Category: documentaries

We’ve Got Tonight

Who needs tomorrow? Well, it’s Christmas tomorrow, Mr. Seger, so I’d say we could all use a little Christmas this year, couldn’t we?

So it’s Christmas Eve in the Lost Apartment, and Sparky and I are the only things stirring. Paul is sound asleep, and I am going to let him sleep as long as he wants. I am going to order our pizza around twelve, I think, and I am going to go to the gym in a little bit first, methinks. I am going to take today and tomorrow off from anything other than light chores (unless I get a wild hair) and just read and relax and watch things on television and cuddle with Sparky. I can’t think of a better way to spend this holiday, can you? Sparky seems to have that same secret superpower of inducing sleep in us by simply cuddling up and going to sleep on or near either of us that Scooter had. I took two short naps this past weekend, and I blame that entirely on having Sparky sleeping on me–I never take naps! When I got home from work, he’d been cuddling with Paul off and on all day, and he spent the evening going back and forth between us. We finished The Day of the Jackal yesterday night, which was really fun

I was correct about yesterday being an easy day at the office. We were on a skeleton crew, most of the managers and supervisors were out, and thus I was able to focus and get a lot of my work done. It was marvelous. I was able to leave early, and when I got home I even figured out what short story to write for this queer anthology I’ve been invited to participate in, and I’m working on this other one for another anthology I’ve agreed to write for. I am going to take some characters from another project and write a short story about them…I think it’ll work, and then I can just plug the short story into the longer manuscript, which seems rather genius to me. I mean, why not make your work work for you? I’m a firm believer in that–even if I always worry about recycling plots. This morning I am going to clean the kitchen, drink my coffee, and read for a bit. I am intending to have a very relaxing two days off. Maybe I’ll do some work, maybe I won’t. I did finish my Substack essay on the blatant and horrific racism in the original edition of The Hardy Boys adventure The Mark on the Door, too.

The public theater of the Luigi Mangione trial–which is going to be reported on breathlessly by a media completely out of touch with their audience and will probably last throughout 2025, serving as a distraction for the people who cannot with the news from Washington anymore; Romans had their circuses to entertain the populace and keep them from rising; we have our modern media. What’s even odder to me is the disconnect between Luigi’s followers and the vastly smaller amount of law-and-order proponents (mostly in the media, for the record) castigating and moralizing about “condoning murder.” I have never been a fan of scolds or people who primly climb into their saddle atop their moral high horse and lecture everyone else about their moral failings. For the record, I do not respond to being lectured or scolded or condescended to very well–especially by people I do not know on the Internet. I don’t owe you space, I don’t owe you a platform, and you do not know me well enough to talk to me like you’re my mother. She’s dead, for one thing, and I didn’t even let her talk to me like that. You think you matter more to me than my mother? Arrogant much? Maybe have all the seats before coming at me as a fucking straight white woman of a certain age? I blocked two people on Facebook yesterday–one a priggish morally superior straight white woman who came onto my page determined to make the stupid faggot aware of her moral superiority; the other a gay man I’ve never met who did the same. I do my usual test of moral superiority with other strangers that I always do: hmm, what do I think you were doing during the HIV/AIDS crisis when gay men were dying by the thousands? And is you’re so law-and-order, that means you were probably being horrible about ACT UP and all the other in-your-face activism that needed to be done back then, some of which broke laws, which means you folded your arms and scolded rather than actually doing anything while people are dying.

Kind of like you are defending health insurance companies. You cannot be morally superior if you are defending the death panels. To me, that means you’d be a German who turned away during the holocaust and pretended it wasn’t happening, even though you lived in a village near a death camp and could smell it.

Also, slavery was legal in this country until 1865. So you would have supported that? Jim Crow was also the law, Ms. Black-and-White-Binary, and so were the eradication of the natives of this land and the Japanese internment camps in the 1940s and I could go on and on and on. Your lack of nuance is very telling.

And for the record, I never said I condoned or condemned the murder; all I’ve ever said is that I understood the mentality behind it because I have been there myself. I don’t share my own horror stories about health insurance–because all these people do is fold their arms and wrinkle their brows (think Susan Collins) and scold anyway. It’s also amazing to me that people will barge into one of your posts when they do not know you, do not know your situation, do not know your history, to smugly inform you how morally superior they are to you. With that fucking profile picture, bitch? Right before Christmas? Literally, go fuck yourself with barbed wire, skanky bitch, and take the morally superior gay man with you. It’s very easy to judge people (I’m doing it right now) without knowing the full story, but I also shouldn’t have to explain why I feel the way I do in order for other people to consider my opinions valid–that’s dehumanizing, and if you came running up to me at a conference or in a public space and started screaming at me (which is basically what you are doing, dear Ms. Morality), I wouldn’t stand for it, and I will not stand for it on-fucking-line. 1

For me, this case fascinates me, and what is even more fascinating is how this is being reported. There’s definitely been a slant to the coverage of the case, and there has been since it first happened. It was very shocking–a CEO being mowed down like a dog in the street on his way to an investors’ meeting–and very daring, very well-planned. It was, very much, intended as a political assassination; a protest against our incredibly broken health insurance industry. The fact that it was the CEO of United Healthcare immediately raised my eyebrows; they aren’t my insurer, but I work in a clinic for the under or uninsured and believe me, I have never heard a single person with United Healthcare who actually liked their insurance carrier. It’s always horror stories, and believe me, I’ve witnessed some myself. United Healthcare is garbage, it’s expensive, it has high deductibles, and they refuse coverage over 30% of the time.2 Their clients have no recourse, either; none of us do when our health insurance companies deny coverage (a favorite of mine is the bait-and-switch; “we’ll cover all of this, no worries” only to find out later that “oh, no, you owe for this and this and this and this.” (That was my experience with my shoulder surgery last year.) I had a surgery that was, over all, about 95% completely covered by my insurance–but that 5% almost bankrupted me. So, miss me with your “sanctity of life” bullshit. Brian Thompson had no concerns about the sanctity of life of his clients, to the tune of billions of dollars of profit last year. I didn’t cry or feel bad when Reagan or Kissinger or Limbaugh died; I won’t feel bad when Anita Bryant or Maggie Gallagher or Donald Wildmon dies. The media also tried to paint Thompson as a “family man”–not that he was estranged from his wife and kids–and couldn’t find any on-line pictures of the family, which is kind of telling. Who doesn’t have at least one family picture on-line?

No one deserves to be murdered in cold blood, but our system is so corrupted and rotten to the core that most people feel helpless in the face of it–that’s the real story no one is reporting in this case, which is also very telling about the news media, how they report stories, and the narratives they try to shape–and feel like they need to step up for the good of everyone. (They were the ones who convicted the Menendez Brothers, after all.) Rather than think pieces and editorials about how “horrible it is that people are cheering for a murderer”–why isn’t anyone exploring or reporting or even considering why people are cheering for a murderer? Everyone was rooting for him before anyone knew what he looked like, and the fact that he turned out to be attractive? Made it a much harder sell for the media, so of course they ran with that–people only support him because he’s attractive, which again, is one-dimensional and offensive to the core. Ever since I walked away from legacy media last July, it’s so much easier to see the narratives and the spins they go for–both sides, really. MSNBC’s breathless reporting, along with their butt-buddy CNN, on the narrative from Fix and OANN and Trump that Biden was senile and dying ensured a Trump election, and I said it at the time and that’s why I walked away from it. The great irony that I agree with the right that it’s all “fake news” has not escaped me. They were right, but only half-right; they think Fox is honest, and they aren’t. The copaganda perp walk? How much money and how many resources did the NYPD waste on their “manhunt,” which accomplished nothing because he was caught by a tip called in? So, that was absolutely copaganda: see how seriously we are taking this, oligarchs? Keep approving our massive budgets which are a waste of money and time. Um, you didn’t fucking catch him, and it’s interesting that the NYPD will mobilize for a rich man’s murder and divert everything to catching the killer, while crimes go unsolved and uncared about on the daily in New York City.

We should be talking about about the health care insurance scandal in this country, and talking about how to fill loopholes and make insurers pay claims, rather than “you only support him because he’s hot.” I’m fucking sixty-three years old. Just because someone is hot doesn’t mean I either like them, support them, or want to fuck them (Zachary Levi? Mark Wahlberg? Nick Bosa?). So stop fucking condescending to me.

And don’t come on my social media scolding me. It won’t end well for you.

And on that note, I am going to get into the holiday spirit by going to my easy chair with Sparky and watching Auntie Mame, my favorite Christmas movie.

  1. The difference between me and so many people is I am exactly who I am on line. It’s not a persona. I don’t reveal everything because I only choose to share certain aspects of my life and who I am, and I don’t have to, either. I am not braver on line than I am in person; if anything, I tolerate more bullshit on line than I ever would in person. ↩︎
  2. How awful for me to empathize with all the people going bankrupt paying for health insurance coverage that doesn’t cover anything! How fucking dare me! That man’s life was sacred. ↩︎

I Care

How is it only Wednesday? It feels like it should be at least Friday by now, doesn’t it?This has been the longest week, seriously. It’s cold again this morning–in the forties–and the rain has stopped. The bipolarity of winter in New Orleans is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, no matter how long I live here. I don’t feel tired this morning, but the cold does make me want to get back in bed again and burrow beneath the covers. I was all kinds of warm and comfortable under my blankets this morning when the alarm went off, and by the second beep Sparky was up, trying to get my attention to get up and feed him. I don’t feel worn out, but I don’t think I’ll make it through the afternoon without my energy flagging. Ah, well.

I even left work early yesterday for my podiatrist appointment, and the good news is the toe has healed perfectly and he was most pleased with not only how quickly it healed but how properly as well. His absolute delight when he looked at was very clear. (Apparently, I am some kind of medical marvel of healing; Paul heals pretty fast, too–how many people are discharged the same day they get a hip replaced?) But that’s a good thing, and there was some callus where he’d cut the nail and the scab had been, so he got rid of that with an exacto knife (it didn’t hurt at all) and then I was done and walking out to head home. I wasn’t even super-tired when I got home, but I worked for a while and that wore me out enough to finally put it all aside and relax for the rest of the evening. I hate that I am not catching up as quickly as I would like to, but that’s life, you know?

I also keep forgetting the Super Bowl is here in February, which will make getting around the city so much easier. Yay. And of course, there’s a massive facelift (or at least temporary patchwork) being done to New Orleans to get ready for it, so you never know what detours lie in your future.

I also watched Matt Baume’s documentary about Lance Loud, the gay son of the first reality TV show, An American Family, from the early 1970s on PBS. we didn’t watch it, but everyone was talking about it, and I remember hearing about the gay oldest son, and how the marriage ended in a divorce. I think my parents thought being filmed for a television show was exploitative and kind of gross? My mother certainly wasn’t one to get into reality shows–she even stopped watching soaps about twenty years ago. I was never really sure why, but Dad has told me over and over again about how deeply conservative she was (trust me, I knew but it still came as a surprise–I always thought it was Dad and she was just trying to make him happy. Ah, the things we are led to believe as children but never really give much thought to…Dad became more conservative because she was so conservative), so I have to assume the soap thing (I used to watch them with her when I was still in school) might have had something to do with that? I know my sister stopped watching them because they encouraged you to root for adulterers. My grandmother also used to watch them when I was a kid (I actually think she was the one who got me and my sister started on Dark Shadows), but also stopped. Anyway, it was an interesting documentary, and I learned a lot more about Lance Loud than I’d ever really known before, other than he was the gay son on that show.

The tale of Robin Hoody keeps getting more and more interesting the more information that comes out about him, and I keep being more and more amused at the way the country has almost completely united (see what I did there?) behind him. That really should tell everyone about the mood of the country, shouldn’t it? I keep being amused at how the story is being reported, and how much resources the NYPD expended on searching for this person while no one is even talking about the immigrant stabbed to death by racists on the same day in the same city, and certainly the NYPD isn’t making that a top priority. I’d love to see the price tag for justice for a health insurance executive, and why the NYPD and the media made this into such an insane priority. Yes, by all means, do tell me about how everyone is equal in the eyes of the law! And of course, the more information that comes out about both shooter and victim, the more noble the shooter sounds and the more awful the victim was. The media was certainly unprepared for the way people reacted, and the fact that the media so completely misread the mood of the country makes you wonder, again, just how shitty they are at their jobs; and the right-wing grifters attempt to frame this as a right-left issue blew up their faces…as some angry Americans slowly began to realize the media they consume manipulates them to make money, and people saw it as more of a class war kind of thing that apparently everyone has just been waiting for to happen.

And that’s what has the elites and their puppet media terrified. They cannot allow the country’s division to heal and anyone who is not an elite must be persuaded to fight a culture war when the real problem is and has always been the class war the billionaires have been waging against everyone else since Ronald Reagan was sworn into office in 1981. I also think a lot of the angry people are recognizing that they voted in the rule of an oligarchy and are not very happy about that, either. For the record, I don’t have any sympathy for those who voted for this and now have regrets. Too little, too late, too bad, so sad. You voted to make people suffer, and sadly, you’re also one of those. I can’t even begin to tell you how horrible those people were before the election, and how they absolutely refused to listen to anything anyone had to say.

And the newspaper coverage and most editorial commentary has shown how deeply out of touch they actually are from everyday citizens, and how they prop up the elites at every possible turn. Imagine if the media hadn’t gotten sucked into the cult of Trump in the 1980s and started turning him into a celebrity for no good reason. Seeing them trying to lead ‘the resistance’ after doing everything they could to reelect him (so much for that “liberal media bias,” right, Richard Nixon?) is not only craven, but disgusting and people are starting to see very clearly what our “news media” actually has become: completely incompetent and not good at their jobs. The news shouldn’t be a for-profit business, just like health care should not be.

And on that note, I am bundling up and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and here’s hoping the rest of this week flies by.

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Strange Things Happen

Remember that stomach thing I had going on yesterday morning? And it had resulted in my not sleeping well? Yeah, well, I was very miserable and tired all day at work, and my stomach just felt worse and worse and worse. I finally left work early, came home, and just chilled out. I also took today off as a cautionary measure. So far so good, and here’s hoping I am rested and can do something with this extra free day that so unexpectedly dropped into my week. I think it means some time with Lavender House, and I do need to clean this messy kitchen up, beginning with the laundry room. Maybe I can put on some Orville Peck while cleaning. I’m really enjoying his music.

Last night I watched the first half of the Ken Burns documentary Leonardo da Vinci, and I quite enjoyed the fact they didn’t try to shy away from his sexuality or try to straight-wash him, like Da Vinci’s Demons did (still enjoyed the hell out of the show, anyway) and so many other shows and movies have, but actually talked about his male relationships quite openly. That was rather refreshing. I’ve always been interested in the Renaissance, and with Leonardo and the great Michelangelo as well. I was thinking about this while watching last night, ferreting out of my brain’s fading memory banks where my interest in Italy came from, and I was able to peg it properly: when I was ten I spent five weeks in the South, including about three at my paternal grandmother’s on a bay in the panhandle. Her second husband loved nothing more than a good flea market, so we often went to them, and I got to buy books for pretty cheap. I remember one time I got two books: one, a lovely but crumbling old edition of a biography of Francois I, King of France; and the other a book called Italy in the Golden Centuries. I think maybe I also got a turn of the twentieth century translation of a history of France; it may have been on that same flea market visit or another, but it was the same summer. I was in my Tudor/Stuart phase at that time, but that July I started learning about France and Italy…both of which were way more interesting than English history. There was a hammock strung between two massive live oak trees in her backyard, dripping with Spanish moss, and I would lay there in the shade with the cool salty breeze from the bay and the steady lapping of water, and just read. It was wonderful. I could have spent the rest of my life in that hammock, reading. The connection between Italy and the French kings, the great artists…since we went to Florence I’ve had this idea for a book I want to write about a lost piece of Michelangelo’s art, going back and forth through the movements of the piece through time and the present day thriller of trying to find it in the present day while others (BAD GUYS) are trying to beat them to it. (I love that kind of shit.) I may even take a stab at this sooner rather than later. I mean, it sounds fun–but my word, the research! And of course I would need to return to Italy for research purposes, wouldn’t I?

I also have been doing the weirdest research for a future book project you can imagine: I’m watching Youtube compilations of television ads from the late 1960’s through the early 1980’s, and it is fascinating how many of them I remember–and can sing the jingle along with. I may have hated the ads–still do–so I guess they were effective? I don’t know if they ever shaped my buying choices and decisions (price is always the most important factor, and store brands are no different from name brands; Costco’s brand is better than most competitors), but I sure do remember them. That’s kind of the grounding in the period that I need to write about it, to trigger memories of what I watched and what was going on and what kinds of bikes did kids ride and music did they listen to and games did they play. Going down this memory hole has been interesting, because I am also having to revisit those periods of my life from the perspective of a much older and very much more tired gay man who really hasn’t developed a whole lot of wisdom about either myself or life in general, but I can see things I couldn’t then. Perspective? A little amusement about how things that didn’t “exist” then that we know about now and I could have been medicated for all those years? Yeah, I can’t be bitter or mourn something that never could have been. And despite how much I grouse and bitch and moan and complain like the old man I am now, I am very pleased with my life and where I am with it. My mom always said (some of her stuff was wise, some of it was kind of horrible, but it was always absolutely real) you can’t have regrets if you’re happy, and I think that is very true. And examining my own history is kind of not painful anymore in that context, if that makes sense? I always never wanted to look back because it seemed like I always got angry when I did–but I wasn’t really being angry; because I am not angry about it anymore. I do remember the anger, the pain, and all the emotional rollercoaster ride that came with it. When I tell the stories, whether face to face or write them on here, I do channel that emotion again into the telling to make it clear just how horrible it all was and how horrific it felt. I guess I can write passionately, and I do not think that’s a bad thing at all.

I am having fun writing the essays, too. I am having fun writing again. That is very pleasing in my eyes. And I am hoping all this free time (five days off in a row) will get my butt in this chair and writing. Sparky hasn’t quite figured out Paul hasn’t come home yet, so he’s not super needy yet–but I am pretty sure that moment is nigh. I slept so good last night, y’all, and it’s nice to wake up feeling so good this morning. This kitchen/office is an utter and complete disaster area, and I definitely must do something about it sooner rather than later. I think I’m going to finish this, start straightening up, and then repairing to my chair to spend some time with Lavender House (it really is quite superb), and I think I’ll finish watching the Leonardo documentary today, too. Heavy sigh. I may even try to write later on too. #madness

And maybe I’ll even finish assembling my desk chair. It’s been about a month since I bought it and started putting it together only to get frustrated and walk away from it before I took a sledgehammer to it. I may even put that on the top of my to-do list.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving Eve, and I may be back later. One never can be sure, and I have a lot of free time to myself over the next five days–except, of course, for my darling Sparky.

Love is Like a Butterfly

Tuesday morning and I feel good again. I was very tired when I got home from work yesterday (my supervisor being in Europe is just as stressful as I suspected it would be), and just kind of chilled out last night. I did start outlining what I’ve already written on the Scotty, and I did start looking at stories for this anthology I am going to try to submit something for–I think I can finally change and edit a certain story that’s been in my files for decades. We started watching the new Menendez Brothers documentary on Netflix last night, and will probably finish it tonight. And despite the stress of yesterday morning, I did manage to get all my work done at the office, so I am pretty caught up.

I am going to Alabama this weekend; I heard from Dad and so I am going to drive up there after work on Friday, and come back home on Sunday; a short visit with Dad and then back home. I am going to go up to Kentucky later this month; I need to reschedule some things, but that’s all do-able.

I just looked at the Hurricane Milton updates and am very worried about all my friends who live in Florida. I lived in Tampa for five years in the nineties, when I worked for Continental Airlines; yes, the Tampa airport is the airport where I worked, with the white shirt with epaulets and the navy blue pants and the name tag. (The opening scene of The Orion Mask is set at Tampa Airport; my main character was an airline employee.) We never had anything really major happen there of a tropical nature when I lived there, so it was never anything I worried about before moving to New Orleans. I think about the barrier islands in Tampa Bay, and how narrow the peninsula that St. Petersburg sits on actually is; it’s not impossible that this monster storm could wipe a lot of that area clean. I remain hopeful that somehow this won’t be the coming disaster it appears to be; I can’t even imagine how bad the best case scenario could be. There was significant wind damage to New Orleans with Katrina, which people tend to forget about because of the catastrophic flood that ensued when the levees failed. Roofs will come off, trees will be uprooted and flung about with great force; if it’s as strong as they are saying it could be when it comes ashore, the wind could move cars. I hope everyone gets out that is able. It turns my stomach to think about what could happen there. I hope none of it comes to pass–but I am also realistic. I hope everyone I care about who lives in Florida was able to get out and is okay, and worst case scenarios do not come to pass.

I think I’m going to take Gabino with me to Alabama, and I was looking for a horror novel to listen to in the car, and I am leaning towards listening to Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song or The Pallbearer’s Club. I do love his writing, though, so it’s fun to read Tremblay; but I do love his work and he’s probably one of my favorite horror writers of this current epoch of horror fiction. I’ll have to pick out some more later for the trip up to Kentucky.1 It seems a bit surreal to be thinking about trips and such things–the minutiae of life–while destruction looms for Florida, doesn’t it? (And what does this mean for the Florida football team? They are on the road at Tennessee this weekend, but supposed to be playing at home the following weekend; I suspect that game will be moved to Lexington.) It’ll be hot without power, but at least October is cooler than August or September. Small favors, indeed.

And on that sad note, I am heading into the spice mines. Keep everyone in the path of the storm in your thoughts, and send some positivity their way–and hope they won’t need it.

  1. It also just occurred to me that I am being counter-intuitive with the trip up there; there’s certainly no reason for me to go from weekend to weekend; I can also go during the week and come back the following week. I hate being so obtuse as to think that ‘trip for a week’ means Sunday to Sunday. ↩︎

Brothers in Arms

Ah, the Menendez Brothers.

I hadn’t thought about them in years until Ryan Murphy announced they would be the focus of the second season of Monsters (although it could also have been a season of American Crime Story, for that matter; how does he decide? How did he decide Grotesquerie would stand alone when it could have been a season of American Horror Story? For that matter, why is the Aaron Hernandez one American Sports Story instead of American Crime Story?). It’s been over thirty years since the original murders, and this case was the first one I remember that was, thanks to cable television, part of the public discourse; the trial was televised and people watched; everyone had an opinion; and the tabloid coverage was crazy. I don’t remember another crime story have this kind of impact before, but it set the stage for OJ’s trial, the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder, and so many since then it’s hard to really keep track of them all. But I do believe the brothers were the first to be so much in the public eye once they were arrested; a “viral” crime before anyone knew what that even meant.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch this latest take on the Menendez brothers and the murder of their parents, to be honest. I’ve watched at least one documentary on the case years ago, and I watched the made-for-TV movie with Billy Warlock of Days of Our Lives and Baywatch fame (I remember especially the scene when his wig was torn off his head), and of course I read Dominick Dunne’s coverage in Vanity Fair. As I mentioned, it was one of the first murder cases to get national attention, to be was all over the 24 hour news channels, not to mention Court TV and all the others. The national tabloids, magazines, and even local newspapers and stations scrambled for coverage1 . I remember the first trial ended in a hung jury, and I kind of lost interest after that–as did the media. The only reason I knew there was a second trial that ended in convictions was thanks to Dominick Dunne. The case would get back into the news periodically in the years since, but I didn’t really pay much attention. Books and documentaries and fictional adaptations continued to be churned out in the decades since their conviction, and like I said, I wasn’t really planning on watching this new series2. I thought they were psychotic killers who murdered their parents for their money.

And yet, one Saturday night after we’d finished watching all the football games, Paul suggested we start watching Monsters, and I thought, why not? If it’s not good, we can always stop watching.

I didn’t think the first episode was very good3, but we decided to give the show one more episode on Sunday, and then we were hooked. It’s a very Ryan Murphy show, to be sure: it’s visually beautiful, and the acting is excellent. The two young men who play the brothers, Cooper Koch (Eric) and Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Lyle), late of General Hospital, are gorgeous to look at, are often shown in some form of undress (including a full frontal shot of Koch), and they deliver some astonishing performance (so does the entire cast). There’s one scene that Koch does that is almost the entire episode, him doing a monologue about his life, his parents, his brother, and his failures, his weakness, that is an Emmy reel in and of itself. Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny are also fantastic, as is Nathan Lane as Dominick Dunne; Leslie Grossman and Ari Graynor also shine in supporting roles. One thing you always have to give Murphy credit for–incredible actors giving incredible performances is something you can usually expect from one of his shows. (Jessica Lange’s four seasons on American Horror Story is a masterclass in acting talent and range.)

While I know the family has had some objections to the series–not the least of which is the implication that the brothers had that incestuous closeness; but some of the scenes that showed that were from other people’s perspectives; for example, the scene in which they are in the shower together–a cousin has stated that the dad did make the boys shower together–and Lyle did testify under oath that when they were kids, his dad encourage him to also molest Erik. (I think seeing a report on that is what made me think there were hints of incest in their relationship; I honestly don’t remember as it was thirty years ago and I didn’t pay that much attention. I did think, when I first read about the murders, that they were guilty (they did shoot their parents) and when they switched the sexual abuse defense, I 1000% thought they were making that up (no one could say it didn’t happen) as a “get out of jail” free card.

And watching this show? For the very first time, I thought they might have been telling the truth. I knew boys were capable of being raped and molested and abused as children, even as teenagers; the priest scandals were just slowly beginning to come out into the light. but the amount of Americans–men especially–refused to accept the fact that boys could also be victims was astonishingly high. For one thing, most victims were too ashamed to do anything about it (another toxic masculinity issue), and because other men wouldn’t believe them, or think “they wanted it” (you know, the same things they say about women rape victims). The shame of “being unmanned” was still a thing in the 1990’s–the toxically masculine also have issues with gay men because it besmirches manhood or something fucking stupid like that, or “womanizes” men. And it was very difficult for anyone to believe a father could do that to his sons.

And bearing that in mind, I completely understand why the Menendez brothers wouldn’t have told anyone, nor would they have told the cops or their original lawyer. It makes sense. And they only admitted to it when it looked like they were definitely headed for the chair.

It. Makes. Sense.

And I would have probably voted to acquit.

The show also highly sexualizes its young stars in a way that we are seeing more of these days (certainly in Ryan Murphy series; I have to say I do approve of the objectification of men–and I also like that the gay male beauty standard, so often maligned within our own community, has clearly spread to straight men of all ages. I’m amazed, for example, how many young men have realized the importance of leg day and building up a lovely round hard butt. The two young actors playing the leads, Cooper Koch (Erik) and Nicholas Alexander Chavez, are incredibly gorgeous; Koch even does a full frontal scene sans prosthetic. They also had good chemistry between them, which…I can certainly understand why the family was furious about the hints of incest in the series–but that was what the person whose perspective was being shown thought. Lyle also testified to abusing Erik when they were younger–and like I said, they seemed almost unnaturally close.

And when it was all over, Paul asked, “do you think they were abused?”

GREG: I didn’t at the time, but now I’m not so sure. And they’re the only ones who know for sure, so we’ll never know.

I think the show had changed a lot of minds about the brothers–and now that a member of Menudo had come forth to claim he was also sexually abused by Jose Menendez, they may even finally get out of jail…but would they have been so “viral” at the time if they weren’t good looking young men?

Sexualization, Party of Two?
I could be wrong, but I don’t think men’s bikinis were cut or worn like this in 1990.
See what I mean about sexualizing them? There’s an entire scene of him doing squats with dumb bells FROM BEHIND.
This is another example of the “incest inference” scenes. It doesn’t look like anything off until you think, would two young men talking in a pool float this close together?
  1. When we got to the episode on the Ryan Murphy series where OJ went on the run in the Bronco. Paul turned to me and said, “The 90’s were a time, weren’t they?” to which I replied, “Jon-Benet Ramsey, Versace, OJ, the Menendez brothers–yeah, it was one major crime mystery after another.” ↩︎
  2. I have a love/hate relationship with Ryan Murphy productions. When he hits the ball cleanly, he knocks it out of the park. But most of the time his shows collapse under their own weight and endings rarely resolved everything. But his better shows are usually based on a true story… because the story’s already written. ↩︎
  3. It was very over the top and campy; it wasn’t until later that I realized that each episode is the story from someone else’s perspective (aka Rashomon), which is something I absolutely love, so I should rewatch that episode to get a better sense of it. ↩︎

Room Full of Roses

Monday morning has rolled around again somehow, and it’s another week of work for me (and everyone else). I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning–and I’d really like to go back to bed–but I feel okay as far as rest and everything is concerned. My neck has been sore for a few days because I slept on it wrong (it’s sooo much fun being old), so I’ve been making sure my head is correctly positioned on my pillows the last couple of nights and what do you know, it’s gotten better. The one thing I hate about being older is that you have to be a lot more careful about doing things, else you’ll be sorry. I’m not very keen on that aspect of being older, frankly. The Saints lost yesterday in the final minute, which was disappointing, but I think the Eagles are one of the better teams in the NFL? I probably should start paying more attention to the NFL overall, I suppose, but it’s still too early in the season to start thinking about play-offs and so forth.

I did make a grocery run yesterday morning–I’ll have to stop on the way home to get a few things I didn’t get, but other than that, it’s straight home for me tonight. We almost finished Monster: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story, which apparently the brothers aren’t all that happy with; and in all honesty, I thought the first episode was truly terrible and we weren’t going to watch any more of it…but after the game yesterday we decided to give the second episode a try, and we got hooked into it. I’ve not seen much chatter about the show, but the acting is really good and while the writing and plotting are all over the place (the Dominick Dunne representation by Nathan Lane is quite good, but very reminiscent of Truman Capote from Feud), it’s very well done and while there are some things I don’t remember in the story (doesn’t mean they didn’t happen; it was over thirty years ago they killed their parents and my memory isn’t good anymore), it’s not intended to be factual but entertainment. I don’t know how I would feel about my life being offered up as fictionalized entertainment for the huddled, teeming masses (and hopefully will never find out). But we’re enjoying it, and I’ll talk about it more once we’ve finished watching.

I didn’t get any writing done this weekend, and that’s perfectly okay. I was very low energy both Friday and Saturday, and finally felt more like me yesterday. But after the grocery run and the Saints game, I just wasn’t up for writing…and the primary reason was I got very deep into Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows and I even hated to put it down to watch the Saints game, but I was so into it that I was reading during the game. I will most likely finish it this week or this weekend, and I will have a lot to say about this incredible novel when I do finish it. I’ve really hit a lucky streak with my reading–this and the forthcoming Alison Gaylin are both fantastic; and I am really looking forward to all the good reads in my TBR pile. It’s also eerie reading Harper’s book, having recently watched Quiet on the Set and with the currently breaking Sean Combs story, which is truly terrifying and sending, it seems, even bigger shockwaves through the entertainment business than even Epstein’s arrest. I will have some things to say when I do finally write about Harper’s book, which is truly incredible; I can see why it got so much awards love; I would have short-listed it myself had I been a judge that year.

Reading other good writers always inspires me; this is how I can tell someone is a truly terrific talent–I get ideas of my own from reading their work, and will note phrases and sentences that sound like great titles. This is why, I think, I always have so much trouble talking about my influences, because I’m influenced by everything I read, whether I like it, enjoy it, love it, or hate it. Same will visual media–film and television. (For example, that Menendez show makes me think, again, about murders within the family, and how monstrous those stories are. I can’t imagine killing my father or my sister, under any circumstance, because it’s not even on my register. And killing your mother? Yeah, can’t even conceive of any reason powerful enough to do that…so I am lucky and kind of grateful to be lucky.)

So, I’m kind of hoping to have a good week this week, with reading and writing and cleaning and filing everything. I feel good going into the week, so let’s hope this lasts. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in again at some point.

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

Bring back that lovin’ feeling now it’s gone, gone, gone….

One of the worst things about being a writer with a very vivid imagination is that I often think I’ve written more of a short story than I have, and inevitably am a little shocked when I open the most recent draft of the story and what I remember writing isn’t there…and then it hits me that I either thought the story through until that point, or I scribbled ideas for it in my journal…so that gradually morphed into oh I never did write that scene/story/ending. I then sigh in disgust at past Greg for not actually writing it into the story itself and then try to remember what I can of it as I try transcribing it. The loss of my short term memory also plays a relatively large role in this madness, too. Can you guess why I am mentioning that this morning? Yep, this was the case when I looked up two short stories to add to my collection; I was trying to decide which stories I have unfinished that just needed a revision and I thought I was there with several more stories than I clearly was when I looked at them last night.

One of the ghastly things for me about being a writer is thinking I’ve written something when I actually haven’t. I was tired yesterday when I got home from work; I hit the wall at some point in the afternoon, so I succumbed to Sparky’s demands and let him cuddle with me in the easy chair when I got home from work. Paul worked at home yesterday, so when he came down we watch John Oliver and then finished Dirty Pop, the Lou Pearlman documentary. It did feel weird not having the Olympics to watch, but this is that fallow two weeks or so between the Olympics and college football getting started. Has the NFL preseason started? I am terrible about that, but since I no longer (refuse to) pay for the Times-Picayune (a ringing endorsement for the red candidate from their editorial board was the final nail in that coffin once and for all) it’s harder to remember about the Saints. I shouldn’t be surprised; the billionaire who bought the paper also is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who ran for governor back in the day. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t remember the paper being slanted so heavily to the right back in the day. Anyway, there’s certainly no excuse for me to not get a lot done this weekend other than laziness….and laziness isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either; I think it’s your body telling your mind to rest. I also have a four day weekend this weekend for my birthday, so that should be really nice. I suppose I should make a to-do list of projects to work on for those four day–definitely taking books to the library sale will be number one on the list.

I did sleep really well and got up pretty easily this morning. I’m still in that I could fall asleep again if I went back to bed stage, but the body is starting to awaken and my mind is feeling sharp. I hope I don’t get tired this afternoon the way I did yesterday, but I don’t really have any control over that. It didn’t, in fact, rain yesterday as was promised; it’s possible again today as well and we’re hitting a heat index of 112. Yay. It didn’t seem so bad yesterday as I drove home, picking up the mail on the way. I’m still listening to the podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno, which makes me laugh multiple times in the car; it’s attempt at being sexy and provocative laughably bad, and their reactions to Belinda Blinked are hilarious. There’s many seasons of this, so I should be set for listening in the car for quite some time. I just haven’t been in the mood to listen to music lately while driving, which is unusual. I’m just tired of all my playlists and albums on Spotify, and I’m so disconnected from what is popular music that I have no idea what everyone is listening to these days, and odds are I wouldn’t care for it if I did. (The first time I heard something popular and thought what the fuck is wrong with kids today was when I was in my thirties…so yes, I’ve been a cranky old man shaking his fists at the clouds for thirty years)

One of the things I have been doing in the evenings is paging through a book I read several years ago called Weimar Culture: The Outside as Insider by Peter Gay (I’ve had Weimar Germany on my mind since about 2015 or so) and it got me to start thinking about my work as art, and its place in the overall world of queer art and literature. I don’t think students of queer literature in the future will be reading and/or studying any of my work, by any means; I think the only thing I have going for me is being prolific and producing a lot of work. I think there are many queer crime writers whose work would be seen as more influential and of more literary and artistic value than mine–Michael Nava, J. M. Redmann, Ellen Hart, Kelly J. Ford, Lev Rosen, Christa Faust, Margot Douahy and John Copenhaver, just off the top of my head, are far more likely to make up the reading list for a Queer Crime Lit class. We really do have some amazing queer crime writers out there currently and some pretty amazing ones in the past. I was thinking about writing about queer crime and its giants, but as a queer crime writer myself the possibilities for giving offense are simply too great for me to even attempt such a thing. I also haven’t read every queer or queer-oriented crime novel, either, so it would hardly be definitive, like Michael Bronski’s Pulp Friction. Besides, I’m hardly an academic; that kind of writing isn’t really my style. I admire it, wish it was a voice and style I could slip into comfortably, but it’s really not.

I would, at some point, like to engage in scholarship. Maybe after I retire. Maybe I could take an on-line class on literature and/or one on writing essays. So many potentialities, so many possibilities…kind of nice.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader and one never knows; I may be back later.

Oh Very Young

Friday morning and I slept late and I don’t care. I also did little to nothing yesterday and I don’t feel in the least bit guilty about it, either. Ordinarily, I’d be chastising myself and feeling like I wasted an entire day, but so what if I did? Am I never allowed to actually have a day off where I don’t do much of anything? I did get the laundry finally done, but I’m not going to kill myself this weekend, either. There are definitely things I need to do today–laundry, errands, gym, writing–but I am going to get to things when I get to them and if I don’t, there’s always another day.

And if there isn’t, oh well, no need to worry about any of it, is there?

Yesterday was lovely, as non-active days inevitably are. I wrote some posts and worked on the laundry yesterday morning, but once Paul got up, I turned the television onto Wimbledon for him and I kept sitting here at my desk, finishing that blog post, which was very cool–the television usually is a distraction, and it wasn’t yesterday. I did eventually move into the living room to watch television with him, and we got caught up on The Boys (which is going so hard on the right this season that sometimes I laugh out loud; one of the most horrible supes this week quote that trash from Georgia MTG, and then I realized the entire character was her, and laughed and laughed and laughed), then watched the entire new season of That 90’s Show (the best character is Ozzie the young gay). We also finished the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders documentary on Netflix, which again was really just a better produced and edited together season of their old reality show, but a lot more serious and it also went in on some of the girls more. I said, while watching, “It really does take a certain kind of person to want to be one of these girls, doesn’t it? It’s like they create this big sorority.” That was what it reminded me the most of–a big sorority–with little to no drama between the girls…which I suspect would NOT be tolerated should it ever happen. Usually watching anything documentary style, or non-fictional, usually gives me several ideas of how this little “bubble” they live in could lead to crime; and I realized yesterday in all our years watching Making the Team and now this, that’s never happened once. Even sitting here this morning with my coffee and a cat in my inbox (Sparky is watching Cat TV out the window), I cannot think of why anyone would want to kill any of those girls or even their coaching staff. Kellie, the primary coach, reminds me a lot of that woman from Navarro from the Cheer series.

Besides, I was just thinking the other day that if and when I write another young adult novel, I am not going to write about cheerleaders and football players. That was my primary experience in high school, but there are so many other kids that are neither of those things and I kind of would like to write from a different perspective rather than the usual, high school stereotype kids. (Which, now that I’ve said that, is precisely who The Grimoire of Broken Dreams is about; so it will be the last of those…but The Summer of Lost Boys will be about a high school outsider; it’s the only way the story works in the first place.)

I do have some picking up to do today, and I certainly need to get the dishes done–which always makes such a difference when it comes to how the kitchen looks–and I’d like to get some more filing work done…at least alphabetizing so the files are easily found. I have one more file drawer to get through–there’s a lot of sorting that needs to be done on it–and then that is finished. I’d like to get started moving boxes off the tops of the cabinets this weekend, too. Some of it is just paper that can go in the trash; others are books that also need to be gone through. I hope the library sale is open tomorrow so I can drop these books off to them, which will also make the living room look less cluttered. I also have a long term scanning project to work on, too–all my old articles and reviews and so forth that I have stored neatly in a box; I’d like to get that all scanned so I can give these old queer magazines and newspapers to the local queer archive. I hate throwing it all in the trash; someone might someday want to see these old issues of Lambda Book Report that I edited, and I doubt they are electronically available; it wouldn’t surprise me if even Lambda didn’t have copies of its issues going back to the 1980s.

There’s a part of me–the packrat part–that wants to keep all of this and archive it and all my papers and put them somewhere, like at Tulane (who wanted them at one point) or the Historic New Orleans Collection; but that seems a lot like hubris to me, you know? “Oh I am so important my papers need to be collected for future scholars and historians” isn’t something that rolls easily off my keyboard, you know? After a lifetime of not being taken seriously to the point that I rarely take myself seriously, it’s hard for me to imagine that my writing and my life would be of interest to anyone in the future, you know? Someone told me that I was the only writer who documented what life was like here for a gay man before Katrina, and sadly, all I can do is think of all the things I haven’t documented here, like the wars over Southern Decadence against homophobic pedophile Grant Storms (it’s always projection with them, isn’t it?)–I wanted to write a book about that, and Storms himself along with psychotic Louisiana Republican politician Woody Jenkins1 inspired Bourbon Street Blues–and various other battles here in the state. Cancer Alley, the poisoning of poor black communities by petrochemical plants and oil refineries, the loss of the coastline and the wetlands are all things that should be written about, and I really wish there was some John D. Macdonald here in Louisiana who could write about the environmental disaster the state already is, and how we are making it worse by the day every day.

But I’ve decided2 to just throw it all away, really. I don’t have the time or the interest to catalogue and organize a lifetime of writing, let alone the logistics of getting it all somewhere, and every draft I’ve written is electronic, except for the files that are so old no program will recognize them anymore, and there’s also this blog. It’s never been the whole story, and it’s always been relatively carefully curated, but when I do write things here I don’t censor myself. The only blog topics that have always been off-limits are Paul, my family, and deeply personal stuff. I also try very hard not to invade the privacy of my friends, which I wasn’t so good about in the early days back at livejournal almost twenty years ago.

I also think that’s why I want to keep doing the Greg’s Gay Life or Pride Posts throughout the rest of the year. I’d like to document more of my past, the things that I clung to (like the tiny queer rep in film, movies and books when I was a gayby), and sharing what it was like to live through things. I have no desire to write a memoir of any kind, but I kind of do at the same time, but my fear is always the faulty memory and the memories of the other people who were there will inevitably be different. I’ve already noticed how the kids I went to high school with clearly had no idea how miserable I was; the mask I wore of the class clown who makes sure everyone is having fun was more successful than I ever thought it was…although I have become convinced everyone knew somehow I was gay. That delusion was hard to let go of, but it’s also true. No one I ever came out to was surprised, you know.

Maybe my memoir could be called Deluded.

And on that note, I am getting some more coffee and going to work on the sink. Have a lovely Friday, whether you are off like me or have to work. I’ll most likely be back later.

  1. Jenkins was too extreme for Louisiana back then, but he’s to the left of our current governor. Jenkins was also the first Republican that I can recall who claimed the election was stolen from him and wanted an FBI investigation. This behavior killed his career in state politics; he couldn’t even get elected to represent the racist part of Baton Rouge that recently seceded from the capital. And yes, Louisiana will go at least 60% for another crybaby sore loser this November. Funny how that works. ↩︎
  2. Don’t @ me about this; my mind is made up. ↩︎

Morning Good Morning

Sunday morning and I slept late, which is fine, really. I keep forgetting that sleeping in on my days off isn’t a criminal act of any kind. After so many years of keeping myself overly busy and so I was always behind on deadlines and so forth, I’ve kind of gotten into the insane mindset that sleeping late is a waste of time that could be better utilized, writing or cleaning or reading. I do have some things I need to get done today–mostly running to the store to get the things i need to make a carrot cheesecake for a co-worker’s birthday tomorrow–but if i manage my day properly, I should be able to get things done.

I spent yesterday running errands, and trying to get things cleaned up around the house while dipping into two books–The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood and Ode to Billy Joe by Herman Raucher. I ordered the latter from ebay after I started doing my research into Robby Benson for the post I made about the crush I had on him as a teenager; realizing the movie script and novel were written by Herman Raucher made me interested in reading the book, as well as wondering about Summer of ’42, and so I ordered copies of each. Billy Joe arrived yesterday, and I was curious about it. Usually novelizations were work-for-hire arrangements and the author used a pseudonym; some are better than others, of course, but just reading the first chapter of Billy Joe I can tell it’s head-and-shoulders above most novelizations, and it’s probably more thorough in telling the story than the movie was, which has me interested. I’ve also been thinking about The Berlin Stories lately, after watching the film Christopher and His Kind, and may revisit it again, too, for Pride Month; Isherwood is one of the literary gods of the gay canon, and the opening sentences of Goodbye to Berlin are perfect for parodying in the prologue to the next Scotty. I still have to finish my reread of Michael Thomas Ford’s Suicide Notes, and I think I’m going to bump the new John Copenhaver up on my TBR list. It is Pride Month, and I should immerse myself in queer lit for the month, don’t you think, Constant Reader?

I also want to write about Summer of ’42 at some point. Like The Other, it was an early read that was very influential on me, and one I often don’t think about when I do think about influential works I’ve read or make a list. I really do need to sit down and identify the books that really impacted me and the way I write; The Other, Summer of ’42, and so many, many others. I also want to write today; I didn’t really yesterday, but I did spend some time yesterday doing research; i.e. watching Youtube videos on the Oklahoma true crime story that fascinates me still, as well as ones that review the 1970’s and pop culture and what was going on those early years of the decade, which is when the book will be set. I think I am moving in a more historical direction rather than writing about the current day; Never Kiss a Stranger is set in the 1990s (1994, to be exact) and of course The Summer of Lost Boys is going to be set in either 1972 or 1973; I can’t decide which, although I suspect 1973 is going to end up being the winner when I finally have to decide.

We finished Under the Bridge last night, and it’s most excellent; I highly recommend it. Based on a true crime novel about the Reena Virk murder in Victoria, British Columbia back in the 1990’s, Reena was beaten badly by a group of girls–some she thought were friends–and then after the others left her broken and injured and bleeding along the river bank, a boy and a girl came back and basically, finished her off. The show reminded me a lot of Megan Abbott’s work; Abbott always writes about the mysterious world of female relationships, female rage and jealousy, and that’s what Under the Bridge does so beautifully. The acting is extraordinary; a real standout is Javon Walton as Warren, the young boy who kills Reena. Walton is very handsome in that young way, and I looked him up because the performance was so extraordinary, and turns out he also played Ashtray on Euphoria, who was one of my favorite characters on that show. Do watch it when you get a chance. I’m going to get a copy of the book now, too. Yay, more things to read! Just what I need!

We also started The Acolyte, but I was sleepy by the time it started and kept dozing off. No judgment on the show, I was just tired.

And on that note, I think I’ll head into the spice mines. I’ll probably finish the dishes this morning while making a grocery list, and then I’ll dash to the store and get gas. I may even finish one of these other Pride blog drafts, so have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

Heartaches by the Number

Sunday fun-day, and I am up much earlier than I was yesterday. It wasn’t a bad day, but I clearly needed to sleep in. I slept later than expected this morning, too, but here I am, up at just past eight and feeling pretty good. I really didn’t do much of anything yesterday. I did leave the house and get the mail (I got two shirts I’d ordered from Macy’s) and then swung iby the grocery store to get treats for Sparky and for us (they had the Snicker brownie cookies again, which are fucking amazing), and then I came home. I curled up in my chair with Scott Carson’s Where They Wait, which I am enjoying the hell out of, before Paul got up and we finished the first half of Bridgerton, watched The Iron Claw, and then after we watched the gymnastics meet last night, won by Simone Biles (of course), moved on to Hollywood Con Queen, which in interesting, if odd. I plan on spending some more time with the book today, hopefully finishing reading it this morning before getting some writing done today. I’d like to get this second draft of “When I Die” out of my hair, and I also need to reread and possibly revise “The Last To See Him Alive” before I submit it to an anthology. I have been very lackadaisical about my writing now for almost a year, and I need to start taking it seriously again. I think that’s been part of my feeling off for so long–I am not writing much, either and that always has an affect on my over-all well-being.

I also think the overwhelming pile of things I am working on has a lot to do with my feeling at sea and uninspired, to be honest. I do love to write, but as always, I have to make myself do something I love. I also am much easier to distract these days, too–which I do not like–but when I am home working it’s Sparky who distracts me (he’s adorable and sweet, so it’s hard not to give him attention when he wants some), or Paul getting up and wanting to watch something–I will always drop everything to hang out with him, whether I can afford the loss of time or no, sorry/not sorry–but I do need to get some focus. Maybe I should listen to music on my headphones? Music always works, usually; but who knows if the old tricks will continue to work now?

I also need to get caught up on blog entries, too. I still have to finish my posts about Dead Boy Detectives and Mary and George, I’ll have to do one when I finish reading this book, and of course there are any number of others that are dangling in my drafts folder. I also came up with a really good title for another story yesterday, sigh, which I scribbled down in my journal. My creativity is still there, of course, but it needs to be harnessed again so I can take it out for a ride. I also spent alot of time yesterday thinking about something I definitely want to blog about, which was triggered by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the cro magnon congresswoman from Georgia being the white trash piece of shit she was by attacking Jasmine Crockett’s appearance the other day–don’t come for Jasmine unless she calls you, bleached blonde bad built butch body bitch–and the whole “going high” thing. Much as I love Michelle Obama, I have been saying since the of Rush and Fox News that going high doesn’t work when they are going low; they see going high as being weak and they go lower. The only way to defeat them and shut them up is to give their own back to them with a vengeance–I bet the inbred trash will think twice about coming for someone’s looks again. And as someone who has had people going low at him for most of his life, I will not go high. You open that door and I will fucking shred you–and I also will not be shamed by “allies” (always straight white cisgender women, for the record) for giving it back to them. We are literally in a war for the soul and future of this country; going high with these kind of stakes on the line simply does not work, and I am tired of the right saying racist, homophobic, and misogynist bullshit while being told to “go high.” Sorry, Michelle, I love you–and I love you even more for your class and dignity, but I would love to listen to you read Melania for the racist gold-digging filth she is sometime.

The sad truth is you never win while seated on your high horse, and we as a nation simply cannot afford to lose. And they cannot stand on ANY moral high ground while pedophiles like Matt Gaetz and inbreds like Marjorie Greene are serving in the People’s House, period–as well as any traitors, and there are a LOT of those on the Republican side of the aisle right now.

(I’m also enjoying watching all the trash who hated the Chiefs because of Travis and Taylor now worshipping them because of Hairy Butt. Pick a fucking lane.)

And on that note, I am having some breakfast and then reading for a while. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will probably show up again a little later.