NOH8, folks! Time to represent.

We've come a long way since I last posted, as a movement and personally. The Prop 8 Trial is nearing completion in the Ninth Circuit, Washington D.C. is issuing same sex marriage certificates and my wife and I have moved back to the East Coast, where I'm eagerly pursuing a masters in Queer Media Advocacy, hoping to change the world through the sites and sounds we imbibe.

In my journalism class, where we were hotly debating our own responsibility as minorities to represent our respective peoples, my classmates basically threw up their hands in disgust and surrender, saying there's no way to fight mass media's marginalization. I begged to differ. I was shouted down. But I still get out and about and do things like Abam Bouska's NOH8 Campaign photo shoot, which recently made it to NYC. When people criticized my film The D Word for not representing them (just as I criticized The L Word for not representing me), I encouraged them to pick up a camera and document their world, just like I had. If you can make them think while they're laughing, all the better. Just don't sit on your a** and complain fatalistically in a classroom. DO SOMETHING. Represent, people.

All I want for Christmas

"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."

I remember singing that as a gap-toothed kid with my father at Chanukah time. Only this Holiday season, it feels like someone kicked me in the mouth. I need those teeth back, so I can properly enunciate the words "I am not a second class citizen!"

I am blessed with love and abundance in my life. I've gotten everything I want this year. Except my civil rights restored in the state California. And the repeal of DOMA, an end to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the passage of a trans-inclusive ENDA and comprehensive hate crimes legislation. Mr. President-Santa-Clause-elect: Please bring me my civil rights. Think of it as getting yourself off the naughty list with that whole Rick Warren fiasco. And I'm sending the dentist's bill to the White House.

Happy Holidays from Hollywood!

"Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!"



Any minute now...

photo by Rosie Sennett

Engraving

photo by Carlos Andres Varela

My wife and I were having what we call in my family as a "scientific discussion" at Tiffany's the other day. Which date should we engrave in our wedding rings? The digits commemorating our legal marriage in West Hollywood this summer, or those of our recent, more spiritual (and certainly more theatrical) nuptials in Times Square? What a lovely dilemma, right? Except that she wants to reject the California dates because California voters rejected us as a class of people. She's got a point.

While we honeymooned in New York, having voted by mail in L.A. County weeks earlier, our joy in the Obama victory was crushed by the news of the passage of Prop 8. When I got the final results on my phone in a store and burst into tears, the salesperson behind the counter was at a loss for words. Only the consoling arms of my wife helped. We can do that on the Upper West side of Manhattan - be affectionate in a normal, everyday couple way. Now that we're back in Hollywood, I'm scared of any PDA. Knowing that the majority of my neighbors - and I mean my immediate neighbors, like next door - voted to take away my rights, infuriates and terrifies me. These are people who actually know us, yet still voted against us.

I have often wondered why I came to L.A. exactly when I did. Joining the WGA, just in time for the Strike. Falling in love, just in time for the CA Supreme Court's landmark decision on marriage equality. I think I was meant to be here for these historic struggles. To literally change my point of view from East to West. To meet these people and these things and grow in these ways.

I can't be bitter about it. I GOT TO MARRY THE WOMAN I LOVE! Twice. Both are the happiest days of my life. And California played a large part in our couple history, so 08.16.08 goes on my ring. The NYC date's on hers. And together we can fight for our rights in all states of the union, because I agree with our new president, that "All things are possible."

The First Dance

Legal Love

photo by Courtney Caron

Close Up

Hunting around the Frameline website looking for a friend's film I found - Surprise! - My face is the ad for the "Dyke Delights" program. Wish I was going to be in San Fran for the screening... I miss the Castro.

It's a week for photos. My sweetie & I are getting ready for our close-up for our couple portrait. Think the NY Times will publish it? I bet they're overrun with queer wedding announcements this week. Looking over my parents', sister's and grandparents' wedding photos, I'm struck by how young, classic and calm they call seem. Happy, for sure, but pretty calm; Like they all knew this was the right thing to be doing. I get it now.

So, I filled out "Party A." Never thought I'd be happy to partake in the bureaucracy of L.A. County... ;-) Picture perfect application.

Love & Pride News Links

So, my sweetie & I wound up on the news for the Love & Pride "Vow to Vote No" event. Some even caught us in the act of kissing! Here are the links:

 

 

(AP) San Jose Mercury News: Gay couples in West Hollywood vow to save marriage rights - they quote us!
And Los Angeles Examiner

(Reuters) Yahoo News Photo of us dancing!
And on USA Today

Freelance Photo of us at the ceremony.

The Advocate: A Marriage Pre-Party in West Hollywood

Erase Hate

Last week my sweetie & I went to see a rogue bunch of high school students perform The Laramie Project in Burbank. Rogue because their principal banned them from performing it, so they wound up contacting the original creators of the show and a whole host of other big hitters in the LGBT and theater communities, and put the show on Mickey & Judy style at the professional theater in downtown Burbank to sold-out crowds and a ton of press. They rocked it. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, The Laramie Project chronicles the town's coping mechanisms in the aftermath of the Matthew Shepard murder and the subsequent trials of his attackers.

Today my sweetie & I will be symbolically married (it isn't legal for same-sex couples in CA until June 17) by the West Hollywood mayor surrounded by a bunch of celebrities, dressed to the nines, wearing donated jewelry, sponsored by the Matthew Shepard Foundation. His mother, Judy Shepard, will be there promoting their "Erase Hate" campaign, and we will be there proudly supporting her.

If you are in WeHo tonight, come be our witness! Stop the initiative. Support Fairness. Erase Hate. And throw some rice on my sweetie & I. We'll be looking pretty snazzy and happy in love.

Bands

My sweetie & I looked at matching wedding bands yesterday. Just a regular couple checking out the rings at Tiffany's. If nothing legally earth shattering happens in the next few weeks, the vows will start flying in CA staring June 17, 2008. I'll continue volunteering at EqualityForAll and praying that the CA constitution stays intact through this election and beyond.

One of my neighbors, a member of the armed services - for whom Memorial Day is most near & dear - came to our holiday BBQ. A sweet guy with his wife, and we respectfully disagreed about same-sex marriage. And I truly mean that we were very respectful of each other's opinions. I'm really thankful that we can have a thoughtful discussion over hamburgers and hotdogs about our core beliefs and genuinely smile and shake hands before, during & after. But I'm really blessed that he's out there protecting my rights in uniform.

God Bless America; In all it's terrible beauty and flaws. My life wouldn't be possible elsewhere.

UPDATE: NY State to Back Same Sex Unions From Elsewhere!

In both our legal states of residence we'll be truly hitched. My parents called past their bedtimes back East to tell me. I am so proud and thrilled.

California Dreamin' is Reality

 

I'm gonna' make an honest woman out of my sweetie - and me! As soon as the news hit that the California Supreme Court overturned their ban on Gay Marriage, I shouted it out to my sweetie in the other room. We kissed and immediately called our loved ones. Pretty handy that we're already engaged and planning a wedding, right? We thought that the NYC ceremony would be all official, having signed up as domestic partners at city hall in the Big Apple, but it turns out that LaLaLand will be the legally binding state of our bliss. Long live May 15, 2008!

UPDATE:

We went to the marriage equality celebration rally in WeHo and wound up on the local news. Don't blink or you'll miss us!

 

 

Next up - volunteer phone banking at EqualityForAll.com next week to defeat the upcoming ballot proposition to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage. Will the bigots ever stop trying? We won't ever stop fighting for equal rights. I look forward to the day when it won't be a struggle, just peaceful coexistence. That'd be a nice wedding gift.

enGAYged!

Romancing her in the desert (Nipton,CA)

She said YES! (Mojave National Preserve)

The happy enGAYged couple.

Obits

Here are the obituaries for Grandpa Sam, Aunt Mim & Seth:

From Today's Washington Post, a nice article -
Samuel Snyder, 96; Broke Codes And Designed Early Computers

NY Times -
Miriam Borko

NY Times -
Seth Palmer

They always come in 3's

I'm leaving one shiva house for another. Today my grandfather died. Granpa Sam. My last remaining grandparent. First Miriam Borko, then Seth Palmer and now Sam Snyder. These deaths always come in 3's. My sister said to me yesterday that it must seem to me like I leave the East Coast and then something awful happens to a loved one. It doesn't just seem that way, it actually happens that way, unfortunately. Not to jinx my whole L.A. existence, but it IS an eerie pattern; one which I'd like to stop repeating immediately, please.

I picked up the flute because of my Grandpa Sam. And thought computers were cool because of him. And watched him surf the tsunami that was my Grandma Pat's personality. But that's just a fraction of my memories and love. 96 years of amazing gone.

There's just a lot of ache where Mim & Seth & Sam used to be. Sucky sucky week.

Red Eye

I took the red eye. I'm back East in the worst way possible. On Dec. 22 both my Great Aunt Mim and my good friend Seth died. Mim was just one day shy of her 92nd birthday and Seth was way too young fighting leukemia. Both their funerals are this morning, Xmas Eve. I wish I could attend both. I can't do either of them justice here; just to say I am heartbroken at the loss and grateful for the laughs, love and wisdom we shared. I hate the Mourner's Kaddish.

A Working Writer

telling it from the gut...

This is my small contribution to the AWorkingWriter.com project. Much better if you check it out on the actual website. Watch Michael Seitzman, Jack Kenny, Dawn DeKeyser, Jessica Bendinger, and Eva Saks, too. (And some press from the Huffington Post, too...) And, although picketing is on hold through the holidays, don't forget to support, in whatever way you can, the striking WGA members and all the below-the-line folks who have been effected by the strike.

Happy Holidays, folks.

Walking the Walk

Today we walked, danced and cheered our way through 7 miles of Burbank/Toluca Lake studios. It's the most exercise I've had in a year! Our fearless leader Josh Singer kept the 70's tunes flowing, the supportive traffic kept on honking, and we kept putting one foot in front of another, making our way from one WGA-picketed gate to another. It was great to see my Team Jaguar peeps @ Universal Gate One! When my sweetie & I made it back to the car sweaty and spent, we could barely move. Thanks to all the folks along the way with water and treats. (And thanks to Drew Carey for picking up the breakfast tab this morning @ Bob's Big Boy!)

Today was a very visible and vocal show of support, but yesterday I participated in a film project spearheaded by Maria Maggenti and Michael Seitzman called AWorkingWriter.com, that, while more understated, is no less critical to the fight for visibility of writers. Check it out in the coming days to see me and several others talk about what it means to be a working writer. Hey, that's what I moved all the way across the country to do, right? Write.

Jodie, Jodie, Jodie...

Jodie Foster Comes Out - sort of...

*yawn*

She thanked her life partner, co-parent to her children. That's what you're supposed to do at awards shows. I'm supposed to yawn. This shouldn't be a news story. Am I post-gay, yet? Too bad the rest of the world isn't.

Indie Film Gate

Top: Bill Condon, Left: John August, Right: Harlan Ellison

I did my time at Universal, then drove over to my own 'hood of H-wood, to represent as an Indie writer. Above pics from today's Independent Writers Caucus rally at Paramont aka Indie Film Gate. My sweetie & I will be lacing up our sneakers for the Striker's Studio Walk-a-thon on Monday!

Strike One!

That's Maria Maggenti & I braving the cold shadow of NBC/Universal on the WGA picket line. It was my first day walking the walk, and I was greeted by the enthusiastically jaded writers of "Team Jaguar" headed by strike captain John Gatins. Buoyed by holiday fliers printed-up and delivered by Justine Bateman (see her Speechless entry below w/her brother Jason), we tramped across the front entrance to Universal City, taking pictures with tourists from China, Australia & Texas. Being a WGA babe, I just soaked up stories from the vets about the last strike, various TV & film set debacles and home lives disrupted indefinitely by the strike. Tomorrow brings Indie Film Gate @ Paramount. I've joined the union at an historic time, so it's time to help make some more history...