Dribs and Drabs

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so here goes....

Best Serious Read: Joan Didion's Blue Nights
Read it. You will read nothing better this year.  It will break your heart. It may also help mend your heart.

Love, loss, heartbreak, mortality, and denial. We all know these things. Joan Didion has the courage to write about them.

Best Crazy-Ass Fun on Basic Cable: American Horror

Two words: Jessica Lange.

She will creep you the hell out. The show is full of holes and faults, but it's as much fun as a carnival ride, and Lange is deliciously twisted.

Best Cheap Amazon Download: Diminished Capacity

Girl meets girl. Girl gets dumped by girl. Girl throws away promising Hollywood career for meth addiction and adventures in identity theft. AND IT'S ALL TRUE.

Julie Hansen's self-published ebook could use some editing, and it takes a little while to get used to her fast-paced, stream-of-consciousness writing, but it's well worth it. A friend who read it likened it to having a conversation with a really smart, witty speed freak - you may have to put it down, every so often, but you wont be able to help picking it up, again.

Six dollars you'll be glad you spent.

Best Illustration of Why The Internet Is Awesome: Was Monroe Raped? 

Watch it. All the way through. And, yes, I totally remember this.


Best Thing To Happen to Kid's Lit: TOON Books 

The best of comic book art meets great writing for beginning readers. They're awesome. I started with Luke on the Loose, and ended up buying the entire set of Toon Books for my nephew, who's discovered the joy of reading. 

Best Artist To Watch Out For: Jenn Hayes 

I discovered her stuff by accident via a friend on Facebook, and immediately fell in love with her creativity and playful style. I had to buy one of her papercrafting pieces for myself. And then another for friends who were celebrating their 25th anniversary. Watch this space: Jenn Hayes is going to be big.

The Proustian Moment

I went to a weird, little liberal arts college where there was almost no structure. In some ways, it was goofy and ridiculous as hell. In other ways, it was pretty damned great. I think it was mostly pretty great. Most of the best people I know are people I met there. Many of the best times, were had there.

There was no set course list at Goddard. No such thing as a course catalogue. Instead, every semester, people would make suggestions about what group studies (never "classes" - they were called "group studies") should be available. Students would make suggestions. Faculty would make suggestions. Even staff would make suggestions. If the woman who ran the mail room had a suggestion, well, hell...she would be heard and her idea might just make the cut. This could be frustrating. It meant that the first week or two of each semester was spent figuring out what would be offered, who would lead groups, what readings lists and curricula would look like. There would be no English Lit 101 at Goddard. Why would there be, when the sky was the limit? Why would anyone opt for that, when they could choose, as I did my first semester, a group study called Madame Bovary and The Cat?  Madame Bovary and The Cat was the brainchild of Kathryn Davis : a group study in which participants read Flaubert's novel, spent months dissecting one book, and then, at the end of the semester, dissected an actual cat. It sounds crazy, but it was kind of glorious; dissecting a book and a character with our minds, and then moving to a lab setting, and using our hands to slice open a dead cat (who, incidentally, had been pregnant when she died...we opened her up to find a gorgeous litter of fully-formed, dead kittens inside - that was somehow fitting.) I remember the day we dissected the cat. None of us had any training in this area. It wasn't a science class. We were using scalpels and rubber gloves, but we were using them as literary tools. Kathryn looked at us (all four of us) and asked, "How should we cut, and why? Any ideas?" It was quite something. Instead of research papers, participants in the group were free to do whatever type of final project we chose. Why write an academic paper, when you could create a collection of personal effects for Emma Bovary? A birth certificate, passport, driver's license - all playing on Flaubert's vague and ever-changing descriptions of his protagonist. That was my project - the Emma Bovary dossier. Someone else created an installation that struck me as a tribute to repulsiveness. It consisted of an old, plastic soda bottle hanging from the ceiling, a slow but steady stream of pink, gooey liquid falling from it, leaving a disgusting puddle on the floor. I'm not sure what it meant, if it did, indeed, mean anything at all. But it wasn't boring. A paper on Madame Bovary would have been boring. Does the world really need another college term paper on Flaubert?

But I digress. I don't really want to write about my college experience, except by way of writing about an experience I had a few days ago. One of the last group studies I took at Goddard, and one of the more traditional, was called The Art of Memory. Mark Doty, who suggested the group and facilitated it, was interested in memory as a creative trigger for writers. It was Proust's moment with a cup of tea and a cookie - the moment that resulted in Remembrance of Things Past - that inspired the group study. The first volume was sort our class guide - we read it slowly, during the course of the semester, while also doing a number of writing exercises that involved using memory as a creative trigger. It seemed like a great concept but, to be honest, I found Proust incredibly boring and not at all moving or inspirational. At the last group meeting, Doty treated us all to tea and madeleines, with the idea that the combination would trigger memories for us the way it had for Proust. It didn't, of course. Because that particular combination was Marcel Proust's trigger, not mine. Proust's pivotal moment was, for me, just a cookie dipped in weak tea. Ho hum.

But everyone has his or her own tea and madeleines.

We've started getting cold weather in San Francisco. I happen to be broke, and buying a box of cheap, instant cocoa for $1.99 is cheaper than shelling out $2.00 for a cup of hot cocoa at a local coffee shop. A few days ago, when it was especially cold in the middle of the afternoon, I opened a packet of Nestle's cocoa, emptied it into a mug, and filled the mug with hot water from the electric kettle we have at work. I gave the hot cocoa a stir with a plastic spoon, threw the spoon away, and took a sip as I walked down the hallway towards my office. That subtle saltiness that's always there in cheap cocoa hit my tongue and, for a moment I left my body and found myself at another moment in my life.

I am very young and I know, somehow, that I am the youngest of my mother's children: there is no baby sister, yet. This means I am no older than 5. This means it must be no later than 1972. My mother and I have spent the day together, alone. A rare thing, and I can't imagine where my older sister is, but I don't really care. A day alone with my mother is like magic. I love being with her. She is fun and lovable. We are in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, near her job. She's taken me to work on this day, and then to a wholesale dealer of toys and novelties, where I was allowed to pick out a few items from the 50 cent bin. The afternoon ends with the two of us at a diner. Eating out is a rare treat in 1972, not a common occurrence, the way it is in 2011. I want to sit at the counter and spin around on the round stool. Yes, that's fine. We sit at the counter and eat sandwiches. Grilled cheese? Maybe tuna salad. Each sandwich comes with a dill pickle on the side and my mother, who never liked pickles, gives me hers. We also have tiny, metal bowls with crunchy cole slaw. So yummy. When the waitress asks my mother if she'd like coffee, she scrunches up her nose. She never drinks what we call "American coffee," meaning Maxwell House made in a drip coffee maker and kept warm for hours. In our family, we drink rich, finely ground, Puerto Rican coffee filtered through a colador - a muslin coffee sock.

Even I drink this strong coffee, with boiled milk and sugar. Even I know to scrunch up my nose at American coffee. Instead, my mother orders hot cocoa. The waitress asks if we'd like marshmallows or whipped cream. I look up at my mother, who smiles with her big, brown eyes and says, with a hint of fun in her voice, "Both!" I have had hot cocoa, before, but never marshmallows, and never whipped cream. When our mugs arrive, they're piled high with swirls of cream. My mother tells me to go ahead and taste the cream, but to be careful - the cocoa is very hot. She slides a spoon under the whipped cream and pulls out a melted mini marshmallow, blows on it to cool it off, and then spoon-feeds it to me as if I were, once again, her baby. A little of the cocoa is on the spoon and I taste a subtle saltiness. The same saltiness I will taste in 2011. The same subtle saltiness that will send me reeling back for just a moment, make me so happy to be in that time and place I'd almost forgotten about. The same subtle saltiness that, once the Proustian moment is over, will leave my heart aching and leave me without breath as I say to myself, out loud, "Oh...Ma...."

Oh. Ma.

© 2012 Lana M. Nieves

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lana M. Nieves and for non-commercial purposes only. - Lana M. Nieves 

Toe Pick

My blogging over the years has been a bit of verbal jambalaya. I'm just as interested in the human condition as I am in the week's tv listings. I might blog one day about human rights, and the next about this week's episode of Boardwalk Empire. And why not? Pop culture speaks volumes about who we are and where we are in time. What we read, watch, listen to - it's all about stories, isn't it? And what is the study of human nature if not the study of the stories that human beings share, pass down, are drawn to at any moment in time?

A few days ago, I was flipping channels and stumbled upon a movie I have never been able to resist: 1992's The Cutting Edge. Now, I won't tell you this is a great movie, or even a good movie. It's not. It's cheese. But not just any cheese. It's visual Velveeta. You know the stuff. You laugh at it on the sly but, every so often, when you're all alone - or maybe with a close friend - nothing hits the spot like a grilled cheese sandwich made with Velveeta and Wonder Bread. Or maybe you get stoned (people still do that, right?) and find yourself with the munchies at  2am. You're not going to pull the brie out of the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature. You're not shaving paper-thin slices of imported parmesan. You're not Making toast points and grilling Spanish bleu cheese. You're going to pull out that big, yellow box, peel away the thick foil, and cut yourself a hunk of Velveeeta. Or you're going to turn on the tv and hope that The Cutting Edge is on cable.

It's ok to admit it.
I do.
I love that craptastic movie. If it's on cable, I HAVE to watch it. And I've come to realize that a lot of other people of my generation feel this way. But why? It's not the most interesting movie. There really aren't any laughs. It doesn't even have a memorable soundtrack or theme song. And it was released in 1992 - my teen years were long over by then, so it's not the whole "that's the movie I saw with my first love!" thing. People my age did not go see this movie on their first date. Sooooooo...WHAT'S THE BIG THING ABOUT THE CUTTING EDGE AND WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT GENERATION X?

I think I know.

This movie, although released in 1992, is a nod to the 80s. The last vestige of everything the 80s were about. We initially watched The Cutting Edge because Moira Kelly was hot (I'm a lesbian) and D.B. Sweeney was adorable (I'm gay, not blind), but we watch it again, and again because it's the best snapshot of the decade that preceded it. The decade when, for better or worse, people my age made the shift to adulthood. It's a dumb movie that we can't resist. The 80s?  A dumb decade that, try as we might, we can't resist having a little nostalgia for. And, if you're not resisting this nostalgia, but embracing it and think the 80s were just wonderful, I'm here to tell you that you're seeing that decade through bong-water-stained glasses. The 80s were fucking stupid, and our love for The Cutting Edge is a nod to our love for sheer stupidity. Think about it: it's a heterosexual love story that centers on FIGURE SKATING. It is the swan song to the decade when Brian Boitano told America that he was a straight figure skater from San Francisco, and America swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.

The entire decade was a 10 year tribute to stupidity, poor judgement, and bad taste. Synthesized drums. Acid washed denim. Shoulder pads. Leg warmers. Toni Basil. The Porky's movie franchise.

Stop fighting it.

Duran Duran was a shitty band.
Flashdance was an awful movie.
The California Raisins were stupid.
Max headroom was annoying.
Rainbows and unicorns were corny as shit.
Miami Vice has not aged well.
V.C. Andrews' books were creepy and badly written.
Ronald Fucking Reagan was a terrible, fucking president.

And that's it. That's what The Cutting Edge is all about. It's about how fucking crappy and stupid shit was for 10 whole fucking years, and how stupid we were to buy black rubber bracelets, wear shoes without socks, listen to Flock of Seagulls and think "Where's The Beef?" was funny. The brilliant thing about it - and you have director Paul Michael Glaser to thank for this -  about this silly, cheesy, little movie.....is that it reminds us of our own stupidity - about the stupidity of an entire nation for an entire decade - and it does it in a gentle way.

I don't watch the toe pick scene and think, "Do they really expect us to believe that a guy who's been playing hockey for his whole life has no idea what a regular pair of ice skates looks like and what a toe pick is? I don't even fucking skate and even I know what it is. This is fucking idiotic!" I don't think that. I don't think anything close to that. I see that scene and think, "Awww...this is embarrassingly silly. Moira Kelly is so haughty and pretty. D.B. Sweeney is so freaking goofy and cute."

Scroll up and look at that picture. They're not fucking idiots - they're sweet and hopeful. And we love them, in all their stupidity, because we don't want to think of ourselves as the tacky, stupid generation who came into our own as conspicuous consumers of  complete and utter horse shit because we had such bad taste and poor judgement. We'd rather look back and think of ourselves as silly, lovable kids who played PacMan, loved Ghostbusters (which, BTW, is a fucking stupid movie), and listened to the Purple Rain soundtrack on our Walkmans until the cassettes snapped.

Toe pick.

Hey, don't blame me:  I was too young to vote for Ronald Reagan.

© 2012 Lana M. Nieves

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lana M. Nieves and for non-commercial purposes only. - Lana M. Nieves 

A River Runs Through It

Last week, one of America's anti-same-sex marriage pundits (you know the guy...his name has become synonymous with "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex") said he'd "die to stop same-sex marriage."  My first first reaction? Great, let's kill him. My second reaction? Asking myself how people can be so stupid that they refuse to see when they are fighting a losing battle.

People who waste time and energry opposing same sex marriage are a lot of things: close-minded, ignorant, selfish, self-rightous, intolerant, bigotted. They're also just stupid. That's what I've finally come to see as the plain truth. People who fight the inevitable are stupid. If you were to jump into a raging river, the kind of river where white water rafting is popular, and stand there, hoping against hope to stop the water from getting past you...if you were to do this, I'd tell you that you were stupid. If you were to place a penny on train tracks, in the hopes that it would stop the 5:15 dead, I'd tell you that you were stupid. If you were to hand out bible tracts, believing you could talk hormone-raging teens from wanting to have sex, I'd tell you that you were stupid. If you think you can stop same-sex couples from loving one another, building lives together, forming families and, yes, getting married? You are fucking stupid. Because the movement for equal rights isn't a trickle. It's a roaring rapid. It's an express train without breaks. It's a horny 16 year old boy who'll fuck a jagged hole in the wall, if only he can get close enough. Maybe you can cause a ripple in the flow of water, or get a train to slow down for a second, or force a couple of teenaged lovers to find a more clandestine place to secretly have sex, but you won't stop these things. You can't. And you really, truly are stupid if you think otherwise.

This is what it's like in America, today, when it comes to same-sex couples. While you (yeah, stupid, I'm talking to you) rant and rave about how same-sex marriage will destroy family values, gay couples all over America are getting together, setting up lives, and even getting married. In short, they're quietly proving just how stupid you are. And they're not doing it less than they did before you started acting like a dog with a bone about this issue. They're doing it more often, and more publicly. Even if they're not getting legally married, they're buying homes together, starting businesses together, raising children together.  The minute one state allowed same-sex marriages, the flood gates were opened. And you cannot stop a flood. (There's a joke there, about a dyke, but I'm not going to be the one to make it.) YOU CANNOT. And you're stupid to try.

Last week, my good friend, Thom, married a man named Adam in a quiet, dignified ceremony in New York. Thom and Adam have been together for 20 years. They own two homes together. They collect art. They travel. They support a dozen charities. They throw intimate dinner parties. I've thought of them as a married couple for years. For all intents and purposes, they have been. Now, it's even recognized by law. They win. You lose, stupid. It's a done deal. It's over. The river is picking up momentum, and you're about to be toppled over and drowned. You can go home and lick your wounds, now. Or you can die fighting a losing battle. Be my fucking guest.

It Keeps Getting Worse

I won't post a link to the video, and I won't even mention the young man's name, but you know who I'm talking about: the teenager who, months after having posted his own video as part of the It Gets Better campaign, recently killed himself. His suicide, it is believed, was the end result of his having been bullied for being gay. This death, as heartbreaking as it is, points to the very reasons I've never cared for the It Gets Better campaign, and think it's a pointless feel-good exercise which makes it possible for people to spend ten minutes in front of a video camera, and then pat themselves on the back for all they've done in the name of gay rights.

The biggest problem I have with the campaign is that, well...its premise is a lie. For many homosexuals it never gets better. Living in a small town can suck, but living in a big city is no solution. Advising gay teens in Kansas to move to SF or NYC is ridiculous and illustrates an ignorance about what such a move would mean, financially, for most people. For most people in America, such a move would be impossible. And, even if they could make such a move, the truth is that hate crimes targeting homosexuals happen in SF and NYC, too. I've witnessed some really ugly homophobia in SF, and I've met people here who have been the victims of extreme anti-gay violence.

The fact is, for a lot of people, it just doesn't get better. A campaign that consists of people talking about how holding on and waiting until the future, because "it gets better" doesn't do a damned thing to address why it sucks to be young and gay, in the first place. It sucks because other people can be shitty. Not just other young people, but adults: teachers, clergy, neighbors, the parents of the kids who do all the bullying. Even the parents of the the young person who is gay. And, guess what? They don't care about any dumb campaign. They're not watching. They don't care that the gay kid from Glee has had his three minutes of talking about how it gets better. They can't stand that little fag any more than they can stand the little fag in their homeroom class, the little fag who lives next door, the little fag who is their own son.

The It Gets Better campaign is the Just Say No of the 21st century. Remember that? A bunch of anti-drug people talking about how saying no to drugs was AWESOME! You know who paid attention? People who were anti-drug. Do you believe, for even a minute, that some heroin addict not only watched as Nancy Reagan and Mr. T talked about how a drug-free life would be neat-o, but ran out to rehab to clean up his act? No? Me neither. Because it didn't happen. And, guess what? That asshole who gets in his pickup truck on friday nights, cruising around town, looking for fags to bash? Not only is he not having an epiphany about how awful it is to terrorize someone on account of who he or she is and how he or she loves...he's not getting on Youtube to find out what Judith Light or Liza Minelli has to say. Like Honey Badger, that asshole with his pickup truck really doesn't give a shit.

This poor kid, who ended his life...he made his own It Gets Better video. Like everyone who's made such a video, he meant well. In it, he talked about how terrifically awesome his friends were when he decided to come out as gay (he'd previously identified as bi.) At the risk of seeming crass and insensitive, this needs to be said: They were his friends. They were SUPPOSED to be terrifically awesome. That's a friend's job. It wasn't ever going to be his friends who were going to make life hell for him. His sad, hopeful It Gets Better video is a cautionary tale, and here are the Cliff's Notes: If you're a young gay person, don't go thinking things will get better just because someone says so in a video. Moving to SF or NYC is not a panacea. Your getting older won't make people suddenly treat you with common decency. The world is often a cold, hard place. Toughen up. Get some emotional armor. Learn to fight. Sharpen your mind and learn to cut others down with wit and logic. Read about the drag queens of Stonewall. Find quality people, and surround yourself with them. Remember what George Herman said: Living well is the best revenge. It won't just get better. You have to make it better, in your own small way, within your own, small life.

© 2012 Lana M. Nieves

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lana M. Nieves and for non-commercial purposes only. - Lana M. Nieves 

Idiocracy: It's Real, and It's Right Here in America

I read an article, a short while back, about how lots of people are using Groupon and other such online coupon/discount sites...and about how a lot of the small businesses offering discounts are really disenchanted with the way it's turned out for them. For some reason, small business owners are finding that they're actually losing out, instead of increasing revenue. How can that be?

I think I have a pretty good idea.

A family-owned picture frame store with three locations in the Bay Area offered the following deal: buy a voucher worth $40 for just $20. The fine print said the voucher did not cover anything but frames, did not cover sales tax, and that there were no cash refunds or store credits. Each voucher could only be used during one store visit. Fair enough. I pounced on this. $40 worth of picture frames for $20 plus tax? Hell, yeah. I bought two vouchers because I knew I'd need picture frames in my new apartment, and nice frames are expensive.

Yesterday I went to the frame shop with one voucher, and gave the other voucher to the friend I was shopping with. All they sell at this shop are frames and frame hardware. The initial tip-off that this was going to be an exercise in ineptitude came when the sales girl announced, pretty early on, that she didn't know anything about frames or frame hardware. Take that in. She's a sales girl at a store that sells nothing but frames and frame hardware, and she KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT FRAMES OR FRAME HARDWARE. What's more, she doesn't seem to feel badly about this, or see a problem with announcing it. My friend and I are were picking out frames for original art work, not for photos, so we had very specific needs in terms of frame type, depth and such.

Without any help from her, my friend and I picked out our frames. When it came down to picking out the hardware to secure our paintings to their respective frames, she repeated that she had no idea what any of it was for, how it was used, or how to choose the right hardware for specific types of frames. She called in another guy who knew a little bit about frames and frame hardware, but not much more than my 14 yr old nephew knows. 

I picked a $30 frame. I also had a package of framing hardware that cost about $2. As per the fine print on the voucher and the terms of service I'd agreed to on Groupon, I expected to have the cost of the frame covered by the voucher, and to pay cash for the hardware and any sales tax. The sales girl stared at my voucher for a full minute, but somehow managed to NOT READ IT, because she said, "Your total isn't $40. I don't know if I can let you use this for less than $40 worth of merchandise."

I replied, "Are you joking? Of course you can. I just don't get any change back."

She said, "I don't know about that. I'll have to ask the manager."

I said, "But that's ridiculous. It's better for you if I spend the voucher on less than $40 worth of merchandise, since you don't give cash or credit back."

She didn't understand the concept and repeated, "I don't know about that. I'll have to talk to the manager."

"Well, you can't FORCE me to choose a $40 item."

"I don't know about that. I'll have to ask the manager."

She asked her manager, whose answer was, no...they would not honor the voucher is I had less than $40 worth of merchandise. I explained that I only NEEDED the $30 frame, and that I understood and was fine with the fact that I would not get change or a credit back. Impossible, I was told.....I HAD to have $40 worth of merchandise.

Ridiculous. Unbelievable. My friend passed me a cheap, little frame that I don't really NEED, just to make up the difference. The idiot sales girl then proceeded to include the big frame, the small frame, the hardware and tax in the $40 voucher. She triumphantly announced that I'd gone over the $40 voucher and owed them $1.10. 

Again, take that in. She considered it a victory that I had to pay $1.10 in cash. She, and her manager, think they did a great thing for their shop by forcing me to pay $21.10 ($1.10 in cash, and a voucher I paid $20 for) for $40 worth of goods. They don't understand that they should have let me pay $20 for a $30 frame, and pay for the hardware and sales tax in cash. At the end of the day, not only did they force me to pay less for more stuff, but they paid Groupon a service fee for the privilege. I got $40 worth of goods and they got $21.10, minus Groupon fees. Unless their regular mark-up is 50% (and it isn't - it's actually a very reasonably-priced shop) this transaction COST THEM MONEY.

Small businesses may be pissed off at Groupon, but they need to look to their own ineptness before laying the blame on this whole online coupon thing not working in their favor. 

For one thing, how the hell can a small business afford to offer several thousand 50%-off vouchers? Sears can do that. Target can do that. A small, family-owned, niche business cannot reasonably expect to do that and still turn a profit - especially not when they're paying a service such as Groupon to administer their discounts. I might walk in to Target with a 50% off coupon good for clothing, buy some PJs, and then end up spending another $75 in cash on groceries, toiletries, cleaning supplies, or whatever. But this is a frame shop. They sell only frames. I highly doubt people walk in, use their $40 voucher and then decide, "OMG...I need $600 worth of frames and I need it NOW!"

For another thing, how the hell does a business offer a deal without being well-versed in their own terms of service? I ended up paying only a small portion of the sales tax on this purchase, because the stupid sales girl included the tax in the voucher. A voucher is NOT MONEY. This store is going to have a hell of a lot of fun when it comes time to balance their books and reconcile their accounts for the IRS, because they're essentially NOT CHARGING SALES TAX FOR PEOPLE WHO USE VOUCHERS. The IRS will want that money, and guess who'll have to cough it up? The stupid frame store owner. 

America is in a financial crisis. It makes a lot of sense to point to federal and state policies, corruption in government, and politicians from both major parties who don't give a damn about the average working man. On the other hand, business owners - especially small business owners - need to step up their game. Complaining to the Wall Street Journal that they feel duped by Groupon won't do. I'm guessing a lot of these business owners who are disenchanted figured they could offer and get paid up front for big discounts, and that most consumers would never actually use their Groupon vouchers. That's more than just dumb - its damned greedy. I don't hope the store where I had this experience fails, but I won't be shocked if it does. And, if it does, it can't blamed on a poor economy or TPTB in Washington DC or Sacramento. It'll be because the owner is both stupid and greedy - a dangerous combination.

Blog for Access - July 26th, Anniversary of the ADA

When my mother passed away, my father, sister and I went about the business of going through her stuff. Some of it we wanted for ourselves, or to pass down to the grandkids. Some of her things, though, were carted off to places such as The Lighthouse for the Blind, or Hospice or other charities. Things like electronic screen readers, books on CD, talking timepieces, a power wheelchair, and all sorts of Assistive Technology.

Ma was lucky: she had really great insurance that covered the costs most of this equipment. Or rather, she was lucky AND smart: when she retired, she devoted a chunk of her retirement savings to pay for insurance for life. Most people don't have this option. I thank God my mother did. It made it possible for her to be as comfortable as possible when her multiple disabilities caused her pain, took away her eyesight, and compromised her mobility. The fact that she had excellent coverage also meant she was able to live in her own home, right until the end. Without ramps, rails, and a bunch of other devices that made her home easy to maneuver, there's no way my mother could have stayed at home. 

When we talk about access in regards to disabilities, we most often talk about physical access. The ramps and rails were great. The screen readers and talking machines were great. But those items can only be useful if they're accessible. And, by this I mean that they're great for people who can afford them or whose insurance helps them defray the costs, but more of a pipe dream for people who can't. This is a whole other type of access that people with disabilities have to deal with every day: the AT exists, and it can make the world more accessible, but some of it is exorbitantly expensive. It's only useful to people if they can actually get their hands on it.

The very tools that have been designed to provide greater access are not financially accessible to most Americans.

I remember talking to the social worker at the dialysis center where my mother had treatment four times a week. He told me that my mother wasn't like other patients he dealt with. She had great insurance, he explained, and great insurance gave her options. Most of the people he saw had little or no insurance, or relied on Medicaid or Medicare. I was shocked to find out that several of the regular dialysis patients were homeless, and living out of a tent city set up by the town council. The federal government guaranteed them access to dialysis treatment, but little else. Even if they were able to find affordable housing, the chances of being able to modify that housing to make it accessible was next to nil. For these people, there are few, if any, choices about independent, community-based living.

So, when Ma passed away, we packed up most of her AT, and donated it to different charities where other people with disabilities could make use of it. Some it was practical stuff: items to help people get dressed or read or tell time or get around. Other things were just for living life: tactile and large print board games and playing cards, a giant remote control, a wide selection of books on tape and CD. It felt good to pass those things along - to provide access to a few people. But it's not the answer. We need to work, as a country, to make not just emergency healthcare something that every person can access, but to make accessible the basic things people with disabilities need in order to truly have options they can explore.

Bad Science

"It's a choice!" you'll hear. Homosexuality is a choice, a lifestyle entered into by conscious decision. This what those who oppose same-sex marriage and full civil rights for gays and lesbians say. Homosexuals aren't and shouldn't be a protected class, they say, because homosexuality is not a genetically determined trait such as race or gender.

In their zeal to deny others of their rights, and to hold on to as much power, themselves, as they possibly can, the far right points to science. Many of the same people who poo-poo science when it comes to evolution vs. creation theory suddenly look to science as the be-all and end-all that they hinge their anti-homosexual agenda on. The problem is, the science they're pointing to isn't science, at all. It's pseudo-science. It has nothing to do with scientific investigation, controlled study, or hard evidence. It's quackery that amounts to taking select bits and pieces of scientific theory, mixing that in with large doses of religion and personal ethos, and calling it SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.

The Myths

"The only natural sexual inclination involves males being attracted to females, and females being attracted to males."

Homosexuality and bisexuality occur all the time in the natural world. Animals such as chimpanzees, whales, dolphins, penguins, walruses, bison and some species of reptiles, to name a few examples of the close to 1500 species where homosexuality has been observed by scientists. Last I checked, bison and walruses weren't being induced or pressured into a gay lifestyle. Animals act on instinct. Outside forces play no part in bisexual and homosexual activity in the animal world, the natural world.

"Sexual activity is strictly a function driven by the urge to reproduce and preserve the species, therefore homosexuality must logically be a choice." 

One of the driving factors of human sexuality is almost certainly reproduction, but it isn't the only one. If it were, human beings would only feel the urge for sex when and if their bodies were capable of successful procreation. If it were, no one would ever masturbate or feel the need to masturbate. If it were, men with low sperm counts would have zero sex drive. If it were, no pregnant woman would ever have sexual urges - why would she? If it were, people who didn't want to have kids would have no sex drive. The truth is, human sexuality is a complex phenomenon that has several driving factors and which serves many purposes. Procreation is just one of them.

"Homosexuality is a learned behavior, and people become homosexual because of images of homosexuality they're exposed to in the media. Since it can be learned, it can be unlearned."

A child raised in a traditional household, by a mother and a father, can identify as homosexual, without even knowing what homosexuality entails and without exposure to homosexuality in the media or in real life. It happens all the time. In fact, that's the background story of most homosexuals I know. Homosexuality occurs in all cultures, including those without mass media and those where any images of homosexuality are strictly forbidden. Homosexuality predates the Internet. It predates Tom of Finland and Sarah Waters. It predates the printing press and mass literacy.

"Homosexuality is curable."


In order for something to be curable, it has to be an illness, a disease. Homosexuality is not a disease or a disorder. This is not just my opinion as a lesbian. Every major mental health organization in the country, including the American Psychological Association, has stated that homosexuality is not an illness or disease. So has the World Health Organization. Real science says homosexuality is not a disease. If it's not a disease, there can't be a cure. If it's not a disease - and it isn't - only a fool would look for a cure.

"Homosexuality isn't even learned - it's a conscious choice. People who engage in homosexual sex just need to choose to be heterosexual by engaging in heterosexual sex."

Sexuality is about a lot more than the mere sex act. A celibate heterosexual is still a heterosexual, and the same holds true for a homosexual. A person can and may choose how to behave and what to do, but no human being can choose his or her sexuality. Who would choose homosexuality in a country where homosexuals are denied their civil rights, face discrimination at every pass, are mocked in the media, and are often shunned by their families? If it were a choice, why would anyone living in a country such as Iran or Yemen, where homosexuality is punishable by death, choose to be homosexual? 

There are lots of homosexuals who live what we think of as heterosexual lives. I'm talking about men with wives and children who, when they feel safe that no one is watching, engage in sex with other men. They can't help it. Because, at their core, they're gay. They just aren't brave enough to embrace this reality, so they settle for gay sex on the DL and a straight life for their public personas. As recent history has shown, it's not uncommon for some of the very people who use bad science and spew bullshit theories about the curability of homosexuality to be nothing more than cowardly, self-loathing homosexuals. Hey, I'm not making this up. The Hall of Shame includes:

George Rekers
Pastor Eddie Long
Troy King
Richard Curtis
Ted Haggard
Glenn Murphy Jr.
David Dreier
Bruce Barclay
Roy Ashburn
Jim West

The Truth

The truth is, people who use bad science to defend the denial of basic civil rights to homosexuals are scared to death that their tenuous grasp on power is weakening. This is not new. It happened in regards to blacks, Native Americans, Jews, women, people with disabilities, etc. In 2011, we know better than to believe that Africans are genetically inferior to Europeans. We know that Native Americans aren't "savages." We know Jews do, indeed, bleed when we prick them. We know that it would be outrageous to deny women the vote. We acknowledge that people with disabilities have as much right to live in the world, and have access to public spaces, as the rest of us. In 2011, it high time bad science be kicked to the curb and homosexuals be granted our civil rights.

One Year

One year ago I got on a plane and headed across the continent to Florida to say goodbye to my mother. I did not make it in time to say goodbye. I was somewhere over America when she passed over. I didn't expect that. I expected her to hold on long enough for me to have one last chance to hold her hand. The way it happened, though, was the way she wanted it to happen. She waited until she was alone, except for my father, and she just...left. In terms of the many ways people die, she had a good death. Quiet. Peaceful. On her own terms. No unfinished business. My sister later told me that, near the end, she'd told our mother that, while I was on my way, she knew I'd understand if she couldn't wait. It was the right thing for my sister to do. This wasn't about me. And I don't believe it would have been any easier on me if I had been there. We had no unfinished business, my mother and I. We said all that needed to be said to one another. We didn't have the tension or rivalry some mothers and daughters have. We had genuine friendship and respect between us. Being together at the last moment wasn't worth as much to either of us as having been there for one another throughout my life.

One year. In most ways today is like any other day. But we tend to mark anniversaries in this culture. One year. One year without my mother. One year without the daily check-in by telephone. One year of not being able to pick up the phone and ask how to cook a certain dish, or who starred in some obscure 50s movie, or laugh over a funny story. One year of the phone not ringing, of no happy visits or sunny days pushing her wheelchair along the Sponge Docks. One year alone.

Nothing will ever be harder. This I believe. Friends who have had this experience - the ones who are brave enough to be honest - tell me it never gets easier and it never stops hurting. They say it just becomes something I'll get used to. The way this stupid hand injury I have has never healed, and never stopped hurting - I've just gotten used to it. And they're right - I am getting used to it. And I hate getting used to it, because it's like giving in to the obvious, the inevitable, the truth.

The Moment

I am five years old, sitting on the floor in front of my grandmother's couch. My mother and grandmother sit on the couch. I lean back on my mother's legs. We are all engrossed in what we see on the television in front of us: on the night before Philip Brent is to ship off to fight in Vietnam, he and Tara Martin have snuck into a church.

They are young.
They are in love.
In the darkness of an empty church, they privately exchange vows.
There is no priest.
This is their secret.
We are the only witnesses.

This is the moment that sets the scene for years of heartbreak, drama, tragedy and action in Pine Valley. It is the moment that will impact so many characters in the years to come. It is the moment that, years later, when Philip returns from Vietnam and finds Tara married to Chuck Tyler, he will bring us back to. It is the moment I first feel the power of the genre known as soap opera and fall in love with a particular kind of storytelling - storytelling that is about people and their histories, their secrets, their demons. Storytelling that is about people at their best and people at their worst, and all the shades of gray in between.

On hearing about the cancellation of All My Children and One Life To Live, I knew I'd have to write about what will truly be the end of an era for me, but I didn't know where to start. While exchanging emails with a group of friends who love soaps every bit as much as I do, and reminiscing about our favorite moments, it hit me like gangbusters: Philip and Tara. The church. Their secret. It is the first real story line I remember.

In my real life, I'd hear my parents talk about Vietnam. Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner talked about it on the news every night. It was part of the background noise as we ate dinner. But it was just a word to me. I had no idea what this Vietnam everyone spoke about really was, except that it was bad, and everyone had an opinion about it. My grandfather and father disagreed about it. A lot. And here, in the middle of the day, were Philip and Tara - two young, attractive characters who seemed like real people to me - talking about a war. About what it means for a young man to go off to war without any certainty that he'll come home, again. It is not an exaggeration to say that I figured out what Vietnam was - not through my parents or the news reports we watched every day - but  by watching Philip and Tara's drama unfold. It was a war! People had strong feelings about it, in part, because young men were going away for years and years, even though they didn't want to. Some of them never got back home. Some of them left home without ever having lived. Some of them left families behind, and people they loved.

For every crazy, stupid story line this genre has tackled - demonic possession, human cloning, time travel, a gorilla escaping from Central Park Zoo - there are so many human stories that really have made a difference in the way a lot of people live their lives. When Guiding Light aired frank and open story lines about domestic violence and breast cancer viewers paid attention - DV hotlines rang off the hook and women started booking appointments for mammograms in record numbers. Another World talked openly about abortion for the first time on television. As The World Turns revealed that a popular character was gay. Guiding Light tackled spousal rape for the first time on television. The Young and the Restless bravely introduced a story line about venereal disease in the mid 70s. Ryan's Hope broke tradition by featuring a Jewish character in the previously all Christian/ mostly Protestant daytime arena. And All My Children incorporated the Vietnam War - in real time, no less - with the Philip and Tara story line. And maybe this story line helped people talk about the war, or see it in a different light. I know it explained a lot about the war to me, as young as I was. But more. It made me notice story-telling. It made me pay attention to why characters did and said what they did and said. It made me notice that nothing exists in a vacuum, and that every action is followed by a reaction - even though I didn't have that language - and that these things are important to keep in mind if you want to tell a story that people will believe and want to listen to. Mostly, it made me want to make up and tell those stories, myself.

It is no small thing for me to think of All My Children being pulled off the air. Even though Tara and Philip are long gone, Agnes Nixon is no longer at the helm, and I haven't been a regular viewer for some time, that show is a little piece of home for me. It represents time shared with people who were important to me (my mother and grandmother), and a very specific moment in time when a big part of the person I am today was born.

It's no accident that people refer to their favorite soaps as their "stories," because that's what the genre has always been about - stories. Agnes Nixon wrote a story about Philip and Tara. Richard Hatch and Karen Lynn Gorney brought that story to life. That story made me fall in love with stories.