My long-overdue chronicle of the day after SXSW, including Gay Bi Gay Gay, Dan Kroha, King Tuff, and seeing John Cameron Mitchell, is up on L.A. RECORD.
POST SXSW: DAN KROHA, GAY BI GAY GAY, KING TUFF, DEAD SHIPS, CRACK PIPES, UGLY BEATS, FOREVER CHANGES March 31, 2012
if Vermont can legalize gay marriage, why can’t California? April 7, 2009
Vermont legalized gay marriage today! And they were the first state to do it in the legislature. They even garnered enough votes to override any potential veto by their Rethuglican governor:
The House recorded a dramatic 100-49 vote, the minimum needed, to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto. Its vote followed a much easier override vote in the Senate, which rebuffed the Republican governor with a vote of 23-5.
On the one hand, this makes me mad at Californians, who went to the polls in droves to vote for Obama, yet turned to the next page in the election booklet and punched a hole for hate. But on the other hand… I’m even MORE mad that California received the brunt of the anti-gay agenda’s money! I’m no research journalist, but I imagine that the funds from such organizations as Focus on the Family were so drained by our losing battle in California, that they had no more funds to spend limiting gay rights in the heartland. And the anti-gay marriage crowd seems to back that up:
Craig Bensen, a gay marriage opponent who had lobbied unsuccessfully for a nonbinding referendum on the question, said he was disappointed but believed gay marriage opponents were outspent by supporters by a 20-1 margin.
“The other side had a highly funded, extremely well-oiled machine with all the political leadership except the governor pushing to make this happen,” he said.
Just days ago, Iowa legalized gay marriage, and now Vermont’s historic win proves that gay marriage is growing in popularity as Gen X and Gen Y rise up in the spirit of “eh, why not?” We love our gay friends and don’t see what the big fuss from the religious right is all about. Actually we DO see it, and we’re beginning to call it out for the stupidity it is.
Milk and Sylvester and Neil Young! December 8, 2008
I just saw Gus Van Sant’s Milk last night. Of course it was great and moving and sad and informative. And of course Sean Penn wowed us with his performance, even though we already knew it was going to be good.
But amidst all the drama and sadness and history, I got a little nugget of sweetness when they had a scene recreating a Harvey Milk birthday party, including Sylvester singing him ”You Make Me Feel!” God, I love that song, and I thought the drag performer Flava (er, real name is apparently Mark Martinez) carried the outlandish role of Sylvester pretty well.
One purchase I really want to get in the near future is Sylvester’s first album, Sylvester and the Hot Band. After his stint with the Cockettes, he initially moved in kind of a funk-rock direction, including a cover of Neil Young’s “Southern Man” that I still have not heard, though the reviews are incredible! Here’s one of the few tastes of this album I’ve gotten, and it’s a goodie:
where the fuck were you when we needed you? November 17, 2008
This comment on a recent photo essay in LAist about the No on 8 protest sums up exactly what’s going on in my mind.
What Ross hinted at is that yes, goddam it, where was this mass energy when we needed it? We’ve been living in a conservative, er, cesspool for years, yet for some reason, most people I know felt no compulsion to come down and help man the phones to prevent this from getting on the ballot, which is where we should have stopped it cold, or to rally opposition to it once it got there. Politics only works for the side of good if we’re proactive, not reactive. It’s so much easier to fight against a bad law if it never gets passed.
I would go one step further and say, seriously, shame on you if you are able-bodied and capable and didn’t at least try to help with this cause. That goes double for all my homo friends who didn’t bother to help out. Though I understand that many of y’all may not want to get married, at this juncture or in the foreseeable future, all your rights as equal citizens with equal protections are in grave danger now that Proposition 8 has passed. And not only yours, but the rights of gays in other states–not just to marry, but, say, to teach kids, or coach little league, or leave a living will with their partner–are all going to be affected by this. This was a litmus test for the rest of the country, as the Mormon church well knew, and as this bill goes, so too goes the public perception about the law’s role in curtailing queer equality. Or any equality.
So, if you didn’t help out, you fucked up! I’m not saying that the protests are not important, because better late than never, I guess. But next time, open your damned eyes and try to swat away the flies of injustice before they lay their eggs in your face.
Update: There’s a silver lining here. Apparently the hateful supporters of this bill were just as dumb about donating money as we were dumb about not donating time.
Prop. 8 supporters compare gays to Nazis October 30, 2008
Literally. These pro-Prop 8 supporters say that if we allow same-sex marriages to stay legal, we’re just as bad as Germans who allowed Hitler to stay in power.
What is it with conservatives and shitty analogies and bogus metaphors? Obama is somehow a Marxist, and now gays are Nazis. Sure, the Nazis had a good design ethic and liked to see a man in uniform, but the similarities stop there! Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, not the Su-gay-tenland!
Anyway, I hope everybody and their mom has seen through the lies that the Yes on 8 bigots have started adding to their commercials. This proposition’s success or failure has NO bearing on what tax-exempt churches will or will not be able to do (gay marriage is ALREADY legal, and your fundie church isn’t doing gay marriages, now is it?). And it has NO bearing on what kids are taught about gays. Currently there are school districts where the subject is broached (and has been for years) and school districts where it is verboten, and state law really has no bearing on what kids are taught.
So go to the polls! Even if you know Obama will win, go to the polls and vote NO on proposition 8! If you love gays, if you love freedom, if you love marriage, if you love stability, and if you love being Californian, go and vote NO on 8! And give generously to the No on 8 fund, which is being brutally outspent by religious bigots across the country who are donating millions to stop us from enjoying the out-of-the-closet acceptance of gay marriage that they have successfully squashed in their own states.
Connecticut legalizes same-sex marriage October 16, 2008
I have to admit, in all the hoopla about the debates and fires and stuff this week in California, I neglected to check out what was happening on the East Coast.
Good for them! It does feel like the walls against gay rights are crumbling state by state. The states-rights approach to gay marriage may not in the long run be the best move for gays in other states, but hell, what couple wants to wait another forty or fifty years for the rest of the culture to come around?
Even in Connecticut, it was a narrow State Supreme Court decision, 4-3. Of course, the dissenters pulled out that old ridiculous chestnut about baby-making:
The court was sharply divided in the decision, with three justices issuing separate dissenting opinions.
Justice Peter T. Zarella wrote that he believes there is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage, and the court’s majority failed to discuss the purpose of marriage laws, which he said is to “privilege and regulate procreative conduct.”
I can’t wait until Justice Zarella tells his menopausal aunt, or his cousin with the vasectomy, or his neighbor with partial paralysis that they fail to meet the criteria for getting married because they can’t procreate! What a bigoted asshole.
Prop 8 needs your help! October 11, 2008
The evildoing pinhead cromags who sponsored Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment that’ll be on the California ballots in less than a month, are winning ever so slightly in the polls. And this only happened after they put out an ad that implies that churches will be forced to perform same-sex marriages if the proposition doesn’t pass–which is ridiculous.
Right now gay marriage is ALREADY legal in California, and if the proposition fails, as all right-minded people who love equality and love marriage know, nothing will be different than how things already are. As we speak, in California, same-sex marriages are totally legal, but no one is coerced into performing them against their will. And really, what gay couple wants to be married by people who hate them and want to preach hellfire to them for where they wag their lawfully wedded wieners? It’s kind of a ridiculous argument for bigotry, but these lies are winning the swing voters.
However… there is a new ad created to fight these lies. And this thing can have teeth if we all rally behind it.
I was just in a meeting for my own company, and we learned that despite the downturn in the economy, television media continues to drive revenues to most businesses solidly and predictably. Politicians know this, which is why getting campaign financing is always so important, because that’s what pays for those expensive ads. If we can get this anti-Prop 8 commercial running all the time, we really can turn the tide back to sanity.
Here’s where to go to donate. I just gave $50. Give what you can if you love love.
RuPaul stole my idea! October 7, 2008
Every good idea deserves the disappointing crush of learning you weren’t the first to think it. And I got that sudden jolt tonight after watching an old Project Runway with RuPaul on it and doing a little research into his/her film career. I’d always thought my drag queen name would be “Rachael Tension.” But it looks like fucking RuPaul already used that name, notably in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Or at least, she kinda did, as “Rachel Tensions.”
Oh well. I guess I’ll have to go as “Ineda Fixx” or something like that.
P.S. Fuck!
P.P.S. This post has no relation to this gal from Montana.
Queen – “The Wedding March” August 18, 2008
My brother just got married to a wonderful woman, and I was able to see him off into the next phase of his life in style by helping out the DJ’s with a little music during the wedding reception. Here was my grandest contribution: Queen’s “The Wedding March” from the Flash Gordon soundtrack:
This was the perfect tune for cutting the cake–it was a traditional wedding song (known as “Here Comes the Bride,” though actually it’s taken from a ditty by Wagner called the “Bridal Chorus“), it totally rocked out, and it was a good segueway from the DJ booth to transition things back to a dance party after the cake was cut. I highly recommend getting this song on your iPod if you’re gonna be DJ’ing a wedding soon.
Too bad Freddie Mercury died before gay marriage was legalized in California, or he could have come out to L.A. and gotten married here to his own song! Though then again, I’m not sure if he was the marrying type.
James St. James attends some weddings June 26, 2008
I have a terrible sore throat today, so painful that I can’t even eat my lentil soup!
But this video of James St. James on The Daily Freakshow attending the newly-legal gay weddings in West Hollywood Park is both funny and kind of heartwarming. Watching this at least temporarily allowed me to forget the physical and psychological Hell my body has entered into, ravaged from the inside and out by pain, decay, and fretting over the gig I’m going to have to bail on tonight.
WordPress still seems to have issues with embedded media from WOW TV, so just click here to see the video. Congrats to Michael Lucid (of Pretty Things) for doing such a great daily webshow!
The most interesting thing in the video for me is when St. James meets WeHo Mayor Jeffrey Prang and finds out that he’s not getting married to his Domestic Partner, at least not in the immediate future. Who ever heard of a successful politician not being married? Maybe he’s worried about what that’ll do if the evil anti-gay amendment passes in November. But duh! What better image could we use to fight against anti-gay prejudice than an already-married Mayor whose marriage would be annulled by the amendment?
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