So, like, what the hell is up with the media? First it was the New York Times, printing fabricated stories from a wunderkind newshound. Then came CBS and Dan Rather and the whole Bush military service mishegas. And now, apparently, ABC has dipped its toe in the shimmering, shallow waters of sloppy, sensationalist journalism with a 20/20 feature on Matthew Shepard alleging that drug abuse–not homophobia–was the real reason behind Shepard’s murder.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d grounded the segment in factual evidence, but they chose instead to use nothing but interviews–and of course, no one’s under oath. Furthermore, the timing of the piece seems a tad suspicious, given the Right’s current attack on GLBT rights and the media that (allegedly) promote them. Perhaps Karl Rove is boinking Elizabeth Vargas. Or John Stossel, for that matter… Um, ew. Strike that last bit.

Anyway, whether or not there’s any truth in those interviews, there is certainly lots of conjecture and hearsay, which is to be roundly condemned. So if you feeling like sounding off today, why not send a lil’ ol’ letter to President ABC News President David Westin and 20/20 Executive Director David Sloan? It’ll make you feel better. Or at least kill a couple of minutes in an otherwise dull day.

In case you missed it:

The Italian Senate ground to a halt Tuesday as a virus wormed its way through the upper house’s computer system flashing gay pornography every time a terminal was accessed. Computers in the Senate chamber and the offices of every senator were infected. The system’s firewall was helpless as it was overcome by the fast spreading worm. No matter what Senators or the staff did all that would come on their computers were hard core [sic] gay pictures.

— 365gay.com, among others

Suddenly, it’s all become clear, the impetus behind this whole religious revival thing. On the one hand, we’ve got massive geopolitical turmoil and economic instability fostering a return to the safe haven of religion. And at the same time, millions upon millions of Baby Boomers–no longer the darlings of the anti-establishment–are growing old and gray, waxing nostalgic about going to church with their parents and worrying more and more about the afterlife. So basically, people everywhere are looking for “answers”–especially the generation that’s currently at the height of its power and influence.

Goddammit. Don’t that timing just beat all?

TWO THINGS, PERHAPS RELATED

1. Remember after September 11, 2001 how everyone was raw and sensitive? How, everywhere you looked, there was a reminder of the planes and the towers and terrorism and all? And if you think really hard, maybe you recall that there was a Starbucks ad that caused some controversy around that time–a print ad that featured a dragonfly buzzing around two iced drinks with the tag line, “Collapse into cool.” A number of people claimed that the image was too, too reminiscent of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and that, in fact, Starbucks was capitalizing on the images of September 11 to drive drink sales. [I know, I know: I was trained to pick apart things like that, to read into ads and essays and whatnot, and even I didn’t see it.]

Well, yesterday I caught sight of a TV ad (I forget for what) featuring something much more graphic and direct: a plane cutting a wild swath through the sky, with folks in the plane’s cargo bay dumping money out of the back. Three years after the fact, the ad’s images of people on the ground, engulfed by paper falling thick as snow, made me stop in my tracks–and I’m not what anyone would call the sentimental type. And I thought to myself, “Where are the Starbucks protesters now?”

2. My friend David forwarded me the text of a speech given by Larry Kramer at Cooper Union a couple of weeks ago. It’s typical Kramerspeak: judgmental, enraged, enraging, earnest (at times, embarrassingly so), wrought with conspiracy theories and vast, ludicrous generalizations, though as with so many polemic types (e.g. Camille Paglia), Kramer does manage to make a few good points.

But what interests me at least as much as Kramer’s arguments is when he’s making them: now, in the wake of the presidential election. And viewed side-by-side with the Starbucks example above, it gives me hope that, like the events of September 11, 2001, the tragedy of November 2, 2004 and the subsequent hysteria it’s engendered will eventually fade, and life will return to normal (whatever that is).

Of course, Kramer would say that such a reading is sloppy and lazy and gives me an excuse to remain sitting on my ass instead of turning my sadness into rage. And maybe he’d be right.

Thankful

I’m surrounded by great cooks.

I’m up to my eyeballs in good indie porn.

Certain individuals will eventually die.

The Overstock.com lady hasn’t shown up anywhere else.

E. F. Benson is still in print.

And the usuals: family, friends, health, hounds

Not Thankful

I can barely make a ham sandwich without supervision.

I’m up to my eyeballs in bad indie porn.

There is no fatwa on Karl Rove’s head.

I cannot issue fatwas myself.

My dogs cannot knit sweaters from their sheddings.

Ray Freaking Bradbury was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

As for today, you know my philosophy: if it can’t be bought on eBay or at a liquor store, it ain’t gettin’ given.

On Feb. 20, after seeing televised images of some of the gay weddings in San Francisco, [Cambodia’s] King Sihanouk commented on his Web site, www.norodomsihanouk.info [direct link to post here], that as a “liberal democracy” Cambodia should allow “marriage between man and man…or between woman and woman.” On Feb. 26, King Sihanouk followed up with a letter in which he disagreed that God absolutely opposes “gays”; rather, he wrote, “God, like Buddha, is compassion, indulgence, non-discrimination.”

—Pacific News Service

Yiddish / Southern

Chutzpah / Gumption

Mishegas / Hogwash

Gornischt / Squat

Ongepatcheket / Citified

Knosh / Pick

Futzing / Piddlin’

Mensch / Good Ol’ Boy

Bubbeh / Mamaw

Oy gevalt! / Christ on a cracker!

And there’s more where that came from. Yo, check it.

Davies, whose 9-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter attend Spurger Elementary, said she viewed the day not a silly Homecoming Week activity, but as an effort to push a homosexual agenda in a public school.

“It’s like experimenting with drugs,” said Davies, who also has a 2-year-old daughter. “You just keep playing with it and it becomes customary. … If it’s OK to dress like a girl today, then why is it not OK in the future?”

—Houston Chronicle, courtesy of Gerald

Dear Middle America:

What the fu@k is wrong with you? Could you please lighten up a little? Or did that god of yours forget to give you and your ill-bred, inbred, porn-loving ilk a sense of humor?

If something doesn’t happen soon, I’m coming after you. Or maybe not you. Maybe your friends, your family, your co-workers. You’ll awake one day to a fresh pot of coffee and shuffle to the front door to retrieve the morning paper and there I’ll be: featured on the cover (above the fold, of course), standing on the steps of your small-town city hall, drenched in the blood of innocents, pistols in both hands, shooting in vain at the dozens, if not hundreds, of armed policemen who have been summoned to subdue me.

And I’m not kidding.

Really. Not. Kidding.

It’s not exactly “love thy neighbor,” but then, neither is “god hates fags.”

Kisses,
Richard

If there were ever a party-giving smack-down between Dorothy Draper and Elsa Maxwell, my money would clearly be on Elsie: she was a loud, obnoxious, aggressively unattractive social climber who had nowhere to go but up–and up she went, by hook and crook. Luckily, the same folks who reissued Dot’s Entertaining Is Fun! will soon be turning out Elsie’s chef d’oeuvre How To Do It (not to be confused with Jean-Paul Gaultier’s late 80s foray into house music entitled “How To Do That”), so the next time you’re entertaining heads of state and Hollywood A-listers, you’ll know just where to turn.

In honor of la Maxwell, here’s a recipe from that book: Rosalind Russell‘s version of veal in sour cream. If you’re not hung-up about keeping kosher and you happen to have a spare asbestos mat lying around the kitchen, give it a try–and do let me know how it turns out…

VEAL IN SOUR CREAM
(six servings)

Cook 6 pieces of bacon in a large frying pan and set bacon aside. Brown 3 pounds of boneless stew veal in the bacon fat. Cook 1/2 pound of sliced mushrooms and 2 large onions, chopped, in same fat. Mix 1 cup of white wine with 1 cup of sour cream. Put veal, mushrooms, and onions in buttered casserole. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour on wine and cream. Crumble bacon over top. Simmer, covered, 1 and 1/2 hours, either in a 325-degree oven or on top of the stove over a low flame with an asbestos mat under the casserole. For variety, a good addition is 1 and 1/4 pounds boiled ham, diced and browned with the vegetables. In that case, skip the bacon and use other bacon fat.

I’m not much of a poetry person. It attracts too many awful writers. Poetry is a genre that’s easy to work in, and even easier to work in badly. There isn’t a college sophomore in America who hasn’t read T. S. Eliot or Langston Hughes and scurried back to his dorm room to pen a regrettable sonnet about love or loss or loneliness. English teachers, I entreat you to warn them all: “It looks easy, but it’s more difficult than writing a novel!”

Now there are, of course, exceptions, and Rita Dove is perhaps the most significant. I was introduced to her work during my undergraduate years–back when she was the US poet laureate–and I was instantly smitten. Her poems are concise but breathtakingly deep; narrative but enticingly abstract; approachable but full of meaning that’s never fully unveiled. Shortly after that first encounter, she visited my campus, and I did the unthinkable.

I wrote a poem to Rita Dove.

Yes, I too fell prey to the lure of weighty, maudlin verse–blank verse, even. I pored over a page full of verbs and adjectives so pregnant with meaning they could’ve birthed quadruplets. After a day of wordsmithing, I typed up my opus, and I sent it to her. Ugh. Just thinking about it makes me cringe (not unlike a few other things I’ve mentioned before). She was kind enough to write back–and with a very personalized letter, too–but I could tell from the tone she was all, like, “That’s cute and everything, but why don’t you just leave the poetry writing to me?”

Luckily for all concerned, I found other outlets for my alleged creativity, and Rita kept writing. Now she’s got a new book on the shelves, and apparently, it’s stunning. If it’s anything like her previous work, I highly recommend including it on your list of holiday gifts.

As a special bonus, here’s one of my favorites. It’s perhaps an odd choice for a guy–especially a gay guy–but there you are…

Medusa

I’ve got to go

down where my eye

can’t reach

hairy star

who forgets to shiver

forgets the cool suck

inside

Someday long

off someone will

see me

fling me up

until I hook

into sky

drop his memory

My hair

dry water

—from Grace Notes