Something That Angers Me

[SexyGaySenior]

Anyone who knows me, knows I love Starbucks. I feel that coffee chain is THE go-to place for anyone who proudly calls themselves Gay/Queer/Lesbian/Transgender/Bi-Sexual. Most Starbucks have rainbow flag stickers on their doors! Very welcoming to someone like myself who * * * FINALLY * * * came to terms with my sexuality in the early 1970s, about two-and-a-half-months before my nineteenth birthday. I have never had any qualms about being labeled "Queer", as we were called back in the early 1970s, and I have no hesitation to admit, "I'm Gay!" For a while, the term "Queer" became derogatory, but of late, the Gay community has taken the word back, and it is now respected and embraced. With Starbucks, you can add that wonderful aura of intimacy and romanticism all the Starbucks portray. As well, not only does a Starbucks feel welcoming, the staff, or as Starbucks calls them, partners, are always friendly and professional, and do go out of their way to make you feel that welcomed, and treat you with respect, particularly, it seems anyway, if you are LGBTQ. Even if there's a slightest hint that you're Gay, you feel their love and respect! There has never been, nor will there ever be, the words, "We don't want your kind in here!", words I have had thrown at me by businesses owned and run by so-called Christians. Conversations are intimate, respectful, and yes, sometimes romantic. I've engaged in some intimate and romantic conversations with people who at the beginning where total strangers, but, soon, those conversations lead to friendships, which, at times, has also lead to amazing sex and at least two relationships. It might have only been short term, but it still started out as an intimate conversation at a Starbucks.

There is something else about Starbucks, and maybe it's just me and my imagination. It has to do with young guys who work there. As I said, maybe this is just my imagination. Is it really true that a requirement of a young guy to work at Starbucks is that they have to be certified Gay? And while I'm at it, can I add 'seriously attractive' to that requirement? There are four Starbucks I patronize in my area. The one I patronize the most is in a mall close to where I live. While it's mostly young ladies that work there, once in a while, there will be a young guy working there. Those young guys do strike me as they are Gay, and yes, they are very attractive. There is one that I go to maybe once a week or every second week if I'm by there, as it's in one of the suburban communities close by. Yes, there are women there, but there are these two young, and yes cute, guys there. I know for a fact one young man is Gay, because he told me he was. He liked this one "CANADA" tee shirt I have where the maple leaf is coloured the rainbow colours, and each letter in "CANADA" is a colour from the rainbow (The "C" is red, the first "A" is orange, the "N" is yellow, the second "A" is green, the "D" is blue, and the last "A" is purple). I'm pretty sure the other one is too, as I think he's the other boy's boyfriend. They do seem quite intimate with each other!

There is one I go to at least once a week, and sometimes twice, and while it's mainly younger women working there, once in a while they have young guys working there. Being one who wears tee shirts that do hint at my sexuality, those tee shirts do start conversations. As I said in the previous paragraph, one of these young guys will comment and ask me where I got them. There is another Starbucks I go to on Sunday morning, and it's in the downtown area of the city. It's * * * HUGE * * *, the largest one in the area, and the only one with a drive-thru. (For the record, I * * * NEVER * * * use any drive-thru! I prefer to get out of my car and go inside. I enjoy the interaction with whomever is serving me.) While the one at the mall is my second favorite, this one is my favorite. Sunday morning is usually quiet when I'm there. To me, all the young guys working there are what I like to refer to as the quintessential male Starbucks "Partner", young (mid-to-late teens to mid-twenties), very attractive, and I know this for a fact as I've had three tell me so, they're Gay, and very open about it. Too, two of them are in university, as I've had conversations with them about what they're taking in school. I will talk about the one young guy later, as I fear I gave this young cutie (and calling him 'cute' is an understatement) a bit of a scare! It had to do with what I'm about to talk about.

Starbucks has always been supportive of Gay rights and same-sex marriage. This doing the right thing has always drawn the anger of Christian groups, who are always calling for a boycott of the chain. One of the worst calls comes almost annually from a group of Christian bigots called "CitizenGo", who's misguided, hate-spreading anti-LGBTQ leader is a 'gentleman' (and I use that term very loosely) named David Cooke, a well-known, hard-line, right-winged, hate spreading Christian bigot who uses religion to justify his burning hatred for LGBTQs. Mr. Cooke is constantly generating petitions to get Gay pride events banned, and tried to get the "equality loonie" stopped. He is one of the leading Christian leaders constantly calling on his fellow Christians to stay away from Starbucks, just because of their acceptance and tolerance of LGBTQ. Luckily, the boycotts always fail as a lot more people look at these hate-spreaders with contempt, and drive the message home, "I'll decide what businesses I'll boycott!"

I feel that, every time I walk into a Starbucks, I'm giving Mr. Cooke, and other hate-filled religious bigots like him, the finger! And yes, this includes people like Andrew Scheer, the repulsive bigot who, unfortunately, seems to be destined to become Canada's next prime minister, as well as other renowned anti-LGBTQ bigots Douglas Ford, the premier of Ontario, and Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta. Oh, too, with the coming federal election in Canada, Mr. Cooke has come out in support of Mr. Scheer with Mr. Scheer's vow to return Homosexuality to the criminal code, outlawing the lifestyle, and Scheer has also vowed to have every Gay person in Canada arrested and forced into the horrible practise of 'conversion therapy', and refusal to submit will result in extermination. Welcome to the wonderful world of the 'tolerant and respectful Christian conservative society'! Or is it more appropriate to label them 'The Cult of Hate'?

For the record, there was an article on the internet by a group called 'Christian Business Watch' who monitors businesses in the United States that practice 'strong Christian principals'. What does that mean? It means businesses that display open anti-LGBTQ practises. While the list only had forty businesses listed as having 'strong Christian principles', they listed one-hundred-and-thirty-two that had extremely weak Christian principles. Hey, guess which company made their list of ones that practise very weak Christian principals? You guessed it, Starbucks! Anyway, I scanned that list and found a lot of those 'strong Christian principled' companies do operate in Canada. And guess which companies I boycott? Any on that "strong principles' list! Too, the list of companies with 'weak principles' was in alphabetical order, so Starbucks was number one-hundred-and-fifteen out of one-hundred-and-thirty-two. (Interesting too that another business I patronize is Staples, and they're number one-hundred-and-fourteen!)

Starbucks even has a foundation, and has joined forces with Lady Gaga to form the "Born This Way Foundation", raising money to help provide mental health services to LGBTQ youth who have to deal with being bullied because of their sexuality. Every year too, Starbucks runs a competition for their "partners" (aka, their employees to design a tee shirt celebrating Gay Pride month. The bad news is, these tee shirts are not available to the public. They are only for their partners. If they were, I would have been ordering at least four every year! The good news is, after a million pleas from customers this year, someone at Starbucks has made the long-awaited decision to offer these gorgeous Gay pride tee shirts to the public in 2020. Starbucks has finally got the hint to start selling tee shirts and hats to the public.

I wait in anticipation!

Oh, and put me down for five!

The tees have never been available to the public, and anyone trying to sell one on a website usually gets a cease-and-desist order. And it's justifiably warranted. Most websites, like Café Press, Zazzle, Esty, Red Rubble, and the like are reputable. If they can sell these tee shirts, you can rest assure they have permission. After all, these shirts are the creation of some wonderful people to celebrate who and what they are. What will be the deal next year? Will some compensation be going back to the designer, while the rest will be going to the foundation? As I said, put me down for five! At least!

OK, so, I love Starbucks. The place is warm, welcoming, and many are very intimate. The staff, or rather, the 'partners', are always friendly, professional, good at their jobs, and many of the young guys working at Starbucks, aside from being friendly and professional, are typically seriously physically attractive and by their own openly admission, Gay. I love it that these young guys aren't afraid to openly proclaim their sexuality!

So what is making me mad about this.

As I said in the previous paragraph, these tee shirts are only available to Starbucks partners (aka employees) and not to the general public, at least for now. And any reputable custom tee shirt sellers will only sell these tee shirts IF THEY HAVE PERMISSION, as in, THEY ARE LICENCED. or at the very least, have permission.

But, if I do find someone who is legitimately allowed to sell any of the Pride tee shirts, I will buy them. I have no hesitation to wear a tee shirt with a rainbow flag, the "double-Mars" symbol (the symbol for Gay men), or even the word "QUEER" blazing across my chest. What I do not like, is when someone sets up a legitimate looking website, and offers items like the Starbucks Pride tee shirts, and they are not legitimate. I came across this one site, I won't say the name for liability reasons. It looked legitimate. They were offering tee shirts with "ALL TOGETHER NOW" printed on the front in rainbow colours. Now, "ALL TOGETHER NOW" is a Starbucks-registered slogan. What does that mean? It means any company who sells tee shirts with that logo on it must be licenced by Starbucks to sell it. Is this company licenced? Buy one of the tee shirts, and see what happens. First of all, despite not having a PayPal account, if you pay with your credit card, the payment still goes through PayPal. Is PayPal legitimate? You have to have a PayPal account to deal on Ebay. But is it really all that legitimate? When I had an Ebay/PayPal account, I had issues with my account constantly being hacked, so, I shut both my PayPal and Ebay accounts down. There was also issued with my credit card being charged multiple times for stuff I never ordered. It got so bad, I had to cancel that credit card!Legitimate? Not from my experience!

Now, lets talk about the tee shirts and where they are really coming from. According to the invoice, the payment goes to a person in China. China!! Yes, the website is out of China, and the tee shirts are counterfeit! Phonies! They do not have the right to sell these tee shirts! And this doesn't surprize me in the least. China is notorious for their counterfeit garbage. There are large cities where the production of fake and counterfeit goods is a major industry. In one city, all their industries are geared to producing fate and counterfeit goods. If you ever catch the Orson Wells movie, "F For Fake", it gives quite the insight on fake art work. And that movie was made back in 1973! More recently, on a show called Doc Zone, which is a show in Canada on the CBC (the Canadian Broadcast Company) dealt with the influx of counterfeit and fake goods from China. There is a mall in Toronto where all the stores sell this garbage! Besides, who really trusts anything from China? I sure don't, and I have been up against this counterfeit garbage for years in my job. "Made in China" equals "Send it back"! I won't even get started on my personal war against goods from Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, among others, (under that "Christian Psycho-in-Chief" currently in the white house, the U.S is being added to the list! Ok, I know Starbucks is a U.S. based company, but, they go against the current U.S administration's policy of hatred toward Gay people), countries I boycott solely because of their mistreatment and murderous attitude toward LGBTQ people. (Did you know that Saudi Arabia isn't the only country who beheads Gay people? Several African nations do also, and so does Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, only, they have secret squads that prowl around seeking out gay people and killing them. Bringing in the head of a Gay person to the local police will usually yield a nice financial reward! And I got this from a Philippino!)

What to do!

Remember I mentioned about this one particularly attractive young Barista I gave a scare to? I was talking to that cute, young Barista as he served me yesterday morning, and I told him I had an issue that I wanted to report to Starbucks. I should have been more careful about the wording I used for what I was complaining about! For a second, I think I scared the young man, as he thought I was talking about him. No way was I talking about him, at least, not about an issue with him, other than the fact that he is (a) exceptionally attractive, which is exemplified by the fact that he is indeed Gay, (b) exceptionally professional, and (c) exceptionally good at his job. No! I explained what was bothering me was these rip-off fake tee shirts. He said what I guessed, that the only thing to do is report the offending company to someone at Starbucks head office through the company website. This is either starbucks.ca or starbucks.com, depending on which side of the border you live on. I live on the ".ca" side! And I have done this! I fired off an e-mail to them today (August 19th).

(I need to make a further comment about this exceptionally attractive Barista. I know I shouldn't go on about him, but, he really caught my old eye, and he's worth going on about! Too, I'm old enough that I could technically be his grandfather, never mind being his father. Even at that, I can still gaze, can't I? (I don't "look" at a young cutie like him, I "gaze" at him! It gives the whole encounter a more sensuous, intimate, and romantic aura!) If he was twenty-years-old, that's putting him "old". He was blond and blue-eyed, and his hair was "longish" but tucked up under his baseball cap. Add in his fair skin too! He wore glasses, which did not take away from his exceptionally pretty face, and was wearing a black tee shirt and black shorts with whiteish running shoes. He had nice legs that he should seriously consider shaving to make them even nicer. I didn't say that to him though! Thought it, but didn't say it! And not a single tattoo in sight! The one thing was, he was wearing his Starbucks baseball cap backwards. Normally, I find this annoying, as I think guys who wear their caps backwards look silly. It just looks dumb. However, this young man actually pulled it off and looked very attractive with his hat turned backwards. THE typical quintessential young Gay male: physically beautiful, very pleasant, very, very sensuous!)

I just hate it when someone takes advantage of a company like Starbucks, and rips off their merchandize that was designed by a partner. Hopefully, Starbucks can get this website shut down. It will serve the perpetrators right!