The Dooryard

Gay Jocks & Journalism panel in NYC

Tuesday (Feb. 28), 8pm, at the Gay & Lesbian Center in NYC, I'm gonna be a on a panel discussion about gays and sports in the media. We'll be talking about, among other things, Johnny Weir. Come on by if you can. Here's the info:

NLGJA panel on "Jocks & Journalism" 

Tuesday, Feb. 28 @ 8 p.m., Gay & Lesbian Center, Manhattan
TEAM PLAYERS: A GLBT Panel Discussion on Jocks and Journalism

How gay were the Olympics? Why is there still a "Don't Ask-Don't Tell" policy for athletes (and reporters) in the locker room? To what extent is it easier for female athletes to come out? How do gay writers handle the rough-and-tumble world of sports journalism? Who will win the Gay Games vs. Outgames battle? And when is that gay baseball player finally going to come out?

Brokeback passes $75M

Congratulations to the strategic team behind Brokeback Mountain. This past weekend, the movie passed $75M domestic in box office gross. This is a big milestone for the movie, and one I didn't think it would pass.

Crash is Best Picture of the Year

Dan had been talking about Crash for months, telling me how amazing it was. I had high hopes going into it, as we sat down last night to watch it. I was blown away.

The emotions that the movie elicits are deep, and they run the complete range. I chuckled, I cried, I was nervous, I was appalled. What's more, I truly cared about each and every one of the characters in the movie. I wanted to know what happened to them. I wanted some to die, and I wanted some to succeed. While I didn't get nearly everything I wanted, I was completely satisfied after the movie. Satisfied and affected. For me, that's the ultimate combination.

There are individual scenes in the movie that just sneak up on you and smack you in the face. The scene when Matt Dillon tries to save a woman from a burning car; the scene when a Persian man shoots an innocent person. The emotional reaction in these scenes was instant and powerful. They reminded me of what I felt in Million Dollar Baby.

I've seen a bunch of the contenders this year. The rest of them are distant seconds to Crash. It's just a shame that not many people have seen it. It's truly a special film.

FINAL ANALYSIS: If enough people see this movie, it will win the Oscar for Best Picture. 10 out of 10

An hour with Martha

Dan and I spent yesterday morning with Martha Stewart - and 200 of her "closest friends." We went to the taping of her addictive morning show, Martha, and it was oohs and aahs from the start. We had to get up before 8am to make it to 26th & Seventh where her studio is. But, it was worth it.

A few things struck me during the whole process:

• People are suckers for free stuff. Their warm-up guy handed out free items - doggie toys, spatulas, books, Barry Manilow CDs, fire extinguishers - to the audience all through the taping. I thought someone was going to get hurt. As soon as he said, "I'm giving away prizes," the people in the audience went berserk; I think they could have been bought and sold for a ladel.
• Some Martha fans are like me - they admire her and like the lifestyle she portrays. Others are crazy. There was one woman who proudly announced that she had two yorkshire terriers - one called "Martha" and the other called "Stewart." Insert vommiting sounds here.
• I don't know if Martha is uncomfortable in front of the cameras or if she just doesn't give a shit. She stumbles and throws in so many "umms" and "uhhs," it feels a little awkward. But, she kids and jokes with the best of them.
• I'm not sure if I want to hang around Martha or if I want to be Martha. She is so meticulous in everything she does, and she portrays a lifestyle - living in the country but jetting around to dinners with Paul Allen and vacationing on gorgeous tropical islands.

I got to ask her a question after the taping: "Is Dave ever coming on the show?"

She chuckled. "Oh, no." She has had a running bit that she is trying to convince her friend David Letterman to come on her show. He just doesn't do talk shows. Ever. "He says he just has nothing to talk about," she told us.

The Stanford Review's fight for freedom

The Stanford Review is the University's conservative voice on campus. It's funny that many people I talk to think Stanford is a conservative place because they think only rich white kids go there. On the contrary, it is a bastion of liberalism. In 1992, George Bush came in third in presidential voting on campus: Clinton 75%, Perot 14%, Bush 11%. Despite the presence of the Hoover Institution, one of the most-respected conservative think tanks in the country, and Condoleeza Rice's stint there as provost, it is just to the left (literally and figuratively) of Berkeley.

When I was there, I encountered an alarming amount of liberals trying to quiet conservative voices. From closing fraternities (and boy did they hate that I STARTED on - Theta Delta Chi - which lives on today) to supressing conservative thought in the classroom, Stanford was a factory of liberal thinkers.

So it comes as no surprise to me that The Stanford Review has come under fire from the university for daring to distribute their newspaper door-to-door. When I was there, I got countless door-to-door solicitations for t-shirts, candy, credit cards - you name it. But a conservative newspaper? Now these students have gone too far! In fact, a resident fellow while I was there took the copies of The Stanford Review in his dorm and threw them in the trash so none of his residents could read it.

It's partly because of those four years at Stanford that I have since thougth liberals were far more interested in the suppression of expression than conservatives. Political thought, to me, should never be suppressed by should be encouraged, whether you agree with it or not. Private institution or not, the First Amendment is the most important document we have because it is what sets us apart from the rest of the world.

Luckily, the Review is fighting back and has the support, quite surprisingly, of the student union and other student publications. If you're affiliated with Stanford and want to help build open thought at Stanford, please sign this online petition.

Perpetuating the terrorist monicker

If ever there was an example of 1) why all religions should be disbanded and 2) why so many people view Muslims and terrorists as the same thing, it's this latest controversy surrounding a dozen cartoons that has sent so many in the Muslim world to commit violent terrorist acts. The skinny: A Danish paper published some cartoons of the prophet Muhammad; Muslims protested, papers in 20 countries reprinted the cartoons because the protestors made them a news item; now Muslims have resorted to rioting and murder to protest the printing of the cartoons.

Here's the sick thing. I was going to put one of the cartoons here, to show my readers what the cartoons looked like. But, for fear that some crazy person would see it, find my address and kill me, I have opted to just link to them. And that's why I call these protestors terrorists: they try to terrorize people into conforming with their sick views of freedom. Now, Iran says it's going to hold a competition for people to create cartoons of the Holocaust - to see how the Israelis like it (they blame the Israelis for this whole thing).

I can't help but hear these terrible stories of murder in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and others and think that maybe we should just nuke the whole Middle East and start over there. Calm down, I'm not remotely serious. But, that does reflect my own personal level of frustration with the Muslim world. All of this violence over the printing of a cartoon. I'm glad our military is there in Iraq. I'm glad we did what we did there. The regimes that support this nonsense cannot stand.

The heat in New York City

I just turned on the air conditioning in my office. It's not that it's so hot out (the temp outside is hovering around 40). It's because the heating systems in most buildings in New York are so ghetto. In New York, the heat is either on or off; and you have no control over it whatsoever. I went to a party on Saturday and all of the windows were open (it was a balmy 38 degrees outside) because the heating pipes were so blazing hot. Somebody's got to figure out a way to reconfigure the heating systems in these buildings.

The McCain-Obama Incident

Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have begun a flame war over their own inability to figure out how to work together. The quick backstory: McCain invited Obama to a meeting last week to discuss lobbying reform, Obama made some kind of gesture to work with McCain then backed out, and McCain is hot under the collar about it.

What sucks is that these two Senators couldn't just call each other and discuss their differences. Instead, they've decided to send letters back and forth so they can put them on their Web sites and point the finger at the other guy.

It's clear that both of these men have political agendas that trump the reform they want to see put forth; which makes them much like most every other Senator. Maybe they'll each learn a little lesson from this and opt to pick up the phone and chat next time instead of dragging each other into a public mud-wrestling match.

Jacob Robida, the terrible young man who attacked the gay bar in New Bedford, died this morning from gunshot wounds to his head. It's hard to get too sad about this man dying. Not only did he attack people because they are gay, but his actions resulted in the deaths of two people in Arkansas. Still, I wish he was still alive so we could understand what the hell he was thinking. Then we could put him to death. I can't help but feel cheated that he died with this information in his head. Towleroad linked to the kid's blog.

New Bedford: So close to home

I think it boggles the minds of some that what happened this week in a gay bar in New Bedford, Mass., could still happen. In case you don't know, a teenager went into a gay bar in the old fishing town and attacked several gay people with a hachet and gun. He has been caught in Arkansas, but not before a cop and another woman were killed when police tried to apprehend him.

New Bedford is about an hour from where I grew up on Cape Cod, about an hour from Boston, and about four hours from Chelsea, where I live now. I feel like it's a failure of mine that this kid had such hate for gay people that he would want to kill them. But, it's out there and people are dying all the time in this country and other places simply because they're gay. It makes me want to try harder in my life to reach out to those people who have that hate in their heart.

The kid should fry. He tried to kill several people and succeeded in killing a police officer. He should be put to death. Society has no place for people like him who will take their own hate and end the lives of others. But, I also hope we all look at what we do to create an environment where an 18-year-old would get the idea to do this; and I hope we all try to do a little more to reach out to these people who don't understand them and show them that we're human, just like them, trying to make it in this world.

It was encouraging to see the mayor of New Bedford issue such a strong a statement that made it clear that these actions will not be tolerated under any circumstances.