Baby, If You've Ever Wondered

Another year has elapsed in the adventures of GayProf. We are starting the end of my thirties and it ain't pretty, people. Fortunately, I was able to have per-celebrations visiting VUBOQ and his Amazing Friends. There was much eating and drinking and climbing of broken escalators.

Apparently the Supreme Court also decided to give me an early gift by declaring me almost-human. Well, almost-human as long as my home state's legislature or court thinks of me as such. Whatever the case, as we all know, I use my birthday as a time to take stock of my life by making comparisons to others’ life journeys, real or imagined, at the same age. It is a little macabre habit tired gimmick ritual that I have. I’m not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

If I were Andy Travis at age 39, it would have been six years since I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio from my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico.



If I were Dolly Parton at 39, I would contradictorily record two songs entitled “Real Love” and “Don’t Call It Love" this year.

If I were Paul Lynde at age 39, this is the year I would make my first appearance in the television show Bewitched. My role was not Uncle Arthur (which I would originate at age 40), but rather the outlandishly mortal Harold Harold who attempts to teach Samantha how to drive a car.

If I were Mr. Carlson, it would be another five years before I hired Andy Travis as Program Director of WKRP.

If I were Paula Deen, I would be a racist idiot.

If I were either of my parents at age 39, I would have three children. The oldest would be nineteen and the youngest would be twelve.

If I were Oscar Wilde, this is the year I would produce my play A Woman of No Importance.

If I were Lyle Waggoner, this is the year that I would leave The Carol Burnett Show to play the role of Wonder Woman’s boyfriend, Steve Trevor. Aside: The realization that I was the same age as Steve Trevor sorta made me feel better about aging.





If I were Harvey Milk, this is the year that I would move to San Francisco for the first time.

If I were Che Guevara, I would be executed this year after failing to incite revolution in Bolivia.

If I were Dick Sargent, this is the year I would replace Dick York as Darrin Stephens in the television show Bewitched. Apparently, Elizabeth Montgomery liked to hang around the gays. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

If I were Les Nessman, I would have met Andy Travis last year. Aside: The realization that I was the same age as Les sorta made me want to kill myself.




If I were Adam West, this would be my last year playing Batman. I would, however, continue to do the Batusi on demand.

If I were Venus Flytrap, it would have been ten years since Andy Travis convinced me to quit my job as a science teacher and become a DJ.

If I were Marylin Monroe, I would have been dead for three years.

If I were Miguel Antonio Otero II, I would have been governor of New Mexico for two years.

If I were Mary Richards, I would have been fired from WJM-TV two years ago.




If I were Johnny Fever, Andy Travis would have freed me from playing music by the Hallelujah Tabernacle Choir in order to play rock’n’roll last year.

If I were Jesus, I would have been dead for six years.

Anna Nicole Smith died at age 39.

If I were Pearl Bailey, it would have been ten years since I appeared in Variety Girl with Bob Hope.



If were Leonardo DiCaprio, this is the year I would bore audiences with yet another film version of The Great Gatsby.

Activist Harry Hay officially launched the gay-rights group known as the Mattachine Society at age 39. Given it was 1951, he was considered quite daring.




If I were Sofia Vergara, this is the year I would be voted the “most desirable woman”.

If I were Billie Holiday, this is the year that I would first tour Europe and release my LP Billie Holiday for Clef Records.

If I were Alois Schicklgruber, this is the year that I would change my surname to “Hitler.” It would be another 13 years before the birth of my evil-incarnate son Adolf.

If I were Audrey Hepburn, this is the year that I would marry Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti.

If I were Dinah Washington, a.k.a. “Queen of the Blues”, I would die of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills in my Detroit home this year.




If I were Jennifer Marlow, nobody would know my age by my own design.

If I were Octavio Ambrosio Larrazolo, I would be practicing law in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It would be another twenty years before I would be the first elected Mexican American governor in the United States.

If I were Jenny McCarthy, this is they year I would pose for Playboy. Everyone else would wonder how I ever became famous in the first place.

If I were GayProf, I would be under the delusion that people still know this blog exists.

Jaclyn Smith at 39 was reigning as the “Queen of Television Mini-Movie” by starring in both George Washington and The Night They Saved Christmas.

If I were Kate Jackson, I would be diagnosed with a malignant tumor after my first ever mammogram. It would be my last year as one of the titular characters in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

If I were Cher, I would have created the film production company Isis and filmed one of my most memorable roles as Florence “Rusty” Dennis in the movie Mask at age 39.

If I were Jacqueline Kennedy, this is the year that I would become Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.




If I were Barbie, I would become a Nascar driver this year because, why not?

If I were Spartacus star Andy Whitfield, I would die this year of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

If I were Franklin D. Roosevelt at age 39, this is the year I would contract my paralytic illness.

If I were Farrah Fawcett, I would win critical acclaim for my acting in the film Extremities.

If I were Wonder Woman, I would age another 2,452 years before joining Patriarch’s world to fight crime.

What to Wear, What to Wear: Cloris Edition

Halloween always offers so many of my favorite things: candy, punch, sex with a man in a mask (who isn't into the leather scene). Alas, this year I will be thoroughly detained from the official gay holiday thanks to some remarkable work duties.

You can think of me playing Mr. Rourke this weekend. Only instead of an idyllic island, our guests will be in Midwestern Funky Town. In place of festive tropical drinks, we will have stale coffee. Instead of granting their every fantasy, I will force them to endure days of academic discussion. Still, I can manage to teach each one of them an important moral lesson that will lead them rethink their life choices. Then I will watch them depart on an amphibious plane.

Even with my tough work schedule, it doesn’t mean that I am not thinking about ideal costumes. Those who are serious long time readers of CoG know that my costumes never turn out how I imagined. Indeed, this might actually be the longest running gag on this blog. Read the archive: It's true. After five years, this bit almost seems fresh again.

Here are the things that I aim for, and my disappointing results:

What I aim for:
Edna Garrett



Some might argue that it was an ignoble culmination of the career of Charlotte Rae. Sure, some suggest that appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show was a bit more glamorous than playing dietician to four spoiled and entitled students. Well, I say, you take the good, you take the bad, and then you’ve got the facts of life.

What I end up with:
Beverly Ann Stickle



Few people even remember that Mrs. Garrett left the sinking ship show before it ended. Quite frankly, I would pay for a lot of therapy to forget this show entirely.

Maybe Mrs. Garrett left because she didn't understand how she ended up selling novelties in an ice-cream shop. Or maybe she just got tired of all the whining that went on amongst the entitled. Whatever the case, they replaced her with her sister, the divorcee Beverly Ann. Does anybody even remember her story?

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What I aim for:
Mrs. Robinson



Because I use it for a class, I can’t seem to escape watching The Graduate at least once a year. After that many viewings, I can tell you that this film becomes much less interesting once Mrs. Robinson exits the scene. She was alluring, sharp, and oh-so-angry. Mrs. Robinson also got to wear lots of leopard prints. Today she would have her only reality t.v. show as the original "cougar".


What I end up with:
Ruth Popper



If there is one thing that I respect about The Last Picture Show, it is that it told the truth about how miserable and depressing Texas really is. Unlike the fun that Mrs. Robinson seemed to have, Ruth Popper just seems kinda sad. While she would be convicted as a pedophile today, Ruth really just needed some xanax.

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What I aim for:
Mary Richards


Who amongst us hasn’t wished that we could turn the world on with our smile? If you suspect that my home has a giant “G” on the wall, you win the bonus prize. Mary is a model to us all about how to start life over with a go-go attitude. Well, until she cut her hair in the third season -- Then the show was just dead.

What I end up with:
Phyllis Lindstrom



Alas, Mary’s pushy neighbor is probably a bit more like the real GayProf. Phyllis was seemingly immune from Mary’s chipper disposition. Phyllis oozed gravitas.

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What I aim for:
Baroness Paula Von Gunther



The Baroness had it all – A killer wardrobe, unlimited power, lesbian love slaves. Okay, so she was a Nazi – literally. Still, she probably stands as Wonder Woman’s most famous foe having appeared in both the comic and the television show.

What I end up with:
Frau Blücher



True, Frau Blücher has a place in cienmatic history. But GayProf doesn’t like it when the horses whinny and neigh at the sound of his name. It took a long time to break them of that habit. Besides, Frau Blücher always seemed more like a plot device to free the monster.

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What I aim for:
Wonder Woman



The ultimate superheroine number 1, what more could be said? She can deflect bullets with her bracelets. Her tiara is a boomarang. She gets to date dreamy Steve Treavor.

What I end up with:
Queen Hippolyta



Alas, the cranky matriarch of Paradise Island just seemed so immovable. She never appreciated the beauty of Steve Trevor. And who besides her would call an island without [gay] men "paradise?"

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* GayProf wants it made known that he adores Cloris Leachman and hopes she knows this was just a bit of silliness. Please don't hunt him down and twist his ankles.

Put on Those Ol'Glory Short-Shorts

Today turned out to be a good day. Sun broke through the grey. Most of the ice has been cleared from the sidewalks. I connected with a friend via IM.

Now that we have passed Valentine’s Day, everything in the world seems so much better. There is something about the end of February where the tide seems to turn and it all rolls my way – at least for a little bit.

During the bleak January, though, there was some good news. In particular, we learned that Joss Whedon had been taken off the Wonder Woman film. Thank the goddess. The last thing we needed was Whedon’s pseudo-feminism or a Buffy knock off.

Now that the project is wide open, let me offer Warner Brothers my thoughts about how to make the Wonder Woman movie a success:

Hire me to write it.

Read the first years of Wonder Woman’s comic. When they make a Superman movie, do they go to that dreaded period when he had a fleet of Superman robots? No. They go back to the original stuff. If the comic was a hit the first time around, shouldn’t we pay attention to why?

Why, you ask, was the original Wonder Woman comic so popular? Sweet, sweet bondage. Yep, it was all about the kink for William Moulton Marston.



Remember that the Invisible Jet, to be effective, should also make the pilot invisible. In other words, don’t show a crazy looking Diana sitting on nothing and steering an imaginary yoke. She’s a superhero, not a mime.

She has to wear the bizarre red, white, and blue Playboy-Bunny costume. The outfit makes the character. No outfit, no Wonder Woman. Do we all remember the god-forsaken Cathy Lee Crosby fiasco? No, we don’t. And why? No outfit.



Wonder Woman first appeared as an intentionally feminist character. Granted, it was a weird, Freudian feminism – but still feminist. Don’t shy away from that message. She should be horrified when she arrives in man’s world. Think of all the things that would prove her mother right about men: Women getting paid 2/3 of men; Women being forced to do the majority of house work; Women not being given equal leadership roles in government; women being named “Tipper.” These would be Wonder Woman's worst nightmare.



Have Wonder Woman use her magic bracelets to deflect bullets fired by Dick Cheney during a quail hunt.

Don’t forget Diana Prince. The comic often struggled without the alter-ego. That’s the deal with DC heros. They need their secret identity. You could practically hear the nation squealing with delight when the recent relaunch resurrected Diana Prince. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t the nation that was squealing. Still, you could hear all comic geeks squealing. Well, okay, maybe not all comic geeks were squealing. Fine – It was me that you heard squealing. We need Diana Prince.

We can probably dump the magic girdle idea.

More tiara, less lasso.

If you have trouble imagining what Paradise Island would be like, sign up for an Olivia Cruise.

When casting, remember that Diana is 2,468 years old when she enters man’s world. Do you really think that an actress who once starred on the O.C. could muster the gravitas necessary for that type of role? She’s not a teeny-bopper. Remember, it’s Wonder Woman – not that skank Wonder Girl (who we all hate).



Cast an unknown in the role. It’s going to be hard filling Lynda Carter’s 9 ½ red and white boots. If unknown, nobody will have any preconceived notions.

Hire me to direct it.

Don’t forget that the only hero more powerful than Wonder Woman is Superman. She has the power of the whole earth behind her. Keep that in mind: the EARTH.

Wonder Woman’s villains have been unfairly dismissed. Well, except Egg Fu, who was racist and, well, kinda disturbing. People sure did a lot of drugs in the sixties – and were really racist. Annyway, much can be done with Baroness von Gunther or Dr. Psycho. I also never understood why everybody loves Catwoman, but doesn’t like Cheetah (who appeared just three years after Catwoman in 1943). Really, they are basically the same character. If you can’t find a way to maker Wonder Woman’s villains interesting, you aren’t creative enough to be working on her film.



If you must cast a known star, consider Selma Hayek. Okay, she doesn’t have blue eyes and might only have a fragmentary and incomplete sense of feminism. Still, beyond that, she had the right body and perfect hair for Wonder Woman.


Steve Trevor will be the hardest character to make sympathetic. He was always kind of a jerk. My suggestion? Nobody will care if he is has rippling muscles and always runs around without a shirt. Mmm – Dreamy, dreamy Steve Trevor. Do you think Diana loved him for his brains? She was as wise as Athena – I don’t think that she turned to some minor-league flyboy for scintillating conversation.

Don’t listen to fans like me.