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.

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."

Vote Different

While I sort out Gay Marriage in NJ, what to pack for LA and how much candy to buy for Trick-or-Treating, enjoy this Apple TV ad parody with a decidely political, but no less clever, bent.



The democrat is my friend Jamie Effros!

New Yorker at heart

image from CBSnews.com

Just as I'm getting down to the nitty-gritty planning of my move out West, a grim reminder that I'm truly a New Yorker at heart: A plane crashes into a hi-rise building in Manhattan, killing a Yankee pitcher, no less. I was at a doctor's appointment in a hospital complex when the news broke; ambulances streamed out of the hospital and down to 72nd Street - that's what prompted me to check the latest news on my mobile phone. Instant horror on a tiny screen. I'm sure I'm not the only person shaken by 9/11 flashbacks.

Of course we all remember exactly what we were doing when 9/11 occured - I believe it was the beginning of the end of my love relationship at the time. I stood frozen in front of the unfolding terror on TV while she went out for groceries and cash in anticipation of shortages. When she got back I said "I'm a New Yorker." She said "I really miss Seattle." She always said that she couldn't imagine me living anywhere but the Big Apple. But she was wrong. I would've moved anywhere to be with her. Now I'm moving for myself.

Yes, LA scares me - mostly because there are earthquakes and people who don't read the New York Times. I'm scared that I'll develop road rage and skin cancer. I'm terrified that I'll go nuts without my pets, girlfriend and family (not neccessarily in that order). I'm anxious about finding a car and a place to live. Until today, I feared that I'd lose my New York-iness. So, a trauma solidified my NYC credentials, but they were minted by the love of Broadway, the hum of the subway and the beautiful diversity of its inhabitants.

You can take the girl out of New york, but you can't take New York out of the girl. Westward-ho!

Terrorists Suck; Liberty Rules

I'm a die-hard NY Liberty fan.

I keep going to games even though they do things like lose by 33 points to Indiana this week. I cheer like a maniac in my season subscription seats. I throw away my $10 Nalgene water bottle after standing in line for nearly 10 minutes to get through security at Madison Square Garden.

Wait. I did what?

Yeah, I trashed my favorite H2O bottle filled with my own home-Britta-filtered water, just so I could get in the door to watch my beloved 2nd-to-last place team in their 2nd-to-last game of the season. It used to be that security would confiscate bottles of soda and water at the door for 2 obnoxious reasons: 1. So that you'd be forced to buy liquid refreshment at insanely inflated prices from their concession stands inside and 2. To prevent the nasty bottle-cap-throwing incidents of Men's games, whereby irrate fans would toss trash onto the court. When you buy a bottle of water inside MSG, they take the cap off and hand you the bottle. Annoying to say the least. So, when they took my Nalgene bottle off of me at the gate this evening, thanks to the most recent terrorist plot in the news, it was more of a test than I'd imagined it to be. Many penny-pinching patrons like myself, when presented with the choice of their sodas or the game, chose to turn around with their pop in hand. As if the attendence at Liberty games wasn't dismal enough due to their abysmal record...!

As a person with a history of Kidney stones, I carry and chug water at all times. It is nearly impossible to separate me from my water bottle. I was so pissed-off that, parched, I refused to buy a beverage through the first half. But then my thirst got the best of me, and I plunked down $4 for a Dasani Water with no cap. Bastards! It was at that moment I swore that the Liberty were going to win this game, dammit.

And they did, in a nail-biter. With the game tied at 62, the ball in NY's possession, Barb Farris sunk the winning basket with 1.7 seconds to go. A thrilling victory, made possible, in part, by angry loyal fans willing them victory as compensation for lost goods. And with this win my bumbling lovable team became the third-to-last team in the Eastern Conference. We still got some pride, you know.

You really like me...

At least Go NYC Magazine LOVES me... I'm right below Portia De Rossi and just above Stacy Codicow in the listings/rankings/accounting of lovable lesbians with a heightened profile in 2006. As my friend Jen put it "Under Portia? That's HOT." Does that make me a bottom to Ellen's sweetheart or a top to Power-Up's founder? (Or sideways to Transexual Menace's Riki Anne Wilchins?) Only my sweetie knows...

An Inconvenient Movie

I've been yearning to see a film in a multiplex that has nothing to do with NewFest or the queer film festival circuit. Don't get me wrong, I love LGBT film, I'm just slightly burnt out at the moment, as we're ramping up to open the festival June 1st, and I'm working overtime to put together engaging panels of filmmakers, activists and academics for the Filmmakers Forum (June 10 & 11). I just needed a break. Yes, I saw "X-Men 3" the second it opened - c'mon, Halle Barry in tight leather kicking mutant and non-mutant ass is just too delicious to pass up.

At the urging of several friends and colleagues, I went to see Davis Guggenheim's "An Inconvenient Truth" - you know, the Al Gore global warming film. I tried to go Thursday night but it was sold out, Friday night but it was sold out and just barely squeaked in tonight. Being such a hot ticket on the Upper West Side made this more like an incovenient movie. Who knew Al Gore had a personality? We always knew he had the substance. This film basically follows him around the world as he gives his ever-updated scary-as-hell (that's how hot the planet will get) analysis of global warming and its catastrophic consequences. Just when the audience is about to despair at the seemingly hopeless situation, Mr. Gore cites precedents for such seismic shifts in our nation's conscience and policies, like the abolition of slavery and the dramatic reduction in CFC Emmissions to repair the whole in the ozone layer. That last one rang a loud bell of memory in me.


UN Peace Day 1989 (that's me on the right - like my baby dyke mullet?)

I have an incredibly clear recollection of standing proud and passioante on the podium of the general assembly of the United Nations in 1989 as part of Peace Child, facing the Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, and demanding that the UN mandate a reduction in CFC gasses NOW! I was so nervous that I'd mispronounce ChloroFlouroCarbons, or that I'd screw up the Japanese lyrics in the duet or that I might miss the fleeting glimpses of my friends in Moscow over the satelite feed. Mostly, I remember feeling empowered to change the world for the better. At age 19 I was standing in one of the great international halls of power pleading, demanding and singing my way to a healthier global future. Everything seemed possible. And at least one of those "demands" from us petulant youth came to pass with the signing and enforcement of the Montreal Protocol to reduce CFC's. The Ozone layer has mostly been repaired.

Part of the closing credits of "An Inconvenient Truth" (with an awesome not-too-subtle original Melissa Etheridge tune "I Need to Wake Up" as accompaniment) are suggestions for reducing carbon emmissions that individual folks can accomplish on their own - do their part to reverse the damage. Example: Replacing one regular lightbulb with a compact flourescent bulb will save over 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Or ride mass transit. Recycle. Plant a tree. All very doable. The most marketable suggestion was to urge everyone to see this film. Clever promo, huh?

It made me walk home in the balmy Spring night, although hopping on a hybrid bus wouldn't have burned too much fossil fuel. Tommorow: light bulbs.

To Infinity and beyond...

Liftoff for the Space Shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, photo by NASA

Hard to believe it was 25 years ago when the first space shuttle blasted off into the stratosphere, literally. I was 10 and thought "I'm going to fly in outer space one day." Fueled by Star Trek reruns and later by Kim Stanley Robinson's vision for the colonization of Mars, I assumed that intergallactic travel would be mastered by my 30's. Perhaps I'd write a play in space - not set in space, but composed on my Apple II+ (I was a Mac head even then...) while riding on a more posh version of the Space Shuttle. Now I'll need to save up the $200,000 for a quick passenger jaunt in an updated SpaceShipOne, or I could cough up $20 million for a 10-day stay on the International Space Station by way of Russia (hey - I already speak the language!). But with that kind of cash, I can make a movie (or 20). Hopefully, this one.