The Malcontent

There Oughta Be A Law

See, here is where current gay outrage is about to veer wildly off the tracks and ultimately cost us support. It's as pointless as it was inevitable. Pam Spaulding started it by comparing gay leadership to House Negroes and Uncle Toms. John Aravosis, an eloquent, reasoned defender of the cause a raging hysteric, ran with it, and now there a thousand different fights across the internet about who's offended by the comparison, who suffered more in history, blacks or gays, and the usual circular firing squad spinning so wildly that it's more a vortex of cannon fire.

I propose a new internet law in the spirit of Godwin's Law. We could call it Stowe's Law.

The longer a significant group of internet gays are outraged, the more likely poorly thought out comparisons to the Black Civil Rights struggle will be made. This will invariably result in an Oppression Olympics that alienates and infuriates everyone involved while accomplishing nothing at all.

Something along those lines. It always happens.

Is It Bashing If We're Ok With It?

Polo Molina, living out every gay man's true fantasy:

Police have charged the tour manager of the Black Eye Peas with assault after he allegedly gave celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a black eye outside a Toronto nightclub.

Hilton, who is openly gay, said in interview with the Associated press that he called will.i.am a "faggot," a gay slur, inside the club after the musician told the blogger not to write about his band on his Web site.

In a side note that I'm sure will shock and chagrin everyone, GLAAD has never really much cared that our minstreling little mascot has largely bounced through the world declaring faggotry against people. If only he had called will.i.am the n-word. They would've had the press release out before the first punch was thrown.

Update: GLAAD finally cares! Though, to be fair, this one was a touch hard to ignore.

Hilton's video is a lot of fun. It took six pauses to gradually press through the entire egoistic trainwreck. I had to recharge my personal dignity roughly every thirty seconds as it was rapidly leeched away by his lack of same. Ace covers the broadstrokes here. That's about right. He truly is one of the dumbest creatures alive.

Baldwin To Gays: No, But Seriously, Pay Us

Just caught openly gay legislator Tammy Baldwin on Rachel Maddow. The full blown apologia for the administration was expected. So was her continued support of Barney Frank's imploding fundraiser. Still, you have to admire the tenacious logic of loyal Democrats.

MADDOW: . . . There is a lot of discontent, as I know you're aware of. Are you still planning on attending that fundraiser, and do you feel like you understand people's anger?

BALDWIN: Not only do I understand the sense of impatience and frustration, as a lesbian I feel it myself. And I think part of my role in attending the event next week is to convey the sense of urgency and to convey the sense of impatience and frustration that I'm hearing. You know, when you lack basic equality and basic civil rights, we ought to be impatient. That's a mandate if you're an activist. And so I think that this is a very important message to convey, and really hopefully get things moving a little more quickly in Congress as well as, uh, bringing things to the President's desk to sign.

So basically, the President has no idea how angry the community is with him. However, if you toss a thousand or so bucks in his direction, he might start gathering an inkling. Cash and conveyance are synonyms to these people.

And we all know nothing evokes impatience more than a party at a palatial spa.

Edit - Whoops. This was posted by Robbie, not Matt.

The Craigslist President

The most apt comment I've read about today's tokenism:

Obama is like all the men on gay hook up sites. They all promise 8″ or more, but when you meet them it’s barely 5″, but ya go ahead and do it anyways because, well, you drove all the way over there.

And afterwards, Joe Solmonese tells all his friends it was actually nine.

Obama Administration Gets A Savaging

This seems to be snowballing. Dan Savage reacts to tonight's presidential signing:

Which brings us back to sheer insulting incompetence of this idiot maneuver. Why announce a bold plan and an Oval Office signing ceremony for a something-or-other that will "extend federal benefits" to the partners of gay employees... when that package does not include the only workplace benefit that most people can name off the tops of their fucking heads: health insurance? This is your big gesture to mollify your gay critics? This is designed to calm the waters in the wake of your DOMA betrayal? When I wrote earlier tonight that the federal benefits Obama is extending "are by no means trivial," I was naturally operating under the assumption that these benefits would include health insurance. They do not. What benefits will federal employees enjoy the day after tomorrow anyway? Discounted entrance fees to our national parks?

. . .

This is worse than insulting. This is outrageous, another slap in the face, salt in the wound left by last week's DOMA betrayal. Fuck the Obama administration. That DNC fundraiser next week has to be shut down.

The question facing this administration and the broader community is whether or not the power structure as it has been commonly understood in D.C. will hold in the face of all this anger. The professional gay overclass that has spent the past twenty years telling politicians they had the community under control seems about to fail spectacularly.

Personal Poddity

It's a genetic compulsion and there's not much to be done for it.

When Podsednik was released by the White Sox, I mysteriously stopped following baseball. Now I always have the game on in the background.

Strange that.

All The World Is Your Doughnut

Woo hoo! White gold!

A tanker truck loaded with doughnut glaze lost control and rolled over on Pacific Highway South this afternoon, oozing sugary syrup into a nearby culvert.

In a tanker truck? Was a flatbed of cruellers following close behind?

The comments accompanying the article are the best part.

The Sad Part? They Think They're Helping

As much as I think David Letterman is a souless jerk for going after a politician's kids, I think a protest outside his studio calling him a pedophile is about the most counterproductive and trivializing approach possible.

But it does make for some fun video. I'm not sure what I enjoy most, the lunacy, the white guy's eyebrow-arching racism, or the two goofs making out behind that Carol Burnett character towards the end.

Stupid Activist Tricks

I'm still thinking through a post about the incredibly ill-conceived and anachronistic Meet on the Mall. Meanwhile, this is just hilarious.

Water Buckets Incoming? // Update: More Like Piss Bucket

Will this quench the flames of cyber fury?

President Barack Obama plans to extend health care and other benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of federal employees. White House officials say Obama plans to announce decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office.

It's a fig leaf, and given the generally groveling disposition of the community, it may just be enough to get everyone to calm themselves and do a little face-saving. However, such an incremental step that requires next to no political capital to enact may be too little, too late. There's Democratic blood in the water.

Of course, all of this is assuming no one's reading this interview with the administration's highest ranking gay official. John Berry intimates measures like repeals of DADT and DOMA may not be attempted until a theoretical second term.

In related news, Harry Reid has no idea what's going on. President Obama has repeatedly stated any action on DADT requires Congressional initiative. Sen. Reid said that such initiative should come from the White House, but he is now "clarifying". It's nice to know Democrats approach gay rights like an easily forgotten domestic chore. "I thought you were taking out the trash?" "No, I thought you did." "So neither of us did?" . . ."What's that smell?"

That smell is a lot of pissed off gay people.

Update: Apparently the term "benefits" has a very flexible definition.

It almost feels like the president is taunting the GLBT community at this point. Whoever is advising him on gay policy should probably be fired. Solmonese should resign. If we haven't reached the point of official circus, we're getting mighty close.

Why, I think the situation has deteriorated to the point where not even an insincere speech will salvage his position with the community. It's that serious.

Gays Revolt, Will Not Enjoy Cocktails, But Will Remain Clueless

At least it's . . . something. The gay DNC fundraiser is splintering under increasing pressure from activists not to attend in response to last week's odious DOMA brief filed by the Department of Justice.

However, the situation is far from a devolution in gay partisanship. While being hailed as the strongest action yet by GLBTers against a Democratic administration, it seems not a single prominent blogger mentions the ridiculous submissive position they placed themselves in by spending the last twenty years being unfailingly loyal and protective of a national party that has gleefully abused their generosity while daring them to do anything about it.

To whit, the DNC fundraiser's very existence puts in a stark light the Democratic Party's usual treatment of the gay community as little more than a cash cow to be milked to the point of bruising. Imagine this, timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, during a Pride month, the DNC "celebrates" these milestones by deigning to give prominent gays the privilege of paying them to mutter nice things. Could the party any more plainly and harshly say "Hooray for you! Now pay us."

Yet revolting against this base submissive stance is being hailed as a SERIOUS ACT in the fight against a tepid, unenthusiastic administration. It seems to me that serious activism would have avoided the gay community being in this position to begin with.

To gild an ever increasing comical lily, activists are hailing this letter from Joe Solmonese as a turning point in gay submission. Adjectives include the words "scathing", "brutal", and "unprecedented." Which part, this?

As an American, a civil rights advocate, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief.  In the course of your campaign, I became convinced—and I still want to believe—that you do, too.  I have seen your administration aspire and achieve.  Protecting women from employment discrimination.  Insuring millions of children.  Enabling stem cell research to go forward.  These are powerful achievements.  And they serve as evidence to me that this brief should not be good enough for you.  The question is, Mr. President—do you believe that it’s good enough for us?

While not the HRC's usual bend-over-and-take-it tone, there's still room for Solmonese to wipe his chin as he once again points out that the largest organization supposedly representing all gays is still a good liberal soldier.

One, of course, should have some pity for Solmonese. Here is a man who has spent years straddling the divide between activism and a slobbering desire for access, money, and power. The HRC is usually the very last organization to spring into action with one of the rustiest barometers for gay sentiment ever constructed. With his back recently put against a very impatient, post-Prop 8 wall, Solmonese has no choice. One could almost hear the phone calls after the release of this letter, as the HRC president furiously dialed every Democratic politician in his rolodex. "How dare you! Look, I'm really sorry. Really. I have to. This administration is wrong! Really, so sorry. Please ignore this. Homophobia! Please don't hold this against me. They're making me."

If the gay community were a fifth as serious in opposing Democratic intransigence as they were complaining about Republicans, they'd probably start outing Democratic staffers in the Department of Justice. That, of course, will never be forthcoming. As Mike Petrelis notes, the activist community is prepared to do very little at all other than vent on blogs and refuse to attend a party. Although it would've been a fabulous party. Did the DNC treasurer and uber apologist mention the 10,400 sq. ft. spa? He did!

That's what the DNC thinks of gays. It's what they've always thought of gays. Pity it took a Prop. 8 to get anyone to notice. But then, the Republicans haven't even a modicum of power in Washington at the moment. The activists have no choice, and so now they will play-activist, without the slightest clue that they put the community here by apologizing for the gross submission to party for so very, very long.

Still, it's something, even if it's an incredibly late something.

First To Wave A Paw Flag Dies

This took thirty years. Yes, really. Try as I might, I could not manage a beard for most of my adult life. The bf makes a lot of jokes about the bear community, which I think I may be technically a part of (but would not be seen dead with, especially after that horrid Logo documentary with the transgendered types).

But, yes! I've managed it, finally, after several months of chia-petting the hell out of my face. I wanted to claw it off like body glitter most nights, but after much perserverence . . .

But He Was Never In . . .

Adam Lambert finally . . . uh . . . sidles into his sexuality? Gullible fans and enthusiasts spent the larger part of this year's Idol season being strung along by that show's publicists as media breathlessly sold copy on the question of "Is he or isn't he?!" There had been the usual speculation that Idol producers were silencing Lambert from discussing his orientation freely rather than, say, deliberately playing coy to generate more and more interest (and ratings) as the show barreled towards the finale.

The muzzling scenario only works if you believe Simon Cowell and others possessed the full powers of Shiwan Kahn, willing columnists, magazines, and thirty million viewers to never notice Lambert's single-man march to a Xanadu laced with heroin chic.

Rolling Stone has the ultimate anti-climax, with a cover and title that would be frighteningly anachronistic if it weren't so dishonest. "The sexual liberation of Adam Lambert?" Was there a single moment during the season and attending publicity (and internet photos, and career in musical theatre, and public appearances with his boyfriend) where Lambert was anything but liberated? Where did they attach the fierce shackles of heterosexual oppression, to his platform boots or the sequined pauldrons during the final Kiss number?

Actual gay progress would be denoted by the lack of "Yup, I'm Gay" media roll-outs. When they're no longer necessary, we've progressed.

Somewhat related, Andrew Sullivan uses the occasion to make a typically clueless observation about American culture. The Burning Man festival is based on self-expression accompanied by rampant drug use. Certainly nothing the older gays would have anything to do with. Only Lambert's newly liberated gay generation would participate in such a thing.

Supreme Court Doesn't Want To Know Either

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Don't Ask, Don't Tell this morning. The plantiff, Army captain James Pietrangelo, was just on KGO radio in San Francisco tearing the Obama administration a new one, referring to the president as a liar, a bigot, and a coward. It is almost as if the president were some mere mortal of a politician.

Joe Solmonese defended the ruling and the administration by noting, "In these dark economic times, it's imperative we see a silver lining in our setbacks. Thanks to this administration and rulings like this, the Human Rights Campaign will be collecting money from you suckers concerned GLBT citizens for years to come."

And that's what's really important here.

With A Partial Penumbra of Mescaline

While the original is still the best, I've been pretty entertained by the literal video craze that's filled YouTube in Dustin McLean's wake. Even though I'm usually familiar with the songs being spoofed, I was still into tonka trucks when most of the original videos were made and have never seen them.

Case in point, Bonnie Tyler. A song usually in heavy rotation on, and yet . . . how did I miss this?

 

Housekeeping?

Spam is purged, templates fixed, old code removed. Hopefully the site loads completely and cleanly again.

This is the greatest story in human history, btw.

I've A Corpse And A Surge Protector

Yes, yes I do want to blog again (quitting World of Warcraft helps).

Unfortunately, there is little more off-putting about returning to blogging than finding yourself sifting through several years of comment spam (and accidentally deleting the last 20 nonspam comments because you're watching Maury Povich while maneuvering through typepad and cannot possibly pay attention to what you're doing while wondering who is the father).

Spam clean up, then template repair is the order of the day. Then blogging projects. Because I'll be living somewhere very liberal in the near future, and that should be interesting.

An older, wiser, somewhat sleeker and more attractive Malcontent doing battle in the heart of the Gay Left universe. Fun? Fun.

But first, comment spam. Lord.