Saturday, November 29, 2008

i just want a cellphone, is that too much to ask?


As the holidays approach, spending $200-$300 for a phone was certainly not in my plans, but the little Nokia that could...can no longer. The ringtones have died. The poor girl is mute.

So, today SJ and I went to a Verizon store to check out the goods. Appalling. The "full retail price" ie, price without a contract renewal, upgrade, whateve, was gross on all accounts. Yeah, let me pay $400 for that phone that has a big $50 next to "with 2 year contract." We have a contract, and I can't wait for it to run out so I can join the rest of the world in i-phone happiness.

So, then I go online to see if anything is cheaper there. Can't even FIND prices that aren't attached to a contract.

I give up.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Get in the Van, Chuffies

what do we want?! a mini van! when do we want it?! now!
well, we got a min van, and 8 of us chuffies (well, 6 chuffies, a boy chuff, and 1 chuffie-supporter) went to the capital for a Rally.

here is our story:

Your driver, Commando Chuffie


Handcuff Chuff


Grape Chuffie


Strawberry Chuffle


Butter Chuffie


Chuff Chuffery


Chuf Boy Ardie


K.Chuf Dawg


and here is what we saw:














































































and as we were leaving, the 10 yes on 8 people (men) were across the street. Oh, poor people. They were so unattractive. Chuf Chuffery had the best thing to say to them as we walked by them on the way to our car..."HEY HEY, YOU SUCK ASS."


















and then there were burritos!


THE END.
OR IS IT......?............

Thursday, November 20, 2008

today, i'm mad

How can I not be with stories like this, this, and this making their way around.

I've reached the end of my rainbow rope. Leave us alone! Let us live, love, and do crazy gay things like volunteer, travel, and foster and adopt the children that are suffering at the hands of good, christian people.

FOCUS ON THESE FAMILIES, YOU WINGNUTS:

Murdered by her straight stepfather


An 8-year-old killer.
With straight parents.

Throw away kids.


People killing each other in Oakland.

No, but instead you spend your money on energy on sucking away people's rights, dignity, and love.

YOU SUCK.
You are hateful, sad, evil people. And I wish you no well.


And that is all. for now.

Monday, November 17, 2008

ying & yang

Good and Bad.

Let me start with an amazingly GOOD story.
Saturday, at the San Francisco rally against prop 8, about 2 hours in, we decided to head off to get something to eat. We went over to Hayes Valley, and it seems as though every other gay in the city did the same thing. After a few failed tries to get grub, our group decided to split up, and go to our own hoods for lunch. So, we're walking with our 2 friends to BART to go back to Glen Park, when it happened. We were at Market Street..and looked down (towards the Castro) and what we saw looked like something from a movie. A huge crowd of people were walking up Market Street. "Are those OUR people?" asked Cynthia. Sure enough, they were, and the march was headed right our way.

Have you ever had a huge group of people invite you to join them? Because, as they approached us, it was like a huge wave welcoming us in the pool. It was amazing.
So, starving and cranky, we walked. And walked. And it was good. Up Powell Street, passing wide-eyed tourists. Up through China Town, passing surprised shop owners and shoppers, into North Beach. And that's where we jumped out. Girls gotta eat, and eat we did. The best pizza EVER. then walked back to the BART. Feet = tired. Heart = happy.

In other news:

BAD. Prince? As if. OMG. WTF. And here, we really liked you.

GOOD. Jack from Fort Myers. We salute you.



BAD. Not just bad but Koo Koo Krazy Bad. "God is saying, "California shall be a refuge for America when the catastrophes come. California belongs to Me, not the advocates of sexual anarchy."" (twirling finger about the temple kind of crazy bad.)

GOOD. Shark poo. Probably more intelligent than James Hartline.

BAD. Bible prophesy. Kooky McKookertons.

GOOD. This girl's knocking it out of the park.

REALLY BAD. Poor polar bears. I still blame Palin.

COULD BE BETTER. American cars suck. They suck so bad, we shouldn't save them. But we want to save jobs. So, I have an idea. Why don't we bring in Japanese and German consultants and change them? Seriously. They should hire me to help them.

AND, WHO KNOWS. ???? I'd go with GOOD because she is still alive.

Friday, November 14, 2008

a letter to my neighbor with the two Yes on 8 signs

Dear Voter,

CONGRATULATIONS! You won!

Your vote for Yes on 8 has helped write discrimination into the constitution. Lucky for all of us, your views based on religion and fear have helped SAVE OUR FAMILIES from loving and committed relationships that were so threatening to us. Don’t we all feel more safe and secure now, knowing that we have eliminated a civil right from a minority group?

Hopefully we will soon be able to vote on other civil rights issues that are important to our communities. For instance, let’s hope a proposition banning divorce will make it onto the next ballot. We should be able to tell all adult couples what they can and cannot do, and banning divorce will take care of the problem of children not growing up with a mother and a father. After all, marriage is sacred! Banning divorce should really have no effect on the straight community.

Actually, we’d like to take it a step further, and ban all marriages in which there are no biological offspring produced. Like Tony Perkins, from the Family Research Council, says, “the purpose of marriage is to have children.” If you have any family members that are not planning on having children within a committed relationship, we hope that you will take it upon yourself to tell them how wrong this really is. It is all of our duties to keep a watchful eye on others’ personal relationships.

So, again, thank you for passing judgment on others, and making a decision to vote against equality. Once gay people think they have equal rights, then ALL minority groups will start assuming that same thing. And, we all know how that story ends!

Sincerely,
Another voter

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Dan Savage KO's a big-eared bigot and other stories

:-) YES! Dan Savage lets Tony Perkins have it. I LOVE when Dan brings up the fact that people who don't have kids can, and do, get married. Tony Perkins: "but that's not the purpose of marriage!"

OH REALLY??? So, i don't know if you've heard, but unless you are planning to populate this overpopulated earth, you have no business getting married!!!



This interview has made my day. Put it next to Keith Olbermann's amazing speech, and I think this cake is baked.

In other news:

HAVE YOU HEARD OF ADOPTION??? (GRR!!!)

I heart NYC.

Should I know who these women are?

Cute tattooed girl on Top Chef NYC! Go Jamie!! (the only bad news? she is "obsessed with onions" ew)

This is for my wife. (ps, you are still married to me)

Where's a tiger when you need one?

We've started watching Mad Men. Don't give away anything...I can tell I'm gonna be hooked!

I bet THIS IDIOT CAN GET MARRIED.

It was nice knowing you....We'll always have Foxfire.

And finally, should I go back to school? What do you think??

Monday, November 10, 2008

Saturday, November 8, 2008

no on H8 march last night


How to capture the feeling of walking down Market Street surrounded by thousands and thousands of people of all colors, ages, and flavors..all of us expressing our anger, hurt, dismay, disbelief that our state, and the people in it, would willingly discriminate and TAKE AWAY our rights...well, I can't really capture that in words. But, I can try: inspiring, motivating, nourishing, validating, powerful, emotional, and loving. (oh, and my sign was a hit)



The Mormon Church is scared. They are frightened. They are "disturbed". And I'm glad. (ARE YOU READING THIS MORMON CHURCH?)
What the hell do they expect? They pour in millions of dollars to a POLITICAL issue and they really thought nobody would notice and fight back? We are fighting back....and we are smarter than they are, and our beliefs are actually based in reality, not in magic undies.

Check this out. Rachel Maddow talking to Princeton Political Professor Melissa Harris Lacewell and race and prop 8. The professor makes some good points. I'm torn, because I think the no on 8 campaign did a really good job with the resources they had, but I think we all learned that we have tons of work to do in minority communities. We assumed that racial minority groups would understand our cause and our fight, and we were wrong. Religion and fear overrode any sense of compassion and understanding. And that needs to change.

Last night on the local news, they talked to Bill May, from Catholics from the Common Good. Of course, he whined and cried about how the gays were unfairly targeting religious groups (waaaaa!!!) and at the end of his whiny sad little speech, he did something very, very interesting. He basically said, "why aren't they targeting the 7 out of 10 black voters who voted Yes on 8?"

See what he did? He totally pointed the finger. They love this shit, those religious bigots. They love to judge, enforce their judgments on others, encourage other groups to judge, put alot of money into taking away others' rights, and then when they are called on it, they start to panic, cry, call foul, and point fingers. It was so blatant!! He was like the stupid kid in the schoolyard that pushed someone down, and in this case, he is pointing to the black kids saying THEY DID IT. It was sickening. The religious bigots love to see the divide of the minorities, and they are encouraging it every chance they can.

Okay, sorry for the rant...but it's been an emotional few days. Lots of anger. Lots of disappointment.
And tons of thinking.

ps. watch this. it's great:

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

i will not be saying anything here that you didn't already know


My thoughts today:

1. I could care less if one of my work's clients "lost sleep" last night about copy in an ad. I am insulted that anyone would even say that to me today. Otherwise, my coworkers have been awesome today, and i thank them for being sensitive and supportive.

2. It should be illegal for other states to send money for propositions being voted on in our state.

3. The Mormon Church bought votes plain and simple. The Mormon Church is vile. So is the Catholic Church (sorry mom) and the KKKnights of Columbus. Vile, angry, ugly people. I'm sorry you don't have the guts to live a better life. When you meet your God, he may have some news for you.

4. It all starts with people being in the closet. and then families don't think of it is a personal issue. they have no FACE to put with the word GAY. so, they have frightening thoughts about GAY people because they don't realize that gay people are just like them. so, these people voting yes...they have no idea that there are gay people in their families, or as friends, and can't fathom what it means or doesn't mean. so, it is a foreign concept and they don't equate voting YES with AFFECTING good people like you and me. But of course, people don't come out, because all they hear about is how freaky and wrong it is to be gay. IT'S A SOCIAL ILL and a vicious cycle.

5. We should stop paying taxes. Seems like our money is different and not quite as good as straight people's money, and therefore, we should keep it all to our gay selves. Maybe we could go in together and buy tons of gay things with the money, like rainbow colored cruise ships, herds of unicorns, mountains of butt plugs, or majority stock in G-Star or American Apparel.


This is from my list serv at work, written by Jim Hunger. He has some great points:

***
It seems to me that there are a number of issues that became apparent
during this struggle and ought to be addressed:

---It's way too easy to change the California constitution, and it's
outrageous that civil rights can be dictated by a mere majority. There
should be some effort to change the rules to something like 2/3 or 3/4
majority required for a constitutional amendment (usually the rule in other
states), or a constitutional convention. And would it be possible to frame
a new amendment stating that basic civil rights are not subject to the
whim/prejudices of a mere majority of the voting public.

---We need stronger laws against outright lying and deception for political
gain. Granted, some of these instances can be rationalized in a variety of
ways, but Yes on 8 was guilty of outright lies that they continued to
disseminate even after they were exposed. There should be legal means not
only to stop this kind of behavior immediately, but to harshly penalize the
perpetrators, including fines and jail time.

---During the fiasco of Pepperdine Law schmuck Richard Peterson
broadcasting lies for Yes on 8, I complained to the California Fair
Political Practices Commission, and they responded that they saw no grounds
for proceeding against Peterson. That he could get away with this with
impunity, and that a board that is supposed to be addressing this kind of
egregious behavior either sees nothing wrong with this or has no legal
means to deal with it, is simply unacceptable.

----There should be strict laws against churches, and nonprofit arms of
churches (such as Knight of Columbus) from getting involved in the
political arena. Crossing state lines to do this should be a much more
serious offense. Religious organizations that commit these offenses should
lose their tax exemption, and it should be difficult for them to get it
back. Churches should also only get a tax exemption on the meeting space
where they hold their gatherings. All other holdings should be taxed just
like anyone else would be. We are, after all, supposed to be a secular
society, and that principle has been thoroughly trampled upon in recent
years.

***
So, 53% of our state let religion, ignorance, hate, or internalized homophobia get in their way of voting on a LAW that takes away people's right. Okay. But, don't expect the gays to go away. We're pissed, and honey, when you've pissed off the gays, you aren't just going to get a fuck*d up haircut or flowers that are a day old....you're gonna get a lot more. What happens when you kick a puppy one too many times? Try it and see.

Monday, November 3, 2008

stomach knot

My nerves are frayed.

Between worrying about Princess (aka Dandelion) finding a good home and wondering if the right wing bigots will dictate the laws about marriage...I'm just hanging in there. Now would be an excellent time to have a prescription for anti-anxiety drugs.

This weekend we volunteered for the No on 8 campaign. All was well and good until the neighborhood drunk found us and started a slurry sermon about procreation and "not letting your parents down." (issues?!) Then he started calling me a fag. Which, is fine. Overall, people were really supportive, and it gave me hope.

Part of me wants to crawl under the sheet with a bottle of Pimms for company until Wednesday morning.



Anyway, here are some things that caught my eye today:

Best Wild Animal Photos of 2008 Announced.


Cheap flights.
seriously cheap.

Some people have too much money.

This is a pretty good look at the anatomy of a rally.

Today's Dlisted Caption This contest photo.

EW. ew. ew. that is not bread.


that's all i can muster right now.
vote tomorrow. we're not going down without a fight, drunk stupid man. you can count on that.