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art Brooklyn Film Gay Hollywood NYC

Ellen Page Brave or Self Serving?

Jacob Brown and Andrew Durbin

1.

Yesterday the HRC hijacked another celebrity coming out to further their own white, elite agenda.  Shame on you Chad Griffin.

So, Ellen Pagecomes out‘ with Chad at her side and (as scripted) is immediately hailed as ‘brave’ by the neo liberal media for telling her truth.  Big fucking deal.  Did Ellen Page come out in Uganda, risking her life?  Did Ellen Page use her power and prestige to help those less fortunate lesbians in other parts of the world who risk being imprisoned or worse for the luxury of telling their truth?  No, she talked about how hard it was for her to crash stereotypes.

Poor Ellen.  My heart bleeds for you.

As more and more celebrities come out it is no longer good enough to expect and prepare for fanfare without their truth becoming a political gesture.   It is not good enough for a celebrity in the free world to expect a ‘small gesture’ toward acceptance to be adequate.

Small gestures need to get bigger.  It is the responsibility of every lgbtq celebrity who comes out to address the disparity between their free lives and their oppressed brothers and sisters else where.  For Ellen Page not to mention Uganda, Russia etc. was willful and selfish.

After all, what did she expect… a fucking medal?  No, all she was doing was safeguarding her job and her position and her fame and fortune.

2.

Party last night at Jacob Brown‘s East Village duplex.  Celebrating his birthday were cute thin people, two old farts… me and the perfectly adorable producer Hunter Hill.   Crowd included (amongst others) the delectable poet Andrew Durbin and former MOCA head honcho Ari Wiseman.

I loved that my controversial green fur hat found favor with this cool, queer crowd.

3.

Valentine’s Day, enjoying my burgeoning relationship.

We decided to have dinner at Isa in Williamsburg.  We’d heard good things and it looked very lively when we passed by this summer.

We popped in at lunch time to make our reservation and the young lady maitre’d dutifully jotted it down, took names and numbers and the promise of a two top.

At 8pm we arrived at Isa.  The booking was lost, we were given the end of a community table under a loud speaker playing the most intrusive music, the waiters seemed to be very eager to process EVERYONE in and out very quickly.

We were asked by 4 separate people if we were sure we didn’t want alcohol.

Anyway, I ordered the rustic tomato soup and the skirt steak.  The soup was ok but served in very small dish.  The skirt steak entree was ghastly.  It was like chewing through a shoe.  A rubber shoe.  I sent it back and the duck special was whisked to our table in its place.  The duck was ok, not very well seasoned, the polenta was soupy and badly prepared and $30.  The tiny dish of $7 brussels sprouts were tepid and badly flash fried leaving most of them untouched by the pan… temperature issues at Isa became an irritating theme.

Our coffee was also cold so I left it.

The staff were the kind of people who try to shame you for making a complaint.  Condescending young people who are used to old people putting up and shutting up.  “Do you think you’ll like the duck better.”  He asked after I sent back the inedible steak… he asked as if I had some sort of learning disability.  No, I’m just past 45 years old.  I can hear and understand just fine.

We attempted to leisurely enjoy our dinner but the waiter was eager to snatch our unfinished dishes, “Still working on that?” they pestered.  YES!!  Leave us alone I wanted to scream but I didn’t.  This was obviously the worst choice for a Valentines dinner.   A total waste of time and money.

Here are some recent moments:

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Categories
politics Queer Rant

Clément Méric: We Cry For You

black-1.2

It is a black day for the international LGBTQ community.

Clément Méric is as good as dead.  His brilliant, 18-year-old queer brain mangled by right-wing thugs on the streets of Paris.

He is presently kept alive by a tangle of opalescent tubes.

In Russia activists are targeted by government sponsored bullies.

In London intellectuals are beaten to the ground by members of the EDL.

In NYC a black man is shot in the face and killed.

Trans people are murdered every day all over the world, often without investigation.

Have you heard?  There is, amongst the general population, a perceived inevitability about LGBTQ equality.

Some amongst us are becoming complacent.  Bloated on the success we think we have.

Basking in the support we think we get from the President.  In fact we are silenced by him.

His words over deeds have silenced us.

We must speak up.  Continue to challenge. Continue to be seen.

We must not shirk our responsibility to queer martyrs like Clément Méric.

Speak up. Heckle.

ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Actis only now being widely discussed after the petulant FLOTUS was confronted by GetEQUAL queer activist Ellen Sturtz.

I congratulate Ellen.  Finally, a voice for the queer poor heard over the screaming voices of the queer rich.

As the Great Recession continues in so much of the USA, ending workplace discrimination (especially for trans people) is essential.

Listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving. You all decide. You have one choice.

FLOTUS

Remember.  As we strive for parity there will be those with equal and opposite views.

There will be violence.

There will be those who will kill an 18-year-old queer boy because they can.

African-Americans had to face nearly another century of lynchings before the Civil Rights Movement was powerful enough to push back strongly against violent racists.

The women’s movement of the 1920s, side-tracked for a generation until the 1960s, with so many needlessly broken lives and life expectations as a result.

Queer people are being attacked all over the world: Paris, Moscow, New York, London by increasingly emboldened haters.

As we demand equality in the workplace, the home and in the establishment these attacks will become more frequent.

We must, whether we like it or not, form a true LGBTQ alliance not only in name but in practice.

It is too late for fear to drive us into the shadows. We are out. We are visible.

We need to be more fearless and more visible.

LGBTQ.

This means YOU.

This means ME.

Reading about Clément Méric this morning, looking at his sweet, boyish profile… I began to question my own behavior.

I have, of late, let resentment toward the gays shape my own kind of homophobia.

For those of you who have read my blog these past couple of years the provenance of this loathing may seem understandable.

Today, I need to jettison those resentments.

If I truly believe in this fight… I have to accept those I detest as my queer brothers and sisters.