I Didn't Say It ....

David Lammy, UK Labour MP, speaking before the House of Commons debate before they voted to approve marriage equality:
"Let me speak frankly.
Separate but equal” is a fraud. Separate but equal” is the language that tried to push Rosa Parks to the back of the bus. Separate but equal” is the motif that determined that black and white could not possibly drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same table or use the same toilets. “Separate but equal” are the words that justified sending black children to different schools from their white peers – schools that would fail them and condemn them to a life of poverty.
It is an excerpt from the phrasebook of the segregationists and the racists. It is the same statement, the same ideas and the same delusion that we borrowed in this country to say that women could vote – but not until they were 30. It is the same naivety that gave made my dad a citizen in 1956 but refused to condemn the landlords that proclaimed “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. It entrenched who we were, who our friends could be and what our lives could become.
This was not “Separate but equal” but “Separate AND discriminated”,
“Separate AND oppressed”.
“Separate AND browbeaten”.
“Separate AND subjugated”.
Separate is NOT equal, so let us be rid of it.
Because as long as there is one rule for us and another for them, we allow the barriers to acceptance to stand unchallenged. As long as our statute books suggest that the love between two men or two women is unworthy of being recognised through marriage, we allow the rot of homophobia to fester."

Not much else to say when someone puts it so succinctly, concisely, and eloquently.


President Obama, on whether or not the Boy Scouts of America should open their organization to gay members: 

"Yes. My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does, in every institution and walk of life. The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives. And I think nobody should be barred from that."

Plain and simple: Yes.

Michael Musto, on former NYC mayor Ed Koch, who died last week:

"It's a shame the ex-NYC mayor never came out. It's tragic that he hid behind excuses like the fact that he was old and wasn't sexual at all anymore. Old people are still sexual--and if you're gay, you're still gay--and besides, he could have commented on his past. But Ed was so paranoid on the subject that when I interviewed him in the '90s, he propped up a tape recorder to tape me as I recorded him. It was a creepy double game of 'gotcha!' that led nowhere (though he was otherwise gruffly charming) .... The world is now an emptier place, but so is the celebrity closet."

Just another example of the closeted life some folks lead, and how, no matter how successful, how important, they still carry a sense of shame about being gay.

Gabby Giffords, at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on gun violence:
"Thank you for inviting me here today. This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats and Republicans. Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you."

Out of the mouths of victims of gun violence ....

Hopefully we can fix this thing.

Chris Culliver, San Francisco 49er cornerback, on having gay players in the NFL:
"I don't do the gay guys man. I don't do that. No, we don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do....Can't be with that sweet stuff. Nah…can't be…in the locker room man. Nah."

Sounds to me like he obsesses a little too much about gay guys in the locker-room, but let me break it down for him like this:

He seems to think that a young gay kid will learn to play football, and become so good at it that he gets chosen to play for a good college. And then, at that college, where he excels in football, he is seen by NFL scouts and then picked to be part of a professional football team. And gay guys go through all of that so they can be in the locker-room with naked athletes?

Howsabout just joining a gym? Seems simpler.

Chris Culliver, apologizing, sort of:

"The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel. It has taken me seeing them in print to realize that they are hurtful and ugly. Those discriminating feelings are truly not in my heart. Further, I apologize to those who I have hurt and offended, and I pledge to learn and grow from this experience."

Um, the thoughts in your head? They aren't how you feel?

So, it was a voice in your head that made you stupid?

Hopefully, one day, you'll be able to separate the intelligent thoughts in your head from the asinine thoughts in your head.

Brendon Ayanbadejo, Baltimore Raven, on Culliver's anti-gay remarks:
"You know, I think that in San Francisco, and being from the Bay Area myself, that's something that we really try to preach--love and acceptance of everybody. And so I couldn't really even say anything negative to the young man. It's just one of those things where you have to live and you have to learn. And I said earlier on--in the words of Martin Luther King, you can't fight hate with hate. You have to fight hate with love. We've all made our mistakes, we've all been there and done certain things, and we've hurt people regardless if we meant to do it or not. But more than anything it's an opportunity to have a learning experience….I've preached since day one to my teammates that there's certain words you can't say. And when they're around me they know -- if B.A.'s around, you can't say 'gay' in a derogatory manner, you can't say the three-letter 'f' word. And I tell them, I go, you can't say those things. And if people hear you say those things, regardless if you mean them or not, they're going to fry you. And if it's in a public arena your whole reputation's going to be roasted for it. So we've kind of seen it happen this time. So we just have to all learn from what happened, from this mistake. He apologized and hopefully he'll learn. And he's in the Bay Area, and it's really important there, it's pertinent there. So I think he's going to learn and he's going to grow to be a better person for it."

Maybe he needs a good long sit down with Brendon.

Couldn't hurt.

Terrell Suggs, Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker, on the idea of a gay teammate: 
“On this team, with so many different personalities, we just accept people for who they are and we don’t really care too much about a player’s sexuality. To each their own. You know who you are, and we accept you for it.”

As it should be.

Beyoncé, on LipsyncGate:
"I am a perfectionist. I did not have time to rehearse with the orchestra for a live television show and a very very important emotional show for me one of my proudest moments. I did not feel comfortable taking a risk. It was about the president and the inauguration and I wanted to make him and our country proud so I decided to sing along with my prerecorded track. I'm very proud of my performance."

She's a perfectionist who doesn't have time to rehearse? It was a very important and emotional performance but she didn’t have time to rehearse?

It was about the president but all she talks about is what the moment meant to her.

Be proud, Beyoncé. Kelly's proud, too, and she sang  live.

Bill Donohoe, Catholic wingnut, on the story of the ‘gay’ dog in Tennessee:

"This week in Tennessee a dog was rescued from being euthanized (one news outlet said he was being spared 'the Gas Chamber') because the condition driving the dog’s death was his alleged homosexuality (the owner was ticked when he saw his Fido hunch another male dog). For reasons that appear entirely reasonable, the gal who rescued the dog named him Elton. The place where Elton was dropped encourages dog adoption, but it also promotes dog euthanasia. Not, however, in Elton’s case: the shelter has no stomach for putting dogs down on the basis of sexual orientation. It must be said, though, that the shelter is not exactly inclusive in its policies. To wit: Had poor Elton not been identified as a homosexual, his heterosexuality would not have been enough to save his hide. The moral of the story is: Being gay is not only a bonus for humans these days, it is a definite plus for dogs as well. As for straights, the lonely and the disabled, that’s another story altogether."

Someone needs a nap if he thinks the dog was saved because he was gay.

The dog was saved because there was no legitimate reason to put him down.

Iain Dale, British columnist, on the marriage equality battle, and hypocrisy of the naysayers, in Great Britain:

"I’ve been looking at the Coalition for Equal Marriage’s website, and their list of MPs who intend to vote against allowing gay people to marry on Tuesday. I note with interest the names of several MPs who most people in the Westminster Village know to be closet case gays. And I note also the names of two supposedly straight MPs who I know to be conducting gay affairs at the moment. I don’t believe in ‘outing’ anyone, but because of the rank hypocrisy there will be others who will take a different view. How is it possible to be married yourself, and yet at the same time vote to deny that privilege to someone whose pants you have just pulled down?"

Ouch.

If I were one of those closeted MPs, I might watch my step in the next few weeks or I might find myself on the front page of a London tabloid with my hand in some cookie's jar.

Rick Santorum, on plans this week by the Boy Scouts to drop its ban on The Gays: 

"Scouting prepares boys and teenagers to be virtuous men in a world that desperately needs men who are brave enough to stand up for those principles, to live by the moral code of the Scout Oath and Law and hold themselves to that standard – whether at the schoolyard or in the boardroom. Scouting may not survive this transformation of American society, but for the sake of the average boy in America, I hope the board of the Scouts doesn’t have its fingerprints on the murder weapon."

Virtuous men cannot be gay, I guess, in Frothy's world.

Good thing even his own party finds him unworthy of recognition so he resorts to conservative blogs to Froth up his bigotry.

I Didn't Say It ....

Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell's fiance, on marriage equality:

"We're not going to have a party when half of our friends ... can't do that thing we're doing. We're not going to ask them to come celebrate a right they don't have. That's just tacky! Forget like anything else, it's like really tacky for us." 

Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard's fiance, on marriage equality:

"I don't believe in standing in the way of love, and I want to stand up for that right. And that's what it is. If someone wants to commit their life to another person, why would I not bolster that argument?"

Once again, it’s going to take more than just the LGBT community to gain equality. We need our straight allies, and we need them to speak up.

Mittsy Romney, offering a new excuse for not releasing his tax returns:

"Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church."

Um, Mittsy, you delusional hack.

This might have made some minuscule bit of sense, had it been said the FIRST TIME anyone asked to see your returns.

And it might have made sense had you not already released the returns for 2010 that had all you church-y donations listed.

Your newest excuse holds about as much water as any other excuse you’ve offered.

Show us your tax returns.

Charlie Crist, former Florida governor, and Republican, endorsing Barack Obama for president:

"As America prepares to pick our president for the next four years—and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role—I'm confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the future proven right by our history."

Snap.

I don’t think too much about Crist, given his alleged closeted homosexuality, but it is nice to see someone take a stand against their own party, and their own candidate.

It won’t make much of a splash, because it’s Crist, but it was still nice to read.

David Mixner, former Clinton White House adviser, on the importance of voting:

"It is not enough just to vote for Obama/Biden but we must turn out our vote. Reflect on the the results of last Friday's CNN Poll to have all the proof you need to get busy now. When all voters were polled, President Obama defeats good ole Mitt by 52% to 43%. That is a nine point huge victory. However, when just those 'likely to vote' were polled, the election becomes a toss-up with 49% to 47%. Every damn voter we get to the poll from our community is going to count. Every single person we can get to the polls will make a difference. No community, none, loses more than the LGBT community if the right-wing Tea Party Republicans become the dominant force in our American politics. LGBT Americans have died, been beaten and have paid terrible prices in order for us to get this close to full equality. What a shame if we honor their memory by not completing this battle."

It’s one thing to say you support the president but you must follow that up with voting. Saying it doesn’t really count unless you do something about it.

Vote.

Jesten Peters, “Reverend” of Keys of Authority Ministries, saying her organization prayed Isaac away from Tampa:

"We have had lots and lots of people praying around the clock that it would move, and after you watch from the very beginning where they were saying it was coming and now where they say it is going, then it has really moved out of the way for us and we appreciate God doing that and moving it for us!"

Um, moron? May I call you moron?

Hurricanes move. Winds cause them to move. Ocean currents cause them to strengthen and weaken which causes them to move.

And, when you were praying it to move away from Tampa did you give the tiniest rat’s ass thought about sending it to New Orleans?

I may start a prayer group to have you move…away from asshattery.

Chris Matthews, MSNBC news pundit, laying into RNC Chairman Reince Priebus about Mittsy’s lame birther joke from last week:

"It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card...This stuff about getting rid of the work requirement for welfare is dishonest — everyone's pointed out it's dishonest....And you are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play your games and giggle about it, but the fact is that your side is playing that card."

It was pathetic to watch Priebus giggle like a mean girl when Matthews spoke.

It’s just further proof that the GOP isn’t about moving forward, it’s about lying and race-baiting and rehashing some issue that’s been dead—and I think we’ve seen the death certificate every time we see the birth certificate—for years.

Chris Christie, on whether or not Mittsy should release more tax returns, and if he should have made that birther “joke”:

“I think if he had to do it over again, he wouldn’t make the joke. But you know what, when you’re on camera 12, 14 hours a day, and you’re at a big rallies and you’re just going off the cuff, there are going to be times you’re going to say stuff you wish you could take back. If you get a chance to talk to Governor Romney, I think he’d tell you that he wishes he could take that one back.”

Wrong, KrispyKreme.

You learn, as a politician, through all your surveys and reports and polls, what you can and can't say, should and shouldn't say.

You learn what your base wants to hear, and Mittsy needs the wingnut GOP base so he purposely made that "joke".

Michael Musto, writing for the Village Voice, on “gay” Republicans:

"Just when you assumed gay self-loathing had been deposited in the dead-chicken bins, along comes a new wave of self-flagellation aimed to throw us under the hate truck. At a time when gays have made significant progress and other people are fully available to do all the hating, some gays crazily want to join in! I'm talking about the wave of gay Republicans who grovel before the enemy, making lavish excuses for politically repellent candidates—you know, the Romney/Ryan ticket—who would gladly turn us into a subordinate class without any semblance of full equality. There's no one more self-loathing than the oxymoronic 'grubs' (gay Repubs) who rally to the defense of power-crazed bigots, spinning them as champions of decency and fairness who happen to be grossly misunderstood."

I understand having a conservative mindset and feeling like the Democratic party doesn't represent you. But as a gay man, how do you justify following a party that constantly seeks to denigrate you?

That's the height of self-loathing.

Stephen Colbert, on how it’s actually The Gays who created Hurricane Isaac:

"Hurricanes form from rising moisture created by hot steamy man action aboard a gay Caribbean cruise. When that sin gets high enough it makes the angels cry and those tears fall to earth in the form of massive precipitation because homosexuals are a vital part of the water cycle. That's why the gay symbol is a rainbow!"

I missed that in my copy of The Gay Agenda.

But I like it….and I needed a good laugh today!

I Didn't Say It.....

Sir Elton John, on being "fed up" with being a treated like a second-class citizen in the US:

"In this country, we need more dialogue. We don't need any more stone throwing. We don't need any more vitriol. We need people to say, 'OK. I'm straight. You're gay. Let's get along. I'm Republican. You're Democratic. Let's work together.' I'm sick and tired of people being hateful to each other in this country Everyone is entitled to have their own beliefs and their own spirituality. The big difference is that the dogma of the church can be so hateful and divisive. It's stuck in the stone age. We don't live in the stone age anymore. The church is losing people left, right and center because people are fed up with the rhetoric that they're giving them."

I guess becoming a father has pushed Elton out into the pro-marriage, pro-equality spotlight. I remember when he said he didn't want to get married, and now, well, I think he's realizing that separate--i.e. civil unions--is not equal.

Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, on the sin that is homosexuality:

"The scriptures shows that it's a sin. But you know, I'm not one of those that are out there to bash homosexuals and tell them that they're terrible people and all of that. I mean, there are other sins in the Bible too...I don't believe homosexuality is God's best for a person's life...."Well, it's strictly back to what the scripture says. I mean, I can't grab one part and say God wants you to be blessed and live an abundant life, and not grab the other part that says, you know what? You know, live that kind of life. So it comes back to the scripture. I'm not the judge. You know, God didn't tell me to go around judging everybody."

No, God didn't tell you to go around judging people.
You do that all on your own.

Tiffany, former pop star and one-hit wonder, on dating, and apparently outing, New Kids On The Block member Jonathan Knight:

"He turned gay later. I didn't do it, but he's fabulous, though. I had issues with that. I was thinking that I did. But, no....Now looking back while we were dating," she says. "He was so much fun. We used to do facials together. He was so easy to talk to."

Oh, Tiffany, honey, no one blames you for making anyone gay, because, well, you can't do that.
I will however hold you responsible for mall singers, Debbie Gibson, really bad pop music.
And Justin Bieber.

Jason Mraz, on not getting married until everyone has that right: 

"We both feel that in our engagement, we have a union that's really special and cant be broken. It's a sacred bond. The wedding would be nice for our family, our friends, our community -- our moms especially -- and so it puts us in the fight. We can't get married until [gay] marriage is legal and equal...I think giving people the right to marry will be a huge movement in civil rights."

It's nice to have such an ally for the LGBT community, and one who stands by his convictions, and keeps verbalizing them.
I love you, Jason. And when you can get married, I'll come to your wedding, and you can come to mine. Or, howsabout a nice double wedding?

Michael Musto, on what he sees as the hypocrisy of Calvin Klein:

"Calvin, darling, you're embarrassing yourself. What's worse, you're embarrassing the whole community. You were never really that much of a gay hero in the first place. Remember when you suddenly had a wife because, as AIDS made it uncool to be gay, you took the wussy way out and closeted yourself so you could sell more T shirts and perfume? That was a hideous approach and I screamed my lungs out about it--but it was better than now! Now you've hooked up with that almost-21-year-old ex-porn star, Nick Gruber, and you're fawning over him as if this were real love and not a massive late-life crisis being acted out for the horrified masses. It's not going to work!"

You know, I'm kinda with Musto on this.
I remember when Calvin Klein got "married" to Kelly, and I kept thinking, Kelly's a man, right?
Not cool, Calvin.

David Gandy, supermodel, on his tough life:

"People still just think Zoolander, and to come out with your pride and dignity intact is probably quite hard in this business. Now there are younger guys coming in who want to be models. I'm actually proud to say I'm a model now. You pay your dues of not being listened to, but now people are starting to say, 'Maybe this guy's onto something.'...Trust me to end up working in the only industry in the world where women get paid more than men, and treated loads better. We're trying to change that. In the hierarchy of a shoot, you have the photographer, the female model, the stylists, the assistants, then the male model. You are the lowest of the low."

I love me some David Gandy, but, come on, I imagine there are a lot tougher ways to earn a buck, or several million.

Tea Party supported, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Repugnant--and I mean repugnant--on the violent rhetoric of the Teabaggers:

"The shooter wins if we, who’ve been elected, change what we do just because of what he did."

The shooter wins if people like Lee stop using violent words and images in their speeches and campaign ads?
No, you moronic fucktard, we win, because we become less about violence and more about civility, which is obviously something the Tea Party and its idiotic minions know nothing about.
They want to quell the speech of anyone who disagrees with them, but retain the right to inflict violence through words on the country.
That is unAmerican.

Porn star Reese Rideout, on being gay for pay:

"I can have sex at work without thinking about the other person because I'm genuinely straight. But gay sex is tough if you're straight. The first time I shot a scene with another man, it was oral sex, and I couldn't keep it up because I wasn't turned on."

But I'll bet you sprang a woody when you got that first paycheck, didn't you?
And I bet you keep springin' 'em just thinking about the money.
i love that he is genuinely straight but he takes it and gives it from both ends, probably, at times, simultaneously.
Yeah, straight, as in straight to the gay bar.


Christopher Ciccone, on his sister, Madonna, and her, um habit, of dating much younger men:

"I guess if she continues to date all these much younger guys, it could start to look creepy. But I think that a lot of Madonna's emotional needs are met by taking care of her children; these boyfriends must really be like a kind of distraction for her. She certainly isn't following societal values, but then again my sister never has and probably never will either."

Sounds to me like a little green-eyed monster.
Maybe Chris is a little jealous of Madonna's boy toys.

Michael Musto's Year [And Decade] In Review!

by Michael Musto for the Village Voice

The Naughty Aughties are over, and I'm LMFAO. It will be remembered, if at all, as the decade of the TMI generation. The 15-second fame gang. The micromanaging maniacs. The attention-whoring-for-lunch bunch. The iPhone, iPod, iMac, IMAX, and eye-lift folks. The people who have already forgotten this paragraph.
Breaking news about every possible global brain fart was instantly accessible, and you spent most of your time sneaking a peek down at your BlackBerry to read it during intimate dinner dates. Everyone was a star, a critic, and a victim, and—as traditional media dwindled and reshaped—they were journalists, too, from the guy who dressed like a pimp to entrap ACORN to the man with a camera who got tossed out of Gypsy when Patti LuPone screamed, "Who do you think you are?"
Social networking became the way to catch up with old friends you'd avoided for years and to tell the world about your latest mood swings, moviegoing experiences, and bathroom achievements. Even celebrities—who'd long built up a wall of privacy by hiding behind lying publicists—couldn't help Tweeting their every thought, caught up in the universal need to connect, to emit, to admit, and to bore.
Unfortunately, the news wasn't all good. The decade was defined by 9/11, a horrific humbling that disrupted our false sense of well-being and turned our country's libertarian ethics topsy-turvy. As traumatic as the event itself was the paranoid aftermath: the terrorist alerts invoked whenever the Bush administration needed a boost; the anthrax scares, which had our mail being surreally delivered with surgical masks and tongs; and the racial profiling, which prompted people in turbans to suddenly sport American-flag pins. Worst of all was the terribly managed war in Iraq, which was presented as payback—though it didn't seem as if we were getting back at the right people. (And those supposed weapons of mass destruction? ROTFLMFAO.)
After eight years of stolen elections and ritualized lying, the Republicans finally lost ground as the Dems experienced a showdown between a woman (Hillary Clinton) and a man of mixed race (Barack Obama), neither seeming like the easiest concept to sneak into office. But despite having once chatted with Bill Ayers, Obama got the nod, and with a big boost from Sarah Palin, he historically rose to power, only to realize that the only war on anyone's minds anymore was the one against their credit-card debts.
As a result of corporate greed, too-easily-attainable mortgages, and a mass blindness comparable to the one we all shared on September 10, the market caved in and suddenly no one was buying Green Acres lunch boxes on eBay anymore. Or anything! People were even going back to regular coffee! OMG. Who needed terrorist attacks when our own capitalist system could handily destroy itself?
A mere year later, pundits' pronouncements started claiming that everything was stabilizing, but that didn't factor in the reality that unemployment had reached a 26-year peak, creating a jobless army that a lot of those very pundits were, poetically enough, about to join. What's more, the tiny bump in sales was only because of Cash for Clunkers, and the mild rise in real estate purchases was mainly due to foreclosures, rock-bottom prices, and temporary tax incentives. Still, the breathless need to keep reporting brushed past the facts and right into our Google search engine.
The entertainment world's reaction to the demands of economics had long been reality shows, cheap-to-produce exercises in trickery disguised as documentary truth, which catered to the trend toward making everyone famous, even if they had to eat worms and battle bad singers to grab their fix of stardom.
In the past, schlock actors used to go into politics (Reagan, Schwarzenegger, the Love Boat guy), but now it was the reverse, as politicians went into schlock performing (Blago, Tom DeLay) and didn't act sufficiently embarrassed about it. For
disgraced personalities like these, reality TV became a catharsis, a comeuppance, and a perverse chance to stay relevant at any cost.
From Survivor to The Osbournes and beyond, the country thrilled to brazen fame addicts revealing it all in dire circumstances, even if there was a trailer filled with panini waiting two yards away. Amid safety fears, money woes, and anxiety over the evaporating environment, America enjoyed sitting back and watching other people degrade themselves for the camera en route to the lecture circuit and/or the Home Shopping Club.
You had to turn to cable news for something meatier, with fiery commentators preaching political wisdoms aimed at the fiery commentators a few channels away, while HBO became the go-to place for quality series about urban angst (The Soprano, Sex and the City), which suddenly made it cool for smart people to say, "I'm staying home tonight and watching TV."
For a palate cleanser, everyone clicked on Perez Hilton and TMZ's news on the messy pop tarts—the blonde girls who had everything except an idea of what to do with it. These prematurely Botoxed hot messes were the real-life equivalent of reality shows—walking train wrecks who seemed to gleefully self-destruct for the public's delectation. And we comforted ourselves in their Grand Guignol breakdowns, from Lindsay Lohan's ear-splitting public fights with the girlfriend to Britney Spears shaving her head, her husband, and her career before getting it together to be wound up again and sell more records.
Paris Hilton was clearly the steeliest of the three—a Teflon heiress whose scandals only made her bigger, as she rose, dumb as a fox, in almost every medium. The crafty little thing wouldn't even look for a BFF unless cameras were trained on her for a prime-time series.
Paris seemed indestructible—even in a recession—and so did rising star Lady Gaga, a self-created mass of bubbles, carnival masks, fake blood, and real stamina. And along came the heavily made-up Adam Lambert, who proved just how quickly things happen nowadays. A few days after it came out that he told a magazine not to make him appear too gay, the American Idol runner-up thrust a guy's face into his crotch for a mass audience and kissed his male keyboard player. His CD debuted very well—but it still paled next to that of middle-aged reality-show sensation Susan Boyle, who survived a nervous breakdown to make a smash CD of gospel tunes available at CVS checkout counters.
Alas, other icons were dropping like hookers' panties, caving in to a shocking overreliance on prescription drugs doled out by well-paid quacks and enablers. As Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, DJ AM, and possibly Brittany Murphy all tragically expired after proverbial visits to Duane Reade, it was up to the public to decide whether they'd acted out a form of assisted suicide, been cruelly Kevork'd against their will, or just had a terrible mishap. Whatever the case, the pharmaceutical remedies turned out to be way more dangerous than the ills they were trying to resolve.
Cinematic anti-anxiety came via a return to musicals, though the public was generally too savvy for the old-school device of breaking into song. So in Moulin Rouge, the numbers were presented as hyper-edited dreamscapes; in Chicago and Nine, they were gussied-up fantasy turns; and in Dreamgirls, they were mostly onstage or in recording studios. Scoring bigtime were vampires (Twilight drew pubescent blood) and wizards (Harry Potter wanded nerds of both sexes), as well as ghosts, zombies, and any other type of far-fetched presence representing the chance for an afterlife. The mass audience was so ballsily self-possessed, they clung to the idea that not only do you get your old life back via Facebook, but after you die, you get to return for more.
The same went for the movies themselves, which automatically spawned sequels, The Lord of the Rings cranking out three mumbo-jumbo-filled time passers at once. The gamble paid off handsomely, though the money-bleeding stage musical version proved the Hobbit could definitely be broken.
And speaking of outcasts bearing golden rings, gay marriage became the decade's lightning-rod issue and a test of religious people's willingness to rethink the oppressive belief system they claimed came from on high. In California, the same-sex marital right was vengefully repealed by the reverent, though gays kept their veils in the closet and plotted a repealing of the repealing. All through this, gay-dissing beauty queen Carrie Prejean held up the Bible with one hand while desperately trying to keep her clothes on with the other.
In the zombieland of New York, Mayor Giuliani projected a stoicism that helped guide us out of 9/11, but by then, he'd already drained a lot of the life (and nightlife) out of the city by making it a glossy theme park aimed mainly at outsiders and condo owners. His successor, Michael Bloomberg, continued the club crackdowns, which reflected a startling citywide sanitization—though at least burlesque shows started popping up in Brooklyn and on the Lower East Side as a crafty way of bringing the sex back by calling it art.
That almost made up for the growth of the Meatpacking District as a soulless triangle where anyone willing to flaunt a credit card could get VIP treatment from a blonde waitress with a rack and a tray. By the time that area's abandoned elevated train tracks were refurbished and called Highline Park—while Times Square was being converted into a street mall for aimless tourists with no money—the camera wielders who'd stayed away because of the falling buildings were now parking their fat asses in lawn furniture, apparently never to move again. To summon Ms. LuPone again: "Who do you think you are?"
Farewell, Naughty Aughties. Here's hoping the Tempestuous Teens are more of a Tweet. LOL.