Dogged Blog

And Your Little Dog, Too Two

Every day we see more and more examples of the perfidy of the media.  Undisclosed payoffs, unchecked facts, books sold as memoirs that turn out to be fiction. It was inevitable that the stain would spread to that once-sacred ground known as the dog book. Via the email list of the Dog Writers Association of America:

In light of the scandal enveloping bestselling author James Frey, who now admits his purportedly nonfiction memoir "A Million Little Pieces" is riddled with fabrications and exaggerations, the online accuracy watchdog SmokingCanine.com has launched an investigation into another memoir currently topping best-seller lists. We now bring you this shocking expose:

PHILADELPHIA - Credible evidence has surfaced that Inquirer columnist John Grogan might have greatly exaggerated the badness of his now-infamous Labrador retriever Marley.

Read the full shocking story here.

More of that Changing Hearts and Minds Groove Thang

It's not just Brokeback Mountain changing hearts and minds... seems real life can do it too.  Even a Republican lawmaker had his changed by the story of  former police officer Laurel Hester's battle to leave her pension benefit to her partner Stacie Andree; Hester is dying of cancer. From Pam at Big Brass Blog:

Last night, Jackson Township Committeeman Mark A. Seda, a Republican, convinced his colleagues to unanimously vote for their town to extend domestic partner benefits to employees there as well. National Dem leadership -- you, the spineless ones who cannot and will not speak out for your gay constituents, look what a Republican has the courage to say.

I suppose the day will come when we don't have to actually die to have our civil rights taken seriously, but in the meantime, this guy's statement gave me goosebumps.

Everybody Hates Bush

I feel slightly guilty for mentioning it, but I confess I'm enjoying watching Republicans abandoning the Bush administration.  Now the libertarians are getting in on it, too. A  friend just sent me a link to a great little article by  James Leroy Wilson called "Why I Hate Bush: 69 reasons to want this Presidency to end."

After a few paragraphs of  blather about why Bush could have been an OK president and why all the reasons liberals hate him are irrational (supposedly we hate him because he's a Republican, basically), almost out of the blue comes:

(T)here are reasons to single out President Bush as easily the worst President in at least a generation and potentially of all time. There are reasons to cringe whenever his face is shown, whenever he speaks. There are rational reasons to hold Bush personally accountable for laws signed, wars started, budgets proposed, cabinet departments created, startling inaction in our greatest crises, about-faces in policy and rhetoric, and all the damage that followed.

Do I hate Bush? On some metaphysical or spiritual level, I would say that "hate" is a strong word. On the practical level, however, I do. I want to see his Presidency utterly destroyed...."

A "strong word"? How about a couple thousand of them? Read them here.

Queer TV You'll Never See

Via email from Sandy at Fetch, a New York Times article about a  new reality show scheduled to air on ABC this summer:

The unscripted series, "Welcome to the Neighborhood," was heavily promoted and scheduled to appear in a summer time slot usually occupied by "Desperate Housewives." Stephen Wright, 51, who was already living in a nice house a few miles away with his partner and adopted son, said he participated primarily for one reason: to show tens of millions of prime-time viewers that a real gay family might, over the course of six episodes, charm a neighborhood whose residents overwhelmingly identified themselves as white, Christian and Republican.

And they did, to their surprise as well as the surprise of the people who voted for them. But don't expect to see how this miracle of transforming hearts and minds took place, because ABC, which owns the show, is refusing to allow it to be aired, or to sell it to anyone else.

The Times article speculates that ABC's parent company, Disney, might have scuttled the show in order to avoid harming its fragile rapprochement with the religious right; the Southern Baptist Convention only recently ended a boycott of Disney and Disney's wildly successful Chronicles of Narnia is the new darling of the Christian right. Richard Land, an official with the Southern Baptist Convention, speculated that "had the show been broadcast - particularly with an ending that showed Christians literally embracing their gay neighbors - it could have scuttled the Southern Baptists' support for 'Narnia'."

I have no idea if Narnia factors in here at all. In fact, I'm highly skeptical that it does. But I do think that this is part of the phenomenon Mark Morford wrote about it in his discussion of the film Brokeback Mountain:

When human consciousness expands, for whatever reason and with whatever stimulation and even if you can only measure it in hairsbreadth, when our nasty habit of harsh judgment falls away and people begin to get a little bit, you know, lighter, there is always, as sure as there's someone who hates the sunrise, a clampdown, a recoil, a desperate need by the terrified and ever-paranoid conservative sect to, you know, put a quick stop to this so-called awakening crapola ASA-damn-P.

I'd say he hit the nail right on the head. According to the Times:

(T)he neighbor who was the Wrights' earliest on-camera antagonist - Jim Stewart, 53, who is heard in an early episode saying, "I would not tolerate a homosexual couple moving into this neighborhood" - has confided to the producers that the series changed him far more than even they were aware. No one involved in the show, Mr. Stewart said, knew he had a 25-year-old gay son. Only after participating in the series, Mr. Stewart said, was he able to broach his son's sexuality with him for the first time.

Stephen Wright, one of the winners, told the Times he was sorry his family's story wouldn't be seen by a wider audience, but that he's not sorry they participated in the series.

"We opened our souls and the life of our family, and we did it because we thought we could make a difference," he said.

But Mr. Wright said he took solace that through their participation in the series, he and his partner had had a positive impact on at least one relationship, that of Mr. Stewart and his son.

"We said at the outset that if we changed one person's heart or mind, it would be worth it," he said. "We have empirical evidence we did that."

"And," he added, "we won a house."

Read the full story here.

Weekend Queer Movie Blogging

I haven't been going to the movies much in the last few years. We have one, count 'em one, local movie theater, the Rio, which is an old Quonset hut on the Russian River that gets movies a month or so post-release for 3-4 days runs. This is the theater where I saw Mary Poppins when I was a little girl one summer vacation, and it hasn't been updated, upgraded, multi-plexed, or otherwise modernized since those days. You gotta love it.

But I used to go to the movies all the time, and had a lot of friends in the film industry. In fact, I've been to the Academy Awards with two of them, and yes, that photo is me holding Oscar. My friends Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman won it for Common Threads  in 1989 (Rob had previously won for The Times of Harvey Milk in 1985). The other photo is me with Rob and Jeff, earlier that same night, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. I was helping Rob practice his acceptance speech, and in the interest of time, he was thinking of thanking "the gay community" instead of "the lesbian and gay community," at which point I threatened him with bodily harm. It is entirely because of me that the word "lesbian" was first spoken at the Academy Awards, and broadcast on national television. See, my life was once extremely glamorous, before I traded it in for country living and dogs.

I went just now to look up when exactly I went to the Oscars, and I was pretty taken aback to see it was 1989. Because last night I had another 1989 moment of shock, when I went to see the movie Rent.

I'd seen the stage version of Rent three times already, and I loved it (which I guess is obvious from the fact I saw it three times). It summed up the early years of AIDS perfectly, at least, the experiences I went through with most of my friends. Although the stage version never identifies exactly what year the story is set in, the first words spoken in the film set it in 1989.

1989 is the year I turned 30, just a few days after the Oscar ceremony. 1989 is also the very worst year of my life. If you gave me fifty million dollars I wouldn't live through it again. It was the year I lost more friends than any other year, the year I found out that two dear, close friends who had previously chosen not to be tested were HIV positive, the year I started really losing my ability to deal with what AIDS was doing to my friends, my community, and my city. I have blogged before about my friends Tim and Pietro; April of 1989 is when I found out they had AIDS, when I went to visit them in Italy.  It's the year I finally realized that the coping skills I'd been using to get through this crisis were totally inadequate for the long term; I couldn't stand  it anymore, but the epidemic showed no signs at all of abating. Things were getting worse and I would wake up every morning feeling like my nerves were being bathed in acid.

I loved the film version of Rent. I'd heard that most people who loved the stage version also loved the film version, but that people who hadn't already seen it (or didn't already love it) weren't so blown away. It got mixed reviews and while it's still playing in San Francisco, it's no longer in the theaters here in Sonoma County. I found it hard to watch, and cried through almost the whole thing - even though parts of it are actually astonishingly joyful - and cried so hard at the deathbed and memorial service for Angel that the lady sitting next to me patted my arm.

So I don't know if my recommendation is going to mean much to people who didn't love Rent already, and didn't live through the early days of the AIDS epidemic in New York or San Francisco. But the nice lady who patted my arm had never seen the stage show, and she and her husband lived out here in the boonies during the 80s, so I'm guessing that's not the case. Go see it, it's great. Or if it's gone from your local theaters, rent it when you can.

I also saw another movie last weekend, Brokeback Mountain. I was fairly sure it was going to suffer from over-hype, and it did - it's hard not to be slightly let down by the reality of a film that is getting the kind of praise this one is. And it really is a fantastic film. The cinematography is incredible, the acting is mind-blowing, the script is just about perfect.

I'd call it a bit of a filmmaker's film, though, which sometimes translates into being a little boring. It dragged in a few parts. And it's grim, grim, grim - I don't think the two main characters had one moment's joy in their lives, other than a few days on that mountain. I understand that's an essential part of the story and of their lives, but it's painful - agonizing - to watch.

Probably the most interesting thing about Brokeback Mountain to me is the reaction to it in the media and among people who are seeing it and talking about it. Not just around here, in gay-friendly, culturally hip, left coast/blue state northern California, but nationwide. I could blather on about it for a while, but as usual, Mark Morford got there first and did it better:

Witness, won't you, the confluent forces, the twin streams of conflicting culture represented by the amazing "Brokeback Mountain" movie phenomenon, a spare and sad and highly controversial little indie-style flick that is shaking up the homophobic community and raking in the Golden Globes and which now seems a shoo-in to win an Oscar or four, as compared and contrasted with, say, the humorless, depressing, dry-as-death Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination. Oh yes, we have a match. Do you see it?

Look closer. On the one hand, here is the astounding reach and power of this rare and striking little film, an emotional tinderbox of a movie that, in the wrong hands or with the wrong marketing or if it had been off pitch by just this much, could have very easily been trashed and quickly dismissed, would have hobbled the careers of two up-and-coming hunk actors, been mocked across the board and demonized by the religious right as revolting gay propaganda, the source of all ills, proof of the existence of the devil himself.

Of course, the latter is still happening (isn't it always?), but the amazing thing is, no one seems to care. The screech of the right's homophobes is being easily drowned out by the fact that this astonishing, pitch-perfect film is now considered a movie that, quite literally, changes minds. Shifts perceptions. That moves the human experiment forward and makes people truly think about sex and gender and love and not in the way that, say, "Pride & Prejudice" makes you think because that kind of thinking is merely sweet and harmless, whereas "Brokeback" slaps bigotry and intolerance upside its knobby little head and induces heated discussions of the film's dynamics and politics and ideas of love over a bottle of wine and some deep curious sighing.

I enjoyed Rent, even though it made me cry; it left me feeling like I'd seen a piece of my own life, and seen something on the screen that gave me joy even while it broke my heart - something like life in that way, too. Brokeback Mountain didn't have that effect on me at all, but the reaction to it? Maybe so. If Morford is right and the world has changed, I'm glad I lived to see it, as long as I can stay out of the way of the blow back.

Stood Up For a Hot Appendix

My darling nine-year-old nephew, who I was supposed to be seeing Narnia with this weekend, had an emergency appendectomy yesterday. He's a brave little guy and he's doing fine, but if you're the praying/affirming/good thoughts type, please send them his way. I love my nephews as much as I love my dogs (amazing but true), and this nephew loves animals as much as I do, so he has an important family tradition to carry on.

Ouch

OK, OK, it's six days old, but I've been catching up on blog reading. Via Kathy Flake, Howard Dean bitchslaps Wolf Blitzer. I especially like the way Blitzer sits there at the end with his eyes bugging out and his mouth gaping like a fish. It's worth replaying several hundred times.

Why I Breed Dogs

I love dogs, something that's  obvious to anyone who has spent ten minutes in my company or even just walked in my front door. And sometimes people who also love dogs wonder how it is that I have chosen to breed them,  knowing that many dogs lose their lives for lack of a good home every day.

I don't actually believe this is a zero sum game, but even assuming it was, I'd still breed dogs, and the reason why is simple: Because I'm not willing to live in a world with no Scottish Deerhounds in it. Because I don't agree that a dog is a dog is a dog. I love my breed, their fuzzy faces and their dark eyes, watching them run full out, feet not seeming to touch the ground. I love their gentleness, their whimsy, how they go from sleeping curled on the couch to taking off after imaginary deer in a split second. I love the curve of their chests and the arch over their loins and a harsh, close-lying coat.

I love them for what they've been for hundreds of years, and I want to see them stay that way.

I love them for what they could be if they continue to remain in the hands of devoted and dedicated owners and breeders.

The day we lose these dogs, who have hunted and lived with humans for literally hundreds of years, will be a sad day and one I will do my utmost to ensure we never see.

That's why.

The Politics of Fandom

I normally don't pay much attention to actors, singers, and other "stars." I don't mean to come off as a big elitist snob; just try to pry me away from West Wing on Sunday nights and you'll know I'm as susceptible as the next person to getting addicted to a TV series. We won't even discuss my previous obsession with Xena: Warrior Princess. But I rarely know the names of any of the actors on shows I watch, or any details about their real lives.

But I admit to being curious about which of the actors in the Showtime series Queer as Folk was actually gay and which was just playing gay. I had never heard of any of them before and literally knew nothing at all about the show until I started watching it on DVD in December. (Yes, I live under a rock.)

I asked my friend Travis, who is normally my instant conduit to all things related to film, being as he's an actor living in West Hollywood, but while he knew some were gay and some were straight, he couldn't remember which was which. So I went where I go when Travis lets me down, Google, where I discovered that my gaydar is absolutely perfect: Of the five main male actors, I had accurately identified which ones were gay and which ones were just acting. (I didn't do this, by the way, based on how naturally they kissed or had sex with men onscreen. No, my criterion was something else entirely: Could they dance? The two actors who could dance were in fact gay men, and the three actors who couldn't dance for shit were straight. Travis had known that both actors who played the show's token lesbians were straight women, which was unfortunately painfully obvious to me already. But I digress.)

What I also found out in this rare excursion into celebrity googleville is that it's not the dancing ability, sexual orientation, looks, or even talent of an actor that makes me like them. No, it's their political beliefs. Two of the actors on the show turned out to have supported Howard Dean in the last election, and so suddenly I became their biggest fans. (For the curious, those two were Michelle Clunie and Robert Gant.) Which really cracked me up, because this isn't the first time that happened to me.

My mom is George Clooney's biggest fan. In fact, she's such a fan of the guy it's almost scary. And I did know that he's a liberal, because my mom told me. But one night I was watching him on a talk show, promoting his film about Edward R. Murrow, Good Night and Good Luck (which deserved all the great reviews it got, and you should go see it), and he smiled lazily at the interviewer and called himself "a big old liberal." All of a sudden I was struck with a sudden urge to watch hours of re-runs of ER.

I was talking about great horse movies with a straight female friend last night, and we got onto the subject of Robert Redford in the Horse Whisperer (pretty good movie if you mentally edit out the idiotic and unbelievable romance subplot). I mentioned to her that although I'd always known Redford was a liberal, I'd really become a big fan when he campaigned for Kerry in the last election.

Same thing happened with Bruce Springsteen. When I went away to college in 1978, I'd only heard of Bruce Springsteen once, as the co-author of Patti Smith's song Because the Night. Arriving at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, from San Francisco, where I was born and grew up, was an experience of culture shock in more ways than I can count, but one of them was learning that Bruce Springsteen was some huge rock and roll star, and no one had ever heard of Patti Smith. Nonetheless,  watching him sing No Retreat, No Surrender at a Kerry rally on CSPAN turned me instantly into a fan, and I actually went out and bought one of his CDs just to hear that song.

I'm sure my admiration of stars based on shared political beliefs isn't going to boost their ratings or sales any more than my vote got a liberal into the White House, but it does still kind of crack me up that I'm so easy.

Oh, and if anyone finds out Lucy Lawless, who played Xena, is a right wing Republican, PLEASE don't tell me. Because this works in reverse, too, and I just don't want to know.

Disagreeing on Narnia

I haven't seen the Chronicles of Narnia movie yet, although my 9-year-old nephew and I have a date to see it soon. I have seen the bazillions of  hostile internet exchanges on whether or not it's a piece of potent propaganda from the religious right, and thus hazardous to your child's mental and spiritual health (assuming you're a godless liberal like me). I don't think so, personally. Yes, Narnia is a Christian allegory, but given that I believe Christianity itself is allegorical, I really don't care.

But I wasn't prepared for one of my own personal media gods, Mark Morford, to ask the question, "Does Narnia Actually Suck?" And he didn't mean the movie. He meant the books:

Truly, I was of the mind that the "Narnia" books, to my dreamy, rose-colored memory, were these insanely rich and ingenious tales, dense and deeply involved anecdotes of children exploring a phenomenally magical world that was so utterly not of this grungy, terrestrial plane it might as well have been Pluto. Like many, my time-addled vision elevated the books to the status of utter genius, largely due to the feeling of unchecked awe I can still recall them providing. And I was absolutely sure Hollywood would rape that memory for all the pseudo-Christian bullcrap and Burger King tie-ins it possibly could.

I was wrong. Sort of. Hollywood didn't actually ruin "Narnia." Hollywood didn't cheapen it all that much, or reduce it down or remove much of the original majesty by injecting it with too much CGI and not enough heart. Rather, Hollywood has done something even more depressing: It's revealed "The Chronicles of Narnia" books to be what they actually are: a rather lean slice of delightfully wrought but fairly simpleminded, largely hobbled fantasy for the imagination-deprived single-digit set....

But here's the interesting thing: It doesn't seem to matter. Children still adore the books more than ever. And adults remain baffled to this day at the astounding magnetic pull they hold for children, and re-reading them again as an adult does little in the way of revealing their curious power. And the same appears true for the movie. Kids are enraptured and adults look and wonder what the hell happened to that sense of utter joy they felt when Aslan would appear at the top of a mountain.

Morford then lists a number of books that DO pass the adulthood test, and I don't like any of them. (Yes, that does mean I don't like Tolkein. So shoot me.)

I hate to disagree with Mark Morford (although I do recall a certain ode to an iPod that gave me pause), but not only did I love the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, I loved them as an adolescent, a teenager, a young adult, and at every subsequent developmental stage up to and including today at age 46. I must have read those books a thousand times.

I guess some of us just never grow up. Sorry, Mark.