Tarhearted.

WHITE DUDES.

All the talk about race lately, yesterday's post on riot grrl, and a recent work argument in which my coworkers ganged up on me for not thinking America is totes number 1, (and a number of other things)... has me thinking.

I am not popular.

Seriously, If America is a high school, I am sitting at the freaks' table. I'm gay, a socialist, a feminist (dude's can be feminists too!), and an outspoken atheist. I'm also a starving artist (in a dying art, no less!)

That said, I am really, really lucky to be a white dude. God only knows how much harder this shit would be if I weren't.

Just wanted to say that.

LOUIE VARRECCHIO IS AN ASSHOLE.

I read this on Joe.My.God an sprained my eyes from rolling them so hard. This guy is a columnist for Catholic Exchange and clearly has some outdated thoughts on gender roles. Enjoy:

"As for that natural male aggressiveness; no longer is it guided toward its good and useful application, it’s just treated with Ritalin and deprogrammed away. And what do we have to show for it now? A metro-sexual class of soft-bellied fellas who are inept at taking charge and making decisions, yet are strangely proficient at plucking their own eyebrows in traffic as they head to their 4 o’clock pedi.

"My daughters are now young ladies and — please God — neither one of them seems very likely to become one of those overwhelmed moms who lie awake at night staring at the ceiling after coming to the horrible realization that they married their best girlfriend. Even so, I worry for all of those little boys out there whose parents have bought into the lie and just don’t get it. If I had had a young son sitting next to me watching the Olympics you can bet he wouldn’t be left to witness the charade of men’s figure skating without some much needed observations from his dear ol’ Neanderthal Dad." - Catholic Exchange columnist Louie Varrecchio, complaining about this year's Olympic male figure skaters.

Okay, never mind the irony of hearing about the merits of traditional masculinity from a dude who looks like Corky St. Clair from Waiting for Guffman. I have real issues with this kind of idealogy, even from his first statement. I can only imagine what Mr. Varrecchio thinks about gay or transgender people (I have a guess), but let's set even that aside for a moment.

I don't believe in "natural male aggressiveness," or at least not to the extent that folks like Varrecchio do. People have all sorts of relationships to their gender, not just the two sizes the Catholic Church tries to sell you. Of course being a straight male, Varrecchio has never had to think about gender representation much. If he were queer or trans or maybe even a straight woman- people who have had to think about such issues their entire lives- he would know better.

I think that boys are trained in aggression, not born with it. It's part of the whole "boys don't cry" dogma that people like Varrecchio perpetuate. It's problematic for men, who grow up unable to process emotion and subsequently channel everything into anger and aggression. Couple this with all the women out there who've been trained to be submissive and weak willed and you've got a real problem. It's a bummer for the rest of us, because these deficient people get to vote and make policy just like we do.

I also hope that Varrecchio's girls don't become overwhelmed moms who lie awake at night. That is, I hope they don't swallow the bullshit they've been handed by their father and their church and use birth control until they're ready to have children (if they want them.)

As for his dig at Johnny Weir, he is an Olympic athlete. What did you ever do besides writing poorly thought out opinion peices based on a prehistoric understanding of the world for a junk "newspaper." JERK!

And just to prove a point:

Louis

Corky

By the way, this is the exact moment in Waiting for Guffman when Corky is telling the camera crew that he imagined he would become a construction work "with the chaps" and perhaps "one of those sweeping kind of hats." Amazingness.

KILL THE GAYS.

Holy shit, this pro Ugandan "kill the gays bill"  messaging is insane.

1. Fuck this dude. He's a crazy, hateful bigot.

2. Uganda is the WORST.

3. The American right wing (who inspired this bill to begin with and who have ties to all of these nutso Ugandan "ministers") need to speak out against these actions immediately. Seriously, why have they been so silent on this? Could it be because they don't actually care if gay people are murdered by angry mobs in Africa? Can it be that they actually think this is a good thing?

ADVENTURES IN DVD.

I've begun watching HBO's old series, Tales from the Crypt, which I hadn't watched since I was a little boy. My parents didn't like my obsession with horror as a kid, which probably only made me like it more. I had unmarked VHS copies of each of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies that I kept under my bed and at one point, at the height of my role playing nerdom, I created a rpg of Friday the 13th. For some reasont hough my folks didn't really seem to have a problem with my watching Tales from the Crypt. I suppose that since it was on television and based on a comic book they themselves read as kids they must have assumed it was "safe."

Thank God!

The series is subversive, violent, campy, and hilarious. I wish there were something like it today that I could write for. Not every episode is a gem, but even at its worst the show is still pretty entertaining. Some, like the escape mental patient in a Santa suit episode I watched last night, manage the near impossible - to be both frightening and funny at the same time. In general, I think, you get one or the other but rarely both.

Anyway, I recommend it.

I also recommend The Atheism Tapes, which is currently streaming on Netflix. Put simply, The Atheism Tapes is a series of BBC produced conversations between Jonathan Miller and six prominent intellectuals who also happen to be non believers. (Of special interest to theater nerds, Arthur Miller is one of them!) Miller seems to really know his subjects and they each discuss in depth just exactly what their path to disbelief was.

It's no secret that I'm an atheist and anti-theist, but I think anybody would find these conversations stimulating.

Why don't we have TV this smart in America?

Oh.

Right.

Christians.

THOU ART AWESOME.

I know I've posted about Betty Bowers (America's best Christian! TM) here before, but this video about Mormons and Prop 8 is too good to pass up.

 

 

Also, if you have five minutes free, her website is one of my favorites. 

UPDATE #1: Why don't I have an "I Heart Dick" necktie? That's awesome!

UPDATE#2: Out of all Betty's important ministries, I think my favorite is T.R.A.S.H. (Traditional-Families Raging Against Sluts and Homos.)

EVERYTHING IS THE WORST. PITY PARTY PART A BILLION.

I haven't much felt like blogging lately. I've been feeling kind of blue.

Everybody's been writing about Outrageous Fortune, the book that basically says that American theater is dead and playwrights should just kill themselves. I haven't been saying much about it because, frankly, it's too depressing.

Part of me just shrugs and thinks, "Who cares?" It's not like I ever had a home in the institutional theater anyway. It's not like I ever loved the plays they were doing, even when they weren't doing some dusty old Shakespeare production. That part of me even sort of hopes that the whole theater system just crumbles to rubble so we can all make plays in our basements and houses and backyards and churches (if you're so inclined) and have that just be enough.

The other part of me hoped against hope, that even though I write icky and depressing dark comedies that some day the institutional theater would come around to liking me (even though I didn't go to a fancy pants graduate school and don't have parents who are willing to pay my rent. Cheap shot!) That way, I could quit my day job in porn marketing and make a living in the theater. Stupid, I know. Especially since one of the findings of Outrageous Fortune is that the high average of a playwriting salaries is 40k. 40k? Can that be right? That's less than I make, and I have a pretty low level job.

And I've been following the marriage equality news whilst simultaneously planning my own wedding, which is really scary. I'm trying not to get my hopes up about the Prop 8 trial and its likely Supreme Court hearing. We have a supreme court half full of bigots after all, and my community has been repeatedly punched in the gut over the last year or so. So even though Prop 8 is constitutionally indefensible, the defense might win because of longstanding prejudices. Just today the defense argues that discrimination against gay people doesn't exist and used Will & Grace as his proof.) In the simplest terms, being a second class citizen in a country where half the population hates you fucking sucks and it can get depressing when you really dwell on it.

Oh, and when i thought I bottomed out depression-wise, Haiti decided to swallow its citizens and then kooky old skeleton Pat Robertson says it's because of their pact with the devil.

Aye yay yay.

Everything is the worst.

The only things that make me happy are:

1.) I'm getting married!

2.) The Drums. Have you guys heard how awesome The Drums are?

WHO IS WORSE? CHRISTIANS IN UGANDA OR CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA?

I love that Western Christians are speaking out against Uganda's "kill the gays" bill as if it they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

(Thanks for nothing, Pope!) You're such an asshole.

Also, gray area bigotry like this is the most frightening. it basically says: "Gosh, I hate fags too, but the death penalty seems too extreme. I feel uncomfortable when my own aggressive ignorance comes to its natural conclusion before my thoughtless eyes." Call me crazy, but I like my bigots out in the open where I can see them.

HOORAY FOR HUMANISM.

This weekend The Boyfriend and I were coming home from an Upper east Side High School production of Romeo and Juliet (which was surprisingly good, by the way) when we saw this ad on the subway:

More like this please.

THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION IS ROTTEN.

Wow. Just... wow.

I might make fun of people's clothes from time to time, but one needn't look too hard to see who the truly tarhearted Americans are. They're the ones pretending to be the most pious, though if they spent half of the time and resources helping the poor or healing the broken ecosystem as they do stripping civil rights from fellow Americans and tormenting women, America wouldn't be the hell hole of primitive minded lardos that it is today.

The radical "christian" right has released their so-called "Manhattan Declaration." (It makes me shiver that this is named after my fair city, by the way.) Here it is in its rotten entirety. The emphasis on particularly cruel or bigoted sections and the most salacious lies are mine.

Let this be a reminder to progressives that the Christian right cannot be given an inch. They seek to create a theocracy by destroying the separation of church and state. They ought have no seat at the national table.

Read it if you can do so without vomiting or crying.

DON'T ASK, DON'T GIVE.

I am joining the Don't Ask, Don't Give Boycott of the DNC and I would encourage you all to do the same. The Democrats have a long history of making promises to the LGBT community, only to swiftly forget said promises once they've secured our funds and/or votes.

To my straight friends and family, I'm especially talking to you. We need your advocacy really badly. Frankly, I'm not convinced that most of you ever even consider what it's like for gay and lesbian folks. Here's one hint: it's really painful for some of us to sit through your weddings. And that's just a start.

And to those of you who say that equal rights aren't a priority in these difficult economical times when we have two wars going on, I say "so?" Until I have full and equal citizenship in my own country, I couldn't care less what happens to it. I'm not budging. Or voting for Democrats either.

To those who worry that if the gays and their allies' withdrawal of support from the DNC could lead to Republican victories I say, "Yep. That's true." Guess you should work harder for equality now, then. 

Oh, and to the Catholics of Washington D.C. who seek to deny equal treatment of your fellow citizens by threatening to cease charity work, you are truly evil and wouldn't know charity if it raped your children. Hell, you didn't even know it when your priests were doing it.

YOU. SUCK.