Haters from Wesboro Baptist Church (the "God Hates Fags" people) are in town to make an ugly scene in front of Twitter, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and, just to round out their bigotry of both gays and Jews, a performance of Fiddler on the Roof (I'm guessing in their, and I use the term loosely, minds; musical theater=gay, so a musical about Jews is just all SORTS of heathen.).
SF so does not put up with this shit, and is so much more clever than the inbreds it's like shouting riddikulus at a boggart.
Damn. If you have ever wanted to see a witness get eviscerated on cross examination, get over to the Prop 8 Trial Tracker. The Supes may have barred YouTube from the courtroom (against the sitting judge's ruling), but the liveblogging is amazing. The haters dropped their list of "expert" witnesses from six to four. They claimed they feared retaliation by activist homosexuals. It's clear they just did not want to be publicly quested by Boies.
Boies exposes these losers as non-experts, uses their own words to force an admission of his argument (not the one they were hired to assert), and clearly demonstrates that the second witness (Blankenhorn) is a flabbergasted moron who has no facts on which to base any his "expert" opinion. Even the judge has had enough of this guy.
From one commentary on the questioning:
"This last statement [that he didn't know he would have to back up any of his expert testimony with data or sources] is really rather stunning coming from a witness who was put on the stand as an expert. He essentially admitted that he doesn’t know how real academics work, or how a bibliography works, or really the subject matter that he is supposed to be testifying upon.
At the end of the day, Blankenhorn is like a scared 7-year old who hasn’t studied for a history test. I almost expected his last answer to be Yeti or Santa Claus. He was reaching, grasping for anything he could possibly reach. But, even he had to acknowledge that marriage equality would help gay and lesbian families. Blankenhorn is, after all, the guy who wrote a New York Times op-ed with Jonathon Rauch arguing that the federal government should repeal portions of DOMA and allow same-sex couples the rights of married couples, just not the name. Separate but equal. Everything but the name. Just make sure that gay and lesbians are just one step behind."
The last three mornings I have been woken up too early by a computer/modem repeatedly calling my land line. No matter how many times the machine picks up, or I answer and hang up, the calls continue for about half an hour. Supremely annoying. The number, in case anyone has had a similar experience or recommendation, is a spoofed ID: 158-423-2605. Alternatively, calls during this period also show up as "unknown number" but with the same hum or fax tones as the other calls.
I may have to see Some Kind of Wonderful at the Castro. I loved that film. And its soundtrack (I was so alternative).
Friday, Feb 12
7:30 Some Kind of Wonderful
9:30 Ferris Bueller's Day Off
11:45 National Lampoon's Vacation (written by John Huges, Directed by Harold Ramis)
Saturday, Feb 13
2:00 Sixteen Candles
4:15 The Breakfast Club
6:30 Pretty in Pink
8:45 Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Just this weekend I managed to finish sorting through and tagging all the photos from the Christmas holiday. I was much too busy for blogging but feel the need to memorialize some of the season's event. Not the least of which was the quality time with Nephew Leland who turned three this New Year's Day.
He's at a great age for the holidays, although Santa Claus (AKA Ho Ho) and Baby Jeus are making him a bit confused. Brother Mac told him that he had to go to church because it was Jesus' birthday, so when they got to church he kept looked for this Jesus kid. "Is he outside?" "Is Jesus on the playground?" Not to mention his expectations for cake and ice cream (AKA "happy to you") Mac telling him that Jesus was everywhere just sort of freaked him out.
Leland also has a love/fear thing with Santa/ Ho Ho. When Bradley (turning 17 this month) and Ellen (now 14) were younger, one of the uncles would dress in the Santa suit and appear at the window during Christmas dinner. Brother Jay dressed up for Leland this year, but the sudden appearance and the reaction of the older kids scared the little baby Bejessus out of Leland.
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However, the rest of the Christmas holiday was filled with super baby fun time. Leland is pretty hilarious and just ridiculously adorable. I love that he loves me so and knows that I am someone special. He is just getting to wrap his head around the concept that I live someplace "else." It's interesting to watch him concentrate and try to work this out, and try to "use his words" to form his queries about where I go when I go away and how that all works. His Uncle David on his mother's side lives in Colorado, and he's getting it together that we are alike in that we are family who love him and are here from time to time but most of the time exist elsewhere.
He also loves that I am silly and always am willing to play with him. He always wants to play with me, and has gotten a little fascinated with the beard. It was just a ridiculously fun time.
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I just melted when he asked me to be the one to give him his bath and his story and tuck him into bed. Mom and I found him a little toddler shaving play set and he got to "shave like daddy."
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He also got a big boy bike. The new thing is the Strider Bike, which is pretty revolutionary in teaching kids to ride a bike, and vastly superior to the tradition of training wheels, which actually are counter-training to balance and bike riding.
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Here's a video from the inventor—
If you have a little one, you have to check this out.
This month, get out of the rain and over to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. There is the second annual miniature Golden Gate Express Garden railway, featuring model trains through the gardens and a miniature San Francisco recreated with products from the recycling bin.
Leno is not coming out of this looking good at all. Why can't he just take his billions an go home?
Speaking of not looking good, there is this photo running with the story on CNN.com. Is it me or does Leno look like some sort of playground perv? Don't take any candy from strangers or overstayed-their-welcome late night talk show hosts.
This is pretty interesting. There is an interactive map of ten large metro areas showing the 50 most popular Netflix rental patterns by zip code. These are also heat maps showing the intensity (or paucity) of interest by certain movies. In areas like NYC and SF, this is pretty revealing as to neighborhood culture and interests.
Or as the SFist put it: "This all of course prompts the obvious question - why so trashy, Newark/Fremont/Union City? We provide you people with a never ending series of examples on how to live quality lives and you repay us with a love for Adam Sandler? Unacceptable."
In today's newsletter from Grammar Girl, one of my favorite words:
I was writing the word "brouhaha" the other day, and it seemed odd and fascinating, so I looked up its origin.
"Brouhaha" refers to a commotion or an uproar, and some sources call "brouhaha" an imitative word, meaning it represents the sounds you would hear during a commotion or an uproar.
Other sources say that in the Middle Ages "brou, ha, ha" was a cry used by French-speaking actors playing the devil. Some say the cry was specific to players representing the devil disguised as clergy, and that "brou, ha, ha" comes from the Hebrew phrase "barukh habba," which was an announcement made in synagogues that means "blessed be the one who comes [in the name of the Lord]."
Either way, English speakers adopted "brouhaha" from the French in the late 1800s.
Gay men are not accessories. We are not side-kicks, entertainment monkeys nor purse dogs. You cannot "recruit" a gay man to be your friend to make yourself cooler. If you are remotely cool, you will have friends. If you are cool enough, you will have friends who are gay.* Any woman seeking to or claiming to "have gays," doesn't. She just knows gays who are patient enough not to kick her to the curb. Women who do in fact have gay friends would never refer to them as "her gays." They are her "friends." Women who claim to have "gays" have gay acquaintances, apparently with enough manners not to spike her.
Gay men can only be accessories if there is a crime involved.
Which we are not entirely object to.
/rant
*If you are an exceptionally cool woman, you may have only gay male friends.
It may also be noted that this principle does not necessarily apply to Baby Gays and Immature Twinks.
From alert Reader Johnny N, a husband-and-wife marketing firm has launched a new social networking site for cowboys. I wonder how inclusive it will become.
Did y'all hear about this? Phase 2 of the "Central Subway" plan for SF has been approved and funded. Info from the SF MTA on the new subway line from Chinatown to Caltrain (via Union Square and the Moscone Center) here.
Favorite local rep the American Conservatory Theater (ACT, or A.C.T.) has successfully raised $30 million to fund their endowment. Right on.
Prior to this effort, ACT had no endowment. Among other things, endowment income is planned to fund improvements to their Geary theater, expand their show offerings, provide a scholarship to their MFA program, and endow an acting position in the core company. (See mention in the SFist.)
I'm back from the Christmas break and will hopefully backblog a lot of the super happy fun holiday times before they fade into memory. Photos will be uploaded too. All in all, an exhausting and wonderful trip back to Nashville, and an great turnout for the New Year's Day Chili Party—although it was one of those years where 40 people showed up within mere minutes of one another and made for a tight (but fun) fit in such a small space.
Pollo also launched the new year with her first solo and first Monday Brain Farts Trivia at the Lookout (with a theme of 20s and 10s). While the bar was pretty sparsely populated, being the Monday after a New Year's Day weekend, we were four enthusiastic teams, and Team "16, we're slightly above average" eeked out a win in the final round.
As usual. Shouts to James and Elizabeth for joining the Brain Farts We Three. (Mazel tov, Amigos!)
To entertain you this morning until I can get back to blogging later in the week—I'm preoccupied with work during the day and have been spending the nights dismantling AV equipment and furniture in preparation for the of the delivery of the JumboTron—here is some breaking news from ONN:
