Fried & Convicted Read online

  Bywater Books

  Copyright © 2017 Fay Jacobs

  All rights reserved.

  By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Bywater Books.

  Bywater Books First Edition: April 2017

  Cover designer: TreeHouse Studio

  Cartoon in “Rush Limbaugh Fears Me” courtesy of Rob Waters

  Bywater Books

  PO Box 3671

  Ann Arbor MI 48106-3671

  http://www.bywaterbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61294-093-9 (print)

  ISBN: 978-1-61294-094-6 (ebook)

  Contents

  Foreword

  Prologue

  2014

  All I Do Is Stream With You the Whole Day Through

  I Love (Blue-Footed) Boobies!

  An Old-fashioned Wedding

  The Case of the Purloined Pooch

  Bye Bye Birdie

  And Baby Makes Three

  Be Careful What You Wish For

  Suiting Up for Summer

  Life Is What Happens When You Have Other Plans

  Don Gardiner Will Drape It

  Have Schnauzer, Will Travel

  Diagnosis: Postal Service Is Alive and Well

  They Hate Me, They Really Hate Me

  There's No Place Like Home

  Equality Is No Longer Just a Concept

  Bigots Make Lousy Sandwiches

  Smart Phones: Reach Out and Offend Someone

  Orange Is the New Black Thumb

  An Athlete of Olympic Proportions

  Bibbity Bobbity BOO!

  Letting Go at the Pet Parade

  2015

  Like Peas in a Podcast

  Liquid Diet

  Nouns gone AWOL

  Do You Kava????

  Will It Be 50 Shades of Fay?

  Silly, Savvy, Spot-On Suggestions Spill In!

  Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat

  Oh, New York, New York

  Celebrating Old Lesbians

  Ready, Set, Splatter!

  Beware of the Mailbox

  Here's to the L in LPAC

  The Old Woman and the Sea

  Not Just Any Friday!

  Paddling: Extreme Upstream!

  The Great Unwashed

  Warning! Warning!

  It's Greek to Me

  Easy Rider or Look Ma, No Hands!

  Gay as a Culture

  Driving Me Berserk

  Learning to Bark

  Is That a Pink Question?

  2016

  Carol Is the New Desert Hearts

  I Am My Own Roadie

  The Luxury of Luxury

  Giving Your Fitness Regime a Lift

  How the Mother of All Holidays Got Its Start

  Rude Nation

  Pardon Me, I Have to Go Vacuum the Grass

  Beauty Secrets from the Fingernail Files

  Passing the Pride Along

  Safety in Numbers

  The New Fear of Flying

  American Ninja Wannabe

  Advertising's Disturbing Creature Comforters

  A Keynote of Note

  Have Things Changed in the Squad Room?

  Aging by the Numbers

  Bottoms Up . . . or Skol!

  Back from the Land of Fumaroles

  A Whale of a Fail

  Iceland’s Blue Lagoon Is an Unnatural Wonder

  Farewell, Kuda

  Truth Be Told, Please

  Rush Limbaugh Fears Me

  The News Is Making Me Nuts

  The American Autumn

  Your Spinach Is Reporting In

  On the Correct Side of History

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To my wife Bonnie and the Usual Subjects

  Foreword

  Fay Jacobs and I have been through a lot together over the past two decades. I’ve written introductions to four of her essay collections, and I couldn’t be happier to write the fifth.

  Fried & Convicted was written over the last few years, and it chronicles the joy of gaining equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, tales of Icelandic lagoons, Provincetown adventures and words about lesbians of a certain age. And it tells a few harrowing personal stories, such as Bonnie’s unnerving medical diagnosis, the time Fay went kayaking with alligators, or came up with a public relations scheme to rescue my beloved dog after she was stolen from my house. I’ll say that again: MY DOG WAS STOLEN FROM MY HOUSE.

  But this isn’t about me (but seriously, someone stole my dog; you can read about it in “The Case of the Purloined Pooch” in this book). This is about a woman who truly lives out loud, and this past year, she’s taken that adage literally. Fay and I have many shared experiences in the theater. Except that for most of our two decades of friendship, I was the one onstage, and Fay was seated firmly in the director’s chair. She’s still in that chair, but now that chair is on stage. She’s embarked on a new career as a “sit-down comic,” reading her essays to crowds on land and sea.

  She begins her show with an adage she long ago learned from her father Mort, who always said “Nothing is so terrible if you get a good story to tell.” Those are words that Fay lives by, and we’re all the better for it.

  I got my dog back. Fay was not eaten by alligators. Bonnie got well. There are some great stories here. And nothing is so terrible.

  Enjoy!

  —Eric C. Peterson

  Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

  Prologue

  Here we go again! This writer is still aging gracelessly in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

  In the two decades my wife Bonnie and I have lived at the beach, we’ve resided in one boat, two condos, two houses, and an RV; we’ve shared our homes with a succession of schnauzers, and been domestic-partnered, civil-unioned and married, twice, through a variety of paperwork and ceremonies.

  I love my wife, my life in Rehoboth, and having the privilege of writing about any topic that catches my fancy. I continue to have a blast as a columnist, despite having reached and surpassed retirement age.

  As of 2015, I’ve become a performer as well, touring with my one-woman show Aging Gracelessly: 50 Shades of Fay. Who knew I could break into show business at an age when I’d be more likely to break a hip?

  And one single principle has guided me along this sometimes bumpy but always interesting road.

  My father always said: Nothing is ever so horrible if you wind up with a good story to tell. And have I got stories. Some are fun, some are distressing, and a lot of them are absolutely infuriating. But they’ve all been fodder for the storyteller in me.

  And frankly, this legacy about taking lemons and turning them into typewritten lemonade was the best advice my father ever gave me—especially since the rest from that era tended toward “It wouldn’t kill you to wear a dress to your sister’s wedding” and “You’ll never find a husband if you buy a house with another girl.” Although he was right on both counts.

  Along with my almost 40 years of watching, participating in, and writing about our LGBT march toward full civil rights, I’ve taken time to have a hell of a lot of fun, and written those stories, too.

  And following my dad’s advice, I try to find something worthwhile to take from just about every stupid, annoying, or awful thing that happens.

  So here comes my fifth collection of essays, these particular ones having been published in the magazines Letters from CAMP Rehoboth and Delaware Beach Life. I have also included a keynote speech I had the privilege to be invited to give at the Golden Crown Literary Society Conference in July 2016. I love the topic of passing along our culture—and I am happy to share my take on it with you.

  So here come the stories. And the opinions. Duck and cover, my friends. I’m letting the ink fly.

  January 2014

  ALL I DO IS STREAM WITH YOU

  THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH

  I must come clean about my addiction. I am a streaming junkie.

  Streaming. It sounds like something out of a tree-hugger nature magazine. But no, it’s technology. I’m sure I’m light-years behind the curve on this, but somehow I stumbled into a Blu-ray DVD player and Netflix. There it was, the world of video streaming before my bulging eyeballs.

  Oh, it was casual use at first. We clicked Netflix and watched a movie or two on demand. Then, over a period of weeks, we watched the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, marveling at our ability to watch two episodes a night if we so chose. What a great new technology! Freedom from network schedules!

  Then it happened. One cold January weekend we found ABC’s Scandal and watched the 2011 premier episode. And right after the credits, without any further action on our part, the TV counted down 30 seconds until the next episode started. My spouse and I exchanged furtive glances. Should we? It was already 10:30 p.m. What the heck.

  Then it was 11:15, with 10, 9, 8, 7 . . . third episode on deck.

  Now if you’ve never seen this show and you might watch it one day, stop here. Spoiler Alert. But if you’ve already ogled three years of this crazy political potboiler, you will know exactly how we got hooked.

  That first night, we dragged ourselves away from the TV after
episode four, which featured wicked political scandals, murders, spin doctoring and steamy love affairs. But by 8 a.m. we were back at the boob tube, drinking our steaming coffee, glued to our streaming TV, following the wild goings-on in the Oval Office. I hadn’t been planted in front of the TV like this on a Saturday morning since I was in diapers watching Daffy Duck.

  At this point, diapers might have helped, as we hardly made time to visit the powder room. “Do you want lunch?” my mate asked. Lunchtime already? We hit pause, slapped together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and resumed our stream of unconsciousness. “The president’s been shot! Oh no, how will Olivia spin this? Will the Chief of Staff allow his husband to adopt a baby?”

  Scandal streamed into our home for hours on end, like an exciting, edgy, steamy, raw political bodice ripper. I was thoroughly, giddily, addicted.

  How badly? By Saturday night we were well into season two and resentful that a friend’s birthday would take us to a favorite restaurant for glorious food and Cosmopolitans. I’d rather stay home with a case of the streaming meemies? This was trouble.

  So we changed horses in midstream and went to dinner. Even the Grey Goose couldn’t keep me from needing my fix.

  Rushing back from dinner, we dove into our living-room bunker and hunkered down for another streaming pile of Scandal, coming up only for air, popcorn, or the unavoidable potty break. Who really shot the president? Did the Supreme Court Justice die of natural causes? Who stole the voting machine card?

  By Sunday, bleary-eyed and weakened from lack of exercise, we saw snowflakes start to fall. Woo-hoo!!!! A Monday snow day would mean Scandal streaming for hours on end. In the countdown between episodes we checked the weather channel and high-fived.

  “Another episode will begin in 20 seconds . . . ”

  We awoke Monday morning to six inches of new-fallen show and swollen eyes from our late night stream-a-thon. Grabbing Visine and bathrobes we headed right back to the stream of the crime.

  Kidnappings, rekindled romance, spies, moles, press briefings, stunning clothes and . . .

  Sleeping, paying bills, even writing columns became mere irritants compared to the constant streaming of Scandal. If we ate and drank at all, it was hunched over the coffee table in front of the TV. Forget getting dressed, or doing the dishes, forget everything but finding out who did what dirty tricks to who on Scandal.

  10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . .

  Plunging back into the intrigue, we lapped up another exciting forty-three minutes of top-notch television. That’s when it happened. The video signal went kaflooey. The screen went to black. And when it came back on 30 seconds later, my television asked me for our Netflix name and password.

  Excuse me? Password? How would I know? I signed up months ago. Do you know how many password decisions and changes I’ve made to my zillion password-protected accounts since then? Is it my book title? Mother’s maiden name? First dog? High school boyfriend?

  Hysterical, I fled to my computer, googled Netflix and clicked Forgot Password. They promised to send me a code on my cell phone. Cell phone? I hadn’t seen it in days. A frantic search revealed nothing so I called myself from my house phone to find my cell phone, which rang from beneath the sofa cushions where it had become buried and forgotten during the scandalous binge.

  Code in hand, I raced to the television to reset my Netflix password. The screen blinked Enter Password, over and over, taunting me. Enter Password!!!!!! Enter Password!!!!!!

  Suddenly, I had an epiphany. I understood that my television set had just performed an intervention. It was sister, nephew, best friend all in one. Sure, I denied my addiction at first, but then I knew what I should do. I hollered “Uncle!”

  I turned off the TV and made us a couple of cold turkey sandwiches. We entered streaming rehab. We got dressed. We went out. We ate a meal at a table.

  I’ve been clean for months now. But there are days when I still wonder about the scandals I am missing as I lust for a really intense binge-watch. I can stream, can’t I???

  January 2014

  I LOVE (BLUE-FOOTED) BOOBIES!

  Oh my. We’ve just come back from the trip of a lifetime. The words I have been assigned in this column cannot do it justice, but I will try.

  In the midst of another freakin’ winter snow storm in Baltimore, we flew out to Quito, Ecuador, on the flippin’ equator. Nice improvement. And we took the requisite awkward photo with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern. Tourons, indeed.

  From Quito we flew 600 miles to the island of Baltra in the Galapagos, traveled by bus the short distance to the coast, donned life jackets, and took a 16-person inflatable boat to our anchored ship. Our luxurious Celebrity cruise ship welcomed only 100 passengers. While this was no gay cruise, using our gaydar we immediately spied our 10 percent and had great company. Plus, we met several straight couples we came to adore, so the diversity was a blast.

  Every day we left the ship by inflatable boat to go to a different island. The first day was probably the most fantastic since it was such a glorious surprise to be up close and personal with sea lions, iguanas, sea turtles, and a bevy of birds.

  Since there are no island predators, certainly not humans, the animals have no fear. We were told to stay at least eight feet from the animals but if they chose to come closer, what could we do? At one point a friend stopped to sit under a tree to tie her shoe and a honking sea lion came up and used her butt for a pillow. Stranger things have happened, but not much.

  These fabulous creatures lumbered up to us, snorted, scratched, and generally went about their business. We saw nursing sea lions, swimming sea turtles, and fish-swallowing pelicans, in what truly personified a Big Gulp. Penguins hopped around in pairs, cormorants dried their wings in the wind, and frigate birds swooped overhead like the Blue Angels.

  Then there was the day of the iguana. Piles of them, actually, littering the beach, happily ignoring the camera-carrying, floppy-hatted tourist species. I became so addicted to snapping photos I begged Bonnie to stop me so I could actually look around and take it all in. Never had I seen such a magical environment.

  One day we took a long walk along a portion of an island formed by a 1998 volcanic eruption. The lava and shale formations looked like stunning sculptures, modern art, and a stark, unforgiving landscape. Heaven and hell together, beautiful and forbidding at the same time.

  One gay boy clucked his tongue at finding a two-foot square piece of shale that had broken off a formation. He picked it up and searched for where it came from. Sure enough, he found the exact spot and fit it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. “It was so messy!” he joked.

  Darwin’s theories of evolution and nature’s uncanny ability to persevere were all around us. To see a tiny new-growth cactus peek out from a wall of inhospitable lava told the tale.

  Later, we walked to Darwin’s Lake, where flamingos stood on one foot, grazing from the reeds growing from underneath of the water. When the naturalists told us that the birds spend seven hours a day eating, everyone was astonished. I don’t know why. We’d been doing just that on the ship.

  When it came time for snorkeling I donned the big ugly wet suit and gave it a try. I was all right at first, floating, head down, gazing at the beautiful array of colorful fish. In my wonderment I didn’t notice the current pushing me pretty far out, where I bumped a rock and scraped my knee. Gee, Bonnie was no longer nearby, and I panicked a little, glad to see one of our inflatables and its crew hovering not too far away.

  They’d taught us a signal for requesting help—kind of a loop with my arm, over my head. The best I could do at that point was flail my arms, but the crew recognized that as the universal evacuation plea.

  The boat came quickly and hauled me aboard. As the lone casualty of our 16-person tour, I felt humiliated—until I saw the others gasping for air, struggling back to shore, stumbling out of the water as if they’d made the Cuba to Key West swim. I began to feel less humiliated than clever.

  Back aboard the mother ship, I unzipped my wet suit, surprised I didn’t hear myself deflate like a beach ball with its valve open. I peeled off the rubber clothing and got immediately into a dry martini.