Dave Cullen: fave

My Nigga Moment

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 04:20:17 GMT

I've been loving this Boondocks TV series.

Makes me kinda squeamish sometimes, though. If this were written by a white guy, it would have been cancelled after one episode, and any TV executive involved in greenlighting it fired in disgrace.

But it's freaking funny.

And . . . how do you say this without sounding REALLY white . . . ? I'm understanding better.

Thought I understood the race stuff pretty well. Not well enough, apparently.

So I'm loving the show, for a whole lotta reasons. But the Nigga Moment episode--officially titled "Grandad's Fight"--that one was just too much. Grandad gets beaten up by a mean old blind man, and humilated for it. Everyone involved is black, including the narrator, who tells us and grandad about twenty times that it's just a nigga moment--where two niggas find themselves in a situation where they find themselves driven to act stupid, and it always ends badly.

Halfway through I literally felt like I was going to throw up. And all i could think was: I don't care how black the writer is, it's still freaking racist.

And I sure felt racist chuckling at it. And it was hard not to, it was funny. But good lord. Man, did I feel dirty.

I turned it off, but didn't delete it from the tivo.

Came back about a month later and decided to finish. More nigga nigga nigga, dumb niggas, stupid niggas, Goooooooood!

But finally, the episode climaxes with gramps and the blind guy in a rematch that ends horribly, followed by a mini riot among the crowd gathered to watch. Riley--the angry (eight year old?) grandson who set up the whole disgusting fight and took bets and charged admission and then instigated the riot to get the hell out of there when it went sour--stands back, looks at the mostly white crowd acting like idiots, and says, ruefully, "niggas!"

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Wow. Nicely done. Almost sounds heavy handed describing it now, but it sure lured me in. And enlightened me, too. And not just about white people, but about us, too. And the whole idea of niggas. Or one crucial nigga idea, at least.

This is the first show in ages that makes me feel like a nerdy white guy, and/or a white-guilt kinda guy. Discomforting, because I thought I was way past all that, but I guess that means I wasn't.

And it's funny as hell.

(FYI, It's on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Sunday at 11, I read at one point, but I have no idea. That's what your tivo is for.)

Watching Brokeback Mountain -- just about perfect

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 20:20:14 GMT

Watched Brokeback Mountain last night. Wow. Just about perfect.

Every bit as moving as the short story, and then some. They really fleshed out the characters, and I empathized with them more strongly. Enough that I'm not angry at Ennis anymore. I totally understand why he did it. How he thought he had to.

The problem with preconceptions is that it was hard not to sit there in the first half hour thinking, "Heath Ledger is doing fine, but 'a revelation'? Not quite getting that." (And there was plenty of quiet time to think.) But by the end I had forgotten all about that, and I was just in awe.

And Jake. Jake was just a joy to behold, every moment he was on screen. He really was. And that was his job--that was his character. And what a wonderful character to light up this movie. Would have been so much darker and flatter without him.

The women were great, too, and I'm so glad their characters were fleshed out. The book focuses on two lives ruined, but you get a powerful sense here of it tearing up all four. And to a lesser extent, hurting the daughters as well. Michelle Williams, in particular, is heartbreaking.

Oh, God, speaking of heartbreaking. My favorite scene in the book, hands down, was the reunion on the landing after four years--where they were so overcome with seeing each other, they grabbed each other and kissed passionately in broad daylight.

It was just as powerful on film, but topped by several others. I guess that says something extraordinary right there. The far-and-away best scene of one of the most beloved stories I have ever read, was bested about three times in the film. Would hardly have thought that possible.

The second night they get together out on Brokeback was . . . well, like nothing I've ever seen before, but only in the sense that I've never seen it with men. Picture one of the all-time great romantic moments on film, and then imagine it finally challenged by something just as beautiful, complex and tender with two men. Finally. First time ever ever ever I didn't have to imagine a stand-in for the woman up there.

It was just amazing. They had "gotten together" in a late-night drunken situation that Ennis was completely unable to deal with in the morning. Or the next evening. He tells Jake he's not queer, that it was a one-time thing and that's that. But he can't stick to it. When he comes into the tent, he's completely at war inside. Trying desperately not to do it, but his heart begging him to finally accept what it feels. It is so hard for him, his struggle is so palpable, and Jack is so perfect with him. God me balling again just remembering.

And their last climactic scene together and what comes after: that is just so intense, slammed me in the skull so hard so many ways one after the other after the other.

Just devastating.

And I'm not going to say a whole lot here, but I do believe Heath's finest moment comes when Ennis visits Jacks parents and gets some news from his mom. What he doesn't say. What he works so hard to hide. God. That poor, poor man. How can you possibly blame that guy?

---

So a strange thing happened to me after the film, while Ang Lee was interviewed onstage. (Streaming video and a news story on it here -- Thanks Mark. And FYI, Annie left early from the book signing, so I missed here. Didn't talk to her or Ang. Damn. But they sat across the aisle from us, and during the credits I got a chance to at least walk over and thank Larry and Diana for doing such an amazing job. They really fleshed this incredible story out.)

So the interview was great. To listen to him is to know you are in the presence of a true artist, whatever you think of this particular film. (Or The Hulk.) Late in the discussion, the Denver Post critic brought up they gay question a couple times, dealing with the gay issue, the gay this the gay that. It was oddly jarring for me. So weird to hear it called a gay film or a gay love story or gay anything. For the last two hours, I had just been lost in an exquisite love story.

I know, I know, I have scoffed right here about people saying it's not a gay film: What! It's two men in love having sex. That's called gay. The entire story revolves around the forbiddenness of their love--because it's gay--the whole tragedy is centered on the problem of the men being gay.

Yeah, I have said all that. And it's all true. In that sense, it is a gay film, in two distinct and crucial ways. But I'm now seeing the other point of view, too. It's also an aching love story between two people who just happen to be gay.

The other great romantic movie of the decade--Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--was also a gripping love story of two people fighting desperately both for and against their problematic love for each other. But it wasn't a film about a memory-erasing device was it? That was just the vehicle, the problem to present for these two people to fight madly for the love being ripped away from them.

Exactly the same thing here.

All I know is, that in spite of knowing full well for the two-plus hours that it was the revulsion of homosexuality that was driving these two tragic lovers apart, I truly forgot about it being a gay thing. The love story was just too intense. It didn't matter what was driving these two guys apart, it was just about the intensity of the love between these two guys.

So I was literally startled to hear her using the gay word while I was still basking in that afterglow. Maybe because the concept of "gay love" is offensive to some part of me that is sick of hearing it distinguished from "love." It's exactly the same. For two hours I had not been watching gay love, I had just been watching love.

It didn't feel like a gay film. It just felt like home.

---

Update:

You guys kept adding so many comments (thousands), that long after this post, we started a whole Brokeback Mountain Discussion Forum.

And for links to everything imaginable, see our Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Guide.

NOTICE: See you on the weekends

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 18:17:40 GMT

Hey. You might have noticed I'm rarely here during the week these days.

Yes, by design. Trying to keep my focus entirely on my book during the week. Hence the big one-day bursts on Saturdays and Sundays. So look for me then. (Or on Mondays when you get back to trolling the web at the office, while your boss is away. heeheehee.)

OK, better try that bigger:

LOOK FOR ME MOSTLY ON THE WEEKENDS UNTIL THIS BOOK IS DONE!

Occasionally I may stop by in an evening, if I've had a great day and deserve an indulgence, or maybe once in awhile for a quickie. (Like just now. I figured since I was here to let you know this, I could pound out a quick reaction to the Housewives.)

But hopefully you'll see a lot of self-control.

See you Saturday.

So ashamed

Tue, 10 May 2005 19:08:25 GMT

So much of my happiness has revolved around music. And my insights. Shaped my whole attitude on life. I could hardly claim to be an expert, but easily qualify as aficionado.

So how do I explain the world beginning with Buddy Holly?

I have a problem, I realize, which my agent would probably strangle me for admitting here (she counsels me occasionally about what reviewers will someday use against me). Hard for me to appreciate certain kinds of art that don't resonate with my own time.

Strange. I was going to just say "art," but even as I wrote it, I realized I tend to flip that around with painting. Most of what I like was done 1860-1940. And books, I tend also to favor those written a bit farther back than my contemporaries. (Haven't gotten around to gushing about The Sheltering Sky, yet. Still kind of shaken by it.)

But movies. That's where I've noticed it most acutely. I've seen plenty of classics--thanks mostly to film classed in college--and I appreciate them, but almost never do I feel them. They just feel like a different reality to me. Maybe I'm trapped in a realist aesthetic or something, I don't know, I just can't get sucked in the way I do with, say:

Wild at Heart, Moulin Rouge, Trust, Eternal Sunshine, Hope & Glory, My Own Private Idaho, The Grifters, Heathers, Harold & Maude, 35 Up, Streetcar (OK, there's one), Manny & Lo, Life of Brian, Sammy & Rosey Get Laid, The Big Sleep (two) , Crouching Tiger, Apartment Zero . . .

Music, that's the other problem child. My most beloved of all the arts, the one that's fed me most deeply, and it's not just that I dislike everything pre Buddy Holly, I don't even know what exists there. Of course I'm aware of Beethoven, Motzart and the various "classics" I also struggle to appreciate. And then this great big hole until Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard suddenly materialize out of nowhere and spawn Elvis.

I'm aware of a few intermediaries, few of which I have ever liked: various bluesmen, and jazzmen, Sinatra, Crosby, Judy Garland, though I'm finally starting to appreciate her. Hmmmm. OK, I guess I'm aware of Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, people in that vein, and appreciate them, though I've never spent much time with them.

I'm not completely clueless, but it's a fairly muddy haze. Suddenly, the minute blues and country fuse, I tried to know everything.

I was aware of The Carter Family. I kinda knew the history, in very sparse terms, and a few of the hits. I had this vague recollection of Kasey Kasum saying they were the first country act ever to make the charts, and of course, I knew and loved June--(one of the first entries when I relaunched this blog in 2003 was titled June Carter Cash is still dead)--and Carlene dragged me in slightly deeper.

But only the way you would be vaguely aware of a good friends' grandparents, seeing them as the old codgers they shriveled into shortly before their deaths.

But man. Just watching this American Experience on them, and I feel like I'm in musical kindergarten. How could I have come so far, known so little about where all this came from? Listening to Maybelle invent some of the guitar techniques I take for granted--that my life would have been so empty and miserable without . . . God. I feel like such a dick.

Not sure where to head from here. Flea markets to find old vinyl 78s? Maybe some record company has made it easy on me with a boxed set.

The singing is still a little tough to relate to sometimes, but it's a start.

All feels so daunting, though. I'm 43. And only in kindergarten? Don't know if I have the stamina to live out a whole nother grammar school and high school again.

---

Update:

So far, I've been to the site on this show, and found lots of great stuff, including four original recordings you can listen to online (apparently).

I didn't mention, but I'm only 15 minutes into the show, and already amazed. And having to "watch" with no pic, cause of a local affiliate snafu, but still enraptured.

Here's a summary of the documentary, from the film description page of the website:

Their music lifted the nation's spirits during the darkest days of the Depression. Their lyrics captured the joys and tragedies of everyday life: loves won and lost, dreams attained and shattered, separations and reunions. Their original sound, first heard 75 years ago in a makeshift recording studio in Bristol, Tennessee, continues to resonate throughout America.

This hour-long documentary by Emmy Award-winning producer Kathy Conkwright explores the lives of A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter, starting with their childhood in Poor Valley, Virginia, and following their story through the early 1940s, when they stopped playing and recording together. The film features rarely seen family photographs, memorabilia, and archival footage that chronicles the life and music of this famous and influential trio. Robert Duvall narrates.

"Through this film, I wanted to chronicle the amazing contributions the Carter Family made to American music," says Conkwright. "Their songs and style remain the most copied in American folk and country music, and have influenced artists across all genres." Artists Marty Stuart, Gillian Welch, Rodney Crowell, Ralph Stanley and Joan Baez appear in the film, together with A.P. and Sara Carter's children Janette and Joe (who died in March 2005) and granddaughter Rita Forrester.

Sara, her husband A.P., and sister-in-law Maybelle lived the poverty and heartbreak of the poor rural Americans they sang of. Through music, they brought a dignity and understanding to an often-misunderstood culture. Carter Family songs like Wildwood Flower, Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Worried Man Blues laid the foundations for country, folk and bluegrass music.

A transcript will be available here after the show finishes airing around the country. That's really nice. Don't think I'll ever let go of that. The story is as heartbreaking as the music. It starts out in Poor Valley--seriously--where they can barely get by during the Roaring Twenties. You can only imagine what that place was like once the depression hit.

But it's the personal story, particularly A.P. and Sara. It opens with the family about to appear on the cover of Life magazine, stardom beyond their wildest dreams, but the whole thing is crumbling, A.P. and Sara are secretly divorced . . . As tragic as the songs they've been singing.

God, I just want to immerse myself in this story indefinitely. I wonder if anyone has written up a first-rate bio on these people. Guess I'll be getting back to you on that soon.

More tears for the surfer dudes than JP

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 18:36:29 GMT

True, actually. Though not as long.

I hate to quit harping on the briefness and shallowness of my response to the popewatch, but it does seem rather insistent at jumping out at me as this preposterously low benchmark.

Truthfully, I can't remember my cheeks ever getting wet for John Paul this weekend, though I did feel kinda weepy half the morning Friday. (Before the anger set back in.)

I only wept for a minute for the surfer dudes, but they did provoke real tears this morning, as I watched them get bonked off The Amazing Race over breakfast.

And I don't find the disparity odd. In the short time I've "known" them, those boys taught me more about joy, kindness--particularly to each other--and zest for life than that sweet-yet-spiteful old man did in 20-plus years in Rome.

Seriously. I know people marveled at the old man's charisma with a crowd, but I never felt it. Nice warm smile, but I never felt his passion. The joi de vivre of these two--God, it was just palpable.

And the contentment. (What a rare combination. The giddiest people I know seem to marry it with bouts of rage and despair. Me, for instance.)

Contentment with each other, their competitors and they people and places they encountered along the way. But especially themselves--each of them with himself. They tried their little hearts out, and when it worked out, they were euphoric, when they failed they were OK with that, too. And we sure saw them bungle enough little tasks during their brief pass through our lives. They didn't blame each other, and they didn't blame themselves. Not for long. They were just happy to have enjoyed the ride.

Never was that more intense than their closing comments. And that's when I started losing it. I wasn't crying because they lost, I was crying at the beauty of the relationship they have with each other. And with themselves. The serenity they exude about their own lives. Did Siddhartha ever reach such tranquility so young? These boys just toss their bo trees onto their backs, carry them around with them everywhere.

And maybe I was crying a little out of envy. It wasn't until at least my mid thirties that I ever let myself get that close to another friend. My two brothers? Not in this lifetime. I can barely exist in the same room with the older one without an explosion. The younger one, infinitely better, but still highly combustible.

And sure, I was crying about losing Greg and Brian, too, not that I ever got their names straight or figured out which one was older. Not about them losing the race, me losing them. I'd love to see them win, it would be great to see such good guys up on the podium, but my mind jumps straight for the picture of their faces as they approach the steps. Could they possibly gush or weep harder than last week, gasping for air and flopping arms and torsos onto each others backs after they flipped the jeep and then beat the wife absuer in a mad dash to the mat? My imagination doesn't spread that wide. But I'd give their million dollars up to see it. (heeheehee. Is that selfish?)

My own little religious experience each week. Just a brief visit with a pair of walking Buddhas. Without the fat!

Heeheehee.

I love reality TV. What a remarkable pair of souls to behold each week. Have they tried showing highlights in church? Those old chestnuts from the bible offer some great examples, but the immediacy of this footage--how do you match the example of that?

An hour a week with those two shot me up with more inspiration for living divinely than than I ever recall receiving from a pulpit. How many people do you know that gush that kind of exuberance?

I've got one friend that joyful out in Chicago. (Get to see him again this weekend. Yeaaaaa!!!) Lost another last November. (She was past retirement age, had to push an oxygen tank everywhere, but her eyes still sparkled and she never bothered to hold back a giggle.) That's about it.

Maybe I just need better friends. Heeheehee. I don't think so. I know some incredible people, amazing in all sorts of ways, but it's rare on this planet to encounter someone brimming with that kind of ebullience.

Cherish it when you can.

Left behind in TVland

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 02:59:54 GMT

I had to make a choice today, and it illustrated a really profound hurdle we just leapt over tonight.

I'm in Chicago on business, and we just moved our corp apartment yesterday. SBC promised us DSL service last week, again yesterday and assured us it would be up today. Of course not. We got home tonight at 6:45, not even dialup.

So I was stuck. I could stay home and watch the results trickle in by TV or head back to the office and resume "watching" by web.

In the past that would have been an easy call: TV, of course. So many more human voices and faces, all sorts of info coming in, it all comes to you without running around to find it, and you get the feeling you're there in the stadium as they call the races. And anytime one station muddles into nonsense, you flip.

Not this time. The nets were holding all the cards very close to the vest. Nothing but all-or-nothing calls or too-close-to-call for each state. They showed us actual vote totals, but we all know how meaningless that is, as heavily R or D precints report. We need exit poll numbers and actual results from key precincts--the information they are looking at.

But all that information was just for them to see.

What a crock.

I hopped in my car, was back to the office and fully satisfied again fifteen minutes later. Sure enough, Slate had posted later exit-polling at 7:30 EST, very late numbers for most of the key states, closing in on the reliability factor we had been waiting for all afternoon.

I can still shuttle between various sites and see all the states the networks are calling, as well as playing with my own LA Times map where I can recalculate my own numbers as states flip. (Though I have yet to make much use of the latter, since nothing seems to be changing.)

And I'm busy phoning friends stuck out in TVland, filling them in on what's really happening with this election.

How sad. There are two different election stories unfolding tonight. A tiny little fraction of us are watching the whole thing unfold realtime, and the bulk of the country is watching it on tape-delay on TV. (Several million on the web? Single-digit millions?)

Actually there are three versions. Our network friends and the new organizations who funded the renamed VNS get to watch it realtime, us webwatchers are on tape-delay of a couple hours and the bulk of the country is on double-delay.

And odd, really. Most of the country has some sort of web access now, right? Don't they know where the real story is playing out? Or do many of them only have access at work, which they left behind before the final act. Though most of them seem to have missed the first couple acts, too, where we pretty much knew the outcome.

Seems like it's more a matter of old habits. We think of TV as the place we go for realtime information. The hurricane hits, the volcano erupts, the plane goes down and there they are as it happens.

Not the election. For some reason they're nannies tonight. I understand and respect their reluctance not to call a state too early and then recall it later. And I understand their reluctance not to influence voting in-progress by releasing the exit-polling while a state's election is in progress. But what's the rationalle for withholding that data now? Or key precincts or computer models? Are they afraid we'll jump to bad conclusions? That's our problem if we're stupid enough to jump to our own incorrect conclusions. Why not try explaining it to us? Are they really trying to protect us from information?

I actually had a third option: One boss gave me the key to her room at the Hyatt to watch TV dial in for web access. I was sure I would have settled for that compromise by now, but there's just too much out there on the web to take it in that slowly. A whole lot of web turns out to be even better than a lot of TV and a moderate amount of web. At least for now.

Update:

Around 7:30, the web advantage evaporated, though it took me quite awhile longer to realize it. Webheads are still hours ahead of all those hundred-plus million stranded out in the TV wasteland, but no fresh information seems to be coming on the web. Now we're all stuck watching that horrible trickle from TV. And it's double-infuriating for webwatchers, because we have to sit through the massive delay, waiting for the TV to tell us around 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock what we knew at 2 in the afternoon and then slowly advance the story.

Fresh exit poll numbers stopped coming and I've yet to see any leakage on the next round of revealing data, key precincts. Or the trendlines showing up in the various computer models the networks all have running.

They're withholding all this too. Why?

Where did they get it into their heads that they are not communicators of information, but official decision-makers who "call" a state, and that letting us in on the information before it's finalized is dangerous? Isn't reporting the latest news to us their job? Isn't creating the news someone else's job?

So instead of providing us this reliable information, they provide us really bad, misleading information: raw data? They provide actual vote totals, generally coming through in vast quantities from unrepresentative areas of the state, with vast populations in urban areas often leading or trailing, so the raw numbers are practically meaningless?

They protect us from reliable information by providing unreliable? How on earth did they convince themselves that was either responsible or intelligent?

It's interesting to see how we get into mindsets and can't shake them. Once the nets started calling elections, they changed the way they viewed themselves, and now they're blind to the rather obvious fact that their job is to rat out information hidden away by governments, corporations or whoever chooses to burrow it away--the last people on earth who should be hiding it is the group charged with ferreting it out.

And we all buy in. Most of the friends I have filled in by phone are flabergasted to discover that they're being kept in the dark. They just assumed the nets were filling them in. But I just got off the phone with a really brilliant friend and it took a minute or two for it to click for him. He kept repeating that he was appalled that they had not given him the information, but understood the nets not wanting to make a mistake by calling the races too soon. He was locked into that bifurcated world where the nets had two choices: call a race or withhold everything they knew about it. (Except, for some reason, raw vote counts.) Suddenly it clicked: "Oh, yeah. They could just tell us what they know. What does that have to do with 'calling' it?"

Exactly.

Talking Point: George Bush was weak!

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:28:57 GMT

In a highly unusual move, I'm going to repeat myself a bit tonight. I made posted a lot of thoughts as they came to me tonight, and posted somewhat different versions in the DailyKos comments, where some people asked me to expand this idea into a diary there. I liked the idea, and did so--link here--and I'm posting the edited version here as well. This, I think, is the most important potential development tonight:

Bush handed us a huge opening tonight.

It was great that Kerry finally came out so strong, but much more important that Bush wilted so meekly.

Bush was weak! Bush was weak! Bush was weak! Bush was weak! Bush was weak! Bush was weak!

Weak in style, weak on substance.

The Leader Of The Free World sputtered through most of the debate, grew flustered, appeared confused, couldn't seem to remember the question, lost his train of thought . . .

Kerry called him on his colossal failures and all he could manage was to point out Poland was behind us in Iraq.

And could he have been a bigger weanie the way he pouted and pursed his lips every time Kerry pounded him into the pavement?

It's time we act like the Republicans and grab hold of a theme and run with it.

Time to undermine George with exactly the message which will damage him most, and will resonate because it was so real.

George Bush was weak!

Keep that meme running.

Our president was weak! Our president was weak!

He has staked his entire campaign on an image of strength. If we seize now on what every American saw with their own eyes, and can hammer that message home, the pillar of his support crumbles.

George Bush was weak.

Our enemies took comfort tonight. They watched a weak president.

We are saddled with a weak leader.

No wonder we're in Iraq all by our lonesome. Can you picture George Bush negotiating with world leaders? We never get to see those private exchanges, we've been guessing for four years about how he acts one on one with a tough international adversary. Now we have a window into just how weak the man is. Putty in Dominique De Villepin's hands.

Can you imagine a more ghastly image to a conservative?--Getting our butts whipped in negotiations with FRANCE!

Our president is weak.

The Depressive and the Psychopath: At last we know why the Columbine killers did it

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 17:40:57 GMT

That's the headline of my Slate story, just posted.

Long story of how it came about, but the short version is that last week I came to the conclusion that I may never revive my Columbine book project, and made a last minute decision to pitch the pretty big news I had uncovered researching it as a magazine piece during the media window of the five-year anniversary (today).

Slate really got behind it, and they will be moving it into the cover slot as soon as they get the graphic set. And they just notified me that MSN is picking it up as their cover shortly, too, which will mean a lot more exposure, which this story really needs.

And best of all, I really like the edit they did on it. Thank God. I always worry. We had to cull it down from 10,000 words to 3,000, including the sidebar--which is still extremely long for them--and I had nightmares about whether we could do the ideas justice. But I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I really like my editor there, David Plotz. Really talented guy. Which is great, because that is NOT always the case with editors. He really made it better--trimmed the fat, kept the meat. How it's supposed to work.

I'm also really happy that they're going as aggressive with the conclusions as I believe they deserve. (So nice to have an editor believe in your story.)

The head of the FBI's investigation in the case and the other top shrinks they brought in don't believe the "why" of Columbine is not any great mystery at all, and they're ready to explain why.

I always get excited working on a big story (to me, and what I've spent a good chunk of the past five years on, it's a big story), and I was in this case as well, but I'm also incredibly relieved to get it out there, and off my chest. I have spent so much time with Columbine over the past five years--it really had an effect on me. And the frustrationg so many people felt about how it could have happened really bothered me, when I had access to a very different view and could not share it. I have never felt this kind of relief as a journalist before.

(God, I hope this doesn't sound self-serving. I'm just spilling my thoughts and feelings as I feel them--same as I ever do on this blog. Feels a bit weirder knowing strangers may come here after reading the story, though, and then see me blabbing like this about it. But that's what I do here. Blab like this. Heeheehee. I also have barely slept in the past 24 hours, so consider cutting me a little slack.)

And I'm eager to hear what you all think. I'll try to answer any questions here. I'm sure there will also be a discusson in Slate's The Fray.

Finally comprehending how they're heroes

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 19:43:13 GMT

I get it, finally. I get why they're heroes. For nearly three months now, I've been referring to Chip & Reichen as "our gayboy heroes," but I was never completely clear why. People keep challenging me on it: They're game show contestants who said who they are--what's so heroic about that? I knew that was a feeble response, but I was pretty bad at articulating my own rationale. "Because I sense it" was unconvincing. I knew why the role they were playing was monumental, I wrote about that in early July. But were they really more than lucky performers?

It just took one solid interview to reveal it. Thanks Bruce Steele, thanks The Advocate.

Of course I dove right for the personal stuff last night, because I'd been writing about the cultural impact for months, and I wanted to know more about these guys as humans. But what a liberating image they have of the power of their own personal liberty:

Reichen: . . . When we were getting cast on the show, we made no secret to CBS that we wanted to be portrayed as married, and they said, “Well, are you legally married?” And we said, “No, we got married in California, but it’s not legally recognized by our state, but we consider ourselves married, [as do] our family, friends—and 200 of them were there [at the ceremony]—and under God, and CBS really took that to heart. They were skeptical and said, “Well, I don’t know. We’d love to help you, but we’ll bring it up to the executives,” and when the executives approved it at CBS, I mean, everybody was thrilled when the decision came out—even the people that made the decision. It was such a fun and wonderful thing that happened, and we were just thrilled that they were going to put “married” under our names. That’s how we considered ourselves.

. . . You can get married anywhere you want. Just set up a ceremony and do it under God and wear your rings and tell everyone that you’re married. . . You know, it’s kind of saying, “Yeah, you know what? If the state isn’t going to recognize the rights that people want to have, then the people will go ahead and recognize that for the state. . .

Exactly. That's where we need to go on this marriage route. I really feel we've put the cart before the horse a bit on going to the courts demanding recognition. I applaud the men and women who stepped forward to demand that equality, but I'm a little troubled by the great throngs still hiding back in the shadows. So many gays have found the courage to come out individually the past 30 years, but it's surprising how few have come out as husband and husband. (Or wife and wife.)

We might win a few judges over in the courts, but that's a dangerous game without first winning over the reps in the legislature, and especially the voters sending them there. And more importantly the society. In the end, the laws are far less important than the attitudes of the people who create them. I don't want to be allowed to keep a job or get married in this society, I want to be embraced by this world I live in. We're not going to do that in the courts, we're going to do that at the altar--or wherever we can find someone willing to conduct our ceremonies. And we're going to do it on that great modern transmitter of our culture, TV.

The primary step is very simple: not legalize marriage, get married. (Oh, to find the freaking husband so I could put my wedding ring where my mouth is.)

What an experience, listening to these two guys talk. Reichen and Chip are not waiting around for someone else to tell them what's right or wrong, what they can or can't do. That sounds so mundane, but come on: most of us go right along with most everything our culture dictates about righteousness. As soon as things get uncomfortable, we adhere to all their major boundaries, or at best we run off and quietly get married and trot out the euphemisms and cover stories for all but our closest friends and family.

All that crap about who can and can't get married, that's all imaginary. That's other people defining your world for you, defining what your relationship to another man can or cannot be. That's all noise. And nearly everyone accedes to the noise, accepts it as the reality they live within. Chip & Reichen brushed it aside. "If you feel like you’re married, then you’re married," Reichen said. Exactly. You decide. They did.

It's interesting, the thesis of that terrified Focus on the Family op-ed this week was that if you repeat something long enough, people will come to believe it. From there they concluded that Chip & Reichen and CBS posed a mortal danger by convincing Americans of this Big Gay Lie through repetition. They're right about the power of repetition: but which lie has been perpetrated, and who has been convinced? What they never pause to consider, is that 99 percent of all gays have been convinced of the lie that they can not get married.

First and foremost, Chip & Reichen are heroes because they saw through the lie that most of the world buys into, and refused to let anyone else define their relationship for them. A lot of men and women have taken that step, but you'd be surprised how few, actually. The vast majority of gay couples still top out at getting a place together and calling each other "partner." (Partner. I despise that word. Are you in business together or married to each other?) They don't conduct a ceremony, wear the rings, or use the language. They don't claim it.

Chip & Reichen joined that first minority of gays a year and a half ago when they had their wedding. To my mind, every gay man and woman who defies the lie that has been brainwashed into them and openly proclaims their marriage is a hero.

But the unique steps Chip & Reichen took were landing in a position to broadcast their statement to 7 million people a week instead of 200, and then risking it. It was interesting to hear that CBS challenged them so vigorously. What I don't think came across was how easy it would have been to submit.

Consider their situation: you're a finalist (or semifinalist) for a reality show. The fame bug has just bitten. There's no stopping those images: picturing yourself a stAAAAAAAA. But your chances are still remote. Most of the finalists are going to be rejected. Everyone has an idea about what the producers are looking for, and everyone is working to embody it. Check out Reichen's advice to people applying for the next Race:

Walk in there, and all you want to keep saying is, “We’re gonna win,” because that’s what they want to see. They want to see people who, over everything else, just want to win because they know that’s gonna make for good TV.

People in the selection process know this. Everyone is trying to get on the show, no one is picking this moment to be a rebel. No one wants to appear too demanding. I have been stunned at my own reactions when I've been offered assignments--or especially when I've been tempted with the possibility of an assignment--at magazines I desperately wanted to work for. Vanity Fair got interested in a piece early this year, and I was ready to do anything to get in there. I would have knelt down in front of Graydon Carter and performed anything he required, that preposterous haircut of his be damned.

Then I think back on my first attempt to get on the first Survivor. It was seven months before the show aired, and most people had never heard of it, no one knew if this reality television thing was going to splash big or bomb, but I desperately wanted to get on that island, and I would have agreed to anything. That's what I thought when I applied. I had no idea. I made the first cut, and the elation ended when the contract arrived. They did want me to agree to anything. Use of my name, my likeness and virtual control of my life for three years. No chance whatsoever to write about it (for three years), which of course was a primary instinct for me.

I wasn't mesmerized by the money or the television exposure initially, that came later. I was desperate for the experience, and then of course, what I do with experience is write about it. Nope, gotta sign that right away. That one felt particularly emasculating, but fine, I'll take it, just get me onto that island. Then the contract got to injury, disease, and death. That scared the shit out of me. It went on about 20 pages and got quite graphic about the real possibility that I could be maimed for life, exposed to tropical diseases without cure or even killed. Pretty sobering stuff. Twenty-five people had been selected from my region for an interview with producers at the Denver CBS affiliate's studio. I wondered how many would accept all the demands--not to mention scheduling a comprehensive physical at our expense (which cost me over 200 bucks) and jumping through a bunch of other hoops in about two weeks' time. Twenty five.

And you should have seen that group in the green room. I thought I knew aggressive and hyperactive people--this crowd was bouncing off the walls. And everyone was buzzing about what the producers wanted and how to be sure to present it.

That was before anyone really knew what was at stake. I can only imagine the process years later. Most people in Chip & Reichen's position would have buckled at anything the producers asked for: Married, partners, whatever. We just want to be on the show.

And most of us would rationalize that the platform is more important: compromise where you have to to get there, then you can tell the world anything you want. Sometimes that works. If your group has never gotten a platform, and compromise seems the only way to get an opening, it may be a pragmatic approach. But Chip & Reichen pushed for more, and the producers pushed back; and then our boys pushed harder, and for the first time ever someone with a monumental platform like CBS handed it over.

And that's why those two boys are the biggest heroes in my life at this moment.

A bishop of our own

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 01:00:25 GMT

GAY BISHOP RATIFIED!

It's true! It's true!

Finally, a bishop of our very own. We're finally part of the family. I dont' know how many cliches I've got in me, feeling like I'm just bursting at the seams with them.

Suddenly the past month, it's feeling like we can really achieve equality in our lifetime. (Maybe).

Headline News reported the latest milestone at exactly 8 p.m. Eastern time. (Right after the commercial.) Sixty-two of the 107 votes in the House of Bishops were in favor. Stories from Reuters, Voice of America, ABC, Newsday . . . (more coming)

Wow. We finally have a gay bishop of a mainline church--who is admitting he's gay and being raised up into the leadership regardless.

The Episcopal church is not so big in the U.S., but quite extensive outside it, in places that remain a bit behind us in attitudes toward homos. (It is part of the 77-million member Anglican Communion.) It could have a big effect there.

And larger U.S. denominations have been struggling with the same question for years, particularly the Methodists and Presbyterians. (And I actually know a Presbyterian, though not an actual presbyter.) They all keep chickening out, and it's always a lot easier once somebody else has taken the plunge. Of course it will be a lifetime or two for my Catholics to get it, but I'll be happy if they just let the women out of the doghouse before I die.)

Meanwhile, conservative Anglican elements have been threatening a schism if Robinson were ratified. (They were going to begin by walking out to pray at a Lutheran church across the street. Lutheran!--What next?)

We'll see how that plays out. Really interesting discussion of the very real moral dilemma the two sides were facing on NPR's Talk of the Nation today. Both the pro- and con-Robinson guests agreed that the schism would probably be minor, though. They said similar dissent wracked the church after ordination of women, institution of the new prayer book and a few other changes this century, but little became of them. (And TOTN has a timeline of the development of Christianity, Judaism and Islam here.)

Phyllis Tickle was particularly insightful on the show. (She is contributing editor in religion at Publisher's Weekly and author of a few books, including The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape.) She made a compelling case that the gay-bishop issue was to some degree a stand-in for the much broader and far more important battle between literal interpretations of every word of the bible vs what she called "progressive revelation." She described progressive revelation as the concept that the truth shall be revealed as humanity is ready to receive it.

Interesting. I'm sure the concept is well known in theological circles, but was news to me. It names an idea I think I've believed my whole life, though: That when God was speaking to people just emerging from caves, he was giving them a much simpler guidebook than when they were starting to experiment with planting crops and forging plows, which was still simpler than when they organized into cities, built nations, invented steam engines, laid railroads, left the planet . . . I know my bible-church friends would disagree passionately, because they believe God really did reveal the whole thing all at once, for every culture in every time to understand the same words. I've always thought of Him as a little smarter than that.

I understand why homosexuality was banned at the time of Leviticus. Hygiene was a life or death issue at that point, and sex with your anus, that was just asking for trouble. Same thing with spoiled seafood trichinosis in pork, and many of the other Levitican prohibitions. But homosexuality presented bigger problems than pork: The Australian Prime Minister's lingering fears for the survival of the species was not just very real back then, it was the paramount concern. Now, we're facing the opposite problem on procreation. Now, the whole fabric of society is different. The whole conceivable universe of ethical dilemmas is different. I think I'm only exaggerating a little when I say that I have less in common with one of Abraham's early Israelites than that Israelite had with a caveman.

Is it an exaggeration at all? It wouldn't be hard to make a case that the fairly simple choices available to both of them were more similar in kind than the dilemmas we face today. It was only in the last hundred years or two that many people had the choice of doing anything but toiling in a wheatfield. My people came over from Ireland just over a hundred years ago. I have little doubt that my line is peasantry more or less all the way back to Adam. I was born Catholic because my parents were, because a long line of peasants before them believed as they were told.

Today, I am free to pursue nearly any vocation I choose. I have infinitely more choices and a whole different set of challenges and ethical quandries. I don't think it makes any sense to operate out of the simple rulebook handed down to cavemen or their successors. The Creator I look up to thought things through a little farther than that.

On the Talk of the Nation show, Larry Cunningham, Professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, brought the esteemed Catholic hero known by the unwieldy title Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman into the debate. He quoted the venerable cardinal's famous last line from his landmark Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (December 27, 1874). Cunningham was taking a different tack with the quote, but I think he unwittingly played right into Tickle's wider point about progressive revelation:

"I shall drink, —to the Pope, if you please, —still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”

I don't think Newman was talking just about popes. I think God is still guiding us along with new insights every day, and we need to look inside to our own hearts to hear them. (To hear Him, if you prefer.) I look at that ancient book on the table and I see a lot of wisdom. But I think He expects a lot more out of me than just following a rulebook written as instruction manual for goat farmers. I shall drink, —to the Bible, if you please, —still, to conscience first, and to the Bible afterwards.

I really need both

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 20:15:25 GMT

So the last post, that was the rational part. (Of my response to HRC's new campaign for gay marriage rights.) HRC almost always appeals to the rational side of my brain, that's what bugs me about them. Then I pasted their little message into my browser and gave it a quick little read to see what kind of dopey legalistic spin that had put on this one, and I got to this line:

Finding a soul mate and building a life together is an integral part of the American dream.

Yeah, reading it back now, it still is partially the product of a grownup debate-team star. It could come right out of a legal brief: this is an integral part, it's the American dream. I must have glossed right over those words the first time. Because they slipped in a couple other phrases that reached up out of the screen and slammed a big burly fist through my heart: Soul mate. Building a life together. Dream. Finding a soulmate and building a life together may or may not be the American dream. I don't care. They're my dream. And they're missing. And there's this huge gaping hole in my life that's eating away at me every morning when I wake up because of it.

That's why I've been posting so much crap about gay marriage on this blog. Gay gay gay gay gay! What gay blog. Can't you ever talk about anything else? It's been much gayer than I ever intended or foresaw. I do have other interests. But lately, this one has suddenly be thrust into the forefront. The sodomy decision, the Canadian marriages, the MA ruling, my breakup with my boyfriend . . . That last one may not apply to all readers. But that's the one that really smacks me in the face, refuses to allow me to forget what I need, what I've got, and how far I've got to go. Finding the little bastard is the first assignment, figuring out what to do with him once we hook up will be the next trick.

I've always wanted to get married. For most of my life I thought I was a straightguy and I spent most of my 20s and over half my 30s trolling for a wife. I was sleeping with men part-time since I was 28, but until at least 37, I was still hoping to make it work with a woman. Of course I was. I wanted a wife, I wanted a marriage, I wanted a family.

Letting go of that dream was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Harder than recovering from the fall that crushed one of my vertebrae, harder than the year I spent in a bodycast recovering. Much harder than Army Basic Training or Officer Candidate School or living in the Kuwaiti desert for two years. Those seemed pretty hard at the time, but were nothing compared to admitting I was a homo.

Hard enough that I was sleeping with men for nine years before I could admit the obvious. Hard enough that I'd been secretly lusting after them for close to thirty years before I could admit the obvious.

So in a big scary shouting match with my shrink one summer morning, I suddenly saw how ridiculous the dream was and I finally let it go forever. But if I can't marry a woman I don't see why I can't be allowed to marry at all.

Who I marry is between me and him and God, and that's all that matters at the most basic level. I will marry a man, one way or the other, just like my current minor heroes Chip and Reichen.

But marriages transcend every other form of commitment, because they haul the outside world in to participate in the contract. A marriage is much more than promising one other person you'll stick by her until death do you part. You can promise that in the bedroom. Or in a burst of sudden rapture as the fading sun licks the Rockies on your first harrowing hike through the crest of Lemhi Pass. Marriage is about standing up in front of all your friends and families and God and the state and everyone and everything that matters to you, and promising in front of us that you'll honor that oath or look like a great big ass. It's the asswipe factor that gives the event its gravity. That and the legal repercussions. Marriage represents the most intrusive legal contract imaginable: everything that I have, everything I will ever obtain no longer belongs to me. It now belongs to this new entity merging two different people, relinquishing our individual rights and forging them into this new legal entity called a couple. A married couple.

Those two things, the asswipe threat and the legal entanglement, those are the forces that invest marriage with such power. Neither one may keep you together once you hate each other, but each one scares the shit out of you about the possibility. I know why I'm not married yet. Because I've loved a lot of people, and I've wanted to take a chance with a few of them, just not that much of a chance. Marriage takes on significance only because so much is at stake. I can have half of the marriage stake right now. Everything but the legal half. Reichen & Chip have half already. I want the whole thing. Desperately.

In theory I can already get the other half. My high school prom date shocked me a few years back by coming out herself. My first little lipstick lesbian. About two years ago, she moved to Denmark, renounced her citizenship and bore a set of twins. She got both halves, plus a traditional nuclear family, plus Denmark. But she had to find a Danish woman to do it. And renounce her citizenship.

I don't want to do either. I want to remain an American. I want to stay in America and enjoy life, liberty, and especially the pursuit of happiness. Liberty to marry, happiness with the man of my dreams.

If I could just find him.

Not Yet! We just met Chip & Reichen

Thu, 03 Jul 2003 09:16:52 GMT

I thought the decision was still several weeks away. But HRC sent an email out today including this passage:

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is expected to issue any day now its ruling in Goodridge et al vs. Department of Public Health, which challenges the state's denial of marriage licenses to 7 same-sex couples. The decision could result in same-sex couples being able to marry in Massachusetts.

This scares the crap out of me. I have rarely been more conflicted. When Hawaii's supreme court legalized gay marriage several years back, I secretly hoped the drive to pass a (state) constitutional amendment to stop us would succeed. (The court wisely held back its decision from taking effect until that was decided, so the state wouldn't face the prospect of unmarrying people.)

Late in the battle, I finally came clean in a heated little exchange with Tim Gill, the local gay multimillionaire who set up The Gill Foundation, which was pouring a great deal of money into advertising for "our" side. He was eager to charge ahead, but in emotional matters like this, I think policy has to follow public opinion, not drive it. We can get a bit ahead of the public on issues like health benefits and so forth, because most people aren't going to shit their pants over gays getting that. But marriage--we have to tread ever so lightly.

I think the best thing that ever happened to us was the early Hawaii scare. The public had to come face to face with the prospect of imminent gay marriage. Suddenly, the court ruled, and it looked like reality. If the voters of that little state hadn't changed their constitution, every state in the country would have had to recognize any couple with enough money or frequent flier miles to get there. We needed this image burned into their psyche, then we needed to back off for five or ten years. Let them get used to the idea.

I don't think they're used to it yet.

Some of them will never get used to it, but most eventually will. But not till some TV executives grow a spine. Nothing impacts attitudes in our culture like television, and TV execs have been scared to death of it. One lesbian wedding on Friends nearly ten years ago? (And lesbians, that's the part straightguys can deal with.) A kiss here, a kiss there, still a rarity. Gays are allowed to exist on TV now, but sex is very limited, and love that's much worse, marriage, almost unheard of.

Thank God for reality TV.

I think the biggest milestone yet in the long struggle for gay marriage took place five weeks ago on a CBS summer replacement series that barely got the greenlight for this season. And it seemed to go almost undetected in the media. Four days before The Amazing Race began airing its fourth contest, CBS promoted it heavily on 60 Minutes, one of its most popular shows. Each commercial break, a different promo ran, focusing on three of three of the twelve teams in the race. The promo would end with a voice-over that went something like, "Who will win the million dollars? Will it be the models, the circus clowns, the air traffic controllers?" (Yes, those really are actual teams this year. And each team is composed of two people.) A quick video of the pair would flash on the screen as each team was mentioned. I think it was the final promo of the night that went very close to this: "Who will win the million dollars? Will it be the engaged couple, the dating couple, the married couple?" The married clip showed two men. Like it was totally normal. I froze the Tivo and backed it up. Over and over and over again. There was no attempt to explain it, to justify it, to diminish it. They had two married guys competing on the show, what about it?

On the first episode, each pair is briefly introduced from home, and Reichen and Chip explained that they decided to recognize their bond in the standard way. (Bio here.) They had a wedding. They wear rings. They're married. So the show didn't wimp out and call them "partners," like every other pussy-assed show in television history. Partners. I hate that. They're not in business together, they're married to each other.

The fun part about this show is that because the introduction of 24 characters at the start of the first episode is extremely confusing, the producers identify them with subtitles constantly throughout the first few episodes. "NFL Wives," "Dating 12 years / Virgins," "Married." While Reichen and Chip were extremely circumspect about flaunting or even mentioning their situation, the producers screamed it out a good fifteen to twenty times over the course of the episode. This is standard practice; they do it with every team at the start of every race. But it was just so wonderful to watch it being flashed up there to America over and over. They're gayguys. They're in love. They're in a wholesome, caring relationship. They got married. Get used to it.

Luckily--for once, thank God!--the producers choose not to hammer home an annoying stereotype. Both guys are young, fit, athletic and SAA--Straight Acting and Appearing. Put all twelve teams in a lineup--or send them down a runway--and nine out of ten gayguys would have picked straight buddies David and Jeff (pictured to your right) as the gay couple. Reichen is even a pilot, a former Air Force officer and a proud graduate of the Air Force Academy. (Where he figured out he was gay while a junior, kept up the straight front through several years of active duty.) He's a total straightboy stud. The kind of guy straightboys look up to. Except the part about marrying a man.

Of course the audience reacted a bit brusquely initially. Thanks to elaborate web sites now required for every reality series, we can track exactly how the audience is responding to them week to week. (At least we can track the obsessives digging into every last page of the show's website.) The show encourages viewers to vote in a popularity poll, and graphs the results out for each team week to week. In spite of their looks, which count for a great deal in these polls--particularly when paired with an agreeable personality, and these guys couldn't be more charming--our little homo couple came in 8th of 12 teams after the first episode. Five weeks later, they've worked their way all the way up to second.

Nobody reacts to gay husbands without a gasp the first time. Almost nobody. But get to know them just a little bit, and the idea becomes acceptable in no time. Why wouldn't they get married? Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you love somebody and want to spend your life with them?

Reichen & Chip are not going to legalize gay marriage in America. They're not single-handedly going to make it acceptable. But they're a start. A really nice start. A hundred Reichen & Chips interacting naturally as husband and husband on national TV over the next ten years and we'll be well on our way.

Odd how TV works in America today. Freaks are a lot less threatening on TV. I never had a friend outright reject me when I came out, but some of my buddies did feel a bit uncomfortable for awhile. What if I hit on them or something? What if I started making cracks out their sexuality. Nobody is going to diss you or hit on you from the other side of the TV screen. It's nice to watch. Nice to laugh at them for awhile. Find yourself pulling for them when they land in trouble, worrying after them, gradually realizing how much you care about them.

(Of course big, tough, studly sports heroes coming out and marrying each other might jump-start the process even faster, especially as we watch the whole thing play out on TV, but that's a whole nother story.)

Thousands of men are married to each other in America already. And we're dwarfed by the number of lesbian couples. (Oldest gay joke ever: What does a lesbian bring to the second date? A U-haul.) So far, television has been terrified of admitting it. And so are most of the happy couples, actually, who tend to run off and do it very quietly, and then downplay the ongoing relationship among their friends. Most of them even call themselves partners. But they're not. They're married. And one day television will admit it and then they will too. And one day, we'll look back and laugh at how it took forever for all those spineless TV execs to summon up the courage to just start presenting actual reality. They never did find the courage to write a gay marriage into to their shows until one little reality show just recruited a pair to play themselves. And the sky didn't drop one inch and then all the other execs found the courage to pretend they were courageous. And then we'll all realize that the court battles are in one sense rather silly, because you can deny a couple the license, but there's no way to deny them the marriage. A marriage by any other name would smell as sweet.

All my posts on Chip & Reichen:

Prior posts on Chip & Reichen here

-- with a few other Reality TV posts mixed in.

Gayboy Alert:

The Reichen pix are from Instinct, which features several more shots, with a bit less clothing. There's also a surprisingly interesting interview, which straight people should enjoy as well.

Race Programming Notes:

I was completely oblivious to this when I wrote this piece, but the Race is on tonight if you're interested. Thursdays on CBS, same time as Friends and whatever horrible sitcom they're running after it now. (And you can catch up on previous Race episodes here.)