MannTalk

On Hiatus

2009-03-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

"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.

Go Frat Boys

2009-03-11T17:35:00.000-07:00

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...

This is Just Too Freakin Funny

2009-03-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

Kelly Ripa - Tressant Supreme

We Can Dream Can't We?

2009-03-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

and is the Rock just getting hotter as he gets older or what?

Object of Desire, Part Two

2009-03-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

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.

Reporting from Mexico

2009-03-01T09:28:00.001-08:00

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.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

2009-02-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

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.

Charlie the Unicorn

2009-02-26T12:10:00.000-08:00

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....

There Was Obama, and then there was Bobby Jindal

2009-02-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

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.

Scattered Ramblings

2009-02-24T10:27:00.001-08:00

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.

Hey Smokers... At Any Time, It'll Get Ya

2009-02-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

Funny. But also right-on. Get that smoke outta my face!

Dustin Lance Black's Speech

2009-02-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

This guy is amazing. An eloquent spokesperson for the cause. And a former Mormon to boot.

The Shame in Your Grandchildren's Eyes

2009-02-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-22T18:56:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

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.

Adolescent Girls

2009-02-21T19:43:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

Object of Desire

2009-02-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

First glance...the cover. Out in June. I'll post another short excerpt soon.

The Dead Chimp

2009-02-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

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.

The Economy Tanks and We Need to Redirect the Dialogue

2009-02-18T18:26:00.000-08:00

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:

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.

Michael Phelps

2009-02-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

OK now, the swimming champ who got snapped taking a hit off a bong. What is it with the mainstream media? Have they never met an old bromide they didn't love to keep pushing? A photo surfaces of Phelps smoking pot and instead of asking the interesting question--Hey, what does this say about our schizophrenic cultural relationship with drugs?--they immediately go for the old lines of "Has he disappointed his fans?" and "How could he be so foolish?" Please. Most of these reporters are young(ish) people who presumably live in the same world as everyone else. They know lots of people smoke pot. They might even indulge themselves on occasion. But they perpetuate the fiction that nobody does drugs except bad people and addicts, seemingly because a few old ladies in the Midwest still believe this. Real journalists would use the opportunity to explore just what drugs--and in particular marijuana--mean to society, the place they occupy in the culture. Certainly you could get into the "Is it wise to do drugs?" question as well, but the kneejerk shaming response--and the oh-so-shocked attitude in the coverage-- is just so tired. So oldfashioned. So boring.

And so not instructive. Drugs-especially marijuana--are not going away. Here's a radical idea the media might want to explore. Some people can actually do drugs AND NOT HAVE IT BE A PROBLEM. Michael Phelps should be held up as a perfect example of this. Perfect physical condition, in great health and form, strong, fit, outperforms all his peers---and guess what? HE SMOKES POT!!! In one fell swoop, there go all the myths about the damages marijuana can do to your health. If the media had balls they might actually cover this very real story--but no, they'd be shouted down by the neanderthals of the status quo. Yet in fact, Phelps should be the poster boy for the legalization of marijuana. He gives the lie to all the old scare tactics. Why didn't THIS become the story? Why were all the stories about some mean old sheriff guy considering filing charges against Phelps (which thankfully now won't happen.) Or the stories were about how celebrities can lose all control and resort to drugs! (Shades of Heath Ledger!!) Come on people. Phelps was at a party, he kicked back, took a hit off a bong...like most people haven't done the same. And I wish he'd been able to stand up and say, "Yeah I took a hit, and back off people! What's the big deal?" At least he didn't lie about it. (The whole "I never inhaled" line...)

Hey, we have a president now who admits having smoked pot, and that was so not even relevant to anyone. That's the way it should be. Memo to the media: stop acting like it's still 1955. Memo to corporate sponsors: don't drop Phelps. He's the face of a generation. The kid didn't nothing wrong, except by some outdated laws that unfairly target the consumption of one plant (marijuana) while allowing the consumption of others (barley, grapes, grains, rye, etc etc etc). Personally, I'm not a huge fan of marijuana. Oh, it's nice once in a while to relax and chill out, but if I'd rather be invigorated than zoned out. Still, lots of people love it--and it's time that we acknowledged that lots of people smoke pot in moderation and no problem, no addiction, no adverse health affects arises from it. Let's all wake up and look around and realize we live in the twenty-first century. And then let's start acting like it.

A News Moratorium, at least for a bit...

2009-02-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I expected to be happier come mid-February 2009 when watchingd the news or reading the political blogs. Anticipating an Obama Administration and the crushing blows dealt to the Republicans, I imagined the news would be exciting, upbeat, hopeful. Now, while I'll admit it sure is a helluva lot better than what it was under Bush--or what it might have been under a McCain Administration (God, even typing those words I get shaky)--I am still frustrated by how the Repugs, even supposedly stripped of any claim to political power or relevancy, are still setting the agenda. And the only reason they are able to do so is because the White House and the Democratic Congress lets them. It's not like they have the votes to scuttle much legislation. It's not like they have any mandate from the voters. They were humiliated, rejected. But because Obama and the Dems still seem to want to kiss a little GOP ass, the media continues to imbue the disgraced party of Bush and Cheney with power and relevancy, allowing people who should be hanging their heads in shame to dictate the terms of much of the national debate. It is so aggravating. So, in the interests of sanity, I'm telling myself I don't need to check the news (nor comment upon it) every day. Maybe, while I'm tuned out, the Democrats will grow some balls and learn that the Repugs are never, ever, going to be the lap dogs the Dems were for much of the Bush years. And that should be a lesson that puts all of this "post-partisanship" bullshit to rest.

Of course, instead, I'll find something else to rant about: Michael namely Phelps. Now that the furor has died down a bit, tune in tomorrow for my take on the whole thing.

Oh--and in the meantime--I've been asked to do another set of movie lists. Top Ten Gay Movies of All Time was one. Another was Elizabeth's Top Ten Best Costars. I'm thinking, I'm thinking...and if there are others, let me know.

Update to my Oscar Predictions

2009-02-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to think that Mickey Rourke might pull this off, upsetting Sean Penn and Frank Langella. I still think Langella deserves to win the most, but the momentum seems to be with Rourke now.

Bring It, Suze

2009-02-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

At least Suze Orman figured Valentine's Day was a good time to make a point.

Sending Curses...

2009-02-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

...to whoever spread the germ that I picked up and resulted in this cold. When I get sick, I always wonder what was the exact moment of contagion? I am so careful. I won't even bite a hangnail at the gym because I know my hands are loaded with germs from the machines. I wash my hands constantly. At the first sign of any tickle in my throat, I'm taking extra vitamin C and Airborne and Tim's homeopathic remedies. But somehow this one got past my defenses. I had a sense that I'd picked up something before I went East, so I can't blame this on germy, confined airplane air. Oh, sure, the lack of sleep and added stress no doubt lowered my immune response so that the germ, harboring inside of me, may have had a better chance to flourish. But when exactly did I pick it up? At the water cooler at the gym? Shaking someone's hand? It just goes to show that no matter how you protect yourself, you're still vulnerable.

Not that I haven't had far worse colds. In fact, it's been a really long time since I've had a really bad cold, or, thankfully, the flu. The last time I was majorly sick was 2005, when I had some variation of the flu. I got that one from Tim, since he was sick right before me. This time, I'm not bedridden or anything like that. Yesterday I actually managed to take a two-hour hike with my friend David up the Lykken Trail -- a glorious sharp-blue day, and the air was so invigorating. I felt as if the hike knocked the cold out of me, but by mid-afternoon I was like a balloon slowly deflating. Plans to meet the boys at Wang's for martinis followed by more martinis and dinner at Tropicale were suddenly scuttled. I just got into bed and drank tea and watched Catherine Tate and Little Britain videos on YouTube on my laptop, then fell asleep early. I do not want to lose my whole weekend to this stupid bug! It's a holiday weekend--the town is packed with tourists. It's always fun to meet new people on holiday weekends. The energy is always good. I just hope I have the energy myself. This cold isn't so bad that I'm hacking or headachy... just debilitating enough to weigh down everything....little tasks like unloading the dishwasher seem far too big to manage. I need a house boy!

Of course, Tim's back East, so I'm alone this Valentine's Day. Just as well...wouldn't want to pass on this bug to him. You know, it would seem to me that this should have been a big day for Prop 8 demonstrations...maybe a media blitz...commercials showing couples expressing their love....but so far, I haven't seen anything. Why am I not surprised? No on 8 folks missing an opportunity? Gee, when has that happened before?

Can I rail just a moment about Will Ferrell's one-man play about Georga Dubya Bush on Broadway? I don't like Will Ferrell's humor for the most part. I think it's asine. But what I really don't like about his Bush show is the fact that, as mocking as it is, it kind of makes the ex-prez a loveable frat boy doofus. Not so different from Oliver Stone's W. Now, I'll admit I haven't see either--I have refused--but I'm basing this on multiple reports that I've gotten from friends. And I can say this much: I think anything that portrays Bush in any kind of sympathetic light, even if it's mocking and damning in terms of his intellect and ability, is inappropriate. After what he did to this country, any kind of compassion for the man is just plain wrong. Someday it will be fine to depict Bush in all his humanity, with playwrights or screenwriters finding some compassion and even empathy for him, the way Frost/Nixon did for Tricky Dick. But Frost/Nixon came some three decades after Nixon had done his worst to the nation and to the world. There was enough time for the wounds to heal. It is just far, far too soon to laugh affectionately or smile warmly at the foibles of Dubya. The man, like Nixon, should be in jail. Anything that leavens his egregious legacy is completely inappropriate at this time.

Money Money Money

2009-02-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

Here's the Newsweek piece by Jerry Adler that I mentioned, entitled "Why There Won't Be a Revolution." It's a good analysis, a takedown of all the leftie, Socialist predictions that one of these days Americans will have had enough of the rich getting richer and erupt in some kind of populist revolution. As much as we might all benefit from that, I've never believed it would happen. This ain't France, or even England. We find the rich too amusing to wish them all gone. Our laughter and fascination tamps down any resentment we might have. Growing up working class, or at best lower middle class, I can remember my family making noises about the so-called "rich" people who went to our church: I remember my mother being very offended one day when a lady asked her who she used as a housekeeper. "I clean my own house!" my mother huffed, and she still says the same thing when i tell her about my own cleaning ladies. But the real resentment in my family was always for the "people on welfare" who were supposedly getting something for nothing. There was an assumption that the rich had worked hard to get where they are, so they deserved what they had. It was only when I got older and went to college and started seeing the world a little bit that I realized the de facto affirmative action that existed for the rich, the network of helping hands that sustains their social order, that gives big jobs to rich kids through Daddy's connections and the access provided by Ivy League educations. And so long as the fiction remains that anyone might become as rich as Donald Trump, most Americans will continue to find the rich fascinating and will keep their resentments firmly directed at the poor. That's just what the power structure of this country wants, of course. Oh for a good revolution --complete with guillotines! I can think of a few heads I'd like to see staring up from baskets.

Now don't get me wrong. I like money just as much as anybody. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. Not money itself--but rather the comfort and security it can provide. I always think that if somehow I ever became rich, really rich, there would be a line I'd draw...all I'd want would be enough to keep a couple of households going, to take some fabulous trips every year, and to maintain some financial security into my old age. All the rest I'd give away. Nice little naive dream, I know. In fact, I'm sure that in reality the line I'm describing is very difficult to determine. How much money do you really need? For me, right now, it would be simply enough to not worry every few months if my cash flow will enable me to pay my monthly bills. The life of a writer means you get big chunks of money then nothing for long stretches of time, and I've never been very good at budgeting. Still, I like to imagine that if I ever hit it really big--like J.K. Rowling big--I'd figure out where that line was and then live by it. I don't need tons of money invested in banks or stocks. Just enough to live comfortably and allow my family to live comfortably, taking great vacations and driving good cars. All the rest I'd give away.

Remind me of that, okay, when I hit it big?

And yet again: evidence that so long as the little flicker of hope of "hitting it big" is there, we're not ever going to really demand changes in the way wealth is distributed in this country. And so the system that has so fucked us over this past year will get patched up but not overhauled, and will fuck us over again in another decade or so down the line.

Oh--and thanks for all the feel better wishes. I'm much better today. Told you I could will it out of me!

Home, Fighting off a Cold, and Sick of Bipartisanship

2009-02-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

I won't let this cold win. I knew it was coming, and hoped today it would be gone, but I woke up with the scratchy throat and dull headache. All I want to do is stay in bed and drink tea and be waited on--but Tim left for the East Coast so I'm on my own. Anyone want to come by and offer some TLC? Oh well, guess I'll just keep taking vitamin C and Airborne and drinking lots of water and tea. I will not, repeat will not, allow it to get any worse than this. The holiday weekend is coming up and I'm not gonna miss it. I've fought off colds before with mind over matter, and I will do it again.

I often get colds after flying. And this time, with my grounding in Phoenix and lack of sleep, I was particularly susceptible. I'm undecided on whether I ought to skip the gym. Sometimes a good workout helps me to sweat out the last of it. All I know is I'm taking an Ambien and Nyquil and melatonin tonight and hopefully sleep 12 hours. I'd like to go on a hike tomorrow. The weather is gorgeous (sorry, Northeasterners and Londoners....)

Sitting here drinking my chamomile and reading my blogs, I see that another attempt by the President at bipartisanship has gone up with smoke, with Sen. Gregg from New Hampshire backing out of being Commerce Secretary. Good. It is now obvious that the Repugs have no interest in working with the White House. They just don't think the way we do. Not that I think they should have, but Democrats rallied around Bush after 9/11, the last big national crisis. Democrats were playing to the mainstream, the national public at large. Repugs play only and always to their base. What strategy works best isn't clear. But it's obvious that the Republican repudiation of Obama's efforts to reach across the aisle is a deliberate strategy. They want to keep their shrinking, demoralized base from shrinking any further or becoming any further demoralized. They know they've lost the mainstream and their only hope is to keep the wingnuts fired up against Obama and the Democrats. It's why they're keeping the Franken-Coleman contest going, demonizing Franken. The good of the country--the Democrats' rationale for rallying around Bush in 2001-2003--is no longer a consideration. So my hope now is that Obama says screw them. We won. Fester all you want, Repugs, with your Sarah Palins and Rush Limbaughs. Let's get on with fixing the problems of teh country and ignore their caterwauling. If we succeed, then all that noise simply won't matter, not now, not in 2010 or 2012. And the only way we won't succeed is if we keep allowing them to play their little games, sidetracking the issues and coopting the media with their talking points. Bipartisanship is no longer a viable strategy, not with one party defined by wingnuts. The only way to proceed is to marginalize them -- until enough moderate, non-religious fanatics can take back the Republican party and once again offer an honorable opposition.

Grounded in Phoenix

2009-02-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

Can I just say that US Airways sucks???? I'm writing from Phoenix. Admittedly I had a short connection time, 35 minutes, to make the last flight to Palm Springs. But we sat in Boston for a half hour before taking off, then, upon landing, even though some time had been made up in the air, the ground crew wasn't ready and we sat for another ten minutes. Making it all worse was the absolute lack of customer courtesy....even the flight attendants were kind of indifferent when I told them how tight my connection was. A little empathy goes a long way. But far, far worse was the customer service desk. "No, we're not paying for a hotel." "I don't know if there are any rooms nearby available." "No, I'm not making any reservations for you." There was not one, "I'm awfully sorry for the inconvenience." No sympathetic smile, no words of advice, no tips for places to go.

This on top of there being no food available on the flight...by the time they got to me all they had left was a salami sandwich. Usually I'm better prepared, buying food in the terminal. But I was rushed this time and figured I'd buy one of their bad $7 meals. Didn't even have that option. And again, no "I'm awfully sorry." Did a memo go around to all employees saying "Show no empathy"?

Only bright note is the clerk at the front desk is a cute gay boy.... wonder how long his shift is? ;-)

I'm outta here early tomorrow. More then.

In the Air

2009-02-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

I’m writing at 30,000 feet somewhere over upstate New York. Twenty-five hours after I arrived in Boston I’m flying back out, heading West again. The conference was well orchestrated, a glimpse into the inner workings of publishing that I’d never seen before. About 300 of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt sales and marketing staff, from all over the country, were in attendance. These are the front-line folks who will take How to Be a Movie Star and pitch it to bookstores and other chains and outlets and hopefully finagle prominent placement and featuring for the book. It’s a process not many people know about. Most authors don’t think past the getting their book sold to a publisher, but that’s just the beginning. Once a book is done, a team of salespeople fan out across the fifty states and meet with booksellers. Before I was in publishing, I assumed that bookstores approached publishers, but it’s the other way around. Salespeople do their best to drum up interest in the company’s titles, and hopefully secure placement in the front of the store or some other such perks. (You think those titles that greet you when you first walk through the door at a bookstore just end up there randomly? Not quite. Every book is placed with precision.) Sometimes, when a salesperson meets with a bookseller, he or she might only have half an hour or so to make their case. With several titles to pitch, that means a book has only a slim moment to capture a bookseller’s fancy. Since I was the only author asked to be at the conference, I was very grateful to be given the opportunity to pitch HTBAMS. Everyone was incredibly receptive and enthusiastic. It was terrific to meet the actual people who will take my long hard work into Barnes & Noble and Borders and Amazon and all the rest. I feel assured that it will be in good hands.

Also in attendance were the publicity and marketing people, who will now (presumably) head back to their offices and cook up some fantastic outreach to get the book noticed. I will keep this blog and my website (under Appearances) updated with any events or publicity. The pub date for HTBAMS is October of this year.

Pub date for Object of Desire is June. It will be a great summer beach book. I’m happier with it than I have been for any fiction that I’ve written since Where the Boys Are. I’ll keep posting updates for that as well.

Tim reports that sunny skies and warm temperatures have returned to Palm Springs. Good to hear it. Before I left, we had another little cold spell, and it rained all day yesterday. Rainfall, of course, promises a glorious spring with green mountains and lots of mountain wildflowers—and bubbling brooks and waterfalls!—and of course I’m glad about that. But I must admit I really, really hate it when it gets rainy and cold in the desert. Even if it’s just for a day, I’m so impatient for the sun. I realized what a Sun Baby I am yet again on this trip back East. As nice as it was to get a little taste of New England (literally—I had really good clam chowder at Turner Fisheries last night) the sky was gray, gray, gray and I was aching to get back to Palm Springs. For me, the worst part of winter isn’t cold or ice or snow, though those things aren’t big favorites of mine either. It’s the grayness.

Read a great article in Newsweek about why America will never have a revolution. Will blog about it tomorrow. But check it out if you can: it’s in the issue with the cover that proclaims “We’re All Socialists Now.” I’m sure Faux News is having apoplexies over that. But they can thank their hero, George W., for it. Actually, they can thank Ronald Reagan. At long last, Reagonomics have come home to roost.

Back on the East Coast, and Observations about the Hero Pilot

2009-02-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

I must say, given my conflicting feelings about Boston, landing at Logan this afternoon produced a rush of a strange kind of homesickness. The brownstone buildings, the streetlamps, the pine trees, even the snow on the street felt so familiar, so authentic, so real to me--far more real than the pastels and palm trees of Palm Springs and L.A. As much as I love the West Coast--and I'm eagerly anticipating the return to warm temperatures predicted for this weekend--the Northeast will always be home to me. It felt odd not hurrying over to Terminal C and catching a Cape Air flight to Provincetown.

Instead, I'm at the Westin downtown. Nice view of the city. Tomorrow I'm presenting How to Be a Movie Star at the Houghton Mifflin national sales and marketing conference. They're making quite a bit out of my little book about Elizabeth. There's a video presentation and various speakers all leading up to.....me. Should be fun. Wait till you see the cover. It's stunning. Breathtaking. As soon as I'm given clearance, I'll post it here.

Was thinking about the hero pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, who landed that US Airways flight on the Hudson River. Least he could do since the airline is now charging for foods and drinks and even pillows and blankets. I flew in on US Airways today; I was hoping it was Sully up in the cockpit, but he's a little busy doing media interviews. Good for him. People are calling him a hero. I think of him more as an ace pilot at the top of his game, but if you want to call him a hero, even if it's stretching the definition of the word, go right ahead. He seems like a great guy. Here's what I like about him (other than his flying ability.) Katie Couric asked him if, at some point during the ordeal, he prayed. Given that this is America, I guess it's a valid question, since all those religious crazies were just dying to know. And what Capt. Sullenberger said was very impressive. He said he figured someone else was taking care of that. In other words, he kept his mind on his job. That's what we need in this post-Bush world: people who do their jobs to the very best of their ability, who value technology and performance and science, who think about the here and now more than they do the hereafter. If he'd been some religious fanatic, he'd have started praying to Jesus or Allah and all those passengers would have been strewn across New Jersey. I'm not saying God--or fate--or whatever power connects humankind--didn't have a part in all of it. And maybe Sullenberger is a religious man. But in a moment of crisis, he depended on himself and his own human ability to save the day. We need more of that.

Looking forward to seeing P.J. tonight. Thankfully it's not so cold...mid 30s....so I can get around town in just my suit jacket.

Clouds Moving In....

2009-02-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

As I get ready to brave the cold of Boston tomorrow, clouds are moving in over the mountains, spilling over the tops like steam from a witch's cauldron. We even had a few light sprinkles of rain. Snow in London, heat waves in Australia, rain and chilly temperatures in Palm Springs... thank god the climate-change deniers were tossed out of Washington and we have some real scientists now in charge.

But, it seems, another kind of denier has been brought back into the fold by Pope Adolf... a Holocaust denier. Seems the Pope, who was once a Hitler youth, has rescinded the excommunication of a bishop who denies that the Germans systematically murdered millions of Jews. This, not surprisingly, hasn't been received very well, even by the Fuhrer's--excuse me, the pontiff's--other bishops. You know, the Catholic Church had a chance to take a step forward, however small, into the twenty-first century upon the death of John Paul II. The cardinals made a deliberate choice to go with a guy who was perhaps the most traditional, most rigid, most conservative candidate they could have chosen. They weren't just electing a pope; they were sending a message. And that message was a hardline one to any reformists in the Church, that nothing was going to happen except over their (and Pope Adolf's) dead body. As my friend David says, and he was quoting someone else, "Progress happens one funeral at time." In the case of the Catholic Church, that's one over-the-top, expensive-beyond-belief funeral at a time.

We had a lovely time last night at the Riviera Palm Springs. It's the newest place to be in Palm Springs. It's like stepping back into the heyday of the Rat Pack only with a hip, modern feel. Where do all those hot young waitstaff and bartenders live during the day—cuz I sure don't see them around town! The service can be a bit slow, however, at least sitting around in some of the fabulous alcoves. Lunch in the restaurant today was much better. But the ambience is just wonderful. The slinky swimming pool, the decor, the fire pits...since it was cold and the rain had left the outdoor seating wet, we weren't able to congregate at the outside bar as we usually do, so we sat in a niche with a metal icon of Dean Martin staring down at us. Friends stopped by all evening...the occasion was Tim's birthday...and then we took a room so we could lounge about a bit this morning at the spa. I would definitely recommend the place if you're visiting Palm Springs. It's a sexy, hip crowd, a good mix of gay and straight, men and women, younger and older....you don't really find such a mix anywhere else in town. The food was good, the room was comfortable, the spa was enjoyable...if only the service was a bit more prompt and friendly. That can really make or break a place.

Religion is Stupid

2009-02-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, did I offend anybody?

I'm not calling any person stupid. I'm calling religion stupid. It's still a free country, even after Bush tried his best to change that, so I'm allowed to say it. Religion is stupid.

As an example: here in Palm Springs there is a group of people who practice a particular religion which I shall not name because this is not a rant against this particular religion but rather all religions. I am merely using this as an example. But this group of people apparently come here this time of year and they have a place of worship near my house. They do not believe in driving, apparently--I guess it's against their faith. Or maybe just on their day of worship. Whatever. I see them walking up and down a busy drag, cars and trucks barreling along, and there they are, wearing really funny-looking hats and other oddities. Their clothing is not practical for the weather: on hot days they must be sweating something fierce. But there they are. And they look stupid.

Again--I am not saying they are stupid, just that they look stupid. And I am fully aware that many groups look stupid at times. Gay men can look pretty stupid in those little lycra outfits they wear to White Party. Lesbians in mullets and fanny packs can look really stupid. Straight tourists with their beer guts and Bermuda shorts look way stupid flapping around downtown. Plastic surgery divas with their oversized boobs and stretched eyes look beyond stupid. The list goes on and on.

The difference is: those who look stupid because of religion look that way not because they want to but because they believe some Guy Up on a Cloud tells them that's how they should appear. This is the problem with religion--even the most liberal of religions, and I'm fully aware that some religions are very tolerant and open-minded. But they still take their marching orders not from their own consciences and life experiences but from texts that have been written and rewritten for hundreds or sometimes thousands of years, with untold layers of political machinations woven through them.

The problem is that most religious people think they are the personal foot soldiers for the Guy Up on the Cloud. And like good soldiers, they don't think for themselves. I have to believe that most religious opponents of same-sex marriage don't really care, deep down themselves, if a couple of guys or a couple of girls get married. I mean, how would a religious person in Alabama really be affected if a pair of dykes tie the knot in California? But, see, the religious believe the Guy Up on the Cloud doesn't want those two dykes to get hitched, so it's up to them to stop it. It's like a test: the Guy Up on the Cloud puts out a list of what He wants, and if you don't do everything you can to check off that list and make Him happy, you'll go to hell. So off they go to try to stop those two women in California from getting married. They try to change the laws of the land. They teach fairy tales in science class. They prevent information and procedures that could save lives. And they wear absurd clothing and hairstyles in public. If it's on the Guy Up on the Cloud's list, they do it.

To me, that's the height of stupidity.

Because where did this list come from? Who made up these rules? Anyone who isn't blinded by religion knows these rules were made by wandering Middle Eastern tribes thousands of years ago. The no pork thing, or the no meat on Fridays, or the no marrying your brother's wife, or the no mixing of fabrics, or the shrouding of women, or whatever else religions insist upon. Rules that were made up for reasons we can no longer fully understand. But still they put on those silly-looking garments and stride down Palm Canyon, looking stupid.

And for sure, if someone tried to stop them from striding down Palm Canyon, I'd be among the first out there to fight for their right to do so. I don't want to stop people from following their religion. They have a right to behave stupidly. I'm just tired of the stupidity of religion having such a sway over public life and public policy. I'm just tired of having to accommodate fairy tales and some Guy Up on a Cloud who does not exist. I exist. My partner exists. My friends exist. We're the ones who should count. I'm tired of people using their religious checklist, their formula to get into their imaginary heaven, to determine how I live my life.

Beau Breedlove

2009-02-06T08:35:00.000-08:00

Okay. Let's get the snickers over the name done with first. Sure it sounds as if the guy works for Falcon Video. But if a name ever fit...man, this guy is hot. And so is Sam Adams, the openly gay Mayor of Portland, Oregon, with whom Breedlove had an affair before Adams was elected. (Actually, an "affair" is kind of a misnomer, even if that's what the press has been calling it. Affair implies cheating on a marriage, doesn't it? They had a relationship, plain and simple.) And apparently there's been a big to-do about their relationship. Why, I'm not quite sure. Breedlove was 18 when they first had sex--17 when they shared their first kiss, which Breedlove says was mutual. To all those huffers and puffers, outraged because Adams was 42 when they started their affair, I submit to you....Paul Walker, the thirtysomething actor, who began an affair with a girl when she was 16, according to their own admission, and they're still together three years later. Nobody's much raising an eyebrow, cuz, you know, it's a guy and a hot nubile young teenager...oh wait, isn't that same thing going on with Adams and Breedlove? Not quite. The hot teen in the Walker case is a female... Jasmine Pilchard-Gosnell. Therein the double standard.

I am soooo tired of moralists, gay and straight, becoming all offended when an older man even admits a younger man can be hot. And guess what? Sometimes younger men think older men are hot too. Check out Adams in these photos...he is smoking. And check out Breedlove in the embedded video. Come on people. Two guys feel an attraction between them. Looking at the two of them, who can't understand that? Cut them some slack. This isn't McGreevey, or some closeted married politician. This is just two guys who had a relationship. Sure, Adams shouldn't have lied about it when asked on the campaign trail. But Breedlove is of legal age...and a kiss is just a kiss. And when a straight guy shows interest in a hot little Lolita, the culture accepts it as normal. It's time that gay men can show the same interest in younger men without being called pedophiles.

(And I believe Breedlove's use of the word "inappropriate" reflects the fact that Adams was his superior at work, not the age difference, which is a whole other matter.

Ken Starr Rears His Head

2009-02-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

Hey it's not Putin rearing his head that scares me, it's Ken Starr--whose fundamentalist religiosity has been exposed as the reason he went after Bill Clinton, and now he's trying to divorce all those who were legally married in California in the months before Prop 8 passed. What is it with these people? They really do not care about hurting other people. They really believe that somehow the Big Old Man sitting up there on his cloud cares about whether two guys or two gals get married, if the state gives them a piece of paper. They really see this as fighting for "right." How medieval is that? How backwards and small and unenlightened?

Anyway, here's a video....I like Regina Spektor and the photos are surely heartfelt. Maybe it'll move a few hearts on the Supreme Court. Though part of the begging tone... "Please don't divorce us!".... just seems old and tired to me. I'm more like "How dare you think you can divorce us!" But anyway, here it is:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Those Ideas Have Been Tested, and They Have Failed

2009-02-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

In other words: Hey Repugs. We won. Shut up now and get out of the way so we can save the country.

You tell 'em, Mr. President.

Listen to him state it clearly here.

Object of Desire, Part One

2009-02-05T08:22:00.000-08:00

Kind of like the way did in the 19th century, I'm excerpting the first chapter of my new novel (published in June from Kensington Books) Object of Desire a bit at a time. Just the first chapter, so don't think you'll get the whole thing without buying it!! :-)

Palm Springs, California

The first time I saw him, he was nothing more than a face and a pair of hands. Not once did his eyes meet mine. Even as he took my order, his chin was already lifting to greet the man behind me. The first time I saw him, he did not see me.

It was a green night. The mountains were gray and the sand blowing in from the desert was yellow, but the night itself was so green, it was almost emerald. A mirage, I knew. A trick of the setting sun. On a green night, nothing was what it seemed.

“Do you know who he is?” I asked my friend Randall, my eyes fixed on the bartender.

“Who?”

“Him.”

Randall shook his head. “Never seen him before.”

“He’s beautiful.”

“You think?”

With much reluctance did I turn my eyes away to focus on my friend. A green cast was coloring his face as the last slanting rays of the sun reflected against the mountains. Night was rushing in to fill up every corner of the bar’s outdoor deck, and the busboys were busy lighting the lanterns that hung over our heads. Little flames leapt and hopped as if they were living, breathing creatures, and I was reminded, yet again, of the night my sister disappeared twenty-seven years before, the night when everything in my world changed, the night I came to understand that I would never grow up to be the man I had expected to be.

“He is beautiful, Randall,” I said, with conviction. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“Danny,” my friend replied, “I did not come out with you tonight to moon over beautiful bartenders.” He glowered at me, his face pinched and unhappy, as if he’d just bitten into a lemon.

I gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you want to talk about Ike. Go ahead. I’m listening.”

He looked aghast. “I do not want to talk about Ike.”

“Okay, then, let’s not talk about him.”

Randall huffed. “Why would I drive all the way out here to the desert if I wanted to ruin your birthday by talking about Ike?”

I managed a small smile. “It wouldn’t ruin my birthday, Randall.”

He pouted. “Of course, it would. It ruined my entire life.” He raised his martini to me. “Happy birthday, Danny.”

I raised mine to him. “Thank you, Randall.”

My birthday. Ever since my teens, the day had felt awkward and peculiar, even inappropriate, fraught with memories tattered and terrible but sometimes freakishly funny as well. After the age of fourteen—the age I turned on the day my sister disappeared—all birthday parties ceased in my house. I never blamed my parents for it. I never thought it unfair. Not until I was twenty did I have another birthday party—given to me, in fact, by Randall, soon after I’d arrived in California. It felt odd, all that singing and merrymaking, not to mention the sex that went on after the party. I felt as if I was being unfaithful—not to my sister, not to my parents, but to me, to the boy I’d left behind in Connecticut. The boy who had done everything he could but still had ultimately failed.

To be continued....

Wednesday Morning Rambling

2009-02-04T07:25:00.000-08:00

Bad news about Tom Daschle. The whole universal healthcare thing was looking good. Okay, so I'm as peeved as the next person about rich, privileged types who don't pay taxes...but what's way, way worse is the way that it's being spun. I'm not sure the decision for Obama to say "I screwed up" was such a good idea. Not after just two weeks in the job. I know he's playing the "anti-Bush" and expects journalists to give him props for being honest, admitting mistakes, something Bush never was or did. But Fox is having a heyday with it, the spin is increasingly "Obama failing to deliver"....J.H.C., it's been TWO WEEKS! Here are my two gripes: how such an efficient team could pick all these people who have problems, and how the G.O.P., rendered irrelevant on every front, still manages to determine the agenda and get what it wants (mostly.)

This whole post-partisanship thing...a good idea, but bad execution. The picture for the last two weeks has been Obama kissing Republican ass and then getting his own ass kicked. The Repugs have less power than the Dems ever had under Bush--I mean that in terms of House and Senate seats--and yet the White House still courts them as if they're holding the reins of power. Some idiot Senator from New Hampshire gets appointed Commerce Secretary with the condition that the Democratic governor only appoint another Republican to replace him, and the reaction in the press (and hence, the public) is, "Well, that's only fair." Imagine, for a moment, a Republican Prez appointing a Democratic Senator and going along with his demand to the Republican governor to appoint a Democrat to replace him. Wouldn't happen! Fox Noise would be screaming about how unfair it was, how politically manipulative, how much of an encroachment on freedom and the Governor's rights!

The GOP waters down Obama's stimulus plan, then won't vote for it. The GOP holds up nominees. They lead the spin in setting teh conventional wisdom on how Obama is doing. They are far from irrelevant--but only because the people in power -- Democrats!--have allowed them to be relevant!

Okay. My rant is over.

Had a wonderful hike up to the top of the mountain yesterday. Well, maybe not the top--but the highest point in the foothills, anyway. It was incredibly meditative. For once, I was completely alone...no other hikers decamping anywhere near me. The air was amazing. The smell of dry earth and sage. For about an hour I sat and watched the planes land and take off in the distance. It was warm, and I had taken my shirt off--when I suddenly realized it was February 3. For an East Coast boy, that is still a pretty thrilling, bewildering concept. Everywhere lizards were skittering across the path. It was so liberating to hike up there....after so many weeks of being cooped up, finishing my manuscripts. I plan on going up again today.

Looking at the scenes of snow in London--which is really quite unimaginable to me--and hearing about yet another snow and ice storm barreling into the Northeast, I am so happy to be here. I'm a summer baby--I've just never liked winter much, even as a kid. Maybe it's ancestral: I feel the need to escape it, maybe the way my Norwegian and Swedish ancestors might have felt at times, caught in those long dark winters.

This morning I'm assembling the photo section for How to Be a Movie Star....I'm using some rarely-seen photos. Then I'm heading back outside!!

For all of you who have written emails to me, thanks---I appreciate you checking in during my long sojourn away from the blog. Your good wishes helped me keep going. I promise to keep this up-to-date....and start posting some excerpts from the novel and eventually from HTBAMS.

A New Day...

2009-02-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

Good morning boys and girls.

Yesterday, February 2, 2009, I finished the last edits to my novel Object of Desire and packed them off to Production. This past weekend, I finished the last edits to How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood. I am, for all intents and purposes, finally done with two projects that consumed much of my life these past two years. That their deadlines coincided so closely was a challenge that I met--not without lots of grumbling and irritable moods, as Tim can attest to. But I did it. They are done.

Strangely, I felt no sense of elation yesterday. In fact, I felt crabby. I emerged out of all those pages and looked around and saw what a mess the house was. How much laundry needed to be done. How disorganized were my files and my system. I should have rushed out and taken a hike or had a martini with a friend around a swimming pool (it was in the 80s yesterday) but no. What did I do? I did laundry. I cleaned the kitchen.

It's an odd sensation, finishing a book. (So imagine finishing two at the same time--a first for me.) Sometimes there is jubilance. More often, however, there's a feeling like I had yesterday--of disorientation. Life as you've known it for the last year or so--and especially, for the last several weeks directly leading up to the end--has suddenly and dramatically changed. No more needing to juggle everything. No more hearing the call of your manuscript every time you do anything else--like laundry. Suddenly there is time, blessed time.

That doesn't mean I won't get sucked back in. The nature of writing books is that, until you hold them in your hands, there is always more work to do. Friends don't always get this. When I finished the actual writing of both books (OOD in early December and HTBAMS in early January) I made the mistake of announcing "I'm done!" It's an important landmark--but hardly the end. So some were surprised that I was still working. "I thought you were done," they'd say. But after you come to your last period, your editor weighs in. There were few changes requested to OOD, but for HTBAMS, my editor is a sage and a stickler, and he rolled up his sleeves and got in there to polish up my prose so that it would shine as brightly as one of Elizabeth's diamonds. There was a lot of back and forth, suggestions on moving things around, adding and deleting, keeping FedEx busy. But I wasn't done with the novel either. Given that I'd quickly banged out the last third in Mexico, I wanted a chance to really go over those last chapters again myself, once I'd had some distance from them. Distance and time is always one's best editor. Once I received the copyedited manuscript, I got back in there and rewrote a lot of it, hopefully making it sing. Now, since it's already been copyedited, it behooves me to carefully go over the galleys when I get them to make sure all my additions and changes were entered correctly.

See what I mean about it never quite ending until the books are in my hands? The really hard work is done. But I will still get the copyedited manuscript of HTBAMS, and I'm sure between my editor and myself, there will be more changes. Then there will be putting together sample excerpts, in the hopes we get some major first serials. There will be publicity to plan: they're flying me in to Boston next week to meet with the Houghton Mifflin sales staff. It should be fun--though I'm not looking forward to dealing with snow and ice. But I'll get a chance to have dinner with my friend P.J. Wish I had time to pop over to Provincetown but I'm only in Boston a day.

So I hope to be blogging more. I hope to chronicle a little about life here in Palm Springs. It's another gorgeous day. And as I look at the photos of snow covering London, and hear reports of the bitter cold sweeping much of the U.S., I figure I should get out and enjoy the mountains and the sun and the swimming pools before climate change wreaks havoc here, too.

What Was That They Were Saying About Al-Qaida?

2009-01-25T08:37:00.000-08:00

Remember back when George Bush sold the sheep on the idea that "the terra-rists" wanted John Kerry to be president because he didn't scare them like Big Bad Bushie? John McCain, who sold his soul and will never get it back, tried the same thing on Obama. He said stuff like Obama would be too weak on terrorists and they were just hoping he'd get in--that Obama was Al-Qaida's candidate. The old conventional wisdom was that Republicans were the strong ones on terrorism, that Democrats would only embolden them. The mainstream media took the bait, spewed out all their stupid talking points, but I always knew that what Al-Qaida and others would REALLY fear would be a president who wasn't polarizing, who spoke to Muslims, who let the "Arab street" know America wasn't necessarily their enemy.

Well guess what? It's happened. Al Qaida is dispirited (read here), understanding their big rallying issue---Bush---is gone. All that absurdity about Bush's "War on Terror" can now be revealed as the useless exercise in propaganda that it was. So please can we now put to rest that old canard about Republicans being the tough ones on national security? Will the mainstream media now accept that all that Rovian spin was bogus?

Update on Gillibrand

2009-01-23T11:56:00.000-08:00

Maybe she won;t be so bad. Latest reports are that she supports gay marriage.

Is Sweden the New France?

2009-01-23T07:38:00.001-08:00

Last night Bill O'Reilly accused "far-left" zealots of wanting to create a Socialist system in the U.S., a kind of "hyper Sweden."

I've been hearing Sweden used as a bogeyman more and more, almost the way France was vilified by rightwing nuts under Bush. I'm not sure "Socialist" scares people the way it did in say, 1955. Of course, if the wingnuts say it often enough, the sheep will start bleating it out: "Can't have Socialism, Socialism bad"--when they don't even know what Socialism means. Or that probably they'd like some things about Socialism if they did.

I'm not saying that the leftwing zealots, whoever they supposedly are, really want Socialism, and I'm not even saying that Socialism is necessarily a good thing. That's irrelevant. I think it's just interesting that Sweden--sitting up there at the top of the world never bothering anybody--is being so demonized by the Right. Because, though it has its share of problems, life in Sweden is actually pretty damn good: a high standard of living, universal health care, high educational levels, low unemployment, tolerance of diversity. At the height of the Bush dictatorship, I thought briefly about moving there...I'm a quarter Swedish, my grandfather having been born on a small farm outside Ornskoldsvik in the north. And if not for those long cold winters, I would've thought about it even longer.

Skal!

OK I'm Really Getting Tired of This

2009-01-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

Why is it, every time we turn around in this brand new shiny world, our friends--like President Obama and HBO and New York Governor Paterson--do these things that say "screw you, homo"? And each time something happens that "screws the gays," we keep expecting somebody to do something about it, to rectify it, to make up for it, to placate us the way they'd placate other groups. But, no. It never happens.

A bit of history. Prop 8 passes. Few big-name straight allies get all that outraged (except for Frank Rich and Keith Olbermann.) Certainly there was no word from the President-Elect. We console ourselves by saying, "Just wait. They'll do something for us." Then Obama picks homophobe Rick Warren to speak at the Inauguration---this is how we're consoled? So we get all upset again. But once more, we're ignored. It's like we're the least favorite kid in the family who always gets neglected by too-busy parents. Finally openly gay Episcopal priest Gene Robinson is asked to deliver a prayer at a pre-Inauguration event, but when asked about it, the Obama people say no, it wasn't intended to show any unity with gay people. Whack! Can we please get a little empathy here??? Then, to top it all off, when Robinson actually speaks, HBO leaves it out of the broadcast!! Okay, see why I'm starting to feel just a teeny bit paranoid?

And now this. Of all the choices he could have made, Paterson chooses Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand as the replacement for Hillary Clinton in the Senate. Gillibrand is one of, if not the, most conservative Democratic represenatives in the state. She gets an 80 out of 100 from the Human Rights Campaign on gay issues: she refused to cosponsor legislation calling for a repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell; she opposed legislation that would grant equal tax treatment for employer-provided health coverage for domestic partners; she opposed legislation to grant same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and permanent residents the same immigration benefits of married couples; and she opposed legislation to permit state Medicaid programs to cover low-income, HIV-positive Americans before they develop AIDS. But meanwhile, some straight progressives are hailing her selection.

Caroline Kennedy, no matter what you thought about her qualifications, came out in support of gay marriage. There were plenty of other candidates who would have been strong advocates on gay issues, too. But apparently that's not a criteria Paterson cared about.

No matter what we do, no matter how much we bitch---we just don't seem to matter. I am fucking sick of it.

My Oscar Picks

2009-01-22T07:15:00.001-08:00

Let's see how well I hold up this early in the game. Since we're a month and a half out, I reserve the right to change this list (hey it's my blog!)

First listed is my prediction for "will win," the second is my choice for "should win":

Best Picture:

Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire.

Best Actor:

Mickey Rourke. Frank Langella.

Best Actress:

Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep. (since Kate Winslet was shut out of Revolutionary Road)

Supporting Actor:

Josh Brolin. Heath Ledger.

Supporting Actress:

Penelope Cruz. Amy Adams.

Director:

Danny Boyle. Danny Boyle.

Here's one difference.....

2009-01-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

...between Democrats and Republicans, and it's a major one.

Cornyn the Clown from Texas holds up Obama's Cabinet appointments...why? Because he's playing to the base. In the face of massive defeats and demoralizing setbacks, he's throwing some red meat to the wingnuts because a) he's a wingnut too; and b) he knows it'll keep some tiny little flicker of fight in his troops. Same with Norm Coleman not throwing in the towel in Minnesota. Same with the way Vitter hung on, and Larry Craig. Same with the way the House impeachment committee doggedly stayed after Clinton even when public opinion turned against them. They don't play to the public at large. They play to their base to keep the the fight alive even in times when the fight seems over.

Democrats, not so much. Pelosi and Reid...the last two years of Bush....need I say more?

At a time when the Democrats' base could have used a little red meat tossed our way, we didn't even get any gristle.

Yes, it's a foolish strategy if the goal is to win back the "hearts and minds" of the public for the GOP, as Rachel Maddow said last night. But that's not the goal of the conservative Republicans. it's to keep the "fight" alive --and for them, the fight means against the secular, progressive worldview that Obama represents. To cooperate for the good of the country even in this precarious economic moment would equal, in their minds, complicity with the enemy. For them the enemy is science, and feminism, and choice, and gays, and government programs for the poor, and tolerance of diversity, and anything that doesn't resemble their 1950s white patriarchal Christian view of America.

Update to the Post Below

2009-01-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Apparently it was John Roberts' flub not Obama's...Roberts read the oath wrong, which then tripped Obama up.

The Sun was Shining

2009-01-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

If it had rained or snowed in Washington today, you know the religious crazies would've said God was pissed. How come they never say anything when the weather is gorgeous?

Okay....it's over. Bush, I mean. Watching him escape the throng in that helicopter, I felt like a pissed-off shopowner watching a guy who had just broken everything in my shop getting away without paying for it.

Pretty damn impressive. That was my opinion of the moment. Everyone kept calling it historic. Of course it was. The faces of African-Americans in the crowd even moved this old cynic's heart. But I think it's historic for reasons far beyond race...it's historic because of what President Obama (man, that is nice to type!) said in his speech. That this is "the moment"...the moment when things began to change. The destruction and criminality of Bush and his crew have bankrupted the country, set the world on fire, and nearly destroyed the planet. From this moment forward, that is the old way. The failed way. So many things and so many presumptions and so many strategies and so many attitudes are now outdated simply because Barack Obama is president.

Okay so the best moments of the morning:

Bush's face as he walked out to that unexpected roar of boos.

Obama's shout out to the Muslim world.

Aretha.

Obama's acknowledgement that we are a nation of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and NON-BELIEVERS!!!" Finally!!! Thank you!!

The commentators continually commenting about Bush's fall from grace, that he leaves office very low, disgraced, unpopular, brought down.... Chris Matthews actually likened the Bushes to the Romanovs. (But hey, the Russian Imperial family actually paid for their crimes....)

Aretha.

Obama stumbling over the Oath of Office. I know some people cringed. For me, it humanized him.

Malia taking a digicam video of her father speaking.

Aretha.

Michelle's dress. Mustard was an unusual color, but anything that puts that hideous election-night ensemble out of memory was welcome.

The fact that the Obamas are considered "young." Hey...that makes me young too. Maybe 40 really IS the new 30.

Cheney in a wheelchair. The metaphor was so obvious it was just too easy.

The ovation the crowd gave to the Clintons.

That it was two women from San Francisco (DiFi and Nancy Pelosi) to escort Obama down the steps. Hey fundies, just what you feared: San Francisco values now rule!

Obama's promise to restore the rule of law. (Hey--does that include prosecuting Bushies for their crimes? Maybe.)

Aretha.

Obama's olive leaf to the rest of the world.

Rev. Lowery's lighthearted poem about tolerance.

Okay....so there were a few disappointments for me too:

Rev. Lowery's apparent failure to find a word that rhymed with "gay."

Rick Warren's false construction that civility is needed even when we disagree--it is false because it implies others besides himself have been the ones to be uncivil.

Rick Warren overall, but that was to be expected.

The poem. No offense, but Maya Angelou can never be topped. And Angelou managed to find a way to get "gay" in there, and that was SIXTEEN YEARS AGO!!!!

That no one said "gay" anywhere. Maybe the old litany of groups is passé but references to all the major ethnicities and religions got worked in somehow. Sigh.

But Bush is gone. He is gone and we are still (barely) standing. Let the change begin.

The Golden Globes

2009-01-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

Watching that ridiculous awards show last night (I mean, who is the Hollywood Foreign Press Association?) I was struck, yet again, by how much Hollywood enjoys patting each other on the back and giving each other standing ovations. Look, I love movies. I make (part of) my living by writing about movies and the people who make them. I love movie stars and watch with as much interest as anyone to see what Drew and Meryl and Cate and Kate and Brad and Ashton and Demi are wearing. (What was up with Drew Barrymore's hair? Was there a nest of birds hiding in there? And is it me, or does Tom Cruise look really, really gaunt? And who ever knew Mickey Rourke could actually rock??) But another part of me just gets so annoyed by it all. I mean, out comes Steven Speilberg and they give him an award and we see clips of all his fabulous movies and everybody stands up and cries and applauds...I don't know. Back in the day, when they gave a sentimental, honorary award, it was to somebody like Charlie Chaplin or Mary Pickford, who hadn't been seen in years, or, like Chaplin, had been de facto banned from Hollywood. Or they gave them at the end of someone's career, and we could feel really good about honoring someone who might not be around much longer. My bet is that Speilberg still has a couple more movies in him.

Even the AFI awards used to go to the greats--people who'd had long careers and been around forever and were probably not going to make many more gilms---people like John Ford and Bette Davis and Alfred Hitchcock and Sidney Poitier-- and Lillian Gish, for God's sake. Now they give them to Tom Hanks and Al Pacino. And all those people who get up there and accept their awards and cry and go on and on--I mean, I love Kate Winslet. Extraordinary actress and seems like a really good, levelheaded, decent person. But her acceptance speech--some people actually were brought to tears by it. Tears! Come on people! She's an actress!! And ever notice how much everybody just loves, loves, loves each other in Hollywood? I don't tell my colleagues that I love them. There is just such a sense of self-importance among Hollywood players. What other profession annually has fifteen million award shows to throw shiny statuettes at each other and gush into microphones about how much they love each other?

But I enjoyed the show. I always do. I'll watch the Oscars and bitch about that too. Call me a curdmudgeon this morning. Wait. I'll save you the trouble. I'm a curmudgeon.

Sarah Palin Finally Says Something Smart

2009-01-08T19:56:00.000-08:00

Never thought I'd say this....but Sarah Palin is right about somethin'.

The media is indeed giving Caroline Kennedy a pass--or at least, is treating her more deferentially than they did the Disasta from Alaska. And the reason goes beyond simply that she's a former First Daughter of a beloved martyred president and the last heir of Camelot.

It's because she's rich.

It's because she's rich and white and upper-class.

It's because she went to the right schools and knows all the right people--and her children all went to the right schools, too, and know all the right people.

Palin says it's evidence of class bias in this country. And she's right.

Yeah, I know, sit down. I'm agreeing with something that Sarah Palin said. Maybe that's why I just felt a slight earthquake here in the desert. (True.) But in this case, Sarah's right.

Of course, it's not that simple. Nothing ever is. Caroline Kennedy DID get mocked for all the "you knows" in her speech when she talked about why she wanted to be a Senator. And people HAVE questioned her qualifications, much as they questioned Sarah Palin's. And the media was certainly right to explore whether we wanted a Vice President who believed in creationism, who supported the banning of books, and so many other disturbing parts of Palin's resume. It wasn't just her inexperience and inarticulateness the media was going after. It was her faulty positions as well--positions which Kennedy, for all her lack of experience, does not share.

But that doesn't dispute the very real class bias that exists in the media, in the rarefied world of letters, in academia, in the country at large. As a working-class kid who climbed out of the factory town where I was born and saw a bit more of the world than most others in my family, I know that classism is real. I've seen it when people ask who I know, or who are my friends, or where I went to school, or what my father (never my mother) "did." I've lunched with bigwigs who, perhaps not entirely unconsciously, wait for me to drop some name--an uncle, perhaps, who works for an art gallery, or a former professor who's written a best-selling book--and when I don't, they seem to chalk me up as an outsider trying to crash the gates. I've seen the looks people in power give me all my life--and I suspect Sarah Palin has too. You betcha she has.

Of course, there's no question that Caroline Kennedy would make a better Senator than Sarah Palin would have made a vice-president. That's one of the privileges of class. Generally, the upper-class have an upper hand on competence--but not always, of course, with the current occupant of the Oval Office the obvious case in point. But usually, good educations combined with associating with people of ideas--as well as encouragement from an early age to pursue brilliance (rather than a "good job with benefits," which is what I was told)--leads to capable candidates for office. That's not to say that those who hail from the middle or working classes can't be brilliant--with the next occupant of the Oval Office the other obvious case in point. But Sarah Palin, as white trash as they come, always had a major strike against her. And whereas she may be an idiot about everything else--and deserved all the flak she got and continues to get--she's right about this. One hundred percent right.

Anne Hathaway -- Love Her!

2009-01-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

Sorry for my derelict blogging duties, people. I'm way too deep into writing the last bit of Elizabeth to do much of anything else. Finished my novel Object of Desire...will post an excerpt soon. I'm quite pleased with it. Now I'm chugging through the last glittering moments of How to Be a Movie Star. But just had to take time to post this clip of Anne Hathaway at our very own Palm Springs Film Festival last night. You go Anne!! More celebs should be asking our President-Elect to explain Rick Warren. (Note how the reporter had no clue for a follow-up question...she was probably like, "Who's she talking about??")

Frank Rich on Rick Warren

2008-12-27T22:23:00.000-08:00

Frank Rich, as usual, speaks the truth in today's New York Times. Here's an excerpt but read the whole thing.

...There’s a difference between including Warren among the cacophony of voices weighing in on policy and anointing him as the inaugural’s de facto pope. You can’t blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” he told The Times, but “we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

Warren, whose ego is no less than Obama’s, likes to advertise his “commitment to model civility in America.” But as Rachel Maddow of MSNBC reminded her audience, “comparing gay relationships to child abuse” is a “strange model of civility.” Less strange but equally hard to take is Warren’s defensive insistence that some of his best friends are the gays: His boasts of having “eaten dinner in gay homes” and loving Melissa Etheridge records will not protect any gay families’ civil rights.

Equally lame is the argument mounted by an Obama spokeswoman, Linda Douglass, who talks of how Warren has fought for “people who have H.I.V./AIDS.” Shouldn’t that be the default position of any religious leader? Fighting AIDS is not a get-out-of-homophobia-free card. That Bush finally joined Bono in doing the right thing about AIDS in Africa does not mitigate the gay-baiting of his 2004 campaign, let alone his silence and utter inaction when the epidemic was killing Texans by the thousands, many of them gay men, during his term as governor.

And then this:

When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

It is even more toxic in a year when that group has been marginalized and stripped of its rights by ballot initiatives fomenting precisely such fears. “You’ve got to give them hope” was the refrain of the pioneering 1970s gay politician Harvey Milk, so stunningly brought back to life by Sean Penn on screen this winter. Milk reminds us that hope has to mean action, not just words.

By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

Santa Claus is a Dick

2008-12-24T21:20:00.001-08:00

Kinda how I'm feeling this holiday season.

Indifferent to the Spirit of the Season

2008-12-23T16:25:00.001-08:00

Okay, so now Melissa Etheridge is cajoling us to be good little gay boys and girls and welcome "Pastor Rick" (really, she keeps calling him that--that must have been some Kool-Aid) into our hearts. Because, Melissa says, he welcomes us. She says he's a fan of hers--and that doesn't sound like a "gay hater" to her. Memo to Melissa: you are a big star. People cozy up to big stars when they want something. And Rick Warren wants all this huffing and puffing we're doing to go away, cuz he really, really wants to be at that Inauguration, and you know the guy who invited him doesn't like all this huffing and puffing, and is certainly applying some pressure. So off goes Pastor Rick (is that like Fireman Mike or--or--or Joe the Plumber?) to make nice-nice at an AIDS thrift shop in West Hollywood and get photographed with a real life homo--he even put his arm around the guy. (Wonder if stopped in at the Pleasure Chest across the street, or checked out who was cruising down at Circus of Books.) He also approaches Etheridge and gets her to write a piece in which she says it's now our choice whether we open our hearts or not.

In a word, Melissa: bullshit. I'm tired of making the argument that we're the only group expected to make nice-nice, expected to tolerate people who are intolerant of us. There's nobody up there denying basic civil rights (or in some cases, basic humanity) of any other group but us. It's not our choice, Melissa. It was President Obama's choice, and he blew it.

I'm not turning my back on the promise Obama symbolizes. I'm not even saying he won't do us some good in his time in the White House. I expect he will. In fact, HE HAD BETTER. There needs to be something substantive, and SOON. Not two years from now, the way he was talking about Don't Ask Don't Tell. Something early in 2009. Wouldn't it be fabulous if he could pressure "Pastor Rick" into having a revelation from god? (Cuz you know these televangelists are always looking for the next big thing.) What if Pastor Rick--like Tammy Faye Bakker---has such a good time hanging out with the gays that he suddenly says, "You know, maybe that anti-gay passage in the Bible is as outdated as the ones on slavery, and wearing mixed fabrics, and sacrificing up firstborns,and all that other fun stuff." Maybe his could be the first fundamentalist evangelist church to go pro-gay--think about those added revenues, Pastor Rick! (Melissa's invited him over to meet her wife and kids. Better show him a real good time, Meliss.)

I'm dreaming, I know. But I am awaiting something. And soon.

In the meantime, I have become indifferent to the spirit of the season, the one where you're supposed to feel good will to others. I'm not wishing anyone ill will, not even Rick Warren (or Barack Obama.) But Sorry, Melissa, I'm not buying what you have to sell. My disillusionment over Prop 8 and then Rick Warren has sucked all the good feeling I had on Election Night right right out of me. So I'm reserving what little good will and holiday cheer that I can muster for those who "get it": my family, chosen and biological; my friends; my readers; and my fellow gay, lesbian, trans, queer, straight, bohemian, pansexual activists... God bless them, every one.

OK, No More Obama Apologists, Please

2008-12-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

This is why the Rick Warren thing is truly disturbing, because it's part of a pattern among Obama's inner circle that "the gays don't matter." And to all you Hillary fans out there who are writing me telling me you told me so---yes, you did.

From Americablog:

Sunday, December 21, 2008

"Anybody but the gay"
John Aravosis (DC) · 12/21/2008 12:05:00 PM ET · Link

My friend Chris, who's been involved in DC politics for probably as long as me, is starting to see a larger, more disturbing, pattern. He just wrote me the following:

You know that I’m less likely than you to read bad signs into things, but I have to say that the last couple of days have been pretty bad on the Obama front.

Rick Warren was disturbing, but potentially a tactically useful move, so I was willing to cut Obama some slack. But it’s worrying to me that neither one of the unambiguously qualified potential gay appointees actually got an appointment.

I can’t speak to Mary Beth Maxwell because I’ve never met her and our paths haven’t crossed. I’m sure she’s terrific; I just can’t personally vouch for that.

The fact that John Berry got passed over for Interior really bites – he’s the best there is, knows the Interior Department like the back of his hand and has already been through Senate confirmation previously. I’m sure Ken Salazar has his good points, but somebody needs to tell him it’s rude to wear a hat at a press conference. If you have to have a straight Secretary of the Interior, couldn’t he at least avoid being tacky?

But the one that gets me is SBA. Fred Hochberg has worked his ass off for Obama, he’s on the transition team, and he’s the former Deputy Administrator at SBA. The nomination that got made – well, I’m sure she’s fine, and I hope she does well, but there’s nothing compelling about her appointment.

It’s the same with Salazar – with Solis’ nomination, especially, there was no compelling need for another Latino appointment, but I acknowledge the political benefit. But that’s not true with SBA, and what happened there makes me question the Interior appointment, too. I can’t think of any common reasoning on these appointments except “anybody but the gay guy.”

Gays only major minority not welcome in Obama's cabinet
John Aravosis (DC) · 12/20/2008 08:16:00 PM ET · Link

Even Republicans got two seats. Gays, zero.

Steve Elmendorf, a former deputy campaign manager for John Kerry and senior adviser to Dick Gephardt, called it “very disappointing” that a number of high-quality LGBT candidates had been passed over. “It’s a very diverse and inclusive cabinet for every community except for the gay and lesbian community,” he said.

Not that anyone’s counting, but the cabinet as announced/projected at present includes three Latinos, two Asian Americans, one African-American, three women, and, yes, two Republicans.

Elmendorf observed that the top-tier White House staff doesn’t appear to have any LGBT people in it either. “That just makes the Rick Warren thing an extra kick in the stomach,” he said.

Though Elmendorf sympathized with Obama’s big-tent argument about wanting to reach out to evangelicals through Rick Warren, he added, “but I don’t think [the Obama team] has sent any signals to the gay and lesbian community -- who voted for him overwhelmingly -- that they want to include them.”

The inaugural committee is touting the participation of the Lesbian and Gay Band Association in the inaugural parade as a symbol of inclusion.

Hey, they gave us a band.

This Ain't About Being Inclusive

2008-12-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

Angrier and angrier...

2008-12-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

Like Alice in Wonderland, who found herself curiouser and curiouser, I find myself angrier and angrier about this Rick Warren thing.

And finally seeing Milk last night has only ratcheted up the anger even more. The film was not quite the cathartic experience I'd anticipated, given the great reviews. I wanted more emotion...between Harvey and Scott, between Harvey and the family of activists around him (we only really see that with Cleve), and, crucially, from the survivors in the wake of Harvey's murder. Yet still, I was left fired up. I saw what those people did 30 years ago, and the hope and the promise they left to us, and I think: Prop 8 passed. Focus on the Family still rakes in millions. And Obama asks a guy who uses the same egregious arguments against us that Briggs did in 1978--comparing the love we have for each other to bestiality, incest, and prostitution--to lead the prayer at his inauguration. The more things change....well, you know the rest.

Look, I get what Obama's trying to do here. Bush&Co vilified and exiled those who disagreed with them. Obama's showing he will be a very different kind of president. He will bring everyone to the table. It's not all that different from the olive leaf he handed to Joe Lieberman, saving his sorry traitorous ass. But I think it is safe to say that he would not have asked someone to participate in the inauguration who had made statements that suggested an inequality between the races--a white supremacist, for example, or someone who favored eugenics, or someone who compared the intelligence of whites and blacks. He would not have invited a Holocaust denier, or an opponent of the state of Israel. He would not have included someone who actively championed the idea of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, or campaigned for English-only education. But someone who has called gays and lesbians sick and wrong and disordered, and who campaigned not only to limit our rights but to take away rights we had already gained---somehow a person like this is acceptable to lead the prayer at this historic inauguration.

As Harvey Milk would have said, we are long past the time of being grateful for a few kind words, for assurances that if we just wait in line, the powers-that-be will get around to us eventually. Some Obama apologists on the left have started in with the "logic" that this is all a strategy, that Warren and his followers will now be beholden to Obama and Obama will ask them not to oppose him when he does something for us--like on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Why should I trust that? And I'm sorry, even if true, the ends do not always justify the means. The message of inclusion that Obama should be sending with this inauguration should be directed at us, not at the intolerant Religious Right. It's not the Religious Right who has been excluded from the halls of power for eight years. It's gay people. And so, again, we are being told to wait behind the scenes.

I am so tired of anti-gay prejudice being considered somehow less offensive than racism and anti-Semitism. I am so tired of homophobia being accommodated because of "religious reasons." If my religion says women shouldn't be allowed to vote, are we going to accommodate that? Enough with the religious exclusion. Go ahead and teach what you want in your church, as crazy as it seems. But don't expect us to legislate that into public policy. And if your religion teaches intolerance toward any group, you shouldn't be honored with a place at an inauguration which is supposed to symbolize a new era of inclusion.

You know, I think if Obama had spoken out after the passage of Prop 8, and addressed the pain we were feeling, even if he didn't come right out and suddenly support gay marriage, I'd be less angry now. But by his silence on this issue, his invitation to Rick Warren seems somehow to sanction the anti-gay sentiment that Warren and his kind whipped up to pass Prop 8.

To disinvite Warren now, as some gay activists are calling for, would create another political dilemma. Instead, I think Obama needs to do two things. First, beef up the role of those speakers and religious leaders taking part in the inauguration who support gay marriage. Second, say something to us. Speak out about Prop 8. At least address the pain that we are feeling. Say something about moving forward into a world where we understand and embrace diversity. In other words, lead.

Yet sadly, for all the transcendent qualities of Barack Obama, for all the potential he has to change the world, one area he seems to lack is real empathy with gays and lesbians. Hillary might not have been able to change the world the way Obama might be able to do--but you can say this much for the Clintons: they've got gays and lesbians all through their organization. They would not have picked Rick Warren. Obama's advisors seem tone-deaf when it comes to gay issues. Imagine picking a segregationist to speak during the civil rights era. Well, that's exactly what they've done here in the wake of Prop 8 by picking Rick Warren.

So the question is now.....what are we going to do about it??

Can We Bend Over and Take It?

2008-12-18T06:59:00.000-08:00

Yes we can.

Okay, Rick Warren was the last straw for me. I want my money back. When I posted on Facebook my disappointment (an understatement) with President-Elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to lead a prayer at the inauguration--adding that Warren comes after Obama's failure to say anything about the passage of Prop 8, his decision to delay changes to Don't Ask Don't Tell, and his failure to appoint any gays or lesbians to top-level posts in the administration--I got more comments than ever before. My friend Josh wrote, "Can we bend over and take it because he's not as bad as John McCain? Yes we can." Kinda sums up our situation perfectly. Maybe eight years of indifference and insensitivity won't be as bad as eight years of active assault, but I'm tired--way past tired--of being grateful for crumbs.

Look, I am still glad that Obama won. McCain-Palin would have been a nightmare. Only Obama can restore our credibility around the world. Only Obama can bring the kind of change that's needed to our economy, to healthcare, to education, to the environment and climate control. I remain thrilled and goose-pimply knowing Malia will do her homework at the desk where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But there's a reason "the gays"--as a whole--never quite rallied around Barack with the kind of fervor they did Hillary. In our gut we didn't feel the connection. We knew he'd make good appointments to the courts, judges who would be more likely favorable to us than oppositional. We were heartened when he used the word "gay" in his speeches about diversity and inclusion. But there wasn't the kind of visceral connection that Hillary provided--the gut-level sense that she was fundamentally comfortable with gay people, counted many among her friends, and would find ways to make gestures of inclusion and support. Hillary would never have had Rick Warren, a homophobe who was vocal in his support for Prop 8, leading any kind of prayer for her.

Is Obama completely tone-deaf when it comes to gay issues? We are still raw and wounded from the Prop 8 battle. It is our 21st century Stonewall. To ask a proponent of Prop 8 to speak for him is wrong. It's an insult. I get what Obama is trying to do: reach out and be inclusive of everyone, send a message that we can all come together. But there were others, people who did not actively support Prop 8, who could have served the same purpose. I remain thankful that Obama won. But the money I donated---money that I couldn't really afford at the time---well, I'm feeling I'd like that back right about now.

Revelations at the 11th Hour

2008-12-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

So I'm back hard at work, hunched over my computer, nearly finished with my novel, Object of Desire, when all at once I realize the direction I'm heading in is wrong. Without giving anything away, because I expect you all will be reading this next year, something was going to happen at the end that I no longer felt was the right thing to do. I was stunned by this sudden revelation. For months, I'd planning for this. In fact, I'd been steering the narrative toward this ending all along. But then I had second thoughts. And third and fourth thoughts---all of which told me the ending was not the best way to write finis to the story. I struggled with this new perspective. Changing the ending wouldn't alter anything that came before--it would only effect the last couple of chapters. I had liked the original ending; was looking forward to writing it, in fact, and had mapped it out in my head. But the new ending seemed better somehow--yet I wondered if my feelings had swung in its direction because it was an ending that would undoubtedly be preferred by readers--at least, most by readers--and might actually prove to be more commercial. It reminded me of what happened to the ending of Alice Adams, that 1935 film starring Katharine Hepburn directed by George Stevens based on the Booth Tarkington novel. In Tarkington's original, Alice doesn't get the man, just goes off on her own. That's how Hepburn and Stevens wanted to end it, but pressure from the studio forced a happy ending on the film. Was I now feeling that Object of Desire might sell better with this new ending? (I'm not necessarily saying it's a happier ending, just possibly a more commercial one.) It got me wondering about how other writers make decisions, and the few I spoke with admitted that yes, of course, reader response was often a consideration. They all added quickly, however, that ultimately the needs of the story had to come first. I have been pondering my decision for a few days now. At one point I had almost decided to go back to the original ending, but I can't get this new idea out of my head--which tells me it's probably the way to go. I've been asking myself, "What is it that I want to say with this book? What do I want readers to come away with?" And the answers to those questions do tend to support this new idea. I think the original ending might still be very good---but I'm starting to accept the fact that the new ending will be just as good, or even better. After all, even with the tacked-on happy ending, Alice Adams is still a remarkable film, and the ending doesn't take away anything that came before. In fact, in its own way, it bolsters the story of Alice. So I think I know what I'm going to do. I aim to be finished this week with the novel--and it's going to end with my new idea. Then one more read, then it's time for my editor to take a look. There will be more revisions, to be sure, but I suspect I've stumbled onto the best ending at the 11th hour. At the 11th and a half hour. It does sometimes happen that way. Sometimes characters take you to unexpected places and do things you never would have dreamed of when you first conjured them. And if this new ending helpsto also sell a few more copies of the book, I should complain??

Bring 'em on

2008-12-14T19:18:00.001-08:00

The Original Family Unit...to Dance or Not to Dance?

2008-12-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I return to my family of origin and experience again, for good and bad, the traditions and dynamics and folkways of my childhood. My niece got married yesterday. She was my first niece (first of any children of my siblings), the daughter of my 12-year-older sister. So when she was born, I was still a very young teenager, and the addition of a baby into our family was a huge, exciting event. I adored my niece (still do) and loved taking her on little trips to the movies, or the planetarium, or the carousel in Bushnell Park in Hartford, or out to eat lobster. I remember babysitting when she was still an infant and praying I wouldn't have to change her diapers. (God wasn't listening to that prayer.) I had loved The Wizard of Oz so much as a kid that my sister asked me to watch it with my niece for the first time--she was probably three. She loved it as much as I did. I remember that her eyes were wide and she sat there enthralled. She announced, "I want to marry Glinda when I grow up!" I didn't discourage her. More than two decades later I watched her walk down the aisle--not to marry Glinda, but a very nice young man who seems to adore her--and allowed myself a moment, just a moment, to think about time, and passages, and mortality. She was a strikingly beautiful bride--far removed from the little toddler in the ill-fitting bathing suit in her backyard blow-up swimming pool. I remembered her mother's wedding, when I was a 9-year-old ringbearer in a baby tux. Time just keeps moving on, stopping for no one. I suspect there will be a baby soon...making me a granduncle. Sheesh.

And yet as poignant and beautiful as it all was, another childhood experience rushed back at me as well during the ceremony. It was a traditional Catholic Mass--the first one I'd been to in years...probably 15 years. But all those responses came right back to me. The priest went on during his homily about "man and wife" and God creating man and woman and they shall become one, and so on and so on. I tried to hear his words as gender-neutral, to take in his underlying message of love and commitment, but it was difficult, because I sensed he was a real traditionalist, and probably would have frowned on the two homos wearing wedding rings sitting in the second pew.

But there were also affirming moments as well. It was the first time (after 20 years) that Tim had met most of my extended family. Seeing how well my immediate family (I'm referring here to my original family unit, for my immediate family coudl also refer to our family of friends) has accepted Tim, they responded in kind. One aunt hugged him on her way back from Communion (Tim and I sat it out) and whispered in his ear, "Welcome to the family." (He's been around 20 years, but there have been no weddings, pretty remarkably, in that period.) Another aunt discovered they had much in common regarding yoga and alternative therapies and they exchanged cards. Even my brother-in-law's mother didn't blink an eye when I introduced him as my partner and told Tim he could call her by her first name.

So this is how it happens. One family unit at a time. Those people who had been waiting to see the "gay uncle" and his "friend" were probably a little surprised to see us interacting normally and not flitting our wrists and wearing boas and screaming all over the dancefloor. They saw my mother and father and sisters and nieces and nephews all engaging us warmly and normally.

One caveat: At point the band asked those couples who had been married 50 years or more to come onto the dancefloor. A few elderly couples, including my parents, took their spots. Then those married 40 or more were called, then 30 or more, then 20 or more. I was all set to go out there. My brother and his wife, my sister and her husband, my aunt and uncle, so many couples... Tim and I have been together 20 years. To go out there then and be seen would have told everyone that we, too, can have longlasting unions. But we didn't go. I felt it might have called attention to us, and away from what should be my niece's day. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was my own fear and internalized shame. Tim said, quite correctly, that we haven't been married 20 years---we've only been married four years. So technically we didn't fit the dancefloor criteria. I'm not sure I would do it differently if I had it to do over again. But maybe I would. I don't know. These are the questions we must ask ourselves all the time.

Puerto Vallarta pics

2008-12-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

More pics on my Facebook page. In Puerto Vallarta with friends, old and new.

Adios Mexico

2008-12-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

I have truly fallen in love with this place. It is spectacularly beautiful. I can so understand why Elizabeth Taylor wanted to live here. This is the largest bay outside Hudson Bay in North America--perhaps the world. This gorgeous ring of blue, blue water defined by steep crags and adorned with white-and-blue-tiled buildings. And I've already waxed poetic on the beauty of the people...both male and female. And friendly. There is such a sense of being welcome here. Of course it's because it's a tourist economy and we're tourists. But Provincetown is a tourist economy and I can't say the people who work there are always so friendly. We walk into a bar and are greeting with kisses and hugs as if we are longlost friends. You go to one bar, one restaurant, one time, and you are remembered the next time you visit.

On Friday we found ourselves at Stereo, where the contestants for the Mr. Gay Mexico contest had gathered. We all had our favorites, but I became friendly with Adrian, and the next night we showed up to cheer him on. Only problem was...the contest went on forever and we, quite simply, did not. Adrian didn't win but he should have, in my humble opinion. But I know this much: we wouldn't have connected with the contestants for Mr. Gay U.S.A. quite as easily. I can only imagine the attitude that would have filled a bar with the Mr. Gay U.S.A. contestants the night before their big show. All of them likely would have their entourages and marketing strategies....whereas some of the Mr. Gay Mexicos traveling by themselves on buses from their farflung states to be part of the event. They were there, they said, for the fun. It was quite refreshing to hang out with sweet, gorgeous guys without any attitude.

Okay...Tim is back...I'm sitting in an Internet cafe and we are getting a taxi to the airport. Adios Mexico---until next year! Photos to come when I have time to upload them....here and on my Facebook page

Day 5 in Puerto Vallarta

2008-12-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

In case anyone is wondering, we still don't have hot water---agua caliente--here in Mexico. It hardly matters, however. Though the showers are bracing, the house is so fabulous and the view so incredible it seems a minor inconvenience. At night the sound of the surf right below me lulls me to sleep. And during the day, I sit on the beautiful terrace surrounded by amazing gardens and write my novel. Im almost done, for those who are keeping track. The Pacific crashing below is quite the inspiration, as are the orchids and papaya tress and bouganvillea and hummingbirds. I even wrote a hummingbird into the story because of one particularly busy guy who kept flitting around me as I wrote this morning. By lunchtime, however, I;d shut down the computer and headed to Los Muertos Beach--the famous Blue Chairs--to soak up the sun (and 4 margaritas.) Let me tell you: if God made boys more beautiful than Mexicans, I have yet to find them. I am in awe. I feel like writing a whole book about them. Maybe I will. And yes, Lorraine, and all those who've asked: I'm getting more proficient in my Spanish. But sometimes a meeting of eyes and a smile is all that it takes..... I love the universal language that everybody seems to understand.

Anyway.....it's Friday night. Tim and I are at an Internet cafe backing up what I wrote today and checking email. I see that reprehensible bigot and chickenhawk Saxby Chambliss won in Georgia. But Al Franken is still hanging on. And Obama still hasn't said anything about Prop 8. But he's picked a good team and oh, man...you should see the euphoria his election has generated here, and among the German and Canadian tourists we've been talking to. So we take the good with the bad.

Okay, off for a siesta. It's Friday night....the weekend has arrived and I wanted to be rested. It's been a bit slow here, nightlife-wise, but I can feel it picking up. Buenos noches!

Reporting from Puerto Vallarta

2008-12-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

More than forty years ago, John Huston came here to Puerto Vallarta and fell in love with the place. At the time it was just a small trading post on Mexico's western coast. Huston decided to make Night of the Iguana here and so Richard Burton, his star, traipsed down with his new wife Elizabeth Taylor. Burton and Taylor shared Huston's lobe of the place, and bought their own home here. Suddenly Puerto Vallarta was on the map, as they say.

Today it is a bustling little seaside city, kind of rundown but made even more beautiful by its lack of gentrification. Our house is on a secluded little rocky jetty with a private beach and an amazing view of the crashing surf and blue sky, over which the sun set last night in a magnificent display of orange and magenta and pink. The house is so off the beaten path that the taxi driver from the airport couldn't find it, and we had to call the house's caretaker. Then, on the way back from the grocery store, the adorable boy who drove the taxi back assured us he could find it.... twenty minutes later his cocky swagger was gone as we rumbled up and down the cobbled streets that crisscross the mountainside. His limited English evaporated and our limited Spanish ailed us and I feared he would take us back to the grocery store and just dump us off. It was only when Tim recognized a landmark and began using hand gestures that we finally led him to to the right place. He then tried to double charge us!!!

I am, of course, like a kid in a candy store with all this beautiful dark-eyed boys with their slim hips. But I'm here to write...not to be distracted. I am determined to finish OBJECT OF DESIRE here. Certainly the boys inspire my creativity, as does the magnificent vista of cliff and sea and sky only a few yards away. I am trying to not think too much of the little winding path that leads from our house along the cliffs and directly onto the beach outside the Blue Chairs Resort--the main gay resort in PV. We'll have to trek over there at some point and check out the scene, but we've only been here a day and it's best I get my writing routine down first.

We have a lovely housekeeper-cook named Maria who speaks not a word of English. She kept saying "no agua caliente" and "manana" this morning. Manana, I knew, means "tomorrow," but "agua caliente" was, to me, the name of an Indian casino in Palm Springs. It was only when I looked it up in my trusty little Spanish-English dictionary that I realized she meant "no hot water until tomorrow." Seems someone forgot to turn on the water heater prior to our arrival. Oh well...m shower this morning was, let's say, invigorating.

No Internet at the house, after being told there was. Tim says that's good--it'll keep me concentrated on my writing and not tempted to surf over to Daily Kos or Crooks and Liars. But I get stressed when i can't check email or Facebook....so I guess a daily trip to this cozy little cyber cafe will be in order.

What's new out there in the big wide world???

Rambling Before Heading South

2008-11-30T09:22:00.000-08:00

I've never been to Puerto Vallarta. Never much been to Mexico, in fact. A few years ago, Tim and I and our friend Carl drove over the border, skipping past Tijuana and heading along the coast. It was not a happy experience. Though the coastline was gorgeous, it wasn't easy to access, and the little tourist-trap towns that we visited were ugly and tacky. Going home, the line of cars at the border resulted in nearly a 2-hour wait. Women with little babies in their arms begged at our car windows the whole way. I was very happy to get back to the other side.

I expect PV will be quite different. We leave tomorrow, after heading into L.A. tonight for an early flight tomorrow. The trip comes at a difficult time for me, since I'm still finishing the two books. Tim and our friend John bid on the trip--a week's stay at a gorgeous home with a private beach, complete with maid and cook--and they won....so we're going. Elizabeth gets placed on hold, but I hope to finish the story of Danny Fortunato (the protagonist of my novel) as I'm sitting on the veranda overlooking the Pacific. Not bad for inspiration. I'm told the house has wireless Internet--let's hope.

Looks like Hillary will, in fact, be Secretary of State. I'm a little surprised she went for it. But I think she'll be great. Get set for the world to start liking us again!!

Shrub just wants outta there. It's so obvious he can't wait to be done with this whole President thing. If he was a reflective or introspective man, which he does not seem to be, I imagine he'd be feeling pretty rotten right now. Everything he touched, he broke. I remember, during my outrage in 2000 that the Supreme Court had stopped the Florida recount, thinking: "Well, he'd better not fuck anything up. He'd better just play caretaker. It's not really his office, so he'd better just sit tight." The supreme irony is that a man not truly elected to be president demolished everything. How scary is that? Everything he wanted--U.S. supremacy in Iraq, privatization of Social Security, expanded executive power, a Republican realignment, economic deregulation--has proven untenable and has collapsed. He has no legacy. None. There is not a single accomplishment in 8 years. Just a string of disasters. And he'll wander off blissfully, pulling in big bucks to give one of his idiotic talks to rightwing nutjob groups. No justice.

Gorgeous day here in the desert. Unbroken blue sky, warm temps. The mountains are majestic with their white snow caps. Kinda hate to leave to head to PV. But just kinda. I suspect I'll like the place. First, there's the Elizabeth Taylor connection. She and Richard Burton lived there for years; they, long with John Huston, put it on the map. Add to that warm waters, gorgeous beaches, authentic Mexican food, beautiful views, and tempting dark-eyed, dark-haired boys...and I'm in heaven. If we have Internet, I'll blog the trip.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody

2008-11-27T13:15:00.001-08:00

WTF Does Religious Freedom Mean?

2008-11-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, now I'm fired up. This piece in the Los Angeles Times, reporting on the angst of A list Hollywood gays over Prop 8, sent me through the roof. There seems to be some argument among some people--including Christine Vachon and Bill Condon (who I like and respect and admire)--that "religious" people should not be held accountable for anti-gay actions if those actions spring from "religious" beliefs. Shall we consider that a bit more closely?

Until just recently, Bob Jones University forbade interracial dating on campus -- for religious beliefs. In Africa, little girls are routinely genitally mutilated--for religious beliefs. In much of the Muslim world, women are denied the vote and suffer all sorts of oppressions--including the possibility of being stoned to death if they are raped--and again, it's for religious reasons. At one time, Southern Baptists cited the Bible to justify slavery in this country. Islamic fundamentalists routinely call for the massacre of Jews and Christians and Hindus. In South Africa, religion was used to help justify apartheid.

All of this for "religious beliefs." And all of this was condemned--often loudly--by civilized people, which until that article in the Times, I supposed included Hollywood's A list gays.

If I hear one more time that we have to understand and respect "religious freedom" I'm gonna lose it. What does that mean? That we have to accept bigotry if somebody says their religion tells them to be bigots?

In fact, the only time bigotry cloaked in terms of "religious beliefs" is tolerated is when it is directed against gays. If a religion attempts to discriminate against women, it is opposed. The world does not look kindly on misogynistic religious sects like Branch Davidians or that Mormon group taken into custody for bigamy and underage sex. But, these people could argue, "Hey, this is my religion!"--just as could all of those who use their beliefs to oppress or hurt or discriminate or sow hatred against others. If it's not okay to be anti-woman, anti-black, anti-Jew, anti-Christian, anti-Hindu, then it is not okay to be anti-gay. No matter what your religion says.

The latest hand-wringing from Hollywood is the reaction to Prop 8 where prominent people who contributed to the Yes campaign are being pressured into resigning their jobs. I didn't hear black activists worried about Imus losing his job when he made racist comments on his show. Why is it that "the gays" are the only group that wants to keep it all nice-nice when they're fighting for their rights? Let's just suppose Prop 8 had been an amendment to refuse the rights of Jews to marry. Some Islamic mosque raised the money to get it on the ballot. And suppose it passed. Do you think Condon and Vachon would have expressed any misgivings about identifying those who had contributed to the campaign? And putting pressure on them to resign?

How can a gay man or woman excuse a person who had voted to deny them their equal rights by saying, "Well, it was their religious beliefs?" Would any other group do this? Would any other group make allowances for bigotry simply by reason of religion? I think not. I think, rather, the religion in question would, rightly, be charged with bigotry. And it's time we stood up to the religious bigots in this country and said "Your faith does not protect you." Yes, indeed, they are free to believe whatever they choose. They can believe that space aliens live in the refrigerators of homosexuals and send us telepathic messages about how to take over the world. But if they use those beliefs to deny me and my friends our civil rights, we must not fall into the trap of excusing them for their actions because of those beliefs. At some point, society stands up when religion has gone too far and says, "That is wrong." And that is what we must do now.

Here's a link to AmericaBlog with a piece by my friend David Lee. He says it better than I can.

Getting Back in the Swing

2008-11-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

I've been derelict in my blogging duties. Last night, having dinner with my friend David, he informed me that he'd been checking regularly, and that beautiful face of Elizabeth Taylor was there, day after day, a quick visual of my dereliction of duty. So I promised to get back into the swing this morning.

My laxity can be explained by a few reasons. First, I'm in crunch time. My novel, Object of Desire, is roaring toward the finish line, which is a damn good thing, since I've given my sacred promise to my editor that he will have it before Christmas. This is always the best part of writing a novel: where you can see the end, where all the loose ends are starting to come together, where connections are made and you say, "That's what's gonna happen!" (Sometimes you really don't know where your characters are going, and they let you know about two-thirds of the way through.) I'm revving up for the "big reveal" about now...I have maybe 80 pages to go.

I'm also, at the same time, finishing my book on Elizabeth Taylor. It's likewise an exciting time. I'm midway through the second to last chapter---Le Scandale and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?--and many of the themes of the book are arcing rather nicely. That's due in January. This is the first time in my career where I've worked on a fiction project and a nonfiction project simultaneously. I didn't think I could do it. But guess what? I think I've pulled it off...though I'm not counting any chickens yet.

But the other reasons for my neglect of you, my faithful readers, are less tangible. I must admit to really being wacked by the passage of Prop 8. I was feeling irritable and left out from the national celebration over Obama's victory. Cheated is probably the best word to describe how I felt. And blogging when I feel that way is never fun. When I'm feeling indignant, blogging is cathartic. Passion and hope and anger and levity all, likewise, send me to my keyboard. Depression, however, keeps me away. Even in my private journals--which I used to keep the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper--the down times in my life are noticeably missing from the chronicle.

So I've managed to pull myself out of my snarkiness, at least somewhat. It's been affirming to see the dawning realization of many politicians and straight people---and some gay holdouts--that Prop 8 was a very wrong thing. We've reset the terms of debate. Something like this always happens in movements for social justice. The tipping point, as they say. Of course, it would have been nice if we could have, this one time, skipped this step. If Prop 8 had been defeated, we would have seen a realignment without all the shouting. But if shouting is what's needed, then we shall shout.

Finally, the last reason for my absence from these pages is because life in Palm Springs just doesn't seem to lend itself to blogging quite as easily as life in Provincetown did. I'm not sure exactly why. But my morning walks in P'town always seemed to generate ideas and thoughts that I wanted to share. Or an afternoon at Tea Dance or a night on the dance floor at the A House. Here my days are a little less fluid. Much of that is due to my intense focus on meeting my deadlines. But I need to open up my days a little bit more. I have yet to go hiking on any of my favorite mountain trails. I've been to Happy Hour exactly once. Same amount of times to see Tommi Rose and the drag show at Toucan's. I need to play more. Hopefully after the craziness of the holidays and these deadlines are both met, I'll have more time. Because I know that this season in Palm Springs will go as fast as the season in P'town. I'm going to turn around and it's going to be spring. So I want to get as much as I can when I can.

Oh, and by the way. If any of you back East are wondering.... it's a little overcast today. A rare cloudy day. And it's only in the low 70s. See, I feel winter hardships too! ;-)

We Only Want What Elizabeth Had...

2008-11-17T15:16:00.000-08:00

...the right to marry over and over and over again if we feel like it.

Seen at a Prop 8 protest.

God, isn't she beautiful???

And you know she'd get a hoot out of it.

Waiting for My Leader to Speak to Me

2008-11-16T10:05:00.000-08:00

Last night a group of friends and I watched the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. It had been a long time since I'd seen it. It was timely for two reasons: one, the imminent release of the Sean Penn film Milk, and of course, the passage of Prop 8. At the heart of the film is Milk's successful efforts to stop the equally mean-spirited Briggs Initiative--the common name for Prop 6, which went on the ballot in 1978 and would have prevented any gay man or lesbian from teaching in California public schools. What is so striking is that--THIRTY YEARS AGO--we were able to defeat Briggs, but in 2008--a supposedly more enlightened time--we lost by more than we won three decades earlier. Briggs was, arguably, an even more emotional issue, because the Forces of Hate and Fear back then were using children as their weapon: "We can't have perverts teaching our children!" But Milk and others went out, on a grass-roots level, and persuaded a wide diversity of voters--African-Americans, Asians, Jews, whites, Latinos--that such discrimination was a dangerous thing. In 1978, people saw those connections. Thirty years later, not so much.

Seeing that film, and seeing the determined canpaign to defeat the Briggs Initiative, I am left disgusted by what passed for an opposition fight to Prop 8. We can--and should--point the figure at the obscene amount of money the Mormon Church put into this campaign. But we need to also be pissed off at the organizers of the opposition, for not doing what Harvey Milk and the others did thirty years ago. There were debates on TV between Milk and Briggs---real debates, not these moderated bullshit sessions we have today. Milk interrupted Briggs and called him on his lies. There was an army of gay volunteers going into black and Asian neighborhoods and talking face-to-face with voters who might not otherwise have supported them. There was a smart, concerted effort to use every available alliance and tactic at their disposable, which were considerably fewer than we have today. Polls originally showed Briggs was going to win huge. In the end it lost big---even in Orange County!!

The opposite, as we know, occurred with Prop 8.

I know many people worked hard for its defeat. I got their emails regularly. But something was missing. We're in frikkin California, for God's sake. Think of the talent we could have gathered around us to produce really top-notch commercials. Think of the money we could have raised to hire outreach workers to go out into black and Latino communities and talk with them. Think of the high-tech, sophisticated campaign we could have run. But we were sloppy. We were complacent. Harvey Milk did better than we did out of the back of his camera shop and without the Internet, cell phones, text messaging, voter ID software, instant polls and all the rest.

But he did have help from one important source. At one point in the film, we see him issuing an impassioned challenge to President Carter, who was then making a name for himself standing up for human rights around the world. "If you care about human rights," Milk called out from the stage, there were human rights issues right here in the U.S. to consider. "If you want to lead, lead!" he called.

Carter, not without some coercion, did lead. At the conclusion of a speech in California, Jerry Brown whispered to the President and then Carter went back to the microphone and urged everyone to vote against Prop 6 (Briggs.) It may have been an afterthought, but gays could take heart that they were now included in the big picture of human rights.

For Prop 8 we had the support of Obama and Schwarzenegger and Feinstein and Boxer....but there was no big moment as there was with Carter--no big headline. But in some ways, what's more important is to hear from them now. And we have, from all of them--all save President-elect Obama.

There is no one more enthusiastic than I am about President Obama. But every day that goes by that he says nothing about the passage of Prop 8, I become more and more disheartened. This is what i would say to him if I could, if I had the bully pulpit that Harvey Milk had:

Mr. President. There are people here who are hurting. I know you do not, as yet, support gay marriage. But you were opposed to Prop 8. And now, if indeed you are to be a uniter of this country, here is your first opportunity to show what you can do. Say something. We are waiting to hear from you.

If you want to lead, lead.

Prop Hate

2008-11-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have been asking, I haven't blogged in a while because the passage of Prop 8 has really affected me--far more than I would have expected. I haven't felt up to writing about it, because I knew there was the real possibility that I'd come across sounding whining or bitter or finger-pointing. Maybe I still will. But in the last couple of days I've gotten a bit more philosophical about it all--and the sight of our new First Family entering the White House may have helped cheer me up some. Okay, okay, I know they're not officially residents yet--but that place is more theirs now than it is Bush's, and they will leave a far more beneficial imprint on the place than he did. (An understatement.) My spirits rose a little when I realized that Bush must be realizing that everything he did went wrong--that every idea he had (or actually Cheney and the neo-cons had) turned out to be wrong-headed and a mistake and a disaster. He has the worst approval ratings of any president ever. More despised than Nixon, Carter, Truman. If polls had been taken back then, Hoover's ratings would probably even be higher than Bush's. A fitting end to a presidency that was stolen by Republican thugs eight years ago.

So seeing all that has pushed my spirits up enough to write about Prop 8. I think this defeat has the potential to change gay politics. Young queer people are really pissed off about this. It's unacceptable. And I think, coming in conjunction with our great national victory in the election of Obama, it has even more resonance. I must admit to being rather pissed off myself when I read all the blogs where it's all celebration, with only perfunctory acknowledgement about the passage of Prop 8. The straight lefties give an obligatory task, tsk then move on again to the "real" issues at hand: who's Obama going to appoint to his cabinet, whether Begich and Franken can prevail over Stevens and Coleman, whether or not Palin will be back in 2012. I wonder if Prop 8 had denied another group some basic civil right--excuse me, not just denied the rights, but actively taken them away--if the issue would be receiving such secondary attention. I know it's hard to imagine, but what if Prop 8 had denied Jews the right to marry. Or Asian-Americans. Or taken away some basic right of any group other than "the gays." I suspect that would be front-page every day, no matter the historic election of Barack Obama. And Presdent-elect Obama would be speaking out about it.

This is what has dispirited me. It is the silence-- or the token expressed objection--from the people who should be our allies. I'm not saying people haven't spoken out. They have. But meanwhile they go about their celebration of the wonderful changes this election has wrought. My joy over Obama's election is exceeded by no one. Yet I just don't feel like celebrating.

It hurts that people who voted for Obama voted against me. I continue to feel we all planned this big party--and we all paid for it-- and then, when I got to the door, the people with whom I'd been making all the plans, with whom I'd been working all along, turned to me and said, "Sorry, but we decided not to let you in." I have heard a lot of anger from white gay men and lesbians against straight black voters. I admit I am very tired of straight blacks who refuse to see the parallels between the two civil rights movements--which are not by any means the same, but the parallels are very real. I have gotten letters from black readers saying they are "offended" when I draw comparisons between the two movements. Maybe I expect more from people who have also been oppressed by the status quo. But yes, it is disappointing to realize that the people my gay friends were picking up and taking for early voting or to cast their ballots on election day supported Prop 8. That hurts. Bad.

But we mustn't scapegoat black voters, as some white gays are doing. They point to the fact that whites and Asian-Americans voted (by slim majorities) against Prop 8; Latinos and blacks voted for by considerably larger majorities, and the black vote was the most in favor of all. Yet that should not disguise the fact that plenty of whites and Asians voted for the proposition, and that a substantial number of blacks and Latinos voted against it. The stats offer merely a snapshot of a particular moment after a particular campaign which was distorted by religious misinformation. I know of at least one Mormon who is outraged by what his church did; I know many Catholics who are opposed to their church's involvement. I know there are many more who feel that way--and certainly there are many blacks, gay and straight, who are horrified. My friend Lorraine writes a very instructive comment on my last post, with a great link to a piece that gets to the heart of this rift. The answer to homophobia is not racism. We must understand what is happening and how things got to this point. The answer is outreach and education.

I do want more black leaders to speak out about this. Hell, I want President-elect Obama to speak out. I know he's theoretically not in support of gay marriage. But this is a great opportunity for him to lead. To help bridge communities. To be a uniter. To teach. I need my president to stand up for me. And, by the same token, I want straight leaders of all colors and persuasions to speak out. I want Schwarzenegger to speak out forcefully. I want people to really feel this, to see what happened--who is next? If we can take away the rights of one group, who is next?

And for God's sake--next time--will "the gays" please get serious about this? I'm taking a mega-campaign. With really powerful, hard-hitting ads. Not just Dianne Feinstein in a boring talking head. Why weren't those cool Homotracker ads that I posted on this blog aired more? Were those only web-based? I venture to think we already had the web-based vote. We were caught unaware on this. And there's no excuse for that. None.

Meanwhile, I'm impressed with the reaction around the state. San Francisco, Los Angeles, even Sacramento and San Diego. The rest of the country is slow catching up---the apparent oblivion toward Prop 8 by my gay East-Coast and Midwest friends on Facebook is another thing that pisses me off---and we're seeing some good actions in New York and elsewhere. Here in Palm Springs, about 500 people protested in front of the Mormon church. It wasn't very effective. It was at night. No one was at the church. It was in a quiet residential neighborhood and no one outside a few neighbors saw us. We had candles. Can I say I hate candlelight vigils? It was dark and no one could read the signs. The speakers were seriously underwhelming. But at least we did something.

Check out this bit that was aired on CNN with my friend, the comic Maggie Cassella. Maggie sums up the conflicting emotions I continue to feel. I imagine as the weeks go by and I begin to see how Obama changes this country for the better, I, too, will feel better. But for the moment I remain rather muted in my celebration.

A Muted Celebration

2008-11-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the photo, we were all ecstatic the moment MSNBC declared Obama was now President Elect. And yes, all my months of worry and anxiety dissipated...I was very glad to eat my words of doubt about the 50-state strategy pursued by Obama and Howard Dean and my fears that Hillary would have been a stronger candidate (I now doubt that--she may have been able to pull in West Virginia, but likely would not have had Obama's strength in the West). The rejoicing around the world is music to my ears. We kept saying to each other: "We've got our country back."

But then came the news of the victory of Proposition 8. It felt like it did in the aftermath of 9/11--when the rightwing crazies were blaming "the gays" for bringing down God's wrath on the U.S., when all of the stories of the lives lost were all traditional heteros, when even otherwise progressive-minded people were rallying around Bush. I felt left out. I couldn't fully grieve with my country then, because I was being made invisible, irrelevant, or, in some ways, even culpable. Now, it feels like I cannot fully celebrate with my country either.

I tend to see the glass half-empty. I know that. And don;t get me wrong: I am every bit as excited and proud of our achievement in electing Barack Obama, and overturning so much of the politics of hatred. I was especially proud of the supporters at Obama's victory rally who cheered when the President-Elect mentioned McCain's name. What a contrast with the booing and hissing--and apparently one last shout of "traitor!"--when McCain, unusually graceful, mentioned Obama in his concession speech. (Though he missed the opportunity to stop at that moment and say, "This, my friends, is what needs to stop.")

But then I took a look at who voted for Prop 8, the people who declared null and void so many other people's happiness--happiness that in no way affected their own. I look at those voters who decided to exclude me and my friends and family from joining in a full celebration of our great national victory--who chose, in effect, to disinvite me to a party that we had all planned and made possible together. For, in fact, a large number of those who voted for Obama voted against me. The money I donated was used to bring people who hated me to the polls. Among first-time voters---largely Obama supporters--Prop 8 won slightly. Among African-American and Latino voters, Prop 8 won big. Among poor people and old people, Prop 8 won big. That hurts. These are the people Obama has inspired--just as he has inspired me. But they failed to make the connection. They didn't want me at their victory party.

By and large, these are religious people. Religion is a cancer on the conscience of our country. For no reason except religious intolerance, I and those I love have been singled out for exclusion from our great national victory. My joy has been muted these last couple of days. My only hope is that President Obama will use the bully pulpit to educate and move forward our population, and that he appoints justices who will turn back these unjust laws. But that takes time.

In the meantime, there's talk about boycotting Utah, and any institution owned by the Mormon Church, which spent so much money to air misleading ads in California. Did you know the Mormons own Marriott hotels? I will never stay at a Marriott again. The Sundance Festival, held in Park City, Utah, should change venues. Keep an eye for calls for other boycotts as well. We can't just let this one run off our backs. Abortion bans were defeated around the country, but gay marriage bans were upheld--not only in California but in Arizona and Florida. Anti-gay prejudice--after eight years of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Republican wingnuts and the Log Cabin Republicans--remains the last great acceptable bias. And these bans were upheld, in large part, by people voting for Obama. That just staggers me. It's hard for me to feel unity with all those jubilant crowds right now. I think of how I worked myself into a frenzy--into a passion I never thought I could feel for a political movement--and how I cried real tears when Obama won. But half an hour after that picture you see above was taken, few of those smiles were quite so wide.

HELL YEAH

2008-11-04T20:13:00.000-08:00

WE DID IT!!!
WE GOT OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do the Math

2008-11-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

7:08 PST

With California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii still to come...

Happy days are here again!!

We have broken out the bubbly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More to come.....

Much much more...

Like CHANGING THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Ohio Goes....

2008-11-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

Oh man, my friends.....
Ohio just went for Obama.
The first red state flipped to blue.
Florida looks good.
We have 200 electoral votes and we haven't yet gotten the Pacific Coast or the West.
I think.... dare I say it.....
BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE!

Waiting....

2008-11-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

This massive turnout bodes well, methinks. The thousands of college students, the long lines of African-American voters....I think it's safe to assume these are, by and large, Obama voters. It's 2:00 on the West Coast. They're about to release the first exit polling. I'll do my best not to pay attention or draw any conclusions. (Yeah, right...just like I didn't let out a whoop of joy when I heard Obama won Dixwell Notch--the first time a Democrat took the nation's earliest returns since Hubert Humphrey.)

Can I just say that---if it goes the way we want it tonight--how wonderful will it be to live in the world again? For those Americans who have no relationship with the world outside our borders--and that's a large number, sadly--this is just not something they can understand. But for those of us who live a little more globally, it will be such a victory and affirmation. I want to feel my country is once again respected by my friends in Canada, and England, and Australia, and Ireland, and France, and Spain, and Italy, and New Zealand, and the Netherlands....by my family in Norway and Sweden....by my readers in all of those countries plus Germany, and Russia, and Belgium, and Denmark, and Poland, and the Philippines, and Japan, and Mexico.... It will be so gratifying to once again hold my head up high.

A Wreck

2008-11-03T13:08:00.000-08:00

That's what I'm becoming as the day wears on. I'm back at my desk here in my office in Palm Springs, the majestic San Jacinto mountains out my window, and I'm once again writing after a delay of several days (the whole transition west.) I finished a chapter in my novel very early this morning (still kind of on east coast time, and turning the clocks back gave me another hour.) And now, for the last couple of hours, I've been writing about Dame Elizabeth. But my mind keeps getting drawn away, clicking on Huffington Post, or Daily Kos, or Pollster.com, or RealClearPolitics, or FiveThirtyEight....

I am a wreck. Even with the polls still all looking favorable, I am unnerved by the slight McCain tightening. I am freaked out by the McCain campaign's statements that the polls have been misleading since they over-sample Democrats. Even though I know that's exactly what the McCain campaign wants to do--freak me out--I go there anyway. I worry that Virginia will go for McCain, taking away our first cushion in a solid electoral victory. I worry that McCain has been justified to pin so much hope on Pennsylvania, despite what the polls show. I worry that it will be a long night instead of the landslide we've all been predicting these past few days.

I remember 2000. I was so anxious I went with a friend to see Charlie's Angels, hoping to come home and see that Gore had won. Indeed, they were projecting that he'd won Florida, and I was optimistic. Then came the update that a revised projection gave Florida to Bush. I was devastated and couldn't sleep all night. Then, in 2004, I checked the Internet--first time I'd been savvy enough to do that--and reported to Tim that the exit polls were predicting Kerry was the winner. The Republican talking heads were all cowed and scared on TV. Pundits were saying, "What if this is a Kerry upset?" But then the moment came when I detected the new air of confidence in the Republican talking heads, and I knew we'd lost. Twice I had allowed myself some fleeting hope, only to have it go down in flames.

None of us want to go through that again, and we're wary. Even though neither Gore nor Kerry ever managed a sustained lead over Bush in 2000 or 2004--and the few leads they grabbed in the polls was rarely more than a few points--we are nervous about Obama's electoral strength. No matter that he has lead in very poll in the last month and a half, and according to every electoral map analysis, leads in enough states to give him a solid win, we are anxious about feeling confident. On my Facebook profile I had as my status a couple of days ago that I was daring to think "landslide." I immediately got a barrage of responses scolding me against jinxing victory. I quickly concurred, changing my status to being cautiously optimistic.

Today, am I even that?? I don't know. All the empirical evidence tells me I should be. But I'm a wreck. They can steal votes, a few here and there in close precincts, just enough to put McCain over the top in key states. Or they might be right, after all, that the pollsters have oversampled Democrats and thus given us an exaggerated lead. Or the Bradley effect might still exist out there, despite reports to the contrary, and on Wednesday we'll be subjected to all sorts of re-evaluations. Oh, man. Oh, God. If that happens....

I can't even say what happens if that happens. I have no idea.

I live in California. Barring the landing of a space alien aircraft, Obama is going to win California. But those of you in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire....VOTE. Bring people with you who will vote as well. Pick up people and drive them to the polls. Call your friends and families and make them vote as well.

Make it happen.

Utterly, Utterly Clueless

2008-11-02T09:59:00.001-08:00

How pathetic is Sarah Palin? She's pranked by a Canadian comic pretending to be the President of France and just goes along, completely oblivious. A fifth grader could have figured out she was being pranked---but not Sarah. She has no clue what the guy is saying. Laughs when he says he enjoys killing animals. Listen to the amateurish way she speaks and the way her staffer handles the call. And Palin has the gall to say she'll be a good president in eight years. Her arrogance is only exceeded by her stupidity.

Imagine a Day When I Don't Write about Politics on This Blog

2008-11-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

Or at least, I don't write about politics every day.

Here's what I want from this election. Obama to win. Democrats to win the Senate and House by big margins, hopefully in the Senate filibuster-proof margins. Proposition 8 is defeated, as are the various anti-choice measures around the country. Also the Consititutional convention defeated in Connecticut.

If that happens--if, as Daily Kos says, we leave everything on the road (in other words, crush the rightwingers on every race and every issue--the message that will be sent is the politics of division and hatred and bigotry don't work. And so here is what I want to happen next:

President Obama pulls the Supreme Court back from the abyss of rightwing extremism. The economy begins ticking again. The troops are brought home from Iraq and the real work is completed in Afghanistan, with an eye to watch is happening in Pakistan. Meaningful changes are implemented to reverse global warming. Constitutional safeguards are respected between the branches of government. Illegal wiretapping becomes obsolete. Regulations are put back in place on Wall Street and the media monopolies are broken. And thus, a real dialogue begins to take place again, without the over-reaching power of the rightwing noise machine.

Think of it. Maybe I'm being naive or overly optimistic, but in this new world order, I see Republicans being forced to rethink their Rovian bargain with the devil. Bigots and religious fanatic would be marginalized. The moderate party of Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller and Lowell Weicker and Gerald Ford comes back. The GOP runs candidates I might disagree with, but I respect. Of course this means, eventually, a dilution of the Democratic party. Gays, women, African-Americans, Latinos--depending on their political opinions--might more freely move back and forth between the parties. Frankly, I'm not partisan enough to consider that a bad thing. I don't think of myself as a Democrat. I'm simply aligned with the Dems because the I agree with them far more often than I do the Repugs--and the Democratic party is not held hostage by fundamentalist religionist thugs. I'd like a world in which sometimes I vote for the other party depending on the candidate.

And I'd like a world where what compels me to write is not politics....where I blog more often about other areas of interest...here's hoping that November 4 is going to allow me to do just that.

Back in the Desert

2008-10-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

So once more I am blogging in the view of the San Jacinto Mountains....a world away from the sandy marshes of Provincetown. A beautiful sunrise greeted me this morning (still on East Coast time, I woke up at 4:30). Beautiful blue sky now. It's nice to be back--especially because it reunites me with my husband after a month-and-a-half separation.

Four days to go until the Election. You know, I am piling up lots of crow for me to eat, and I will turn it into a gourmet feast, let me tell you. I'll enjoy every last bite of that nasty crow if Obama wins. I'm referring to all my panic-stricken blogging about polls and Hillary haters/Barack bashers and the apparent folly of a 50-state strategy. I will be so glad to say "I was wrong." That I let my anxiety overpower my hope. This morning I'm reading about Obama expanding his advertising into Arizona of all places---Arizona, McCain's home state. And also Georgia. We might not win either of them--probably the odds are against us there--but the fact that 4 days before the election we're advertising in Arizona and Georgia is awesome.

I wish I was as confident of the defeat of Prop 8. Please, if you haven't, make a donation. The Mormons have just donated another $3 million. Let's really make next November 4 a clear message that the 21st century has arrived. Go to www.noonprop8.com to donate. Please. Even $20. Do it for me. For your gay friends. And to send a message that the world has moved on.

Why We Fight

2008-10-28T16:24:00.001-07:00

I'm en route...but figured I oughta post this one more time. It's why we fight. Pass it on.

This is the Face of Hate

2008-10-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

And now this. A College Republican--what a bright future for that group, doncha think?--mutilates herself and tries to blame a big black man--always the bogeyman to backward white folks--saying she'd been attacked for supporting McCain. Turns out she was lying. When cops began investigating, she broke down and confessed she made the whole thing up. Maybe she was tired of her side being called out for its violence and hatred, and wanted to make it seem as Obama supporters could be as violent and hateful. But we're not. Turns out this girl is just one more of the thugs who work for and support McCain-Palin--except this time the violence was turned on herself, all in the name of justice. Of righteousness. Of conservatism and traditional moral values. Of being a "real American." Her name is Ashley Todd. She's being called mentally ill, and we're told we should feel sorry for her. I suppose, like Mark Foley, she'll say she's not right in the head, has problems, and is going into rehab. It may be true. I do feel sorry for her. I hope she gets the help she needs--starting with a de-brainwashing from the cult of rightwing conservatism. But it's pity I feel for her, not sympathy. Just take a look at what this girl did to herself. And remember how she tried to blame an entire race for it--and remember back to 1989, when Charles Stuart, a white man in Boston, killed his wife and blamed a black man. It set off a huge wave of racial hostility and accusations. This, my friends, is not just the face of one disturbed girl. It is the face of the conservative movement today. It is the face of hate.

The Log Cabin Republicans Might As Well Just Close Up Shop

2008-10-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

Look. I am all for a bipartisan gay movement. Absolutely. It's stupidity to only work with Democrats. And some gays are always going to favor smaller governments and a more conservative fiscal approach. That's their choice. Their right. And in a perfect world there should be no problem with gay Democrats and gay Republicans, just as there are gay modernists and traditionalists in anything.

But come on. Endorsing McCain-Palin? Holding on to some slim hope that John McCain, because he wasn't tied to the fundamentalist religious right, was somehow pro-gay, the Cabin boys (there are very few girls) endorsed McCain without any apparent struggle. (In 2004, showing more balls, they withheld an endorsement of Bush.) Then, when McCain picked Palin as his running mate, the Cabin boys cheered, saying she was a moderate Republican. As more of her radical, extreme views become known, they've been curiously silent about her.

But here's the newsworthy kicker. Today, the hero of the Log Cabin Republicans, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, endorsed Barack Obama for president. I remember how the Cabin boys worshipped the ground Weld walked on when they helped him get elected. They were all so proud, strutting around Boston. Several of them got appointments in Weld's administration. Weld was the new face of the Republican party, they told us. And Weld was pretty damn good on gay issues, too. No quibble there. And apparently he's still just as good on gay issues--and in fact, better than the Log Cabin Republicans-- because he endorsed Obama over their pal John McCain!!!

I don't expect the Cabin boys to endorse Obama or any Democrat. That's not their job. I expect them to withhold their endorsement from candidates who don't deserve it--like McCain and Palin. Wake up, boys. The ship has sailed. It's a new day. Talk to Bill Weld. He'll explain what's going on.

Take if from Sheriff Andy and Fonzie

2008-10-23T12:23:00.001-07:00

And remember the Fonz isn't gonna be wrong twice.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Must be Tough to be Republican Kids

2008-10-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know about the Palin kids. They may be too far out to get it. But the others--the Bush twins, the McCain kids--it must suck to realize how uncool your parents are, how against the zeitgeist they are, how outside the cultural swim. I mean, Chelsea Clinton or the Gore daughters walk into a restaurant and they're mobbed. Sure, the Republicans will just call it the elite liberal media or the elite liberal intelligentsia or elite liberal Hollywood--but still. It must suck. Say these kids like a recording star--say Kanye West or Bon Jovi or Pink or whoever--and then they find out they have no respect for their dad or mom. How many songs have McCain-Palin attempted to use in their campaign only to be told by the artists, "Hands off. I'm for Obama"?? Or they really like George Clooney--or were fans of Tina Fey before the Palin impersonations. Oops. There's a detachment from the culture of their generation. They can't just hunker down to watch Saturday Night Live or Mad TV or anything, really...because their parents are going to get hit. Unless they live in complete bubbles --and again, maybe the Palins do, but I don't think the Bushes or the McCains do--they've got to know that not only are Dad and Mom tragically unhip, they are considered backward and hateful and represent the kind of politics America is trying to turn a page on. They have to know, just from watching TV or reading the Internet, that their parents are going down in history on the wrong side. Tell me these kids don't have gay friends. Of course they must. And sure, some of them will be Log Cabin apologists, but not all of them. There must have been moments when Jenna or Barb or Meghan or Jack or Jimmy or Bridget cringed in front of a gay friend, or a black friend, or a friend who supports a woman's right to choose abortion. Tell me these kids don't see the racism and misogyny going on in their parents' administrations and/or campaigns. Tell me it isn't hard for Meghan McCain, a blogger, to reconcile how clueless her father's campaign appears. It must be tough--because I'm sure they love their parents. As young people, we're always embarrassed by our moms and dads. We want them to seem cool to our friends, without trying too hard to seem that way, of course. So here they are, on the edge of the world stage, and they have parents for whom the world has lost all respect--except for crazy fundamentalist radicals, which I don't think describes any of these kids. Like Chelsea and the Gore kids--and the Kennedys--the Bushes and the McCains might have moved onto that world stage, but they're not even about to try, because they know--they have to know!!--how out-of-step and out-of-fashion their parents are. Oh, sure, they'll campaign for them. But in their heart of hearts, it's got to be tough.

Don't worry--I'm not wasting any time crying over them. But I suspect it's a real generational conflict. Just ask Ron and Patty Reagan. Or any of the Ford kids. Maybe, like them, these kids will eventually speak out. In the meantime, at least Malia and Sasha Obama will grow up knowing their parents were on the right side of history.

Uncanny

2008-10-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Back in 1966, the writers of this Batman episode, in which Batman debates the Penguin, anticipated--almost to the line--the John McCain campaign strategy of 2008.

The End of Rovian Politics Dies Hard

2008-10-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

Some pundits are predicting that the failure of McCain to gain any traction using Rovian tactics of smear and sensation may signal the end of such contemptible campaigning. Whoever the candidates are in 2012, they will look back and say that McCain's attempts to throw everything at Obama, hoping something would stick, proved a miserable failure. You can't Swiftboat quite so easily when we're all blogging--when the Internet offers immediate correctives and fact checks--when the new media can generate a story cycle the old media would have overlooked. This, of course, is a good thing.

But it's quite stunning how the McCain camp hasn't quite gotten the message. (Of course, they're just mastering the use of "the google" at the moment.) No matter that nothing seems to stick, they keep throwing things out, trying to play like Rove in 2000 and 2004. First it was Ayers. That bombed. Lately it's been Joe the Plumber and calls that Obama is a Socialist. (That flashes back even farther -- like to 1956!) That's proven to be another lead balloon. Now we're hearing rumblings that McCain might revive Rev. Wright, after once declaring him off the table. The man has no honor left. But we've been saying that for weeks.

Thing is, he still holds out hope that some smear might prove to be the magic eight ball. He knows its the only way to win. That's why he's robo-calling swing states with messages that Obama is a terrorist---using, I might add, the same robo-call firm that smeared him in 2000 on behalf of George W. Bush. At the time, McCain was smeared for having fathered a non-white child...referring to his Bangladeshi adopted daughter. At the time, he responded, rightfully, that hell has a special place for people who would stoop so low. Now, confronted with the fact that he's doing the same thing, smearing Obama as being tied to terrorists, he justifies such robo-calls on the CBS Morning Show by saying "they worked" against him in 2000, and so maybe they'll work now.

Reprehensibe. And if somehow he does manage to win, then Rovian politics won't be dead. They'll be very much alive. they will have been vindicated. And won't that give all those crazy nutcases who are rallying for McCain-Palin reason to celebrate?

That's the other thing. McCain (and maybe even Palin) know that many in their base are despicable. But they won't--they can't--repudiate them. Some guy in Ohio is hanging Obama in effigy on his front lawn, painting the sheet with a Star of David--Obama's black, now he's Muslim, now he's Jewish, doesn't matter. They hate him. This talk of assassination. They make threats and put up these vile displays. The heckling and the jeering of early voters by McCain wingnuts. Even some McCain supporters recently had had enough and chased away an anti-Muslim protestor wearing a McCain shirt. It's nothing new for the Rightwing base. Think back to the thugs who pushed and bullied their way into the Florida 2000 recount debacle. The Leftwing base, as crazy as some of them can be, just doesn't act this way!!! When Bush won in 2004, we were dispirited. But we weren't talking about assassination! We weren't agitating violence, we weren't race-baiting. We were angry, all right, and there was a lot of condemnation of Bush and Cheney and their policies. But there was never this level of hatred or threats of violence.

This is a fact of the Republican base. And it is why the Republicans need to be crushed in the upcoming elections. Crushed, obliterated from the electoral map. It will motivate the moderates in the Republican party to step up and take back their party. It will end the politics of hate. The haters and the bigots and the nutcases will be left to stew in their own pots. They will be marginalized as they should be--consigned to the dustbin of history with the KKK and the white legions and the McCarthyists. Perhaps 2012 will be the first election in a long time which we don't have to demonize the other party--where we can have honest policy diasgreements. This election might have been that way. It really could have been. McCain, to his credit, started out that way. But then he made another choice out of desperation. He started playing up to the fundies, turning his back on principles he'd once stood for. It's a choice he'll have to live with for the rest of his life.

My Last Week in Provincetown

2008-10-20T03:22:00.000-07:00

I know it's a cliche that time moves faster as you get older. Yet it's still a phenomenon I can't quite wrap my mind around. I am disbelieving that I am really packing boxes and mailing out books in readiness to switch Coasts yet again. I just got here. Really that's how it feels. Five months have gone by like a sneeze.

It's been a good summer. I did most everything I wanted to do, crossed nearly everything off the list of things-to-do that I compiled in May. I went to the beach (though not nearly often enough). I went to Tea Dance (probably a little too often, given I still have a novel to finish as well as two more chapters of my Elizabeth Taylor book.) Tim and I went parasailing. We also hiked the dunes and went to the drive-in movie in Wellfleet. I saw lots of friends...from my buds Carl and Eric, who have a place here and come up four times a summer, to P.J., who has come down several times, to the gang from Palm Springs, to Surina and Jenny and Brendan, which was a terrific reunion of friends who hadn't gotten together in several years...and many more...John and Dave and Cherie and of course Shirl, who's just across the street (but given the craziness of summer we've actually have to schedule when we get together!) I made some new friends this summer, too, which is always fabulous...like Nicky and Franklin and Michael and many others.

It's just that it went so fast. It inspires a certain wistfulness within me. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. It's not as if I feel I didn't get enough from the season, though its always partly that. There's always the sense of not getting as much out of the summer as I expect I will...probably going back to the feelings of being a kid on summer vacation, when time stretched out languidly and never felt as if it was running by too fast. But in general I'm very content with the fullness of my Provincetown season 2008. And it's not that I'm unhappy to be going back to Palm Springs. Tim is there, after all, and I've missed him this past month, and so many other great friends as well...and the season is just starting in Palm Springs. I'll be glad to once again see the mountains and feel the heat, and to go into L.A. to see my wonderful, 95-year-old friend Noel Taylor...and Tim and Alistair, who will hopefully come down to P.S. as well.

I think what the wistfulness actually signals is a sense of mortality...something we all carry around with us, but which for me is a huge part of the way I see the world. How many more seasons do I have? What will my seasons be like 5 years from now? 10? 20? I suppose there's a part of me that envies Peter Pan...

It's also true that as a gay man of a particular generation, my sense of mortality is heightened. I've seen so many friends die, cut down in mid-season. Part of it, too, is the unique vantage point of living in two seasonal resorts...where the sense of beginning and ending defining the way of life in both places.

So one more week. Lots of writing to cram in, lots of packing. Then I'm on that jet plane.

By the way, I voted absentee last week. Felt really good to mark Obama's name. Please tell all your friends in California to get out and vote against Proposition 8. Let's send a message that we are really in a new era now. The hate and the backward thinking must end. And if you can, go to the No on 8 DONATE site and give something...anything....the Mormons have been funding a huge television ad campaign that demonizes gay people and their relationships. Isn't it odd that after so many years of decrying us as promiscuous hedonists the Right wants to prevent us from entering into stable, committed relationships?

In case you haven't seen it, this is a good ad. I love the responses from the Constitution woman.

These are the People of Whom McCain is Proud

2008-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, in the debate, McCain said he was "proud" of the people who came to his and Palin's rallies. Take a look and a listen to the racist, uneducated yahoos he's so proud of.

And yes. Many have asked today when will I stop worrying? The spin after the debate, despite my fears, was great. The world saw McCain just as I did, angry and belligerent and offering no real ideas about the future, just lashing out at Obama. It was Win 3 for Obama...three for three. So when will I stop worrying, you ask? November 5.

And maybe not even then....because if we thought the Crazy Right attacks on the Clintons were bad, they're gonna go after President Obama at least as hard. Our best hope is to deliver such a staggering defeat--president, senate, house, state races--and that includes the defeat of California Prop 8--that they will realize the century has passed them by.

And watching this video, that point becomes all too clear.

Watching the Debate...

2008-10-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

I'm at my parents' house, and gave in. They're watching the debate so I am too. And I'm anxious. This doesn't seem to be Obama at his best. McCain is angry and aggressive and I'm worried how this will spin out. Then again, I'm a worry wort.

So some rightwing bloggers are annoyed that Obama pronounces Pakistan correctly. He says PAHK-i-stan instead of PACK-i-stan. The bloggers say one of the reasons they like Sarah Palin is because she pronounces Iraq as I-rack instead of Ir-RACK. It's boggling to me. After the last 8 years, are there really still people who want a president who doesn't know how to speak? Do we want the president to pronounce the "l" in calm? To pronounce "picture" as "pitcher"?

I'm visiting the parents because my dad was given a special citation today by the city honoring all World War II vets. The ceremony was held at a high school auditorium. It was poignant to see all these stooped, gray-haired men (and some women) walking up to accept their citations. A few of them spoke about being 17-year-olds building airstrips in England and France. Even for someone as cynical as I can be, it was impossible not to be moved.

Okay, this debate is making me crazy. McCain is an agitated angry munchkin with beady little eyes. And I am so friggin sick of Joe the Plumber!!

Great New Ad

2008-10-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

Gotta love this. I'm so glad it's no longer cool to be a Republican like it was in the 80s.

And in case anyone says the media's exaggerating about the level of hate at McCain-Palin rallies, show them this:

The Great Gay Movie Stars

2008-10-14T04:55:00.000-07:00

Okay. You asked for it. Here we go.

First up: a few criteria. Like the Great Movie Stars Still Living list, this one has a cutoff of 1965--the star has to have been BIG before 1965. Second, when I say "gay," I mean that they had to have embraced their sexuality in a straightforward (excuse the pun) way. That means, they had to have been self-accepting, to start, and at least among friends and industry insiders, thier same-sex relationships were not hidden. If I included all the tormented stars who had fleeting encounters with tricks and hustlers, this would be a much longer list. There has to be a level of self-identification. That means those stars (mostly this applies to women) who had same-sex "companions" as well as marriages or relationships with the opposite sex but who strenuously avoided self-identification as gay would also not be included. But some (like Grant and Scott) who were once "open" and then became increasingly circumspect due to post-Production Code restrictions are still considered.

I don't think the list will have too many surprises. But where the disagreement might come is in their ranking, from Greatest to Least Greatest--but remember, they're only on this list because they are all Great. (That means the Great Character Players, from Franklin Pangborn to Patsy Kelly to Hattie McDaniel, aren't here. Another list?) So.... Did I forget anyone?

And, since I've included the silent era too, if you don't know some of these names, I'd suggest you Google them. Or better yet, get a copy of my Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood (1910-1969).

1. Montgomery Clift
2. Greta Garbo
3. Marlene Dietrich
4. Cary Grant
5. Rock Hudson
6. William Haines
7. Marie Dressler
8. Clifton Webb
9. Van Johnson
10. Ramon Novarro
11. Tallulah Bankhead
12. Tab Hunter
13. Alla Nazimova
14. Randolph Scott
15. Lilyan Tashman
16. Farley Granger
17. J. Warren Kerrigan
18. Edmund Lowe
19. Lizabeth Scott
20. George Nader

Arabs Can Be Decent Family Men, Too! Who'da Thunk??

2008-10-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

A lot has been written about how McCain is suddenly trying to tone down the viciousness of the attacks on Obama at his rallies, and this exchange has been noted: A woman takes the mike and says she can't trust Obama because she's "read about him" and "he's an Arab." McCain shook his head and took the microphone away from her, replying: "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, citizen."

Okay wait. Did anyone else out there react to that statement? When it's been discussed, it's been about how McCain was actually trying to "defend" Obama (or actually defend himself from the perception that he'd sold his soul...again.) But has no one else recognized the disgusting racism in the statement, as well as in McCain's response????

The woman can't trust Obama because she thinks he's an Arab??? How small-minded, bigoted, racist, and xenophobic is that? Obama is not an Arab--he's half Kansan, half Kenyan--but if he was, then we should distrust him? All Arabs are untrustworthy? Talk about stereotypes!!

And McCain's response! "No, ma'am." He's not an Arab---"he's a decent family man, citizen."

Memo to McCain: Millions of Arabs are decent family men and citizens. Many are, in fact, American citizens, or hope to be someday. This kneejerk anti-Arab racism from these uneducated fools is repulsive. She's "read about him," she says! Where?? Somehow I don't get the sense that this woman is an informed citizen, reading up on the candidates and forming well-balanced policy comparisons. She seems like yet another wingnut trolling around and foaming at the mouth at the idea of a "librul" black man becoming President.

McCain should apologize for the racial slur, whether it was intended or not. If he doesn't, it sends a message to the traveling circus that follows him around that their twisted, backwater prejudices are to be tolerated and even condoned.

They're Crawling Out of the Woodwork

2008-10-11T04:47:00.000-07:00

That could be the title of the horror movie we'll face over the next four--eight--years. Maybe beyond. We're seeing them slither out of their holes each time McCain or Palin holds a rally. The anger, the hatred, the threats of violence. Domestic terrorists, after being dormant for eight years, may be getting ready to make a comeback.

Because, as the odds of McCain's winning the Presidency drop a little more every day, the radical right becomes more and more unglued.

Today "terrorist" means some guy in a turban. But when Bill Clinton was president a terrorist was more likely to be some white guy with a typically American-sounding last name. The likes of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols and Eric Rudolph. How much death and destruction did they cause in the 1990s? We don't talk much anymore about the Oklahoma City bombing or the chaos at Olympic Park. The threat, we've been told by Bush and Cheney and now McCain, comes from abroad. But McVeigh and Nichols and Rudolph were only the most headlined of the domestic terrorists. There were many, many others--like the wingnuts who shot judges and abortion doctors and assaulted women outside abortion clinics.

These wackos shared a radical rightwing ideology--a paranoid distrust and seething anger toward the federal government. There were militias set up in the backwoods of Michigan, preparing for armed resistance. There were "New World Order" freaks who believed in a worldwide conspiracy to take over the American way of life. They share a hatred of foreigners, blacks, Jews, gays, feminists, poor people, Latinos--essentially anyone who dares to challenge a straight white Christian male hegemony.

This was the face of terrorism when Bill Clinton was president. And I remember thinking in 2000: what happens to them now that George W. Bush is president? Would they still harbor such anti-government hostility?

From Daily Kos:

Where did we think the creepy "New World Order" freaks from the 1990s went to? Did we think they disappeared? Grew up? Joined Blackwater? What?

No, they clammed up and toed the line for George W. Bush, as he whipped them into a pants-wetting frenzy over terrorism. But their convenient conversion into pro-government forces was cramping their style, and they're now champing at the bit to restart their cottage industries, distributing their unhinged conspiracy theory videos, pro-assassination t-shirts, etc., all the while throwing up their hands and proclaiming their "innocence" with regard to the strange and mysterious resurgence of violence in domestic political affairs.

It does make you pause and think. For eight years, as frustrated as the Left has been, we haven't seen any rise in domestic terrorism. Lots of time I felt like taking out anger at the government--but I didn't pick up a rifle or start making bombs in my garage. There are plenty of crazy Lefties out there--but they don't blow up buildings. Not since the 1960s has there been a dangerous element to the Left. Terrorism seems the exclusive strategy of rightwing ideologues today--American or Arab, Christian or Islamic.

And, perhaps most galling of all, McCain and Palin seem unconcerned about contributing to any resurgence of domestic terrorism. They actually seem to think they can tap it in order to help them win. Palin seems positively giddy to whip it up. McCain, probably due to some last shred of allegiance to his old independent brand, has tried to appear less bloodthirsty. Much has been made of his cringe the other day on stage when someone shouted out "terrorist" at the mention of Obama. McCain was criticized for not stopping and putting an end to such hate talk, but his cringe seemed to suggest he, too, found it repugnant. I saw the cringe. I think it was worse than that. I think it was an act--the kind of thing one might do when one hears talk that goes farther than one is willing to go, and shrugs and says, "You think?" Clearly, inside the McCain camp the thinking is: The only way to win this is to stir up the base. Rally the wingnuts. Fire up the crazies.

Yesterday McCain finally remonstrated gently with the crowd, saying Obama was a decent man and we shouldn't be "afraid" if he became president. Jeez Louise. It's come to this. Memo to Senator McCain: your brand is beyond saving, but your self-respect is not. You can still exit this thing by standing up and saying the right things. After your long career, don't end it by aligning yourself with crazies and roiling up domestic terrorists. There are some things more important than winning an election.

Sarah Palin is a Thug

2008-10-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

A few posts back, I wrote that I wished that I could like Sarah Palin. That she seemed like she could be fun. That if she could only get past her fundamentalist religiosity, maybe she'd be a great old fag hag.

I was wrong.

She's a thug. The report that she abused her powers as Governor of Alaska is just the final straw. She's been encouraging hateful rallies, spouting vicious, malicious lies. She's a mean-spirited, power-hungry theocrat.

And she should be forced to resign as Governor.

It was a bipartisan panel that determined this, remember. There can be no spinning of this one. Though they'll try.

Sue Ann Nivens Lives

2008-10-10T17:30:00.001-07:00

And we can all be happy about that!!! How much do I love Betty White?

The Last Living Great Movie Stars...Take Three

2008-10-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

OK...round three. Thanks to all your ideas and suggestions (I can't believe I forgot Maureen O'Hara and Lena Horne!!) How does this list work? I agreed with all of the removal ideas...Lesle Caron, Tab Hunter, et.al. Cut-off point is that they had to have been already BIG by 1965--not just having made their debut before then.

Julie Andrews
Lauren Bacall
Brigitte Bardot
Sean Connery
Tony Curtis
Doris Day
Olivia de Havilland
Kirk Douglas
Joan Fontaine
Lena Horne
Van Johnson
Jennifer Jones
Jerry Lewis
Sophia Loren
Shirley MacLaine
Kim Novak
Maureen O'Hara
Peter O'Toole
Sidney Poitier
Debbie Reynolds
Mickey Rooney
Jane Russell
Elizabeth Taylor
Shirley Temple
Esther Williams

And I'd have to say...of this list, the TRULY TRULY GREAT are just four: Day, De Havilland, Fontaine and Taylor. Agree? Maybe Loren? Maybe Bacall?

Marriage in California

2008-10-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

With all the optimism about Obama's remarkable surge in the polls, many -- especially those outside California -- may have missed another, more disturbing trendline: the decline in support for gay marriage in the Golden State. For months, a majority of those polled favored retaining the right of same-sex couples to marry. But a steady barrage of misleading yet effective ads, funded in large part by the Mormon Church, have eroded that support to the point where it's now 47-42 to eliminate the right of same-sex marriage. Lies have been told about churches losing their tax-exempt status. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is shown arrogantly saying the state would get gay marriage whether they want it or not. (Gavin's heart is in the right place, but he' been a clumsy politician....voters don't like being told they're going to get something whether they want it or not.)

This isn't just about gay marriage. This would send a message that the majority can decide when and how and if rights should be given or taken away from a minority. That is not what America is about. We have always been about extending rights--not going in and taking them away. When we have done so--the Jim Crow laws after the Cvil War, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II--we have regretted it. These have become shameful episodes in our history. If gay marriage is eliminated in California, it will someday also be seen as a disgraceful moment--an action that repudiates what America stands for. (Or should stand for.)

But if gay marriage is upheld--by the people, by the voters--it will send a very different message. That we have turned the corner on fear and divisive politics. That intolerance is a 20th century disease. That in the 21st century, we are moving to embrace a more inclusive, more progressive view of ourselves. This November is shaping up to be a turning point in American history. A realignment. I don't want the elimination of gay marriage in California to be a reactionary footnote to that.

Brad Pitt has given $100,000 to the campaign to save gay marriage. So has Steven Spielberg. But the Mormon Church as deep pockets. The other side--the dark side, in my opinion--sees this as a way of sending a message too. They want to stay relevant in this transitional, revolutionary year. To win in California, one of the bluest of the blue states, would give them incredible bragging rights. We can't let that happen.

Please read Rex Wockner's report about the shift in polls. Then please contact all your friends in California and make sure they get out and vote NO on Proposition 8. Send out an email blast. And if you can, go to the No on Proposition 8 website and read about what's going on--AND DONATE!! Don't eliminate marriage for anyone.

This can be done. It's not over. The polls can be turned around. It's close. And I believe Californians at heart are among the fairest-minded citizens in the country. California defeated the anti-gay Briggs amendment back in the 1970s, remember, well before the gay movement had gone mainstream. This can happen. But we need an extra push right now. This is about families...about love...about fairness.

That One

2008-10-08T04:22:00.001-07:00

As usual, I watched the debates in snippets this morning courtesy YouTube. And I was reassured that Obama won, yet again, by all the snap polls. How cool are those by the way? Get a group of undecideds to watch, and they give you their opinions before any of the bloviators come in to spin. In the old days, you;d get a Chris Matthews or even a Tim Russert up there saying, "Well, I think Kerry lost it on that line..." and all the unthinking sheep out there would say, "Well I guess Bush won then." Now they can't spin quite so absurdly if the snap polls are saying Obama won by a 2-1 margin.

From what i could see, McCain is dispirited. Today there are Republican bloggers writing they are pulling up their McCain lawn signs. He feels the game is over. Calling Obama "that one"--that reflects the man's meanness. And I use that word in three of its definitions: nasty, ungenerous, and shabby. He's bitter that the election is turning out the way it is. He refused to shake Obama's hand at the end, then disappeared. He didn't stick around for questions afterward or any meet-and-greet.

I remember once I admired this man. I probably was never going to vote for him, but in 2000, I admired him. I remember when he said politics had no place for the kind of intolerance promoted by the Religious Right. I remember when he called for election reform, and strongly disdained the kind of negative campaigning he's using today (which was used against him by Bush in 2000). I remember when he attended the funeral of Mark Bingham, the gay man who died onboard Flight 93, incurring the wrath of fundamentalists.

He could have run a different campaign. I'm not sure if it would have helped, with the head winds going against Republicans this year. But it would have left him with some dignity. Maybe that's why he's so dispirited. He feels he's going to lose--and lose big--and for that he sold his soul. Must suck right now to be John McCain.

Polls, Polls, Polls

2008-10-07T14:27:00.001-07:00

They're to good to believe. Strong and leaning Obama states push us somewhere up to 320 electoral votes. That's a blowout. A landslide. We've got frikkin North Carolina. And Missouri!! Holy moley...this must be a dream after eating too many magic mushrooms.....but hey, I'm not in Amsterdam!

Can it be real? Of course i want to believe--and you know, as What the Bleep (a great film, see it) postulates, if we believe, we can make things happen. But then part of me feels like I'm Cathy Rigby (or Sandy Duncan, or Mary Martin) playing Peter Pan and telling the boys and girls, Clap your hands if you believe in Fairies!!

But maybe, maybe, maybe...maybe Tinker Bell really can come alive....

Maybe, maybe, maybe....things are going to change in this country.

Of course my cynical, pessimistic side--which I've expressed often on this blog--says the media hates it when the narrative stays the same. They love game-changers. So they'll be rooting for McCain to do something witty in the debate tonight--or surprising--or smart (okay, so not stupid)--so they can say he won. Then the story over the next week becomes "Can Obama get his mojo back?" And then the polls reflect that and then....

Okay. I won't go there.

But it is fascinating to imagine what a political realignment could mean in this country. How different the game would be if , say, North Carolina and Missouri--or heck, even Ohio and Virginia--became blue states.

I want to believe in America. I really do. I love what this country was founded on--the belief that we the people should make our laws and decide our fate--even if, as Barbara Jordan said so memorably some 30 years ago, "we the people" in 1776 didn't include any people who weren't white, or male, or land-holders. But as a concept...it still works. I want to believe that the country I live in is a good place. That it is a force of good and fairness in the world. I'm feeling optimistic...cautiously.

I'll catch the debate tomorrow on YouTube, though.

Words Fail...

2008-10-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

This woman wants to be Vice President of the United States.