Can you imagine superheroes for lgbt rights in Colorado? If you can't, you aren't imaginative enough, because the GLBT Community Center of Colorado has just launched a website and a youtube cartoon featuring these spandex-wearing characters:
My only question is, where's Scoobie-Doo? There is also a full website where you can sign on for updates and take advantage of viral email to let other people know.
Well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...just not this time.
Steven Colbert just gets more amazing every week. He went to Iraq and stood before a cheering crowd of soldiers as he made fun of Don't Ask Don't Tell — proof positive that the troops on the ground are more than ready to end this shameful charade perpetrated by successive administrations, Obama included.
And last night, he had as a guest on his show (after mercilessly hitting Obama for cowardice and duplicity in "stonewalling" the lgbt community) Jim Fouratt, veteran of GLF, GAA, former proprietor of Danceteria - the great 80s disco. (This Danceteria bit made Colbert's comment on surviving the Disco Inferno all the funnier, though if 5% of the audience understood the reference I'd be amazed)
Colbert usually interrupts his guests and they rarely get a chance to really deliver their message. That didn't happen last night, and Fouratt got a chance to tell the story of the Stonewall Uprising as it actually happened (as opposed to the mythology of the event) to a national TV audience (even if it's cable!). Colbert isn't mere satire, he is queering the news. Here is the interview:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jim Fouratt | ||||
| ||||
MediaBistro's Agency Spy reports on a TV spot previously posted here for Europride. But after they show that spot they report on a video from Gillette Fusion razors on how to shave your pubes, because, "trimming the bush makes the tree look taller." The target here looks like a young male — teens. Yep, I clearly have the wrong copywriting work at the moment.
Of course, because the target is young men, and we don't want to scare them off with the idea that body shaving is queer (especially since they're suggesting shaving your groin as a strategy to deal with self esteem issues about size) you'll note when you go to the Gillette site that there is a woman on the side of every visual to remind the dudes that they're still straight and that women will find it attractive.
Damn the culture ministry
My lover from Asakusa, a blooming boy,
He who adorned his amber body
With a swirling tattoo
Of the goddess Kwannon surrounded
By ferns, wildflowers, flags
And had a capering carp
Illuminating each vigorous buttock —
He whose suit of ink,
Blue and black and dogrose pink,
Was the one garment
I could not divest him of —
When he pulled back
His periwinkled foreskin, he discovered,
Always with a broken smile,
A gay butterfly on the glans penis.
Now the Culture Ministry
Has proclaimed him
Not only a National Treasure, but
An Intangible National Treasure!
Now I no longer
Hold him in my arms like a warm
Sheaf of poppies and wheat, no more
Stroke that golden-amber shoulder
Stained with a lace of sugarbag blue,
No more bedew
With tears and kisses his
Empurpled butterfly...
I can't get my hands on him.
Our love is finished,
Broken by banal politicians.
Now he belongs to the Nation,
Which means he belongs to no one,
And especially not to me.
I always put him on a pedestal,
But not like this!
He might as well be behind glass,
Stuffed and docketed in the National Museum.
Damn the Culture Ministry!
This poem appeared in the seminal anthology of gay male poets edited by Ian Young in 1972: The Male Muse. The photo was taken by Robert Chang of a temporary tattoo and captures my sentiments perfectly.
A website has been launched to promote gay tourism in Israel. From the images on the home page, you would never guess that lesbians existed. But hey, I don't any websites from Egypt extolling Pride celebrations in cities all over the country, as this site does. (The very fact that I praise something while at the same time criticizing it is about as Jewish as you can get). And I've got to say, the site certainly makes a visit look like a lot of fun.
In today's front page story about the disorganization of opponents to marriage equality in NY State is this gem of a sentence that is very telling and extremely sad:
"The state's Roman Catholic bishops have been somewhat distracted, too, having focused their lobbying energies this session on defeating a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring civil claims, and have appeared unprepared for the battle over marriage."
Caught with their pants down as it were.
