Seth and I had VIP tickets to see “Real Time with Bill Maher” tonight.  The show airs live at 11:00 PM on HBO.  Lately I haven’t been 100% thrilled with some of his politics, but he usually makes me laugh and his show usually sparks some good discussions. 

Because of what happened last week we were told that security would be extra tight.  This turned out to be a joke.  We drove right into the gate at CBS Television City without even giving our names or showing ID.  However, when I tried to smuggle my cell phone in to take some pictures, the trouble began.  As I went through the metal detector, I told them that I was a doctor, and that I needed my cell phone to text medical instructions to the hospital.  LOL.  They argued with me and called more security.  When they insisted that I could not bring my cell phone in, I stated that if my patients died, it would be on their conscience.    Oh, well, I tried.  So the only pics I got were these lame ones outside the studio in the dark with my mobile.

It’s amazing how a disaster can draw people to your website.  I’ve gotten hundreds of hits the last day or two, presumably because of the fires.  These are just from the last couple of days:

I got this in an email from Joelle recently, and it made me smile.  Then I read this, and my smile was replaced by a gasp.  I hope they catch this lowlife scumbag.  If you live anywhere near Riverside, CA, beware, there’s a dog killer on the loose.

VALLE VISTA, Oct. 16, 2007 (CNS) – Riverside detectives need your help, hoping a tip will lead them to the driver of a   pickup truck they say intentionally struck and killed two dogs. Along this stretch of the 44,000 block of Florida Ave. in Valle Vista, eyewitnesses tell us they couldn’t believe what they saw happen to an Alaskan malamute named Lucy and a black Labrador retriever named Buddy. It was Saturday night around 9:00 when Travis Domenigoni saw a white- or silver-colored four-door pickup truck speeding along Florida Ave. and going after the two dogs.

“He hit the dog and slammed on his brakes, turned around and came back like he was going to the store or something, then turned around and hit the other dog,” said Domenigoni. “I know he had to have seen them. The other dog was standing there in the middle of the road. He swerved in the middle lane.”

Residents who heard the screeching tires and the dogs yelping came out to try to help. “I was trying to get the dogs out of the street. They were running loose. One had a big long chain,” said eyewitness Melissa Green. “They started coming towards me and then the truck came out of nowhere and hit them, like 90 miles per hour, and he turned around and came back and ran the other dog over. It took off down the road and I was screaming. And they saw it across the street, too. One guy said he almost swerved and almost hit him.”

According to investigators and eyewitnesses, the driver went after the dogs a third time. That driver is now facing some very serious charges. “There are two levels of animal cruelty. This one classifies as a felony. So he’s looking at felony charges of animal cruelty. Plus there was a neighbor who came by to help the dogs. This man, it appears, tried to intentionally run the guy over, so we may be looking at possible assault with a deadly weapon,” said Jerry Franchville, investigator for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept.

---

I didn’t blog for 2 days last week and I got 3 separate emails asking where I was, which led me to think about “blogger’s block”.  Like its cousin “writer’s block“, blogger’s block can be debilitating.  Unlike writer’s block however, the effects and aftereffects of blogger’s block can be felt almost immediately:

• Regular readers keep checking their favorite blogs for updates, all for naught.  Eventually they give up hope, and move on to the “next big blog“. (I wonder who thought of “Random Musings” first?  I suspect it was her.  Rats!)
• Google “crawls” or trolls your blog constantly, in hopes of you gaining the coveted #1 search result (Like this one for example.  Rest assured if you ever Google the winner of England’s X-Factor in combination with bestiality, I will be #1.  Take that to the bank!  While I’m on the subject, how much do you want to bet that “Gay Thai Geckos” (try saying that three times fast) produces another #1 hit once the trolls come??).  When bloggers stop writing, Google stops trolling.  The life of a blogger ends as we know it.
• Sites that aren’t updated regularly are like last year’s Playboy.  You may still look at the pictures, but who will bother to read the articles?  (Is anybody even reading this?  Prove it!) 

If you don’t have enough “Random Musings” or you don’t have a “Storied Life”, all is not lost.  Wikipedia offers these tips:

• Scheduling time to write and working, regardless of the quality of the output^[2].
• Engaging in brief periods of “freewriting” or “mindwriting,” in which people impulsively write whatever comes to mind^[3].
• Using writers’ exercises such as “chunking“. They use many websites that contain numerous creative writing exercises. Writers read an exercise, and do it.
• Taking a break, meditating, or doing relaxation exercises to relieve any pressure on oneself and on the writing.
• Doing something out of the ordinary. If writer’s block comes from a lack of new ideas, attempts to spark creativity by going somewhere new or doing something different can be useful.
• Returning to the writing after a lapse of a day or two.
• Write a basic plot outline of the story, if having problems keeping the story on the rails.
• Brainstorming at the beginning of the writing can help the writer by relating every point to another.
• Reading, watching movies or plays, or similar activities that might bring inspiration.

So, don’t give up on you favorite bloggers!  Even those of us with “storied lives” need a break!  P.S.  If you think all of this is serious, perhaps you’re reading too many blogs!   BTW, I may not be blogging tomorrow or the next day.  Don’t leave me!  I beg of you.

---

Why is it that the following groups of people must constantly LIE about their homosexuality??

• Politicians like Larry Craig, who today defended his “wide stance” once again to Matt Lauer:

Matt Lauer: Were you aware at all, senator, of the reputation of that specific bathroom?
Larry Craig: Well, I certainly am now.
Matt Lauer: According to the airport police and according to some gay blogs, and here go those blogs again that I know you love so much, this particular bathroom in Northstar Crossing is described as a hot spot for anonymous sexual encounters between gay men. And you had no idea of that?
Larry Craig: No, I did not know that. I had no reason to know that.
Matt Lauer: Has anything strange ever happened to you in that bathroom that you can remember over the years? Has anyone ever gestured to you, solicited you in any way that you would describe, come onto you in that bathroom?
Larry Craig: Well, it–
Suzanne Craig: I asked him that question, too.
Matt Lauer: What was the answer?
Larry Craig: Matt, I use bathrooms for bathroom’s sake.
Matt Lauer: But so do I. But if someone– if I were in a bathroom and someone winked at me or something like that, or slipped me a– a note, I’d remember it. Had anything like that–
Larry Craig: No.
Matt Lauer: –ever happened–
Larry Craig: No.

 

• Priests like Vatican Monsignor Tommaso Stenico who was recently filmed in a TV sting in Rome telling a young man he saw nothing sinful in having gay sex, and then asking the man if he “liked him”.  He then assured the media that he was only doing “research” on homosexuality in the church.  Dude, is that the best you can come up with?  Pretending  to be gay??  I like wide stance better!  LOL (He even looks like a queen!)

Monsignor Tommaso Stenico says he was conducting research on the spread of homosexuality through the clergy. (ABC News) 

• Right wing Evangelical meth-smoking nutjobs like Ted Haggard who think they can pray the gay away.

Anybody for a threesome??

And so I pose one final question….

Why can’t gay politicians, priests and preachers be like geckos & otters??

Screw Geico commercials.  This is brilliant.  (May not be suitbable for younger kids though!)

OK, to be fair I have no idea if the cleverly animated geckos in the Thai ceiling tile commercial or the hand holding otters at the zoo are gay, but it’s a nice thought isn’t it??  As long as they’re not having sex in a public bathroom, I’m good.

It might be fitting to close with a quote from Machiavelli’s “The Prince“

“Because how one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives….it is necessary for a prince, wanting to maintain himself, to learn how to be able to be not good and to use this and not use it according to necessity.”

Update:  This post has been updated and some corrections have been made.  You can read the update here:  http://weblog.xanga.com/CareyGLY/681939491/a-fresh-coat-of-hate—faggots-niggers–the-paradox-of-the-christian-right.html

Several months ago I wrote a post called “Perceptions” about a woman I know whose father didn’t let her listen to Diana Ross & the Supremes when she was little, because he said it was “nigger music”.  As a child she did not perceive this as a racist remark.  Similarly, my older relatives who lived through World War II have very different perceptions of Germans and Japanese people than I do.  No one is born with perceptions.  They come from our upbringing and our life’s experiences, and I believe the older you get, the harder they are to change.  That’s why a large majority of younger voters vote the political party of their parents (see graph).  Since just roughly 60% of Americans live in the same state they were born, it stands to reason that voting patterns remain consistent in states throughout the years.  (Indeed the 40% who move away, typically move to more traditionally liberal and urban areas.)  So perceptions may not be as easily changed as one might think.

I read a book recently entitled “Talking Right – How Conservatives Turned Liberalism Into A Tax Raising, Latte Drinking, Sushi Eating, Volvo Driving, New York Times Reading, Body Piercing, Hollywood Loving, Left Wing Freakshow.

“It tells the story of a subtle linguistic campaign whose architects – from Spiro Agnew to Karl Rove, have altered the meaning of our everyday political vocabulary. ‘Values’ has strayed far from its dictionary meaning to become the exclusive property of the right; liberal has become a designation for people whose taste in cars, cheese, and coffee puts them “out of touch” with real Americans; the “ownership society” has become a pretext for apportioning wealth to the haves and have-mores”

After reading the book I had a better understanding of the divide, and how it happened.  I understood the whole “red state/blue state” thing much better.  What I still couldn’t put my finger on however, was how the perception of love could be so different between groups of Americans.  The divide in America between right and left is growing, and it’s evangelical Christians that are leading the way. (People like Peter Singer, the so called ”Blue State Philosopher are rarely in the media, perhaps for good reason.)  From gay marriage to racism, I could write pages about how the Christian Right’s positions (perceptions) on so many of these issues is patently “un-Christian” and hardly reflects the “Love Thy Neighbor” dictum.

 

So how, you may ask, does this relate to “Rent” and the title of this post?  Well, anyone who knows me knows that seeing the musical “Rent” in 1996 was a fairly seminal event in my life.  It became more of a philosophy for the way I live my life, and I went on to see it more than 10 times in 7 countries.  The story is an old one, 156 years old to be exact.  1851 was the year that Henri Murger published the book Scènes de la Vie de Bohème a story about his friends; so called “Bohemians” or “starving artists” living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the mid 1800′s.  His friends had the same names as the central characters in “Rent” (with American updates; Rodolpho became Roger, Marcel became Mark, etc.).  50 years after the book was published, Puccini turned it into the famous opera La Boheme, which in turn, 100 years later became the musical “Rent“.  The central themes of all three were the same.  Wikipedia presents this chart:

Character in La bohème	Character in Rent
Mimi, a seamstress with tuberculosis	Mimi Marquez, an S&M dancer with AIDS
Rodolfo, a poet	Roger Davis, a musician with HIV
Marcello, a painter	Mark Cohen, a filmmaker
Musetta, a singer	Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performance artist
Schaunard, a musician	Angel Dumott Schunard, a gay cross-dressing drummer with AIDS
Colline, a philosopher	Tom Collins, a gay computer whiz and Anarchist philosopher with AIDS
Alcindoro, a state councillor	Joanne Jefferson, a lesbian lawyer
Benoit, a landlord	Benjamin ‘Benny’ Coffin III, also a landlord

“Other examples of parallels between Larson’s and Puccini’s work include Larson’s song “Light My Candle”, which is nearly identical to the first scene between Mimi and Rodolfo in La bohème, “Musetta’s Waltz”, a melody taken directly from Puccini’s opera, and “Goodbye Love”, a long, painful piece that reflects a confrontation and parting between characters in both Puccini’s and Larson’s work.^[12] The song “Quando M’en Vo’ Soletta” from La bohème is also referenced in the first verse of “Take Me or Leave Me,” when Maureen describes the way people stare when she walks in the street. “Musetta’s Waltz” is also directly referred to in Rent.”

No matter how hard the characters try to fight it, they all come to the realization that love is the strongest force we know.  Stronger than heroin, stronger even than death.  Be it the “starving artists” in the Latin Quarter of 19th Century Paris, the American Bohemians like Jack Kerouac in the 50′s or the drug addled, AIDS victims in Jonathan Larson’s masterpiece; they all knew this “fact”, and they lived their lives accordingly.  Today, whether you’re “Emo” or geeky, in this age of Facebook and MySpace and a truly wired global technosphere; it’s good to be reminded that we all connected by the powerful force of love, and that a broken heart univerally hurts.

So, come full circle to today.  This afternoon I had a conversation with the same woman I spoke of in the first paragraph (she’s an evangelical Christian).  She told me that I would be proud of her, because she finally watched the movie, based on the musical “Rent”.  (Though my review of the movie was much less stellar than the play, and my written review resulted in a personal email from Roger Ebert, I’ll save that story for another day.)  I asked her how she liked it, and she basically thought it was “disgusting”.  At first I was taken aback by her response.  I know the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the play, but in was unfathomable to me how anyone could find these ageless, central themes anything but life affirming and beautiful.  She admittedly shed tears at the sad parts, but implied that all of the tragedy and sadness of the movie was a result of the characters (“Lesbos” was one of the words she used), not seeking the love of God.  They were seeking love in the wrong place.  Their addictions, (heroin) and diseases, (AIDS) were there own doing.  I fail to see the Christ-like thinking in this sentiment and told her so.  It’s like the Pope’s recent proclamation that only Catholics can go to heaven.  Excuse me?

She quoted Matthew 6:33 

6:33  But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

So, that’s the paradox.  The older I get, the more this kind of thinking is what roils me about organized religion.  Be it movies like “Jesus Camp” or websites like www.lovegodsway.org or www.GodHatesFags.com

I rest my case.

---

Song of the day: “Seasons of Love” from RENT

---

Update:  Since I first wrote this entry, my friend “M” who made the statements I referred to here, has responded.  I have included her reponses and my reactions below.

---

A lot of people don’t think Los Angeles has “spring”.  Quite to the contrary!  Though we never have “winter” per se and it’s pretty much gorgeous year round, spring does bring a burst of color.  I took all of these photos on the street where I live this afternoon.

I’m not good with flower names (I bet Judi knows)   But these are in my building’s front yard

Looking north to Sunset Boulevard.  That’s the front door to my condo building on the right and the Mondrian Hotel is the white building on the left on Sunset.

You can’t really tell in this photo, but the canopy over the front door has a hole in it for this tree.  The base of the tree is on the porch.  We have to redo the bricks every few years as the trees roots grow.

Looking south.  That’s Santa Monica Boulevard at the bottom of my street.

---

I’ve decided I need to start exercising more because I’ve gained a lot of weight this year, and the older I get the harder it will be to take off.  Since I hate working out, I’ve decided to try to take Roscoe for long walks a few days a week.  Roscoe is Ann & Jorge’s new Rottweiller “puppy” that they got after “Beast” died.  Incidentally the first entry I ever made in the blog was about “Beast” and what a good dog he was.  Roscoe is not even 6 months old, and he is stronger than almost any dog I’ve ever known.  Trust me, walking him is a total workout.  On our walk today we met Jason & Trey.  Trey was a Great Dane with an amazing bloodline (read, European royalty).  He was only 4 months old, and he was HUGE.  His father stood over SEVEN feet tall when he stood up.  Trey and Roscoe fell in love at first sight.  (This is West Hollywood after all!)   Seriously though, these dogs LOVED each other, and they were so cute playing together.  It’s a pity we weren’t at a dog park, but hopefully we can make a “play date” soon after Roscoe gets his Parvo titers next week.  Jason snapped this photo with his cell phone while the dogs stopped moving for one second:

Look at Trey’s paws!!! He’s only 4 months old, and his feet are bigger than mine!!!  This dog is going to be a giant.  

---

Hairspray

 

It’s not a very well kept secret here in Hollywood that John Travolta is gay.  But now that he’s playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (the role made famous by Divine and later Harvey Fierstein on Broadway), is there any doubt?  LOL

Divine Travolta

     

Sorry John…………………………………you’re no Harvey!!

Funny story:  Many years ago before I lived in LA, I was visiting a friend here, who incidentally lived a block from where I live now.  There’s a grocery store on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. & Kings Road called Gelson’s.  I walked there to buy some sushi.  As I walked back to my friend’s house, I was almost hit by a car that was coming out of the grocery store parking lot.  The car literally had to screech to a stop to avoid me.  It was a black Mercedes with tinted windows, and I gave a dirty look to the driver and walked on.  After I had walked about 5 yards, I heard an automatic window roll down and a voice so unmistakeable, I can still here it now.  He simply said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!“  I didn’t even have to turn around.  It was Harvey Fierstein (see above, with thumb up)!  If you’ve never heard Harvey Fierstein’s voice, listen to the song I’ve posted above.  About 2 minutes and 10 seconds into it, you will hear the same voice that almost killed me that day.  Enjoy!

(Note to self:  Some day you should tell the story of  how Christina Aguilera slept in your bed!  So many stories…so little sleep!)

---

I got an invitation to Vonda & Nate’s wedding today.  The invitation was completely biodegradable, and could actually be planted to grow wildflowers!  I thought that was pretty cool.

These days though, it’s not only wedding invitations that are biodegradable.  Now you can literally plant your cell phone when you’re done with it, and sunflower will grow!  I kid you not.

 

---

Farewell Melinda – You were the best of the bunch.  Now I’m rooting for Blake

---

And last but not least, Happy Birthday Youenn!!!

In the tradition of Jesus Camp, there’s actually a website called “God Hates Fags – Love God’s Way” And they’ve been kind enough to post a list of bands and musicians that God doesn’t want you to listen to because they “promote the gay agenda”  The list includes Barry Manilow, Cole Porter, Jay Z, Ravi Shankar, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Lisa Loeb, Clay Aiken, Corrine Baily Raye, Elton John (who they point out , “Is really GAY!!”), The Doors, The Killers, The Village People (OK, I’ll give them that one), and many more.  “Safe” bands include: The Right Brothers (see below), Cyndi Lauper, Evanescence, and a bunch of other Christian bands I’ve never heard of.

If you look at their website, they refer to their patrons as simply “corporate”, just like Tom Cruise (really gay?) in the movie “The Firm”.  They apparently believe also that they are being censored because MySpace and Google removed their videos, because they violated their sense of a “community standard”  Bravo, MySpace and Google.  As private companies, they have a right to do this.  It’s not censorship.

They actually have a song with a video called “God Hates Fags” with profound lyrics like “Righteous fags get on your knees, there lies no virtue in sodomy”  I swear if I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I would never believe it.  And the video is hilarious when you look at the “queen” who sings it.  This guy makes Ted Haggard seem like a nice guy!  Check it out, before YouTube removes it again:  

I should point out that according to Wikipedia some people believe this is all a parody and that the singer and webmaster, Donnie Davies, is really an actor named Joey Oglesvie.  Apparently Wikipedia has even removed the post three times according to their Deletion Policy.  Even if it is a parody, it’s a deplorable one.  If you listened to the song (and the one by “The Right Brothers” posted below, they both have a ridiculous pop “hook” which tries to in a way, hypnotize you to get the chorus to stay in your mind.

Speaking of Ted Haggard, now that he’s out of gAy A:

Thanks to Tyson for telling me about that

While I was looking for the email I sent from Africa in 1998 for the previous posting, I ran across some research for a paper I had done more than 10 years earlier in college about AIDS in Africa.  In that paper, I had gone to the library to research the first article ever published in a national news publication about AIDS.  When this article was first published in Time Magazine in 1981, AIDS didn’t even have a name.  At the time it was simply a curious affliction affection mostly gay men in New York, LA and San Francisco.  At the time, they suspected it was actually a bad batch of “poppers” that was causing the problem.  Oh, if only.  It’s chilling to read it now, more than 25 years later.

Take a loot at how Tyson did on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN tonight.  He will tell you that it was awful, because he made one little mistake, but I think he did a great job!

Here’s a photo I took of Anderson Cooper (sans boyfriend) at Book Soup last year: