Arizona Goddamn!

Yesterday I had to send a prayer up to my beloved Nina Simone and let her know that to Mississippi Goddamn...we now have to add Arizona.

First the Arizona legislature lost their goddamn minds by coming up with this heinous bill that actually makes it illegal to be an undocumented immigrant in Arizona (and, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, basically directs the Arizona law enforcement officers to engage in blatant racial--and clothing--profiling). Secondly, facing an election year, Republican Jan Brewer, waiting until the last possible minute, steeled up her bright red ovaries and signed the bill into the law.

I expect legislators, especially white racist legislators in territory that legally belongs to Mexico and that has consistently violated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to try and pull some fucked up shenanigans, but the fault for this bill becoming law lies squarely in the lap of that blocked headed creature of darkness called Jan Brewer.

Not only did she signed the damn bill, with a straight face, she said as she signed it, and I quote, "I will NOT tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona." (Emphasis is HERS and is included in the full text of her speech--the link to the full text is in the box at the bottom of the page).

I almost never ever use the following word in reference to a woman but...excuse me, bitch?

Jan Brewer just signed a law that explicitly makes being an undocumented immigrant in Arizona illegal. Already, we have heard about advice to police from California Rep. Bilbray suggesting that an undocumented immigrant can be identified by his or her clothes (read sombrero y chancletas). And, frankly, there are reams and reams of research that shows exactly that racial profiling is the ONLY way that law enforcement has used, outside of raids into particularly employers, to track and arrest undocumented immigrants. Again. Excuse me. Bitch.

And let me clarify my use of language. When you decide to demonize, demoralize, and establish laws to make a human being illegal (up to this point they were undocumented, now, in Arizona, undocumented immigrants are actually illegal) then you have no more sense than a common wild dog. If you act like a dog and raise your leg to piss on people, then you have earned the use of the term bitch as an apt noun and adjective to describe you.

Already there are calls to boycott Arizona. The Lakota and Ojibwe nations have released a poignant and beautiful statement establishing the rights of indigenous people from across Turtle Island to migrate as they wish as the borders themselves are illegal constructions created by an illegitimate occupying power that used genocidal practices to create their political and military hegemony. And even Shakira, today, has turned her ojos asi towards Arizona and rolled them so far up in her head that she can see her brain.

And, of course, GOP Chairman Michael Steele (who should, as my Mama used to say, be held up and have the black beaten off of him) along with other GOP turd faced pundits called President Obama's condemning of Arizona's idiocy "playing the race game."

This is a race game mother fuckers, and it was not started by President Obama or any other person of color in this nation, but I swear before God that we will finish it either by Malcolm's plan or Martin's, but the shit is on. Bitches.

Arizona goddamn.

(P.S. Just to be clear, if you ain't native...you are undocumented.)

Rookies versus Diablitos: Attack of Captain Prison Porn

Last weekend marked the official start of Summer. Don't look at me crossed eye bitches. Summer starts when the first softball is pitched in the opening game of the queer Summer softball season. Mother Nature is a drag queen, and she will not be denied.

On a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, the Ladies of the Rookies (and assorted cheer-wives) gathered at the newly renovated, highly sparkling, goose shit covered softball fields of Randall's Island. With hope in our hearts, we started off with a little practice on a field which amounted to a giant Port-a-Potty for the Canadian Water Fowl nation.

This year we are joined by two Nookies and on sNookie. Only two of the three were there, and I have not yet met our new Gaysian. I super duper heart both Scottie and Roy...and they both bring Super Secret Special Powers to our team. Roy has the power to mesmerize any man within two yards of his Shimmy Shake and Scottie has magic booty shorts that cause spontaneous orgasms when he rubs his stark albino white (yet firm and shapely) thighs together.

With these new magics added to our team, you would think we couldn't lose.

But we did. Twice.

This week we played the Diablitos (for those of you that are Spanishly challenged that translates to "Little Devils"). Los Diablitos had been in a lower division last year, but after he was discovered that they recruited half of their team from Yankees that had been suspended due to steroid use, they dropped out of the season last year and moved up a division this year. The game started off with a bang, and the Rookies scored a number of runs. At first, I thought we had the game in the bag. The opposing teams defense was about as firm as a roofied sorority girls at a sex offender special invitation taping of Girls Gone Wild.

Then we met their secret weapons: Latino the Hun and Captain Prison Porn. These two got up to bat and acted like they were offspring of Superman and the Bionic Woman. I bet they could both shoot lasers from their dicks and shit radioactive turds.

The worst was Captain Prison Porn. He was like 8 feet tall, probably had a 5 foot dick, go go gadget legs, was tatted to hell, and literally every time he hit the ball it landed on the far side of the neighboring softball field.

For those of you that are sports challenged, you are not allowed to position your outfielders on the pitching mound of the field behind you as that would be rude to the team playing on that field.

And we are all about manners.

Frankly, and I ain't afraid to say it, the other team should be ashamed of themselves. For real. Those two dudes could easily play in the highest division of our league, and we are smack dab in the middle. If I wanted to play with a Yankee, I would drape myself in needles full of anabolic steroids and have Roy teach me how to do the Man Shimmy.

In the end, we had fun, and we did mighty well considering the genetically engineered opposition. We had some awesome plays (and some not so awesome plays), and I learned to never listen to Reggie when he is coaching third base.

I can't wait until this weekend's games.

P.S. A special thank you to our cheer section which included two of my besties from Minnesota that were visiting us, Rodrigo and Nubia, as well as Scottie's Hotty Boyfriend Brendan (wife swap anyone?), my very own love David (pictures by him), the ever sexy Rich, and also a surprise visit from Dan's Mom, sister, and nephew!

They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab...and I wrote Poetry

Well...I actually went to rehab...five years ago at the Pride Institute. Those of us that went to Pride and met each other there, often refer to it as our extended time at the spa. If only I had spent that five months getting facials, seaweed wraps, and Swedish massages by a man named Thor.

Instead I spent five months up to my ears in therapy, the 12 steps, meetings, relapse prevention classes, self reflection, and, I believe, I filled about five journals with thoughts, feelings, emotions, rants, raves, and poetry.

Anyone that claims to be a poet and insists that he or she is completely well adjusted, has never had a problem with any sort of mind altering substances, and/or comes from a functional family...is either lying or is an alien and should be reported to the Men in Black. Poetry is the way that marginally crazy people that have seen a little or a lot of the beauty in the ugliness of this world share what they have seen, felt, or experienced...in this waking world or in some other altered or dream reality. Poets go places that other people can't go or wouldn't survive if they went there.

The earliest recorded literature that still exists are epic poems. The stories of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Odyssey and The Illiad, fantastic tales written by folks...some of whom that didn't survive too well past publication of their works, yet live on, despite their personal struggles, in the beauty they left behind.

When I was at Pride, a friend of mine was graduating from the program, and I decided to write him a poem to express to him what his friendship meant and how he had touched my life during our time together. That one poem turned into a tradition during my stay at Pride. Soon, folks that were graduating were asking me if I would write a poem for them. Some of these people were folks that I can say with an almost 100% certainty had never voluntarily read a collection of poetry, gone to a reading, or could name more than five working, living poets. Yet, these same people saw something in poetry and something in poetry woke up something in them that made them want to be a part of it.

I am currently doing 9 hours of classes a week in what basically amounts to rehab refresher courses. There are people in the group sessions that have been sober for 13 years and there are folks that were using two days ago. Some are straight up kids, 18 years old, and just in or just dropped out of college. Some, like me, are professionals trying to keep ahead of their addictions, and others are grandmothers and grandfathers trying to make sure they are around to see their grandchildren grow up. Some people walk in that are obviously people of means and others are obviously working poor.

I see poetry in all of these people.

These rooms are filled with folks that come in with their pain, fear, anger hurt, joy, triumph, hope, inspiration, sadness, ambivalence, and frustration. Some have stories that make my struggles seem downright easy, and others have stories that are milder than my own, but each person, it is obvious, is in pain and that pain is real without needing to or being measured in severity against an other's. Some folks have managed to get on my damn nerves straight from the gate, but, I can say with all honesty, I love these people for the poetry in them. They are living, truly living, because they are struggling against their circumstances in a fight to LIVE differently.

In this city of millions, I watch people coast through life every day. I watch living automatons moving about their day, oblivious or sedated to the point of oblivion. I watch them do the same things, in the same way, each and every day. Rich or poor they have accepted what they have, without examination, or having examined where they are and what they have, they have chosen to make peace with stasis or at least have chosen the route of apathy.

I want to live, I want to grow, and when I leave this world, whenever that may be, I want to look back on it and say that I struggled against what needed to be overcome, accepted all the love that was freely offered, and returned love freely to those that needed it.

And so I write poetry, because it is the way that I love myself, love the people around me, and love the world. Openly, as honestly as I can at the moment when writing, and wishing only that someone, somewhere finds something in the words I write to help them live a poetic life of their own.

Dating Preferences/Racial Preferences

While I don't think that preferences in and of themselves are racist, I believe that how we come to many of our preferences are a product of the isms under which we live. As a young brown man growing up in Minneapolis, I was told, oh so many times, to my face...almost always by white men (though it was sadder when it came from brown men) that I was "cute," but he (the man in question) didn't do black, brown, dark men (and I am by no means dark, so I can't imagine what would have been said to a dark skinned black person).

Our standards of beauty are absolutely based in race and racism just as is our fetishism and what each individual finds attractive is crafted and shaped by those forces just as much as the messages they got at home and from family. Sometimes family and personal messages/community messages can counteract societal and media messages but not often and never completely.

And, frankly, though I am with a white man now, for five years I refused to date any white men because I understood that it was radical, in our society, to love a brown man...particularly when I came to understand that as a product of where I grew up, when I grew up, and the messages I received that I had been taught that brown/black/yellow wasn't beautiful unless it was exotified.

POETRY: Therapy I

For a clown
muting color
and avoiding notice
is a Herculean task

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-April 14, 2010

POEM: Canis Familiaris

For Mimzy

Perched, she stares at me with challenging eyes
Like old Smaug on his stolen gold
It’s a challenge
to describe how she speaks without words
a sure touch to the leg
can mean so many things
depending on the tilt of her eyes
the heft of brows
the way she tests the air
but it always has meaning
even if I am sometimes too stupid to understand.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-13 April 2009

POETRY: Chardonnay

Cool she slips tartly
over my curled tongue
then boldly
this dryad sinks oaken roots
into the back of my throat
she slides
deftly fingering my soft palette
This is the closest to heterosexuality that I will ever come.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-Bristol, CT
-12 April 2010

Rest in Peace Dixie Carter

I am a child of the 80s. Whenever that email forward comes around and lists 100 things from the 80s that should resonate with those that grew up in the 80s, I resonate with 115. From the Monchichis and the Smurfs to Different Strokes and Designing Women, I grew up in a time when all the world's problems were solved in 30 minutes by Mr. Drummond, Mrs. Garret, Mr. Huxtable, and the Golden Girls.

I grew up wishing desperately that I lived with M'am and George in a house with secret rooms and a hidden stairwell behind the grandfather clock in the living room. I reveled in the fact that Punky Brewster's dog's name was Brandon and my middle name was Brandon. I can still, to this day, sing the theme songs to just about every 1980s sit com, Saturday morning cartoon, after school cartoon, and children's show from Sesame Street to the Great Space Coaster. And in high school, when Bob Ross (aka the Channel 2 Art Guy...the white man with the Jewfro that drew happy trees) died...I went into three days of deep mourning.

But, other than Nell Carter, no TV female personality from the 1980s impacted my life more than Dixie Carter aka Julia Sugarbaker aka Mr. Drummond's wife and the mother of Sam on Different Strokes.

I have had three step-father's in my life in addition to my birth father. So when Mr. Drummond decided to remarry and brought a step-mom into the house, I finally felt like I had found a home on prime time television. Add to that the fact that Dixie Carter was as sassy as my own Mother and had a beautiful Southern accent like my Father, and it was love at first sight.

When Designing Women debuted, I was hooked. There was a black man on the show that I loved (Meshack Taylor), and it was four strong, independent, and funny women that took life by the balls and lived it according to their own desires. I watched my Mama doing the same thing, and I loved the show for validating her existence. Since birth, I have been drawn towards strong, sexy, independent, powerful femme women, and Dixie Carter was my goddess. And when the episode aired wherein Dixie stands up for her sister (Delta Burke...another favorite of mine)...I too knew why that Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia.

I know that Dixie was a conservative Republican, but the fact that she, in her art, addressed issues such as blended families, multi-cultural families, valuing ex-convicts, feminism, and sexuality...I can forgive her for being a product of her geography. No one will remember Dixie the Neo-Con, but everyone will remember the Designing Woman.

We lost a great actress and a strong woman yesterday, and I, for one, will always remember her fondly. Say hello to Bea Arthur for me, and do some dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze...one day we will all hang out, have a mint julep, and reminisce about the decade of Greed and the popular culture that forced America to start seeing some realities that it had tried to hide or deny for a very long time. Rest in peace, Dixie. I love you.

POETRY: Spring II

The young girl in the green dress asked the robin, "Have you seen an old man in a long white coat pass by?"

"Every year, but he hurries away just before I arrive," said the robin

She sighed warmly, "That's my grandfather."

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-Bristol, Connecticut
-10 April 2010

POETRY: Spring

Each curled green tongue
hesitantly licks
the reborn sky
quivering, reluctant
at first opening
the soft note
crescendos to an emerald chorus,
Spring.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-On the train in Connecticut
-9 April 2010

Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry

Dear Friends:

I am happy to announce the first ever spoke word poetry award (really the first award ever) from My Feet Only Walk Forward.

The Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry will be awarded to a poet that demonstrates the power of spoken word to address issues of class, sexuality and race in a way that transcends rhetoric and creates movement.

The winner will receive $150, and the winning poem will be published at My Feet Only Walk Forward (www.myfeetonlywalkforward.blogspot.com). Two honorable mentions will also be named.

About the Prize:

Alfred C. Carey was a hard working man from Northern Minnesota. He worked in construction, specifically roofing, while raising a family of 8, including three children not biologically his own. He represented a series of beautiful and sometimes hard contradictions in race, class, and history. He also, without a vocabulary around race and sexuality, accepted all of his children and grandchildren for who they were without judgment. This award is named in the honor of my grandfather.

Rules:

You may submit up to three poems no longer than a combined total of six pages double spaced.

You may also submit audio recordings in CD format. The recordings should not exceed 9 minutes in length.

Along with your submission please include a cover page that states your: Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address, Website Address, and a brief biography of no more than 6 sentences.

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE POSTMARKED BY JUNE 30, 2010. WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCE JULY 15, 2010.

Authors retain all copyright to their works, and if you would like samples returned, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Make submissions to:

Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry
c/o Brandon Lacy Campos
462 W. 52nd Street #3N
New York, NY 10019

HIV, Criminal Conduct, and Reality

A man in Minnesota has been charged with willfully spreading HIV. According to the story and video clip, the man had sex with multiple partners, did not disclose his status, and at least one person has tested positive. In the cases in the video clipped, the man is NOT charged with rape, though I have heard from a friend of mine that he is charged with sexual assault from an earlier incident in February. While I am not going to comment on this man's guilt or innocence, I sure as hell am going to comment on the situation. The following blog post may seem a little disjointed, as I co

Did you listen to the story? Mike Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, needs to check his facts. He said, "The man didn't have it [HIV] before, and a month later he did." Ummmm....any doctor will tell you that it takes, in general, a minimum of 3 months to have built up enough antibodies to detect HIV. Which means that the "victim" was having unprotected sex with more than just the accused.

Also, if the men were having unprotected sex with this guy and NOT asking his status, and there is no evidence that the dude lied, then it is not a leap to believe that they had unprotected sex with other men. How do they KNOW that this is the guy that transmitted HIV to them? Where the fuck is the responsibility on their end? Why is the blame/shame/burden always on the positive individual?

Also, were there drugs involved? I am going to go ahead and say most fucking likely. Regardless of the outcome, the accused's life is ruined.

As an HIV+ man that has struggled in the past with drug addiction, I can tell you that almost 99% of the time no one was asking anyone else about their HIV status when crystal meth was involved.

If you choose to have bareback sex then you CHOOSE the risk of contracting HIV. That choice is on you, the burden is on you, and the responsibility for the action is on YOU. Unless you can prove that you were RAPED or the sex was not consensual in some other way, the burden is on you. It was your choice to believe the man or to trust the man with your life, and now that you found out you made the wrong choice, you are going to lay the burden on someone else? BULLSHIT.

I am not perfect, but this case is more than just about the one dude (I hear that he is also charged with rape...that is another story all together)...but the precedent this will set if he is convicted on the spreading HIV charge as opposed to a rape charge is going to create such an overwhelming fear in positive people and a justified one...what if you don't disclose your status, you are having protected sex, and the condom breaks? Are you then a felon? What if you honestly believe you are HIV-, have unprotected sex, and then you find out you are after having infected someone else? Even your partner? Are you a felon? What if you and the party are both engaged in the use of illicit drugs....I am not perfect, and I carried a lot of guilt for a long time for my actions when actively using, but I will be damned if I carry the burden or the HIV+ community should carry the burden for the choices of others. It's just that simple, unfortunately the apparatus of the state and 20 years of fear mongering, gay baiting, and oppression are on the side of the Hennepin County attorney. And let's not forget that Mike Freeman is an elected official. The county attorney office led directly to the Senate for Amy Klobuchar. He is going to sensationalize this case as much as humanly possible to set himself up runs for hire office. The good tough attorney got this diseased predator off the street. What could be sweeter on the campaign trail?

I am curious to see what other cases Mike has made sure got into the paper? What other cases are on his case load? Why this case? Why this incident? I will tell you...H-I-V.

The continued stigmatization and scapegoating of positive people for the actions of negative people is based in shame and fear--the shame of the positive person that leads him or her to not disclose and the shame of the newly positive person that seeks to shed his shame by blaming everyone else for his HIV status except the person responsible: himself.

Let the witch hunts begin.

ObamaCare(s)

With passage of the legislation, Obama has achieved the signature domestic goal of his presidency, and the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the 1960s Great Society initiatives that saw the passage of Medicare and Medicaid.

-Karen Tumulty, Time Magazine

Mr. President, thank you for putting my current and future health as your top domestic priority.

Thank you for not giving up when Mr. Brown went to Washington. You went to the mat for the people of the U.S., and, for once, the people won.

Now your healthcare plan isn't perfect. It is not single payer universal. The Hyde amendment is still in full effect (banning the use of federal funds for abortion), and you gave a nod to the Devil (aka Rep. Stupak of Michigan) in order to get this deal through. While you didn't put any new restrictions on a woman's right to choose, you did not, however, broaden their ability to access safe reproductive services including abortion. And that is saddening.

You did, however, guarantee that 32 million people living in the United States will receive health care coverage. That still leaves us with 15 million undocumented residents that will need healthcare services. We need to cover those human beings too with no questions asked.

But you did what U.S. Presidents have tried to do since Teddy Roosevelt was in office: you created a healthcare system that will cover all U.S. citizens. Mil gracias, mi presidente. Mil gracias.

The critics are already out there wondering if this will hurt the Democrats in the mid-term elections. I am sure it will. Those who are brave enough to stand up for what is right when the wolves are howling for what is wrong, sometimes get bitten. But the truth and history will make victors of the temporarily defeated, and though you may lose some political ground after November, you have won a fight for justice, and that is worth more than controlling both houses of Congress.

Thank you President Obama.

(The following is a breakdown of the bill, it's cost, and an implementation timeline. This is taken from an article from CBS News)

Cost:

$940 billion over ten years.

Deficit:

Would reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first ten years. That is an updated CBO estimate. Their first preliminary estimate said it would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over ten years. Would reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion dollars in the second ten years.

Coverage:

Would expand coverage to 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured.

Health Insurance Exchanges:

The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level.
Separate exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage -- effective 2014.
Funding available to states to establish exchanges within one year of enactment and until January 1, 2015.
Subsidies:

Individuals and families who make between 100 percent - 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and want to purchase their own health insurance on an exchange are eligible for subsidies. They cannot be eligible for Medicare, Medicaid and cannot be covered by an employer. Eligible buyers receive premium credits and there is a cap for how much they have to contribute to their premiums on a sliding scale.
Federal Poverty Level for family of four is $22,050

Paying for the Plan:

Medicare Payroll tax on investment income -- Starting in 2012, the Medicare Payroll Tax will be expanded to include unearned income. That will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year ($200,000 for individuals).

Excise Tax -- Beginning in 2018, insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" high-end insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families ($10,200 for individuals). Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the total cost of a family's plan.

Tanning Tax -- 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services.

Medicare:

Closes the Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" by 2020. Seniors who hit the donut hole by 2010 will receive a $250 rebate.

Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs. The bill also includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade.
Medicaid:

Expands Medicaid to include 133 percent of federal poverty level which is $29,327 for a family of four.
Requires states to expand Medicaid to include childless adults starting in 2014.
Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through 2016.
Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid.
Insurance Reforms:

Six months after enactment, insurance companies could no longer denying children coverage based on a preexisting condition.
Starting in 2014, insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions.
Insurance companies must allow children to stay on their parent's insurance plans through age 26.

Abortion:

The bill segregates private insurance premium funds from taxpayer funds. Individuals would have to pay for abortion coverage by making two separate payments, private funds would have to be kept in a separate account from federal and taxpayer funds.
No health care plan would be required to offer abortion coverage. States could pass legislation choosing to opt out of offering abortion coverage through the exchange.
**Separately, anti-abortion Democrats worked out language with the White House on an executive order that would state that no federal funds can be used to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or health of the mother. (Read more here)

Individual Mandate:

In 2014, everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.
Employer Mandate:

Technically, there is no employer mandate. Employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance or pay a fine of $2000 per worker each year if any worker receives federal subsidies to purchase health insurance. Fines applied to entire number of employees minus some allowances.
Immigration:

Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to buy health insurance in the exchanges -- even if they pay completely with their own money.

Nigger

It's an easy walk from the word Negro to Nigger. As a matter of fact, some white folks gleefully skip from one to the other, which is why, frankly, I have now decided that Negro needs to be banned from the public conversation as well.

Here's what changed my mind: yesterday, as Civil Rights Movement veteran and friend of Martin Luther King Jr., Congressman Lewis was leaving the Cannon Office building, Tea Bagger protesters gathered outside of the building started chanting kill the bill, nigger.

Let me repeat myself in case you missed that.

WHITE Tea Bagger protesters started shouting at a man that had his skull broken by police in Selma, Alabama, "KILL THE BILL, NIGGER." And they did so in chorus while spitting on Congressman Cleaver from Missouri, another member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

But wait....there's more...the same protesters saw Massachusetts Representative Barny Frank and greeted him with a rousing refrain of FAGGOT.

Don't believe me? Here is a link to an article written by my acquaintance John Nichols from The Nation.

Here's a report from McClatchy Newspapers.


Even Fox News deigned to report on this issue. Though you will note they declined to actually use the words that were hurled at the members of Congress, which, I find, suspect.

Republican Uncle Tom Chairman Michael Steele had the nerve to condemn the actions of these Tea Baggers without declaring a complete and total break from the "Tea Party Movement." How many more racist incidents have to happen before it becomes unconscionable for Republicans of any stripe (well any stripe short of Dixiecrats and the resurrection of Strom Thurmond) to associate or accept any sort of support from these racist individuals?

How many more racist incidents will have to happen before the "leadership," of the Tea Baggers call off the entire fucking parade because their rank and file are RANK and firing hateful slurs at members of Congress doing their jobs and working to provide support for the American people? Tea Baggers overwhelmingly identify as fundamentalist Christian, and the Bible commands that we provide the most for the least, and yet when members of Congress are seeking to lift up and provide healthcare for the least of the least of Americans, they buck their Christianity and become rabid fascist brown shirts.

How long before some Tea Bagger assassinates a member of Congress or takes aim at the President or First Family? Is that what it is going to take before people wake up and recognize these people for the threat they are? What are the FBI and Homeland Security doing about these domestic terrorists? Are these people on No Fly lists? Is Janet Napolitano using her wire tapping powers to monitor the conversations of the Tea Bagger leadership? These are the questions I want answered before someone is murdered by these selfish, hateful, self-absorbed, over privileged white people.

The Tea Bagger movement is racist. It is fascist. It is corrupt. And the Republican Party needs to be pulled down and ripped apart for continuing to accept the "grassroots" support of these rabid jackasses.

And truthfully, I feel sorry for the Republican Party.

Yesterday, I was sitting at the home of a New York lawmaker, and I got to know the young queer Republican that ran against him in the last election. This young man was sweet, articulate, and genuine. Though we did not talk politics, my guess is that he is one of those old school Republicans that simply wants smaller government, fewer taxes and a business friendly climate. There were Republicans, once upon a time, that believed that Civil Rights were not antithetical to their world view, and this young man was one of them. Unfortunately, his party has gone so far past that common sense and compassionate point that it simply can not be pulled back by a few well meaning good hearted Republicans trying, desperately, at the edges to bring Republicanism back to its roots.

It's time for moderate, good hearted Republicans to break off, form their own party, and let the rest of the rabid hate mongers that consistently show their asses on the national stage crash, burn, and die in a bonfire ignited by their own stupidity and hatred.

And to close, I will quote my dear friend Stacey Parshall Jensen, "I'll head east and take it to the street because my wish for health care reform, for ending the war, for cuttting taxes, for education reform, for giving the middle-class a break, for ending discrimination against women, gays, and folks of color, and for helping the poor all in the name of the FREAKIN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS DOES NOT MAKE ME A NIGGER. Shoot. The old Black lady in me has spoken."

The old black lady in you has spoken for me too.

Negro

So, like many Americans, I was tickled to death to see the word NEGRO on my Census form. Ten years ago, when I filled out my first Census form as an adult, the word Negro was not on the form. Now...all 10 questions on the Census form are approved by an act of Congress. Setting aside the stupid and ridiculous red tape that must have gone into actually getting 535 members (or, at the very least, a majority of those 535 members) to agree on 10 questions for a form (only in the US of A), where the hell was the Congressional Black Caucus when this question came up?

I mean, I know, for example, that the entire CBC is not made up of 75 year old black men from Georgia. For example, the Congressman that represents Minnesota's 5th District aka Minneapolis is Keith Ellison...a young black man that is also Congresses first Muslim Representative. Was Keith absent the day that they debated those 10 questions? Was there some "Back to Negro" movement that I missed out in the last 10 years? I know on first glance I don't necessarily appear as the most niggerish of Negroes, but even as a stealth Blacky, I still tend to know at least any major movements/issues/discussions going on within the black community. Did Kwame call up the Census Bureau and say that his great-grandma was mad that Negro had been taken off the form in 1970 and wanted it back? Maybe Maya Angelou, old and fierce as she is, wrote a poem called "On The Pulse of the Negro," and it created an intense but narrow movement to bring back the word Negro.

Negro. Negro. Negro.

I can't stop saying that damn word.

Negro.

See...there I go again.

Really...I am not offended at all by the use of the word Negro on the Census form, but I am, perhaps overly, amused by it and a little confused. Is there an enclave of Black folks in America that neither recognize that the word "black" and the words "African American," are referring to them? I can TOTALLY see if the word "black" were omitted as there are many many many black non-African-Americans in the United States. The word black, for me, indicates everyone of African descent no matter their country of origin...so black Puerto Ricans, black Brazilians, and Africans living in America are all encompassed in the word black, but African-American covers, nicely, all those not covered by black. Negro just seems like an archaic redundancy and perhaps a misguided attempt by the Census Bureau to make Michelle and Barack Obama feel welcome and included in Washington.

Negro.

I'm just saying.

Theater Review-- Yank!: A World War II Love Story

The hardest part of seeing the play Yank! was finding the York Theater. Tucked away in the basement of the Church of St. Peter on 54th and Lexington, the street numbers magically jump from 601 to 649 Lexington, leaving this theater-goer at a loss to find 619 Lexington.

But do not fret, the theater is in the basement of the beautiful St. Peter's, and though I loathe the Upper East Side, I would make the pilgrimage to see Yank! every single night if my theater budget would allow me to do so.

This show was phenomenal.

The story opens with a young, presumably queer, man that has found an old journal in a junk shop in San Francisco. The journal chronicles the love story of Stu and Mitch, two men that find love at the height of World War II. Dealing with issues of war, sexuality, race, and cultural tropes all set to hilarious and sometimes poignant original musical numbers, Yank pulls at your heart strings and plays the audience like the cello hidden offstage.

The story is focused on the two main characters Mitch and Stu. Mitch, played by the lamentably straight but oh so gorgeous Ivan Hernandez, and Stu played by the presumably (and hopefully) queer Bobby Steggert, are well rounded characters brought to vibrant life by these gifted actors. I saw Bobby Steggert in the recent, and now sadly defunct, production of Ragtime on Broadway. He wowed in Ragtime, and he blew me away in this production. But, even with stellar performances by Hernandez and Steggert, the show was completely stolen by Nancy Anderson, the sole femme (though most assuredly not the only femme) in the production. Nancy played half a dozen or more female characters throughout the show from a plucky USO girl and a sultry blues singer to General MacArthur's right hand lesbian wo(man). And each time she took the stage a great production became brilliant. I will literally see that woman perform in anything she does from now on whether it be a shampoo commercial or a Roger Corman film. She was a phenom and her voice gave me goose bumps.

In the end, the cast included laudable performances by Jeffrey Denman (Artie) to the bubbly and infectious Pole played by Tally Sessions. The fact that this show brings back tap, evoking old time movies starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kay, makes this lover of Savion Glover, a happy camper.

This show, mark my words, will be going to Broadway. And it is a success that the Zellnick Brothers, David and Joe, rightfully deserve. My only complaint is that I had the opportunity to meet David after the show last night, but he was coming in from out of town, and he wasn't going to arrive until nearly midnight, and this writer was already dead on his feet.

Thank you to Bill Martin for making this show happen for me last night. And to the rest of you, GO AND SEE YANK! It is running at the York Theater until March 21, 2010.

For showtimes and more information on the show, including additional reviews, check out the Yank! Website.

PS Yank was actually a magazine published by the Army during World War II, and actual pages from Yank were posted on the walls of the reception area of the theater. Included in some of the pages posted was a picture of my hometown, Minneapolis, from the 1940s. Kismet I tell you.

My AIDS...a Comedy by Daniel Horrigan

MY AiDS
TO BENEFIT SEVERAL LGBT ORGANIZATIONS

Broadway Cares Equity Fights Aids,
Anti-Volence Project, Hetrick-Martin Institute, Men’s Sexual Health Project, Trinty Place Shelter, Gay Men’s Health Clinic and the Ali Forney Center

The 30th Street Theater
February 13 - March 1

At Hand Theatre Company (Justin Scribner, Executive Director) announces that its production of Dan Horrigan’s MY AiDS will benefit several LGBT organizations at each performance.

Hetrick-Martin Institute February 14th
The Hetrick-Martin Institute creates a safe and supportive environment in which LGBTQ youth, ages 12 to 21, can reach their full potential. Through a comprehensive package of innovative and creative after-school programs, supportive services, and referrals, Hetrick-Martin, with its experienced professional staff, is a leader in caring for our most vulnerable at-risk youth. We are also host to the Harvey Milk High School, an inclusive voluntary New York City public high school focusing on the educational needs of children who are in crisis or at risk of physical violence and/or emotional harm in a traditional educational environment.

Anti-Violence Project February 15th
The New York City Anti-Violence Project is dedicated to eliminating hate violence, sexual assault, stalking, and domestic violence in LGBTQ and HIV-affected communities through counseling, advocacy, organizing, and public education. The New York City Anti-Violence Project was founded in 1980 in reaction to neighborhood incidents of anti-LGBT violence and the failure of the criminal legal system to respond. AVP remained an all-volunteer organization until 1984, when the first full-time Executive Director was hired. With the addition of full-time staff, AVP was able to broaden its services to provide professional counseling to victims and survivors of hate violence. AVP also began expanding our work beyond bias-motivated violence to include services for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and HIV-related violence. Today, AVP provides free and confidential assistance to thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected (LGBTQH) people each year from all five boroughs of New York City.

Men's Sexual Health Project February 20th
Bellevue Hospital Center and NYU School of Medicine now offer free, confidential testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections at two bathhouses for men who have sex with men in New York City. This innovative project, under the direction of Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, combines the Bellevue clinical service of HIV testing with NYU research in sexually transmitted infections and prevention. Accesible testing hours and a judgment-free environment streamline the availability of testing for infections impacting our community. The Men's Sexual Health Project offers the following on a walk-in basis: Rapid HIV antibody testing, with results available in 20 minutes, HIV PCR/viral load testing to identify recent HIV infections, Testing for sexually transmitted infections, including Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Syphilis, and Risk reduction counseling with a doctor or trained HIV counselor.

Trinity Place Shelter February 21st
Trinity Place Shelter is a non-sectarian, 10-bed transitional shelter that is open all year to provide LGBTQ youth with a safe place to sleep, eat, store belongings, and have access to transportation. Through strong local community partnerships, we are able to provide access to comprehensive medical services, case management, education, career counseling, art classes and mental health services. All youth referred to Trinity Place have been identified as interested in, or are actively seeking, employment or schooling. We provide a unique, family-like environment where the youth receive the respect, individualized care, and basic services so often denied them. There are as many as 10,000 LGBTQ youth currently living homeless in NYC and only 250 beds or fewer that are specifically available for this population. These youth often experience abuse in other shelters. Our goal is to expand our program to provide homeless LGBTQ youth with the basic services and skills necessary to make independent living a reality, and to make a positive difference for as many as possible in the midst of this crisis.

GMHC February 22nd
GMHC is the world’s first and leading provider of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy. To end the AIDS epidemic, we need comprehensive solutions that promote education, increase awareness, improve care, reduce stigma, elevate policy and build strong, supportive communities. Whether it’s getting tested, living with HIV/AIDS, succeeding at home and work or elevating our voice for policy change, we provide answers that give hope. We understand the root causes of the disease and take a holistic approach to care — from medical treatment and counseling to legal services and job placement — that promotes total well-being for your whole life. We help you develop meaningful relationships within the GMHC community, receive support and give back to others along the way, so you feel a sense of confidence and pride that empowers your life on your terms. AIDS is not over. In fact, awareness is down as new infections are up — including among women, people of color and men who have sex with men. The roots of the epidemic are wide and deep, from stigma and misinformation to the increasing cost of care. At GMHC, we believe we can end the epidemic by addressing the underlying causes, shifting cultural beliefs and promoting smart behaviors that empower a healthy life for all of us. In 1981, six men united against fear and death from a disease then known as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. The group set up an answering machine in the home of Rodger McFarlane and the first AIDS hotline was born — receiving over 100 calls the first night. Today, GMHC continues to pioneer HIV prevention, care and advocacy. Fight AIDS. Love Life. Since before AIDS had a name and until the epidemic is over, GMHC will continue to fight AIDS and love life.

The Ali Forney Center February 28th
As the visibility of LGBT people grows in our society, more and more LGBT teens are finding the courage to come out of the closet. Tragically, as many as 25% of these teens are rejected by their families, and many end up homeless on the streets. Homeless LGBT teens are more likely than straight homeless teens to be subjected to violence on the streets, and in the homeless shelter system. They suffer from inordinate rates of mental illness, trauma, HIV infection and substance abuse. The Ali Forney Center (AFC) was started in June of 2002 in response to the lack of safe shelter for LGBT youth in New York City. We are committed to providing these young people with safe, dignified, nurturing environments where their needs can be met, and where they can begin to put their lives back together. -- Ali Forney was a homeless queer teen who was forced to live on the streets of New York during the 1990s. Ali was dedicated to the safety of other homeless queer youth; he was a committed HIV prevention worker, and aggressively advocated that the NYPD investigate a series of murders of the homeless queer youth he had befriended. Ali was an inspiration to those who knew him. In December of 1997, Ali was murdered on the streets. His tragic death called attention to the atrocious conditions for homeless LGBT youth in New York. Ali's murderer has never been identified.


Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS March 1st
BC/EFA is one of the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 BC/EFA has raised over $175 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses across the United States. BC/EFA is the major supporter of seven programs at The Actors’ Fund - including The AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative, The Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic, The Dancers’ Resource and three supportive housing residences. BC/EFA also awards annual grants to over 400 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide.

My Aids a comedy will run February 13 – March 1 and is set to open February 15 at The 30th Street Theater (259 West 30th Street). Dave Solomon (NYMF’s Marrying Meg) will direct the 80-minute solo comedy
Synopsis
Armed with only his wit, storyteller Dan Horrigan does battle with evil bosses, loses true love, and confronts being HIV positive... all while searching for the perfect set of kitchenware! With humor and candor, he shares his story about grappling with growing up and accepting himself.

Best known for POP!, their annual production of short plays, At Hand Theatre Company has previously presented the plays Lila Cante, One Nation Under, Silence!, Trickster at the Gate and Cake and Plays...But Without the Cake

MY AiDS plays February 13 through March 1
Saturdays at 10:30pm;
Sundays and Mondays at 7pm at The 30th Street Theater (259 West 30th Street)
Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by phone at (212) 868-4444 or online at www.smarttix.com .


www.AtHandTheatre.com
Dan Horrigan

Raise My Taxes Please!

A brilliant woman that I do not know half as well as I would like, but I do love and appreciate for her work supporting queer families, Betty Tisel, posted on her Facebook page a status that read

I was thinking about Republicans today - and the tea partiers — and I was thinking that they have FREEDOM and GREEDOM mixed up — please speak up if you disagree. I love good infrastructure and the only way we have good infrastructure is with taxation. BRING IT ON.

I totally agree with Betty, and more than that, I have always maintained that I am delighted to pay out most of my earned income in taxes if I have a short list of 10 things guaranteed by the federal government.

Let me state publicly that if the U.S. government in partnership with the states and local municipalities can guarantee the following 10 items, I will gladly pay out 80% of my income in taxes, and I will do so with a smile:

1) Anyone in the United States regardless of status would receive full and free healthcare including unlimited mental health care including drug/alcohol treatment,

2) An extensive mass transit system in every major metropolitan that was quick and affordable including FREE transportation for the homeless and the working poor,

3) Rapid rail lines connected every major metropolitan region of a state AND bullet trains in between major metropolitan areas from state to state connecting the entire nation in a web of super fast/green travel,

4) Free, quality, elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education through the PhD level (with every school receiving even a single federal dollar required to enact a decision making structure, including financial decision making, with equal representation from community and school based constituencies: students, instructors, professional staff, union staff, administrators, and representatives from the geographical locale in which the school is located),

5) Federally guaranteed maternity and paternity leave, for each parent or a guardian of the parents choice, with two months fully paid salary with the cost to be split between the federal and state governments with a 1/3 covered by the employer.

6) During recessions or other economic emergencies anyone that loses his or her job would immediately qualify for state funded re-training in a new vocational field OR a new post-secondary degree in a field substantially different than his or her original and/or one full year of unemployment payments for any employee that wishes to remain in his or her field of choice but is let go from a position for anything short of willful malfeasance that would qualify as materially damaging to the organization/company or is punishable as a criminal/civil offense,

7) A minimum livable wage requirement with mandatory cost of living adjustments AND merit pay increases except when a company could prove to a labor relations board comprised ENTIRELY of wage workers and union representatives that it would be an undue burden to the company to increase wages (also, in any year that a company has laid off workers, executives in that company would be banned from any level of bonuses including long term stock options,

8) Any military expenditure would have to be matched dollar for dollar by domestic entitlement, federal grants to nonprofit organizations, block grants to states, aid to local governments, and social safety network spending that directly supported the lives and well being of U.S. residents specifically excluding now and forever abstinence only education programs,

9) Long term low interest or no interest loans for first time working class home buyers REGARDLESS of credit history as long as a steady income stream is proven and has been maintained for at least two years, and

10) A constitutional amendment to ban anyone from public office for all time that voted for, is related to, or ever had a relaxing dinner at home with anyone connected to the Bush family. (I am willing to be flexible on this one).

Raise My Taxes Please!

A brilliant woman that I do not know half as well as I would like, but I do love and appreciate for her work supporting queer families, Betty Tisel

A Prediction

Call me Miss Cleo or believe that I am channeling the spirit of the now deceased Zelda Rubenstein (aka Tangina) but I have a feeling that some shit is about to break off up in this piece sometime very soon.

We got angry white men flying airplanes into IRS buildings and the media refuses to call it what it is: Terrorism (fucking racism)

We have angry ass white men in Tennessee calling for a return to Jim Crow (fucking teabaggers).

We have an angry white woman in Washington State calling for the lynching of U.S. Senator Pat Murray (more fucking teabaggers)

Finalists are being eliminated from American Idol for shenanigans and skulduggery (fucking FOX)

And I got the shits.

Oh yeah...something real is about to break off up in this piece.

Obama has reached up inside himself, grabbed his nuts, and pulled them out of his abdomen and is letting the Republicans have it.

The Republicans are firing back a full 41 gun salute in the Senate (damn you Massachusetts). And Nancy Pelosi is off getting Botox when she should be in Harry Reid's office slamming his forehead into his desk.

And Carnie Wilson has gained all that weight back that she lost from gastric bypass surgery.

The world is going straight to hell.

The good news is that the economy has rebounded, some. And I know a lot of gay boys in finance that are making money hand over fist or fist inside anus, however you want to phrase it.

But even with that...my Spidey Sense tells me that something for real for real is going to break off this week. Something unexpected or perhaps some shit we should have expected but thanks to a gaff by the CIA, NSC, FBI and PBS we are going to be caught with our pants down, our cheeks spread, and a baby Jesus butt plug in some hard to explain places.

Call me Nostrahomodamus....but grab your implants boys and girls...we are in for some real shit, really soon.

Tom Tancredo Rhymes with Jim Crow

To invoke the power of the great blogger Divine Grace, former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo is a douchenozzle.

He is also a racist bastard that, during his opening remarks at the Tea Party (I calls 'em Teabaggers) Convention, stated that "Obama was elected because we don't have a civics, literacy test in this country before people can vote in this country." (Read the Alternet.org article)

Jim Crow say what?

Speaking in the Nashville, TN, in a South that has never healed from the physical, spiritual, and psychic wounds of slavery and Jim Crow, Tom Tancredo said in his "outside voice" that Jim Crow era voting barriers should be reinstated to keep the ignorant from participating in Democracy. And by ignorant he meant to say niggers. Teabaggers are ok but carpet baggers will not be tolerated.

And wouldn't you know it, the crazy ass fuck nuts in the audience applauded. Holy shit.

When I first read this story yesterday, my jaw hit the table so hard that I left a dimple imprint in the Formica. It is a new fucking day and a great big leap backwards when white folks are no longer afraid of backlash or severe outward consequences by saying uncoded racist shit in public. Pre-Obama it would have been the immediate death knell of the Tea Party if a speaker at their "convention" aka "klan rally" said anything resembling what Tancredo said. There is no way in hell a former Vice Presidential candidate would have kept her appointment to give the keynote speech. Republican legislators would have immediately decried the organization, and it would have quietly broken apart or pulled their sheets back over their heads and returned to burning crosses in colored folk's front yards.

Not now. There's a nigger in the White House. The coloreds done got uppity and forgotten their places, and it's time for Granny to pull up her knickers, rub on some extra Fixodent, and get to kicking ass and tying nooses.

I am listening to NPR this morning, and they were reporting on the convention, and low and behold there wasn't a word spoken concerning Tancredo's remarks. WTF man? Oh yeah....they get money from the gubernment, and there is a recession don't you know. Can't rock the boat by doing any real reporting.

Wake up people. The true measure of the state of racism in this country is not the fact that a black man is in the White House. The true state is measured by what the opposition says and gets away with impunity. Racism is alive and well, and it has taken off its white robes, put on a suit and started a new white power movement called the Tea Party.

The Being of Facebook

There was a time when I felt that I was surrounded by brilliant individuals, and I wondered how it was that they came up with the ideas, thoughts, and reflections that I heard them speaking. I was once a member of a group called Visions Collective, which was a multi-racial/multi-gender/age diverse/sexuality diverse cohort of organizers/artists/academics. Some of the most brilliant people from the Twin Cities made up this group, and for almost four years we met on a regular basis, struggling together on a range of issues that began with the Israel/Palestine conflict and covered everything from war to sexuality. One of the most beautiful things about that group was that we permissioned ourselves to let the journey and the discussion be the outcome without requiring any tangible product. Growth, challenge, synthesis, confrontation, and conflict were the products and they were valued. But, even as a core member of that group, I felt like a fraud. The rest of the folks in the group seemed as if they thought deep thoughts and spent their waking hours dreaming up a better world. It seemed that their brains were always at work behind their eyelids.

I have never been a great thinker. I have always been a feeler and have let my emotions guide my tongue. Often I didn't know what I believed until I heard others espouse their beliefs. I would let their statements feed my emotions and based on my reactions to what others were saying, I came to an understanding of whether or not I agreed or disagreed. And my thought process started when I opened my mouth. And though others found value in what I was saying, I always felt like a charlatan. I didn't sit at home and think about the issues of the day. I didn't and rarely do now, ponder anything. But I am always feeling, there are always shifting morphing tides inside of me that, from time to time, erupt into a thought or idea that I spill out onto this blog, into an editorial, an article or in some other written format. Now and again I find myself in spaces that I once thrived in, those groups of great thinkers that are still trying to figure this world out and make it a better place, and in those places I am given the gift of being able to think out loud.

I have come to understand, though, that now adays my regular engagement with thinkers and philosophers, artists and academics is through the medium of Facebook. Folks like Staceyann Chin often pose questions that provoke long "conversations," artist like Isauro Cairo post photographs that stimulate everything from inquiry to outrage to lust and force me to rethink myself as a man, as queer, as an artist and my relationship to my body, masculinity, and desire.

And I don't feel as if I am a charlatan anymore.

I feel as if I am constantly surrounded by people that think deep thoughts and feel deep feelings, and I have come to understand that I think through feelings. Like an ant, which uses a complicated set of scents to communicate information and ideas, my body mass produces layers and layers of feelings that, in my own internal language, translate themselves into ideas and positions on myself and the world around me. And the world around me and myself seem to become more and more connected.

I find myself drawn, without judgment or expectation, to amazing new and exciting people from my partner David to my colleague Bill Martin, and all through a medium that allows me to engage with the little cues and stories that they tell, sometimes with intention and other times subconsciously, through the things that they post and the glimpses that they share into their lives, likes, dislikes, pains, discomforts, art, and celebrations. And I find myself, on a daily basis, falling in desire, lust, intellectual rapport, extreme distaste, hate, and downright rejection with people that I often do not know or only know through a small picture through a tiny window made up of fancy coding and ones and zeros on a commercial networking site.

But I know that so often the connections I have made in the real world are deepened through the online interactions, and I have made significant and meaningful connections that began as online admiration (or down right flirting) and transformed into real life friends and lovers. And throughout it all I have come to learn more about myself as a thinker and feeler, more about myself as an artist, and more about the world in which we live and the people that are also out there trying to make sense of it all.

The State of the Union Is Tore Up

Last night, I sat on the bed with David. David was playing Scramble on his iPhone, and I had my computer on my lap, iTunes tuned to WNYC, and my Twitter open. As President Obama gave his State of the Union address, I live Twittered the experience, and I joined thousands of others that were giving their responses, analysis, and transcription of/to the address.

I have to say that there were a number of times during the speech that more than one "hell yeah" came out of my mouth. Obama had some great things to say, with some witty one liners, and some pointed jabs at both the left and the right. I am behind him with putting his foot in the asses of banks. I am with him on fixing health care. I am with him on job creation. I am even with him on closing the gap in import/exports. I do not advocate militarism, but I do advocate for the right of queer folks to serve openly in the military, though I would prefer that the military, as we know it, would be disbanded and reconstituted using a just defense framework.

I can not get behind Obama on some of the relativist imperialism that espoused. I don't believe in the actions, policies, and necessary oppressive actions that are necessary for the USA to remain #1 in the world. I lamented the lack of a more harsh criticism of the Supreme Court's recent decision on corporate personhood, and I really wish Obama would have stopped his speech, left the podium, and punched Justice Alito in the face when he had the nerve to mouth, "that's not true."

I wish that Obama had spoken about New Orleans and demanded that Congress commit the money to really rebuild the entire Gulf area. I was listening for an acknowledgment that we are not post race or class or sex or gender or oppression. I wanted to hear something about the rebuilding of our social safety network, which the current economic crisis has exposed as a colander and not a net.

I am happy that Obama owned that clean energy and green jobs and industry is the way of the future, but I reject the notion that there is anything such as "clean coal" technology, and I stand firmly against any expansion of nuclear power. How many Chernobyls and Three Mile Islands to we have to have before we understand that nuclear energy is never and will never be safe.

And there was too little about foreign policy. What about Israel and Palestine? What about Afghanistan and Iraq? What about Haiti? What about the climate change treaty? What about IMF reform and World Bank reform?

In the end, I think that Obama did well in his speech. I wasn't looking to agree with everyone he said. And I know that the State of the Union is political positioning at its finest. I think that Obama put some fire under the Republicans. Now, I can only hope that he will use the bully pulpit and channel his inner angry black man and get some real shit done or at least go down in a glorious ball of righteous flames in the effort to make real change and create real hope in the USA.

The Supreme Court Decides that Wal-Mart is a Person

Fuck me three ways til Tuesday.

Today has been a hell of a day. First the racist, classist, and ugly young woman working at the Genius Bar at Apple, without looking at my brand new iPhone 3Gs, suggested that "some people," fall and smash their phones on purpose when new ones come out, so that they can get an upgrade. Therefore, she was going to have to charge me $200 to replace the glass front of my phone...which...by the way...was the only thing broken on the damn thing...the LCD and touch screens worked just fine. And I did my research, the glass costs $24. So I guess that's $175 for labor. Fuck you Genius Bar.

And then, I come home, and lo and behold I log into Facebook only to find that the Supreme Court has all the balls that seem to be missing from the Democratic members of Congress. Against 100 years of precedence, the Roberts Court (may your dick shrivel and fall off) went right on ahead and said it was unconstitutional and the court saw no compelling argument for limiting in any way the right of corporations (oh and unions...throwing the left an old, run down, and chewed on bone) to speak freely and spend freely to promote their speech during political campaigns.

Excuse me?

The U.S. Supreme Court has lost its damn mind. This is what I love...it was the Supreme Court that magically decided way back in the 1880s and 1890s that corporations, which didn't really exist in 1776, were actually entitled to all the rights and privileges of a living, breathing human being. Successive court rulings places some limits on the ability of corporations to engage in direct political speech and advocacy. But the Bush Supreme Court that we now have went on ahead and bucked 100 years of court precedence and said...what the fuck...Wal-Mart can run America...party on Exxon Valdez and Dow Jones why don't you and DuPont just go on ahead and pick a couple of your stock holders names out of a hat and they can be U.S. Senators.

Basically, the judges wrote a total of five different opinions on the ruling totally 175 pages. I can boil all that down for you into one short letter.

Dear U.S. Democracy,

Fuck you. Go buy a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Love,
SCOTUS

And you see, thanks to our wonderful system of checks and balances, which, since Bush took office, really hasn't worked worth a damn...this opinion rips apart state laws in roughly half of the states and writes corporations a blank check signed Chief Justice Roberts.

I think I am going to vomit.

The midterm elections next year are going to ridiculous. Special interests, labor unions, and corporations spent $1 billion in the 2008 presidential elections and that was WITH spending limits. Every CEO on Wall Street just got a fat dripping chubby when this news came down.

I can smell the end of the farce that has been called "democracy" in the United States. But, let me be clear, this country has never been a democracy and now, finally, the mask is coming off and the corporate dictatorship that has run this nation for the last century is going to show its true face. Time for the American Revolution Part Deux.

(Though I would rather pretend this didn't really just happen, here is a link to an article with more and less angry details.)

And, if you are as pissed off as I am, there is something you can do. Sign this petition asking Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban corporate personhood.

Hey Democrats! Grow a Pair

Yesterday, the people of the Massachusetts, in not their finest moment, replaced the venerable Ted Kennedy, the last Prince of Camelot, with Scott Brown, a Republican. Not since 1972 has that bluest of blue states elected a Republican to the Senate.

Shit happens.

All of the pundits that are not on FOX are very clear: this was not a critique of the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, but it was a comment on the continuing frustration of the slow pace of economic recovery and the even slower pace of real change in the lives of everyday people. Basically, the anger at those in power continues, and the people will shift their anger to whoever is in power, Democrats or Republicans.

Why oh why people continue to flip back and forth between two options that have gotten them nowhere fast for a long ass time is beyond me. A year ago, Republicans were evil. This year, Democrats are evil. Wake up people, it's time for a viable third party system in the United States.

But I digress.

What is really annoying the hell out of me is all the woeful tears around health care reform. Oh no! The Democrats have lost their filibuster proof majority. I have a few things to say about that.

1.) The Democrats never had a 60 vote majority. The had 58 votes in their column. There are two independent Senators: Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Idiot Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. That smegma sucking Lieberman demonstrated very clearly during the health care reform debate process that he had no issues with jumping the Democratic ship when necessary or whenever he had an itch in his saggy nuts. Maybe now that the illusion of the filibuster proof majority in the Senate has been shattered, Harry Reid will smile, pat Lieberman on the back, and then strip that bastard of his chairmanship and let him try his luck with the Republicans. Good morning, Joe and fuck you very much.

2) Since when has a filibuster meant death and destruction? Senators have grown soft. Let me tell you a story. Back in 1963, President Kennedy introduced a bill called the Civil Rights Act. At the time, the Senate was controlled by the Democrats and the Democrats were split between Northern and Southern wings. At the time, also, it took 67 votes to invoke cloture and cut off debate, thereby ending a filibuster. Northern Republicans and Northern Democrats felt so passionately about the Civil Rights Act, particularly after the assassination of President Kennedy, that they called the oppositions bluff. Debate on the Civil Rights Act took place, non-stop, for 57 days. But, in the end, justice and patience won out. Enough pressure was applied on those that opposed the Civil Rights act that they caved. This was done both by internal doggedness by bill proponents, and external pressure by the Civil Rights movement.

Yes, indeed. Real change happens when the public demands real change. When oh when will we learn this lesson?

So yes, Democrats, the "easy" passage of the health care reform bill (and what a compromised fiasco it is already) is now out of your grasp, unless you plan on railroading it through before Senator-elect Brown can be sworn in. But passage of the bill is NOT impossible, it just requires your courage, conviction, and commitment. Unfortunately, I believe that he days when Lions walked the Senate halls are dead. Now only angry ghosts and fainting goats leap from hearing room to hearing room, bleating loudly, and falling over at any loud sound.

Sleeping Pills or New York, NY

Right now I feel as if I downed a bottle of Nyquil, chased it with a bottle of vodka, and then topped it off with a hand full of valium.

Holy Spaced Out Batman.

Last night, I had one of those NYC moments. I started off the evening at the fucking fantastic 48 Lounge in the McGraw-Hill Building on 48th Street between 6th and 7th avenues. This upscale lounge caters to the corporate crowd during the week and the show goers in the evenings and on the weekends. It is right in the heart of the Theater District, and it is conveniently located right off of several major train lines. The decor is chic and there is a breathtaking giant photo of a rock formation from the Arizona desert that dominates the back wall of the lounge. The ceiling in the VIP/bottle service area features lighting that mimics a constellation in the shape of an infinity symbol. The music was a PERFECT blend of some of the best music from the1980s-today with remixes of Susanne Vega, Michael Jackson, Sade, and others. There wasn't a single song that came on that I didn't love. Check out 48 Lounge, but be prepared...the drinks are flawless but they come witha hefty price tag.

I met my friend, Jamila Anderson, another Minnesota ex-pat living in NYC for drinks. Jamila is one of the most brilliant actors I know. She also has a soulful voice and is working on some big things, so you all should keep her name in mind. So Jamila and I met at the 48 Lounge, which is being managed by my friend Jason. We chilled, talked about boys and dick, and had an all around great time. Jason checked in on us and made sure we had impeccable service, plus he ain't hard on the eyes himself.

My plan was to have a few drinks with Jamila and head home but NYC had a different plan for my behind. While we were sitting there, my girls Shelley and Lisa texted Jason, as they may all become roommates together, and my two favorite sorority girls popped up from the Lower East Side and met us from an end of the evening drink. Then, my friend Karlo called and said that he was going out with a friend from LA, and he swung by and picked me up.

Good lord. I meant to be home by Midnight, but I stumbled in the door around 6:30am. We ended up going to two more bars last evening for a grand total of three.

Now don't let the gays fool you. We can get just as rowdy at a bar as our straight counterparts. We just look better when we do it. While we were at Barracuda, a friend of one of Karlo's friends, said something to a porn star that really pissed off the porn star and the porn star's man. Not sure what was said, but that 7' tall power bottom looked like he was about to lay a hurting on the black queen that was Karlo's friend Scott's friend. And when voices get loud, my PTSD kicks in, and I gots ta go.

That situation, having simmered down, was replaced by Armahn getting into a row with one of the servers at Barracuda. Things got real tense for a moment when the bouncer was brought in. I was all ready to believe that the server was being a major diva, but she was nice to me, so I downgraded her from Super Bitch to Stressed Waiter, which comes with certain allowances.

I was so wired and jacked up from such a fun night that I absolutely could NOT sleep. I laid in bed begging the Sandman to swing by and punch me in the face, but he refused to cooperate. Finally around 7:30, I got up and took two Tylenol PM, but my body refused to process the damn drugs. Finally, around 10:30, after eating a bowl of spaghetti and downing two more "sleepies," I passed out until 2:00pm.

Let it be a lesson to you all that trying to shut down your bodies manic energy with four Tylenol PM ain't cute. I didn't want to while away my whole day in a chemically induced coma, so I forced myself to get up and make out with my dog a little bit (and David too). But when those damn little pills say allow for 8 hours of sleep, they are not lying. My eyes keep unfocusing while I type this, and I am about to run outside, butt naked, to try and wake myself up.

In the end, it was an awesome NYC night. There are very few places where you can have a such a night. And where else can you start the night with an actor/hip-hop artist and end it with two high end make-up artists and a former Associate Director of the Ice Capades. Only in the Big Apple. New York....I got to be a part of it!

Letter from Indiana University Regarding Murder of Dr. Don Belton

A friend of mine from undergrad at Warren Wilson College, Abbie Hantgan, was loving enough to send me this letter today. This letter was sent out by the Provost at Indiana University regarding the murder of Don Belton. I deeply appreciate the university's remembrance of Dr. Belton and also recognizing that his murder has reached far beyond the IU community.

Letter from Indiana University Provost Regarding the Murder of Professor Don Belton

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

As the campus begins the new semester, we must acknowledge a terrible loss.
Some of you may just now be returning to campus after the holidays, and I am
very sad to inform you that the Indiana University community lost a dear
colleague during the semester break.

Don Belton, a faculty member in the English Department, was slain at his home
in Bloomington on December 27. (An arrest has been made in the case.)

In his relatively brief time at IUB, Professor Belton earned the admiration
and affection of his colleagues and students. He was a gifted writer and a
highly-valued member of the faculty of our distinguished Creative Writing
Program, in the Department of English. He was very well liked and very
well-respected. His death is a loss not just to his family and friends, and
our academic community, but also to the extended world of arts and letters and
to all who value the humanistic traditions. His absence will be profoundly felt.

The murder of Professor Belton has evoked strong emotions throughout the
community and indeed the nation. I trust that all members of our community will
exhibit tolerance, compassion, and respect in the wake of the loss of a valued
colleague. Let us also show respect for one another and for the many and varied
ways in which we express our grief over such a tragedy.

A memorial service to celebrate the life of Professor Belton will take place on
Friday January 15, at 5 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Fee Lane
in Bloomington.

Our heartfelt sympathies go out to Professor Belton's family, friends, and
colleagues.

Karen Hanson
Provost and Executive Vice President

Avatar: Great White Hopeless But See It Anyway

So, on the surface (and beneath the surface) Avatar is what David Brooks describes as a "White Messiah" movie a la "Dances with Wolves" and a dozen other popular cinema, literary, and animated fables. The movie is of course about a white man that goes native, and in this movie he literally goes native in the end swapping his human body for an alien body, and leads the indigenous people to salvation. He falls in love with an alien version of Malinche/Pocahontas/Sacajewea/Insert Any Other Woman's Name Here Blamed for Giving Access to Her People By the Colonizers. And, of course the indigenous people are at one with the natural environment, have perfect bodies, exist without war amongst themselves, and live in a big tree. They are the noble savage perfected.

I should have hated this movie for all of those reasons, but I absolutely loved it.

I won't allow that James Cameron was sophisticated in his race analysis. He wasn't. But what he did was provide a very clear depiction of what corporatism and white colonization has done and continues to do to indigenous peoples and populations around the world. He doesn't represent the corporate/military industrial complex on Pandora as having some sort of benevolent intentions...he strips away the niceties that are often present in these movies that portray the "bad white guys" as simply misguided or doing evil in the name of good or higher intentions. He tells it like it is and shows how decisions are really made in the real world when indigenous communities are sitting atop a valuable resources that is desired by the industrialized world. And, the part that won me over, was that James Cameron, for the first time that I can remember in a major world wide cinema piece, directly and clearly makes the connection between capitalism, corporatism, and the military industrial complex. He shows clearly and definitively that they are conjoined, something many of us already knew, and that they can not and will not exist separate from one another. He pushes all of his characters to their illogical extremes. But in doing so gives a more realistic view of the "bad guys" than one is likely to get in a corporate backed theater in the Western World.

He also does a weak critique, but a critique none-the-less, of the clash between Western scientists and indigenous science and technology. Let's be clear, indigenous communities have had and continue to have technology that is culturally appropriate and may not look like Western technology but is still technology. Unfortunately, Western science fails to understand or understands incorrectly indigenous knowledge, medicine, science and technology. And, in this movie, they fail again. Except Sigorne Weaver, who magically comes to a complete understanding of the indigenous science and faith system just before she departs to live with Eywa. Pullllleaassse.

One interesting side note is that Cameron did something interesting. He used a derivation of the Aramaic word for God, which is Elaw. I know this because I use that name for God in the novel that I am writing. Score one for Cameron actually opening a book and doing some research.

In the end, I found value in watching Avatar, but not for the reasons, I am sure, that James Cameron wanted. The plot was thin, but it did communicate some messages, starkly, that the world needs to hear.

On another tip, entirely, I fully believe the special effects in this movie will redefine special effects in the way that the Matrix did almost a decade ago.

In the end, I support folks going to see Avatar. Walk into it knowing that it will again be a storytelling of the Great White Hope. If you accept that up front, you will be able to get past it and enjoy the movie for what it does offer in terms of originality. If nothing else, see it in 3-D...cuz...really...the special effects are fucking cool.

Indiana Professor Don Belton Murdered

Another week, another queer person of color murdered. Indiana University Professor Don Belton, who I knew from his time in Minneapolis, though I did not know him well, was murdered by Michael Griffin. Mr. Griffin accused Don of sexually assaulting him "twice" on Christmas Day. So he went to Don's house, with a hunting knife, and when Don didn't apologize, he stabbed the man at least five or six times in the back and then several times in front.

I call that premeditated murder. You don't go to someones house for an apology and bring a knife.

The reporting also included that the police found a journal in the professor's apartment that had an entry which read that he was "very happy" that someone named Michael entered his life. Now, I could be wrong, but unless someone is a pathological or serial rapist, they generally do not write journal entries about individuals they assaulted.

This sounds like someone got their dick sucked a couple of times, couldn't deal with their internal homophobia, and killed an innocent man. There is an investigation that will dig up the facts, but I am going to go ahead and say that based on the age difference, the obvious physical fitness of Mr. Griffin, and knowing Don's commitment to justice and community, it would be very difficult for Don to assault Mr. Griffin. And even if he had, inappropriate touching does not qualify anyone for a death sentence.

I am an assault survivor. I was assaulted twice as an adult. I understand that assault between men can happen. My heart and understanding goes out to assault survivors, particularly those that are men as we are made almost completely invisible in the domestic and sexual violence movements unless we are the perpetrators.

But I don't believe for a fucking second that Michael Griffin was assaulted by Don Belton. The facts, as they stand, do not add up. Perhaps my opinion will change, but I doubt it. Even in supposed gay panic cases, the murderer has killed while, during, or just after the sexual encounter. They don't go back, days later, with a bowie knife. That is the sign of a fucked up mind and some fucked up issues.

And, of course, who values the life of a black man? Let alone a queer black man? Who thinks twice about murdering those that society still often fails to value? Why do people still think, use, and triumph with the gay panic defense? If I murdered the woman that grabbed my dick at a nightclub in Virginia over the Thanksgiving holiday, would I have been able to get off based on a straight panic defense?

I am exhausted.

Rest in piece Don. Thank you for your contributions to education, your writing, and your spirit. You will be missed.

Ganymede #6 Released Featuring Poetry by Brandon Lacy Campos and Charlie Vazquez

GANYMEDE #6 issue now out
6x9² perfect bound paperback book, 272 pages

--DAVID SEDARIS on loving his man
--British gay author DENTON WELCH (1915-1948), enjoying a big cult following
in the UK, returns to America thanks to Ganymede: SIX sample stories over
three issues!
--The Dirt on the Duchess: From Charles Higham's new memoir, learn what
Chinese vaginal technique the Duchess of Windsor used to cure her man's
impotence. Who needs the throne of England when your wife makes you cum?
--EDMUND WHITE¹s new memoir ³City Boy² and other book and film reviews
--MY DIVA: six gay authors on the great divas they love
--a rare homo-erotic mystery story by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
--14 gay poets, 5 gay story writers, gay photographers and artists

POETRY by Edward Field, Walter Holland, Steven Cordova, Gregg Shapiro, R.
Nemo Hill, Stephen S. Mills, Brandon Lacy Campos, Jeff Mann, Lee Houck, Eric
Norris, Bryan Borland, Christopher S. Soden, Sergio Ortiz, Mark Milazzo
FICTION by Denton Welch, Charlie Vásquez, Cyrus Cassells, Wayne Hoffman,
Eric Karl Anderson, Andrew J. Peters
ART PORTFOLIO: Today¹s Painters of the Male Form
PHOTO PORTFOLIOS: Yannis Angel, Kent Mercurio, Jannis Tsipoulanis, Eric
Phillips, Lars Stephan

Details and readable sample pages:
http://www.ganymedenyc.com/

Purchase (print or download):
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1308479
If you order print or download before Dec. 31, Lulu offers 20% off by using
this code in checkout: HOHOHO

Contributors can receive a free electronic version of the compete issue
provided their email service can handle very large attachments of 10+ mb
(gmail and Road Runner can; most others cannot)

Shits and No Giggles

Let me tell you, spending a week and a half alternating between taking 40 shits a day to all of a sudden being backed up like the 101 in L.A. during rush hour is enough to make a man say fuck it and carve into his own intestines to install a homemade colostomy bag. Then just as I thought all was well, I developed a waterfall of snot down the back of my throat and what felt like a Satanic Christmas elf with a red hot dagger in the junction between my ear and my throat that went berserk every time I swallowed anything, including the snot fountain.

Of course, all of this happened as David and I threw our holiday party, which drew about 40 guests, and our holiday trip to Connecticut to spend time with the in-laws.

And that's when "stupid man syndrome" kicked up in my butt. Now, most normal human beings, around day three of peeing out of their anus, would get thee to a doctor's office. Not my stubborn ass. Since Urgent Cares are not popular in New York, I decided to tough it out the first weekend, so as to avoid the $75 co-pay at the ER. By Monday, the fountain had dried up, and I thought...MAN WINS AGAIN! Of course, the day we leave for CT, my ear decides to go Sarah Palin rogue, but at that point it was too late to go to the doctor, as we were on our way to CT. I figured it was just a little earache, and it would go away, so I ate about three bites of Christmas dinner (I must be the only idiot in the Christian world that lost weight with about 20 lbs of ham staring him in the face). Day before last I decided to self medicate. Turns out that enough vodka heals all wounds, or at least least numbs them to the point where you just don't care.

Oh but I did care yesterday morning.

When I woke up yesterday, the ear pain was back with a vengeance, and this time the mucus waterfall was non-stop, yum. Unfortunately, "stupid man syndrome" was still in full effect. I decided that I was going to tough it out. I laid back down to take a nap. Finally, when I realized that the Hell's Elves had built a full on mosh pit in my ear/throat, I decided to suck it up and ask David to take me to urgent care.

I rose only to discover that David had been summoned by the Spirit of Martha Stewart Past (before jail), and he was off to the yarn store. I offered up a great lament, as David is a big old Uptown Girl when it comes shopping. That one can disappear into a craft aisle for three days and sustain himself with the water he keeps in the nick knack hump on his back.

Thank the lord that he made it back swiftly.

We trucked to the urgent care and then got to sit in the waiting room for 45 minutes. Once in the back, I got to tell a crotchety nurse about my various systems, and then she asked me my doctor's name. I blanked. I seriously blinked at her and said ummmm, "Steve." And she said, "umm. Last name." I totally could not remember. Then I mentioned he was in Chelsea, and she gave me that, "Oh you are from the CITY," look and shuffled out of the room. By the time the doctor came in, I was eyeballing a tongue depressor and a bottle of rubbing alcohol wondering if I could just fix the situation myself. The doc listened to my chest and then stuck one of those giant swabs down my throat, which came out bright red and bloody. I almost fainted off the damn examination table. I hadn't realized that the Elves weren't moshing, they were butchering my throat and selling the flesh to Dwarves as beef jerky.

Bitches.

The doctor was about as pleasant as Nurse Evil. And then I made the ultimate mistake as I left the examination room. I wished him a Merry Christmas, to which he did not respond. Then I read his name on the prescription sheet. Score one for wishing a Merry Christmas to a Jew. I am so awesome.

I got my drugs, headed home, and evicted the elves. Stupid Man Syndrome gave way to No More Blood in the Throat Common Sense.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a phlegm free night.

Precious

Yesterday, Mo'nique received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in the movie "Precious," the film based on the novel Push by Sapphire. She deserved it. Indeed, Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, and Gabourey Sidibie should all just be handed Golden Globes and Oscars right now.

This movie was so good and so hard and so raw and so real that at times I felt as if I were a voyeur inside the real life of any number of young women that I see on any given day walking the streets of New York.

Precious deals with a range of issues from incest, physical abuse, teen pregnancy, literacy, HIV/AIDS, poverty, and race. The truth is that the American cinema rarely deals well with ONE of those issues, and most films that attempt to not only address more than one of these issues but also to demonstrate the very real interconnections between these issues and their attendant oppressions, usually the movie falls flat or has to resort to being a musical (Rent anyone?). This movie not only addresses these issues but maintains a realism that for anyone that has struggled with any of these issues, you feel as if your story is being told to you from the silver screen, and it is not always a comfortable feeling.

I saw this film with my friend Kenyon, and at one point, he just laid his hand on my leg in comfort, and I was glad to have him nearby. Watching this film with another person of African descent, someone that I know understands many of the issues discussed in this film, made all the difference. When the two young black women walked out of the movie after a particularly difficult scene, I didn't wonder why. Watching it is not for the weak of heart or for anyone that is not in a good head place and soul space.

But it is a movie that everyone should see. I think what made the movie work, and I came to this conclusion after a Facebook conversation with my friend Cindy, was that everyone in the movie was ridiculously humble. With the stars attached to this movie, it could have easily have become a Divafest. Anyone one of the megastars attached to the film could have out shined the newcomer, Sidibie, but they all understand that the story they were telling was greater than themselves. Hell, to be real, I knew Mariah Carey was in the movie, and I was staring right at her and did not register the woman on the screen with the pop star.

Do yourself a favor. Go and see Precious. I guarantee that no other movie that came out in 2009 is anywhere near the quality of this movie. Prepare for an Oscars sweep.