Tag: Arizona

Categories
Los Angeles politics

Fuck You Jerry Brown

20121002-115544.jpg

Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the TRUST Act, a bill championed by immigrants rights advocates.

The bill, which was the antithesis of Arizona’s SB 1070, would have helped stop racial profiling and restore trust and transparency between California’s communities and law enforcement officials.

While the outcome of the fight is disappointing, I am thankful for activists who appealed to Governor Brown by signing thousands of petitions then making hundreds of calls to his office urging him to sign the bill.

Adam Luna, is the Political Director of America’s Voice, a leading immigrants rights organization wanted to share this message:

“While it was a bitter disappointment to see the governor veto the TRUST Act, I wanted to let you know how much your activism and solidarity made a real difference.

11,300 petition signatures (more than any other organization!), which were hand-delivered in Sacramento, hundreds of phone calls — it was amazing.”

Those of us in the immigration reform movement know that this is not a fight which is going to be won overnight and the governor said that he’s open to making a deal next year because he knows that you, and we, won’t rest until the fight is won.

While Governor Brown’s failure of leadership on this issue is disheartening, the campaign for fair and sensible immigration policies will go on.

Next week I will be announcing my very own action against the secure communities protocol that incarnated me and thousands of people like me.

A few months ago a young, gay Australian man here legally in the USA on a tourist visa was arrested for peeing in public (a sex crime felony in the state of California) and held in the Men’s Country Jail until he agreed to be deported.

Why?

IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW!

Categories
Travel

Desert Flower Day Two

I have not written this diary properly for a few days.  A great deal is going on.   Traveling East.

It seemed like I said yes to far too many dinner invitations and ended up cancelling all of them.

I am talking to sales reps about The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Finally.  It is time.  David Gallagher is the breakout star in Super 8 so we may very well sell it.  With David looking so amazingly fit and grown up and Aleksa in Boardwalk Empire…perhaps we can sell it for what it is worth.  Anyway, I’m talking again to sales agents so let’s see.  I just want what it is worth.  Not selling it for anything less.

I am still not happy with the edit.

The desert.  We drive into the night.  The Freeway.  Homogenous America.  The same 6 restaurant chains, the same names…again and again.  Nothing to differentiate state by state.   The desert is beautiful.  Desolate, hot, 110 degrees yesterday.

I am now in Willcox Arizona, sitting in the Safeway Starbucks where coffee is twenty cents more than The Palisades.  To prove that people must be BORED beyond reason living out here I have been recognized more in the past ten minutes than the past ten months.

They are playing Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues.

So, we left LA yesterday morning.  The previous day we spent dozing on the beach then had dinner at the rancid Taverna Tony’s.  Flayed shrimp.  The Beautiful Dane’s Swedish friend arrived and we all stayed in Malibu that night leaving early the following morning with Robby.

The Swedish friend (whose name I refuse to remember) is a clumsy idiot and I don’t expect revising my opinion any time soon.  They call each other Bagel.   Within ten minutes of meeting me he had knocked my phone out of my hand.

Robby and Miles returned from their wedding weekend, apparently the bride and groom washed each other’s feet in the Christian ceremony.  Robby looked great.  They are such sweet boys.

Very clean feet.

The Dane sings Riders in The Storm in Danish which is funny.

Picked up a huge SUV at The Dane’s insistence.  Expensive, gas consuming behemoth.

We drove to Glendale Station where we picked up another Dane, a girl called Lucie who used to work in the fashion and textile department at the Met in NYC.  We had a great deal to talk about.

It seemed like a good idea to fill the car with friends but as it turns out the idiot friend and the Dane have a very specific sort of relationship and Lucie is his ex gf who he took two years to get over.

I began to reassess.   My farts stink.

We drove from LA to Phoenix.  Dinner at The Royal Palm Resort which is incredibly beautiful.  Taco Tuesday.  Luxury on a budget.  The Swede nipped off with his good-looking friend and bought two dresses from H and M for him and the Dane which they changed into in the parking lot.

We stopped in a gas station and a man told his friend very loudly that the dress wearing men should be arrested.  As we drove deeper into Arizona the dresses caused me some panic as I really did not want either of them to get shot.

As you can tell from my voice.  I am trying a little too hard.

Stayed in a small motel with wi-fi and a big black dog.  The room cost us $60.

We are on our way to Marfa, Texas to the Donald Judd hangers.

If you want to see all of the videos from this trip…go to my YouTube channel.

We are off soon.  Long journey ahead.  They are playing Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out.  The Starbucks girl is blending caramel frapaccino and I will never see Willcox Arizona ever again.

Categories
Malibu

Beautiful Day in SoCal

It is such a beautiful day today I almost can’t describe it.

This weekend was great fun.  Too much fun to blog.  Easter should be spent with children and friends with children.  Fat on chocolate and ham.

Woke early Good Friday morning and drove the twins to Pasadena.  They spent the weekend in Arizona at a Mumford and Sons concert by way of the Grand Canyon.   They are on their way home now.  I filled my weekend with lunches and dinners and a pedicure.   I went to AA meetings and walks with friends old and new.

There were moments this wonderful spring weekend when I felt as if I were my old self (pre The Penguin) but couldn’t work out why.  There were moments when I experience the very illusive peace of mind I had been craving for many, many months.

It all seemed to begin after we had chopped out the great bush of Bougainvillea.  I understood that any change, however destructive, can be very creative.   By freeing up the view I could see clearly.  My over-view, perspective and willingness all remade.

I had to own up, once again, to misdirected anger.  I am not angry with him…I am angry with my nemesis.  He is not that man.  By demanding answers from him I forego the courage it takes to ask my nemesis why he did those terrible things.

What The Penguin did to me scarcely compares to what happened before yet I am willing to blame The Penguin for all that is evil in the world.  Of course he should never have lied his way into my life, nor should he have used me to help him.  He should never have said ‘I love you’ without considering the consequences.

Our moment in court next month could be used to heal rather than to punish.  To move on with amends and explanation rather than two disparate men re-entrenching their anger.

This time next week I will be in NYC…a camera shoved in my face.  I must admit that I am ever so slightly excited.  I am excited to see D.  I am excited that I am going to have a gay old NYC summer.  Hamptons, Fire Island…one last gay hurrah!  Even though it is not my show and I am merely an adjunct I am excited by the prospect of showing a different, more vivacious side of my character than the one you saw last year on Sex Rehab.

This time next week?  I am not living in next week, I am living now.

Therapy this morning was great.  Every meeting/group/session I attend things seem to get better and better.