As of midnight last night, it was exactly six years since my first post. It's been a tough thing to keep up with a dayjob and outside activities, and just when I think I might walk away, a valuable connection or interesting opportunity or a kind word comes my way. Thank you all for reading me.
RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.
MY ART
Construction worker (shot this week) vs. James Dean
GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.
i-i-i (phone)
Not totally built
Unaltered iPhone image that still blows me away
"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.
Let's call it a draw
DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.
The shirtless one
LOST ANGELES (2009): My favorite photographic travelogue of L.A.
Even then, New Yorkers feared 9/11 was the beginning of the end
ART IMITATES LIFE (2006): My 9/11 and my distaste for grief tourism.
ME
Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life
BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.
Signed, sealed (eventually) delivered
LOST BOY FOUND (2011): There is a book in here somewhere.
A gentle reminder from Daily Kos that polls are almost meaningless this early on. (This is a lesson Trump, Cain, Bachmann and Perry have already learned.)
I was invited to a special screening of The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the new documentary by World of Wonder wizzes Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey that debuts at midnight tonight on HBO—DADT is history as of that time.
Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know, this pop documentary (it's got lots of visual candy to make all the complex policy talk idiot-proof) underscored a few things for me, such as the fact that DADT, considered a "step forward" back in Clinton's 1993, was actually the first time it became illegal to be gay in the military as opposed to being in violation of a policy. It was definitely a case of two steps back to get forward 20 years later.
Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Victor Fehrenback, Mike Almy & Aubrey Sarvis
Also interesting was the history of our country's policies on gays in the military (a quickie look at gays in the armed services over the past few thousand years was a bit cutesy for me)—I'd had no idea that WWII was the first time it became against policy, and loved the film's argument that the very notion of a gay community came from gay soldiers during WWII being discharged and dumped at ports...like Manhattan and San Francisco. Anchors aweigh we go, Mary!
The filmmakers have crafted an almost shockingly apolitical film Yes, John McCain is a delicious villain, but he's not manipulated nor is he a metaphor for all anti-gay people; he was there in '93 and there again in '10 for the birth and death of DADT. The film depicts Bill Clinton as an idealist who grossly underestimated the necessity of getting the military to buy into his plan to open its ranks to gays, and depicts Barack Obama as more of a pragmatist, who wanted the ban lifted and who set about doing it methodically. Neither man comes off poorly, and Republicans are not singled out by party; instead, we are able to see each individual man and woman who testified or worked for or against DADT in his or her own words. It's quite weird to see a film about something that just happened, yet to see so many of the players already relegated to the sidelines—Patrick Murphy in particular.
Choi & Fehrenbach
The film is greatly boosted by interviews with actual servicemen and servicewomen whose lives were heavily impacted by DADT, including the heroic Margarethe Cammermeyer, Victor Fehrenbach, Mike Almy (pictured, right) and Dan Choi. Their testimony about how DADT affected them stands in stark contrast to the sophomoric nonsense about shared showers and "unit cohesion" parroted by the powers-that-were, including Colin Powell.
Not exactly the best way to change the minds of gay-squeamish troops, but...wow!
I highly recommend the film. It's therapeutic to watch it and remember, "Whatever happened from Point A to Point Z, we won this sucker."
After, we were able to quiz the filmmakers, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's Aubrey Sarvis as well as Fehrenbach and Almy, who gave terrific answers:
My question was the one someone asked last, which is: If a Republican wins the presidency and decides to reinstate DADT, would that happen? The answer seems to be it totally could happen, but the military (ironically) would probably protest:
Clearly, more still needs to be done:
Afterward, I had a chance to meet all involved. I missed shaking the hand of Melvin Dwork, the 89-year-old man who just this week had his "undesirable" discharge from 70 years ago converted to an "honorable" discharge. (Now to take care of the 99,000 others!)
SLDN'S Aubrey Sarvis with the newly desirable Melvin Dwork
Mike Diamond, whose fisting parody of Katy Perry's "E.T." will have you (and your duodenum) in stitches, threw himself at the servicemen so shamelessly I had to borrow some Crisco from him to lube them up and pull him off. But it's okay—gay people have every right to become servicemembers in the military, and those of us not in the military have every right to attempt to service the members of anyone on or off active duty.
It's not official, but it may be by tomorrow—it's looking like Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) will announce he won't run again in '12. Widely unpopular, it would have been a miraculous comeback had he decided to fight on and actually won.
Despite his truly laudatory work on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he helped make the health-insurance reform debate into the debacle that it wound up being (President Obama did his part, too, to be fair) and has generally been a thorn in the sides of Democrats.
Minutes ago, the Senate achieved cloture on the stand-alone repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, effectively meaning: It's over. We won. (Or we will once debate is over and the final vote happens. UPDATE: It's over.) Once it became clear this was a done deal, more senators voted in favor than were expected to, including Kirk, Conrad and Voinovich, along with Collins, Snowe, Brown and Murkowski. But not before John McCain made a horrifying speech claiming soldiers would lose limbs over this repeal, echoing the sentiments of Marine Corps honcho Amos.
Credit to Joe Lieberman (finally! he must really want to be re-elected!) for pulling this together, to Harry Reid for scheduling the vote in such a way that it would pass, to all the tireless activists who bitched and moaned (the squeaky activist gets the oil) and finally to President Obama...what looked like a miserable failure for him only a week ago is now a real feather in his cap. Would have preferred he do this before the eleven-and-a-halfth hour, but the end result is what matters. An historic day.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is saying there are now at least 62 votes in the Senate to pass the stand-alone repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and gives credit to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) for rounding up the support. It's odd to be happy with Lieberman...it's been a long time!
Here's Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pennsylvania, pictured) speaking out on behalf of the repeal on the House floor. Great guy, and it's so sad he'll be gone in January:
Following President Obama urging Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan) to keep the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military-spending bill, here's the first decent thing Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) has done in forever—heading up that press conference calling attention to the fact that he and many others in the Senate still want to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He says we have the 60 votes, so it's all up to Sen. Majority Leader Reid (D-Nevada) to make sure that the bill is open for debate, as Republicans have insisted upon.
A bill has been introduced in the Senate that would repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell...by Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), who in a statement said:
"To exclude one group of Americans from serving in the armed forces is contrary to our fundamental principles as outlined in the Declaration of Independence."
The other senators at the press conference included Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Sen. Roland Burris (D-Illinois).
According to Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colorado, pictured), it will be inserted in the defense appropriations bill, which should mean it would take 60 votes to remove it as opposed to 60 votes to pass it. Because there are not 60 votes to pass it.
