Nicolas Cage’s homes in the French Quarter and Garden District are listed for sale at auction Nov. 12 as a local lender foreclosed on the properties for unpaid mortgage debts, according to the Orleans Parish Civil Sheriff’s office.

In July, the Internal Revenue Service placed liens on Cage’s New Orleans properties for $6.6 million in unpaid taxes. The Academy Award-winning actor and nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola is trying to sell homes around the world to raise money at a time when the values of real estate and stock portfolios have fallen.

— full story at NOLA.com

This may or may not be a photo of Christian activist and senior-level douchebag Randall Terry, using one of them newfangled CB-type megaphonical devices to shout nasty things at homosexualists:

But whomever it is that’s being ignored by gay cowboys and polar bears alike, that is almost certainly NOT a boner in his poorly pleated trousers*. Still, it’s a funny thought, right?

* We, The Gays, are a tolerant people, except in matters sartorial. Perhaps we’d be inclined to listen to people like Mr. Terry if they would take our anti-pleat message to heart.** Remember: hate the pants, love the man inside ’em.

** Just kidding. There’s no way in hell we’re listening to that fuckface.

[via AwkwardBoners]

…it appears that something’s gone wrong with the world. I mean, okay, things have been going wrong (and occasionally right) for a really long time — like, since ever — but today, Planet Earth seems particularly off-course. As evidence, please note:

• Louisiana’s fiercely Republican governor and its fiercely Democratic senior senator have spoken out against anti-miscegenation (who’d have thought they had to?), but one crackerfied ho’monger has remained eerily silent.

• Antoine’s has begun publishing its menu in English.

• Fairly NSFW, craptacular ads like this have been pitched, created, paid for, and run on…well, possibly television:

I don’t know what the people of the world have done, but karma, as The Gays say, is a beeyotch.

[h/t Tyler, Gambit, Copyranter]

I am not a religious person and I never have been. As a kid, I hated going to church (although bible drills brought out my competitive side), and I haven’t really been to a service since high school. For the last two decades, I’ve only set foot inside cathedrals and basilicas and synagogues to take photographs — and pretty lousy ones at that.

However, I do have a sort of moral code or a guiding principle — whatever you want to call it. Not to get too hippie-fied, but basically, I think that the best that anyone can do is to be kind. Like Dorian Corey said, life is rough. It’s an ordeal just to get through it. In my opinion, our responsibility is to make the trip easier, happier, more comfortable for others.

And remarkably, that is what Where the Wild Things Are is all about.

And that is nearly all it’s about, with one notable exception, which also happens to be one of my core concerns: how are we supposed to make life easier for friends and strangers when everyone keeps moving? Someone’s always dying, changing, shifting locales. It’s heartbreaking. There’s no fixing it. Sometimes, I just want to shout, “Be still!”, but that’s silly. And I don’t shout much anyway.

One last thing worth noting about the film: screenwriter Dave Eggers’ ability to think like a child. The way kids speak emotionally; the way their rationale is grounded in feelings and not what we ordinarily think of as logic; the way children keep everying right on the surface; their utter lack of guile: he captured it, and beautifully. I shouldn’t have expected less, but Eggers and Jonze and everyone else and everything else have created another world — albeit one that’ll look very familiar to anyone who’s ever been six.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that Where the Wild Things Are is profound, moving, and I wouldn’t take anyone under the age of 18 anywhere near it. It’s terribly depressing.

I did have some complaints about the lighting, and the twee soundtrack occasionally made it feel like I was watching the world’s longest Toyota ad, and James Gandolfini’s voice took a bit of getting used to. But still: go. Go.

It’s time for our little theatre company’s not-so-little annual fundraiser:

If you’re in New Orleans next Tuesday night and you’ve got nothing better to do, I expect to see you there.

On second thought, what could you possibly have to do that’s better than this? I expect to see you Tuesday, period.

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with black people and white people, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

— full story at NOLA.com

[thanks, Tyler]

I’ve said it 1,000 times: I loathe nostalgia. But sometimes, I can’t help myself.

Yesterday afternoon, I was standing in line at the only grocery store in my neighborhood. (I use the term “grocery store” loosely. Yeah, technically the place sells groceries, but it feels like everything on the shelves fell off a truck from Slovenia. Translation: shady.) Anyway, I was standing there, watching the steampunks ahead of me pay for their ramen with pennies, when Diana Ross’ 198o hit, “I’m Coming Out” started blaring from the boombox behind the counter.

I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that song for the first time: the Sunshine Skate Center, halfway between the Asteroids machine and the carpeted half-wall that wrapped around the skate flooor. My friend, Robin, was singing along and seemed to know all the words — but then, she seemed to know a lot I didn’t.

Now, I’m not a huge Diana Ross fan (snatch my gay card if you must), and frankly, I’ve never liked that song, but I have to admit, it’s sort of a time capsule. To me, it’s about the evolving Civil Rights movement, and particularly about gays and lesbians, who by 1980 had finally begun to appear in film, on TV, and on the news — not as monsters or outcasts or circus freaks, but as fairly normal people who just had a thing for cashmere sweaters and pleated pants. “I’m Coming Out” was celebratory, a moment of jubilation — an all-too-brief moment that ended a year later when people began dying and we became vilified overnight.

But really, what was striking during that moment in the grocery store had nothing to do with me. What was more interesting was the cashier’s reaction to the song. He looks to be about my age, or maybe a little older, and he’s generally brusque. I’m pretty sure he’s a Russian ex-pat Jew — mostly because I think he’s related to the owners, who are all Israeli, and he tried to chat me up about Passover this one time when I was buying matzo. (I’m not Jewish; they were just out of rice cakes.) Also: he speaks with a thick, eastern European accent, and I’m 99% certain I once overheard him speaking in Russian on a cell phone.

Regardless of his religion, nationality, or creed (as if I’d know the man’s creed), what’s important was his expression when “I’m Coming Out” came on: this beefy guy who’s been around the block, this man who’s ordinarily gruff and distant, he was beaming. Literally beaming — like that creepy baby/sun thingamajig on Teletubbies. He started singing along, smiling, clearly happy to be alive.

And here’s what I want to know: where was HE when he first heard that song?

Boise, ID — A local high school math teacher has been arrested for obscene conduct in a public place.

…Kyle Dennis, 37, was arrested after multiple instances of “obscene live conduct” that took place at two Boise retail outlets starting in February of this year.

According to court documents, Dennis “knowingly engaged in obscene conduct…by manipulating his penis with his hands while walking around a Costco store with an erection.”

…Greg Sutton, a therapist at Warm Springs Counseling Center, says when an arrest involves a teacher, it can be difficult for students to talk about.

“I think it’s really important for parents to to talk to them and try to have a dialogue about what this really has meant,” Sutton said….

—2News.TV

I will tell you what it meant: DUDE WAS MAKING VIDEOS FOR XTUBE.

I mean, duh.

Seriously, I don’t know what to think.

[via CTRL+W33D]