Peter, Paul & Mary to NOM: Stop playing “This Land Is Your Land”

Peter, Paul & Mary’s cease-and-desist to NOM: Stop playing “This Land Is Your Land” « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

It amazes me that no matter how many times this happens, these right-wing fundamentalists keep choosing to play songs by openly liberal, tree hugging, gay-loving artists at their hate-fests. Peter Paul and Mary at an anti-gay marriage rally? Really?

Props to PP&M for a very diplomatic F-U to NOM.

Prop 8: Don’t be that guy.

So Prop 8 has been repealed, and now the repeal is being appealed. Everyone expected this of course, but I’ve been thinking about how the whole Prop 8/Perry v. Governator journey will be remembered by generations to come. The odds of equality not being granted to the tax-paying homosexual citizens of this country are extremely low. I’d honestly bet my life on it, because this is not the first civil rights battle we’ve had in this country, and historically, however long it took, forward thinking prevailed and a bunch of bigots ended up looking phenomenally stupid. Lets take a nauseating trip down American memory lane:

“Americans” killed the Native Americans. Somehow, a bunch of assholes convinced themselves that they were entitled to this land that they just “discovered”, despite the fact that other human beings already lived there. Eventually we realized how disgusting that was and cut it the f!^% out, but it took quite a while for that to happen. I don’t think giving the Native Americans a smidge of land and the ability to run casinos is any type of reparation, but the historical consensus is that we were being assholes.

Americans had slaves. Many, many slaves. Human beings treated like objects. Isn’t that amazing to you, my computer-owning friend who probably has never had your life and family threatened over your ability to pick crops? Yeah, we were being assholes. We had a big war about it, and it nearly broke up this country. Let me repeat that: people were so outraged that the government was telling them to stop “owning” other people that they picked up their guns and killed people over it. They thought the government was getting too big, and that it had no business telling them how to run their lives. Some considered owning slaves to be a God-given right. Some people on this dirty, dirty rock still do. History does not smile on these assholes.

American women couldn’t vote until 1920. Anglo white women haven’t had it as badly as a lot of other races of women, but for the purpose of this blarticle I’ll just use this example. Women–half the population–weren’t allowed to vote. Hell, until the last half of the 1900′s, women weren’t allowed to leave their husbands without the man’s permission. So the suffragettes fought, and a bunch of assholes–including the president–fought back. Now we can vote, we’re taking over the work force, we have 2 new female supreme court justices, and… Well… Sarah Palin. But hey, we never would have been gifted with “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin” if women weren’t in politics, and we have the suffragettes to thank for that! (Just for poops and giggles, I recommend researching women’s suffrage in the US vs. polygamy in Utah.)

Americans were segregated. While women were celebrating their suffrage, blacks were still getting utterly and truly f!#ed by their former massahs, and if you youngsters have been watching Mad Men, you know that it wasn’t all that long ago. In fact, it hasn’t even been 50 years since the Civil Rights Act was passed. A lot of people fought to uphold segregation and the ‘Merica of their youths–that perfect, utopian ‘Merica where the economy was good, government was smaller, women didn’t vote and where white men were proud of themselves for not owning slaves, but didn’t have to drink from the same water fountains as the darkies. They said blacks were dangerous, a menace to society and a threat to the white way of life. Despite that passionate argument, segregation ended.

I was born in the 80′s, so I really don’t understand how large groups of people in this giant narcissistic country of ours, so proud of its ability to lead the world and herald the future, could ever have thought that segregation was any type of sane. South African apartheid is a whole other brand of crazy, but South Africa has never gotten onto a podium and jerked itself off while talking about how much the entire world looks up to it. My point being that history regards the people who fought against ending segregation as a bunch of assholes.

Now we have Prop 8, and a bunch of assholes are once again fighting to continue oppressing a group of fellow human beings. The most ironic, and saddest thing people should know about Prop 8 is the degree to which the African American population in California was manipulated in order to get Prop 8 passed. I don’t know the exact figure, but exit polls showed something like a 75% “yes” vote for Prop 8 by the black community, and without that, Prop 8 would not have passed. (Is it any coincidence that Prop 8 was on Obama’s ballot?) The pasty white assholes who 50 years ago would have been fighting to uphold “Separate but Equal” spent a pretty penny manipulating African Americans, and it’s extremely sad to me that it didn’t occur to them that their voting “yes” on Prop 8 turned them into the assholes their families fought against.

Perry vs. Schwarzenneger is ultimately going to pave the way for equal rights for our gay brothers and sisters. Gay and transgendered marriages will no longer be put in a separate category, DADT will be repealed, and a lot of people are going to feel phenomenally stupid. I can’t tell you how long it will take, but I will say this to everyone fighting against it: Do you really want to be that guy on the losing end of a civil rights battle, fighting to keep human beings from being treated equally?

No matter how disgusted I get with the BS happening on this planet, I know that on a long enough timeline, our understanding of humanity evolves towards compassion. I don’t think we’re in a very good place at the moment with our civil rights blind spots, environmental murder and this whole “selfish is the new generous” movement, but critical people, both conservative and liberal, have always been saying that the world is going to hell, and that now is the “worst” period in history (see my EFH2T post “The Superlative Now for more on this).

You don’t have to get a banner and wave it around to show what you believe in, but you should decide which side of history you want to be on. And hey, if you disagree with me, we’ll just let history decide who is the asshole.

Stop Drinking Bottled Water Now! (Infographic)

I have a tap water filter myself (of the PUR variety), and it tastes just as good if not better than most bottled water. The real problem with water safety (in Los Angeles, anyway) is poorly maintained plumbing in residential buildings–just for fun, try a glass of tap water in a modern office building and compare.

Brian Clark Howard: Stop Drinking Bottled Water Now! (Infographic).

Haiku/Random SYTYCD thoughts: Homoerotic!

Homoerotic!
My bad girls, these dancers are
totally straight. Wink.

Well José probably is, but I’m just glad they’ve embraced guy on guy choreography. Not only is it making a lot of their demo happy, but we get to see so much more than the usual boy-meets-girl story. And I’m enjoying the new format more and more!

I’m referring to the Afro-jazz piece between Billy and José on tonight’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance. If you don’t watch SYTYCD, they usually act like all the obviously gay male dancers are straight on camera. Jesus H, if there’s one place a man should feel comfortable being into other men, it should be the effing dance world. I’m sure it’s just FOX being FOX. Adam Lambert didn’t “admit” to being gay until after Idol.

Is it a step in the right direction, or invitation for outrage from conservative families who don’t mind when the female dancers wear napkins as costumes and rub up against the boys’ penises (the way God intended), but won’t tolerate any queers corrupting their childrens’ fragile, straight little dance-watching minds?

Interview with the Pink Chat Room cast

Featuring CASA 0101 Artistic Director Josefina Lopez and the cast: Julie Evans, Claudia Duran, Martin Morales, Lena Marie, and the Ve Magni. (Thanks to LAExclusive for the interview)

I look like I’m super bored, but I was just tired from being a bisexual twice divorced exotic dancer with a kid.

ONE WEEKEND LEFT! GO SEE PINK CHAT ROOM!

Go see Joan Rivers – A Piece Of Work

Joan Rivers – A Piece Of Work – IFC Entertainment.

Highly recommended. I won’t ever say she opened doors for me, because she’d just tell me to go fuck myself.

But for reals, Joan’s unapologetic yet neurotic life is on display, and you’ll never see her the same way again.

Tiger and Panda dogs!

Meet the Tiger Dog: Chinese owners dye pets to look like wild animals

I honestly can’t tell if they’re disturbing or adorable. Disturbingly adorable? I’d just be concerned about the type of dye they use, but if it’s vegetable base, then hey, knock yourselves out, China. If it’s the more toxic stuff, then it probably borders on (or is) animal abuse, considering how harsh that stuff is on the skin and eyes. Fun to look at though, so lets hope it’s safe!

People have way too much time on their hands.

In DC, even the Spelling Bee draws protesters.

Really? With the many heartbreaking causes for which one can demonstrate, these people got together and said, “We know what’s really important.”

Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

…

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for “fruit” to be spelled as “froot,” “slow” should be “slo,” and “heifer” – a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta – should be “hefer.”

So in the days of the Gulf oil spill, fightin’ terr’ism, inequality for the LGBT community, our endlessly bickering partisan government, and everything going on in the rest of the world, they think we ought–sorry, ott–to drop everything and rewrite the English language, a lingua franca in much of the world and not even this country’s original language, phonetically. Then what? Future authors start writing in twitter lingo?

“Weel git thru this, just t8k it slo,” Bill @Amanda.

“Ur rite! R luv wil b 4eva!” Amanda @Bill.

Thay ott 2 b ushaymd uv ther stoopiditee. Why don’t you protest our joke of an educational system instead? Except you’re probably a product of it… Ugh. Nevermind.

Where all the EFH2T went/Go with (my) flow

Ah, insomnia. What a productive way to spend an early morning. Since I’m unable to sleep, I’m finally getting around to addressing the disappearance of Everything From Here To There. The site is on hiatus until Billy has time to write again. So in the meantime, I will try to post more blarticles, and I have archived all of my EFH2T posts with their corresponding posts here (which can be accessed using the handy dandy “Categories” list to your right), except for “Go with (my) flow” which I apparently forgot the first time around. So here it is:

Go with (my) flow

Many zen-minded philosophers and spiritual teachers have told us to “flow” with life, to not fight the current of life and where it brings you. I think that’s generally good advice, but it’s also turned into a justification of a lifestyle that makes me pull my hair out in frustration. There are people who, despite making commitments, setting appointments, and otherwise binding themselves to their peers, tend to be flaky. Some of these people have the same argument for their behavior:

“You just need to learn to go with the flow.”

I’ve had a few conversations with people who, like me, are inclined to be punctual and accountable when we make clear-cut arrangements, and I’ve learned a few things lately.

A lot of these “go with the flow” type people are actually exercising an inflexible control over their environment. They may seem super earthy, or they may be otherwise unstereotypical type A personalities, but what I’ve noticed is that they continually play out the same scenario: they make plans, and rather than meet on equal terms, they force the other person to wait, or to reschedule, adjust, etc. It makes me wonder, if you’re trying to “go with the flow”, why make plans at all?

I think there is a hidden message in the argument. “Go with the flow” might mean, “Go with my flow. Don’t expect me to do what you expect.”

You might think that someone who seems completely unaccountable in the name of “go with the flow” would be someone not in control of his or her environment. But isn’t steadfastly abstaining from fulfilling your own self-imposed expectations a form of rigid control?

An example: I was just in Venice performing for the Biennale art festival, and there I met a funky middle-aged Italian man who was part of the community of people around this particular gallery. He is a bit of an enigma—the type of person whether you never really know is paying attention until he makes an out of the blue insightful remark amidst a lot of non sequitur ponderings (sounds harsh, but I actually liked him quite a bit). He randomly proffered a lecture to me on how I cannot make plans in Venice, that I have to see where the city takes me—a very “go with the flow” kind of guy. However, he made plans with one of the other artists to do a photo session before her performance, for which he completely flaked. When she confronted him about it, he gave her the same sort of lecture, completely defying her to hold him accountable for his own plan.

These types of situations usually drive me nuts. However, I have discovered an interesting sense of freedom in some of these relationships lately. For the first time I think in my entire life, I have, with these people, made a conscious decision to be a bit flakier, to show up when and if I feel like it, and to feel less obligated and accountable.

While our group was out celebrating after our performance night was finished, my enigmatic Italian friend invited us all to meet at his place the next morning to exchange photos of the night. We set a specific time, 10am, because I had to catch a plane that afternoon. As I walked back to the hotel with the artist whom he flaked on earlier that evening, she said to me, “Don’t expect him to actually be there.”

I shrugged and said, “We’ll see,” and thought more about it that night as I packed my bags. I decided that the best way to approach the situation was to not put myself in a position to be unhappy—to not rely on someone who I know is unaccountable. In the morning, I had a leisurely breakfast and did not rush to check out of the hotel. I didn’t feel like it. I felt like taking my time and showing up an hour late, and if the meeting happened to work out, then great, but if not, it only left me with an hour to kill, and that was just fine.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, our enigmatic friend was nowhere to be found that morning. Not even the guests staying in his apartment had any idea where he’d got to. So instead, I had a very pleasant conversation with another artist at the gallery downstairs, and trotted off at a leisurely pace to the bus station.

I would never in a million years let myself behave like this with someone I know is going to fulfill their commitments, but under different circumstances, I might have been angry and disappointed because I showed up on time, and where the !@#$ was he? I might have even shown up on time expecting him to disappoint me, which now seems a bit masochistic.

I do think it’s a shame we didn’t get together that morning, but I’m glad that I got to exercise this outlook. I think if we want to avoid making ourselves crazy, it doesn’t hurt to adjust—or let flow—our expectations. To be fair, I do wish that the people on the other side of the river would flow a bit more in my direction as well.

I guess the real question is… How do we all go with the same flow?

Guys, “You’re Not That Nice”

Alt Text: The Nice Guy’s Guide to Realizing You’re Not That Nice | Underwire| Wired.com

This article is a-mazing. Totally spot on. Guys, if you’ve ever thought that every girl passes you by because she’s only into jerks, you must read this. It is–and I say this from lots and lots of experience–100% true.

And ladies, you should read it to help alleviate the bullshit guilt trip we get over not being turned on by these types of guys.

Well done Lore Sjörberg!