Elusive...

From Dump.com

Charming...

Is it wrong that I find this guy attractive?? ;)

This video comes to you courtesy of The Gay Atheist at http://www.thegayatheist.com/2009/08/more-video-of-pastor-anderson.html

Politics Quiz Result

New HIV Strain Discovered

From the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday's edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The finding "highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa," said the researchers, led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen, France.

The three previously known HIV strains are related to the simian virus that occurs in chimpanzees.

The most likely explanation for the new find is gorilla-to-human transmission, Plantier's team said. But they added they cannot rule out the possibility that the new strain started in chimpanzees and moved into gorillas and then humans, or moved directly from chimpanzees to both gorillas and humans.

The 62-year-old patient tested positive for HIV in 2004, shortly after moving to Paris from Cameroon, according to the researchers. She had lived near Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, but said she had no contact with apes or bush meat, a name often given to meat from wild animals in tropical countries.

The woman currently shows no signs of AIDS and remains untreated, though she still carries the virus, the researchers said.

How widespread this strain is remains to be determined. Researchers said it could be circulating unnoticed in Cameroon or elsewhere. The virus' rapid replication indicates that it is adapted to human cells, the researchers reported.


I found this post at http://www.thegayatheist.com/2009/08/new-hiv-strain-discovered.html

God's Plan doesn't extend to Health Care

Norm: Does God answer your prayers?

Chris: Yes, of course. I have a strong personal relationship with God. I pray to him many times each day. Jesus hears my prayers and, through his grace and the grace of the Holy Spirit, my prayers are answered. I am blessed every day by God.

Norm: So if you prayed to Jesus for something, would he answer your prayer?

Chris: Yes. Of course. Jesus promises in the Bible that he answers prayers. We see prayers being answered constantly.

Norm: Why pay for health insurance if you can pray and God will cure you? Why do people need doctors, prescriptions and hospitals?

Chris: Sometimes it is not God's will to answer prayers.

Norm: But in John 14:14, Jesus says, "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." James 5:15 says, "The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well." Why would God ignore your prayers?

Chris: God is not some Santa in the sky. He does not answer prayers like that.

Norm: Didn't you just say that God answers prayers? In the Bible, doesn't Jesus promise to answer prayers?

Chris: God does answer prayers. I can show you millions of examples of God answering prayers. I have 20 books on my shelf at home filled with answered prayers.

Norm: Then why do you need health insurance?

Chris: Because, sometimes, it is not God's will to answer a prayer.

Norm: Why do you say that? "The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well" is completely unambiguous. But when you pray for a cure, in a lot of cases nothing happens. Doesn't that mean that Jesus is lying?

Chris: No. Jesus is perfect so Jesus cannot lie. When God does not answer a prayer, it is not part of his plan.

Norm: So you go to the doctor anyway?

Chris: Yes. Of course I do.

Norm: Aren't you defying God's will? Aren't you ruining God's plan?

Chris: No. God does not intend for me to be sick.

Norm: Then why doesn't God answer your prayers and cure you himself?

Chris: There is no way that we can understand the mysteries of our Lord.


*Reprinted from the brilliant website, Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

Squicked

squick
1. Noun. The physical sense of repulsion upon encountering a concept or situation one finds disgusting.
2. Noun. A situation or concept which engenders this reaction.
3. Verb, transitive. To cause someone to have this reaction.
4. Verb, intransitive. To experience this reaction.

The concept of the "squick" differs from the concept of "disgust" in that "squick" refers purely to the physical sensation of repulsion, and does not imply a moral component.

Stating that something is "disgusting" implies a judgement that it is bad or wrong. Stating that something "squicks you" is merely an observation of your reaction to it, but does not imply a judgement that such a thing is universally wrong.

DO NOT WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEO IF YOU ARE EASILY SQUICKED!! I POST IT MERELY FOR HILARITY'S SAKE!!



Retrieved from http://www.somegreybloke.com/

Unwellness

So...

I've been a bit unwell this last week and I really haven't got the energy or brainpower to come up with anything interesting to say. Consequently, I'm settling for posting these vids from somegreybloke.com ...

Two And A Half Hours I Won't Ever Get Back...

Ok so tonight I went and saw Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen, knowing full-well that it would be mindless trash, having seen the other terrible films that make up Director Michael Bay's life work, including its predecessor, Transformers. At the end, I found myself quite unable to articulate my feelings on the movie I'd just seen, so and so when I got home I perused the Interwebs to find something, ANYTHING, that might get the verbage going again, my brain having been for all intents and purposes liquified by the seemingly endless explosions and gunfire I'd witnessed. Below, I've copied and pasted the two reviews that I feel come closest to capturing the essence of this cinematic abortion...

The Empire Strikes Out
Retrieved 02/07/09 from http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/06/062309transformers_revenge_of_the_fa.html

I’m certain that someday it will be acknowledged that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is like the most totally awesome artifact ever of the end of the American empire. It’s so us, a preposterously perfect reflection of who we are: loud, obnoxious, sexist, racist, juvenile, unthinking, visceral, and violent... and in love with ourselves for it. And Michael Bay is the high priest of our self-engrossment. It’s not enough that we like blowing shit up: the blowing shit up must be transubstantiated into something religious by having, say, a ridiculously gorgeous girl humping a motorcycle, her face aglow in the golden hour of sunset as she watches the shit get blown up, her glossy lips parted just a little in orgasmic joy.

What we have right here is the Easter Island statue of our legacy. People 1,000 years from now will gaze at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in wonder and mystery and marvel how we just couldn’t see. How could we not see?

I liked the first Transformers, two summers ago. It worked because it pretended to absolutely nothing, aspired to absolutely nothing beyond being a big dumb loud brainless advertisement for toys. Unlike every other propagandistic Michael Bay film, which all revel in their jingoism about justice or patriotism or heroism, Transformers felt no need to bother. If only Hollywood could have left well enough alone.

Of course, in Hollywood, “well enough alone” means you wear out a franchise with 12 movies, until even the fanboys are complaining that it’s stupid and a budget-bloated sequel finally bankrupts the studio. We’re nowhere near that, though. Transformers 3 is coming soon to a theater near you, you may rest assured of that.

I was ready for Revenge to be as agreeably inconsequential as the first film, and I was perfectly happy to be enjoying that it’s so completely fuckin’ bonkers from the get-go, when we discover that the alien robot things have been on Earth from 17,000 BC, when they apparently fought off Stargate’s Goa’uld or something for the right to pick on the poor uncivilized cavepeople natives. But then I got lost beyond that, for -- unlike the first movie -- this one either assumes that you’re steeped in the laughable mythos that Hasbro invented for its toys, or else screenwriters Ehren Kruger (The Brothers Grimm, The Skeleton Key) and the team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III) invented a new laughable mythos. I’m not an eight-year-old boy, and I wasn’t in the 1980s either, so I don’t know which is which.

It’s something to do with an ancient bloodfeud between the good robots (the Autobots) and the bad robots (the Decepticons). You can tell which are the good robots -- they have blue eyes and are nice and round and shiny and look like Japanese motorcycles or something Paul Walker drove in Fast & Furious or gas-guzzling, all-American pickup trucks manufactured by companies now in bankruptcy -- and you can tell which are the bad robots: they’re very pointy and have red eyes. Beyond that, there’s a lot of high-falutin’ about wrongs done eons ago and such: it’s impossible to understand 90 percent of the Transformers’ dialogue, which is probably a blessing, because the other 10 percent sounds like Gandalf explaining to Frodo about the Ring, or Darth Vader grumbling about the damn Jedi Knights, but without the gravitas of either.

Apparently the good robots have discovered that Shia LaBeouf is Indiana Jones’s kid, because they send him on a mission to find an ancient doohickey from 17,000 BC in the North African desert. And luckily his superhot girlfriend (Megan Fox: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People) is along to gape in ecstatic joy at stuff blowing up and blue-eyed robots and red-eyed robots beating one another up over the ancient whatchamacallit, which is supposed to have the power to do something-or-other.

To call Revenge incoherent and bloated is to put it kindly. To say that Michael Bay fetishizes slow-motion and we still can’t see what the hell is happening the half the time is probably something he’d take as a compliment. But eventually I got so bored -- for these two and a half hours feel much, much longer than the same two and a half hours the first movie consumed -- that I lost track of the number of testicle jokes and taser jokes that flew by. The target audience will be pleased to know, perhaps, that yes: one joke combines testicles and tasers. It’s like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of frat-boy humor.

But it’s all good, because, you see, even though a Decepticon snatches the American flag from the Brooklyn Bridge as a show of contempt for us puny humans, it’s back later. America rules! Take that, Decepticons!

Welcome to Easter Island.

Viewed at a semi-public screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoers. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material.


Small Penis Humilation
- by Dustin Rowles
Retrieved 02/07/09 from http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-review.php

I realize I’m stating the obvious here, but it bears elucidation in light of this review because it’s the single biggest driving force behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Michael Bay has a profoundly tiny dick. The man has a diminutive dangler — what’s known in medical circles as a micro-penis (less than 2.75 inches erect). And rather than seek psychotherapy for his small penis humilation, Mr. Bay deals with his itty-bitty anxieties by hiding behind his work. It’s classic overcompensation; all the symptoms are manifested in his person — long hair, leather jackets, sports cars — but none more evident than his pursuit of aggrandizement in Revenge of the Fallen. His desire to embiggen Transformers II over its predecessor — to make bigger in power, to enlarge our conceptions — is clearly an attempt to conceal his sexual inadequacy.

It’s sad, really. Mr. Bay has no ability to drive, thrust, shove or plunge. All he has in his arsenal is a malevolently irritating poke delivered with a toothsome sneer, the flick of his mullet, and a decidedly timorous and almost hopeful, “Do you like that, baby?” And so Mr. Bay takes these frustrations out in his films, and in Revenge of the Fallen his eagerness gets the best of him. It’s easy to suggest that the two-and-a-half hour series of explosions, cheesy toddler one-liners, and cacophonous, bass-heavy noises is all part of an ongoing big-dick swinging contest Mr. Bay has with McG, but if you look closer, you’ll see what’s really at play here. Revenge of the Fallen is little more than a series of explosions transposed with shots of Megan Fox’s cleavage and/or ass. Mr. Bay sees what he cannot have in the bedroom, and out of those phallic frustrations, he obliterates everything in his wake like a petulant little child who destroys the contents of his toy chest because he’s been denied an ice cream cone. Those Transformers are his toys; the big screen is his bedroom; and sexual competence is the ice cream cone that will forever elude him.

Serial killers are often associated with small-penis syndrome and though there may be little veracity in that theory, it’s apparent that Michael Bay shares the same hedonistic soullessness of a Ted Bundy or Leonard Lake. There’s not an ounce of life in the Fallen’s script. But there is little denying that the man knows how to film an action sequence — 44 years of practice borne out of sexual insufficiency will make a person an expert. In Revenge of the Fallen, Bay sticks to what he knows, barely capable of poking his spectacle into a narrative framework. It’s a battle of good and evil. Autobots vs. Decepticons. Megatron is pulled from the sea to assist the original Decepticon, Fallen (a metaphor for Lucifer? No: For Bay’s limp junk). Fallen wants avenge an ancient slight against the planet Earth by finding an instrument hidden in a monstrous Egyptian obelisk that will allow him to stab out the sun (there’s some metaphorical wish fulfillment for you).

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) spends all of one day in college, where he is attacked by a human-shaped Decepticon (Isabel Lucas) with a phallic tail, before he is recruited by Optimus Prime to act as an ambassador between the Autobots and the United States military, which has an uneasy relationship with the Transformers. That relationship becomes moot, however, when Fallen and the other Decepticons invade Earth in search of that sun-diffusing instrument, which Sam — along with the assistance of Megan Fox’s low-cut blouses and all powerful slo-mo cleavage — has to prevent while also retrieving a few shards and something called the Matrix of Leadership.

That’s essentially the gist of the nonsensical, incoherent, illogical ass-brained plot, and even the six-and-a-half minutes of story seems to get in the way of the other 144 minutes of shit blowing up. There are, of course, even more Transformers in the sequel, which only means it’s even more difficult to tell what’s going on, who is on whose side, and who is battling whom, which becomes particularly problematic near the end where everything is also obscured by a storm of sand.

John Turturro brings further indignity upon his career by appearing as a former government agent turned conspiracy theorist; it’s hard to say what the fuck he was doing in this movie — both Turturro and his character — except to bring shame on his family. Megan Fox is in a perpetual state of glisten and never stops pouting her lips; meanwhile, Shia LaBeouf continues his fast-talking douchenut ways. Rainn Wilson has an incredibly brief two minutes as a college prof — it’s the best two minutes of the entire movie, and the possibility he might return at the end of the film was the only thing that kept me in my seat. I’ll save you the trouble: He does not. [Actually... if the reviewer had stayed on to watch the credits for a few minutes - tedious as it was - he would have seen that this professor comes back for an utterly redundant and unfunny minute-long final scene - DR]

In addition to Fallen, there are a few other new Transformers, including a sand-sucking monstrosity that bites the tip off an ancient Egyptian pyramid (ouch); a senior citizen fighter-plane Decipticon who switches allegiances; a few mini-Transformers; and Mudflap and Skids, the Jar Jar African-American racial caricatures (gold tooth, hip-hop lovin’, bad slang, can’t read) of Transformers, who really are offensive, though it’s not too surprising: Racists have notoriously small dicks.

Lookit: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is Bush League, and I mean that in a purely political sense. It’s chest-thumping, racially-insensitive, sexually provocative redmeat bullshit designed to get needle dicks hard. And that’s fine, if you’re a hormone-addled pubescent Beavis who gets his rocks off on blowing up frogs. But you know that, and you don’t need a review to tell you that Revenge of the Fallen is an epic shit storm so bad you’ll wish you were watching Wolverine. And for a lot of you, that knowledge isn’t going to prevent you from seeing Transformers II, and I won’t begrudge you that. Your morbid curiosity may get the best of you. The confluence of your skepticism of critics, your overwhelming childhood nostalgia, or your desire to see just how awful it is may compel you into the theater. That’s cool — that’s what a manipulative, $100 million marketing campaign will do. But you’ll probably walk out of the theater fuming, itching to murder the one guy in the theater who attempted to start an ovation every time Optimus Prime appeared onscreen (he was met with a round of blank what-the-fuck stares by a sold-out crowd).

But even if you do help to contribute to the $150 million Revenge of the Fallen is likely to gross over the next five days, you can rest easy knowing that, no matter how much money Michael Bay has in his bank account or how many bloated, corporately jingoistic films that he makes, all he has to show for it is an estate that’s the size of Delaware and a babydick the size of your little toe. It’s small consolation.

Dustin Rowles is the publisher of Pajiba. He hides his small penis behind petty insults and personal attacks on Hollywood directors.

Letters from Kids (2)

Also...

It's the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots today. Viva la resistance, etc etc.

Do Y'all Get This?

Ok, so I'm really, really pissed off this week, with basically everything about me and my life. People disappoint me, I feel like study, work and hell, even breathing, are a waste of time, I don't want to leave the house or eat or talk to anyone... and when I bring myself to blog about it I just can't seem to articulate it.

What about you lot? Is it easier to write when you're calm and lucid or when you're spitting tacks?

Cos I Can't Actually Be Bothered Writing Anything...

Cracker Lilo found this very good post about the Gay Generation Gap...

The Gay Generation Gap
Forty years after Stonewall, the gay movement has never been more united. So why do older gay men and younger ones often seem so far apart?
From http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2009/57467/
By Mark Harris Published Jun 21, 2009

This week, tens of thousands of gay people will converge on New York City for Pride Week, and tens of thousands of residents will come out to play as well. Some of us will indulge in clubbing and dancing, and some of us will bond over our ineptitude at both. Some of us will be in drag and some of us will roll our eyes at drag. We will rehash arguments so old that they’ve become a Pride Week staple; for instance, is the parade a joyous expression of liberation, or a counterproductive freak show dominated by needy exhibitionists and gawking news cameras? Other debates will be more freshly minted: Is President Obama’s procrastinatory approach to gay-rights issues an all-out betrayal, or just pragmatic incrementalism? We’ll have a good, long, energizing intra-family bull session about same-sex marriage and the New York State Senate, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Project Runway and Adam Lambert.

And at some point, a group of gay men in their forties or fifties will find themselves occupying the same bar or park or restaurant or subway car or patch of pavement as a group of gay men in their twenties. We will look at them. They will look at us. We will realize that we have absolutely nothing to say to one another.

And the gay generation gap will widen.

You hear the tone of brusque dismissiveness in private conversations, often fueled by a couple of drinks, and you see the irritation become combustible when it’s protected by Internet anonymity. On the well-trafficked chat site DataLounge, a self-described repository of “gay gossip, news, and pointless bitchery,” there’s no topic, from politics to locker-room etiquette to the proper locations for wearing cargo pants and flip-flops, that cannot quickly devolve into “What are you, 17?”–“What are you, some Stonewall-era relic?” sniping. And some not entirely dissimilar rhetoric is showing up in loftier media. In April, a 25-year-old right-of-center gay journalist argued in a Washington Post op-ed that many gay-rights groups are starting to outlive their purpose, and chided older activists for being stuck in “a mind-set that sees the plight of gay people as one of perpetual struggle … their life’s work depends on the notion that we are always and everywhere oppressed.” The scathing message-board replies pounded him at least as hard for his age as for his politics. “You twentysomething gays seem to think being out equals acceptance … Don’t be so quick to dissolve the organizations that made it possible for you to be so naïve,” wrote one reader. Another, blunter response: “Forgive me for not falling all over myself to do exactly what an inexperienced 25-year-old decrees … Don’t waltz in and start barking orders, little boy.”

Public infighting is a big minority-group taboo—it’s called taking your business out in the street. And it may seem strange to note this phenomenon at a juncture that, largely because of the fight for gay marriage, has been marked by impressive solidarity. But let’s have a look. Here’s the awful stuff, the deeply unfair (but maybe a little true) things that many middle-aged gay men say about their younger counterparts: They’re shallow. They’re silly. They reek of entitlement. They haven’t had to work for anything and therefore aren’t interested in anything that takes work. They’re profoundly ungrateful for the political and social gains we spent our own youth striving to obtain for them. They’re so sexually careless that you’d think a deadly worldwide epidemic was just an abstraction. They think old-fashioned What do we want! When do we want it! activism is icky and noisy. They toss around terms like “post-gay” without caring how hard we fought just to get all the way to “gay.”

And here’s the awful stuff they throw back at us—at 45, I write the word “us” from the graying side of the divide—a completely vicious slander (except that some of us are a little like this): We’re terminally depressed. We’re horrible scolds. We gas on about AIDS the way our parents or grandparents couldn’t stop talking about World War II. We act like we invented political action, and think the only way to accomplish something is by expressions of fury. We say we want change, but really what we want is to get off on our own victimhood. We’re made uncomfortable, or even jealous, by their easygoing confidence. We’re grim, prim, strident, self-ghettoizing, doctrinaire bores who think that if you’re not gloomy, you’re not worth taking seriously. Also, we’re probably cruising them.

To some extent, a generation gap in any subgroup with a history of struggle is good news, because it’s a sign of arrival. If you have to spend every minute fighting against social opprobrium, religious hatred, and governmental indifference, taking the time to grumble about generational issues would be a ridiculously off-mission luxury; there are no ageists in foxholes. But today, with the tide of history and public opinion finally (albeit fitfully) moving our way, we can afford to step back and exercise the same disrespect for our elders (or our juniors) as heterosexuals do. That’s progress, of a kind.

These unnuanced generalizations, as everyone who makes them quickly notes, do a gross injustice to both groups. The gay community—or more accurately, communities—is hardly monolithic, and its divisions, not just of age but of race, gender, region, and income, are too complex to paint with a broad brush. And Pride Week—which this year falls on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots—is a reminder that we have always been able to unite when faced with either a common cause or a common enemy. It’s when we’re not on the front lines that tensions flare. “On its simplest level,” says Jon Barrett, 40, the editor-in-chief of the 42-year-old gay magazine The Advocate, “we think they’re naïve. And they think we’re old.”

Even on those front lines, it’s a complex moment. Last November, eight days after the election, I found myself marching with thousands of gay men, lesbians, and friends of the cause from Lincoln Center to Columbus Circle to protest the passage of Proposition 8 in California. The air was charged; many of us were eager to call out the enemy—a well-organized, well-financed coalition of conservatives who were using churches as political-action bases designed to roll back civil rights for gay Americans. And our response was anger. We held up signs with slogans like TAX THIS CHURCH! We yelled ourselves hoarse.

But the demeanor of many of the young attendees felt unfamiliar to older protesters. They were smiling more than seething, and I noticed that many of their picket signs—LET ME GET MARRIED, LOVE ISN’T PREJUDICED, NYC LOVES GAY MARRIAGE—were more like let-the-sunshine-in expressions than clenched fists. Shouting did not come as naturally to them.


“There’s nothing duller than a young gay man whose curiosity about the world doesn’t appear to extend past his iPod.”


Activism is an unlikely realm in which to spot a generation gap; by definition, a rally attracts people who identify themselves by a shared goal. But it’s sometimes an uneasy union; the march marked an encounter between age groups that, although part of the same community, had previously spent little time together. And a difference in outlook was unmistakable. “After Prop 8 passed, a tremendous number of young people who had never been to a protest before wanted to release that energy,” says Corey Johnson, the event’s 27-year-old organizer. “And that night was a great example of the two generations being bridged in a productive way. But my impression is that there is a difference. Young people are, I think, upset, but it’s not with the level of anger that a lot of older folks feel, and perhaps there’s more hopefulness involved.”

To many young gay people, the passage of Prop 8 was shocking but not alarming; it has jolted them into action, but one suspects it’s out of a Milk-fed belief that identity-politics activism can be ennobling and cool. What doesn’t seem to be driving them is fear; their cheerful conviction that history is going their way seems unshakable compared to ours. That can lead to callousness on both sides; we patronizingly warn them that their optimism is dangerous; they patronizingly tell us that we’re too embittered by our own past struggles to see the big picture.

The notion that anger no longer has a primary place in the gay-rights movement can feel awfully uninformed to anyone raised on the protests of the late eighties, when say-it-loud outrage was one of the movement’s only effective weapons. To some of those whose identities as both homosexuals and activists were forged in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, this new aura of serenity is way too “Kumbaya.” It’s hard to overstate the centrality of the AIDS crisis in any gay generation gap (the divide between those who are currently 45 and their elders once yawned at least as wide). If you want to know where you stand in gay history, ask yourself where you were in 1982, when the disease took hold in public consciousness. If you were already sexually active by then and you’re still here to read this, you are someone who surely knows that fury has its uses. If you were in your teens, wondering how to take even your first steps into life as a gay man in a world in which a single encounter could become a death sentence, you understand fear, and its warping effects down through the decades. And if you were a kid, you grew up seeing AIDS as an unhappy fact of life.

But what about the ever-growing cohort of gay men who weren’t even born in 1982? For most of them, AIDS is not their past but the past. No wonder some of us feel frustrated; when we complain that young gay men don’t know their history, what we’re really saying is that they don’t know our history—that once again, we feel invisible, this time within our own ranks.

Were we that uninterested when we were that young? Actually, no, we weren’t; we were thirsty to acquire the vast range of knowledge, tastes, and encoded references that seemed to derive from some mysterious User’s Guide to Homosexuality, because even if we then rejected them, they still constituted a lingua franca (in an era well before LGBT studies programs or even many books on gay history made that kind of information easily accessible). Now, a familiarity with those movies, those plays, and those books will likely get you branded an “old queen” by people for whom “old” is by far the worse of those two epithets (unfortunately, a morbid fear of aging is one of the few ideas we seem to have done a good job instilling in the young).

For gay men who came of age 25 years ago in a tougher environment, knowing your (sub)cultural iconography was not only a way of connecting to past generations but a means of defiantly reorganizing the world, of asserting your right to literally see, hear, and perceive things differently. The need to hide yourself was thus transformed into the privilege of joining a private club with a private language. But to many younger gay men who grew up with gay public figures, fictional characters, and references, it’s a dead language—a calcified gallery of Judy Garland references and All About Eve bon mots that excludes them as much as it does the straight world.

So they react, as they react to many things, with a pose of bored indifference. Which is, of course, infuriating: There’s nothing duller than a young gay man who ornaments his ignorance with attitude and whose curiosity about the world doesn’t appear to extend past his iPod, certain that anything not already within his firsthand experience is by definition antiquated. But once we start blaming gay twentysomethings for not having gone through what we did, we turn into sour old reactionaries telling ourselves self-flattering lies about how misery builds character. Worse, we may in fact be doing damage. According to a 2005 report by the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, our “emphasis on suffering reflects not the current reality of many LGBT adolescents so much as recollections of previous generations’ own ‘horror’ … LGBT adults’ residual fears and pain may be acting to magnify the real difficulties of LGBT teens.” Put simply, we talk too much, telling nightmare stories about AIDS and the Reagan administration when we should be listening—and then we get angry that they’re not listening to us.

“We’re just like our parents,” says a colleague of mine who came out right after college, in the mid-eighties. “We fought really hard so that our children would have things easier than we did, and now we resent them for it and sit around complaining that they lack character because they had everything too easy.”

That parent-child analogy also points to a larger cultural change, one that helped breed the hurt feelings that created the gay generation gap, which is that young gay men are, by and large, not our kids, even symbolically. The last twenty years—thanks to political progress, activism, education, the dying-off of a lot of homophobes, the Internet, and the mighty guiding arm of popular entertainment—have brought about a remarkable growth in straight America’s acceptance of homosexuality. Without forgetting that for too many gay kids, coming out is still hell, we’re also witnessing the rise of a parallel generation of gay kids with unflinchingly supportive parents, buddies who cheer their comings-out on Facebook, high schools with gay-straight alliances—in other words, kids who have grown up in a world that’s finally beginning, in a few places, to look like the one we wanted to create for them, or for ourselves.

And it would be dishonest to suggest that those kids—brash, at ease in their own skin, exuberant, happy—are being greeted by older gay men with nothing but uncomplicated joy. We can’t help but wonder how our lives might have been different if things had been easier for us, too. Some envy, some wistfulness, even some resentment is only human. And to add one further injury: Those kids don’t seem to need us anymore. For decades, gay men functioned as unofficial surrogate parents to the newly out and/or newly outcast. They’d offer reassurance that being gay didn’t mean being lonely. It was a bond that linked many generations of gay men across the age spectrum and created a real emotional connection, even if what necessitated it was pervasive prejudice. Today, though, the notion of quasi-parental gay mentorship feels ancient, a trope out of Tales of the City.

Unlike heterosexuals, most gay kids don’t grow up around adults who are like them, and gay adults in their forties, fifties, and sixties don’t have many occasions for routine, ordinary contact with a younger group of gay people. One of the benefits of Pride Week is that, however artificially, it breaks that barrier down and restarts the conversation. That’s appropriate for an occasion that’s meant to be steeped not just in optimism but in an awareness of history—a history that, by the way, includes a generation gap of its own. As author David Carter reminds us in his excellent 2004 book Stonewall, back in 1969, gay New York was deeply factionalized. Gay older men “passing” in coat-and-tie jobs on Madison and Park Avenues and then discreetly meeting each other in Turtle Bay bars had contempt for long-haired, sideburned Village hippies, and the reverse was also rudely, robustly the case. Even though gay Americans seem to have lived a century of tumult and progress since then, it’s good to know we still have something in common with our ancestral brothers-in-arms.



Comments:

I am a 29-year-old queer male and it is my belief that gay 20-somethings with no interest in the culture that gave birth to their own luxurious insularity are not so much a symbol of a generational gap as they are a reminder that LGBTQ History has been successfully marginalized in the education system -- despite the proliferation of Queer Studies as a tokenized academic discipline. LGBTQ Studies have been effectively relegated to a self-selecting minority of queer youth. From a pedagogical standpoint, the best course of action is to ensure the inclusion of the LGBTQ struggle for equality (and the slices of surrounding cultures that informed, inspired & supported those movements) within a broader framework of a living civil rights history. Trying to overturn Prop 8 is a noble and necessary stepping stone, but we won't bridge any gaps within or beyond our own movement until _all_ youth are educated that everyone is entitled to equal rights and treatment under the law (however far behind legislation is in making this a reality), and that all movements of oppressed groups are connected in that they all must struggle against bigoted policy. Our voices (angry or...gay) are important at a protest, yes, but perhaps not as paradigm-shifting as they are in history books.
By jorkane on 06/26/2009 at 2:14 pm


I'm 63. I came out during the Stonewall era. I feel enormously proud of what my gay brothers and sisters have accomplished over the last 40 years.
I feel proud every time I see how matter-of-factly kids say they don't think it's any big deal to be gay. It's only natural that they have a different point of view, and, in fact, we wanted them to feel the way they do.
But, if you're 25, it's unlikely you know how hard it was to get to this place. And, in a way, I'm glad you don't. But at the very least you should be aware that every gay man and woman who came out in the Stonewall era made social, financial, familial, and personal sacrifices to live openly and freely. And so did everybody else who came out after us.
If you're 25 and want to know what we were up against back then, take a trip to Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria, and live openly gay in those societies. Think I'm kidding?
When you're at the parade and see somebody my age, ask them what it was like. They'll appreciate being asked, and you might be surprised by what you hear. Don't assume we disdain who you are. We love who you are.
By ekeby on 06/25/2009 at 6:05 pm

Fingers

These fingers of mine,
Neither slim nor long,
Neither manly nor strong
Nonetheless suffice
To service my vice.
The shower affords me
A suitable place
To invite my disgrace,
My fingers to employ
With horrible joy.
These fingers aren’t pretty
But neither am I,
We’re ideally suited,
These fingers and I.
Come fingers, I long now
To feel you within,
Punish me, purge me
Of gluttonous sin.
Come, fingers, now bring me
That I crave and yet loathe -
The hideous bliss of your
Rape of my throat.

-DannyR

Dirty, DIRTY, Eugh!!

I found this video over at http://rosephase.blogspot.com/2009/06/propaganda.html and I have to say, for a film that that rails so insistently against pornography, nudity and sexuality, it sure doesn't leave much to the imagination...

;)

Baloney Detection Kit

Pilfered, with much love and respect, from http://www.thegayatheist.com/2009/06/baloney-detection-kit-how-to-be-good.html

Marriage etc etc.

Also, this guy is HOTT ;)

What's More Awesome Than Jesus?

Only Jesus on a DINOSAUR!

(Courtesy of the lovely Tom)

The War Against Women

'... I think President Obama said it best during the debates - "no one is pro-abortion". No one wants to have an abortion. The only way to prevent abortion is not by killing doctors and forcing celibacy on unwilling teenagers, but by giving women and men education and access to birth control, sex education in schools, and encouragement of safe ways to experience sexual pleasure (masturbation, etc.). In a perfect world, no one would have an abortion. No one would make a mistake. No condoms would break. No one would get raped. No babies would have trisomy-13 or develop without brains or have Treacher-Collins. No women would have massive preeclampsia or placenta previa. But these things happen. And for that reason, abortion needs to remain safe and legal. Dr. Tiller's death at the hands of terrorists makes reproductive rights in this country one step closer to extinction. Imagine how many thousands of women will suffer and die in back alley abortions and from terrible, fatal diseases.The pro-lifers (most ironic group name ever) seem to prefer that gravely ill children are forced to suffer on respirators and women and raped 10 year old girls die in childbirth - unless, of course, it was their 10 year old daughter. Let's see how pro life they are then.

There is a war going on against women and their bodies. There is a war and there have been casualties, and no one will say that's what's going on because there are women fighting women (like Cheryl Sullenger from Operation Rescue, for instance). It is fine to make that choice for yourself in your own life and for your own religion, but it is NOT okay to make that choice for anyone else, and using violence to bully doctors and women into submission is terrorism. Plain and simple. Until we start using this kind of language, until we call this what it really is, until we TALK about it - we will lose this war. We are losing it now.'

(read the full brilliant post here, at My Infammatory Writ)

Doctor WHO, OverVIEW :)

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a bit of a Scifi nut, and that of the many Scifi franchises out there, none have caused me to obsess and nerd out as much as Doctor Who.

I always enjoyed DW, it gave me nightmares as a kid but there was just something about it that kept me coming back. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, of course, but now that I'm a bit older I recognise the crucial element. it's originality. First, the very premise is quite unique, how many other shows are there where a man travels through space and time in a small blue box? Then there's its other most recognisable elements, nobody really knows who the man is, he changes his face all the time, he's always interfering in history and causing mayhem... if any other show did any of this it would be a blatant rip-off because DW not only did it first, it did it in such a way as to be instantly recognisable. And it's been doing it for longer than any other show around.

DW has also come up with some of the most distinctive villains in Scifi, sure, they've had plenty of men in rubber masks over the years, what Scifi show hasn't? but what other show has had centurions made out of volcanic rock, or a woman so obsessed with plastic surgery that she ends up as little more than a trampoline made out of skin? What other show has had a Repeating Meme, a stone angel, or a carnivorous shadow? Or an Abzobaloff, or thousands of little aliens made out of human fat? Not to mention the Daleks, perhaps the most easily recognised Scifi villains of the lot, and certainly the most popular. And don't forget that 30 years before Star Trek's Borg was were wandering around space turning people into cyborgs, DW's Cybermen were doing that very thing.

I'm really loving the series since it was revived in 2005 after 9 years off the air. Yes, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Catherine Tate and the rest are amazing actors, and yes, the special effects are increasingly superb, but what really makes me love the series is the writing, both the wider story arcs that Head Writer and producer Russell T. Davies has constructed, and also the writing for each episode. DW shows that script and story are of paramount importance, you can have all the CGI you want but if you can't tell a story about people, you're not going to get far(Star Trek: Enterprise, anyone?). So without further ado, here are my impressions of the new Who.

The 2005 season paved the way for a big budget reimagining of the DW universe (which, it has been suggested, is the same universe as Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy). Rose was a great introduction to the new series, showing what happens to an ordinary girl when a fairly extraordinary man walks into her life. The following episode, The End of the World was a powerful story set in the distant future, I particularly love the scene when Rose and the Doctor stand watching the remains of the shattered Earth drifting in space and Rose makes the comment that “nobody even noticed.” Hard-hitting, topical stuff, and what a great way to start a series, with the point at which most Scifi franchises finish! It seems every Scifi show and its dog these days is trying to blow up the Earth for their grand finale, well, all I can say is this is a refreshing change!!

The next episode, The Unquiet Dead was brilliantly creepy, the following two-parter Aliens of London/World War Three was a bit of a let-down, I loathed the Slitheen, butit wasn't all bad, I really thought the characterisation and dialogue between the cast was fantastic. Father’s Day was great but those Reapers were a little cheesy, however the storytelling and acting more than make up for it. Dalek is very nearly the best episode of the entire revived series, but I hardly need to mention that as it’s consistently rated among the top episodes.

The Long Game was good fun and I loved seeing Simon Pegg as a villain, and ‘Max’ was a very cool monster of the week. Stephen Moffat’s The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances is, needless to say, utterly enthralling, sweet but horrific and fantastic fun. Unfortunately the following episode, Boom Town, is a little disappointing, though I do have to give it some credit for making the awful Slitheen a little less irritating, and for showing the ongoing development of Rose’s relationships with Mickey and the Doctor.

And then we come to Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, which finish the season in a fantastic way. I have to say, Bad Wolf is possibly my absolute favourite episode of the entire series, it’s fun and silly and sweet, but it captures the menace of the Daleks, it first introduces and then dispatches the Controller, which is quite tragic, we get to know sweet little ‘Lynda with a Y’ (whose death went a long way to reinstating the Daleks as the ultimate bad guys in the universe), Jack kisses both Rose and the Doctor, and both Rose and the Doctor get their Crowning Moment of Awesome – “Rose, I’m coming to get you” and “You are tiny; I see every atom of your existence, and I divide them.” Serious Wow.

The following Christmas special, The Christmas Invasion, was pretty good, as David Tennant’s introduction it couldn’t have been much better. But the following episode and official opening of the second seasonis far more heartwarming and funny. New Earth is good silly fun, and it’s great seeing Rose and the Doctor ‘on a date’ as it were. Matron Casp is the perfect cat person, the Face of Boe makes a welcome return, and Cassandra’s double entendre on possessing the Doctor’s body, that it’s ‘hardly been used’ is classic. What really won me over with this episode, however, was the tragedy of Cassandra/Chip. I cried. New Earth is a much stronger opening than Rose, and would have to be one of my favourite episodes. This is followed by the visually impressive but ultimately forgettable monster of the week story, Tooth and Claw.

School Reunion was a good follow-up, and it was great to see classic series regular Sarah Jane Smith return. The Girl in the Fireplace was also a wonderful episode, the clockwork creations were pretty horrifying and I’m damn sure that if I’d seen that episode as a child it would have haunted me for the rest of my life. But these two episodes are utterly outclassed by the sheer badassery that is Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel. The alternate London, the re-imagined Cybermen, the ‘ear-pods’ and the long trek through the dark within arm’s reach of slumbering Cybermen, it all adds up to a really exciting story, it could totally have been a series finale. It also felt a lot like the Doctor Who I remember from the 80s, so this two-parter stands out as a highlight of the show’s second season.

The Idiot’s Lantern was another great episode, a little piece of history spiced up with some cheap horror. It was a bit of a breather before the traumatic ordeal that is The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit. This double episode is definitely Nightmare Fuel, but it also makes explicit Rose and the Doctor’s feelings for each other in a powerful and moving way. The next episode however, Love and Monsters, is kind of cute but utterly forgettable.

The season’s penultimate story, Fear Her, should be excised from the narrative, I’m sorry but it’s just awful. It's followed by the Army of Ghosts/Doomsday story arc, which is right up there among the best, we get the two ultimate Who enemies squaring off and insulting each other before engaging in all-out war; it’s hilarious and exciting, frightening and bitter-sweet. Rose’s departure is heartbreaking. And I just love that the season finishes with the unexpected and ludicrous introduction of a bride in full wedding regalia into the TARDIS, to the Doctor’s utter dismay. Classic.

This of course leads us into what is, for me, the defining moment of the new Who, the second Christmas Special, The Runaway Bride. It’s fast paced, bombastic, thrilling, funny, charming and utterly absurd, and I absolutely love it. Catherine Tate rocks my world. Seriously.

Then we have the introduction of Martha Jones in Smith and Jones, the first episode of the third season, and the first Who episode to feature a recurring black companion. It’s a strong start, and a great introduction for the character, she’s smart and beautiful, sensible and strong. Sadly, the third season was the weakest in the revived series, and she didn’t often get much of a chance to shine. The Shakespeare Code, Gridlock, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, The Lazarus Experiment, and 42 are all either terrible or completely forgettable.

The series only finally starts to live up to its potential in the stunning Human Nature/The Family of Blood two-parter. This story saved Season Three from mediocrity, I for one would have liked to have seen it strung out over several more episodes. It’s moving and mature, frightening and exciting. It’s followed by the indescribably good Stephen Moffat story Blink (often picked by fans as THE best Who episode, like, EVER), notable for its unusual storytelling and strong horror element, and then by the series finale in three instalments.

The first of these, Utopia, is a great set-up for the final two episodes, the Master’s introduction is enthralling, wonderful and tragic and quite satisfying. It’s like watching a train crash, it feels disturbingly real. The second act, The Sound of Drums is delightfully manic and satisfyingly apocalyptic. What a shame, then, that the trilogy is concluded with the deux ex machina ending of Last of the Time Lords. Nevertheless, Martha Jones endeared herself to me forever by walking out on the Doctor with her head held high. All up, after a promising beginning, Season Three at first failed to deliver, and only recaptured my interest in its second half. Even the by-now traditional surprise season ending, this time a collision with the Titanic broaching the TARDIS hull, failed to deliver.

It turns out that the Titanic that we see smashing a hole in the TARDIS at the conclusion of the third season is not the Titanic that we expect, but a jumbo-sized space-going replica. Voyage of the Damned subjects us to the horror that is Kylie Minogue’s acting, inflicts upon us an irritating cast of stereotypes and smacks us across the face with messianic imagery. Oddly enough, the emotional heart of the tale belongs not to the officially recognised Companion, but to two older gentlemen in minor roles, the first being the amazing Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, the second being a fraudulent professor who would have made a wonderful Companion.

Wilf’s appearance provides a nice bridge between seasons three and four, as it is revealed in the first episode of the season that he is in fact the Bride’s grandfather, and that the two share a special and close relationship. Donna’s reappearance is one of the funniest moments in the entire series, and makes Partners in Crime one of the most watchable season openings of the new Who.

Season Four goes from strength to strength, fans voted it their favourite season and it is hardly surprising. After the strong first episode we get another historical adventure in The Fires of Pompeii, and a reminder of why the Doctor needs someone with him, and why Donna fits the bill so perfectly. We’re also given a taste of what’s to come; Donna will do a whole lot of crying over the course of this season, and as it turns out, so will we. Case in point: the following episode, Planet of the Ood, picking up on some of the subtler aspects of Season Two’s The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit. This is hands-down the most beautiful and uplifting instalment of the whole of the revived series, and ranks as one of my ultimate favourite episodes. On an emotional level, it would be hard to top, and the following three episodes, The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky and The Doctor’s Daughter wisely don’t even try, opting instead for military manoeuvres and fast paced action.

The return of Martha Jones in those three episodes is something of a disappointment, she displays none of her customary strength and genius, and instead ends up crying pathetically in a puddle on some alien planet, but this is more than made up for by the enjoyable exchanges between the Doctor and Donna. I’m struck by the thought that perhaps it was necessary to bring Martha back and show her failings to underline the suitability of Donna as the Doctor’s long-term companion. In any case, the season progresses strongly, continuing with the charming and more than slightly ridiculous The Unicorn and the Wasp, replete with comic moments and subtle meta-fictional references.

What follows is what I can only describe as Stephen Moffat’s big sales pitch for where he will take the series when he takes the top job after the departure of Russell T. Davies. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead return to the Moff’s favourite themes of horror, mystery and romance, with beautiful sets, impressive special effects and fantastic casting choices. The Doctor and Donna get no happy resolution this time, but their close companionship is once again highlighted, setting us up nicely for the next two instalments, in which they’re mostly kept apart.

The first of these is Midnight, featuring the Doctor going off on his own for a spell, and I would argue that this episode is a strong contender for ‘Best New Who Episode.’ There’s only one set for the duration of the adventure, and the special effects are kept to a minimum, but this the most tightly scripted and tense show of the season, and I would say the series as a whole. It’s stressful and nerve-wrecking, cleverly written and brilliantly acted, showing what RTD can do with not much.

It’s followed by Catherine Tate’s powerhouse performance in Turn Left, another strong contender for best episode. Donna wanders off and gets in trouble, and we get some nice continuity touches but more importantly a glimpse at what might have been and a greater understanding of Donna and her potential and bravery, a leap of faith and a whole lot of emotion, from despair and depression to horror and bewilderment, hope and happiness. Watching it, you feel as if they couldn't possibly have packed any more emotion in, and it could be too much of an ordeal if they had somehow managed to.

The episode dovetails nicely with Season Four’s grand finale, The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, bringing together all the threads from the various stories, demonstrating how the Doctor sows the seeds of destruction everywhere he goes and providing fan service and more than a few surprises along the way. It has often been noted that the science of this double episode makes absolutely no sense, but it almost seems intentional, it’s as if RTD is simply saying “Who cares? The story’s the thing,” and certainly he manages to juice every last drop of emotion out of fans and puts poor Donna through the wringer. The story is huge and dramatic, fast-paced and exciting, and ultimately tragic. The ending is heartbreaking, thanks to some brilliant writing, but also to the considerable talents of David Tennant, Catherine Tate and Wilfred Mott.

We’re left broken and miserable, which is exactly how the Doctor is supposedly feeling, and so the Doctors elated mood at the beginning of the Christmas special that follows, The Next Doctor, is somewhat refreshing, although given the title of the episode we may be apprehensive. But the title is intentionally misleading, what we end up with is far and away the best Christmas Special of the series thus far.

While The Runaway Bride might have uproariously good fun, this Christmas Special follows the more threatening feel of The Unquiet Dead, Rise of the Cybermen, and Utopia , perhaps appropriately given the recent loss of Bride's star. The result is captivating, and David Morrissey brings real depth and gravitas to his role. Finally, however, we see the Doctor accept the invitation to spend Christmas with friends, providing some relief from the increasingly gloomy turn of events in the show.

Planet of the Dead, the show’s first Easter Special and most recent instalment, continues in this vein, being a light and frothy adventure with some impressive CGI and a return to the Doctor’s more cheerful, manic behaviour of days past. RTD promises, however, that this will be the last respite, and that the final three episodes featuring David Tennant as the Doctor and Russell T. Davies as Head Writer and producer will be frightening, depressing and traumatic. The first of these, The Waters of Mars, will go to air in November, and the concluding two-part story will play over Christmas and New Years.

I'm looking forward to it :)

Self Esteem

by Garfunkel & Oates, lovingly stolen from The Philosophy of Nonmonogamy