Beaches

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?

Sorry. Wrong beaches.

I'm coming to you live this week from Maui. So it's more like this beaches. The webcam for that live, streaming video is hanging off the edge of my balcony. Life is fucking tough, bitches, and this is what it looks like:



Just to prove how tough it is, on the first pic below is of The Christmas Queen, The Little Dutch Boy and I waving from the ocean this morning. The Husbear took this pic from the balcony of our condo:
















Which was shortly thereafter followed by me crashing and burning in the surf in a moment of what can only be described as Delicious Irony to all who were watching. This pic captures me trying to get the sand out of my ass during what can only be described as a Graceful Recovery.


It's gonna be a hard week. Brace yourselves.

A First Time For Everything

In case you didn't notice, this is my first time to print a retraction ... and my last. (If the Little Dutch Boy is still reading ... that obscure reference is for you, baby.)

So yesterday I suggested that Michael Richards was a racist but on the grand scale of racism through the ages, he probably ranked above your mother locking the car doors a little too quickly when your father drove through certain parts of town and just below ... oh, let's say ... the Grand Dragon of the KKK.

That was before I actually saw his apology on Letterman for myself, thanks to my Tivo unit that clearly is out to teach me a thing or two about tolerance in the American entertainment industry.

I'm seriously taking it all back. Seriously. Because of two things.

First, in his apology he said he said some pretty bad things to some "Afro Americans."

No, really. "Afro." I turned up the volume so loud and pushed the repeat button on the Tivo so many times to make sure, my neighbor started banging on the wall.

I suppose the word "wearing" in his sentence was silent. But come on, Michael. Out of touch much?

Second, as it all soaked in a bit, it occurred to me that had he tossed around the word "nigger" like Paul Rodriguez tosses around the word "faggot," he'd probably be a garden-variety racist.

Like Paul Rodriguez is. Oh, it's true. I wouldn't blog it if I hadn't heard it myself.

Instead, the very first thing out of his mouth was to pine for the old days when an uppity black would have been lynched. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where Paul Rodriguez (and it pains me to say it) is right. There is a line you can't cross in speech, and that's the line where you in any way hint that someone should be ... uh ... taught a lesson.

Strange fruit, hanging from the Southern trees. Blood on the roots and blood on the leaves.

That's not to be dismissed so handily. I was wrong.

Godspeed, Mr. Altman

Robert Altman died today at the fabulous age of 81. Had it been up to a vote, I would have given him 81 more, as I'm certain he had so much more for us to see.

And just because this is all about me, he's the guy who inspired me to always have some place in my plays where people are intentionally talking all at the same time. When (if?) you ever hear my stuff and you notice it happening, give a little smile to honor his genius.

Godspeed, Mr. Altman. Godspeed.

But Some of My Best Friends are Spear Chuckers!

Michael Richards is not a racist. How do we know this? Because he says so. Not because he got heckled during a set at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory, prompting him to suggest to a black audience member that 50 years ago we'd have him "upside down with a fucking fork in your ass."

You could almost hear Mel Gibson sigh with relief.

Not content with this, Richards went on to toss "nigger" around more often than two teens on the 38 Geary bus. His current behavior notwithstanding, he dutifully went on to Letterman to make sure we all know he was not a bigot and was "deeply, deeply sorry."

What you really have to know he's sorry about is the invention of the video cell phone, which someone quickly trained on him to catch the majority of his rant. I have to admit, the printed version pales in comparison.

Is Michael Richards a racist? Of course he is. But probably not in the burn a cross on your lawn and wear a white hood while doing it sort of way. I'm betting he's the same type of racist you and I are.

Oh, that's right, buddy. You're a racist. Want proof? Look no further than Avenue Q, the Tony-winning musical, and its show-stopper tune "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist."

And I quote:

You're a little bit racist. And you're a little bit, too. I guess we're all a little bit racist. Admitting it is not an easy thing to do. But between me and you, I think everyone's a little bit racist sometimes. Doesn't mean we go around committing hate crimes. Look around, and you will find that no one's really color blind. Maybe that's a fact we all should face: Everyone makes judgements based on race.

'Nuff said. They're right. Michael Richards was stupid and showed bad judgement. But so did that guy in the audience yelling "That's uncalled for, cracker ass," and you don't see anyone turning the camera on him.

Then there's Paul Rodriguez, also on the bill the same night, who found a news camera as quickly as he could to say, "Once the word comes out of your mouth and you don't happen to be African American, then you have a whole lot of explaining. Freedom of speech has its limitations, and I think Michael Richards found those limitations."

Oh, Paul. Puhleeze. You use the word "faggot" like it's punctuation. And unless your hairdresser knows something we don't know ... you've got a whole lot of explaining to do, buddy. So how about you shut yer yap, my nigga.

Or someone's bound to get offended.

Sleeping With The Enemy

So Ken Mehlman, the newly deposed head of the Republican National Committee, is rumored to be gay.

Then there's our friend Ted Haggard, the Colorado minister who admitted (or denied) he had (or didn't have) sex with a male prostitute. Actually, a side note about Haggard ... for this isn't my point here, but I can't help but mention it: When the shit really hit the fan, rather than admit he had sex with a man, Ted swore it was a drug deal instead. And crystal meth at that.

Oh. Thanks for the clarification, Ted. Hand jobs now rank above drug dealing on the mortal sin continuum. I'll make a note of that. But you've confused the hell out of me, because when I came out, my mother said, "Of course I still love you. It's not like you're a drug dealer."

So between my mother and God, there seems to be some disagreement. Great. And even then, I have the sneaking suspicion neither of them have it quite right.

Anyhoo.

To round out the holy trinity of self-loathing is Mark Foley, the alleged pedophile and self-professed alcoholic homosexual who was smart enough to blame it all on being a cocksucking booze hound but not bright enough to know about things called chat logs.

This is almost all too much for my smart-ass heart to take. But the exposure of such hypocrisy is a hollow victory this time around. Because I want to just riff and riff and riff on it, but I can't bring myself to do it. And doesn't that just suck?

Because it's wrong to preach against and legislate against and politicize gay civil rights. It doesn't make it worse if you're gay and doing it.

No, really. It doesn't. You're not more evil for sucking dick while publicly railing against dick suckers. You're just more sad. You're just profoundly, inexplicably tragic. And lost.

Not to say that you get a pass. You step on the rights of gays? You should have no power. No matter what you're doing in your bedroom. You must be stopped.

But to wind up in a place where you're relentlessly tearing down the very thing you are? Then you're sleeping with the enemy. And you have far worse problems than the rest of us in the community.

I don't hate these men. I pity them.

Better Late Than Never

Well, finally.

It only took six years of the current administration and 12 years of Republican domination of the House and Senate before Democrats managed to regain control of congress. Six years of this administration before we collectively woke up from the "stay the course" haze that had somehow made us very, very sleepy. Not to mention very, very stupid. And now very, very in debt in every conceivable notion of the word and every far-flung corner of the world.

Granted it was done in a very dramatic fashion, which came as a bit of a shock to our Republican brethren and sisteren. And shocking Republicans is one of my favorite past times, don't get me wrong.

But excuse me for saying that while I'm thankful for the tourniquet to stop the bleeding, I can't help but remind everyone that we had the chance to save the rest of the leg a couple of years ago but somehow thought it better of it. And me being me, I'm not so thankful after thinking that. I'm just mostly annoyed. But all the same ... welcome back from the abyss, Ohio. All is forgiven.