Random Musings

Okay, so last Sunday we made the trek to CostCo to stock up on essentials. We go about every five weeks to buy chicken and fish and, of course, toilet paper, household products, milk, bread, anything that we can use in the next five weeks. That way we only shop weekly for fresh produce or items we cannot find at CostCo.

And the shopping is always fun because I make the list; I take inventory on what’s in the house, and what may, or may not, last the next five weeks. And I do the driving up and back because, well, I’m a control freak and no one, no one, drives better than I do. And, at CostCo, I push the cart; I fill up the cart.

Carlos finds things we can’t live without — like, say, a five-pound block of Bleu Cheese; and he visits the snack ladies, though not, as Anne Marie wondered, because he likes the ladies, but because he likes free stuff.

While wandering down an aisle I noticed this display of hand-woven baskets and mats made by women in Rwanda, and stopped to look. They were beautiful, all colors and patterns, and as I read a brochure I learned that a portion of the money made from the sale goes back to the women of Rwanda for education and medical treatments and the like. To me, it was a win-win; something pretty and functional and a donation to charity.

I picked up one of the mats that could be used as a trivet to set hot dishes on and saw that it was $15; I asked Carlos if he liked it, and he did, but then he found another he liked and suggested we get both. He also saw a basket he wanted and, well, it was $37, and into the cart it went.

At the checkout line the cashier totaled up the bill and it came out much bigger than we normally spend and Carlos, in that high-pitched shriek that he has, said, “Why so much?”

I explained that the basket and mats were roughly seventy dollars and, nearly fainting, he said that was s too much. But, as I reminded him that he has no trouble spending $45 on a block of cheese that would be gone on three weeks and that these mats and basket would last forever, along with a cold compress on the neck, a few loving pats on the back, and some It’ll be okay murmurings, he seemed to settle and we were on our way.

Thankfully the good folks at CostCo didn’t have to call the paramedics to calm him down. Not again.

Remember when Pope Frankie said he didn’t judge gay people and gay people swooned and said maybe the Catholic Church was changing?

Well, I didn’t. I took a wait-and-see approach and maybe I’m glad I did because last week Frankie held a private mass with Ludovine de la Rochere, the president of France's viciously anti-gay Manif Pour Tous, a group which held many massive and at times violent, rallies during the battle for marriage equality in France. In a statement, de la Rochere said she was invited to participate in a private Mass with the Pope:

"I was placed in the middle of the meeting, but someone picked me before the start of the Mass, wondering if I was the president of the Manif Pour Tous, to put me at the forefront of the faithful along the aisle, just behind the priests." 

It should not go unnoticed that during this Mass just thirty people are allowed inside and it clearly means that Pope Frankie wanted to meet Rochere and honor Manif Pour Tous.

Just sayin’.

I am not a fan of Ricky Martin. I mean, he’s kinda handsome, but sometimes he’s just too much all at once, but that’s just me.

Still, I can’t help but point out that, moment while performing at the Mawazine World Rhythms Festival in Morocco last week, Martin altered the lyrics of a popular love song from "she" to "he," thereby taking a stand for LGBT rights in a country where you can be sent to prison for being gay.

Ricky sang:

“It’s the way he makes me feel; it’s the only thing that’s real,

It’s the way he understands, He’s my lover, he’s my friend

When I look into his eyes it’s the way I feel inside

Like the man I want to be, He’s all I ever need."

That’s powerful stuff to sing in a country where, under article 489, being gay is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Now, while a gay community in Morocco and arrests are few, just a month ago six men were jailed for being gay.

Nice job Ricky.

If you say you’ve never seen hottie Bobby Holland Hanton, you might have to think again.

He’s been in the movies just six years, first appearing in 2008’s Quantum of Solace, but he’s also been in the Batman series, the Thor series, the Green Lantern film, and the other Bond films. He’s even in the battle scenes in Maleficent.

Not as an actor, or the star, but as a stunt man and stunt double, though, as hot as he looks, both clothed and shirtless, maybe he should be closer to camera.

Just sayin’.

While a lot of corporations take their enormous profits and give the bigwigs giant raises and dividends, Starbucks is doing something different.

The coffee giant has announced that it will pay for thousands of its workers to take courses through Arizona State University to complete their bachelor's degree via the Starbucks College Achievement plan which will allow 135,000 full- and part-time workers to choose from 40 undergraduate degree programs at ASU and take courses online.

CEO Howard Schultz:

"There's no doubt the inequality within the country has created a situation where many Americans are being left behind. The question I think for all of us is, 'Should we accept that, or should we try to do something about it? … We can't wait for Washington."

Best of all? Workers do not have to commit to remaining with the company after graduation.

Nicely done, Starbucks.

So, the GOP is so afraid of Hillary Clinton running for president that they’ve pulled out the big guns to do battle.

A man in a squirrel suit. Yes, that’s what I said: a man in a squirrel suit. And he apparently goes around saying, and this is high-larious, "Another Clinton In The White House Is Nuts."

This from the Bush-Cheney party? Really? But that’s not the whole joke. The squirrel showed up at one of Hillary Clinton’s book signings for Hard Choices and Hillary confronted the squirrel to hand him a signed copy of her book.

And the squirrel thanked her on Twitter.

Oh you wacky folks at the GOP. Even your squirrel is a Clinton fan!

We finally watched The Normal Heart this week, after having a free HBO weekend from AT&T and I’m so glad we saw it. Such a powerful film of such a horrible time in this country when men were dying and our own government couldn’t be bothered to step up.

All the performances were amazing, though, naturally, Mark Ruffalo, playing the Larry Kramer-inspired character, and Matt Bomer were standouts.

But the part that got to me the most was the speech by Tommy Boatwright — played beautifully by openly gay actor Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory — at the funeral of a friend, when he wondered about all those men who died, and what they might have contributed to the world, the plays they might have written, the songs unsung, the art unshared.

Such a gorgeous film of such a horrendous time in our — both the LGBT community and the country— lives.

And just to be clear, as it was stated at the end of the film, AIDS is  far from over, as there are 6,000 new cases of HIV diagnosed every single day, and that 36 million people have died since the epidemic began.

Thirty-six million people in thirty-three years. That’s almost three thousand people each day.

Every day.

He Said, She Said: Streisand v Kramer

In the 1980s, Larry Kramer wrote The Normal Heart, a sort-of semi-autobiographical play about the rise of the HIV/AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group.

After a successful 1985 off-Broadway production at The Public Theater, the play was revived in Los Angeles and London and again off-Broadway in 2004. But it isn't the play that's causing the ruckus. it's the movie. And it's spawned a war of words between Barbra Streisand and Larry Kramer.

They both want to see The Normal Heart onscreen, but the fact that it's taken some twenty-five years is, well, the fault of the other one. Streisand blames Kramer; Larry blames Babs. 

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Streisand calls Kramer “brilliant, courageous, stubborn, and self-destructive.” He replies: “She never put her money where her mouth is.”

Streisand first optioned the play after seeing it back in 1985, and spent some ten years trying to get the film made. She worked with Larry Kramer, and other screenwriters, to get the story just right. Streisand would direct the film, and play the supporting role of Dr. Emma Brookner. 

The movie never happened. And Streisand calls Kramer out for the failure, saying he would not allow any adjustments to the script, even ones she felt were necessary to make the film more "cinematic": “I was using the best of [the play]. But there are certain things you do for film. Larry only wanted to use his screenplay. I couldn’t have my hands tied artistically.”

Larry Kramer, of course, offers a different take. He says the Streisand rewrites made her supporting character the star, and went so far as to minimize the roles of the gay characters: “She cut Ned’s part so much that when she offered the movie to a major star who had played the part on stage, he said, ‘I can’t play this. The character has no motivation anymore.’ She subsumed all of the motivations into her part, as the doctor.”

Barbra is not amused, tearing off a letter to Entertainment Weekly, saying, “Larry’s claim that I wanted to expand the role of the doctor to make her the star and marginalize the gay characters is nonsense.” She also posted something called a “truth alert” on her official website, claiming that Kramer is “rewriting history.”

She also says Kramer was motivated by money, and a lot of it. According to her, he ALLEGEDLY rejected a deal from HBO to turn the play into a TV project after major studios balked at its subject matter: “Larry wouldn’t accept their highest offer of $250,000. He wanted a million dollars. [He] held out for the money. I didn’t. Why not advance your cause? Why keep this movie unseen for all these years?” 

Larry Kramer says he never heard anything about an HBO offer. He maintains that Streisand left the project to work on other movies.

And in the 1990s, when Streisand's option ran out, and the rights reverted back to Kramer, she says she never stopped supporting the project, even after Kramer called her a "hypocrite" for not making the film on his ACT UP website.

Streisand says, “When he printed that diatribe on the web, I was very hurt by it, because it’s not true. I started to write [a response] but then decided not to do it. It was wonderful to read some of the comments from the gay community about this. They fought the battle for me. It was really lovely for all these people to come to my defense.”

But there’s a glimmer of hope, for a film adaptation at any rate. Streisand says she would consider playing Brookner in Glee creator Ryan Murphy’s planned adaptation starring Mark Ruffalo, although it would be difficult for her to let go of her creative vision for the movie. “If I could direct it today, I would direct it today. Because it’s been very hard for me to find a piece that I feel as passionate about. I mean, I love this play.”

Hmmmm, who to believe, who to believe. The demanding diva, or Barbra Streisand? Sad to say, these are two massive egos who probably couldn't let go of the power, so their collaboration went by the wayside. Not that I think a Ryan Murphy Normal Heart wouldn't be wonderful, but a Streisand-Kramer film would have been spectacular.

Entertainment Weekly