The spirit of Michael is still out there guys. And he appeared on the very real news program Larry King Live. I have watched this video about 70 times. I can’t get enough.
For some reason I find the idea of the distilled essence of Michael Jackson’s energy wandering around the world in shadow form absolutley terrifying. Do you think this is real? The truth is out there there (aka welcome to my lame X-Files reference).
In this very special belated father’s day podcast, good friend Gabe Liedman and I discuss Farrah Fawcett and HPV awareness, MJ’s death, daddies, hot daddies, hot television daddies, how to get a daddy, the gay craigslist killer who went by “rican2crave,” Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” Facebook, a new safer sex campaign, and much much more.
Michael Jackson, “Wanna Be Startin’ Something’”
The Vaselines “Son of a Gun”
Michael Jackson “Human Nature”
Beat Happening “Our Secret”
Eartha Kitt “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”
Lady Gaga “Paparazzi”
Fiona Apple “Criminal”
Ghostface Killah ft Mary J. Blige “All That I Got Is You”
Have you guys seen this movie Up? I just saw it last night, and did you all know this movie is a total tearjerker? Because I had no idea. The trailer below just makes it seem like a kooky comedy where a crotchety old man and a young, awkward fat boy go on zany adventures.
(Sorry, I have to use the lame CelebTV trailer which is tacky because of the promotional bug, but for some reason the official trailer prohibits embedding)
This may be one of the most misleading pieces of marketing I have seen… ever? Let me give you the scoop on the actual movie. It is not just zany adventures and animated physical comedy. A quick taste is below, don’t worry no real spoilers.
So the real plot actually involve an old man’s quest to redeem what he feels is a wasted life. The entire thing opens with a short scene in which he meets the woman who will become the love of their life through their mutual love of adventure and both idolize a cinema adventure hero who captures exotic creatures. They fantasize about a location in South America in the jungle mentioned in a documentary featuring said hero called Paradise Falls and vow to one day move their house on top of the waterfall. The opening montage shows how life gets in the way of such dreams, as the two kids grow up, romance each other, get married, and grow old, all while holding onto the dream of one day moving to paradise falls. The old man’s wife dies before they can accomplish the dream, and this is where the actual story begins. I was already bawling at this point and was only about 5 minutes into the piece.
Basically the real meat of the plot is about the old man’s quest to accomplish his dream on behalf of his deceased wife Ellie. He has to move his house (which he refers to as Ellie throughout the movie and serves as an obvious metaphor for the baggage he carries with him due to the loss of his soul mate) with the help of an awkward and lonely chubby boyscout from a divorced family. Even the characters that would normally cheapen the plot, like an awkward colorful bird that has all sorts of slapstick body movements and a cute, loyal, but dumb golden retriever, are used in intentional and well crafted ways that never spoil the more intimate moments in the film (my main complaint with Wall-E). The entire adventure is really just a MacGuffin to explore themes of loss, aging, hope, and redemption.
Basically I was crying about every 10 minutes, tears screaming out from under my 3D glasses (which is kind of embarrassing?).
Will kids understand this? I still remember how sad I was when Bambi’s mother died. Is this movie like Bambi for a new generation? Probably not, but it was incredibly refreshing to see a cross generational children’s movie that relies on solid storytelling instead of the piece of shit Shrek model which resorts to fart jokes and pop culture references.
It’s leather pride weekend, guys. Get into it. Let your fetish flag fly!
I decided this year, I might need my own flag. Bears have their flag. Leather and S and M enthusiasts have theirs. We all have the generic rainbow flag we share. So we’re my flag? I need something about how I am proud to be a somewhat cubby looking 20 something that wears brightly colored cotton clothes and has a huge crush on the fetish community. And listens to hipster-ish dance music and thinks shutter shades are Hil-LAR-ious.
Well this is what I came up with. I feel like it really represents “who I really am.” It makes me feel free to be me.
Anyone know if any countries have upgraded to having animated GIFs as flags?
See you all at Folsom East this weekend! Be proud and loud, ya’ll!
Look, I’m not a really good thinker when it comes to ACTUAL politics. I have extremely strong opinions about what qualifies justice, freedom, equality and the like, but these all come from my background in the liberal arts and queer theory. When it comes to true politics, like the kind that our president is a part of, I really am a clueless buffoon. So when I heard that president Obama was allowing his administration to defend DOMA, I really want to believe the best. I wanted to believe that this was about taking it slow, remaining neutral on the federal level regarding gay marriage, and a whole slew of excuses to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. And now? I just don’t know how angry I am supposed to be.
Our blog friend Ben over at Pinko Mag has already covered this, and pretty much expresses my opinion on the matter (especially those opinions I dare not speak regarding 16 year olds and Robert Patinson). So I’m not going to go on a rant reblogging basically the same sources he covers. But for those interested who haven’t seen the reporting happening this week, this editorial from the New York Times lays out the situationnicely. HRC’s ever eloquent president Joe Solmonese wrote letter yesterday condemning Obama’s defense of DOMA, which has since become a voice representing an almost unilateral response from the homosexual community in opposition to Obama. Now if only HRC was as useful as Solmonese’s words are sweet — we might actually be accomplishing something!
My dilemma here is this: I drank the Obama Kool-aid. I want to believe this is all just some huge misunderstanding. I applauded all of the coverage of Obama’s fresh approach to diplomacy in the middle east. I think he’s doing great things for this country, and will continue to do more. I want to believe this is a little SNAFU and we can get through it and still come out stronger.
But really, how can I justify my support of Obama when he’s allowing a defense of DOMA that compares gay relationships and marriages with those between an uncle and a niece, two first cousings, and 16 year olds? Since when is my sex life and my adult relationships comparable the stuff that inspires certain particularly terrifying episodes of The X-Files? Not to shit on the practices of poor isolated communities in Appalachia, but I’m fairly confident to make the call that an adult gay relationship cannot reasonabley be compared to those that are questionabley statutory or incestuous. (Now if we were talking about two male 1st cousins or a 16 year old girl and a 32 year old leather mama getting married, maybe these comparisons make sense… but we’re not so those relationships are a moot point.)
What is Obama’s plan for gay rights after all the fancy talk we got back during the election? Just check out Obama’s Plan For Gay Rights.com.
My feelings are really complex here, so I’m just going to let Rihanna say it for me. The video I found has karaoke style lyrics so you can sing along, because that’s totally something you should do if you are reading this while sitting at work.
A couple of wrestlers, Paul Donahoe and Kenny Jordan, recently got in trouble at the University of Nebraska for posing on Fratmen.tv , a web site targeted at (gasp) gay men. Now they’ve been kicked off the team and are in some sort of crazy legal battle with the school over their actions.
One of my favorite parts of this “scandal” is how the assumed straightness of these athletes and the fact that the web site’s audience is primarily gay somehow adds to the moral outrage. If it was a porn site for women (they exist, right?), would the corn-fed Nebraskans be as outraged?
Whatever, the porn that they did seems pretty vanilla. I want to see a video of the whole team playing gookie cookie together. Make it happen Fratmen.tv!
Free Paul Donahoe! He was just proud of body and wanted to show it off!
So Neil Patrick Harris appeared on The Early Show, and the interview was kind of an embarrassing train wreck for everyone BUT him.
[via Videogum. PS Linday is recently becoming my favorite blogger for her pro-feminism commentary delivered without snark]
I might just be being REALLY self righteous and touch here, but I’m pretty offended. The entire tokenizing in a weird unspoken way. Like, they never say he’s gay but so much of their banter is predicated on certain gay stereotypes? For example, the way she starts telling him to rock his flamboyant Cabaret outfit for the Tony’s and in public? What? The subext: “OMG, NPH, it would be a great idea for you to be as flamboyant as possible in the way you represent yourself outside of a role because YOU ARE GAY and we want you to be our funny gay friend!!!”
Also, If he was straight no one would ever put a girl’s hairdo on him and assume he’ll identify Kate from John and Kate Plus 8 (a show I have never watched) as some sort of camp icon.They might have well said “Hey girlfriend, you wanna do Queen Helene Mint Julep Masks later and talk about men? I need tips about how I can have more comfortable anal sex? How do you guys do it!!!???!! Then we can get some Hagen Daaz and watch Extreme Home Makeover.”
The good thing to come out of this? NPH was totally articulate and attractive through the whole thing. I have a renewed crush on him for being such an elegant, non-hater.
(Full disclosure: I actually think mud masks, anal sex conversations and bad TV sounds like an awesome night and fun activity.)
Ok, so this advertisement just popped up in my FaceBook sidebar and I got all sorts of upset.
I am very attracted to the model in the photo as he is. He would be disgusting and look like he has allopecia if you laser off all his hair. Also, lasering off one’s beard is kind of fucking disgusting.
FaceBook. Please control your ads. This should not be targetted at me. I think the Hipster Grifter said it best when she got this tattoo:
It reads as “I love beards,” although some may read it as “I love Taliban” if, say, they have a more ingrained and racialized image of terrorism in their brains than I. Not sure which message Kari meant.
So in other news, I here FaceBook is the new manhunt.net. Discuss!
Check out the new music video for Grizzly Bear’s new song “Two Weeks” from their album released this week, Veckatimest. It’s pretty rad, I’m a huge fan of simple visual narratives in music videos and the song is really pretty. In internet speak, I would call this an “epic win.” I totally relate to this video, because last time I sat in a church pew my head exploded with light. In real life. Srsly.
I really want to learn how to acheive the “gothic kewpie doll” look. Should I hire this guy as my stylist?
Ok. So I know I haven’t written here in a while. And so much shit has happened. SO MUCH SHIT HAS HAPPENED!!!?!?!?!?! Just so ya’ll know, I’m gonna try and start updating again and have some more podcasts coming up for all 5 of you that actually download and listen to that shit.
Something important happened yesterday however, and as a gay, gay blog, I do need to at least pretend to cover it. California has upheld Proposition 8, Prop H8, or whatever you want to call it, in a 6-1 decision. You can download the full text of decision here if you have time to browse a over 100 pages of legal text. If I was a more intelligent person, I’d probably read the full decision and then offer some sort of nuanced point of view on how marriage equality could continue to move forward in California.
Unfortunately I don’t have that much time. But I do have enough time to read editorial features online!!!
Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them, from fashion to Facebook, movies to “American Idol,” is not only wrong, but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because… well, no one really seems to know exactly why.
You could say, then, that we are, right this minute, at the tipping point. You could say that very soon indeed — sooner than many people expect, in fact — we will all look back on this inane gay marriage hysteria and wonder, what the hell was that all about? What the hell were we thinking? And by the way, isn’t President Obama’s second term going just astonishingly well?
Basically his opinion here is that “Gay marriage is a done deal,” regardless of the opposing legislation that might litter our path there. So all we need to do is like Jennifer Connelly at the end of Labrynth and say “You have no power over me” and then the right wing’s Escher inspired fortress will collapse and we’ll be back at home with our little brother (whom we thought was kidnapped!) and it will be like this whole bad dream never happened.
I guess the problem I have here is that I am part of this eye rolling, Nokia wielding, texting and sexting generation, albeit on the older side. However, I am defintively part of those known as “digital natives” and can safely say that I am on the older end of “Generation Y,” “The Millenials” or “Generation WTF,” you know, whatever you want to call it. And you know what? We’re not as liberal as people assume, there’s still a good number of close minded conservatives among generation Obama. Just because us young liberals currently have the spotlight doesn’t mean the pendulum couldn’t swing the other way.
I have difficulty taking any comfort in the idea that gay rights are part of an unavoidable zeitgeist or Hegelian march through history that will inevitabley end in equality and understanding for all. Gay marriage is far from “the last civil right,” especially when you examine trans issues, continued racism in our country, immigration, and as Andrew Sullivan points out in a powerful blog post regarding his personal life, discrimination against HIV positive people and serodischordant couples.
These are real families, and real people, living real lives, and this is what the fight for gay marriage needs to be about — real families and real people and how our government can create structures to support them the same way we support white heterosexual families in this country. The rights associated with gay marriage are actually about a whole lot more than gays getting married; these are rights that need more than people saying gay marriage is “cool” or “kinda chill” or “who cares” in order to come to fruition. It’s about families who have a need to be recognized by the federal government with full federal rights. The current solution we are fighting for is to create a more inclusive definition of marriage (just as a reminder — civil unions would be seperate and therefore per se would breed inequality).
Now that I am off my soapbox, I will admit his major points do have a good amount of merit. I mean even pre-pubescent vloggers on YouTube are cool with homosexuality these days:
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