What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Wednesday, November 28, 2007

   THERE'S POWER IN A UNION

Today was the International Day of Solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, STILL on strike in an attempt to gain an adequate cut of the money that studios are poised to make from Internet downloads and streaming of content the writers create. To put it in perspective, the last time Hollywood writers went on strike was in 1988. The resulting deal had nothing about the yet-to-come DVD format that ended up making billions for the studios. In the current strike, the writers are asking that the 0.3% they now get from DVD sales of their work be increased to 0.6% -- and the studios ARE REFUSING.

So yes, a day of solidarity -- with protests in Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, Germany and France. I decided to go down this morning to add another body. This isn't just about Hollywood. I've seen in recent years how journalists are paid less because of a new belief that any blogger can do what they do; meanwhile, the bloggers are expected to write for free because they're not 'real' journalists. It's a tidy little scheme they've got going but hopefully one with a short shelf life.

Walking in circles in the cold, I thought of Toronto's own Joe Shuster, the co-creator of Superman who was poor and going blind in a nursing home while DC Comics was making billions from his character. Lex Luthor himself couldn't have been as evil as those guys.

But as we marched in formation this morning, chanting slogans coined by the unstoppable Denis McGrath, I turned around to see David Cronenberg walking along with us:



Now THAT'S a surreal morning. He was warm and very friendly, patiently indulging me this fanboy photo. "I'm a writer too," Cronenberg said, "This affects all of us." Exactly.

Labels: politics, repair, Trawna, writing

It'd be so much easier on everyone if Brian Mulroney would just keep his trap shut. A good deal of the Canadian public thinks he's as dirty as, well, Jean Cretien but many others are agnostic on the subject. Whatever crimes Mulroney may or may not have committed, they're long in the past and might as well stay buried.

But no -- he's so consumed with his legacy, he keeps coming out of hiding to tell us what we should be writing in the history books. It reminds me of his little tirade two years ago, after Peter C. Newman released his tell-all book. Mulroney fumed:

"By the time history is done looking at this, and you look at my achievements as opposed to others, certainly no one will be in Sir John A.'s league -- but my nose will be a little ahead of most in terms of achievements."

Sure, Brian, but most of us believe it's because your nose keeps growing. Tonight, as the RCMP has announced its reopening another your-tax-dollars-at-work investigation, Mulroney appeared at a speaking engagement in Toronto tonight, met by throngs of reporters eager for scandal.

Watching the video, I'm amused at how son Ben -- who so easily overflows with gush upon meeting any D-list celebrity -- becomes a deer in the headlights when the reporters ask about his dad, then he makes a nervous giggle. Was it too difficult to toss the reporters a "My father is a great man" cliché?

But the speech by Mulroney Sr. is the most telling. I was inclined, mostly out of disinterest, to give him the benefit of the doubt. In a world where Bush and Cheney's lies, larceny and torture are met with shrugs, I can't get too worked up over Mulroney's petty grifting. But then I watched this footage of him announcing:

"I want to tell you here tonight that I, Martin Brian Mulroney, 18th prime minister of Canada, will be there before the royal commission with bells on, because I have done nothing wrong and have absolutely nothing to hide."

And there it was. My doubts vanishing in the rush of déja vu:


Nixon: "I am not a crook"

Uh-oh.

Labels: Canada, media, politics, Trawna

You know, if the stakes weren't so high, this would be the funniest thing ever:

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

Unfortunately, knowing that these are people supposedly protecting us from Islamic evil is just pathetic and sad.

Labels: America, insanity, Orwell says hi, politics, war - what is it good for?

Far be it from me to weigh in on a debate that I know extremely little about (oh who am I kidding? It's never stopped me before) but I think it's time to settle a 72-year-old Middle Eastern debate: is it Iran or Persia?

That's an internal debate, of course -- ultimately, the good people of Iran will call themselves and their country whatever they want -- but it's a timely one because the US government is so very afraid of Iran right now. Despite abandoning the noble efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and despite the (is there a bigger word than catastrophe? debacle? fiasco?) in Iraq, Bush and Cheney are still beating those wardrums, scaring us with tales of WWIII and "the new Hitler" (the last one was Saddam Hussain, for those keeping track at home). It feels like this is all going to end badly.

So, I think one small way for Iranians to slow this train (assuming they can't easily replace their own scary President) would be to change the name of the country back to Persia. Iran sounds too much like Iraq for some people (I once heard someone say, "What's the difference?" Oh, it's a big one) and Persia as a concept still gets a lot of play in Western culture.

While 'Iranian' brings up notions of war and revolution and executions, 'Persian' makes us think of carpets and tea and kittens. Why, it could be the Grandmother to the World! Who'd want to beat up on a little old lady who feeds us dates and naan bread?

Persia -- it just sounds nicer.

Labels: America, George W Bush, Middle East, politics, silliness, war - what is it good for?

The Colbert Countdown will let you know the exact minute the "Best of" DVD arrives this Tuesday. Viral internet marketing in its purest, truthiest form!

Labels: media, politics, silliness, tributes, TV

I just heard that Jerry Falwell has died at 73. I feel a sense of relief.

I wish I were a better person, one with compassion for all, but he's the guy who said this:

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.

And let's not forget this gem, right after New York was attacked on September 11, 2001:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'

So I can't feel too sorry for him -- he's now sitting at the right hand of God in a glorious paradise free of anyone he disliked so very much.

At least that's what he hoped.

Labels: America, homo-a-go-go, media, politics, religion

Halfway through this video, I was completely horrified but, as such insanity often does, it eventually tips over into the blackest comedy:



What the Government Doesn't Want You to Know

Best of luck with that march tomorrow...

Labels: homo-a-go-go, insanity, politics

Now any longtime reader knows that I'm quite hard on the Christian churches
--
can't
imagine
why
--
but I'm always strive to be fair, which is why I was so thrilled by two stories today.

First, I chatted on the phone today with Rev. Shawn Sanford Beck, an Anglican priest in Saskatoon who will have his ministry license revoked at the end of this month. Rev. Beck believed that denying gay couples the rite of marriage was "theologically problematic and fundamentally unjust." The bishop ordered him to recant and Beck has refused.

This afternoon, Beck explained to me how this stance was completely consistent with the work that he's done in Saskatoon's poor and Aboriginal communities. He still has a teaching job and his wife works with the food bank so, he says, they'll continue to "live simply" and get by. He was low-key and laid-back throughout the conversation. I told him how honoured I was by his support. I'm not sure I could be that brave in supporting a minority I have no connection with -- what a fantastic person.

But bravery can come from numbers and the second story today comes from the 30-million members of National Association of Evangelicals. Having recently weathered the loss of their hypocrite leader, the NAE have apparently reexamined their stance on a number of issues. Today, they publicly condemned the US government's use of torture while recently reaffirming a commitment to addressing the global warming issue, or what they sweetly call "creation care" -- this is a trend that began last fall but the NAE's involvement marks a big step forward.

Amusingly, the right-wing leaders of the other Christian groups are now freaking out over such disobedience, with a letter to the NAE warning that the global warming debate will "shift the emphasis away from...sexual abstinence and morality," leading (oh, of course) to mass abortions and infanticide. Jerry Falwell even calls the climate discussion "a tool of Satan" used by his usual laundry list of "liberal politicians, radical environmentalists, liberal clergy, Hollywood and pseudo-scientists."

No mention of gay men and lesbians, which is odd since we were (oh, of course) responsible for 9/11. I guess even sodomites can't be responsible for every disaster but what do I know? I'm working for the Jews.

Labels: fab, homo-a-go-go, politics, religion, repair

Larry King Live had Laura Bush on last night, trying to make her hubby look good as a cheerleader for the Great War on Terror. It didn't quite work:

"Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone."

It's that evil media again, pointing out how Monday's bomb killed 6 people, the other Monday bomb killed 14 people and Tuesday's bomb killed 18 people. Most of these 38 were women and teenagers. Doesn't sound stable to me but I'm not being fair.

Many parts of America are concerned now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one sociopath a day that discourages everyone.

Labels: George W Bush, insanity, media, Middle East, politics, war - what is it good for?

Jim Wallis has an op-ed piece in Time that I hope proves to be true:

As I have traveled around the country, one line in my speeches always draws cheers: "The monologue of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has now begun." We have now entered the post-Religious Right era. Though religion has had a negative image in the last few decades, the years ahead may be shaped by a dynamic and more progressive faith that will make needed social change more possible.

People have always told me that religion is necessary because "it brings people together." I've seen precious little real evidence of that -- mostly the opposite -- but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

Labels: America, evolution, politics, religion

Love it or hate it, the TV show 24 sure has everyone talking. By coincidence, my friend Darrell, my 'Ottawa correspondent' Guy in DKNY and Vanity Fair's mighty James Wolcott all weighed in this week on 24 and the depressing 'torture is fun' debate we're all subjected to these days.

Darrell linked to an article in the New Yorker on the show's producer Joel Surnow, a self-described "right-wing nut job" who smugly decries the liberalism of Hollywood while he makes a fortune within it:

Surnow, for his part, revels in his minority status inside the left-leaning entertainment industry. "Conservatives are the new oppressed class," he joked in his office. "Isn't it bizarre that in Hollywood it's easier to come out as gay than as conservative?" His success with 24, he said, has protected him from the more righteous elements of the Hollywood establishment. "Right now, they have to be nice to me," he said. "But if the show tanks I'm sure they'll kill me." He spoke of his new conservative comedy show as an even bigger risk than 24. "I'll be front and center on the new show," he said, then joked, "I'm ruining my chances of ever working again in Hollywood."

I love the logic: if The 1/2 Hour News Hour fails, it's because the liberals can't handle his manly take on politics, not (not!) because his "Daily Show for conservatives" just isn't funny:



Wow, I never thought anything would make me wish for PJ O'Rourke but hey, torture is moral and Joel Surnow is oppressed -- clearly, we're living in Bizarro World:

Labels: comic books, friends, politics, TV

John Edwards, Democratic Presidential candidate, has been ordered to fire two of his campaign staffers by Bill Donahue, leader of the Catholic League. Donogue says Edwards "has chosen to embrace foul-mouthed, anti-Catholic bigots on his payroll." According to their press statement:

"On November 1, 2006, on her blogspot Shakespeare’s Sister, [Melissa McEwan] referred to President Bush’s ‘wingnut Christofascist base’ when lashing out against religious conservatives. On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, ‘What don’t you lousy motherf---ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?’"

Personally, on my blog, I try to tone down the swearing but, for some odd reason, I know exactly how Melissa feels. Edwards admitted that he was "personally offended" by his staffers' previous comments but told reporters that the duo "gave me their word they, under no circumstances, intended to denigrate any church or anybody's religion and offered their apologies for anything that indicated otherwise. I took them at their word."

Sounds fair and should probably end there, but it won't. Donahue, or others like him, will continue to shriek about anti-religious bigotry. Too bad I can't sympathize, though, since Donahue, so concerned with civility and fairness and religious sensitivity, said this in December 2004:

"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular...Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism...these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America."

My greatest fear is that Bill might be right about that, but I suspect mainstream America is more like comedian Louis CK, the creator of a Married With Children-type sitcom called Lucky Louie on HBO. Donahue attacked his show as "barbaric" and two radio morning show guys got them together to hash it out. It's a long clip but worth it for the way Donahue goes completely unhinged at the end. Sure, he's being ganged up on but this peek inside his head is like a really good horror movie, creepy and fascinating:



Oh, I get it: Donahue is a hero, trying to protect us from Arabian horses, bias crimes, Dakota Fanning movies and white Martin Luther King statue fetishists.

Or something.

Labels: America, media, politics, religion

There was an old Saturday Night Live fake commercial for "BAD IDEA Jeans" in which basketball buddies make comments like, "Now that I have kids, I feel a lot better having a gun in the house," and the screen flashes BAD IDEA.

I guess the ad was successful because there's many, many pairs of those jeans being worn now. And, for the most part, we're used to it. When I inevitably stop over the latest insane headline of a newspaper and inevitably rant, "Wow, can you believe this shit?" someone will inevitably say, "So what? It's just someone's opinion. Who cares?" Those people will undoubtedly live longer than I will but I still have to argue with them because we're never just dealing with one wrong opinion. A bad opinion stems from a bad idea and, like an untreated infection, will lead to bad actions, even from well-meaning people.

Here's my two favourite recent examples: last week, Joe Biden announced his candidacy for the US Presidential race. Like a typical politician, he did so not with a speech explaining why he'd be the best choice but with a speech criticizing his opponents. Biden now-infamously described his fellow Democratic presidential candidate and strong up-and-comer Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." BAD IDEA. As blogger Atrios said, "I believe we've just witnessed the shortest presidential run in history."

While most of us howled over Biden's unconscious racism with his use of "articulate and bright" and puzzled over what the hell he was thinking with the word "clean," others were pointing out that he'd made previous racial comments, like this gem: "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." And remember, he's the left-winger. The only thing worse than his foot-in-mouth disease was what happened next, as the foot-in-head crowd dissected his comments. Two days ago, Bill O'Reilly actually said this to Temple University professor Dr. Marc Lamont Hill:

Now you got to feel sorry for us white folks here, because I’m telling you now I’m afraid to say anything...Instead of black and white Americans coming together, white Americans are terrified. They’re terrified. Now we can’t even say you’re articulate? We can’t even give you guys compliments because they may be taken as condescension?

Oh Bill, for the love of God, shut up! Don't you see the big neon BAD IDEA hanging in the air? Dr. Hill predictably, gorgeously, tore Bill a new one though, as usual, the host didn't notice. He was probably still marveling at how articulate Hill was. Meanwhile, on that same February 5th, national radio host, CNN anchorman, ABC correspondent and walking example of the "liberal media" in action Glenn Beck also used the presence of a black author on his show to confess:

I don’t have a lot of African-American friends, and I think part of it is because I’m afraid that I would be in an open conversation, and I would say something that somebody would take wrong, and then it would be a nightmare. Am I alone in feeling that?

No, of course not, Glenn -- there's lots of bigots out there. I love that Bill and Glenn suffer from the same fear: that their hearty pronouncements of "the truth" will be met with hostility by those confused, uppity Negroes. Why must the blacks be so sensitive? This is the ultimate BAD IDEA.

Beck infamous called the Katrina survivors "scumbags" and demanded that Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Since he's dumber and more arrogant than Bill O'Reilly(!), I could go on about Glenn Beck all day (BAD IDEA) so I'll just point out Media Matters' extensive listing of his horrible opinions.

I have to move on to my second example of how well-meaning people can be roped in by bad ideas, courtesy of William Saletan, a columnist for Slate who's written excellent pieces explaining stem-cell research, cloning, the abortion debate, etc. He shocked me this week with his column on the New Zealand 'gay sheep' study. For the first time, we have hard evidence that homosexuality is biologically determined (at least in sheep, anyway). Neat! Until Saletan goes all Frankenstein on us:

"Roselli offers lots of evidence that human homosexuality is linked to biological conditions, some of them genetic. If he figures out how to manipulate sexual orientation in sheep, will others try to manipulate it in humans? We already have. Doctors used to "treat" homosexuality with hormone injections. Some still do. This idea failed miserably in adults, but it might work in fetuses, since their brains are forming. And if we can't engineer sexual orientation, maybe we can select it. Millions of Asians have used modern sex tests to identify and abort female fetuses. If we learn how to recognize gay brains in development, look out.

But killing is the horror scenario. The more likely path is gentler. Science will gradually convince us that sexual orientation is innate, more like the color of your skin than like the content of your character. Condemnation of homosexuality as a sin will subside. Freed from the culture wars, we'll turn to the biological differences between race and sexual orientation: Homosexuality defies the aspiration to procreate with your mate, and it's easier to isolate and alter in embryonic development. Resentment will give way to pity. We'll come to view homosexuality as a kind of infertility —- a disability, like deafness. The rhetoric of "acceptance" will shift from liberals to conservatives. We'll inoculate our offspring against homosexuality out of love, not hate."

Saletan's column had me quaking in horror at the notion of eradicating homosexuality by genetically-altering fetuses. I swear I could hear the hospital page for Dr. Mengele, Dr. Mengele to the operating room. For decades, we've had to listen to bigots go on about me and my friends being "unnatural" -- now they want to practice altering the chromosomes of babies? BAD IDEA. Isn't that an awful lot of work just to prevent the next Elton John? Is any of this making sense?

But that's science fiction, one might say. Calm down. Even if the whole world hated gays, we've proved pretty tough to eradicate over the centuries, no? Why not relax? If a bunch of people have racist or homophobic views, that's their problem -- we're dealing with it just fine. Well, I have to ask, are we?:

"The Ku Klux Klan, which just a few years ago seemed static or even moribund compared to other white supremacist movements such as neo-Nazis, experienced "a surprising and troubling resurgence" during the past year due to the successful exploitation of hot-button issues including immigration, gay marriage and urban crime, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The League, which monitors the activities of racist hate groups and reports its findings to law enforcement and policymakers, has documented a noticeable spike in activity by Klan chapters across the country. The KKK believes that the U.S. is "drowning" in a tide of non-white immigration, controlled and orchestrated by Jews, and is vigorously trying to bring this message to Americans concerned or fearful about immigration."

So let me make sure I've got this: it's the 21st friggin' century and we have a spike in membership for the Ku Klux Klan? Because the good ol' boys have put away their bedsheets and learned to make nice with Nazis? Wow, Molly sure was right about the ATM and the garlic press! But, as I've said, all these 'concerns and fears' simply stem from bad opinions made up of bad ideas -- notably the tired old canard that everything is the Jews' fault. The Jews I've known can't agree on bacon, let alone running the planet, and the KKK are trying to convince people that America is being overrun with Muslim fanatics because that's what Jews want? Yeah, good luck with that.

But Barnum was right -- there's a fuckwit born every minute (I paraphrase, of course) and John Rogers' 27% Crazification Factor theory still seems apt to me. All we can do to stem the tide is to come up with better ideas, or at least make savage fun of the bad ones.

I admit the latter is more fun but almost as necessary. How, for instance, could I -- growing up in white-bread Hamilton -- ever have a problem with black people? I grew up watching Bill Cosby on TV, hearing Martin Luther King's famous speech, dancing to Aretha Franklin and, perhaps most powerfully, learning about black history from Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live:

"So, Professor Carver's two dinner guests...Edward 'Skippy' Williamson and Frederick 'Jif' Armstrong -- two white men -- stole George Washington Carver's recipe for peanut butter, copyrighted it, and reaped untold fortunes from it. While Dr. Carver died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.
This has been "Black History Minute". I'm Professor Shabazz K. Morton. Good night."

I was 13 years old and Murphy's hilarious delivery burned into my memory, just like the BAD IDEA jeans sketch. Ultimately, bad ideas are useless and silly so I like a useless and silly response. Fight fire with fire. Like the two nimrods who shut down Boston last week -- I might have disagreed with their hare-brained corporate marketing stunt if not for the wildly-paranoid overreaction from the city's mayor and administration. It was so ridiculous that I could only applaud the two goofballs for their Dada press conference. Listening to the reporters getting angrier and more self-righteous in their questioning is still funny a week later.

As for the gay sheep -- implications aside, the story is kind of funny but leave it to wisecracking playwright Paul Rudnick to bring it home. His New Yorker piece, you see, was a very very Good Idea. And, in the interest of fairness, so is the end of Saletan's piece (mainly because he agrees with me, of course -- ha ha). Having hastily lumped him in with Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, I give him the last word:

But bad ideas —- communism, eugenics, wars of liberation -— don't happen because they're bad. They happen because, in the beginning, they're good. What we do with the biological truth about homosexuality, for good or ill, isn't written in our hormones or our genes. It's up to us.

Labels: America, evolution, homo-a-go-go, insanity, politics, religion

Molly Ivins died this week at the age of 62 from what she joked was "a scorching case of cancer":

"Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that...I had been in great hopes I would become a better person as a result of confronting my own mortality, but it actually never happened. I didn't become a better person."

This was the kind of quip she was famous for. Ivins was a Texas political journalist who described her early career in the late '60s as "making heroes of militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers." She became a nationally-syndicated columnist but never a rich and famous TV pundit like so many lesser writers (though she's great on camera in this 1986 commentary on "fine ort" in Texas and in this amusing video on their sex laws). TV didn't know what to do with her -- she was too outspoken, too Southern, too sharp and too liberal.

Molly Ivins could listen to tedious speeches, read thick and dull budget reports, wade into the most polluted swamp of political spin and then explain, with wit and punch, what it all meant for ordinary working people. She knew a liar when she heard one and a fool when she saw one, and she'd write about them both, but always fairly: "I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth." I'd agree, if not for the fact that, well, Molly always told the truth. She did it well, she did it often and, on the occasions when she did make a mistake, she owned up to it in print (check out this incredible exchange between Ivins and famous misanthrope Florence King, for instance). Her obituary for her father both charms and haunts (it's well worth the annoying newspaper registration) so, rather than try to match that, the best tribute I can give Molly is to show you why I became a fan:

"I guess that was the first shock. Ronnie and Kaye had prepared me to find all manner of vile, venal types in the Legislature, villains without scruples and self-interested dastards without remorse. I didn’t find them. I found only stupid men. I found representatives so dumb they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. There are no villains: there are only asses."
-- June 18, 1971

"I have long maintained that Texans are not easy to love: we are, like anchovies, an acquired taste. I myself feel that we should be given points for our enthusiasm...At least Texans retain a capacity for awe in the face of something as awesome as the Colorado mountains."
-- December 30, 1977

“If [Rep. Jim Collins'] IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”
-- sometime in the early '80s

"Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -– it's vulgar."
–- December 9, 1991

"Many people did not care for Pat Buchanan's speech; it probably sounded better in the original German."
–- September 14, 1992

"I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."
-- July 19, 1994

"Politics in this country isn't about left and right; it's about up and down. The few are screwing the many."
-- September 8, 1994

"Sometimes I think I made Warren Chisum up for my own amusement...The egregious Representative Chisum is once more trying to get gays taken out of coverage under the hate-crimes bill because, he says, gays bring violence on themselves...'They go to parks and pick up men, and they don't know if that someone is gay or not.' Sure. Right."
-- February 9-23, 1995

"If it weren't for the automatic teller machine and the self-cleaning garlic press, we'd have no evidence of progress at all...Let's face it: the evidence is always on the side of the pessimists. In fact, one of the few pro-optimism arguments that work is to point out that things can always get worse, which means we should be cheerful right now, because now will eventually be the Good Old Days."
-- May 7, 1995

"I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle."
-- May 30, 1995

"I have wasted more time and space defending Clinton than I care to think about. If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied."
-- from the introduction to her 1998 collection, You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You

"Arguing against the death penalty in Texas is such a bootless enterprise that over the years, I have worn down to merely advocating that we not kill (a) the innocent; (b) the mentally retarded; and (c) people who are so mentally ill that they think they’re black dogs in the seventh circle of hell and run around on all fours barking. As you know, these arguments have not prevailed, and we continue to bump off people in all three categories."
-- February 5, 1999

"The sponsor of the tax break in the Senate, J.E. 'Buster' Brown, explained simply, 'The oil industry is hurting.' And there’s nothing like pain in the oil industry to touch off compassion in a conservative."
-- March 5, 1999

"George W. is the unexamined candidate, and the extent to which he is unexamined gets eerier as Election Day approaches. At least half the country is prepared to vote for the guy; if asked why, they reply, 'Seems like a nice fella.' I like him myself. But he is often clueless, he does not have a nice record, and the idea of electing him president scares the living fantods out of me. I like my nephew, I like my mailman and the lady at the dry cleaners. That doesn’t mean they’re ready to be president."
-- November 3, 2000

"If killing more people were the answer, there would have been peace in the Middle East 50 years ago. The answer is justice, and there is nothing weak-kneed about it."
-- October 26, 2001

“I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. [Iraq] is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’”
-- January 16, 2003

"I have never lost a political storytellin’ contest in any category: crooked pols, dumb pols, out-goddamned-rageous pols. We win -— and we never have to make up anything. How can I lose with material like the time Rep. Mike Martin paid his Cousin Eddie to shoot him in the arm with a shotgun, and then claimed it had been done by a Satanic and communistic cult. You think I can find stuff this weird anywhere else? This is why I’m still in Texas."
-- December 3, 2004

"We can now safely assert that W. has stacked much of the federal government with people like himself. And what you get when you put people in charge of government who don’t believe in government and who are not interested in running it well is...what happened after Hurricane Katrina.
Often in the past six years I have bit my tongue so I wouldn’t annoy people with the always obnoxious observation, “I told you so.” But, dammit all to hell, I did tell you, and I’ve been telling you since 1994, and I am so sick of this man and everything he represents -— all the sleazy, smug, self-righteous graft and corruption and “Christian” moralizing and cynicism and tax cuts for all his smug, rich buddies.
Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention [emphasis mine, of course]."
-- September 23, 2005

"On the general subject of political corruption, do not fall into the fatal error of cynicism. You do your country a great disservice by saying things like: "Eh, they're all crooks. Nothing anyone can do about it. Money will always find a way."
The answer is perpetual reform. Fix it, and if corruption comes back again, you just whack back at it again."
-- January 11, 2006

Those last two are the ones that really get me. She spent a decade warning her fellow Texans about their useless Governor, yet they and the rest of America elected him President, with disastrous results. Nevertheless, she never lost hope, she never went silent and she never stopped believing in the decency and, yes, power of ordinary people. This is the end of her last column, published January 12, 2007:

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"

Yep, Molly Ivins went out the way she came in -- kicking at the pricks with a grin on her face. I discovered her columns during the Clinton impeachment, loved her ever since, and regret that I've never praised her in print before. Somehow I believed that, despite the cancer, she would outlive us all. As she famously wrote:

"Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce."

Goddamn, what a woman.

In tribute, the Texas Observer has reprinted many of her classic columns, including the one she penned when leaving the paper to join the New York Times in 1976. It was charming then and appropriately lovely now:

"And for me, it’s leaving time. I have a grandly dramatic vision of myself stalking through the canyons of the Big Apple in the rain and cold, dreaming about driving with the soft night air of East Texas rushing on my face while Willie Nelson sings softly on the radio, or about blasting through the Panhandle under a fierce sun and pale blue sky, laughing at Clarence Zugenbuler’s stock report. I’ll remember. I’ll remember the way the printer’s feels at 4 a.m. What it’s like to read The Dallas Morning News editorial page. Sunsets, rivers, hills, plains, the Gulf, woods, a thousand beers in a thousand joints, and sunshine and laughter. And people. Mostly I’ll remember people...
I wanted to call this The Long Goodbye, but Kaye wouldn’t let me. She wanted to call it, Ivins Indulges in Horrible Fit of Sentimentality.
I love you. Goodbye, my friends."

At her memorial today, Andy Ivins told the crowd that he'd once asked his sister why she always walked so fast. She told him, "What you do is you look up at the horizon, and you go quicker." Then, blues singer Marcia Ball sang Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." Perfect.

Labels: America, evolution, politics, religion, tributes, war - what is it good for?, writing

Obviously, I've been turning cartwheels over this week's revelation that Ted Haggard, leader of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, bought crystal meth from the gay prostitute he's been visiting for three years. With the US midterm elections tomorrow, it's a political jackpot and the metaphorical culmination of everything I've been ranting about for years!

So why does it make me feel so sad?

Well, first off, I feel sorry for his wife and kids.
Mrs. Haggard must obviously be devastated and, as for the kids, it's hard enough on children when they learn that Dad lied to them about Santa Claus; what if Dad lied about everything he believed in and everything he taught you?

But I actually feel sorry for Ted Haggard.
Watching clips of the infamous interview (with his wife and kids in the car!!!), the troubling face-off with hectoring atheist Richard Dawkins or the truly-terrifying excerpt from Jesus Camp is all creepy enough, but reading transcripts of the prostitute detailing their time together in karmic 'Bill-Clinton-Starr-Report' fashion is totally gruesome.

Last year, Harpers did a lengthy profile on Haggard called Soldiers of Christ that I found profoundly unsettling; now it's also profoundly sad. The man is clearly a seething mass of frustrated contradictions:

The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.

For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach. Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint them.

I don't hear the words of a 48-year-old right-wing Christian leader in this statement Haggard made on Sunday, I hear the unhappy rationalizations of a gay teenager. Maybe I'm projecting here but this statement sounds an awful lot like what I was writing in my diary at 17. I wish someone could've taken Ted aside and said, "You're not repulsive and dark -- you're a homo!"

I even began to feel sorry for his followers. I can't imagine how confusing this must be for them. When Bill Clinton admitted to having sex with "that woman," I felt disappointed in him and frustrated by his lack of control. But when you get right down to it, Clinton wasn't part of a massive political movement blaming all the evils of society on young Jewish interns, was he? That kind of disconnect between Haggard's private actions and public rabble-rousing is the sticking point here and, unfortunately, where my sympathies end.

You see, I'd like to think to something good could come from this, that perhaps the evangelical movement will understand that splitting the world into 'us' versus 'them' never works because there's no distinction. 'They' are 'us' and 'us' are 'they.' I'd like to think that this incident may help evangelicals understand that homosexual is less important than the way people channel them. I want them to see that allowing a self-hating gay man to hide by marrying a woman and having five children will ultimately ruin all of their lives. I'd like them to accept that allowing such a person to be honest, to find and live peacefully with another man, would be far more beneficial to society than the sad freakshow we've had to witness this week. I would like to think that but the odds are unlikely when the conclusions are already drawn. Mollie at GetReligion quotes from an e-mail she received, comparing openly-gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson to Ted Haggard:

A pastor is married for years, has children, runs a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, and then “finds himself” and abandons wife and children for a live-in situation with another man. His reward? Consecration as a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America and wide-ranging media praise
...
Another pastor apparently is married for years, has children, builds and runs a a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, fights temptation and loses, stays with his family, and when the dam breaks, is crucified in the press as his reward.

This to me is an insane comparison. Gene Robinson divorced his wife three years before he got involved with his current partner. He and his wife are still friends because he was honest with his family and his community through the whole 'coming out' process. However one might feel about Robinson's status as a bishop, anyone who can't see a difference between the way he's dealt with his sexuality and the way Haggard has is either intellectually or spiritually bankrupt. On that note, Canada's own poster boy for nepotism David Frum (creator of the hit catchphrase "Axis of Evil") then chimed on along similar lines:

Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse.

One of them marries, raises a family, preaches Christian principles, and tries generally to encourage people to lead stable lives.

The other publicly reveals his homosexuality, vilifies traditional moral principles, and urges the legalization of drugs and prostitution.
...
If a religious leader has a personal inclination toward homosexuality - and nonetheless can look past his own inclination to defend the institution of marriage and to affirm its benefits for the raising of children - why should he likewise not be honored for his intellectual firmness and moral integrity?

Where's the "intellectual firmness" in Haggard hiring a prostitute and buying crystal meth? Where's the "moral integrity" in doing so while denying people the right to marry? And lying to your own wife and children? And I love the way the argument is framed as either 'stay in the closet for the children' or 'wallow in drugs and prostitutes' -- because no middle ground is possible, right? I can't believe that Frum would try to peddle this kind of crap, but then I read this take from The Christian Post:

While Haggard has only partially admitted guilt, the situation in its entirety is a stark reminder of man’s sinfulness and a dark exposure of how deeply the sin of homosexuality has taken root in the American society. If the accusations are indeed true, now would be the time for the Evangelical community look within its own walls and battle against the culture of sin that looms before the Church of Christ.

Yes, I'd like to think something good could come from the sad story of Ted Haggard but it seems a lot of other lessons have been learned, all of them wrong and none of them helpful.

Labels: America, family, homo-a-go-go, politics, religion, repair

The "controversy" over Michael J. Fox this week has been absolutely appalling. After he filmed a political ad advocating for stem-cell research, Fox was slandered by Rush Limbaugh, who actually accused him of faking his symptoms ("He is an actor, after all"). Fox responded with the low-key grace, humour and charm he's always displayed. This clip'll take a bit to load but it's worth it:



Fox's story could've been a tragic one -- charming comic actor struck down in his prime by Parkinson's -- but the way he's played the cards he's been dealt is incredibly inspiring. I've felt nothing but admiration for him and never more so than this week.

Labels: media, politics, tributes

Since conservative Christians were first credited with sweeping Bush into power (twice!) I've obviously carried quite the chip on my shoulder, but how could I not? Their blind, pointless hatred of gay people allowed America to be taken over by thieves, liars, warmongers, racists and child molesters.

Nice job, folks.

And in a Fox News culture, no one listens to the other Christians quietly doing good work -- let alone the Godless Liberals or the Evil Homosexuals -- but now (finally!) liberal Christians are speaking up -- like with this billboard in Connecticut:



"Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice" -- sweeter words have rarely been spoken! And only in this warped era could a condemnation of torturing other human beings be considered a daring political statement.

Meanwhile, David Kuo, former head of Bush's "faith-based initiatives" program, was on Bill Maher's show this weekend to discuss the White House's betrayal. As usual, Maher's a bit of a jerk but Kuo comes off as a champ:

Labels: America, George W Bush, media, politics, religion, repair

Wow, where did two weeks go? Oh yeah, the new job as fab magazine's Number 2. In a word, awesome. I'm so happy. In a perfect world of better luck and smarter choices, this is the job I would have had after Glad Day books a decade ago but who cares? I'm thrilled and very busy working to advance the Dreaded Gay Agenda.

I only half-joke because this is the secret issue I have with my magazine in particular and a good chunk of homo-dom in general -- it's all a bit silly, no? Skim through an issue of fab and it's all parties and dancing and sex and art and music and joking and costumes and sex (yeah, I know, twice). But so what? I've read Maxim magazine, I've watched NASCAR, I've listened to 'bitches'n'hos' gangsta rap -- 'straight culture' is plenty ridiculous too.

The difference, however, is that heterosexuality never has to justify its existence. Oh sure, that Gay Agenda notion is thrown around by people who find it less funny than I -- people who think that the human race is dying off because Vermont lets men marry one another. In reality, however, the world has been, is and will be 90% heterosexual. If I have to justify the content of fab magazine to myself, it's because I have to justify myself to the rest of the world. Why? Paris Hilton doesn't have to. But then, she's not a fag.

LAND OF A THOUSAND WORDS

Yeah, it's hard not to sound snide but I've been bristling all week over the gay witchhunt spawned by Florida Congressman Mark Foley's gruesome e-mail exchanges with the teenage boy pages on Capitol Hill. The media's calling it Foley-gate; I'm calling it Where-the-hell-have-you-been?-gate (April, people!). The pleasure I'd take from the imminent and long-deserved collapse of the Republican party is quashed by the disgust and sadness I feel over this whole mess.

Plus, it ties into an e-mail I got from my old friend Darrell, responding to the "Jesus Camp" post below. Darrell has always provided a thoughtful and eloquent counterpoint to my 'Christian-bashing' (like that time I passed legislation to stop them from teaching, or marrying, or joining the army). With all honesty, I say that his own blog is far more interesting and well-rounded than mine but, before you rightfully click on over to it, stay with me for a while as I think it's past time I answered his honest, wise and pertinent thoughts. He's had me mulling for a long while so it's only fair I try to get it all out. Let's go:

IT CAN'T COME QUICKLY ENOUGH

Re: the questions you raise on your post - I'm thinking you know the answers to most of them already, which makes them rhetorical. I'll raise one of my own, which we touched on in an earlier e-mail exchange: what are the chances the North American Gay Community (a term I use without irony), given its singular and revolutionary experience in the last half-century, will promote a sexual paradigm of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety - a commonly recognized "manifesto" for humanity at large?

This ploy might seem cagey of me, but I think it touches on surprisingly common ground. The religious impulse and the sexual impulse are not that far removed (I still blush to recall a Pentecostal meeting I once attended). I do, in fact, grind my teeth when I see footage of this woman and her vile little camp. But turning tables: if some evangelical had the fortitude for it, he could walk into a bath house with a video camera and put together a documentary designed to get His People similarly "put off".

I'm the quiet guy in the corner who considers sex a sacrament, as well as marriage, and thinks the two work best when they're purposely housed beneath the same roof. To my mind, the bath house is not a physically or spiritually (I don't separate the two) healthy environment in which to experience the sacrament. I believe a human being actually needs to recover from (as a for instance) group sex.

Furthermore, it would sadden me if either of my daughters' coming-of-age experience included some time in a bath house.

But the human spirit is a resilient thing. It can survive a Warrior For The Lord boot camp; it can survive extended exposure in a bath house. But I'd say in both cases, there is more than a little "figuring it all out" required when the tenure is up.

My question to you is this: what purpose does this video serve on your blog? My guess is that most of your readers don't need convincing of the malign intentions of Evangelicals and Republicans, just as most of their number don't need convincing of the unhealthy lifestyle of the Gay Community. I'd propose that the truths which both camps need to face lie in a very uncomfortable spot between the two extremes. If we can't be the first ones (sorry - I'm gay now) to take tentative steps in that direction, I don't see much hope for progress.

But I'm just a crazy liberal that way!

Much love,
Darrell

LIGHTS

So snarky, this talk-back from that brainy Mennonite. I'd slap him but he'd just go and turn the other cheek so where's the fun in that? Seriously though, much love to Darrell in return for standing up to my ranting. Contrary to popular belief, I don't blog just to force my own opinions on people, I'm aiming at a dialogue here (for years now, I've been hoping some irritated American will write me and explain exactly WHY the Bush Republicans must remain in power -- just ONE good reason, please! -- but, alas, only silence).

Let me move along through Darrell's questions with each paragraph. First, he asks:

what are the chances the North American Gay Community...will promote a sexual paradigm of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety - a commonly recognized "manifesto" for humanity at large?

Hmmm. I'd say the chances are not bloody likely. No, I'm just kidding. Half-kidding. See, don't ask me -- I'm a misanthrope. The problem with gay people is that they're people -- they carry forth the same trust, respect, sensitivity and safety as their heterosexual friends and family, no more and no less. And, watching the evening news, I'd say hopefully no less whatsoever.

LOVERS IN THE BACKSEAT

But I'm being snide. It's unattractive. More importantly, I'm dodging the real thrust of Darrell's question which is, why do gay men have cheap, anonymous, unhealthy, promiscuous sex more often than straight people do? Sorry, my homo brothers, it IS a legitimate question but -- ah! not so fast, my straight pals -- not THAT legitimate -- I've been on craigslist lately and I also know that gays did not (as rumoured) invent the sexual revolution, we just happily rode on its coattails. No, as always, the truth is somewhere in the middle so let's talk promiscuity.

I'll get the self-blame out of the way first -- it's easy 'cause it's flimsy. We're men. We're pigs. One of the big 'Mars vs. Venus' differences I always hear about men and women is that, when it comes to sex, men want quantity over quality; women, vice-versa. That seems generally true to me. Take the ladies out of the equation and guys will happily have sex in gas station washrooms. Women only do that in movies and even then only with Brad Pitt. So yeah, there's just a lot more of it with gay guys. Variety is the spice of life and we want the whole rack. In one bowl. Now. A little self-control wouldn't be such a bad thing once in a while, fellas.

But here's where -- having cheaply attempted to exonerate slutty men based on weak theories of biology -- I now return to the more fun side of the blame game and point my finger at religion. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or what-have-you, religion has always served as a handy check on sexuality. Every horny adolescent has been stopped dead in his tracks by a lecture on how God watches everything (eeeeeeverything) a person does, that He thinks sex before marriage is sinful, that He finds your masturbation horrifying, that He absolutely hates those faggots, and that He created AIDS as a punishment for all of it. Personally, I think this makes God sound like a miserable and sadistic bastard but that's just me.

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

What does all that have to do with gay men not keeping it in their pants? Plenty! We get the worst of it. From the moment somebody thinks that we're gay (always before we do), we're told that our very feelings are disgusting, that it's impossible for men to feel love for one another, that every wildly-depraved sexual act possible (or impossible) is only performed by gay men, that we'll inevitably contract AIDS and deservedly die and that, because we just didn't learn our lesson from all this, we'll go to hell and burn forever in a lake of fire. Hey, they're just trying to keep us from making the wrong "choice"!

Given that twelve-ton-loaded-against-us scenario, damned either and every way, it's no wonder most gay men reject religion altogether but the real dirty secret is that their internalized belief in it all never truly goes away. Imagine how those years of self-loathing, that fear of damnation, simmer away until you're just screaming for sex, drugs, something, to quiet the voices in your head telling you how sick and filthy and worthless you are.

The people who did this to you have a solution, of course -- just accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, give up your life of sin and live a celibate life! Wow! I could've had a V8! Of course, your heterosexual friends and family won't be joining you. They'll get married, raise children and have a healthy sex life. Everyone but you, because you're a filthy faggot. Hey, stop that crying! God loves you!

KISS YOU OFF

That's not a solution. So we're back to option B: if you're going to lead an unhappy, loveless, diseased life leading to the pits of hell, you might as well have fun on the way down. Gas station toilet sex, here we come, woooo-hoooo!

This leads us neatly into Darrell's next point about bathhouses and yeah, they're not actually spiritual places, are they? The first time I went, I envisioned a brave adventure deep into the heart of darkness. I was actually disappointed to discover, well, just another bar scene -- only with towels. There was a very fine room of weightlifting equipment and a truly gorgeous little hot tub that was literally better than sex. I left feeling a bit gutsier but with little desire to return.

But I've always been a little more...flexible in a couple. Years ago, on a dare, I went to a spa with my little blond boyfriend and we discovered certain accessories and equipment that we'd never have been able to try at home. We felt supremely naughty about it all and laughed over it long afterward. And, just this summer, I ran into someone I'd gone on a disastrous date with a couple years ago. Reunited, we danced at a club before he suggested going for a swim. "A swim?" I asked. This was downtown Toronto. What I didn't know was that the bathhouse down the street has a large outdoor pool. At 3 in the morning, we swam under the stars and soaked in a hot tub afterward as he told me his stories. I found it all very soothing.

COMFORTABLY NUMB

But enough romanticism. I'm not trying to sell anyone on a bathhouse -- far from it. If you never go, dear reader, you're missing nothing and probably gaining. The problems with bathhouses are obvious -- they're geared towards quick, anonymous trysts between people too shy, too impatient or too creepy to chat someone up in a bar, and that sheer pace makes them breeding grounds for disease. But so is the Internet. And before bathhouses, it was public parks and toilets. None of it's right, you can argue, but it's happening (for reasons I'm saving for my Big Finale coming up). Bathhouses, at least, are controlled environments with attentive staff and bowls of condoms everywhere. The debate has been going on for two decades now and there's been no 'smoking gun' either way. Personally, I think the cons outweigh the pros but, in the end, bathhouses are simply venues -- what goes on within them is as friendly or as horrible as their patons' motives. Play or prey.

That's what leads from our bathhouse conversation into the bigger picture. After telling the good and the bad, there's still the ugly: I caught a relatively minor but wildly-unpleasant sexually-transmitted disease from a guy I went home with one night. No bathhouse was needed; this was a clean, comfortable condo that was home to a tall, blond, fun-loving guy I felt comfortable with. Until things got frisky and his games proved less open to negotiation than most. I put a halt to things but only long after the encounter had gone south. Finding out I'd contracted a disease from it was the cherry on the cake.

Now I can easily imagine some uncharitable type out there saying, "Well you see? Sex with a stranger? A homo? You were asking for it!" I can imagine it because he's in my head somewhere, actually. This is where I must be clear on this -- I didn't blame anyone during this. Not Republicans, not the Christian Churches, not gay advertising egging me on, not even the guy himself, really. It was my choice. I decided to go, I decided what I was comfortable with, I decided when to leave. No one controls me.

RETURN TO OZ

But there is one nagging thought in all that -- why did I let it go on so long? Why did I (why DO I) have so much trouble standing up for myself? Why is there always that inner voice that asks me, "Who cares what YOU want? A good person wouldn't be so selfish. Who do you think you are, anyway?"

Where does that voice come from? My parents? My teachers? Eight years of Catholic grade school? I feel we're getting warmer. My scientific curiosity about the world always quashed by people who insisted that the Bible must never be doubted, that the ones holding the Bible must never be doubted. The only person I could doubt was myself. And I did. And I do. Unlike them. They've got all the answers right there in that book.

But they've never been able to answer my questions and certainly not the ones in regards to sexuality. That's the crux of the problem here. Telling a gay teen to shut up and not be gay is not an answer. Telling him he's an abomination is not an answer. Telling him he's going to hell is not an answer. If that's all the Bible has to offer, then how can anyone be surprised when people reject it and seek answers elsewhere?

I got out when I was thirteen. Faced with the prospect of going to a Catholic high school, I snapped and told my parents I had to go to a public one. My first brave act of self-protection. One of my classmates called me a traitor. He meant it.

THE OTHER SIDE

Looking back on my religious upbringing, I don't think my childhood was a bad one -- I was a bit banged-up but not damaged. Nothing severe. Beaten by nuns but not molested by priests. As Bill Maher once joked, frankly I'm a little insulted. I can joke about it, inspect the dents in my psyche like it was a car fender, but I fear how much worse it's been for others, the ones who stayed.

To stick around, trying to reconcile two utterly conflicting worldviews, leads to a particular kind of soul-death. And I could never dream up a more apt, more grotesque example than this sad bastard Mark Foley, a man who devoted his career to crafting legislation for harsher penalties against paedophiles, while secretly trying to lure his teenage congressional pages into having sex with him. The news media is horrified at this bizarre double-life, this shocking self-destruction. Idiots. I remember what I was like at eighteen, screaming in my closet, and imagine what I'd be like if I stayed like that for the next twenty-five years. I'd be Mark Foley.

I imagine him spending his days working alongside Republican family-values conservatives like Marilyn Musgrave who -- in a time of war, torture, terror and lies -- says that gay marriage "is the most important issue that we face today." Foley wants to be one of these people, he always has been, but he goes home to an empty house, drinks a few glasses of alcohol and thinks of that beautiful 16-year-old page who smiled at him yesterday. I'd feel really sorry for him except that he's a grown man who chose to hide from these people and, well, those e-mails really are gross.

The real scandal, of course, is that Foley's right-wing buddies knew how pathetic and creepy he was but, as long as he stayed quiet about it, he was still useful to them ($100,000 useful!). They just ignored the chatter:

Mark Beck-Heyman told The Washington Post warnings were circulated to steer clear of Foley, R-Fla., after he began inviting pages to his office for ice cream in notes and e-mail.
...
"Mark Foley knew that he could get away with this type of behavior with male pages because he was a congressman," said Beck-Heyman. "But many people on Capitol Hill," including many Republican staff members, "have known for over 11 years about what was going on and chose to do nothing."

Well of course not, Mark -- Republicans couldn't possibly have devoted any attention to a possible sex scandal involving one of their own trying to molest teenage boys because they were all too busy with a certain sex scandal involving Bill Clinton and an adult intern. Maybe you heard something about it. While Al-Qaeda was growing like a malignant tumour in the Middle East, America's guardians were holding month-long hearings about the President's penis and quietly hushing any talk from the congressional pages about that creepy old guy from Florida being "overly-friendly." One can't let the safety of teenagers take precedence over a big juicy impeachment.

MIGHT TELL YOU TONIGHT

My point (yep, here we are!) is that all of this nastiness might have been avoided if Foley had been allowed to come out as gay a long, long time ago. He would have run for Congress with Florida's support and found himself a solid conservative 40-year-old banker (okay let's face it, a 30-year-old banker) and settled down, leaving the teenagers alone. They could be as friendly to him as their ambition allowed and he wouldn't care. He's a married man, after all. The opposite of this is what we see far, far too often -- closet cases trolling parks and toilets, bathhouses and chatrooms, looking for intimacy-free ways to get what they need so badly. Such encounters are fleeting and rarely fulfilling so they have to keep going, faster and with greater desperation until something terrible happens. The closet kills.

EVERYBODY WANTS THE SAME THING

Darrell talks about 'sex as sacrament.' I believe that too -- or at least I used to. Clive Barker wrote a lovely book called Sacrament that took that theme, celebrated it, shook it around, warped it and came out the other side into beauty. Such a wonderful guy. I've been lucky enough to have had that feeling of sinking into another person on every level -- physically, mentally, spiritually -- and frowned at the big city 'sex as handshake' model. I used to try and see their side when right-wingers railed about gay sexual excess. Big warehouse orgy parties ARE over-the-top and safe-sex is not practised nearly as much as it needs to be. Road to hell and all.

The gay marriage revolution seemed to be the compromise we needed. Homophobes would have to accept our relationships, while we gays 'settled down' into comfy pair-bonds just like them. Couples would all be united in suburbia together, waving over the fence and inviting each other over for barbeques. But, like the joke goes, a liberal is someone who thinks his opinion IS the compromise. Suddenly, the conservatives were no longer complaining about gay promiscuity; they were complaining that faggots dared to equate their relationships to their own. What nerve! Suddenly, the compromise I saw was instead the end of civilized society. Was I wrong? Should I doubt myself? Nope, because I realized that this wasn't about marriage, this wasn't about society, this wasn't about rights. This was merely the same old song: shut up, go away, who do you think you are, anyway?

Conservatives don't really care about the health of gay people or the well-being of society or the state of marriage -- they just want us gone. Or at least tucked away in silence like Mark Foley. They knew for years that he was a quiet, pathetic, predatory pervert and they liked him that way.

Well, sorry kids, but I thought we settled this argument years ago -- silence=death, remember? We're here, we're queer, get used to it. This is what frustrates Darrell as much as myself -- the louder and angrier the Christian Right gets, the louder and angrier the militant gay activists become, and vice versa. The crazier the right gets, the more frustrated I get; the more I spout off, the more threatened they feel (and they feel threatened by everything). In a time of jihad, the reasonable middle ground seems shakier than ever.

But hey, I've got a little magazine now. It's silly and shallow and generally worthless but it's up against Newsweek and Fox News and billionaire Pat Robertson's 700 Club. Feels almost like a fair fight.

TAKE YOUR MAMA

My only real obstacle is that hoary old lie that 'the gays are coming for the children.' That's what all of this is about. Even the most violent homophobe could accept me if I'd just 'keep it to myself' (whatever that could mean) but they panic when they realize that the teenagers are listening. They think our tales of ribaldry are SO fascinating, SO intoxicating that entire high schools will go queer overnight. How flattering! Such a delightful notion but an utterly impossible one. Darrell can rest easy knowing that I'll never be able to lure his children into a bathhouse [attention crazy people: I am SO kidding! xo!]

You see, Mark Foley notwithstanding, we've never wanted the children -- at least not all of them. We could never turn their children gay (How? I was never turned straight) but, in the long run, we WILL take their children. We'll take the gay ones. The ones they teach to hate themselves, the ones they toss aside as worthless, the ones to whom they offer no hope. We'll take them in and give them the answers their parents never did.

Me, I'll be doing what I've always done -- listen to them, talk to them, rant at them and help them look at the bigger picture. I won't even have to work that hard -- they're coming out younger and younger now, with less and less damage. Many of them don't even like being called gay, even though they'll openly hold hands with their boyfriend in the street. Yes, I've worked hard to destroy society and replace it with this: young people happy in love. Read the paper lately? We need more of them, not less.

FILTHY GORGEOUS

I wrap up with one last anecdote, surprised at how chatty I'm being for someone who's never wanted to discuss his sex life on a blog. See? Repression! Look what it leads to...

A few years ago, I was madly, madly in love with that little blond boy who, well, just didn't feel the same. He did at first, I know that, but not after a year or so and I was too stupid or too in love (same thing?) to understand the change. I wanted to marry this boy -- sex as sacrament -- but there was one night too many lying in bed with a stranger who looked like him. No cheap one-night-stand could ever be as grim and soulless as this.

Finally facing reality, I broke up with him. I was 30 and convinced that my life was over. My love was gone, my youth was gone. Yeah, I know -- I was an idiot. But a dismally-unhappy one and I tried to make myself feel better by 'getting right back on the horse.' So I was at a dance club one night and found myself being eyed by someone really adorable. I felt hopeful again for the first time in weeks. We got to talking but, as it often happens, he had a boyfriend. I slinked away, only to soon find the boyfriend wanting to dance with me. In my lingering fog of heartbreak and disappointment, it never occurred to me that one of them would want me, let alone two, but I was invited back to their hotel room.

Now again, there's always risks. They could've turned out like a double-version of that horrible one-night-stand guy; they could've just been leading me on for kicks; they could've even robbed, beaten and left me for dead like Matthew Shepard. I only knew I had to try. We stayed up most of the night before I fell asleep tucked between them, arms and legs everywhere.

The next morning, we heard the cleaning women talking out in the hall. One of the guys sat up in a panic. "Did you put the 'do not disturb' on the door?" he blurted. "I thought you did!" said the other. He leapt out of the bed, down the hall and locked the door just as the cleaner was turning the handle. Hollering an apology through the door, he hopped back into bed and, a moment later, the three of us erupted with laughter, picturing the woman's face if she'd walked into the room. We chatted, we had breakfast and I went home.

It was a bright Sunday morning and I walked down Bay Street with a huge goofy grin on my face. I felt big. I felt brave, I felt funny, I felt sexy, I felt healed, I felt whole. Mournful thoughts of my ex-future-husband, like cobwebs in my head, were brushed away. I'd had a lovely night of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety far better then anything in the past year. This skanky little encounter in a bar had given me hope. It was fun and open and honest and it felt like a sacrament.

Labels: back in the day, evolution, fab, friends, health, homo-a-go-go, insanity, introspective, politics, religion, Trawna, writing

Because I don't yet know of any other way to stop what's coming:



Any ideas? Reason seems a bit tapped out right now...

Labels: insanity, politics, religion