Dogged Blog

Xena and the superbug

The article I wrote based on the interviews I did at the Xena convention went up today at AfterEllen.com. And I'd have posted this sooner but I was up all last night with a sick dog, and spent most of the day at the vet and the rest of the day trying to catch up.

First, the Warrior Princess:

Viewers never had to look too hard to find the lesbian subtext in Xena: Warrior Princess, but that's still what it was: subtext. And while lesbian fans in the 1990s might not have had any choice but to settle for that, would things be different if the show were being made — or remade — today? When I attended the Xena convention in Burbank, Calif., at the end of January, I asked the show's creators, producers, writers and stars if the world is ready for an openly lesbian relationship between Xena and Gabrielle.

"To me it was main text," said Renee O'Connor, who played Gabrielle, in an exclusive interview with AfterEllen.com. "And even if it was subtext, it was very clear that we were together. They are so in love with each other, they love each other so dearly; there's no way you can say that's not true. Anyone can see that from watching the show."

I asked her if she thought that relationship could be openly acknowledged if the series were being made today. "I don't know," O'Connor answered. "Maybe there's a little bit more hint of acceptance today. Maybe, maybe not. You can only put it up and see what would happen. I guess we could do anything, just get it out there and see how it affects people."

In a lot of ways, Xena flew under the radar during the '90s. Viewers who didn't perceive (or didn't like) the lesbian subtext could see it simply as a story about heroic friends righting wrongs and battling villians. If the show were being produced in today's post–L Word television landscape, it's hard to believe that audiences would be quite as oblivious.

But O'Connor doesn't think that a more overt presentation of Xena and Gabrielle's relationship would have changed the moral heart of the series. That's because she sees those two things — the love between Xena and Gabrielle and the series' focus on the fight against evil — as inextricably combined. 

"If we were just starting Xena right now, I know what the relationship of the two characters is," O'Connor said. "So even though we wouldn't blatantly talk about all the issues involved, because I don't think that's what the show is about, it's still about defeating oppressors and wanting to do the right thing for the world. And that comes down to these people and how they love each other."

It's all here.

Now the part about the dog and the superbug, from where I posted about it in more detail on Pet Connection:

And you thought spider bites were bad enough. Welcome to the brave new post-drug resistant superbug world — and meet the latest staph infection poster child, my Borzoi, Kyrie.

Wednesday night, she had a small, quarter-sized red patch on her hip that seemed to hurt her terribly. I got her into the vet the next day, and she diagnosed a spider bite, shaved and cleaned the area, and put her on antibiotics, pain meds, and gave me lydocaine spray to numb it. She predicted Kyrie would feel better in around 48 hours.

By Saturday, Kyrie had an 8 inch by 8 inch patch of infected, oozing, red, raw skin. It was swollen and blistered. I spoke to my vet, who told me to take her off the antibiotic and bring her in today for a skin culture.

But Kyrie spent all last night huddling next to me on the bed whimpering, so this morning I canceled the visit to my local vet, and headed off to see a specialist.

I had a fairly good idea what was going on, and my vet agreed with me: what we know in human medicine as methicillin-resistant staphylocuccus aureus, or MRSA.

In dogs and cats, a more typical finding is methicillin-resistant staphylococcus intermedius, MRSI, but it’s otherwise pretty much the same problem: a common bacteria, found in and on most dogs, people, and surfaces, has evolved to be able to resist the antibiotics we normally use to treat it.

Full story and gruesome photo, here.

Queer little wrap-up

Wow, right now both articles at the top of AfterElton.com are by me. I don't think that's ever happened before!

One is, of course, my Project Runway recap. It's a heartbreaking story of an injustice so vast, an offense to taste so great... well, you'll just have to read it.

The other is one of those political/entertainment hybrid articles my editor Michael Jensen keeps making me convincing me to write. I'm pretty proud of this one, and it got picked up by Gawker, too, which makes the gossipy bitch in me happy:

(Neil Patrick) Harris was yet another public figure who was "out in the community, but not in the press." In other words, gay fans knew, along with varying numbers of other people, but it hadn't been reported in the media, and mainstream America was perfectly free to ignore it if they wished. In fact, most of mainstream America isn't ignoring the existence of queer celebrities; thanks to close-mouthed celebrities and a complicit media, they really don't know.

That system works because these days many of the queer and famous don't come out – they inch out. And it's not hard to figure out why. They get to socialize in the gay community, be out to their immediate friends and family, and live with their same-sex partners without having to go through the media circus of an official come-out. But here's a question: What's in it for us?

Other than any thrill it might give us to get the joke when Anderson Cooper laughs that fellow CNN anchor Erica Hill's husband doesn't have anything to worry about from him, or when Jodie Foster thanks her "beautiful Cydney" at a Hollywood event, not much. That's because it's not inside jokes and white-lipped references to privacy that advance GLBT equality and civil rights; it's visibility.

And that doesn't mean visibility to each other, but mainstream visibility. There is nothing more strongly correlated with increased support of gay rights among straight people, from marriage to adoption to opposing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, than one simple thing: knowing someone who is gay.

Anderson Cooper (l), Jodie Foster & Cydney Bernard (r)

The bottom line is that coming out as gay – actually saying the words clearly, and for the record – is the single most powerful tool we have to achieve equality. "Inching out" might make gay celebrities' lives easier, and they have every right to do it if they want to. But as a community, we also have the right to examine the impact of that choice on us.

And it does have one. It perpetuates the one thing that has done more harm to gay rights than any other institution: the closet. Because even if a public figure is "out in the community," until they're also "out in the press" – until their coming out statement is on the pages of People magazine – mainstream America will continue on, blissfully unaware that their favorite actor, a powerful politician, or a respected business leader is queer.

Read the whole thing here.

Oh Lucy You're So Fine... Saturday Night with Lucy Lawless

I'll be updating my Xena convention coverage and reporting on Lucy's Saturday night concert over on AfterEllen.com in a few minutes, but first a little photo-squeeage.

Lucy and Renee both wore different outfits, and these are Lucy's glitter chaps. I really have no words:

Lucy and Renee goofing around after their duet of "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around":

And more goofing:

And a little more:

And a last look at Lucy:

Lucy Lawless in Concert

My livebloggage of the Xena convention continues at AfterEllen.com -- you can find it all tagged up pretty here.

And speaking of pretty, last night's concert at the Roxy in LA was pretty nice, by which I mean I died and went to fangirl heaven. Here are a few of the shots KT got:

MC Kat Crimmins:

Lucy and Renee duetting to "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around":

Lucy and BFF Marissa Jaret Winokur, who originated the Broadway version of Hairspray's Tracy Turnblad:

Lucy crooning:

Lucy feeling the love:

Who says white girls can't have soul?

I'll be doing a review of the concert at Club Kingsnake in a few days, but I've also written up more about it over on AfterEllen -- just click on the Xena con link and you'll find it. More pics later!

Liveblogging the Xena Convention: Friday

I'm liveblogging the Xena convention over at AfterEllen.com... come on by!

Battling On... for the WGA

I'm not in LA yet, although I will be in a couple of hours. KT got down there today and stood in the rain taking pictures of Xena fans marching in support of the striking WGA writers. I'm not officially liveblogging at AfterEllen.com until tomorrow, and I guess since I'm not even there it would be pushing it to call this "live" at all, so hey... it's a photo story! Click on the images to view them at full size.

Renee O'Connor getting rained on... I can hardly bear the angst:

Xena producer Rob Tapert (also Lucy Lawless' husband) with Renee on the picket line:

Out lesbian Xena writer and producer Liz Friedman, currently on strike from her House writing job:

Liz on the far left, Rob, Renee, and Xena and Army Wives writer Katherine Fugate:

Unnamed striker battles on:

See you all tomorrow at AfterEllen.com!

Xena Xena Xena!

Yes, I'm going to the Xena convention again this year!

And yes, I'll be liveblogging it -- but this time, I'll be doing it over at AfterEllen.com instead of here, since last year like, 10,000 of you dropped by and almost broke TypePad.

Okay, not really, but I'm sure AfterEllen can make more use of those 10,000 hits than I can. I'll link to it from here in case you forget.

KT is coming with me so there'll be lots of photos, too, and yes, I'm interviewing Lucy and Renee again, also for AfterEllen -- and we have some other folks lined up, too, as well as covering Lucy's two sold-out concerts at the Roxy.

Here's a montage of photos KT took last year -- there's even a tiny little bit of me in there.

Project Runway is fierce

I admit I am watching Project Runway because they pay me to, but this week's episode? Brilliant. From my recap at AfterElton.com:

I don't think it's a coincidence that Christian/Chris and Victorya/Jillian ended up with the highest scores in this challenge. The quality of their working relationships were apparent, and fostered creativity, even though the two teams were very different.

The two women respected each other and crafted a strategy for cooperation even though there were issues, while Chris and Christian built on their easy chemistry to express their design talent as well as their craft skills.

It was also interesting to me that the pairings with two women and two gay men pulled this off, not just as designers but as teams. Stereotypes might have suggested that one team would have been catty and the other, bitchy, but not so much with the negative stereotypes on this season's Project Runway, I guess. Yay.

It's here. And yes, I say bitchy things too. That is what they pay me for, yo.

Still more Project Runway

Back to shallow explorations of popular culture. In some ways it's a relief.

I liked this dress best from last night's Project Runway. It didn't win. That was wrong.

I won't lie or try to hide my feelings: This dress was completely, totally, and utterly made of every bit of win and awesomeness that has ever been infused into a prom dress in the history of design.

It was a long, silvery sweep of charmeuse that Rita Hayworth could have worn walking down the red carpet at some iconic Academy Awards celebration in the Golden Age of Hollywood. I'm not even a big Sweet P fan, and she barely hung on by her fingernails last week, but this dress? This dress was the dress. And Nicole knew it, her dark hair cascading down her bare back in loose curls, her candelabra earrings brushing her shoulders, kicking her train behind her like she was born on the runway. Win all around.

See my full recap and many other opinions over on AfterElton.com, as usual. Also, I blogged over there about a fag joke Bravo chose to air on the show... that entry is here.

Project Runway got gayer, how was that possible?

I came back from my sort-of vacation by which I mean, I worked only 40 hours a week for a while, to do the recap of the latest episode of Project Runway over on AfterElton.com:

Oh Project Runway how I missed thee. You're back for the first time since December 12, and hard as it is to believe, you're gayer than ever. That's because not only did Team Gay prevail once more in this challenge, but none of its members were sent home, and the guest judge was openly gay designer Zac Posen. And… drumroll… the gay Levi's commercial aired during the show, the first time I've seen it anywhere but Logo. Project Runway is now officially gay TV.

But also, I'm sad. That's because this week's challenge epitomizes the very thing I hate about reality competition shows: The fake factor. Fake time constraints, fake budget constraints, and fake raw material constraints.

The designers had to use nothing but whatever they could grab in five minutes at the Hershey's store on Times Square, and had one day to create their outfits. Now, I'm guessing that AfterElton.com asked me to recap this show not just because I'm a girl but because I actually know a little bit about fashion.

But as a girl, yes, chocolate is my native food. Nonetheless, there is no overlap between those two sets of character traits, and I'm not even remotely interested in what kind of garment can be fashioned from Hershey's kisses. I'd like to know what a designer can design out of, you know, fabric. Call me crazy.

It's all here.