Monday, August 06, 2007

Take back the rainbow. And the phone book.

Did you get a copy of the Salt Lake City Gay Pages on your doorstep last week? Well, I did.

Maybe someone thinks I have a little secret? I swore I'd never make another lesbian joke upon walking into a work party with a female friend, but maybe one time is twelve too many?

Just in case the Gay Pages Fairy didn't choose to bless you with a copy, I'll share some highlights. I don't know how much the Gay Pages says about the actual Salt Lake gay community, but it says some interesting things about how business owners perceive them.







This would be the first gay-targeted engagement ring pun I have ever encountered. Eww. Tacky. Someone needs to shut down all DeBeers spawn. Ring pops for everyone! Eighty carats for $1.00. And tasty, too!













"Abs sculpting" is nowhere on the female-focused list of procedures, in spite of that background picture. Maybe the owner of that washboard had his man-breasts reduced by the good doctor? Don't women suffer enough of this nonsense for the entire human race? Run away, boys! It's a trap!














When the advertising competition is thin, scary dudes can afford multiple full-page ads. I particularly like Orson Welles lawyer dude doing his bulldog P.I. stare in black and white in an otherwise full-color ad. Film noir aspirations?








"Enhance" just doesn't seem like an innocent verb choice in this context.









If I were gay I'd find this offensive, but they've got two full-page color ads, so they must have a lot of confidence in their marketing strategy. And even if you get over the choice of language, how do you get over the "no pineapple" thing? If there's anything I hate more than bigots, it's pizza snobs.














Harem dentist isn't very clever. Yes, sex sells. But you must know your audience, fella.














Hijacking "pride" and the rainbow to sell real estate. And is that dude supposed to look like a Village People guy? (A Village Person?) It might be offensive if it weren't so dopey.



















There should be an asterisk on this one.

*Unless you're in a bar full of burly homophobes drunk on Bud Light.






In case you're wondering, the biggest sections in the Gay Pages are defense attorneys, jewelers, chiropractors, doggy daycare, and pet grooming (curiously, all pet groomers are listed twice: once under G for "Grooming" and once under P for "Pets, grooming"). I have no comment on this. Just thought you might find it interesting.

Unfortunately the Gay Pages is missing a product that would be a really hot seller: the solar-powered Rainbow Spinner. It is made by Kikkerland, a German company that designs the most delightful little gadgets. I'd been lusting after it online for years, so when I came across it in the MoMA giftshop a couple years ago I knew it was a sign that I needed to finally purchase it. It hangs on my front room window and creates this fabulous disco swirl of rainbows every morning when the sun hits it. Kitty runs around, rainbow-blissed, and I'm transported back to my childhood for a few minutes each day.

My sister, who has been a rainbow nut ever since our Pollyanna days, told one of her gay friends that she was miffed at his people for hijacking the rainbow. He said, "You take back the rainbow, Liz! Take it back!"

I'm not sure I need to take it back -- I think we can share it. But if it turns out I'm getting the Gay Pages because the neighbors see rainbows glinting out of my living room window every morning and think it's some kind of Gay Bat-signal ("I'm in the closet, and I can't get out!"), then this is all getting very silly.

Does anybody want this phone book? If my mother sees it lying around my apartment she'll have a heart attack.

17 comments:

TUG said...

Amazing. Everyone asks why I won't move to Salt Lake . . . you just gave me yet another reason.

Word to you!

i i eee said...

How come I didn't get The Gay Pages? I'm not gay, but you know, I think lesbians could dig me.

I also love how it's "our pizza's." Nice.

hahahaha

Sarita said...

Excellent commentary Marie.

And Thom, I would think this an incentive to move to Salt Lake. So you can hang out with witty girls such as Marie.

lenalou said...

This made me giggle. A lot. Bud Light! Gay Bat-signal! You should keep the cover or rainbow page and frame them if you ever move out of state as a kitschy sort of homage to Utah.

wynne said...

Wow. And I thought the yellow pages in Las Vegas were bad...(never EVER look up "entertainment"--then again, it's hard to miss since it takes up 3/4 of the phone book).

I had no idea they made these.

Doggy daycare? Seriously?

Marie said...

Thom -- Failure to love Utah is a failure of imagination. We don't need you haters -- more potoato salad for the rest of us! :)

RC -- I think I got the gay pages because I live in an area that's known as a gay-heavy area. At least that's what my mother learned after I'd already signed the lease. I haven't noticed many around here, though. Maybe they don't believe in public displays of affection. If so, good for them.

Sarita -- How nice of you. My friend tells me witty works as long as you compensate for it with a little extra cleavage. I'll have to see if that works (now, how to manufacture cleavage...?)

Lena -- Can I confess something embarrassing? One of my fantasies is living in a reality in which British people think I'm funny. I only accomplished this a couple times when I was in England -- mostly they had *me* in stitches. Today my dream has come true. Thanks for giggling.

Wynne -- Yep, doggy daycare. One business boasted that they had a live puppy cam so you could check up on your darling any hour of the day. Yikes.
I would love to see the entertainment section of the Vegas yellow pages. I wonder what heading are prostitutes listed under? Sorry. Dark. But I do wonder all the same.

TUG said...

I know that the number one reason to move to Salt Lake would be the women - at least that's what all the nice people tell me ("Why don't you move to Salt Lake, you'll find a nice Mormon girl there.")

The problem is that I work in politics, to be specific, healthcare public policy, and this relies on a two party system. So my retort is, "What self-respecting nice Mormon woman would want to be with an unemployed schmo who just moved to Utah to find a wife!!!"

Marie said...

Thom -- I'm not miffed at you because you won't move out here and marry me. I'm miffed because you malign my lovely state. If the only reason to live here is to pick up women, then...I must be a lesbian after all. Bummer, too. 'Cause I really like men.

But I agree that it's stupid to organize your entire life based on where you're most likely to find love. Pluse, I'm not convinced it works -- Cupid is a sadistic bast***, and as soon as you do that, you're outa luck. And out of a job, like you say.

Anonymous said...

Why did I laugh most at the Bud Light ad? Probably because I'm too tired, physically & mentally to respond to your less "blunt" criticisms. Also, because the mental picture of the peril of a gay man "just being himself" in front of drunk homophobics is somehow comical.
I'm aged 64, so I'm not certain whether "Word to you" is praise. I'll presume that it is.
Re: "I think lesbians could dig me", I suddenly recall how uncomical it was for me, in L.A., in 1969, when a gay man tried to court me, and I, the sheltered young fella from Utah, didn't know how to respond without making him furious (He was much bigger than me).

Belladonna said...

I honestly didn't know such a thing existed. It would be great source material for my Sociology class in the unit on social perception... I'd call and request one sent to me through official channels but I do NOT want to start an onslaught of similar mailings. Maybe we should cut a deal?

wynne said...

Marie--the prostitutes can all be found in the "entertainment" section of the phone book. And, of course, since prostitution is illegal in Clark County (where Las Vegas resides), they are all listed as "dancers" or "female entertainers." Hence my warning about avoiding the entertainment section of the yellow pages of the Las Vegan phone book. Oh, how I wish I had a scanner when I still had one of those books available to me!

Marie said...

Dad -- I'm sorry about your traumatic experience on the bus, but it's always been a funny story. Thanks for letting us laugh at your pain.

Belladonna -- If you'll send me your address, I'd be happy to gift you with the Gay Pages. I'm sure your students will get more use out of it than I will.

Wynne -- So how do you find a non-prostitute dancer? What if you want to hire a nice hula act for your ward activity? Them waters sound treacherous.

And in which NV counties IS prostitution legal?

Erin said...

Just found your blog. Hilarious post! I love the gay bat signal bit. Classic.

Marie said...

Hiya, citymama, and thanks for reading! Sometimes I struggle to come up with anything blogworthy -- it's nice when fate drops it on my doorstep.

Dear Fate: The Gay Pages were fun, but tomorrow I would like you to drop a young Italian demigod on my doorstep. Singing skills preferred. I get a love interest, and my blog gets culture-clash hijinks! Win-win!

Anonymous said...

i'm in the creative dept at kikkerland and found this on technorati. i love the gay bat signal spin on the rainbowmakers; i know david dear who designed the rainbowmaker for his daughter, will get a kick out your blog from SLC.
if i may, kikkerland is really an american company whose owner is from holland (not germany), and in true dutch form he lives on a boat off the banks of the hudson river in nyc. kikkerland means land of frogs - a term of endearment to the country of holland. i am glad the rainbowmaker makes you happy (and not gay?)
let me know if you come to nyc, we'll go get a ham and pineapple pizza, if you don't mind chillin with a lesbian.

Marie said...

llkellner-- You made my day! Funny place, the Internet. I love your company, and I like to think that you guys work in this sunny Willy Wonka type office full of bright colors and odd squeaks and whistles. Thanks for setting me straight on the origin of the company. I actually learned about it several years ago when I was looking for a gift for my grandpa. He's a retired mechanic and he collects wind-up toys, so I thought I'd use this newfangled Internet thingy to find him the best windup toy in existence. Kikkerland, of course. It was hard choosing just one, but he loved the one we settled on. I think he especially liked that he could see its inner workings.

The next one of your products I"m lusting after is the duck-foot mirror. It reminds me of an Alice in Wonderland critter, and someday it will be mine. Oh, yes -- it will be mine....

I love your city, though it bled my pocketbook dry. I was there for just five days, visiting my cousin, but it was long enough to fall in love with the food. Next time you go for pizza, eat an extra slice for me, with extra pineapple. And I have no problem hanging with lesbians. Mean lesbians, pineapple-hating lesbians, yes. But you could substitute "humans" for "lesbians" and it would be the same. :)

Anna Maria Junus said...

This is hysterical. I never knew something like this existed.

My favorite was the first ad.

I wonder if we could put a yellow pages together for single people.