow slightly. All tells of doubt. Doubt of the veracity of my story. A refusal to take my word for it and a need to dig further. For years I feared the digging. Feared what it would mean for me ~ for those implicated ~ for my LGBT brothers and sisters. So I lied. 
What are you talking about??? Such conspiracy theories. About me?!?? Please!
But I don’t want to lie anymore. Can’t hide. I came out of one closet only to find myself in another. But a [continue reading...]

January 10, 2015
All, Arts & Entertainment, Featured Posts, Uncategorized
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The War Against (Jewish) Christmas

There’s a war going on alright. And it is, in fact, a war against tradition ~ a Christmas tradition. But it’s not a war that Fox News is going to cover.  I’m speaking, of course, of the war on Jewish Christmas.

Everyone knows that Christmas is the day Jews make a pilgrimage to the best Chinese food restaurants. (Yes, the best. Greasy Kung Pao? We’re never coming back. My people don’t play when it comes to Chinese food.) Once we’ve consumed 14,000 calories (most of that in the Shrimp Fried Rice ~ don’t judge ~ keeping kosher “in the house” is another fine tradition), we make our way to the movies. It’s a day Jews spend together that dates back thousands of years. Or maybe just 20 or 30. And maybe it’s really just an American Jewish [continue reading...]

December 24, 2014
All, Arts & Entertainment, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Inside Voice, Uncategorized
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A Genuine Apology, A Marriage Devastated

Allow me to brag for a moment. I have a pretty solid marriage. I hesitate to write that because putting it out there feels like an invitation for bad things to happen. A moment fixed in time that all but begs for a Google search should things ever go to shit. But after 16 plus years, we’re still madly in love with one another. And perhaps more importantly, we’re still madly in like with one another. And on most days we somehow manage to squelch the impulse to stab one another with one of the dull, rusty, turn-of-the-century butter knives we received as a wedding gift. Most days.

But recently we came upon a pothole in an otherwise smooth journey. Well, a crevasse, really. A canyon. A large canyon. Ok, fine, the other day we reached the [continue reading...]

December 13, 2014
All, Inside Voice
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Middle-Aged Gay Lip Syncs Taylor Swift

You know what you should be doing right now?

Right now you should be getting down to this. sick. beat.

Enjoy.

 

 

 

Middle-Aged Gay Lip Syncs Taylor Swift from Roger Ian Rosen on Vimeo.

November 3, 2014
All, Arts & Entertainment
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