Category: Social

Make America Gay Again

6/16/2016

It’s been almost a year since the historic Obergefell v. Hodges case ended marriage inequality in America and opened up a string of anti LGBT legislation. We might be able to get married, but many of our U.S. congressmen wanted to make sure that we were aware that we were still going to burn in hell.

Homophobia has certainly not disappeared. That’s probably what straight people think, but honestly fuck straight people. They don’t know shit. Most of them don’t even know that a condom is only 97% effective.

This presidential election is a pretty clear sign that the old white people are handling the social progress our country is making really well. Our republican front-runner is the clearest sign of their forward thinking thoughts on immigration, women, the gays, and freedom of religion.

Of course Ted Cruz avowed at some point to bring back “biblical marriage” and I’m personally disappointed that he won’t have a chance to make polygamy mainstream again.

The south had a great time embracing gay marriage. Parts of Alabama stopped issuing marriage licenses altogether in order to stop the disease of social equality. Kim Richards was praised by the Pope by refusing to issue a gay couple a marriage license. I personally find the solidarity in bigotry to be quite uplifting.

Then, we have the train wreck of Mississippi and North Carolina. It seemed to be a race to see which state could out do the other one homophobic and transphobic discourse.

With higher trans visibility they have also been more highly under attack. Over 10 states are looking at passing “bathroom laws” that don’t allows trans individuals to use their correctly gendered bathrooms. To that I say, in the most politically correct way “fuck you America”

Also, shout out to Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee for passing a bill into law that allows health care providers to discriminate against the LGBT. It’s not as if we are a disenfranchised minority group that faces constant discrimination. Thank you for making our lives more difficult.

This is a just a brief overview of all the anti-LGBT legislature America is trying to get through.

The truth is the more visible we are, the more pushback there is. America does not want gays or trans people to exist. They simply don’t. They want us to exist in theory, not practice, and on the margins of invisibility. We made a lot of progress a year ago, but to say we’re out of the clear would be asinine. Being LGBT is not yet protected under employor discrimination laws. I suppose none of this is that surprising. America still hasn’t accepted black people. Apparently it’s too much to ask white people expected to sympathize with anyone who differs from them.

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We Live For Pat Benatar

6/4/2015

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Sometimes I forget that Pat Benatar is a classically trained opera singer and that I can't hit the notes that she can hit. That doesn't stop me from trying. I am that person who will jam out to Pat Benatar in the shower. I grew up on Pat Benatar. It was christian music, Celine Dion, and Pat Benatar. It was really great. Faith Hill was there too.

My love for Pat Benatar definitely comes from my childhood. My father loves all that eighties rock. He's such an archetype for the middle aged white heterosexual male. I don't feel male singers. So many just disgust me at their core. It's so funny, because my father doesn't consider Pat Benatar a “rocker”. I just feel like that's drenched in misogyny. Because, Pat Benatar is a rocker. If you want to come for Sheryl Crow and not file her under rock. Okay. But, you can't come for Pat Benatar.

Right now Pat Benatar is on her 35th anniversary tour. My father bought tickets. For him and my mother. I am the hardcore Pat Benatar fan in this family and I'm just like what the actual fuck. I am trying to convince him to bring me along. He probably won't. It's fine. I didn't want to spend time with him anyway.

I could have been a child of the eighties as far as the music goes. I jam pretty hard to some of these people. Now, I don't know if I would have been a Pat Benatar fan. I do enjoy a strong female, but in all honesty, I would have been on that Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Samantha Fox train. If you don't know who Samantha Fox is you need to get on that. She gave us good sexual realness in the eighties with “Touch Me (I Want Your Body)”. It's slinky and the exact opposite of quality recording.

The eightes were a great time for women in rock. Debbie Harry was fronting Blondie, Joan Jett was killing it solo and with the Blackhearts, Stevie Nicks was not letting up, and Pat Benatar was releasing a string of hits from 1979-1985. Pat Benatar was an album a year girl. Much like Rihanna was dipping and doing it for us.

Her break out hit was “Heartbreaker”. The classic, iconic, hard rock song. She followed it up with “We Live For Love”, which has those warm chugging guitars, and I love it. This is probably where my father is coming from when he says she isn't a rocker. She's had some very pop moments like “We Belong”, but balancing between pop and rock is part of being a successful musician.

Buy "Heartbreaker"

Buy "We Live For Love"

Her follow up album was Crimes of Passion and it's certainly the defining moment of her career as far as sales and hits go. It features “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”, “Treat Me Right”, and “You Better Run”. All hard rock staples. This is also the album that has “Hell is for Children” on it. It discusses child abuse and really does what music is supposed to do. Talk about social issues and comment on them. Love songs are great, but once in a while we really do need to make a statement. Crimes of Passion is definitely one of her most coherent albums. It also includes one of my favorite album only tracks “Wuthering Heights”.

Buy "Wuthering Heights"

She followed this album with five more albums and subsequent hits “Fire and Ice”, “Little Too Late”, “We Belong”, “Love is a Battlefield” and “Invincible”. Pitch Perfect 2 covers “We Belong” and did they succeed the way Pat did. No of course not. But, it's a classic song. “Love is a Battlefield” was on her live album and Joyce loves this song. She knows every word. Joyce and I jam out to Pat Benatar. My place of business also places that song. It is not my favorite Benatar song, but I feel it.

Pat Benatar kept her name out there during the eighties. It's why she's still as remembered as she is. She had a string of consecutive hits and she was hard to get away from. It was after Seven The Hard Way that she took a three year break between studio albums. Then, she released Wide Awake In Dreamland (which has a horrible album cover) and it had a hit. It sold well, but it was not the colossal success of her other lead singles and “All Fired Up” really doesn't rank among Pat Benatar's most recognizable hits.

Her singles had lukewarm response, then she took another three year break. Recorded a jazz album. It just was not a solid plan. She didn't transition into the nineties. People weren't feeling it. This was the time of TLC and the alternative sound of Nirvana. When she did go back to her rock sound radio was not receptive to it. Maybe if she'd gone a Courtney Love/Hole kind of sound she could have maintained her success. But, then I feel like the only reason we really bought into Courtney Love's band is because of Kurt Cobain and the massive success he had with Nirvana.

Madonna was also charting new territory at the time. Female singers had a shelf life of a decade. Madonna was the one trail blazing. Pat Benatar was not able to reap the benefits that Britney Spears and Mariah Carey have been able to by maintaining their careers without people looking at them side eyed.

Personally, I would be here for a Pat Benatar comeback and I definitely think with the right kind of promotion Pat could release a new album of solo material and sell. Look at what Bruce Springsteen has been doing. I think she has a market if she wants it. I'm sure she doesn't need the money, though. She's killing it with these tours. The woman is also 62. Pat Benatar has earned the right to sit down if she wants to. We're still going to love her anyway.

We live for Pat Benatar.

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1988

11/20/2014

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When Taylor Swift named her new album 1989 she just missed an important year in music history. Her birth year was practically out of the eighties and her observation that '80's music just felt so right' is tepid. It's been right,since 2008. Lady Gaga anyone.

Not to discredit 1989. It was a great year. Madonna's iconic critical and commercial phenomenon Like a Prayer was released (including the cross burning video), disco Queen Donna Summer had her last top ten hit with “This Time I Know Its For Real”, Bette Midler had her number one hit “Wind Beneath My Wings”, and Cher continued her musical comeback with Heart of Stone and it's two top ten hits “If I Could Turn Back Time” and fan favorite “Just Like Jesse James”.

And, that's just the highlights of my music catalogue. 1989 was a great year, and it was ground zero for the biggest country/pop crossover of all time.

But, it was only recently that I thought of Paula Abdul. I was at home. Not at my morning class, watching Wendy Williams as one does, when Paula Abdul came on. I love her so much. I don't know why anyone hates on her. She's fantastic. I don't know how she's so nice.

I was just enamored by this interview and I had to write a Throwback Thursday, so here we are. Now I was not born in the eighties. I am barely a nineties baby. However, I enjoy this decade. Especially, Paula Abdul's number one hit “Straight Up”. Her first in a string of hits from her first album.

People my age know her for American Idol, what I don't think they realize is that she was a colossal commercial success by herself. She should be icon status. Her debut album had five top ten hits (four number ones), a feat achieved by the likes of Fergie and Katy Perry. Hallowed ground.

When Jennifer Lopez became popular there were many comparisons to Paula Abdul. Citing her mediocre voice and reliance on record producers for hits. They expected Jennifer to fade out just like Paula did, but a decade later and Jennifer is still here.

The question I ask is why Paula fell away. She may not have written her own music, but she had an ear for what would sell. Not something to undermine. That's how Rihanna does it. Her second album followed up the commercial success of Forever Your Girl with another commercial success that went multi-platinum and produced the iconic “Rush Rush”.

After Spellbound, she released her as of 2014 final album Head Over Heels that despite only minor impact still sold over a million copies in the United States. This was deemed a commercial failure and Paula was dropped by her record label.

She disappeared after this. This album may not have been the high point of her career, but it wasn't a disappointment. Over the years there have been multiple rumors of new material, even a Kylie Minogue hit that was supposed to be on Paula Abdul's 'new' album that has never surfaced.

At this point. We will never get new music from Paula Abdul, leave what was a solid career at that. A solid career. Dancer, head cheerleader, extremely successful musician. Paula Abdul is not a side note. She was incredibly relevant to what was pop culture.

Her popularity even brought around Shut Up And Dance (The Dance Mixes)one of the most successful remix albums of all time. Sitting behind Michael Jackson's pseudo remix and studio album Blood on the Dancefloor, Madonna's You Can Dance, and Jennifer Lopez's J to tha L-O.

The critics weren't wrong. The only difference between Jennifer and Paula is that Jenny's from the Bronx and Paula's from the west coast. Both started out as dancers. Both had successful recording careers. Both ended up on American Idol. A coincedence?

I think not.

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The Art Of Sex

11/8/2014

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There are so many good reasons to hate someone. Their sexuality shouldn't be one of those reasons. This applies everything. Their skin tone, their gender, their religion. These are not good reasons to hate anyone.

I have been considering doing an over arching throwback on a subject for a while. When I was writing for another blog, I did one on marijuana. That was fun. I did another on abuse. This didn't even start out as a throwback. I wanted to write about Pussy Riot for a Media Monday. It just didn't happen.

If you haven't heard of them, you should look them up. Basically, they are these group of Russian women who are fighting for rights in Russia. The media focuses most of their attention on the feminist and LGBT side of the group, however they protest for other basic human rights as well. They are very interesting and inspirational women.

Madonna with two members of Pussy Riot

This article really got started due to Hozier and his song “Take Me To Church”. The song is beautiful and well written. It's definitely worth a listen if you haven't yet. However, it really was the music video that moved me. It told the story of a closeted gay couple in Russia, and the physical violence that results when its discovered that one of them is gay.

I don't know how this did not garner some form of attention. It's a stunning, relevant video. I love Iggy and her Clueless themed “Fancy”. But, “Take Me To Church” is art. It is what pop culture is for to get a conversation started.

I found the video to be so moving I was going to do a whole throwback on Hozier. His influences alone would have made for an interesting article on. Van Morrison, Jackie Wilson, Jeff Buckley. Even, Bon Iver, although he is a little too current for a throwback.

Buy "Take Me To Church"

Before the 90's there was very little gay support in media. Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive” may be considered a gay anthem, but it wasn't directed towards that purpose. Gay rights came to head when everything else was coming up. Women's rights, black rights. All these rights movements and it was put on the back burner.

This is not a criticism of how it was handled, because it is certainly not. There was a lot happening and you have to pick what you can focus on. The 90's, though was when it became more talked about. I don't want to say accepted.

Although, you did see the emergence of RuPaul. A black drag queen into social media. He became the face of MAC cosmetics, had a stint as talk show host on VH1, and his signature song “Supermodel (You Better Work)” that thrust him into the spotlight. It says something about he 90's that this was allowed to happen. Still, he never did have that top ten hit. He never truly became an A-List star.

Madonna was also influential in the 90's. As she is today. Something I feel like people do not realize about Madonna, or at least people my age. Is what she's done for us. Madonna has always supported gay rights, she has pushed feminism forward. Madonna has changed the world and we sometimes get too lost up in the controversy to realize that. More then once in the nineties, Madonna opened up the conversation to the public. Her hit song “Deeper and Deeper” is about a boy who comes to terms with his homosexuality, and even the broader all encompassing “Secret” dealt with these kind of issues.

These were mainstream hit songs, in the times when MTV still ruled the world. She was forcing America to look at it.

Buy "Secret"

Buy "Deeper and Deeper"

No matter how much I like Lady Gaga or any of the other pop stars who support LGBT rights. Now its almost popular to support gay rights. Madonna did it when it wasn't in vogue. She did it because she thought it was the right thing to do. She thought it would make a difference and it did.

One of the many things I hold against Katy Perry despite her stated support of gay rights, is “I Kissed A Girl” and “Your So Gay”. In one album. It presented the concept of: lesbians are hot, gay boys disgusting. She used this for her own fame. She may not have meant it that way, but its how it comes across. It honestly would not surprise if born and raised Christian girl Katy Perry did not like gays. It really would not. It would not shock me or make me dislike her more then I already do. It was the same with Paula Deen. Was anyone really that surprised that good old southern Paula Deen was racist.

It shouldn't have.

Before the 90's there really weren't any mainstream movies about the gay 'agenda'. Don't you love how the agenda is that they want to be married. What a terrible thing the gays are trying to do. They will bring down America with all this marriage.

Now there was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, that movie is really rough. No plot. No point. Really. You could argue that the underlying point is to allow for sexual freedom, but who really knows what that movie is about.

During and after the 90's there were a string of movies made about gay culture: The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Saved!, Brokeback Mountain, But, I'm A Cheerleader, GBF.

You might not have heard of a few of these movies, but some are mainstream. The Adventures of Priscilla is a funny movie. Two drag queens and a transexual cross Australia in bus. You should need no more convincing.

Then, you have both Saved! and But, I'm a Cheerleader. The first tells the story of a girl who tries to save her gay boyfriend by having sex with him. Believing it is the Lord's will, she doesn't realize she will get pregnant, or that he's still gay. With supporting roles played by Mandy Moore and Macauley Caulkin it's surprisingly heartwarming if tempestuously dull.

Then, you have But, I'm a Cheerleader. The premise being about a girl who is sent away to gay camp in order to get back on the right path. They complete typical gender related tasks in order to get the gay away. Of course with RuPaul as one of the counselors and sexy Eddie Cibrian running around. No one is truly getting rid of the gay.

Of course you've heard of Brokeback Mountain. You know Heath Ledger is in it. It's a great movie. The thing about it that troubles me is that it is so often referred to as a 'gay' movie. When these men are bisexual, not gay. There is a difference.

This movie was watched in GBF (Gay Best Friend) when one of the mother's tries to convince her son that she is okay with him being gay. It is basically the 2010's attempts at a Clueless or Mean Girls. One of the boys is outed and the three leading prom queen contenders battle over him to gain the upper edge in the polls. All the obvious flaws you are seeing with this movie are supposed to be there. It's about realizing that just because someone's gay doesn't make them any less human with any less feelings.

And, there are other movies of course. These are just the ones I have seen. Milk I've been told is a great movie about gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. You probably know I feel about Sean Penn, which is why I haven't made a point of seeing it. And, of course the documentary Paris Is Burning is a must see. People still quote all the time. Brooke Candy in “Opulence”, even RuPaul took his “Shantay, Sashay” from this movie. It's a classic.

TV of course. The first mainstream, mention of homosexuality on TV had to be Three's Company. The only reason Jack is allowed to live with Janet and Chrissy is the fact that he isn't attracted to them. Which we all know isn't true. Now TV has gay relations on it all the time. Modern Family, Glee, White Collar.

It certainly is better. It has gone past the point of being under the conscious level, but don't let anyone tell you that there isn't discrimination against homosexuality. The fact that not every state has legalized gay marriage is an obvious point. There is no critical thinking involved in that. GBF was rated R. Actually all the movies I listed were rated R. I guarantee when you watch them you'll wonder how that happened. Some of them you'll be like, yes that deserved that rated R, and others you will just not understand.

Take other countries into account. Russia, Pakistan, Egypt. You cannot tell me that homosexuality is not persecuted because it is. It is the same thing as telling me racism does not exist. Are you kidding me. The people who fought discriminatory laws are still alive. The same oppressors are still around. There may be less violent racism, but it still happens. It's just not the same thing.

Is it better. You can make your mind up about that. I do think the younger generation is going to be a lot more accepting. The YouTube community being a prime example of that. Young people watch YouTubers and the fan base of Tyler Oakley, Superfruit, Troye Sivan are obvious points to favor this.

Do not change who you are for anyone. Home is where you are. You do not need people who do not support you. If you're parents do not like gays. Fuck them. You don't need to tell them. Move out. Become your own person. You don't need parental permission.

It really upsets me that it would be impossible to tell my parents thatf I was gay. They would freak out. It would be a major issue. That's heartbreaking parents. They wouldn't love me anymore. I would be a disappointment. That's not sort of upsetting. It's horrific that this is how my parents would feel about it.

Me over here in my intro to pysch class has learned that trying to change your sexuality is not a good thing to do. It is very unhealthy. It causes depression. Don't change yourself. Accept who you are. And, realize that there are people on your side. Even, if you can't reach out to them, even if you can't verbally acknowledge something it is okay. It will get better.

We all have to be adults some day and you don't have to live anywhere near your parents.

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Make America Gay Again

We Live For Pat Benatar

1988

The Art Of Sex

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