Just Desserts

This is great. A girl in New York left her T-Mobile Sidekick II cellphone in a taxi cab and the person who found it decided to keep it and not return it. So the girl's friend put together this web page and decided to try to publicly shame and humiliate the people who wouldn't return the phone. It is well worth reading through the entire page. Very entertaining and satisfying (like an evening spent with me).

Pride Weekend 2006 Retrospect

Three years ago this past weekend, a month before my 28th birthday, I took one of the most significant steps of my life and walked into a gay bar in Chicago on Friday of Pride Weekend 2003. That night was the first time I was ever (knowingly) around more than one other gay person at the same time, the first time I ever danced, the first time I ever drank alcohol (a Screwdriver, a Sex on the Beach, and a Long Island Iced Tea that night), and the first time I ever stayed the night at a guy's house (there were a couple other "firsts" for me that night as well, but you get the idea). Unfortunately, I had to leave the next morning for a business trip to Dallas, so I was unable to stay for the parade; however, that night began a new phase of my life that has turned everything upside down (or maybe more accurately, finally put it right-side up). Two months later I came out to my family, and a month after that I moved to Chicago.

So, this weekend was my fourth Pride Weekend in Chicago and third time watching the parade. Here are my top 5 comments about the weekend:

1. Tied for Most Boring Parade Ever (tied with itself on previous years)

• 250 groups and floats. 41 politicians. Approximately 0% originality. About the only entries that were interesting were the ones that used sexual humor, which, while entertaining, is the easiest and least creative form of humor (I plan to do a more extensive post on that topic soon). There are about 3 entrants I look forward to each year. Dykes on Bikes rock (yes, it's true that lesbians scare me but what's not to love about women in leather on loud motorcycles?). I appreciate the Pride Band. And the Chipotle float, because they give out coupons for free burritos. The rest of the entries are either politicians waving for votes, local celebrities waving at people who don't know or care who they are, or drunk and high guys dancing shirtless to club music (I can see that at Hydrate; give me something more interesting at the parade!). And this year Chipotle ran out of coupons before they got to me, so that nearly ruined my day.
• I have noticed a very distinct trend for those who attend pride parades. Year 1 - Totally fun, exhilarating, "freeing"...instead of marginalization, who I am is celebrated. Year 2 - Still fun, but didn't I see that same float last year? Year 3 - Stupid Chicago pride parade is the worst-run parade ever. Why am I back here again? I'll just stay home next year. Year 4 - The realization hits that we're not really here to watch the parade; we just want an excuse to have a drunken outdoor party with our friends. Suddenly it's fun again, but who are all those people in the street waving and holding signs?
  

2. Celebrity over Substance in Grand Marshal Selection

• This year's Grand Marshal was George Takei, the actor who played Mr. Sulu on the original Star Trek TV series. The 69-year-old Takei revealed last October that he is gay and has been in a relationship with his partner Brad Altman for 18 years.
• Now, I have no problem with highlighting gay celebrities, as pointing them out is one part of the overall beneficial picture to society that gay people are helpful and effective members of society. However, I think that the position of Grand Marshal of one of the country's largest pride parades is not the best place to highlight celebrity; rather, it would be so much more appropriate to honor substance. Allow me to explain....
• When did George Takei come out? A mere 9 months ago when he was nearly 70 years old and (significantly) long after coming out would have any potential to damage his acting career (which is essentially over). Similarly, the 2004 Chicago Pride Parade Grand Marshal was former NFL football player Esera Tuaolo, who has been lauded for being in the difficult position of being a gay man in the NFL. But again, when did he come out? After his NFL career was over.
  
• Now, please understand I am not critical of either of these men nor the timing of when they decided to come out publicly. I know from personal experience (as do most gay people) the significance and difficulty of that decision to come out to family and friends, and I can only imagine that doing it as a celebrity in the public eye is exponentially harder.
  
• What I question, though, is whether or not the position of Grand Marshal of the Pride Parade (which carries with it a very definite sense of "honoring" the person) is the appropriate place to promote someone who essentially is just a famous face who happens to be gay. If we are going to give someone such a position of honor, shouldn't we do it for the Harvey Milks of our day, those who (perhaps even without celebrity) have put personal success, comfort, and safety on the line to advance the equality for which this parade supposedly was created to promote? Personally, I would love to see someone sitting in the back of that convertible next year for whom I can stand and applaud in honor rather than just cheer as a groupie.
  

3. Annoying Political Assumptions

• First, this comment is not an attack on Tom Tunney, the picture above notwithstanding. It's just the only picture I took on Sunday that had any sort of political connotation, so I needed a picture to stick on here.
• One thing I get irritated quickly with is political hyperbole. "Republicans want to starve school children." "Democrats would rather see humans die than animals." Statements like those are foolish and unhelpful for healthy political debate. And, I get irritated that, simply because I am gay, it is assumed that I agree with every part of a socially-liberal agenda.
  
• Because I am attracted to men and believe that I should have equal protection under the law, where is the logical connection to that and the idea that I would support abortion on demand or want to remove the troops from Iraq or think we should impeach President Bush? I'm not saying whether or not I do or don't support any of these things, by the way, I'm just asking, where is the flow of logic between these assumptions about me? And yet, people used "my" pride parade to promote all these agendas with a ferocity and jumps of illogic that frustrated me.
  
• What is the justification for using the Gay Pride Parade for promoting all these other political agendas? Isn't one of the major points of our movement the diversity of who we are? Isn't that why the rainbow flag was chosen as our symbol? So why is it assumed and accepted that this supposedly incredibly-diverse movement of gay people somehow has a completely homogenous political agenda in every area of social activism?
  

4. Fun T-Shirt Tradition

• OK, so I started this post off with my complaints, but lest I start to sound bitter and jaded, those things were essentially minor irritations, and overall I ended up having a much more fun time at the parade than I expected at the start. Food, alcohol, and friends combine to make even a rainy day seem sunny (and wow, did it actually get beautiful for a while later in the day!)
• During my first attended Pride Parade in 2004, I noticed how many fun, humorous shirts people were wearing to the parade. So, last year I decided to begin a personal tradition of purchasing a funny t-shirt to wear to the parade each year. The picture above is this year's selection, for which I actually had several straight girls ask me where they could find it (lol)!
  
• And, this is last year's shirt (click on photo for a slightly-larger view)....

5. Exhausted, but worth it

• Dinner on Friday, Roscoes, Talking to Ryan who was visiting from Boston, Hydrate, Dancing, Charlies, more dancing, crashing for a few hours tho interrupted by a middle-of-the-night drama phone call that threatened to derail the weekend (unsuccessful), waking up and wandering around the PrideFest street fair, losing my money and embarrassed when I try to buy a drink and don't have the cash, bailed out by my friend, Kim English performing, dinner at Hooters (didn't see that one coming, did you?), back home and then out to Hydrate again where I saw Brian, Chandra, and Ray, laughing because the busboy from Hooters was at Hydrate, meeting Jojo at Circuit, great music, crashing for a few more hours, up early to buy drinks and an umbrella before the parade, brunch at JP's apartment where I met his chihuahua named "Corona", heading back over to Broadway and watching the parade, drinking my first-ever can of beer (seriously, only had one or two sips of beer before in my life), lunch at Moses' apartment after the parade with Jojo, Arnel, Scott, Alvin, Neil, Rafael, Edwin, Thora, and others; wandering around Halsted, staring at the hot stripper guy who was with his friends at Hydrate, coffee with my friend at Intelligentsia then stumbling home for a nap and to rest sore legs, realizing that my brother's parade party at our apartment was still going strong, seeing our former roommate passed out on the futon so drunk that he pissed himself, resting for a bit longer, out to Crobar for one final night of dancing, feeling fat around all the buff shirtless guys at Crobar but not caring because I had a wonderful weekend and realized again how blessed I am to have the friends I have here in Chicago.
• And now, the recovery....... I'm too young to say I'm getting old, but would someone help me back to bed now?

Happy Pride Weekend and Wonderful Summer to All! Don't miss out on a single opportunity to cherish your friends and family this summer. Things will never be how they are now ever again in your life....don't ever regret that you didn't grab life for all it's worth (or that you didn't grab that cute guy staring at you across the bar)!

The Da Vinci Code

I finally went out to see the Da Vinci Code movie last week. I had planned to watch it on opening night, having loved reading the book a year or so ago, but I got stuck in one of the worst traffic jams ever on the way to the theater, and when I got there, the seat that my friends had attempted to save for me was taken. So I had the choice between sitting among strangers on the very front row of the theater and getting a crick in my neck that would last for weeks or just to skip the movie. I chose the latter and went home.

Dan Brown's novel is undoubtedly a completely fun, engrossing story. Like John Grisham's early books, it is a story that will have no earth-changing long-term effects, but it's good entertainment and just a fun read. But, due to its popularity, people tend to have unrealistic expectations of the movie adaptation.

Because almost any book-based movie will suffer from a problem that is almost unavoidable; that is, you can fit far more into a book than you can into a 2-hour movie. So, the movie creators simply must leave some things out or move quickly past events that are unfolded in much greater detail in the book. This should not be viewed as a criticism of the movie-makers; it is simply their dealing with reality.

The Da Vinci Code movie has been criticized by many for this very thing, but I think that Ron Howard and his team did an admirable job keeping the pace of the movie going and staying as true as possible to the storyline. The story itself does not have much in the way of action sequences; in fact, the intrigue of the story is almost entirely the "treasure hunt"-type mystery that the characters work through. So it make sense that much of the movie is dialogue more than action, and much time is spent explaining and setting the context of the mysteries.

In spite of all that, the movie is entertaining, well-crafted, and while not worthy of the big awards or anything, certainly worthy of better reviews than many have given it. My one complaint is that Tom Hanks, who is one of my favorite actors in Hollywood, seemed to be almost detached from his role. Rather than being the high point of the movie like he has been in so many others, he seemed somewhat lifeless and uninterested in what he was doing. Of course, after having done such amazing acting throughout his career, he's bound to have a letdown performance on one or two occasions, so it's forgivable.

And What is Your Favorite Season?

Was feeling creative tonight....

Contraband

So, even though Italy was kind enough to do their best to help out the US Soccer team by defeating the Czech Republic today 2-0 (necessary to ensure the US advance into the round of 16), the US went down in humiliating defeat in their final World Cup 2006 game, bested and eliminated from the tournament by 30th-seed Ghana 2-1 (albeit on a dubiously-called penalty kick). And, to add insult to injury, the stupid ESPN cameras zoomed in so we could only see Brian McBride's face rather than his whole body during the shirt exchange at the end of the game. So, all the way around it was a bad day for US soccer.

Watching the game did bring back some memories for me personally, though, as I had the opportunity to spend a week in Ghana during my first trip to Africa in 1996. In fact, my flight was on Ghana Airways non-stop from New York City to Accra, Ghana, making that the first African country I ever visited. It was obvious from television coverage today, though, that few people know much about Ghana, even though it is a beautiful country with wonderful people.


At the conclusion of my week in Ghana (which was spent primarily in region between Lake Volta and the country of Togo, we drove to the border of Ghana and Togo to spend a week in the village of Kpalime, Togo. At the border, we had the first of several border-crossing experiences I would go through in Africa--always an interesting process.

On that trip, which was "back in the day" before iPods, I had a fairly good-sized case with me in which I kept my CDs and Discman to listen to on our trips through the bush (wasn't quite ready to go all African at that point, obviously). Well, as the border guard was looking through my bags, he pulled out the CD case and asked me what was in it. Cheerfully, I answered "CD's."

Immediately, the guard's eyes got big, and he called over his commanding officer and several others who stood around me warily. They opened the case, and of course saw the CDs just as I had said. However, they still did not seem to know exactly what they were, and they seemed awfully tense. Perhaps they didn't like my musical selections? Trying to be helpful, I demonstrated to the officer by removing one of the CDs, putting it in my discman, and allowing him to listen. He was fascinated by the device, and let me go after searching the case thoroughly.

As we drove away, I mentioned to my host that they had been very tense when I told them I was taking CD's with me. Immediately the host laughed heartily and reminded me that the currency of Ghana is "Cedis" (pronounced just like I was saying). So, the border patrols thought I was smuggling currency out of the country, a significant crime! Next to telling my 55-year-old French professor that I was in love with her when I was attempting to say I enjoyed ice cream, that was certainly my most amusing language confusion experience.

Cars

Whenever a new Pixar movie comes out, I feel like I'm torn between two decisions. On the one hand, I am excited and eager to see what I know will be a great movie. But on the other hand, nothing makes this Baptist-raised boy believe in the Catholic concept of purgatory more than sitting in a cartoon movie with a million children on opening weekend. So, to avoid any unnecessary self-flagellation (the bad kind, of course), I waited until this past Sunday, a full week after opening weekend, to see the movie Cars.

Perhaps Pixar has finally put to rest the idea that eventually they will put out a bad movie, because Cars rises to the level of any other Pixar movie and goes beyond most of them. In my book, only Finding Nemo would be more highly recommended, and that simply because I can't imagine someone topping Ellen's performance as Dory in that movie. I think that, if Pixar ever does create a flop, people won't quite know how to react.

Cars is, as with most of Pixar's movies, a simple, tried-and-true, formulaic storyline that is given new life with breathtaking animation, memorable characters, and shamelessly-fun humor. When you are watching it, you have to constantly pay attention to signs and actions in the background, or you will miss one of the most punny movies to come along in a long time. I love how the writers and animators put so many little jokes on the screen at once that they know it will be impossible for the audience to catch them all in a single viewing (thus creating an instant DVD customer base, since we will all want to watch some of those scenes in slow-motion now).

The animation is, in a word, stunning. Every time Pixar comes out with a new movie, they raise the bar for everyone else. I sat there the entire movie just in awe of the fact that this was all done with computers (while I think it's nifty that I can add hyperlinks to my blog posts).

And, as with all Pixar movies, make sure you stick around for the credits. All the way through the credits and to the final little "tag" scene, you will be entertained. The credits on this movie are particularly impressive, as they brought back an impressive number of the original voices from previous Pixar movies for little cameo lines in a very clever way.

I highly recommend the movie, and I particularly recommend seeing it while it is in the theaters, so you can soak in the full force of the unbelievable artistry and animation. I will be happy to join anyone for a second viewing!