This could be the most hilarious thing I’ve seen. Snoop Dog making mashed potatoes with Martha Stewart. Ostensibly selling his new album with a song called, “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto.”
My favorite part is Snoop’s reaction to the white pepper.
Filed under: literature | Tags: AIDS, franz wright, medicine, poetry, rafael campo
Great article by James Parker in The Phoenix this week about local poets Rafael Campo and Franz Wright, who write about the body in sickness and in health. (Full disclosure: Campo is indeed a doctor, my own, in fact.)
Long before he was my PCP, Campo intrigued me with his devotion to forms, particularly the sonnet, and the way that he subverted the norms of the Shakespearean norm and wrote poems about AIDS and death.
Franz Wright, too, manages to reinvigorate his work through his struggles with hospital wards, Catholicism, and other matters of the heart.
Bravo to Parker and The Phoenix for giving space to poetry, a real commitment these days when all the media wants to talk about is politics, the economy, and celebrity gossip.
Filed under: film | Tags: gay, gus van sant, harvey milk, marriage, sean penn
I’m fairly excited by the opening of Gus Van Sant’s Milk in theatres today. A little giddy to be honest, like the night that Brokeback Mountain opened and the Coolidge Corner Moviehouse (the best theatre in Boston) was packed with gay men and lesbians, coming together to witness a ground-breaking moment for mainstream America. Even reminds me a bit of the historic moment when Cambridge City Hall opened its doors at midnight to officiate the nation’s first gay marriages in May 2004 (check it out Rush Limbaugh–it’s been four years of same-sex marriage and our nation hasn’t been swallowed up in an apocalypse).
The timing of Milk’s opening is great; what else do Americans have to do tonight? Why not treat a straight friend to the cinema tonight instead of slouching on the sofa with a bag of Cheetos?
Towleroad has collected extensive coverage of the film, including Sean Penn’s eloquent comments on the leadership of Harvey Milk:
Penn said, in an interview late last week, “I think less people would have died of AIDS [if Harvey Milk had not been assassinated]. I think Ronald Reagan would have been forced to address it. [Milk] was a leader, and he happened to be focused on the gay movement. He would have advanced that argument a lot sooner. I think people are dead because he died too soon.”
Penn also condemned Prop 8: “If we could have no excuse for being ignorant in human history, then the punishment for support of Proposition 8 would be minimally manslaughter. There will be teenage boys who will hang themselves [because of this].”
If you haven’t heard yet, avoid Cinemark theaters because the movie chain’s Mormon owner donated thousands to discriminate against same-sex marriage.
Get out there and support this important film!
Filed under: politics | Tags: arkansas, ban, florida, gay adoption, marriage
Good for you, FloridaIn contrast with Arkansas’ discriminatory new legislation making adoption by gay or lesbian parents against the law, a Florida court repealed Florida’s long-standing ban. Critics, of course, worry that gay and lesbian parents might make their children gay–when research actually proves the opposite: that gay and lesbian parents raise healthy, well-adjusted children.
CNN posted an audio slideshow and article about gay adoption with an awkward subtitle called “A new take on the American family.” The editors seem to reinforce heterosexist norms by claiming that the traditional take on the American family has always been two parents of opposite sexes. But what about this couple? And this legendary ruler? And these famous kids raised by gay and lesbian parents?
Interesting analysis of Obama’s Change.gov website and the new President-Elect’s use of YouTube. “It’s as if nearly everybody can have a seat at the table if they want to be included. All they have to do is add their voice at Change.gov and they can be part of the conversation.” As Donklephant notes, it’s great to see Obama’s administration embracing the power of interactive technology. For me, this shift reflects a melding of entertainment and politics (first begun with the user-generated YouTube/CNN-presented Presidential debates).
Over at The Huffington Post, an old Obama friend says that “The plain old Barack is gone,” while the NYT profiled close Obama friend and adviser, Valerie Jarrett, who is accompanying Obama to the Washington. The challenge of a friend/adviser in the White House, experts say, is transitioning from confidante to merely employee, perhaps without the immediate access, to the new President.
Filed under: government, politics | Tags: geithner, hillary clinton, maddow, obama, treasury
The best one-liner of the day–a funny stab at the Bush administration–comes from The Economist in this article praising President-Elect Obama’s nomination of New York Fed president Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. After eight years of failed policies that got us into this economic mess, Geithner represents strong international experience, working with economies in Brazil and Thailand, for example, more than “any other policymaker in office today.”
In contrast to the Treasury secretary appointment, however, comes a note of irony from Rachel Maddow on The Conan O’Brien Show, when she points out that Hillary Clinton’s appointment to Secretary of State may not exactly represent the change that Obama hoped for (I love Rachel Maddow, and not only because we own the similar black glasses).
Filed under: film, politics | Tags: franco, harvey milk, homophobia, letterman
James Franco, gracious actor that he is, fends off the homophobia of David Letterman in this clip from Friday night’s show in which he’s publicizing Gus Van Sant’s Milk. Letterman keeps harping on Franco’s kiss with Sean Penn; it’s almost as if he wants Franco to claim that kissing another man was equal to the task of building an atomic bomb.
Later in the interview, after Letterman’s third attempt to solicit a homophobic remark, Franco offers him a man-on-man kiss. Reminds me of the discussions I had last week in my lit class, in which the strongest response of my (male) students was that it was “courageous” of the male actors to kiss on stage.
Filed under: literature | Tags: fire to fire, mark doty, national book award, poetry
Lyrical poet and all-around nice guy Mark Doty won the National Book Award for Poetry for his book of New and Collected Poems, Fire to Fire. The award was presented last night at a black-tie dinner in New York.
I say “nice guy” without guile because, in the several times that I’ve met Doty, he has been one of the most gracious and unassuming major writers I’ve met. I happened upon his poems more than a dozen years ago, when he was giving a small poetry reading at a Newbury Street art gallery. I was just beginning to take myself seriously as a writer then, and the epic scale of his work and its unapologetically gay content made an impression. Now, I often teach his poem “At the Gym”, from Source, as an example of the way that an everyday act like benchpressing can be layered with poetic meaning.
Whenever I hear Mark Doty’s name, I’m also saddened by the fact that Doty could have been a part of the English deparment faculty at B.C. Our loss.
Doty is a stunning poet, and, as he mentions in interviews, the National Book Award is especially sweet because it honors a collection of his life’s work.
Filed under: music, pop culture | Tags: acoustic, ben harper, concert, marvin gaye
I supported the fight against legalized discrimination yesterday at Boston City Hall, and want to post more about the stirring experience. It’s a quiet Sunday, however, and requires change of pace from the constant brute force of politics and rhetoric.
I’m a big fan of Ben Harper, of his craftsmanship and intelligence (he named his band “Innocent Criminals,” and this seems a nod to me about the struggle of African Americans in our country).
Here’s Harper doing an acoustic cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing”:
As a point of comparison, here’s Ben Harper pimped out in concert clothes, full stage lighting, and a back-up band, doing the same cover of “Sexual Healing”:
Which one do you prefer? Which version pays better homage to the artistry and lyricisim of Marvin Gaye?
Or maybe, it’s simply a matter of intimacy–you, the listener, in a small white-paneled room with Harper–contrasted with the communal power of a concert stage, Harper in front of thousands, all of these folks screaming and sharing in the body-thumping pulsing and raw emotion (“Oh my darling, won’t you just heal me?”)?
Filed under: politics | Tags: black, gay marriage, mormon, prop 8, slate
Many in the media have pointed toward two groups of voters who defeated gay marriage in California: members of the Mormon church and African Americans.
This first group, Mormons, I agree with–the church encouraged its members to contribute to the campaign, resulting in $22 million to end gay marriage (the most spent on any social issue in the United States).
The second group, however–African Americans–I’m not so sure I agree with.
The thrust behind this antagonism toward African Americans largely comes from exit polls that cite statistics such as this one about Prop 8 in California:
Whites and Asian-Americans, comprising 69 percent of California’s electorate, opposed Proposition 8 by a margin of 51 percent to 49 percent. Latinos favored it, 53-47. But blacks turned out in historically high numbers—10 percent of the electorate—and 70 percent of them voted for Proposition 8.
Drawing inferences from these numbers can be elusive. For example, African Americans are not a homogeneous group–they possess a variety of beliefs, morals, politics, and sexualities. Unlike Mormons, who possess a similar belief system, politics, and sexuality.
A surprising article in Slate this morning tries to break down why African Americans believe that homosexuality is a choice. Slate’s editors have chosen to analyze the loss of gay rights through the lens of African American prejudice. In his article, William Saletan cites the victory of Barack Obama and the confirmation of gay prejudice on election night. He then asks:
Why, then, are the people targeted by those laws supporting bans on same-sex marriage?The answer is: They think sexual orientation is different from race. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of a nation in which individuals would be judged not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
This kind of rhetoric–the choice of discourse itself–attempts to divide both the African American community, as well as African Americans and other ethnic groups. It’s a topic that encourages blame toward one ethnic group rather than finding those African Americans who support civil rights for all. It’s the same kind of institutionalized racism that pits minority groups against one another instead of encouraging them to unify, to collaborate, to strengthen their power through caucus rather than division.
