a plug

so one night not long ago, v and i are watching a certain episode of jeopardy (again, it's like millionaire; tivo a week's worth, you can speed through to the parts that matter in no time), and final jeopardy comes up: "best picture winners." i groan, v rubs his hands together and, after the inevitable 30-second midas ad, the answer is revealed:

2 movies whose 1-word titles are cities;
they won the Oscar for Best Picture, 59 years apart

before i even start to turn over the possibilities, v unhesitatingly blurts out, "what are casablanca and chicago?". i turn and look at him with my mouth open, he smiles and says, "1943 and 2002--easy." [easy? hell, even with 30 seconds, none of the contestants got it]

and i sigh, chalk up one more for v in the movie department.

see, v is a film buff of the first water--even at his relatively young age, he has more knowledge of and/or passion for movies in his left pinkie than do most of the industry types i've met in the almost-20 years i've lived in this city.

i could go on and on about v and his love for cinema--like how, for instance, he'll happily curl up with me and watch any goddam movie i want, no matter how old it is, how many times he's seen it or even whether he likes it or not--doesn't matter to him because (a) if it's important to me it's important to him; and (b) he'll learn something from it either way.

or i could talk about how he spends hours searching obscure movie-spoiler sites before he ever sees a movie for the first time so he's not distracted by plot elements while he watches, deconstructs it and puts it back together in his mind.

i could go on about lots of things, but the reason i'm writing about v tonight (because i haven't gotten anywhere near this personal on this blog before) is because he's decided to start blogging about his passion--about movies past and movies to come--and i wanna give him a plug.

his blog is new (and who knows if it'll last because, as i've found out, this shit is hard) but what's there is worth reading and i urge you to check him out--and, if you're lucky, he'll continue to write and thus enrich your cinematic perspective as he has mine.

blogpost 125, in which mkf shares his new perspective on the whole gay marriage thing

tell you the truth, up to now i really haven't given more than two minutes' thought to this issue (yeah yeah i know, bad fag--eat me, whydontcha).

[i remember when this became the hotbed issue of 2004 and all my gay brethren and sistren were dancing in the streets with jubilation and i was like, "look out, mary--this is gonna bite you in the ass in november in ways you don't even know yet." and damned if i wasn't right--as a by-product of all the righteously-inflamed wingnuts who came out to vote on defense-of-marriage initiatives everywhere, we got us four more years of the idiot bush (and please don't think i don't know that a kerry administration would've been a hell of a completely different kind--but after four years of bush i was willing to roll the dice). and now, in another critical election year, here comes gay marriage again! but i digress.]

as a result of my indifference, i really haven't turned my critical faculties to the examination of this issue like i should have--my superficial take on the whole gay marriage thing has always been: this is gonna open up an ugly can of worms we really don't need right now; much smarter to work for civil unions (which seems a much easier sell), and to push for legislation forcing recognition of such civil unions in the same way as marriage is recognized.

and i pretty much thought that way up until today--until dan savage's counter to some moron on anderson cooper's show made me realize i should look at the whole thing more closely.

anyway, watch for yourself and see what you think:

[update: oh, fuck red lasso--as soon as they "have a spot for me" they'll gimme a password and allow me to link to their goddam precious videos; in the meantime, go to joe.my.god if you wanna see what dan had to say--search for "Cooper, Savage, Idiot Spar On Marriage"--it's the only video i've watched on the issue in the last two days that gave me anything to think about.

but for the lazy, here's a quick synopsis: in response to the christianist's contention that in every country in which gay marriage has been allowed traditional marriage has correspondingly suffered a hit, dan said, in effect, "no, it's the insidious compromise of civil unions that has cheapened traditional marriage, because if you offer it to the gays you have to offer it to the straights as well--and if they can get all the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities, why shouldn't they?"

it's a good point, and one for which i don't have a ready answer.]

and yeah, i know--even though it's new to me, the rest of you were debating the merits of this position back in 2005 and i'm a clueless idiot. again, eat me.

update 2: jesus, i was cranky last night.

$9,372,678,366,144.85

so i'm watching who wants to be a millionaire? last night (yeah, but if you tivo 'em you can zip past all the filler and do a week's worth of shows in about 20 minutes), and lo and behold, someone actually makes it to the $250,000 level. since this is rare as all get-out, i sit up expectantly and await the question, which turns out to be:

In order to pay off the current national debt, each US resident would have to contribute about how much?

(a) $3,000
(b) $30,000
(c) $300,000
(d) $3,000,000

the contestant doesn't even try to puzzle it out; her lifelines depleted and a hundred grand safely in her pocket, she gives up her quest for a million, to much applause.

and me? i'm sitting there, stunned--first, because the question was so goddam easy (i mean, given those answers and that there are three hundred million americans more or less, anybody smart enough to make it to the quarter-million-dollar level in this game should have been able to figure it out; hell, i did it on my fingers).

but what really got to me more was the reaction--or, rather, complete lack of reaction--of the host, contestant and audience when the correct answer was revealed; it was as if the question and its answer had no more meaning to them than had it been about the gross national product of ghana or something equally obscure.

it fucking kills me sometimes--nobody seems to care that our leaders have so arrogantly and cavalierly spent us into sufficient debt that it amounts to thirty thousand dollars for every man, woman and child in this country. republicans don't care, democrats don't care, and, obviously, neither do the people anymore.

oh, well--next contestant, please.

update: apparently, this indifference extends to my readers.

george bush on the nature of sacrifice

so he says he gave up golf to demonstrate "solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in iraq, claiming he made the decision on the day a truck bomb killed u.n. representative sergio vieira de mello and several others.

i saw this, laughed and flashed immediately back to that promo for michael moore's "fahrenheit 911," which closes with a clip of bush on a golf course, demonstrating his appreciation of the gravity of global terrorism by saying, “i call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers,” and then adding, as he winds up for his swing, “now watch this drive."

i dunno about you, but i'm willing to bet that the day the white house saw that trailer is the day bush gave up golf.

the politics of attraction

so i was chatting online with a friend in san francisco over the weekend--he happens to be asian--and a sore subject came up; he said, "i'm so fucking sick of these racist assholes who specify 'no asians' in their hook-up ads."

and i tried to explain to him that you can't judge someone's racial views based on what makes their dick hard--there really is no correlation between the two.

i know plenty of white PC-liberals who have no interest in sleeping with asians (or latinos or blacks or whatever, take your pick), simply because, for whatever reason, they're not wired to get excited by that particular flavor. they may have friends of that race, they may champion the causes of that race, but they don't wanna get naked with 'em [and god knows i run across plenty of blacks, latinos and asians who're only interested in sleeping with their own kind--are they racist?].

on the other hand, coming from the south as i do, i know more than a few white guys who wouldn't dream of going anywhere near a black guy socially, but seek them out for sex. and since i've moved to southern california, i've met any number of white guys who laugh about all the wetbacks they've fucked and cast aside.

and how about all the men who fly to places like costa rica, thailand and kenya to have sex with kids there--does anybody really see that as an example of their racial enlightenment?

bottom line: don't automatically assume a guy of another race is racist just because he won't sleep with you, and definitely don't assume he's not just because he will.

[and did my reasoned argument make my friend feel any better about his situation? nah.]

canyon view

.
weirdest damn thing happened last night--and it carried on into today.

as i may (or may not) have mentioned, i work wednesday through sunday, so as everyone else's weekend is winding down, mine is just kicking off. so i got home last night, ready to start my weekend as usual (i.e., haul out the vodka), but decided to lay down for a minute first. next thing i know, bam! sun's pouring in, birds are chirping--my little fifteen-minute disco nap had turned into a serious all-nighter.

at first i felt more than a little cheated, because sunday nights are sacred here in guttermoralityland. sunday nights are when i do some of my most productive drunk-emailing and -commenting--i have a public to alienate, goddammit, and i take that responsibility seriously.

so i can't tell you how strange it felt to find myself rising and shining, sober and refreshed, at just about the same time that, had the evening taken its normal course, i would have been staggering off to bed.

so here i am, a whole day stretching out in front of me, and i have not the slightest idea what to do with it (hell, i don't even have the usual morning-after apologies to keep me occupied).

because, drunk or not, i never get up anywhere near this early--ever; i am not, nor have i ever been, a morning person. the first two hours of any day are always, for me, the worst--it's when i'm at my most depressed, and i generally put off facing the misery of awakening as long as possible.

but today, for some reason, i woke up feeling . . . well, if not good, then at least not awful.

so, finding myself with this abundance of time in the morning, i did something else i never do--i threw open all the curtains and made breakfast.

and, standing here in my living room in my little pocket of the world--a calm, cool oasis in the midst of a big city--sipping my protein shake and looking outward with fresh eyes, i was reminded once more of why i live where i live in this city, how lucky i am to live here, and how oblivious i am of its beauty most of the time.

i was even moved to take a couple pictures, because i wanna remember this feeling (why i'm writing this goddam blog, right?).

here's a shot from my living room (you can click to enlarge if you want--and no, that's not some weird telephoto effect; the house across the street really is that close):


and one from the kitchen:



they say that the world gives itself to those who get up at six, and i can't help but think that might be true--you really do see things differently then.

now, don't get me wrong--i'm not saying that i'm turning over a new leaf and this is the start of a new trend or anything--trust me, this was a total aberration and it'll be back to darkness as usual around here in no time.

but it was weird, living almost like a normal person for almost a whole day.

the only thing worse than being alone...

[text]
the following is the text of my very first comment to any blog ever--to a post written by the first blogger i ever came across (a natural storyteller who unfortunately and inexplicably abandoned his very successful blog almost a year ago with a post ironically titled "this blog is not abandoned").

anyway, this comment (a drunken, heartfelt comment, it goes without saying), made almost three years ago, ended up teaching me a cold, hard lesson about the blogosphere i've never forgotten.

see, this blogger had written a really eloquent, touching post about his parents--so eloquent and touching, in fact, that it inspired me to write my own tribute to my mother and send it to him in the form of a comment to his blog.

in my naivete, i assumed that not only would he actually read my little comment and be touched by it, he'd then honor my request to delete it afterwards--i didn't realize then that, unless moderated, comments just appear for all the indifferent world to see.

and appear it did--to my chagrin, my very personal tribute to my mother not only showed up on his comments page, it sat there like this turd on the cyber-sidewalk that all his subsequent commenters carefully stepped around to avoid--and boy, that stung. and, despite a follow-up email to said blogger, he never took it down. in retrospect, i realize he probably never even saw the comment or the email--i guess at that level of superstar-blogdom you've got bigger fish to fry.

but you know what? ultimately it all worked out for the best, because i was able to go back later, grab that comment and turn it into the best birthday card my mother ever got in her whole life--i remember her calling me the day it arrived and telling me how she sat there at the mailbox, tears rolling down her face as she read it over and over, realizing one of her kids really understood her.

anyway, she won't see it here, but you will. happy mother's day, ma.

* * * * *

came home from college one weekend and, as always, headed straight for the food. munching on something (i don't remember what), i perused the latest offerings on the ever-changing magnet-covered billboard that was my mom's refrigerator.

distracted by notes from friends, school pictures of the neighbors' kids and various clippings of interest, i almost missed the one that mattered--tiny, tucked discreetly around the corner, scotch-taped so it wouldn't get away, was a one-liner from what looked like the reader's digest--you know, one of those little items they stick in at the end of too-short articles to fill up the remaining space. it was short, sweet and to-the-point and probably nothing more than a throwaway line to its author:

"the only thing worse than being alone is wishing you were"

all of a sudden, a totally new insight into my mom: this warm, beautiful, charismatic woman--widowed young when dad decided to take himself out of the game, who had recovered from the blow (at least outwardly), had dated occasionally and even developed a couple of semi-serious attachments but always kept her distance, reserving the full measure of her love for her kids--was unwilling to settle for anything less than what she'd had with him, flawed though it had been and he had been (think of that mix of dark attraction and subtle menace that was clint eastwood in "high plains drifter" and you'll get my dad--lots of heartache, but a hard act to follow).

i never discussed it with her--never had to--but it's stuck with me ever since. truth is, that little quip has become my mantra. every time i lightly deflect a request for a second date (or a second trick), or get a too-close look at one of the nightmare 'relationships' that los angeles homosexuals seem so adept at inflicting on one another, i repeat that line to myself; it's served me well and i truly understand it.

thanks for that and for everything else, ma--i love you.