Dear World (but mostly just LJ)-

I haven't checked my flist in a few days, and apparently that was cue for you to all jump on the Crazy Train with a one-way ticket to CrazyTown, located just south of LazyTown and all those scary plastic people/singing pedos with plastic mustaches. Seriously, world. What the fuck.

( CrazyTown isn't just for LiLos anymore. )

I'm sure there are other things I should be talking about, like placenta facials and how I actually have a social life now and also how you are ALL FIRED (I hate when people write that, but it's fun to say and also, to be a hypocrite) for not telling me how awesome The Venture Brothers is. I mean, I have to get high to understand it, and I totally thought that the Monarch was a bee for forever, but still. It's pretty much the gayest show on Earth, and I want to be Dr. Girlfriend when I grow up, minus the lame boyfriend.

And that's it, that's all I have, unicorns kill ponies and "best of the aughts" lists are already pissing me off.

xoxo-
Andrea

I'm sure you've all seen the whole thing about how Danny Gokey is a douchebag. I mean, like we didn't already kind of know that? But it's a little different seeing the douchebaggery in motion.

I have a lot of thoughts about this whole episode, and I think I will ( cut them to save your eyes from teal deers. )

Here it is, your Gay Moment of Zen:



I mean, aside from Adam Lambert performing with KISS in gold platform boots while wearing a birdcage, obviously. This is like, the second-rate Gay Moment of Zen, but STILL!!

(I'm sorry, I will probably keep talking about him for a while. I might even go see the Idol tour. Because yes.)

How much did I love the E! interview he gave:

Blogs are going to say, 'If he wins it's because he's gay, or if he loses it's because he's gay.' What do you think of that?
Is that what they're gonna say? [Laughs] Those blogs have a lot of opinions, don't they? [Laughs] I think that Kris won because he's a great artist and I was happy to be a runner-up to that.

What's your goal now?
My dream now is to make a really dope record. Do something new. Push the boundaries a little bit. Push people's buttons. Open people's minds up a little bit. If there's anything that can come from this experience I hope that all the fans out there can pick up that even if you're really different there's a way to get along with each other. We did the Queen duet and we made it work because we found a common ground with each other.

(See, you guys? HE NEEDS CHASEZ. Chasez pushes buttons. Buttons about aliens and lesbians and getting freaky deaky and ROBOTS OMG ROBOTS. There needs to be a song in which Adam Lambert sings about getting freaky with robots from outer space and honestly, who else but Chasez could possibly write such a song??)

Today is a good day!

I haven't seen the Wrestler and so I can't say for sure that Sean Penn deserved to win, but I'm very glad he did because at this time and this place we're in right now, the story of Harvey Milk is one that we should all know and learn from.



You gotta give 'em hope. You know what gives me hope? The beauty of this:



♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

If this is true, all I have to say is: fucking FINALLY. Now we just need Ricky Martin.

A couple people posted this yesterday, but I want to post it, too, because it made me cry. And I mean I actually cried.



Now, you guys know how I feel about marriage. That I think when two people decide to commit to each other, they shouldn't need the government to tell them that their union is sacred or official or whatever. I think each person should be treated as an individual under the law. However.

Watching this video made me realize just how important equal rights really are. I wish like... freaking Laura Bush would watch that video and still tell Ellen she doesn't deserve equal rights. Because it's clear just from the way they look at each other and how happy they are that they are in love and committed to each other. And I just... it's so much more real when people who oppose equal rights are confronted with something as strong as the love of these two people. Anyway.

I also worked on my bittybang yesterday, and guys--I think this might actually be the best thing I've ever written. And once kira_j gets done with it (you're still beta-ing for me, right?? RIGHT??) it will be even more amazing. \0/

Thirdly, I found a couch yesterday! Now I just have to figure out how to get it to my new apartment on Saturday.

The trailer for Milk is out today:



*sniffs* Seriously, if the TRAILER almost made me cry? This movie is going to kill me. I can't wait. I remember writing a research paper about gay rights and specifically Harvey Milk's role in the gay rights movement in the 10th grade. I knew then that I was bi but I never really thought I would connect to the LGBT movement politically the way I have done in recent years. It's funny because growing up the way I did, with parents who had gay friends and who were social workers and never made a big deal about someone being gay... I didn't know until junior high school when my friends who people *assumed* were gay (some of whom weren't...) got harassed and beat up and had their property vandalized that being gay was even an issue.

This just feels important, that Harvey Milk's story is being told to mainstream audiences. It feels big. I'm excited :)

A List of Random!

1) LANCEFACE on DWTS!! OMG. I really hope that's true because if so: DELIGHTFUL. I wish NSYNC fans would shut up already about how Lance "can't dance." That's blatantly false to anyone with eyes. Is he as good as Justin or JC or Joey? No. But as someone who has been dancing since the age of five, I can unequivocally say that he is better than Chris and probably 90% of humans. The guy can dance. Just watch the PopOdyssey video and STFU about how he only knows how to do the Lance dance. Yes, I am defensive of Lance's abilities, but he is Lancers and people need to stop giving him shit, damnit. I hope he gets Julianne as his dance partner. That way he will a) be awesome and b) we won't have another "OMG Julianne is totes dating her partner!" season.

Um. If this is even true.

2) I guess JC looked pretty normal last night? WTF. That's boring. That's not SPECIAL, JC. I wonder if he's going to fashion week.

3) I listened to the This American Life episode on the sub-prime mortgage crisis today, and while that may sound incredibly dull to you, I thought it was really interesting and I think I might actually understand what happened now. The moral of the story is: don't accept a loan from a banker who claims he doesn't need to see proof of income or assets because he will fuck you over to make commission so he can go out to clubs and order Crystal with Tara Reid. No, for serious. It was on NPR, so it's true.

4) JuC Swap is coming along. 14 pages! Um, I would say I'm about halfway through. I get stuck writing these long conversations and then it's 5 pages later and I've only moved the "plot" (I use the term loosely, as we all know I don't do plot) about one click farther along. Saturday after I see my cat, I am going to lock myself in my room and write until it's done.

5) So apparently, Jon Knight is gay. To which I say: um, DUH. Didn't we already know that? Also, I wish people, by which I mean grossouts, by which I mean Perez Hilton, would just leave the guy alone. If he's gay and living pretty openly with his lover and whatever, there's no story here. It reminds me of Neil Patrick Harris's interview with OUT. It's no one's business, his sexuality has nothing to do with his work or his ability to do his job, and he's a private person. I would love it if more gay celebrities came out and were open about it and advocates for GLBT causes, but no one should be forced out. And after all, it's not Jon Knight is a significant cultural figure or whatever. I mean, he's not Danny levels of boringness, but he IS the filler.

6) IT'S FRIDAY.

I can't believe I actually like something from MSNBC, but their article about the hypocrisy of Katy Perry is really awesome:

‘Ur so…What?’
The litmus test of hypocrisy here is that if you substituted a different minority in Perry’s tunes, they’d never get airplay. “I Kissed a Black Guy” or “Ur So Korean” would not be Top 40 bound. For that matter, a song called “I Kissed a Boy,” sung by a guy, would probably die on the vine.

( Read the entire thing. )

*

All I have to say is: yes, amen, this is exactly what I was trying to say about I Kissed A Girl and why it's offensive. Her interview in OUT (and also, sorry, but interviews given by Pete Wentz and uh, that guy who's obsessed with Justin) only reinforce the idea to me that these individuals live in a world of straight privilege that simply can't quite understand what all the fuss is about. It's so much more complicated, just the use of the word "gay", for example, to the Queer community than these people seem to understand. Of course she has the right to sing about whatever she wants, but I also have the right to find it offensive.

Why Lance continues to be my favorite is easily answered with his statement to the Advocate on the gay marriage ruling in California:

I am thrilled that the California supreme court has come to realize that you can't outlaw love and has chosen to join the state of Massachusetts in setting a historical precedent in its demonstration that all loving relationships deserve the same level of respect and recognition under the law, regardless of the gender of those involved.

FOR THE FUCKING WIN.

Okay, we need to discuss the awesomeness that is llamabitchyo's new fic, The Tailor and the Beautiful Men of Somewhat Normal Stature. Actually, no, I think I will just quote the first two paragraphs and let you learn of the awesomeness yourselves:

There was once a young tailor, who worked very hard and had a... truly unique sense of fashion, but still could not earn enough to live upon while dressing himself in style. He tried to make a name for himself on Project Runway, but that fell through for him. For even though Tim Gunn liked to buy him drinks and Michael Kors always had a glint in his eyes whenever he glanced the poor tailor's way, he was too inarticulate to defend his unusual fashion vision and it was "auf Wiedersehen" by the end of the fourth episode.

All he had in the world was gone, save for a single Laura Ashley sheet that he thought he could perhaps turn into one last shirt. So he laid the sheet out on his cutting table and sketched patterns until it was too dark to continue, for electricity was expensive and only his sewing machine and coffee maker were ever plugged in anymore. Then he set his pattern aside, all ready to begin cutting and sewing the next day. He would rise early in the morning, finish his final shirt, and then bid farewell to fashion and walk down the street to Starbucks to fill out an application.

Go. Read. NOW!!!

In other news, I heard this really interesting story on NPR yesterday. They're doing a series on transgender children (go NPR!!) and last night they talked about a contraversial new drug therapy used to block puberty in transgender kids until they're old enough to decide whether they want to go ahead with hormone therapy. You can listen to the story of Violet (nee Armando) right here, and seriously, I nearly cried listening. I was sitting in the parking lot of the HEB listening to the end of the story, and it was just really moving. Here's a bit of the blurb from NPR:

"Once we officially knew that [Armand] was transgender it was like, 'What do you need? You tell us.' We weren't going to try to control anymore; we'd been doing that for years. So it was like, 'What do you need? What do you want?' " Danielle says.

Armand was clear. He wanted to be called Violet, not Armand. He wanted to be known as their daughter, not their son. He wanted his parents to call him a "she." Robert and Danielle agreed. The first official day of Violet's new life was Aug. 19, 2007. It was the first day of a family vacation. Armand — now Violet — was 10. And Robert says her emotional transformation that day was nothing short of astonishing.

"It was the happiest kid I'd ever seen. Just lit up. Just ... brilliant and funny and these things that we caught glimpses of that weren't always there," he says.

Since the transition there has not been any real outburst. Still, there have been challenges. Last September, Violet returned to school, this time as a girl. Though the school was supportive, Robert says he and Danielle were terrified.

"You know just that walk from the car to the front doors of the school was the longest walk of our lives," he says. "Violet broke my heart and I was proud of her all at the same time," Robert says.

He says when Violet got out of the car she immediately put a on long coat and put her hood up. She started walking behind her father and mother. "We said, 'No!' You are not going to do this. You're not going to walk behind anybody. We're going to walk together. And we held hands and we marched right up the sidewalk into those doors. Into an extreme unknown," he says.

And their worst fears — of ridicule, of violence — were not realized. At the end of the day, Violet skipped to the car and reported she had had a great day. Robert says that since the family event, and Violet's transition, there's been a new level of peace in his household, a liberating clarity. "There is no doubt at this point in our lives that we have a transgender child. ... And there is no doubt in our mind that we are going to do what we can to help her," he says.

There's more about the actual treatment--the puberty blocking, and what that means if the child later decides to go ahead with hormone treatment or not, later, on the NPR website. In light of the terrible tragedy of Lawrence King, Violet's story is just so wonderful to me and really gives me a lot of hope for not just future acceptance, but acceptance HERE and NOW. Kids like Violet aren't going to wait for the world to be ready for them. There's no waiting for the world to change (*cough*lamecakes John Mayer!); the only option for Violet was to MAKE the change happen.

Today is the Day of Silence, this year in honor of Lawrence King, who was shot and killed in his classroom by another student because he was gay and he wasn't afraid to show it.

Silence is profound and symbolic. It represents so many things. The silence that the LGBT community is faced with every day from our government, our politicians, the mainstream media, and our educational institutions that would rather ignore an entire minority than acknowledge their absolute right to exist and prosper in the same space as straights. It represents the silence that stems from the fear of closeted queers, a fear that incidents like the Lawrence King shooting makes so palpable and real. It represents the fear of our straight allies of being boxed and labeled and harassed. But at the same time, it reclaims all that fear and transforms it into a silence that resonates across the country in a simple but effective way. It says: I am making a stand and coming out against the insidiously destructive cultural intolerance for queers. You can't hear me speak today because you refuse to listen.

I hope the silence is deafening.

This report over at Towleroad makes me really sad and angry and disgusted with newspeople:

I thought Oprah handled the story of pregnant transgender man Thomas Beatie with respect yesterday. Not everybody's so accepting of Beatie, however, and plenty of people are openly threatened by him.

Like David Letterman, who called Beatie an "androgynous freak show" in his Top Ten the other night, the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe spent a few minutes expressing their nausea. Take a look at how Willie Geist, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough air their disgust about Oprah "legitimizing this" in this morning's 'News You Can't Use':

Says Scarborough: "I'm not gonna look at this. Tell me when it's over. I'm not looking. We don't want the facts. I can't handle the facts."

Says Brzezinski: "I don't want to know the deal. I don't want to hear. I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be sick. I am upset. That was not only stupid and useless, but quite frankly, disgusting."

Brzezinski asked who the father is, and Scarborough responds: "The parrot at the pet shop...A former aide of Jim McGreevey. Are the McGreevey's involved in this in any way?"

( This got really long... )

First off, due to the new influx of JC IS GAY OMG rumors, I have updated my evidence post to reflect the new information, including a scan of the Globe thing and the Defamer picture that is, sadly, entirely lacking in mankini!JC.

Secondly, I wrote 8 pages of JOSHLYNN yesterday. It is SO AMAZING, you guys. I really think this is going to be almost as hilarious as the Zoo fic.

Thirdly, I watched Britney on How I Met Your Mother last night and... she was kind of awesome!! It also reminded me how much I fucking love Neal Patrick Harris. SO MUCH. Ahem, anyway.

Fourthly, I had decided that if JC comes out, he and Lance need to do a photoshoot ala Make Me A Supermodel. You guys know the one I mean. They don't even have to actually fuck. But you know, a nice, mostly-naked, kink-filled photoshoot is the LEAST they could do for us. (Seriously, how fucking hot would that be? *pants*)

Fifthly, I am now tempted to write a fic in which Lance calls JC up every time he sees a new JC IS GAY OMG rumor and says, "So, JC, is there anything you maybe want to tell me?" And then JC always comes up with something stupid and inane and gets all excited about whatever it is ("Oh man, Lance, I saw the coolest article on astroids the other day, and how this huge one smashed a car flat and the guy couldn't get his insurance to cover it because, you know, astroids aren't covered by Geiko or whatever, but there were pictures and it was so awesome!") And like, JC never gets that Lance is hinting that maybe JC should come out to him, because JC is sort of just assuming everyone knows that he'll fuck anything and it's not news or whatever. Um. Yes.

From The Mirror:

Which celebrity is dating a gorgeous female celeb AND a handsome bloke at the same time? He's desperate to keep up the pretence of being straight...

Even if this isn't referring to the JC/Chace/Carrie Underwood triangle, it certainly fits perfectly, doesn't it? Especially the bit about Chace being desperate to keep up the pretence, what with the "sources" reporting on his Playboy Bunny/playah antics in Vegas, directly after the third or fourth (who can keep count?) round of JC/Chace rumors. Wahahaha.

What are we calling them, by the way? ChaceC? Jace? I need a smoosh name. I am too lazy to keep typing out 'JC/Chace'. My fingers do not like all those Cs.

So normally I would never do this because a) it's American Idol and it's not important and b) I know Jacob, so it's a little creepy to be quoting him or whatever, but. I just read his recap from the results show and he really said everything I was thinking about Danny and why his ellimination bothers me so fucking much:

I think that another way to look at the two narratives is to say this: the Paula story, about dreams coming true, serves to make this show a packaged product. The Simon story, by accomplishing that, also promises to make the people themselves a packaged product with a shelflife longer than this show. To say "I can make you the next Kelly Clarkson," first you have to say, "I think you can become the next Kelly Clarkson." And normally these things work together because of the structure of the show as a competition: rubbing off the edges and perfecting the performances week after week. I'm always shocked when they bring back old contestants, because we can remember when they were unformed and jagged, and when they come back they seem like these perfect, practiced machines. But I think the issue with Danny really comes down to this: he contributed to the show as a packaged product, he got the Sanjaya engines turning, he was a topic of discussion. But the show didn't return the favor, because "a Danny" is not, in 2008, a salable product. He's an ensemble player who got lied to and told that it was possible to become a lead, and it's not. Not today. Maybe not ever.

There's something ironic in the fact that Danny got Afghanistaned in this way -- used for the show's purposes and then being punished by America for being good at it -- with this, of all possible songs. There's something tainted about dudes kissing, and we are willing to forgive it as long as it stays small and silly and funny. There's something tainted about that love. But what's more tainted than homosexuality is the way that we, at this cusp of our national development, at this very specific moment in humanism and our social evolution as a culture, relate to it. We run to him, we run from him, we took all the boy could give, and it turns out that's not nearly all. America gets an F for knocking him off his pedestal, because it's way too early, but mostly: F America for putting him up there at all. He deserved better.

And, you know, not to get preachy on you guys because it's Friday and I'm really not looking for it, but this pretty much encapsulates my entire point about being gay on stage vs. being gay for real. It's kids like Danny who are going to change America's perceptions--gay kids being gay all over the place without fear, in public and in private, with no straight story to fall back on. It's like Andrew Sullivan said last week--we are the ones we've been waiting for. Should we deny straight people's desire and willingness to fight discrimination and negative perceptions on our behalf? Of course not. But in the end, it's down to us, and we have to take responsibility for those things ourselves, and we have to be willing to do so openly and proudly and without shame.

It's why I end up genuinely liking kids like Danny and Christian Sceriano: because they are shameless. And not just in the way that they are purposely over flamboyant and so on, but in the way that they literally do not have shame. Because honestly, there is nothing about being gay that's shameful, but a LOT of gay people don't seem to know that, and self-loathing or self-repression doesn't do anyone any favors, and it certainly doesn't win civil rights.

*deep breath* Okay, I'm done.

Last night I went to a free screening of the documentary Paris Is Burning at the Alamo Drafthouse with dazifudo. For those of you who don't know, Paris Is Burning is a documentary about the Ball circuit in Harlem in the late 1980s, which back then was primarily about drag queens and voguing. I don't have much to say about the film except that it was very good, very interesting. The idea that this group of people--gay men of color, transsexuals of color, and so on--bonded together through the medium of these elaborate Balls rings so true to me and is so, just, amazing. They created their own families. They created Houses to compete for in the Balls, and each House had a mother and a father and children. They had their own language and their own culture and their own history.

I can't help comparing it to fandom, even if that's a really poor comparison, but in many ways it feels similar. Of course, for most of us, fandom isn't a lifestyle choice and it's not about our identity. It's not about the people that we want to become or the need to be accepted for the person we are. But in some ways it is. Because we do have our own language and our own culture. We certainly have factions and in-fighting; we do something that is sideways-political in the same way as the Balls are.

After the film, one of the guys from the film was there to talk to us and answer questions. He told us that 95% of the people from the documentary (which was filmed from 1988-1989) were dead, and that most of them had died from AIDS. One of the transsexuals was murdered over the course of filming; a lot of them were runaway kids who hustled for a living.

But on the other side of it, the Balls and the creativity that went into them gave some of them a way out. Willie Ninja became a famous choreographer, and was the father of the House of Ninja, which you might recognize because the current father of the House of Ninja is BENI NINJA, who has been on ANTM about a million times as a "pose instructor." Beni Ninja is a Voguer. And the Balls are bigger now; much much less focused on drag and creative costuming and more on designers, which in some ways is sad, but in others, it leaves room for things like the Life Ball, which raises millions of dollars for AIDS relief every year.

So I just wanted to say, go see this movie. And now I need to write some birthday fic and maybe do some actual work. Maybe.