You loved 'Rain on the Scarecrow' and Farm Aid and 'The Authority Song' -- that was all political. Now this guy comes from Texas and all of a sudden I'm a no-good sonofabitch?

i've always been a huge fan of john mellencamp. partially because his music and voice remind me of regular everyday simple life in the midwest, but also because his lyrics have always had more to them than just simplistic love pans or odes to small towns. oftentimes his songs evoke philosophical and political images, like the always amazing 'pink houses' song that has been a consistent favorite of mine, or 'cherry bomb' or 'paper in fire' or little known songs like 'melting pot' or 'down and out in paradise' or 'human wheels'. or frankly, the entire albums of scarecrow, lonesome jubilee, and one of my personal favorites whenever we wanted which have consistent messages of how hard life is and how hard-working people struggle daily, but there's larger political and corporate forces against them. (from those links to his albums you can actually read all of his lyrics and they're well-worth checking out again. poetic everyday stylings that might shock with their incredibly strong political statements, but shouldn't because he's always talked like that.)

and he's always spoken out, even if no one in the 'blue' states were paying much attention to him. and then this year, as he once again spoke out, as he has always done, he got major flak from those who felt that he had betrayed them because he spoke out against the same things he's always spoken out about (but namely this time against bush, and some of his audience, who are under the spell of the charisma and media-spins of bush, felt betrayed. but he hasn't changed. and i don't think america really has changed that much either in its heart and soul. good people can always be swindled to buy snake oil with the right packaging, even if they sometimes got an inkling it is snake oil.

anyway, i'm rambling off my subject of john mellencamp. i was reading this article, partially quoted from and linked above, about him which was called "The Blue in Blue Collar" which is quite an apt title, after my family kindly got me his wonderful greatest hits package (with even a semblance of a few of his videos on dvd), and i fell in love with his open style and political phrasing and love of america once again. for those of you who think he's just another pop singer without a real story, check it out again tonight.

what's let go of
provides space
for what's to become

these pictures were taken about two months ago by my mother while i visiting missouri the last time, but they give a glimpse of life in my home last night, upon arriving back to san francisco and seeing my cat who missed me while i was gone over the holidays. she slept by my side all night and kept coming over and purring over my head. :-)
(and, no, she's not eating me, she's licking my forehead with love and affection. yeah, strange, i know, very strange, but as we've discussed before, my cat is quite strange in general, but very loving once you get passed the strange psychotic aspects)

I HATE FLYING

my dear friend walter got me to go out last night. something i never do anymore. but it's a chance to see him in general and catch up in person. and there's so little to do here. anyway, even though it was way past my bedtime, it was important to go out and see him. we hung out at a piano bar for a while, which was cute but too loud. and then headed over to a club where we actually danced some, something he and i used to do constantly about 12 years ago here in kansas city (as he was my regular clubbing buddy), but of which i never do anymore. it kinda felt good to get my groove on once again on the dancefloor. been so long. and he and i had fun catching up.

i wish there was a way to have all my close friends near me, where i live, so that we could all hang out more often, and not so randomly and sporadically upon trips or vacations or holidays or family gatherings. but i guess that's part of the way life works, especially when one moves all around and still enjoys friendships of the past and present.

because i got so hooked up yesterday from the big holiday sell-out, i've had to update my amazon.com wish list. soon, of course, i'll have to add new things too. how's your wish list going?

got hooked up on christmas
awesome
hope everyone had a good one too

had a wonderful evening with my fam, jessie and chris, as we exchanged christmas gifts, ate dinner, and watched the amazingly brilliant movie bad education. i'm so glad i found them in the midst of the craziness of the world.

The great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that "the chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men." I fear that in these Christmas debates, Christians are behaving not as Christians but as a tribe: "We will pound them if they get in the way of our customs and rituals." Tribal behavior is antithetical to the spirit of peace and goodwill. In this season, we ought to be taking the most expansive possible view of our obligations to others.

hidden deep within an essay by a conservative columnist is this gem:

In 2008... Democrats will be trying to erase the Republicans' 2004 popular vote winning margin of 2.9 percentage points. That was the smallest margin ever for a president's re-election.

i know we're doing a lot of handwringing these days about how we didn't 'win,' but we didn't lose either. we worked hard and nearly took down an incumbent-- something incredibly hard to do regardless. we have much to proud of, even if it seems lost in our depression and sadness over the election results. we rocked!

great commentary:
Whose Army is this if not Rumsfeld's and George W. Bush's? They chose this war and its timing. For Rumsfeld to claim that we were caught flat-footed, forced to march into Baghdad without time to get our act together and assemble "the Army you want" is beyond disingenuous.... Progressives have been unfairly badgered about how we can oppose the Iraq war and still support the troops. We have consistently pushed for better protection for our troops and their families as well as support when they return home. Now it turns out that, in the most literal way imaginable, the architects of this war have themselves failed to support the troops. "Support the troops," coming from Rumsfeld and company, appears to be nothing more than demagoguery.

so a funny thing's been happening lately.

i've been temporarily helping my office do some telemarketing calls (survey/polling-type calls, not sales thankfully). they're pretty interesting. but what's more interesting is that we conduct them also in spanish. now, i'm not fluent, sadly. but the surveys are scripted and so the language in written out in front of me. and since i can speak the language somewhat well and can make out a bit of what they say, i've been doing a number of these surveys in spanish. it's been great practice for my spanish. especially in the conversational part because that's always been my hardest piece of learning spanish-- i.e. i'm too shy to have a conversation because i never think i know the right words to say. but having the words right in front of me makes it so much easier. i still occasionally get tripped up, but they've been very kind in putting up with my badly-performed spanish. and it's been rather fun to do. it makes me want to take another spanish course again.

kinda lame, but cutely done
watch this little movie, if you dare!

you get a sneak-peak of my column for next month's newsletter

"Doin’ Alice on My Grandma’s Dining Room Table"

Homophobia’s a quirky thing. Especially when we ourselves internalize it. And we’ve been a doing that a lot lately—with our own fears of political backlash in this last election. We didn’t cause the Democrats and Kerry to lose, any more than all the other number of reasons they lost. We didn’t cause the marriage battles in those 11 states to lose either. We worked our asses off for all of these things. We did what we could do. We are not to blame for the lack of compassion and vibrancy and hope in the election results. In fact, we are the ones who made the hope possible.

And yet we self-reflect, and we question, and we hurt ourselves. And it’s not without external factors. I mean, we have been named the scapegoats. And we have been told that we’re getting too big for our britches, and we’re moving too fast. And so, it’s reasonable that anyone would internalize that fear and pain. And we do.

But, gosh, we’ve been through so much worse in our lives. It’s time to remember that. And start fighting those internal demons so we can battle the real ones. And we have to give those around us the ability to stand up with us. If we don’t ask and we don’t show our own strength, we know that they have no reason to do so on our behalf. And people can surprise.

When I first left for Missouri in mid-October to help out with the Kerry/Democratic campaigns, I took off my Kerry button from my backpack. My rainbow-striped Kerry button. And I put on one of the basic blue Kerry buttons. I did this because I was thinking about my audience. In San Francisco, it meant a great deal to me to showcase my Pride in Kerry and my Pride in my community and how the two connected. Heading for Missouri, I decided that my message was about promoting Kerry in general and I didn’t want to ‘confuse the issue’ as I was wont to say to myself. I told myself that I wanted to join in a larger movement as a Kerry volunteer, and not be just a Gay Kerry supporter. I wanted to showcase my Missouri roots to bolster Kerry. I wanted to not get into a discussion about Gay-rights when my focus was on Kerry, and I didn’t want to lose a potential Kerry supporter because I was Gay.

It’s not that I wasn’t Out. It’s not that I wasn’t myself while in Missouri. I mean, I’ve been Out since 19 and I was Out for years living in Missouri before I left for the coasts. I’m Out. But then, here I was, back in Missouri, coalescing with every other Democrat and I didn’t want to complicate things. And I was afraid I would look like I was just another ‘faggot from San Francisco’ who was supporting Kerry. I was afraid of how I would look.

But then something happened. I was at the Democratic headquarters in my hometown one day, wearing my basic blue Kerry button, and I heard a remark. Just a subtle remark, from one guy to another, within the headquarters, Democrat to Democrat, that rattled me. Just one of those little remarks that it used to reinforce the heterosexist society we live in—nothing major and yet oh-so-subliminal. And I snapped out of my internalized homophobia. I responded in kind—subtly. I took my rainbow-striped Kerry button and put it on my chest. For all to see.

Nothing was ever said after that. And yet much changed. The environment of the headquarters changed. Suddenly, many of my fellow volunteers started coming Out too. Subtly. And mostly to me directly. But they were there. And it hit me, reminding me of my old life in Missouri all over again. We’re all so hidden until we start to stand up. And the non-Gay people in the room started to take notice of the changed atmosphere too. The comments changed. There was a new openness. A blue collar, over-alls-wearing, World War II Vet made a quick, public ‘clarification’ regarding an anti-Gay reference that went too far. And this retreat wasn’t directed to me or anyone specifically Gay, but to the whole room, because he knew that it wasn’t right to make a comment like that anymore, in this room and in our society.

One night the majority of the people in the headquarters were Openly Gay men, and everyone knew it because by then we had all started wearing our Pride. And it wasn’t as if there was a sudden fear of all the Democrats working together to support Kerry. It wasn’t suddenly a desire by these fellow Democrats to cut and run. I learned that my own fears of our differences separating us kept them and me for coming together as much as society did. I learned that my own homophobia kept us apart, and didn’t allow for them to go the distance they needed to go too.

I came Out when I was 19. I spent the lifetime before that in fear and hatred of myself. And I feared and worried how my family would be if they found out. At 19, I couldn’t play the closet game any longer. Thus family began their process of acceptance, while I began my own process of becoming Out and opening myself up. It’s been a long road, but it’s been made all the better by my family’s warm support and love even as they discovered more about me and themselves and society.

While in Missouri, I had to get out the November edition of the Alice newsletter. My Mother took me to Kinko’s to make the copies. She stood there and helped me fold. We then went to lunch at my Grandparents and she and I finished the folding and the labeling and stamping of the newsletter on my Grandma’s dining room table while my Grandpa and my Grandma read the newsletter hot off the press. They kept a copy.

I know we have great things to fear in life and there are real reasons to fear because we know all-too-well that violence and hatred are real. I know we have worries that maybe we should be less vigilant sometimes, particularly in “middle-America”, in order for us to win the larger battles politically. I know we worry sometimes that fighting for marriage equality is too much, too soon. I know we want our fellow Democrats, our fellow Americans, our families and our friends and our non-Gay acquaintances to like us and accept us. And I know how easy it is to play along to get along to be quiet and timid and hold on and just wait and fear hope.

But if we don’t stand up, who will? If we don’t fight our own internal fears, how can others and society in general fight their fears?

To put it simply, if I had never come out years ago and broken through my own fears, and then given my family the possibility of coming to terms with theirs, would I have ever been witness to my mother and my Grandparents and I, all together, doing the Alice newsletter on the dining room table?

everytime i see this picture jessie took of me yesterday, it reminds me of this movie poster

To understand why the recount process is important, we should remember that this is but the latest chapter in the centuries-long struggle to achieve one-person-one-vote democracy in this country.

reading this article makes one remember how the struggle to make every vote count, let alone allow every vote to take place, has continually been a long road that has never been fulfilled. we take it for granted as a concept, but the reality today and ever since the beginning of our republic-- 'democracy'-- is far from truly achieved

i always love the chronicle's television correspondent's commentaries and criticisms. today's another good one ('Couch potatoes, it's time to drop the remote. E-mail the FCC. Stop the Parents Television Council before it gets beyond the TV.') about actually an important political subject:

I like shows where gay people have sex. I like shows where gay people shoot guns. And swear. I like stuff that blows up....

I hope this e-mail offsets another from the Parents Television Council. I hope you get a lot more just like this. Because I want the PTC out of my living room. I've got a sneaking suspicion they're going to end up in my bedroom.

how hilariously (and sadly) stereotypical, from an article entitled "Months after the start of gay marriage [in Massachusetts], the divorces begin":

The first gay divorce case in Suffolk County, which includes Boston, was filed Wednesday by a male couple who exchanged vows on May 22, five days after same-sex marriage was legalized.
One partner was a 33-year-old religious educator from Boston, the other a 39-year-old professor based in Washington. Since then, the couple said in their divorce filing, "our interests have grown in different directions." Each man signed a settlement attesting that the marriage had "irretrievably broken down."
The most difficult part of the settlement appeared to be custody of their three cats, who will live exclusively with the professor.
But "in recognition of the emotional hardship of such relinquishment," the settlement reads, the professor agreed to provide his ex "with periodic updates, photographs, and any health-related information pertaining" to the cats.

this article is a LOL, ROFL, bitingly apt commentary on the state of television:
Forget this notion of red and blue states. That's not the country we live in. We live in a land mass divided into two groups -- those who watch "According to Jim" and those who watch "Arrested Development." That's infinitely more frightening than anything politicians could dream up...

People say the comedy in "Arrested Development" is too self-referential or obscure, that it doesn't have a laugh track to help them and is too fast-paced verbally and too challenging visually (it's easy to miss those added-value puns). And if this is the case with you, well, let's just say reasonable people can disagree.

Except you're wrong.

those of you who know me, and/or keep up with my blog, know that i rarely post or talk about 'human interest stories' or individual crime stories or things like that, because, well, i don't care much about humans... heh.

but actually from a philosophical standpoint, i always end up questioning the motives of the news stories themselves in these aspects, particularly noting and decrying the way criminal acts are highly publicized when they happen in the upper class white suburban neighborhoods (i.e. someone named laci, etc.) and completely ignored on a daily, hourly basis in lower income black urban neighborhoods.

with all that said, this story actually grabbed my attention and freaked me out. terrible, terrible, terrible.

if only my favorite mode of transportation, trains, received more support and funding.... then we could truly realize a dream of a beautiful and strong train system. but in the meantime....

If the United States were a Third World country, our Nov. 2 election would not pass certification by international monitors.

myths versus facts: "Why Democrats lost Ohio"
very insightful

ready for more and more unqualified, conservative, republican-biased news from fox?
Industry analysts have said that Fox News Channel will become a significant player in radio as a result of its recent deal to provide news to radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc. In the agreement, announced earlier this week, Fox will replace ABC News as the sole provider of broadcast news material for Clear Channel stations... "You have the largest radio giant now running the news provided by one of the largest media empires, Exhibit A of what's wrong with media consolidation... Now what Rupert Murdoch decides is news suddenly becomes news."

"Please, Sir, May I Have Some Armor?"

We're used to hearing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answer questions about things that went wrong in Iraq by saying they went right. When he does that to reporters, it's annoying. When he does it to troops risking their lives in his failed test of bargain-basement warfare, it's outrageous.

Yesterday, Mr. Rumsfeld told soldiers at a staging area in Kuwait to ignore "the doubters" who say the escalating war is not going well. Then he invited the troops, some of them headed to their second combat tours, to ask him "tough questions." They evidently thought he meant it.

A National Guard scout from Tennessee asked why there was still an equipment shortage that forced units to scrounge for "hillbilly armor": "pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that's already been shot up, dropped, busted." When the cheering died down, Mr. Rumsfeld said that, really, there was plenty of armor and in any case, "all the armor in the world" might not save you from a roadside bomb.

"You go to war with the Army you have," Mr. Rumsfeld fumed, "not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." He may have forgotten that the timetable for invading Iraq was dictated by politics, not military necessity. The armor shortage was also an outgrowth of his zeal to prove that a country can be invaded and occupied by a small and lightly armed force. A spokesman for the questioner's unit told reporters that 95 percent of its 300 trucks were not sufficiently armored.

Later, a woman said she and her husband "joined a volunteer army" but were serving extra tours under the "stop loss" program, a forced-duty clause in military contracts. "The 'stop loss' has been used by the military for years and years and years," Mr. Rumsfeld lectured. "It's all well understood when someone volunteers to join the service."

Mr. Rumsfeld talks a lot about supporting the troops. We wish that someone powerful would explain to him that doing so includes treating them with respect and telling them the truth.

so tuesday, as i sat in the methodist church in my neighborhood of san francisco, and witnessed my assemblyman mark leno, my boss and friend and colleague, put forward the marriage equality bill for the state of california, i hearkened back to my family's methodist church in missouri. and i thought, how different and yet how similar. same faith, different environments, same faith, different people, same faith, different ideologies (?), it's hard to say. i know the pastor of my family's church comes from a different perspective with her faith than the pastor of this church. but i'm not so sure the churchmembers themselves are all that different from those here. the methodist faith, wherever it is, tries its best to teach love, understanding, equality, but sometimes the words don't come out the same and the teachings come out different. and often methodists disagree with methodists, as people of faith often disagree with other people of the same faith. but that seems to be the nature of our world, in that we all have opinions. but hopefully, if we hold dear and strong to the notions of respect and equality and love, we can bridge all these differences of opinions within the faiths.

on tuesday, assemblyman mark leno historically introduced the marriage equality bill within my neighborhood methodist church's santuary:
America was founded on the concept of separation of church and state, with the guarantee that religious freedom will be respected and the state will treat all people equally in the eyes of the law... At long last, this bill puts that fundamental right into practice - allowing loving, committed same-sex couples who want to devote their lives to one another, raise families, and protect themselves and their children the same rights and responsibilities as different-sex couples with the same goals and dreams.... As with interracial marriage, it is only a matter of time until Americans realize that two people who love one another and wish to spend their lives together is not a threat, but rather a positive, stabilizing force not only for them, but for society as a whole... I am proud to put forward a bill that will end California's endorsement of second-class citizenship for its LGBT citizens.

i spent the whole day working today.

i know, i can't believe it either

I LOVE JESSIE.

Jessie Rocks.

Jessie is the best.

30 never looked so good.

Jessie is the Man.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY
BIRTHDAY
JESSIE!!!!

i made the mistake of going to best buy today amid the holiday seasonal shopping rush. bad mistake.

after an hour or so of insanity, i ended up leaving without anything for which i went. i just couldn't be in there anymore.

i've been sleeping so much lately. so much
as i said the other day, i've been fighting a cold. and i've been rather successful in that it hasn't overtaken me completely. i've been sleeping all the time though. which has my days all screwed up. friday night i slept 14 hours. and then last night i slept another 12, and i never even left the house yesterday.

you know you have the weirdest dreams when you constantly sleep

so my babycakes is about to turn 30. (makes me feel so old these days....) ha.

anyway, yesterday chris, his bf(=boyfriend dontchaknow), had a surprise for him. and chris asked me to divert jessie's attention for several hours in the middle of the day. so earlier in the week i asked jessie if he could make himself free for the afternoon on friday to go, er, um, shopping, yeah, that's it. thinking that i had a surprise for him for his upcoming birthday, he said he would. (all the more funny when you realize how much he hates shopping in general, and especially hates shopping with me because i always pick out things he hates, i whine, i linger, and i drive him nuts). so getting him to go shopping with me was a major coup which couldn't have happened if it hadn't have been for him thinking i had a surprise waiting for him around every corner.

so we spent several hours shopping around downtown, buying hardly anything because i have no money and he hates shopping, but still it was diverting his attention from his bf going home early to pack his bags for a surprise weekend getaway the moment jessie and i got back to his house. after several hours and no surprises from me, and my text-messaging chris being noticed, on the way back to his place, he suddenly realized that 'hey, you're trying to keep me away from my house.' 'no! no, that's not it at all. i'm just curious about what's on this wall over here.' 'hey, you're stalling.'

anyway, we eventually got back to his place, chris was ready, and jessie then found out that i was just a diversion while chris snuck home and packed his bags for a trip to tahoe for the weekend. and they were leaving in 5 minutes! all's well that ends well, i guess. but the funniest part was having jessie realize that what he thoughts was going to be an exciting surprise-filled 'shopping' trip was actually only just shopping afterall. ha.

One's first response to the report by the International Red Cross about torture at our prison at Guantanamo is denial. "I don't want to think about it; I don't want to hear about it; we're the good guys, they're the bad guys; shut up. And besides, they attacked us first."

But our country has opposed torture since its founding. One of our founding principles is that cruel and unusual punishment is both illegal and wrong. Every year, our State Department issues a report grading other countries on their support for or violations of human rights.

The first requirement here is that we look at what we are doing -- and not blink, not use euphemisms. Despite the Red Cross' polite language, this is not "tantamount to torture." It's torture. It is not "detainee abuse." It's torture. If they were doing it to you, you would know it was torture. It must be hidden away, because it's happening in Cuba or elsewhere abroad.

In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is it Christian? What are our moral values? Where are the clergymen on this? Speak out, speak up.

the latest edition of the newsletter i edit is out today, with two, count-em-two, articles by yours truly (one of which you've read before on here, but with a fancy new title....). and check out my new headshot, thanks to jessie and his amazing technicolor photographic machine

ironically and without thinking about it, on this december 1st, the annual world aids day, i happened to watch the movie safe which in most respects is a commentary/analogy on aids, how it impacts everyone, how it radically changes lives, how people manipulate others with it for their own gain, and how life becomes so solitary and empty
rather an appropriate movie to watch today