"This sporadic starting and stopping just has to cease," someone said to me, and he's right. I had hoped that being finished with the books would allow me more time to play essayist, but too much keeps getting in the way. I guess it's called "life." There's so much I'd love to blog about—AIG, Meghan McCain, Prop 8, the Mormon church, the obsolescence of the culture warriors, Bristol and Levi, Dick Cheney, John King, Rachel Maddow, The United States of Tara and "gimmick" television, Holocaust deniers, stem cells, White Party, the glory of Palm Springs in March—but I will have to just rant to myself for a while. So until I officially begin the promotion for Object of Desire—which will go through the late spring and summer and lead into promotion for How to Be a Movie Star in the fall—I am officially placing MannTalk ON HIATUS.
Until then, be good, stay involved, challenge, provoke, and buy books--mine and everybody else's. It helps the economy.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Go Frat Boys
You just gotta have hope for the world when straight frat boys start fighting the good fight when Fred Phelps' freak show comes calling. It's a whole new world. Never woulda happened a decade ago. Straight Hugging, No Tolerance for Intolerance. Hit it, boys...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Object of Desire, Part Two
As promised, a quick little excerpt from the second chapter of Object of Desire....
The novel is told in three narratives: the present day, when Danny is an artist living in Palm Springs; the late 1970s, Danny's adolescence in a blue-collar town in Connecticut; and the mid-1980s, when Danny is a stripper in West Hollywood.
Object of Desire will be published by Kensington, available late May.
East Hartford, Connecticut
Twenty-Seven Years Earlier
If it weren’t for Chipper Paguni’s underpants, I would have turned around, hurried back along the path, and told my mother that my mission had been a failure. I hadn’t wanted to make the trip at all, so fearful was I of the poison ivy that grew along the path to the pond. The ordeal I’d gone through in the seventh grade, when I’d scratched the skin along the entire length of both legs until it was red and bleeding, left me forever terrified of that vicious weed. But when I spotted the underpants ahead of me, a bright white pair of Fruit of the Looms shimmering in the midday sun, I knew I had to go on.
A twig snapped. My eyes darted to the left, where a crumpled pair of black parachute pants had been dropped among a patch of ferns. I took another few steps along the path and discovered a trail of discarded clothing. Reebok sneakers. White socks. A lacy pink bra dangling from a wispy branch of a young maple tree.
Another snap. I paused, sucking in my breath. And then, a voice:
“Come on, Becky.”
It was Chipper’s voice, somewhere up ahead in the woods, low and unemotional.
“Come on,” he said again.
I crouched behind a tall fern. As I did, my knees cracked. Mom was convinced I suffered from a calcium deficiency, and made me drink ten glasses of milk a day. Now I feared my knees had given me away. I held my breath. But around me only a heavy, humid silence filled the woods, broken now and then by the noisy squawk of a bluejay somewhere above me in the trees.
Finally I heard a splash. And then another.
Parting the fronds of the fern ever so carefully, I peered out over the water. Languid dragonflies hovered above the murky green surface. Ripples were just now lapping at the muddy shore, where a pair of brand new Sergio Valente blue jeans with the red stitching on the pockets was rapidly turning wet and brown. I could imagine just how pissed Mom would be when she saw that.
Suddenly the surface of the pond was broken. Becky emerged from the depths, shaking her long dark hair and sending cascades of droplets from side to side. In an instant Chipper popped up from the water in front of her, his glistening back momentarily obliterating my sister from my view.
They were kissing. My eyes grew wide as I crouched in my hiding place, keeping as still as I could. I watched as Chipper maneuvered Becky through the water toward the old wooden dock that jutted into the water in a triangle. Lifting her up by her armpits, he sat her along the edge. For a moment I glimpsed my sister’s breasts, larger than those of most girls her age, with hard, pink nipples that stood up like pencil erasers. I felt my face flush. I watched as Chipper now gripped the dock and hoisted himself up, the muscles in his broad back tensing, his small white buttocks knocking me back onto my heels.
It was my fourteenth birthday. Tomorrow I’d start my first day of high school. All summer long the prospect of my new school had been all I could think about, and as the day grew nearer I became more and more anxious. When my father, trying to be helpful, asked me just what it was about high school that frightened me so much, all I could offer was the fact that I’d have to use a locker. I’d spent nine years at St. John’s elementary school, from kindergarten to eighth grade, and I’d always kept my books and papers in a simple, top-lifting desk. Now there would be a code to remember—and a series of clicks to listen for—and I’d have to stand next to some kid I didn’t know who’d surely had a locker in his public junior high and would look at me as if I were a dweeb. So Dad had gone out to Sears and bought a combination lock for me to practice on. I’d mastered the lock quickly enough, but still my fear didn’t go away.
Behind the fern, I started to shake. I sat on the damp earth and tried to catch my breath. The day was hot and getting hotter. The chattering of the jays had been joined by a chorus of summer beetles, their shrill drone common on scorchers such as this one.
“Come on, Becky,” Chipper was cajoling, and I peered through the fronds as he leaned forward over my sister.
Like my sister, Chipper Paguni was going into his junior year. All last year and the year before, I’d watched him from his bedroom window, emerging from the house across the street and heading down to the bus stop at precisely six-forty-five. Usually Chipper wore shiny black parachute pants and an untucked white collar shirt. His bookbag would be slung over his shoulder. I imagined that rolled up inside the bookbag was the necktie that was required by Chipper’s all-male Catholic high school. The tie remained unworn and unknotted until the last possible moment, when the bus pulled into the school parking lot.
Now I would be joining Chipper at that same school, trooping in for my first day tomorrow morning as a geeky green freshman. I had heard the stories of how the upperclassmen taunted the new boys. St. Francis Xavier was a hotbed of testosterone. Its slogan BE A MAN was enshrined over its front doors and embodied by its strutting, title-holding football team. This year, as a defensive linebacker, Chipper would probably see his first real action on the field, and I’d be required to sit in the bleachers and cheer him on. It was called school spirit. Whether Chipper would turn out to be a tormentor or a friend remained to be seen. I was hoping that his interest in Becky would work in my favor. But one could never count on such things.
Holding my breath, I watched as Chipper’s white buttocks rose in the air on top of my sister.
I leaned in for a better view, but as I did so, my knees cracked again. I let the fronds swing shut but too late. I heard Becky ask, “What was that?”
My armpits suddenly poured sweat. Then I heard a splash.
I bolted. But not before, without even thinking about it, I snatched up Chipper’s underpants in my hand.
The novel is told in three narratives: the present day, when Danny is an artist living in Palm Springs; the late 1970s, Danny's adolescence in a blue-collar town in Connecticut; and the mid-1980s, when Danny is a stripper in West Hollywood.
Object of Desire will be published by Kensington, available late May.
East Hartford, Connecticut
Twenty-Seven Years Earlier
If it weren’t for Chipper Paguni’s underpants, I would have turned around, hurried back along the path, and told my mother that my mission had been a failure. I hadn’t wanted to make the trip at all, so fearful was I of the poison ivy that grew along the path to the pond. The ordeal I’d gone through in the seventh grade, when I’d scratched the skin along the entire length of both legs until it was red and bleeding, left me forever terrified of that vicious weed. But when I spotted the underpants ahead of me, a bright white pair of Fruit of the Looms shimmering in the midday sun, I knew I had to go on.
A twig snapped. My eyes darted to the left, where a crumpled pair of black parachute pants had been dropped among a patch of ferns. I took another few steps along the path and discovered a trail of discarded clothing. Reebok sneakers. White socks. A lacy pink bra dangling from a wispy branch of a young maple tree.
Another snap. I paused, sucking in my breath. And then, a voice:
“Come on, Becky.”
It was Chipper’s voice, somewhere up ahead in the woods, low and unemotional.
“Come on,” he said again.
I crouched behind a tall fern. As I did, my knees cracked. Mom was convinced I suffered from a calcium deficiency, and made me drink ten glasses of milk a day. Now I feared my knees had given me away. I held my breath. But around me only a heavy, humid silence filled the woods, broken now and then by the noisy squawk of a bluejay somewhere above me in the trees.
Finally I heard a splash. And then another.
Parting the fronds of the fern ever so carefully, I peered out over the water. Languid dragonflies hovered above the murky green surface. Ripples were just now lapping at the muddy shore, where a pair of brand new Sergio Valente blue jeans with the red stitching on the pockets was rapidly turning wet and brown. I could imagine just how pissed Mom would be when she saw that.
Suddenly the surface of the pond was broken. Becky emerged from the depths, shaking her long dark hair and sending cascades of droplets from side to side. In an instant Chipper popped up from the water in front of her, his glistening back momentarily obliterating my sister from my view.
They were kissing. My eyes grew wide as I crouched in my hiding place, keeping as still as I could. I watched as Chipper maneuvered Becky through the water toward the old wooden dock that jutted into the water in a triangle. Lifting her up by her armpits, he sat her along the edge. For a moment I glimpsed my sister’s breasts, larger than those of most girls her age, with hard, pink nipples that stood up like pencil erasers. I felt my face flush. I watched as Chipper now gripped the dock and hoisted himself up, the muscles in his broad back tensing, his small white buttocks knocking me back onto my heels.
It was my fourteenth birthday. Tomorrow I’d start my first day of high school. All summer long the prospect of my new school had been all I could think about, and as the day grew nearer I became more and more anxious. When my father, trying to be helpful, asked me just what it was about high school that frightened me so much, all I could offer was the fact that I’d have to use a locker. I’d spent nine years at St. John’s elementary school, from kindergarten to eighth grade, and I’d always kept my books and papers in a simple, top-lifting desk. Now there would be a code to remember—and a series of clicks to listen for—and I’d have to stand next to some kid I didn’t know who’d surely had a locker in his public junior high and would look at me as if I were a dweeb. So Dad had gone out to Sears and bought a combination lock for me to practice on. I’d mastered the lock quickly enough, but still my fear didn’t go away.
Behind the fern, I started to shake. I sat on the damp earth and tried to catch my breath. The day was hot and getting hotter. The chattering of the jays had been joined by a chorus of summer beetles, their shrill drone common on scorchers such as this one.
“Come on, Becky,” Chipper was cajoling, and I peered through the fronds as he leaned forward over my sister.
Like my sister, Chipper Paguni was going into his junior year. All last year and the year before, I’d watched him from his bedroom window, emerging from the house across the street and heading down to the bus stop at precisely six-forty-five. Usually Chipper wore shiny black parachute pants and an untucked white collar shirt. His bookbag would be slung over his shoulder. I imagined that rolled up inside the bookbag was the necktie that was required by Chipper’s all-male Catholic high school. The tie remained unworn and unknotted until the last possible moment, when the bus pulled into the school parking lot.
Now I would be joining Chipper at that same school, trooping in for my first day tomorrow morning as a geeky green freshman. I had heard the stories of how the upperclassmen taunted the new boys. St. Francis Xavier was a hotbed of testosterone. Its slogan BE A MAN was enshrined over its front doors and embodied by its strutting, title-holding football team. This year, as a defensive linebacker, Chipper would probably see his first real action on the field, and I’d be required to sit in the bleachers and cheer him on. It was called school spirit. Whether Chipper would turn out to be a tormentor or a friend remained to be seen. I was hoping that his interest in Becky would work in my favor. But one could never count on such things.
Holding my breath, I watched as Chipper’s white buttocks rose in the air on top of my sister.
I leaned in for a better view, but as I did so, my knees cracked again. I let the fronds swing shut but too late. I heard Becky ask, “What was that?”
My armpits suddenly poured sweat. Then I heard a splash.
I bolted. But not before, without even thinking about it, I snatched up Chipper’s underpants in my hand.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Reporting from Mexico
As gorgeous as I remember it from those many, many (four) months ago. Arrived yesterday after a relatively uncomplicated trip into Puerto Vallarta. The boys all arrived within the next couple of hours, and we're awaiting one more today. The house is amazing, high up on the cliff overlooking the bay. It's so easy to "get" the feeling Elizabeth and Richard had upon arriving here, even with everything built up now and crowded. There's a serenity here, a meeting of sea and mountain. Right now I'm listening to the church bells ringing from the belfry tower that stands just a few yards from Elizabeth's house. We all went out to dinner last night and then to La Noche, then over to Manana. Slept like a baby. Unlike last time, there's no work to be done...just lying on the beach, drinking margaritas and going dancing. So....off to to the blue chairs.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Happy Birthday Elizabeth
PageSix was supposed to run a nice little exclusive in honor of Elizabeth's birthday today...a clip from How to Be a Movie Star. But somehow Jodie Foster getting nabbed for speeding rated higher and Elizabeth got bumped.
Anyway, here's the most recent video of Elizabeth on the web. She may be slowing down, but watch to the end. She's still got that indomitable inimitable Taylor spirit.
Happy birthday you beautiful dame.
Anyway, here's the most recent video of Elizabeth on the web. She may be slowing down, but watch to the end. She's still got that indomitable inimitable Taylor spirit.
Happy birthday you beautiful dame.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Charlie the Unicorn
OK on a totally unrelated note.... what the hell is this?
Tweeners (like my nieces who just left) are abuzz over this viral YouTube hit. Seems to me like a good midnight cartoon after enjoying an evening with Michael Phelps. I'm not going to begin to attempt any kind of deconstruction, but it did make me laugh. If anyone has any insights, let me know....
Tweeners (like my nieces who just left) are abuzz over this viral YouTube hit. Seems to me like a good midnight cartoon after enjoying an evening with Michael Phelps. I'm not going to begin to attempt any kind of deconstruction, but it did make me laugh. If anyone has any insights, let me know....
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
There Was Obama, and then there was Bobby Jindal
Hey. Did anyone notice last night watching Obama's speech that we have a real president now??
Even the most conservative critic can't deny the man's brilliance, his competence, his intelligence, his commitment.
Wow. Imagine using those words to describe the President of the United States. What a novel concept.
The President inspired. And he did so with real words and real plans, not empty cowboy rhetoric like GWB shouting through a bullhorn on top of the World Trade Center rubble.
And then came the Republican response from little Bobby Jindal. Bobby was so bad (even conservative Repugs said so) that maybe the only way to explain his performance is that he was possessed by an evil spirit. (Did you know Gov. Jindal performs exorcisms? Seriously.)
Hey Bobby. If you don't want that stimulus money and all those stimulus-created jobs to help the people of Louisiana, send em out west. Our Governor might be a Republican but these days Ahnold is seeing the light. We'll be glad to take whatever help we can get.
Last night was a high point, a defining moment, for the Obama Administration. It was also a defining moment for the GOP. Jindal's poorly delivered response and whiny, childish, incoherent, backward-thinking message will someday be described as the nadir, the last gasp of the Bush era. If the GOP wants a future, they should look to California's governor, not Louisiana's.
Even the most conservative critic can't deny the man's brilliance, his competence, his intelligence, his commitment.
Wow. Imagine using those words to describe the President of the United States. What a novel concept.
The President inspired. And he did so with real words and real plans, not empty cowboy rhetoric like GWB shouting through a bullhorn on top of the World Trade Center rubble.
And then came the Republican response from little Bobby Jindal. Bobby was so bad (even conservative Repugs said so) that maybe the only way to explain his performance is that he was possessed by an evil spirit. (Did you know Gov. Jindal performs exorcisms? Seriously.)
Hey Bobby. If you don't want that stimulus money and all those stimulus-created jobs to help the people of Louisiana, send em out west. Our Governor might be a Republican but these days Ahnold is seeing the light. We'll be glad to take whatever help we can get.
Last night was a high point, a defining moment, for the Obama Administration. It was also a defining moment for the GOP. Jindal's poorly delivered response and whiny, childish, incoherent, backward-thinking message will someday be described as the nadir, the last gasp of the Bush era. If the GOP wants a future, they should look to California's governor, not Louisiana's.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Scattered Ramblings
There's been some snarky stuff being posted (here, and elsewhere) about the Oscars telecast. Maybe I watched from a different planet but I thought the show was the best in a very long time. But any essay, as with the one provided at the link, that recognizes good acceptance speeches without mentioning Dustin Lance Black's shows a definite cluelessness.
Notice how the GOP is now looking to punish those three Republican senators (Arlen Specter, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe) who voted for the stimulus. Whatever happened to their big banner issue of "voting one's conscience?" Remember how they pilloried the Democrats for turning on Joe Lieberman for supporting Bush's war policies? They were aghast that a party could not make room for a diversity of viewpoints. In times of national crisis, they argued, it was more important to look out for the national interests to tow a party line. But in this particular crisis, because the Democrats are in charge, it's the party line that matters more than anything, and only the party line.
We're heading back to Puerto Vallarta on Saturday. Our good friends Eric and Carl convinced us to join them. We had such a good time in December we decided to give it another go. Of course, right now there's a lot of travel advisories about Mexico. Crime is rampant in many cities, and whereas Vallarta had always been considered a safe haven, the tragic murder of a San Francisco tourist on February 11 in his hotel room, just steps from gay Los Muertos Beach, has many rethinking their vacation plans. I can't deny that the murder hasn't given us pause and led us to decide to always travel in groups at night. But crime is everywhere; tragedies happen even in the most idyllic places. One can be smart and take precautions, but the murdered man wasn't doing anything risky; he was killed by an intruder in his hotel room. The only response we can have is to not let fear determine our choices, and to be as smart and as careful as we can be, and to always move forward.
Notice how the GOP is now looking to punish those three Republican senators (Arlen Specter, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe) who voted for the stimulus. Whatever happened to their big banner issue of "voting one's conscience?" Remember how they pilloried the Democrats for turning on Joe Lieberman for supporting Bush's war policies? They were aghast that a party could not make room for a diversity of viewpoints. In times of national crisis, they argued, it was more important to look out for the national interests to tow a party line. But in this particular crisis, because the Democrats are in charge, it's the party line that matters more than anything, and only the party line.
We're heading back to Puerto Vallarta on Saturday. Our good friends Eric and Carl convinced us to join them. We had such a good time in December we decided to give it another go. Of course, right now there's a lot of travel advisories about Mexico. Crime is rampant in many cities, and whereas Vallarta had always been considered a safe haven, the tragic murder of a San Francisco tourist on February 11 in his hotel room, just steps from gay Los Muertos Beach, has many rethinking their vacation plans. I can't deny that the murder hasn't given us pause and led us to decide to always travel in groups at night. But crime is everywhere; tragedies happen even in the most idyllic places. One can be smart and take precautions, but the murdered man wasn't doing anything risky; he was killed by an intruder in his hotel room. The only response we can have is to not let fear determine our choices, and to be as smart and as careful as we can be, and to always move forward.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Dustin Lance Black's Speech
This guy is amazing. An eloquent spokesperson for the cause. And a former Mormon to boot.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Shame in Your Grandchildren's Eyes
Talk about speaking truth to power. Leave it to Sean Penn to call out the bigots who voted for Prop 8--and all those opposed to gay marriage--by reminding them of the shame they will someday be viewed with through their grandchildren's eyes. Why do we have no politicians who can dare to say such things, to speak such truths, to point the direction to the future?
I am really, really blown away by the power of it. That is what it's about. Speak the truth. Fuck niceties. Simply ask: do you want history to record you as a bigot? Those who stood barring the doors preventing African-American children from entering segregated schools did so with the same sense of moral indignation--of standing up for what they believed to be "right"--as those who oppose equality for gay people do now. Now we see the hatred, or at least the warped sense of fairness and civility and justice that they had. We see the bigotry plain. Today those old dinosaurs might still bar schools to children, and they would answer any question about how history will judge them with a defiant disregard. But their children...and their children's children...already the younger people are turning away from such old views. All we have to do is hold on. I received an email the other day about a proposal for gay marriage advocates to compromise with those opposed to the idea--with the assumption that ideas are hardened, immutable. That's wrong. Change will happen. There should be no compromise in what is right. Did we say, okay, we'll let some schools stay all-white? Hold to what is true and the world will follow. Progress happens one funeral at a time. And those who hold fast to their rigid warped convictions, to their fear, who fail to see truth through the haze of their bigotry, will indeed be seen with shame through their grandchildren's eyes.
And while I still feel Frank Langella gave the better performance, I wouldn't have traded the opportunity to see Penn stride up there and just lay it all on the line. Because that is the line now. Don't let anyone try to redraw it.
All in all...a very satisfying Oscar show. The beautiful Dustin Lance Black. Sophia Loren. Even Jerry Lewis was a class act. And all those clips were marvelous. The assemblage of great old stars with contemporary ones to honor each nominee was a terrific idea. For too long the Oscars have ignored their history and heritage. Not tonight. Bravo. And how wonderful was it to see Elizabeth, even so briefly, accepting her Oscar for Butterfield 8? More, please. And don't be so afraid of black-and-white.
One real quibble though: while Queen Latifah looked mighty fine, did we need her in the frame as we commemorated the people who'd died? Barely saw the clip of Cyd Charisse. We all spent the segment squinting, asking "who's that?" Bad editing job. The dead deserved better. But nice little montage at the end there for Paul Newman.
And I liked the choreography in the Hugh Jackman-Beyonce number. Both real stars with real charisma. And did you see the emeralds on Angelina? If you ask me, there's an example of "how to be a movie star, part two."
Best Oscar show in years
All the old Hollywood references
great choreography
star power
Hugh Jackman
making fun of Scientology and Joaquin Phoenix
and Zac Efron and Dominic Cooper on the same stage!!!! Woooohooooo!
Dustin Lance Black
OK move over Dominick Cooper. Meet my newest crush: Dustin Lance Black. Was that the greatest gay Oscar speech of all time or what?Changing the Paradigm, or at least Equalizing It
OK, I'm serious. How can we reboot the political spin machine in this country? Recall that when Natalie from the Dixie Chicks merely said that she was ashamed that the president of the United States was from her home state of Texas, she was booed as a traitor. Mass burnings of Dixie Chicks CDs ensued. There were protests and screaming matches. Mainstream media outlets were all over the story, with even ostensibly "objective" reports mostly structuring the narrative not to ask if there was anything overblown about all of it, but whether there was a line entertainers should not cross when talking about politics. The story was kept in rotation so long and so vociferously that people who had no idea what Natalie had originally said eventually got the impression that she had come out with something far more damning, that she didn't "support the troops" and was "anti-America." Leave America if you don't love it, was the rallying cry--conflating America with the President. (Something conservatives only do when a Republican is president.) It was a classic example of the way Faux News and the Republican scream machine spins a story to its advantage. (Kind of like they're doing to the stimulus now.)
Yet flash forward five years later and except for outrage on the blogs and with Rachel and Keith on MSNBC (and maybe Campbell Brown on CNN and the ladies on The View), there's been little uproar over Rush Limbaugh saying he wants President Obama to "fail." Mainstream media has been very quick to buy Limbaugh's parsing of his statement, dismissing any notion that what he said might be treasonous or even unpatriotic. In other words: Limbaugh gets away with saying something far more egregious than the Dixie Chicks, who saw their career nearly destroyed over an offhand, inconsequential remark. And now we have Senator Shelby of Alabama dangling that old rumor that maybe Obama isn't really a citizen of the U.S. Imagine, for a moment, at the height of the 9/11 madness and the march to war, somebody--Hillary Clinton, maybe, or even Senator Obama--suggesting Bush wasn't an American citizen. The noise from Fox News, rapidly picked up by the other noise machines, would have been deafening. Huge apologies would have been called for, if not outright resignation.
SO WHY NOT NOW???????????
Why is it that Republicans/conservatives can get away with saying just about anything? Why isn't there a hue and cry over how much money they were glad to spend to rebuild Iraq--to put Iraq back to work, as I recall them saying--but their repugnance to spend the same kind of money--less actually--to rebuild America? That would have been turned into a talking point by the Repugs if it was the other way around.
Seriously. How can we invert this paradigm? It makes me crazy. Post-partisanship is fine. But we need to get to a place where the people we're post-partisanshipping with are not obstructionist dinosaurs. We need the dinosaurs extinct before we can work with the upright-standing creatures that replace them.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Adolescent Girls
Forgive me if I've blogged similarly before....but I just discovered that adolescent girls and their gay uncles can get along just fine, cuz after all, we're both up on Britney and Miley and share crushes on Zac Efron. And lo and behold--we even agreed on the hottest of the three Jonas brothers. Okay, so she knew his name and I didn't, but all I had to say was, "the one with the eyebrows," and she was like, "yeeeesss." All sorts of bonding going on here on a Saturday night.
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And in case any of you feel compelled to huff (as so many do whenever I allow my inner tween to show her/himself), "I only like men not boys," come on: flash back to eighth grade. Wouldn't any of these faces have just stolen your heart? After all, all teen idols no matter the generation are the same, with just a change in hair style (and really Zac's hair ain't that different from David Cassidy's). So herewith, in honor of my nieces and little Billy back in St. John's School,I give you my Gallery of Love...Admit it (gay boys and straight girls): how many of you had posters of any of these dreamboats on your walls (or kept copies of Tiger Beat with their faces on the covers hidden in your drawers?)
Extra points if you can name them all.
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Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Dead Chimp
This is what I'm talking about, people. We are in the worst economy since the Great Depression. It was created by Republicans. For a year, George W. Bush, the true Chimp in the White House, did nothing. Diddley-squat. Not a damn thing. Now we have a president who is taking action to try to fix things. And there are people actually giving him shit about it! Disagree with the policy if you must, but this insane outrage over the stimulus package is crazy. Obama is trying to get the economy moving! Implying that he is nothing more than a crazed chimpanzee spending out of control is as outrageous as it is unhelpful to the situation. Would the editors of the New York Post--and other media blowhards huffing and puffing about the stimulus--prefer he do nothing? This is a classic example of Republican success in being able to take something that most people would support and demonizing it. John Kerry's war record. Stem-cell research. The stimulus bill. It's not as if this is some grand scheme to, I don't know, invade Iraq or something. This is an attempt to make things better for people in this country. Let's see if it works! Let's hope that it does! Let's not turn it into a monster that needs to be shot down, as the cartoon so grossly and offensively represents.And yes--absolutely--it is a racist cartoon. Post employees are rightfully ashamed of their newspaper's actions. People are rightfully saying that it went too far. Chimp, monkey, ape--all are slurs that have been delivered at Obama--and untold African-Americans--for a very long time. No one at the Post can say that didn't occur to them. It is disgustingly racist and for that reason it is deeply anti-American. It's also anti-American because of its unpatriotic hope that the stimulus doesn't help the country. It's high time the Left calls the Right on its anti-Americanism. They've been doing it to us for long enough.
By the way, I find the cartoon offensive for another reason as well. That story out of Connecticut broke my heart. Say what you want about keeping so-called "wild" animals as pets. That chimp lived with his owner for a very long time. They had a very sweet life for most of that time. She loved that chimp as she would a child. If it had been a dog--man's "best friend"-- shot dead, would the Post have so callously lampooned it? I don't think so. That woman is grieving, not only for the death of her pet but for what happened to her friend, attacked by the terrified and confused animal. It was a tragedy all the way around. To turn it into a joke on an editorial page is cruel and revolting.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Economy Tanks and We Need to Redirect the Dialogue
This is what gets me so frustrated....from the great folks at Americablog. Read this post and see if we can't start a groundswell to redirect the blame to where to rightfully belongs--the Republicans--and let the President and Democrats get around to fixing the damn thing.
FROM AMERICABLOG February 17 2009:
Tell me again why the Democrats are allowing the GOP to give lectures on the economy? This is the GOP's fault and they still can't accept any responsibility let alone a decent idea on how to get us out of this recession
NOTE FROM JOHN: Again, why do the Democrats refuse to lay the blame squarely on George Bush and 8 years of Republican rule? Had the Democrats done this to the economy, the Republicans would make sure that we paid the political price for the next 100 year. There is no way to stop the Republicans from destroying the economy further, and again, until we force them to take the blame.
FROM AMERICABLOG February 17 2009:
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday sharply downgraded its projections for the country's economic performance this year, predicting the economy will actually shrink and unemployment will rise higher.
Under the new projections, the unemployment rate will rise to between 8.5 and 8.8 percent this year. The old forecasts, issued in mid-November, predicted the jobless rate would rise to between 7.1 and 7.6 percent.
The Fed also believes the economy will contract this year between 0.5 and 1.3 percent. The old forecast said the economy could shrink by 0.2 percent or expand by 1.1 percent.
The bleaker outlook represents the growing toll of the worst housing, credit and financial crises since the 1930s. All of those negative forces have plunged the nation into a recession, now in its second year.
Tell me again why the Democrats are allowing the GOP to give lectures on the economy? This is the GOP's fault and they still can't accept any responsibility let alone a decent idea on how to get us out of this recession
NOTE FROM JOHN: Again, why do the Democrats refuse to lay the blame squarely on George Bush and 8 years of Republican rule? Had the Democrats done this to the economy, the Republicans would make sure that we paid the political price for the next 100 year. There is no way to stop the Republicans from destroying the economy further, and again, until we force them to take the blame.
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