Just Because You're Pissed Off About Your Divorce...

...don't take it out on the rest of us, a great many who can't even marry.

If there's anything more indicative of the selfish individualism that has taken grasp of the US in the first decade of the 21st Century, I think this is it.

By the way, I think the local news stations went a little too far in their 3 hour plus nonstop coverage. After it was known that this wasn't a terrorist attack and that a bomb wasn't involved, there was no need to go on and on about it.

Then again, this did happen on the Upper East $ide, and by now, we all know that whenever the wealthy are threatened then it's a catastrophe and the sign of end times.

In Memoriam: Frank Zeidler

How much times have changed, when politicians are now subject to the same rules as movie stars.

The Day of Interdependence

What is the state of our 230 year old Union on this July 4th?

Still strong?

Still defiant?

Still together?

I think it's at one of its most precarious states, personally.

As is a common theme on the piece of the internet, I truly think that there is so very little that links us together beyond just mere geographic location.

Blue states vs. Red States, Liberals vs. Conservatives vs. Libertarians, and so on and so forth.

It's funny (in a tragicomic way) that in this day and age when you practically have the same stores and utilities in whatever part of the country you're in, that our bonds are increasingly nonexistent.

I wonder what links me to another 27 year old male in, say, Tennessee. We are both citizens of the same country, pay roughly the same taxes, and have the same protections on the federal level.

But do we share the same cultural values?

I don't know. I feel more and more divorced from other Americans, and the sense I've gotten from my friends and comrades is that this isolation is shared.

I'd like to say that our current administration with its mantra of "you're with us or against us" is to blame, but I think it's just a symptom of this new isolation.

Where the crux of it lies is that we have forgotten (and have been forgetting since at least the 1960's, if not earlier) that this is a nation unified by shared ideals and culture. Ideals and culture that are forever evolving, but remaining steadfast to the core belief that all people are created equal and deserving of equal treatment.

So why is it that right now everything must be broken down to black or white terms? Why are we dehumanising each other now when most likely we need each other the most? Why do we refuse point blank to listen?

Because it gets in the way of downloading the latest hits on our iPod-friendly cellphone.

Day of Independence

(Tomorrow is more of a sign of our interdependence rather than independence.)

Last night, the Ex came to visit. Drenched, and with a grin on his face, he gave me a broken clock. It was extremely appropriate in the metaphorical sense.

We were together for a little over 3 years and during that time as is the case in many relationships, there were good and bad times and in our case, a great deal of miscommunication.

I was the one that pulled the plug and as I said at the time, and still hold true to this very day, it would be my mistake if it was the wrong decision.

I do not regret it one bit.

Y'see, in this media-saturated world that we live in, we are told that we are nothing on a daily basis:

• You are nothing if you don't have a significant other.
• You are nothing if you don't look a certain way.
• You are nothing if you don't speak a certain way.
• You are nothing if you don't act a certain way.
• You are nothing if you don't like certain things.

These edicts constrict and contract us to people, situations, and actions that run contrary to who we are. Why? Because they are the beliefs of insecure people who feel the need to claim so-called "power" over others.

And more often than not, we give that power to them, because we're afraid that the person next to us will inflict mob revenge on us if we don't.

Actually breaking up with the Ex was not half as terrifying as the lead up to it. (And yes, I'm cognizant that this is rather trivial compared to being a refugee from Herr Mugabe or Lukashenko.) The lead up was an analytical orgy the likes I had never experienced before. Yet, somehow, I found the shred of determination within to actually go ahead and do it.

And the strangest thing happened afterwards.

I started to feel good about myself, my own Portrait of Dorian Grey disappeared, and was replaced by just myself--unadulterated.

This may not read as radical to most, but for me, this was a 180 degree turn. It's also one that I know I will do my damndest not to reverse.

As The Blade Slides Further Into Irrelevance and Intolerance

This week's Blade features an article (read: puff piece) on Coors trying to mend its reputation with the gay community.

Now since reading The Blade is becoming more and more akin to reading Drudge or Fox News, I can't say that I'm totally surprised to see this indirect love letter to one of the biggest supporters of the Republicans, but one particular passage [in the interview with the Lesbian CEO of the ad agency working with Coors on this endeavour] stands out:

Blade: I certainly don’t mind looking at the guys in the ads. I noticed a predominance of Latino-looking guys. Is that intentional?

Meifert: We found through a lot of very informal polling that Coors Light is the No. 1 beer in a gay space and is huge with the Latino community. We also found out that white guys are really attracted to Latino men, and Latino men are attracted to Latino men. So we decided to go with a Latino flair.

So apparently black, asian, and multiracial men don't matter one iota?

Absolutely charming philosophy to live by.

Because in my mind it's only Tuesday

So it's basically been like The Lost Weekend for me since the end of Pride, except that I've not had that much alcohol. All I know is that I was awake for nearly 72 hours, before the body finally beat out the mind and allowed me to sleep and eat.

I don't know how this happened, but I won't ask for a reason why. Since when I was starting to wonder why I was still awake, Jesus Christ Superstar played on television and scared me silent. (Seriously, "Could We Start Again" is very chilling when you've gone without sleep. Let's not even talk about "Superstar.")

And I've been playing catch-up since then.

What a world to wake up to:

• Four former Wisconsin Governors agree: The Anti-Gay Amendment is basically enshiring bigotry.
• Barbara Walters vs. Star Jones Reynolds, and frankly I'm with Barbara.
• I don't remember all this rain falling!?
• And Mitt Romney is an idiot (part 909).

The View Post-Mortem: Time Does Go By So Slowly

Admittingly, I do not know how to make an entrance, nor do I possess the ability to know when the right time is to even go to a place.

If I did, then I would've had more than just a Corona tonight.

I also would've been able to have avoided or even let slide a large group of twinks singing along to Madonna videos RIGHT IN MY EAR.

Don't get me wrong, I love Madonna, especially from Erotica onwards, and if I had the income, I would've attended her concert at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night, but, jiminy cricket, a person can only take so much.

Now, if they were singing along to Swing Out Sister, then this would totally be my sort of crowd.

After wading through a sea of tight low-cut shirts and sucked-in stomachs, waiting 5 minutes for a beer, and realising that the seat next to the twink posse was the only locale possible. I at least knew that this was my time to leave. (Hey, I had a good Friday night out and another waiting on Sunday, you can't win 'em all.)

In other news, the Hikaruland Pride 2006 Theme Song Committee has chosen Ivana Banfic's "Daj Povedi Me" has for this year's theme song--even though it's from 1991. Just watch the performance and you'll see why.

WORK IT!!!

Why Canadian Politics Are More Fun Than Ours

Let's be honest here, what is the nature of your thoughts when you say 'fuddle duddle'?

Pride Week 2006: A Deeper Love

Once again, it is the time of the year when a significant portion of the LGBT community and our allies come out in force to show that we are defiantly happy of who we are, what we have achieved, and what still lies ahead.

Yet, this is also time when many people come out to say "I'm not like those people."

Despite being subjected to the same legal restrictions, societal prejudice, and the same hatred, still there remain groups who are very quick to point out that they are not like "them."

Who is the mythological "they" which threatens others' sense of security so much that they are quick to disavow any connection?

To some, "they" are effeminate men.

Many times we overhear some gay men saying (with all the venom of a rattlesnake) "if I wanted a woman, then I'd be straight" when an effeminate guy walks past.

But you're not looking at a woman, you're looking a man. A man whose mere existence threatens your insecurity in your own masculinity that you immediately seek to denigrate him for expressing himself in the way that he feels accustomed to. I would hazard a guess that the insecurity these men express has more to do with their own suppressed desires to be themselves.

This self-loathing is quite apparent in the "current" wave of porn that is sold based on the fact that the participants are ostensibly straight men having sex with each other.* While statistically, there must be some heterosexuals who participate in having gay sex on film for money, I would hasten to point out that the money is not that much of an incentive for one to go against one's true orientation. It provides a convenient excuse for those not willing to deal with their true selves, but the pay is negligible at best, and in order to reach the higher echelon (in respect to porn wages), one must truly enjoy homosexual sex.

* Fortunately, there are a great many men who realise that this is a marketing technique with no basis in reality.

There also those who believe that "they" are leather men or others whose sexual practices run contrary to their own.

To be blunt, you just need to give that up. There are politicians and others out there who are so terrified--yes, terrified, because their actions suggest that they feel threatened--of our existence that even hand-holding in public is tantamount to calling for our extermination.

To others, "they" are those who aren't a certain definition of what is physically attractive.

What all this talk of "they" boils down to is insecurity. Let's be honest here, we are beat down every day. All of us: gay and straight, male and female, all races, all people, all nationalities. No one likes it, but it's true. It takes a great deal of energy to wake up in the morning and say that we are ready to greet the world at large. I do mean "greet" instead of "face." "Face" suggests that we are preparing to go into combat with others and that we're already in an adversarial mindset. How rare is it for us to actually "greet the world?" Instead of propping ourselves up with how we are different from others and how others have ruined the world, why not just think "I am" and "you are." Just those two phrases without any qualifiers or descriptions after them.

It is extremely surprising that this is a radical concept and something that we are still dealing with, lo these many years after Stonewall, but honestly, why can't we just take this venom that we set upon each other and use it for change that benefits all of us, instead of ourselves and our clones?

Then maybe, we'd actually find out what it means to be happy and loved.

Thursday Jukebox Likes The Occasional Ballad

...especially when they talk about loss.

Whether delivered by a Swedish operatic tenor



Or by a waitress and a bunch of women in lingerie.

Is This A Good Thing?

The new CBC lineup for Fall 2006. It's heavy on the reality (or "factual entertainment" as the department is styled).

My need to immigrate grows.

The Stonewall-View Post-Mortem: Seeing the world through new eyes

3 Tonic Waters, 1 beer, and 5 Twisted Teas.

My body must be changing, because I would think that amount wouldn't do me in, but for some reason it has.

The Stonewall seems to not be in that much of a music video mode--at least when I'm there--because the past 2 times I've been there, I've seen movies playing with music in the background. Granted this week, the bartender (who is younger than me) was playing a lot of rap as well as Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" in a loop, so my ears were soothed. (I'm referring to "Crazy," not the rap.)

Ultimately, I wound up talking with a guy who seemed to be addicted to editing others' work. I don't quite get the appeal, but he was all for it. More power to him.

The View however was in full-tilt music video mode, hence the overload on Twisted Teas.

One video played there was a remix the current LL Cool J song "Control Myself." Now, I have to wonder about Mr. Smith. He's pushing 40, isn't he? I don't know what his secret is, but I just have to wonder if he isn't dipping in the well of HGH. And considering that I've only heard the remix version of it, I also have to wonder if Jennifer Lopez's parts are all altered by the vocoder as well.

Also at The View, I wound up talking with the new bartender, who looked at the same time very familiar and yet new. It's rare for me to experience deja-vu, but I certainly did.

I guess I should get to the point of this entry's subtitle.

Well, let's just say that the right type of guy can change one's perspective, particularly if one is practically a Mt. Everest in the romance arena, like me.

I'm loaded, so vague riddles when it comes to the personal are easier to write.

The 2006 Goddamn Tonys Post-Mortem

In short, that was 3 hours of my life that CBS and the League need to return to me.

I should've known this wasn't going to be good when Harry Connick Jr. began the opening number by sounding drunk as a skunk and with a frog in his throat. I was probably blinded because I kept thinking "Hallelujah! No Jackman!"

Then The History Boys started winning.

And winning.

And winning.

You know, even though I was all for Democracy last year, this show well and truly bores me to tears. It's boring, boring, boring. Plus, I'm sorry, all the actors in New York and they couldn't get an American cast to premiere it? It's not like this was full of undiscovered breakout talent.

All my gnashing of teeth about History Boys aside, I have to say that it was the best out of a piss-poor selection this year. Perhaps we can call it the death of the original American play on Broadway, because honestly, the best we could find were 3 foreign plays and 1 so-so American. (And could we kill this Irish play obsession, please?)

Tragic and further proof that Broadway is slipping further into irrelevance.

Now let's get to the other "Boys:" Jersey Boys.

My god, that was one overhyped piece of tourist refuse.

For the past week or so, we have seen John Lloyd Young contort his face in extreme pain (read: constipation) as he "channels" Frankie Valli. That show has been featured on almost every single live daytime television show to the point that I could predict when the switches between the numbers came (since they always did the same damn 3 songs). And were they boring. Well-performed, but boring. (Oddly enough, something that applies to the selection chosen for performance from The Threepenny Opera.)

And those acceptance speeches!

I slightly bought Hoff (even though I wanted to slap him and say "buck up! we're not your therapist"), but Young's was given in such a way that it seemed like he wanted to upstage his castmate.

The award is for Best Actor not Best Mimicry, and I think Hoff and Young realised they weren't in the right categories, so they retrofitted themseleves into it during their acceptance speeches.

That's only reason I could figure out for the crying mess they became. Even the sodding producers seemed to be on the verge of tears!

You'd think they had come up with the 21st Century version of The Cradle Will Rock!

I hold out minor hope that I'll care next year, but the trend is definitely leaning against it.

And we take two steps back...

You know, right now in New York, there is a pending hate crimes trial that hinges on the fact that "nigga" isn't an offensive term, in fact that it is a sign of fraternity.

And now the BBC Board of Governors has ruled that "gay" as a negative is not an insult...depending on who says it.

Now, I'll give Auntie some minor credit for at least admitting that it could cause offense, but by the same token aren't they condoning usage of it as a pejorative by dismissing the complaint? I don't believe myself to be a tinhat, but it really is a slippery slope back towards socially sanctioned (if not legal) discrimination by allowing things like this to fly. The attitude the Beeb takes suggests that just because it is collaquially used in some manner by someone who does not (at least publicly) intend it to be homophobic.

Well, I say it still is homophobic.

See this is the thing. People get all up in arms about not wanting to be politically correct, when really all they want is an excuse to say bigoted thoughts without wanting to actually think about what they say. No adult of sound mind and any sort of inkling of etymologies would choose the word with baggage if they didn't mean it. (Seriously Chris, "naff," look it up in a dictionary.)

Weren't we all thought in elementary school to think before we speak? I reckon that respect for others--especially when one is in the media--is the cornerstone of most modern societies: you don't have to like me privately, but you can at least treat me as your equal.

The governors may have lightly defended their decision by saying that "gay" also means "carefree," but let's be honest here: that was not what Moyles meant and both he and the public-at-large knew it.

Because It's Unofficially Summer Now

A photo taken by the comrade, because I am notoriously evil to tourists in every city that I lived in. I think that The Bronx and Staten Island CVBs ought to thank me because I have sent many visitors to Morrisiana and Grant City in search of the Empire State Building and Carnegie Hall.

Since I figure that people in other cities are as devious as I am, I get a map and stick to it when I'm travelling.

I offer up this quote from a concierge that I met recently:

"I spend hours at my job giving directions, and you're not paying me."

If you can't figure out where West 34th street is and you're on West 33rd in a borough 80% laid out like a grid, then you deserve to be led astray.

Thursday Jukebox Says June Is Strutting Out All Over Too

A compliation of Seve, La Ryan, and Sibel's live performances from Athens.

Scoreboard aside, which diva outdid the rest? You decide.

Thursday Jukebox Says June Is Busting Out All Over

In 1993, Eva told men not to mess with her...



...but in 2003, Mando showed us why no one messed with her, without saying a word on the subject.

Whatever, Bloomie

America's most famous publicly closeted mayor is now saying he's for gay marriage...once it's deemed legal by New York State.

Listen, mister, if you don't have the guts and determination to go ahead and just do what is right at this very moment in time, then don't act all "man of the people" with this "strong legal footing" nonsense.

Issue the licenses and fight for it in Albany at the same time. (Ever hear of something called a two-pronged approach, idiot?)

Not to mention, you could've been saying this from January 1st, but you wait until Pride Month?

This man truly boggles my mind. Just what does he want politically? A congressional seat would be a step down, there's no way he'd be governor, and only in bizarro world could he even have more than a .2% at being president.

I'll be happy when this fool's term is over.

Holiday Jukebox Goes Danish

(Courtesy of Eurovision Denmark)

If I could get away to anywhere, I'd like to escape to Copenhagen. A Miyazaki-style Copenhagen with all the current laws from now, but where if you flip on the television, you'd see funky pleas for racial tolerance:



Singing office workers in leather trousers:




And hold hands together in chaste dancing while a woman belts the hell out of a pop song at the end of the night:

Farewell, QTN: We Hardly Knew Ye

Well, it's now official: QTN is dead.

Already, Time Warner has replaced them with a scheduled version of here!--the on-demand version has been offered for quite sometime, but the plucky little network seemed to soldier onto the end.

What really slew Auntie Q? It's hard to say (for those in New York, there is an interview with Jack E. Jett on the whole debacle in the-soon-to-be-last-week's edition of Next).

On one hand, it was defiantly different, or at least tried to be. I liked that about it. It was rough around the edges and in contrast to Logo, QTN took advantage of its subscriber status by airing films unedited (they even aired My Sexual Harassment) and featuring swearing during their casual and informative daily news breaks. It was more of my kind of network in contrast to the sleek and somewhat chaste LOGO and personality-free here!. (Don't get me wrong, I love both of them as well, it's just sometimes you want no pretension and a lot of character in your network.) When you watched QTN you were undeniably getting in-your-face raw personality (yes, even from Reichen), which is what I think breaks down barriers and is really sort of entertainment niche that is overlooked.

On the other hand, QTN tried way too hard to do much when it should've focused on building an audience. The Gay Games idea was admirable, but somebody should've been at the helm saying "this is not the time." If you have to lay off a great amount of staff, most of whom who are doing this out of wanting to see the network succeed, well you're just cutting off your nose to spite your face. Akin to Icarus, QTN wanted to establish itself so strongly and so formidable, that they lost the fact that they had the ingredients to do so from the get go.

Quite simply, the bosses were greedy and too willing to take advantage of the workers who were in it because they believed in it.

Another network will come along. The market does call for subscription service beyond what here! offers. Hopefully they'll get it right the next time around.

1. Don't try so hard in your Freshmen Year, or even your Senior Year: Fox was a joke until The Simpsons; HBO didn't hit its stride until Dream On (and even that's debatable); Showtime wasn't even making that much of an impact until Queer As Folk; and Comedy Central--itself the product of market consolidation--was no-man's land until The Daily Show.
2. Create a cult of personalities: Hiring Steve Kmetko was a brilliant stroke of genius. This is one area where QTN did get it right. They had personalities who were not santised in the slightest.
3. News, news, news: Even without The Closet airing, I watched QTN's news religiously. Their approach was more informative than LOGO's very cut-and-dry attitude created out of the CBS culture.
4. The Fish Rots From The Head: Don't go selling yourself on the market in your first year, and don't have executives who have no idea how to do anything but fail and kowtow.
5. Ditch the PSAs: It's subscription-based network. This means I don't want to see any breaks at all during a show, and only trailers for upcoming programmes in between.
6. Give Me A Show: I mean, you gave Reichen one. Sodding Reichen!