Triscuit or Wheat Thin?

Perhaps you’ve played this tiresome drinking ritual.

Madonna or Kylie? White wine or red? Spit or lube?

Dull drinking games aside, has anyone else noticed the apparent joy and senseless instinct we seem to have for exclaiming, in no uncertain terms, our preferences and sides on almost any issue, no matter how niggling? Is American culture so caught up in political polarization (red state or blue?, Obama or Hillary?) that we feel the need to establish, unasked, our preferences for everything in our little lives?

I see it on t-shirts a lot lately as well. Mostly girls but some ironic queers, sporting ‘Team Jolie’ or ‘Team Anniston’ t-shirts, and even, a bit closer to home, ‘Team Newsom’ tees too.

As noted last entry, I like Mika, the slender-hipped, foxy-fey-falsetto goodness currently blasting from the boyfriend’s iPod (as well as from a phone advert on TV, I see. Go Mika). But then this either/or choice bullshit kicks in and I wonder which I like more: Mika or Scissor Sisters? Clearly, on some level, I feel I don’t have the capacity to like TWO popular, high-note hitting musical homos. So a choice must be made!

Same goes for Lily Allen or Amy Winehouse, mostly because although they occupy slightly different musical genres, they seem to be semi-competitive frenemies, and so of course I feel obligated to pick a side.

I have a friend who insists that every homosexual alive falls into one of two camps: “Bette” or “Barbra”. And when he tells me this, I don’t think “I own no music from either”, “Why can’t I like both?”, “Why are you telling me this?” or even, more to the point “Are you sure you’re a top?”.
Instead, I look him square in the eye, and firmly tell him “I’m all about the Bette.”