The Malcontent

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.

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.

Flipping the Bird and Taking the Plunge

OK, it's time.

I have made no secret of my disdain for Typepad.  (Of course, it is my fault for having chosen them in the first place.)  But at long last, the new Malcontent is ready to rock 'n' roll.  So please reset your bookmarks accordingly.

I missed my self-imposed deadline of migrating by June 1 by about 20 minutes, due to an 11th-hour database meltdown mostly of my own causing.  But hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Malcontent.biz offers many improvements over our churlish Typepad overlords, including:

• Malco-Forums
• A dynamic menubar
• Gravatar support in comments
• Numbered comments
• One-click comment emoticons
• RSS feeds for individual comment threads
• Automatic parsing of URLs in comments
• One-click translation into eight languages
• A weighted "category cloud"
• And a "shoutbox" powered by Ajax technology (doesn't require browser refresh)

And more will be coming soon!

But again, please reset your bookmarks, and please bear with whatever glitches we have at the outset.  (If you encounter any problems, please email me.)

Soon I will rejigger things here to automatically redirect you to the new site.  But for now, you're on your own.

And My Dear, She's Still Here

The Malcontent apologizes profusely for helping feed speculation about the impending death of Dame Elizabeth Taylor.

Instead, the 74-year-old screen legend turned up last night on Larry King, looking about as chipper as possible and certainly more lucid than she was at the 2001 Golden Globes.

The very much alive Taylor refuted rumors of her demise and partially dismissed reports of having "Alts-heimer's," although there were moments to make one wonder about the line between fact and fiction.

Normally I am impervious to Larry's sycophantic coddling of his guests, but I admit to a soft spot in my cold, brackish heart for the old broad.  Six days before the 25th anniversary of the CDC report that is generally regarded as the start of the AIDS pandemic, she is still a driving force behind eradication of the disease.  She was red ribbon before red ribbon was cool.

Taylor waxed nostaligic about many of her costars including Rock Hudson, whom she said would be out of the closet if he were alive today.  Oh, and she peddled her jewelry.  It's ugly as sin, but I might buy some anyway.

[Watch video – 7:50, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:50, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Exodus Undetected?

Gay men in urban areas gathered. First at the theaters and single bars in bad neighborhoods. Then one bar became three. As the theaters closed, the shops came in, from the erotic to the mundane, dildonic wares and groceries. Then came the condo renovations, and the sleek nightclubs advertising in mainstream papers. For a decade or two or even three, many cities constructed upscale enclaves like gay retirement communities for men in their 20s and 30s. Every letter in GLBT alphabet streamed in as the activism poured out from these safe, coccooning bases as fortress against an intolerant outside world.

When tolerance spreads outwards from the cultural centers that Dan Savage refers to as the urban archipelago, what happens when future gay generations feel less need for these places and younger heterosexuals feel comfortable enough to begin claiming them as their own? Conflict.

"West Hollywood is having an identity crisis. It doesn't know if it's gay or straight anymore," said Raymond Weddle, a server at Hedley's restaurant, near the Abbey. As crowds flock to the lively bar scene, the town is inevitably confronting the strains of its popularity. Mostly, it's been a subtle shift. Many bar owners and patrons say that straight women have flocked to West Hollywood clubs because they feel safe in crowds of gay men. But on any weekend night, the distinctly gay vibe of the town has given way — in some venues more than others — to a more mixed and some think downright gay-hostile atmosphere.

Even as activists and interested parties debate the merits of gay marriage as the demographic's civil rights issue of our time, it seems the gay community itself has begun fraying along the edges towards a potentially long and slow disintegration in direct correlation to the movement's goals: normalization of varied sexualities in American culture. When a gay teenager finds his friends accepting and open to his or her differences, and the local crowds and clubs become indifferent to his orientation, is there such a burning need for an exclusively gay bubble in his world, and even if so, would he be inclined to defend it as vigorously as the old queer guard?

The entire article is worth reading, for the variety of issues between gays and straights, business issues vs. community loyalty, assimilation vs balkanization of identity, and even the urban gay communities' traditional make up of white middle class males vs. and increasingly mainstream, urbanized black culture.

While the activists press their pet political issues, average gay people are shifting and changing in ways imperceptible to a leadership firmly ensconced in a mindset generated by an older community built in the shadows of the deadliest years of AIDS. Can gay political issues be effectively pressed by a minority demographic whose bonds of solidarity are quietly beginning to loosen as acceptance and tolerance become the norm in the largest population centers of the nation?

It doesn't seem to be a question anyone's asking. Maybe they should.

h/t Boi From Troy

Happy Gay Day

Too tired to jump ...

180 Degrees From Cooper

A very strange sexuality news day. First we hear tell that Anderson Cooper is a big fan of girl bits, and now super hottie Jared Leto kinda, sorta, maybe, potentially comes out?

ThirtySecondLeto: I’ll give you an exclusive.... TyeinMusic: ooh. lay it on me ThirtySecondLeto: I’m gay TyeinMusic: *!* TyeinMusic: please tell me you're serious ThirtySecondLeto: as a goose.

Worth Repeating has more details and the entire interview with AOL.

Pic comment from Patrick in L.A.: "He has a pink wrist band on. That picture was taken after a night out in West Hollywood for sure. He's doing the walk of shame."

Anderson Cooper - Stealth Lothario

Right.

Anderson Cooper used his Yale commencement speech to bolster his studliness. "The only thing about high school I remember is my senior prom," the CNN anchor said. "If what I remember is true, it is very possible that some of you are my children, especially you with the blue eyes and freakishly gray hair"

That wily Anderson, always craving the poonanny. Uh huh.

h/t Ace

Happy Gay Day, Lez Not a Lez Edition

Can anyone tell me what Anne Heche is this week, aside from 37?

Quick, To ACLU Cave!

My hometown paper of choice really hasn't grasped the subtleties of the GLBTQQXRIDFHA agenda. I expect them to be mauled by wild packs of fabulousness any second now.

We'll start with the title: "Cross-Dressing Teen Barred From Senior Prom."

Moving on to the story: "But when Kevin Logan, a transgender and gay student at Gary’s West Side High School, arrived last Friday at Avalon Manor in Hobart for his prom, he was banned by Principal Diane Rouse."

He's a cross-dresser, or gay, or transgender. One of those. All of the above? The paper has absolutely no idea, and they don't seem to particularly care about the infinitely subtle and rigidly enforced labels of the alphabet soup community. God love 'em for it.

Furious letters to the editor incoming.

It's The Circle of Awful, Simba

After 43 posts consisting of 61 video files that account for a whopping 731.65 MB of our server space, we've come a long way from the January 17th premiere of American Idol. A water cooler show that began with a focus on some of the most horrifying "entertainers" this great nation of ours had to offer, it has been a long, spiritual, nuanced journey to May where we're about to crown . . . one of the most horrifying "entertainers" America has to offer.

So, well done there.

What is there to say? Poor Katharine McPhee suffered an ambushing of the highest order with a tripey, overwrought ballad called "My Destiny" when a more accurate title might have been, "Kat Really Wishes She Had Testicles Right About Now." Way to set the key in the Marianas Trench! Not even a still-touching rendition of "Over the Rainbow" could save her against the most treacly, masturbatory excesses of producers and a music industry hell bent on selling their audience aural sominex.

Taylor Hicks. *sighs* What more can be said for this seizing ball of shimmering purple velvet? For the first time in Idol history, the gay male vote will not prevail against this touring Vegas lounge act. Tom Jones is spinning in his grave. Or women's underwear. Spot the difference, eh? Personally, I blame pre-teen girls for this atrocity. Lazy, good for nothing kids today. Can't even be assed to vote en masse. Bring back corporal punishment!

Here are the six performances from last night's finale. Observe that jacket and weep. America picked that jacket. America likes that jacket. America will buy tickets to see that jacket. America is dead to me.

[Watch video – 14:48, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 14:48, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Our Malcovision American Idol Finale Extravaganza continues with these clips from this weekend's Saturday Night Live. Kevin Spacey knows all the right moves to win the hearts of Americans and wandering strangers in parks at 3 AM. Not to be outdone, "Taylor Hicks" appears on Weekend Update, if only to prove the man is beyond parody.

[Watch video – 6:54, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:54, WMV format, low bandwidth]

And finally. We laughed with her, cried with her, attempted to match her shot for shot during every show. Paula Abdul stumbled onto the set of Larry King Live after over-hearing rumors the man will marry anything. She discusses her fellow judges and addresses all those rumors about dominant bitch-top, the Gayken. Could it be we are mere hours away from a world without this simpering psychiatric patient?

As they announce the winner tonight, I will sprinkle a martini laced with vicodin onto a curb in her honor.

[Watch video – 5:44, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 5:44, WMV format, low bandwidth]

"Ex-Gays" Say the Darndest Things

Our friends at Ex-Gay Watch (I need a nifty logo like theirs) alerted us to a piece that aired last night on CNN featuring Richard Cohen – not the WaPo columnist – one of the most controversial, and unlicensed, practitioners of so-called "reparative therapy" for gays.

I'll leave the heavy lifting to the experts at EGW, but the piece – whether unintentional or not – was hi-frickin'-larious.  We are treated to therapy sessions between Cohen and 42-year-old "Rob," a gay man who thinks that Cohen can help him become un-gay.

We see Cohen practicing "touch therapy" to recreate a "healthy father-son bond."  Call me crazy, but it appeared to be a cunning way for Cohen for be able to get his jollies cuddling up with other men while still claiming that he is now straight.

We then see Cohen engaging in an interesting form of quackery that he calls "bioenergetics," whaling on a pillow with a tennis racket in lieu of his overbearing mother.  Frightening stuff.  Norman-Bates freaky.

I suggest if you find yourself in a session with Cohen that you dial 9-1 on your cell phone, just to save time in case you need to hit that last 1.

We are treated to more of the same tripe that we have seen from the ex-gay movement, this happy-crappy talk about how "there's nothing wrong with being gay," but somehow one can choose to be straight, even though we don't exactly see hordes of heterosexual men stampeding the opposite direction into ex-straight therapy.

What I got out of the piece is that it is a sign of progress that the gay guy aspiring to be straight was the one hiding his identity, while the gay guy who long ago gave up on reparative-therapy nonsense was proudly public.

[Watch video – 6:42, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:42, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Happy Gay Day

Happy 380th birthday to my home city!

Shot Through the Minge, and I'm Too Late

124 of you have voted, but only five of you have guessed that the cranky celebrity of the day is ... OPRAH!:

Her lawyer's email and my response after the jump – and I will update as warranted.

And yes, the threat came from an actual lawyer, not from a minge, although the two terms are virtually synonymous anyway, right?:

The Movement of Misfit Toys

They are meeting. Quietly, without fanfare, roughly three dozen GLBT organizations have gathered in Washington D.C. to discuss the policies and strategies involved in advancing GLBT rights. Though they're not telling, the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, Matt Foreman, has recently released press materials that should give us all an inkling of their direction.

Let's see here…Iraq is a disaster and the treasury is hemorrhaging red ink to pay for it. Gas prices are soaring. New Orleans remains a shell. Osama taunts us on videotape. Iran's going nuclear. Seven in 10 think the country's heading in the wrong direction. What do you do when you're in power and there's an election just around the corner? You trot out some old diversionary workhorse scapegoats once again.

Like the HRC, The Taskforce does not actually want to discuss gay marriage. Given a national debate and platform, their tactic is not to argue on behalf of gay families but to throw dozens of distractionary cantrips at their audience like a cheap street illusionist. Recently, Andrew Sullivan asked of the HRC, "Why do they exist? And why should any gay person care?" Foreman, the Cardinal Ratzinger of this Queer Conclave, trots out the future of the established GLBT movement:

At between 4-6 percent of the population, we are simply too small to win equality by ourselves. That means we must build alliances and relationships of trust with other communities and causes. Building these kinds of alliances requires more than words, it requires reciprocal work. Bluntly put, the LGBT movement has a long history of asking other causes to fight for us and then not being there when those causes have been under attack.

Read the entire press release. Abortion. Anti-war activism. Now, illegal immigration. The GLBT Establishment has a long and consistent history of supporting liberal and left-wing causes unrelated to the struggle of gay families. As three dozen bodies purporting to support the movement meet, we are dishonestly told by the NGLTF that gay activists don't support enough liberal causes. The answer to the GLBT dilemma is more causes, more coalitions, more money and manpower spent on a laundry list of unrelated movements and groups who may or may not support our cause.

(More ranting and video after the jump.)

Happy Gay Day, Getting Very Sleepy Edition

Ever been "mesmerized"?  Not much more than a couple of centuries ago, you weren't.

Happy Gay Day, Hypocrites Edition

So would what happened today in 1980 be like if she were caught on camera saying orange juice tastes like piss?

Happy Gay Day, Leelee Lie Lie Edition

Jump with me, people ...

Happy Gay Day: Holy Shit, Cher's 60?! Edition

She is an American entertainment icon – a strong, uncompromising woman with whom many gay men have identified, and by whom drag queens have been inspired, for years.  She steadfastly refuses to retire from the business.  And today she celebrates a milestone birthday.

I'm talking, of course, about Mindy Cohn from NBC's "Facts of Life."  Happy 40th Birthday, Natalie!

No Pink Triangles?

While the American Left nitters and natters about how our nation is on the road to fascism and President Bush is merely a reincarnation of Hitler, Iran and its maniacal leader are simply going ahead and doing it:

Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes

Though my initial impulse is to scream about the discrimination of it all (as there will be no special minority laws crafted without the gays, damnit! See: California schools), I realized, oh yeah, they just hang us over there.

So really, if our typically quiet gay rights groups could lobby for an Iranian pink triangle, it would actually be a step up for those beleaguered folks.

h/t Chad

Update: The National Post apologizes and retracts its original story. So, Iran only wants to exterminate the Jews and hang homosexuals as a matter of course. Nothing at all like Nazi Germany. Very much my grievous error for implying otherwise. Tch.