I have decided to refrain from listing my picks for the 20 best (by which I mean my favorite) albums of 2008 in any order. They don't necessarily compare via style or substance but tin that each is their own unique achievement or grandiose return to form (in one case) so here are 20 records you should own... now!
I was 11 years old when I first learned of slain gay rights activist (and the first openly gay elected official in US history) Harvey Milk. I came across his name numerous times in my illicit readings at a local library (this was an age before the internet) and I saw The Times of Harvey Milk documentary which is brilliant and informative and heartbreaking all in one. A few years on I would read The Mayor of Castro Street, Randy Shilts and become probably insufferable to live with as I became an increasingly vocal gay rights advocate.
Well Like most Americans I ate too much, and made far too much food. My cold has taken over apparently and I'm sequestered today indoors on Black Friday. I'm watching JFK. in and out of lucidity more later.
So Here's the latest A is For Accident video from the up-coming album Slow-Kids Play.
I've been a fan of Placebo since their debut album more than a decade ago. I've always been a sucker for their dark and sleazy eurorock and post-punk edge and I'm even found of singer Brian Molko's voice that one critic once likened to a deranged gay parakeet on crack,. I'm also a fan of their music videos, which have always been smart affairs and have ben collected on dvd up to the tracks from Sleeping with Ghosts. Here's some select tracks from their most recent album Meds as well as their scandalous video directed by french auteur Gaspard Noe
Total babe and openly gay Mayor-elect of Portland
CALLING ALL TO THE CAUSE!
So Oscar Wilde's decadent and vicious antihero Dorian Grey is coming back to the big screen in a new adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Grey from director Oliver Parker, who already has two Wildean adaptations under his belt with The Importance of Being Ernest and An Ideal Husband.
Dan Savage is my hero! (oh and that Colbert guy is pretty cool)
Posted by Andrew Klaus in Andrew Klaus, Dan Savage, gay, prop 8, stephen colbert
So I'm breaking all sorts of rules I have a bout reposting text from here or there but whatever I want everyone to Read the op-ed piece from today's NY Times by one of my personal heros Dan Savage. I really hope the bigotry of the anti-gay ballot measures FINALLY has sunk in with people. We must focus. We need to take to the streets. We need to make people listen and force change. Sitting on our hands and being polite has got us into this shape. Our democratic apathy has left us a marginalized group of Americans who seem completely willing to roll over and take it up the ass from our enemies ( pun intended)
We are American Citizens.
We are men and women who are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, aunts and uncles, grandparents, off all races, of all national origins, of all professions, of all education levels, of all social classes. we are human beings. We are all one in this mess. And it's time we demand that in this "more perfect union" ALL men and women are "created equal" and it's time to put and end to the lies and abuse and religious intolerance and indoctrination that is being spread in this country.
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Anti-Gay, Anti-Family By DAN SAVAGEPublished: November 11, 2008COUNTLESS Americans, gay and otherwise, are still mourning — and social conservatives are still celebrating — the approval last Tuesday of anti-gay-marriage amendments in Florida, Arizona and, most heartbreaking, California, where Proposition 8 stripped same-sex couples of their right to wed. Eighteen thousand same-sex couples were legally married in California this past summer and fall; their marriages are now in limbo.
But while Californians march and gay activists contemplate a national boycott of Utah — the Mormon Church largely bankrolled Proposition 8 — an even more ominous new law in Arkansas has drawn little notice.
That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.
Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.
Social conservatives are threatening to roll out Arkansas-style adoption bans in other states. And the timing couldn’t be worse: in tough economic times, the numbers of abused and neglected children in need of foster care rises. But good times or bad, no movement that would turn away qualified parents and condemn children to a broken foster care system should be considered “pro-family.”
Most ominous, once “pro-family” groups start arguing that gay couples are unfit to raise children we might adopt, how long before they argue that we’re unfit to raise those we’ve already adopted? If lesbian couples are unfit to care for foster children, are they fit to care for their own biological children?
The loss in California last week was heartbreaking. But what may be coming next is terrifying.
Dan Savage is the editorial director of The Stranger, a Seattle newsweekly, and the author of “The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family.”
Ok so for my double dip of Dan Savage today check out this genius appearance on the equally brilliant Colbert Report
How Anderson Cooper keeps his cool with these Prop . 8 bigots it's truly a testament to his steely professionalism. Look I understand that gay marriage is a thorny issue to a lot of religious, but I also understand the basic precepts that we set when this nation was founded to make "a more perfect union" .
so I hurt my back last week and have not been so completely coherent as to be able to post daily.
I have a hard time not being bittersweet on the day after. So much struggle led to this historic amazing moment, men women and children died to bring us here, this is the re-birth of a nation. For those of us in the LGBT communities our eyes were also on many local and state elections that dealt with anti-gay ballot measures, many of which sadly passed. The largest fight was over Prop. 8 in California, whoever there is a glimmer of hope on that front. Here's the latest at this time. No on 8.
Exhausted. Over Saturated. stuffed to the bloody gills with news and gossip. Going to bed early tonight and reading a book. One that has talking animals. maybe some witchcraft. I need a break from the reality of all this. This historic moment. I feel confident, but that said I'm your typical neurotic Jewish boy- I'm always worried. I'm a born worrier. I screamed at my mother "Why are you trying to kill me?!" when she and my father tried to teach me to ride my bike without training wheels. This is the kind of person I am on many levels still. What is out to get me? Who will betray me? It's a maddening personality trait I find I am incapable of shedding so far. When I let down my guard I'm frequently surprised by the bizarre intrusions. My insane ex-girlfriend whom I broke up with a half decade ago started stalking me, my (former) best friend of 15 years suddenly betrays me and stops speaking to me during my court battle with said stalker. I have a problem trusting people. As well I should. I certainly have a hard time trusting the "American People" Slavery. Segregation. the genocide of the native Americans. the Witch trials. Red Scare. Japanese Interment camps. Homophobia. Misogyny. This is such a cursory glance at history. I long for a revolution, a true one. One uniting us and bring hope and dignity to our beleaguered country. I want to feel proud to be the son of this mother land, not a constant scout for a new roost to be an expatriate. Barack Obama may just be that spark that leads us to change. God knows he's gonna try, but what we need is for the the masses, the lumbering bulk of the nation to rub the crusted mucus from their sleeping eyes and LOOK . Look up! the stars are no less bright in these trying times. Our fear has not given us anything but more fear. We have no sympathy left no room for compassion. LOOK! LOOK !
Taylor and I attended the 2008 Portland Exotic Erotic Ball as guests of Pulse Underwear and Benjamin Blak designer Benjamin Simms . I snapped this completely exhausted pic with my phone on the train home sometime around 1:30 or so in the morning. Follow the hyper link above for the rest of the actual pictures from the night's festivities.
Fantastically sick fun with Amanda ! One of my favorite tracks from here critically acclaimed new solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer? which is one of my picks for the best of the year.
3 MORE FUCKING DAYS! I am fed up with the non stop vile political ads , they disgust me. I have a long list of things I never want to hear again terms like:
Moderate RepublicanSecret socialistGordon SmithPresident BushElitistMaverickSarah Palinthe "names" of any of her children.First DudeGordon Smith's Frozen PeasBill SizemoreProp. 8Family ValuesProtecting the familyTHE BIBLE (no offense but I want politics not theology)The Surge
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