Asking and Outing

In this Chronicle editorial, the author argues that it should be perfectly fine to ask interview subjects if they're gay. This refers to the Johnny Weir issue- that writers consistently use the word "flamboyant" to describe him, but nobody has asked him directly if he's a homo. The author of this editorial says this should be acceptable because
1. You'd ask straight people if they were married, divorced, etc., so it's only fair.
2. Being known as gay is no longer a career-ender.

I agree with the first point, but that's irrelevant because the second one is flawed. Coming out as gay doesn't necessarily ruin one's career but in almost all cases it neuters it. I don't know in what world this guy is living that he thinks coming out is no big deal. It makes millions of dollars of difference.

Think about poor Ricky Martin, who sells 20 jillion albums all over the world, especially in Latin countries. Should he declare himself an out and proud homo the sales of his next album would drop by more than half. It would be even worse for Clay Aiken, because all of his fans are housewives and his music is total crap. Are there any out homos with Nike deals? Any out football or baseball players? Nope. In business women aren't even treated the same as men, let alone homos. It's not always a career ender, but in almost no cases can your career progress to the same levels as it would otherwise. Even gay figure skates supposedly can't get jobs in the Ice Capades or Disney on Ice or whatever it is because they play to Middle America and Middle America doesn't approve.

So when a journalist asks a public figure if they're gay, it gives them the choice of lying or wallowing in the gay ghetto; choosing career and money or honesty. And once you lie, the press will hound the person even more to try to catch him in that lie. Asking if someone is gay is threatening to ruin their career. The reporter who asks that question is an asshole, not an equal rights activist.

Of course, the world shouldn't work like that and more famous people should come out (especially when they have enough money to last forever, like Clay and Ricky), but that's not the way it is. Right now Paris Hilton can have a sex tape that helps her career but a gayish not-really sex tape may soon bring down a few famous European soccer players.

The editorial also misses the very obvious fact: if Johnny Weir has been interviewed a billion times. If he wanted to declare his gayness to all the world, he could have done it by now. It's not like just because nobody asks if you're gay you can't tell them. Duh.

Oh, and by the way, if someone wants to pay me a million dollars to go in the closet, I'll gladly oblige. Money doesn't buy happiness, but neither does homosexuality.

Fun with Filk

Here is an article I wrote in today's Chronicle about filk, the music by and for the science fiction and fantasy fan community. I don't remember how I stumbled across filk music, but for three years I've been meeting to write an article pegged to the Consonance filk convention.

Not surprisingly, the editor decided not to use my suggested title and subtitle:

Filking All Night Long
Go Filking Crazy at Consonance

I didn't mention in the article that you can hear some samples at Filk.com and see pictures and videos from previous conventions at GeekHackFilk.com. Check it. Filk rocks, except not literally.

Nightclubbing

Tonight I went out clubbing. It's unusual that this is unusual, because more than anything I'm a nightlife reporter. And as a professional nightclubber, I'm often on the guest list and hooked up with drinks but still I can't find a single friend who will go out clubbing with me, so I often don't go out when I could.

Dear Fans, What the fuck? I don't want to call you a bunch of losers, but you're forcing me to.

Tonight renewed my faith in clubbing, and screw all y'all: I'm going out by myself more often. People, do you remember what it's like? The magic? How getting down to some disco mind-blower makes you feel like you can jump through the ceiling of the club? Do you remember how you can stomp on the dancefloor and not feel a thing because you have astronaut feet? That's what it's all about.

I'm writing an article that I can't discuss but let's just say that Non-Stop Bhangra is the low-attitude monthly party with a dance lesson at the beginning and it's fabuloid. I was thinking that all the party needed was some fags tearing it up on the dancefloor, then I looked over and there they were. Thank you, token gays. You were the sprinkles on my dance party cupcake. A perfect club night.

So then I walked over to another club where people were getting down and some of them were giving me the intense stare that might intimidate some people but I instantly recognized as the ecstasy-eyes.

Fans, you know you're a retired raver when seeing people on ecstasy makes you nostalgic.

On the cab ride home, the driver grilled me on just what was going on at the club, what kind of people go there, is ten15 a gay club and how about the endup, etc. I think I did a good job at representing. That's my duty to the cause. I am club trash. Hear me roar.

Grace Gives Good Face

I knew this photo was too awesome to be real.
















props to Patricking

Boo Hoo Hoo

So this guy, who is obviously nuts, has been handing out 10-dollar bills to the homeless this week. He announced that he'd be doing it again on Friday at 4PM. So naturally, a crowd of 500 homeless people (you know, probably1/30th of the homeless population here) shows up to wait for free money.

Some came as early as noon to wait for the cash. Then the guy shows up an hour late and spends an hour making speeches to different groups of homeless. So the crowd starts getting pissed off, because they want their free money, and the guy gets scared and leaves without giving away anything.

The crowd began cursing and yelling at Canada and his volunteers.

"This was just a great big joke on us," Steve Hunt said. "He better not show his face here again."

The Thursday crowd "was peaceful," [ a volunteer] said. "Today, it just got a little out of control. There's so many people, and now they're upset they're not going to get their money."

"This is messed up," said Brian Boykin, who said he was going to use his money for a hot meal. "That whole time we sat listening to him, thinking we would get money -- and then nothing."

Man, it sucks to be homeless in San Francisco! You spend six hours sitting on your ass waiting for a free $10 handout, and then you don't get it! It's really hard being a lazy, self-righteous drug addict!

Name Change

I am thinking of renaming this blog "I have issues" because that's the pattern emerging in the posts.

Going to the movies

I hate going to see movies in the theatre. This is not news to anyone who knows me, as a friendly invitation to catch a flick garners the 'why I hate going to the movies' speech that most of them now know by heart and of which I'll spare you now.

But I've been meaning to see the gay cowboy movie because of its cultural importance. I don't know what the heck people are talking about when they refer to the Bad Thing That Happens in the movie, and I don't want to wait until it's on DVD to find out. I've been trying to psych myself up to go, but I don't know if I'll make it there before it stops playing in three months. These things take time.

The last 5 movies I saw in the theatre are an Enron documentary, Finding Nemo, and the three Lord of the Rings. I've been averaging about one per year, but I think it's been longer than that since I've been to one now. Maybe in a couple of weeks when I'm not so busy...

A Word About Bread

What is wrong with Mexican grocery stores and their bread selections? Most of them only carry the cheap-ass square-shaped Bimbo brand bread that's like Wonder Bread with added sugar. If you live in el barrio como yo, you probably know what I'm talking about. My corner Mexican grocery now carries non-square bread that looks like the normal wheat bread you see in other stores, except it tastes the same as the square bread and is probably just dyed brown. They don't carry any real whole wheat bread, but they do carry whole wheat tortillas. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich just isn't the same when it's wrapped up like a burrito, and I've tried it enough times to know.

What I did at my part-time job today

1. Prevented the place from getting sued because patients' test results were being faxed to the wrong place.
2. Inherited the task of scheduling a regular meeting for 40 attendees of various locations who are impossible to get into a room together.
3. Became responsible for preventing an employees' deportation within 5 hours.

I should note that my job description does not include technical support, nor working for 39 of these people, nor anything related to human resources.

The problem with being competent is that you become responsible for everyone who's not.

Theory:

The move Black Sunday, though known as a disaster movie, would be best categorized as suspense. Discuss.

Suggestion Box

One of my fans brought up an interesting point:

There should be more pictures of me on my website, because when you look this good you're obligated to share it with the world.

I had a "scary elevator" dream last night.

Laaaaaame.

Powerball

Did you see the names of the people who won the Powerball lottery?

Robert Stewart
Alain Maboussou
Dung Tran
Eric Zornes
David Gehle
Michael Terpstra
Quang Dao
Chasity Rutjens

These people work in some sort of meat factory in Nebraska and chose to go in on lottery tickets together.

I think this sort of heartland diversity- and acceptance of it- is what makes America awesome.

Fuddy Duddy

I've been watching a lot of Spongebob Squarepants lately, and I've realized that I have a lot of Squidward-like qualities.

Bad News, Everyone

I was not the winner of the 350 million dollar Powerball lottery. I totally would have invited you to the party if I was.

We don't do Powerball in California so I didn't actually play this lottery, but I do buy a ticket when I notice the Super Lotto jackpot is over 40 million or so. I don't expect to win or anything, but I figure paying a dollar gives you permission to daydream a little and think about what you'd do if you won.

What would you do?

I would stay in school forever. Medical school, chemistry, English, finance, art, winemaking- hell, I'd even go to clown college. That would be first priority. I love input. Second would be to give my friends and family the freedom to do what they want- finish college, travel, buy a house, write a novel, etc. Make a few dreams come true. Third would be travel, and fourth would be property- I really need a house with a built-in disco.

Cartoonish Violence

Tantawi said the Danish prime minister must apologize for the drawings and further demanded that the world's religious leaders meet to write a law that "condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and the prophets." He said the United Nations should impose the law on all countries.

Fans, do you sometimes get the impression that all Muslims are retarded? The Koran says that followers shouldn't go around killing Christians and Jews as long as you accept that they are unclean, beneath you, and shouldn't be touched. This proposed "do not insult any religion" law isn't terribly practical when insults to religions are written in your holy book.

This is not meant to imply that followers of other religions are not retarded. Christians have created some particularly funky mental gymnastics to get around all the nonsensical garbage in their holy book. Like, in the beginning of the book, you know where they say how the universe was created? Yeah, that's just a metaphor. And the middle of the book where it's begat this and begat that and it adds up to the world being only a couple thousand years old? That's umm, mostly true, but we try not to dwell on the facts because it's the lessons in there that matter. And the last half of the book, the New Testament? Pretty much you have to ignore all that, because it's some seriously crazy shit.

While Christians decide line item by line item which parts of their religious doctrine to actually practice and which saints to worship (sounds a bit like paganism, doesn't it?), Muslims at least concede they do not tolerate rational thought.

Yeah dudes, let's get on the short bus and go to church.

Cake = Crack

Today I baked a cake to have for dinner. I haven't made a cake since the 1980's and never for dinner, but really it's not all that out of character. My diet is pretty much the same thing a 16-year-old would eat when his parents went away for the weekend- mac and cheese, Spaghettios, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, etc.

Unfortunately, the cake-from-a-box that I chose sucks. Dinner was a failure, but at least I could ride the sugar high for an hour or two.

JT LeRetard

So, you know that whole JT Leroy scandal? I was amazed by it- not that "he" doesn't exist, but that so many people believed he was a real person.

Did any of you actually read what he wrote? I knew from the first short story that I read, when "he" was writing under the name Terminator for Nerve.com, that the events portrayed in the story were not real and the author was never a street hooker.

It was a pretty gross story about him being locked in a hotel room by his pimp and he and his friend fool around with each other and one of them comes. The story is about how the pimp will be mad if he came without getting paid for it by a client, so they have to decide what to do with the splooge before the pimp gets back. (Spoiler: his friend eats it.)

The novel Sarah was similar. The whole child kidnap part and lucky jackalope or whatever it was were clearly not real. Overall, I thought the novel was cute. An exciting new voice in literature? Not even close.

My friend Rachael met someone at a party very early on who told her about this scam this girl and her husband were pulling, not knowing that Rachael knew exactly what he was talking about. But the thing that made me doubt my opinion, and Rachael's sanity, was the therapist.

Early on, every article about Leroy talked about this particular doctor, by name, at a particular hospital. I believe the doctor was even quoted in articles. It seems that a doctor wouldn't do that if it wasn't true. He is the one person that kept me from researching Rachael's story. I still felt that "his" past history was fake, but thought maybe there could be a real person- for a while.

However, as the whole "wig and sunglasses" thing got out of control, it seemed more and more clear that the person posing as Leroy was not him. I stopped paying any attention to it and never bothered to read The Heart is Deceitful. His articles in 7X7 magazine were uninteresting and poorly written.

Every post-outing article I've read not written by someone who "interviewed" Leroy ends the same. It says the mystique of the author sold a lot of copies of the books, but the excellent literary work stands on its own.

No, it really doesn't.

This worked for me yesterday

Here's an article I wrote on which people are the easiest to scam drinks from.

Hotter Than Cats

You know what's weird? Cats will sit on almost any warm surface, like a warm lap or a running laptop or a sunny spot on the kitchen table, but they never sit on the stove burner.

Into My Pants

I'm watching Into the Blue now with Jessica Alba and Paul Walker. It's the cocaine and treasure hunting movie the whole family can masturbate to!

Beginnings

This is a new blog, because we needed one more in the world. No, that's not it. I don't usually have time to update Camper's Log in the full essay format anymore, but I've got a lot to say!