The Barbra Non-Fan Club

Sacred shit! I failed! I am beyond comfort! How could I be so heedless and sink below THE hollowed standards? I am ruined! Julia Phillips' book You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again keep on flashing like a nuclear leak blinker in my head! (Yeah, even this melodramatic burst is my desperate, pathetic stab at keeping up to feel adequate.) It's a friday night and instead of gallivanting outside having mindless sex and getting my liver mummified with tequila shots I chose what Karen Carpenter would do: play solitaire. While listening to ABBA. I'm kidding! I'd rather hit my gonads with a steel mallet than get my life's decisions done by Karen Carpenter! Truth is I can't listen to a Carpenters song without nursing homicidal thoughts.

You see I have a megalomaniac's ego. Despite glaring evidences I persist on a misguided belief that I am never in lack of self-confidence. This very trait advances my easily-bored-i-couldn't-give-a-flying-fig air which naturally irks cutey-pahootey snots out there. So imagine my seismic shock when confronted with the very proof that yes, I am an inadequate retard.

I was rummaging through shelves of magazines at home and for some sick cosmic joke the forgotten old issue of Tina Brown's defunct Talk Magazine found its way into my (now) outraged hands.

The story that blew a huge splinter in my self esteem : Are You Gay Enough?

In what was touted to be “fresh voice in American conversations” the article outline the preferred and ideal for modern manhood among contemporary women: Just Gay Enough. Meaning the guy should possess all the standard masculine attributes and aspirations but wouldn't wince wearing a salmon tinted cashmere shirt. This article preceded the bizarre demographic-constructing insanity called metrosexual so shut your trap and let my drivel roll on.

Given the daunting standards of the article, I can safely assume and displeased to report that I am not gay enough! What? Me? Not Gay Enough To Make Women Throw Caution Out The Window And Fornicate With Me Like It's The Last Hour Before The Ozone Completely Snaps, Backstreet Boys Release Another Album Or Apocalypse Hits Whichever Comes First?! The writer must have inhaled contraband.

Anyway, this got me into thinking. Maybe it is true.

Many gay people, especially bloggers and guys4men members detest me for self-slapping that dirty word 'bisexual' into my blog. This automatically disqualifies me in the taxonomy of human sexuality namely male, female, lesbians, Michael Jackson and The Rock. If I am to consider the bitching and moaning of true blue gays whenever the B word is sidled in a conversation I must as well be a polygamous Mormon in terms of hypocrisy. Which gives a riotous new dimension to the phrase “Bi now, gay later.”

I'm getting sidetracked.

What I'm trying to hiccup about is I am not gay enough because:

• 01. I can't stand Barbra Streissand. Like listening to The Carpenters/ABBA/Barry Mannilow, Ms. Prince Of Tides ignites my dormant Jack The Ripper to surface. I made a faux pas on this over dinner hosted by a flamboyant friend. Talk shifted to Streissand and a wiseass guest tried to fish out swooning opinions on Ms. B from me. Lubricated by bubbly white wine, I unblinkingly replied “I'd rather gargle Gillettes!” Deathly silence fell like a guillotine and a straight buddy snickered, and in doing so shared my fate as official persona non grata in the host's dining room for life.

• O2.The color pink makes me gag and musicals make my ingrown nails throb.

• 03. Male Armpits disgusts me but a woman's smooth underarms make me imagine rocky road-flavored Popsicles.

• 04. I have a nonexistent gaydar. During a client photo shoot some hags' tongues were twirling like a dutch windmill over the supposed homoerotic trysts of Piolo Pascual and Sam Milby and I matter-of-factly asked “Is Piolo really gay?” to which a loud queen snapped at me: “Ha?!! Ikaw na lang hindi nakasex ni Piolo?! (What? You're the only guy Piolo hadn't had sex with?).”

• 05. Women very much turns me on and I get turgid looking at pictures of Eva Green, Emanuele Beart, Sophie Marceau, Monica Belluci and Mayumi Cabrera, a proposition that sends shudders of revulsion up the spines of my gay friend.

I can go on and on in what you snots may call a Denial Spree but it's almost three in the morning. I will continue the list if the mood suits me. Meanwhile I need to hit the sack. However, negative nellies, you have ammunitions to discredit me. Four words:

Marcus Shekenberg.

Travis Wade.