Thursday, August 12, 2004
"I Am A Gay American"
Erik and I had an amazing dinner at Little Tree tonight. We hadn't been there in ages so tonight was the night to go again. We wanted to meet up with Sarah and Mark at Xochimilco in downtown Detroit but that got nixed (Schmeep!). In any regard, we had a great dinner together. But all over the TV screens was news of James McGreevey, the Governor of New Jersey, announcing that he is going to resign his Governorship due to a homosexual extra-marital affair and the resulting scandal that is sure to ensue. I mean this thing was on almost every station. Every time we looked up at the TV screens the stations were showing the clip of his announcement over and over. He made this announcement with his wife at his side (I still cannot believe that his wife chose to stand with him as he made this announcement). He also publicly apologized to her for his infidelity.
"Shamefully, I indulged in an adult consensual affair with another man, which violates the bonds of matrimony. It was wrong, it was foolish and it was inexcusable ... I have decided the right course of action is to resign."While I can appreciate his bravery for coming out and doing the right thing by resigning his office I do not think this man is some saint for doing so. As Governor he opposed same-sex marriage, one might assume, in order to further hide his secret. I do give him props for finally coming out though. Hopefully this public admission will change his stance on same-sex marriage.
I guess I can't imagine how hard it would be to be a Governor who was married, with children and carrying on an affair with another man. He still shouldn't have used his power to act against same-sex marriage, I don't care how afraid he was. Eh, that's just me though.McGreevey, who earlier this year said he opposed gay marriage, declared: "My truth is that I am a gay American and I am blessed to live in the greatest nation with the greatest tradition of civil liberties in the world."
Anyways, I am also a gay American and as a "gay American" I chose to partake of the wondrous Kylie Minogue for tonight's entertainment. I crossed my fingers that my stupid DVD player would cooperate with me -- it did. I was able to watch Body Language Live (a.k.a. the Money Can't Buy concert) in full on my huge screen TV. Let me tell you, Kylie Minogue is effing awesome! The show was utterly astounding:
The show was just incredible to watch. The costumes were stunning, the choreography was precise and the staging was just really effing cool. And get this -- this was just one show. She didn't tour with this show at all, it was a one-time thing. AND, she didn't charge a penny to those in the audience. It was by invitation-only so that only true fans would be in attendance. I can't even imagine when I would have the opportunity to pay to see Kylie live and this theater full of people got to see this show live for free -- damn Europeans! If you are at all a Kylie Minogue fan you must own this DVD ... the show rivals her On A Night Like This and Fever tours.
After the concert was over there was a short documentary on the planning of the show. It was very cool to watch. The DVD also includes the videos for Slow, Red Blooded Woman and Chocolate. I know I talk a lot about Britney and lately about Ashlee but Kylie and I go waaaay back. I was a huge fan from the Locomotion days back in '88. Thanks to Tony, I have lots of Kylie footage (videos, performances, TV specials) that is unavailable in the U.S. Overall, if i had to pick my favorite pop diva of all time it would have to be Kylie Minogue (even over Paula Abdul).
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Read My Body Language
Wee! I ordered the new Kylie Minogue DVD Body Language Live from Amazon Canada and it arrived 2 days later! This DVD is the full performance from the Money Can't Buy concert that Kylie gave in the U.K. late last year. I was able to watch the performance in really cruddy quality online but I was very impressed by what I saw. She has also offered a few of the songs as bonus tracks to the U.S. version of her album Body Language.
Har har har, the things that I am personally planning for Erik's birthday are coming together nicely. I can't go into any detail whatsoever because he has been known to read this blog but I am happy to report that I am really excited for Saturday night.
I think you should head over to Scenestars and download the first Elliott Smith song to come from his soon-to-be released posthumous album From A Basement On The Hill. The song is called Fond Farewell and it is beautiful. It's nice and simple. It is in the classic Elliott Smith vein. Man, I really miss him.
Lastly, my delicious Meg has hooked me up with my very own GMail account. It's so hip and trendy to have one of these email accounts because the service hasn't gone public yet. So far, the accounts are by "invite only" so you have to be real special to have one. I'm special because the invite came from Megan.[Permalink]
Major Setback :(
The California Supreme Court has ruled that the Mayor of San Francisco had no authority to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This ruling annuls more than 4,000 marriages including the marriage of Rosie O'Donnell to her longtime girlfriend Kelli Carpenter.
"We agree with petitioners that local officials in San Francisco exceeded their authority by taking official action in violation of applicable statutory provisions," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the court. "The same-sex marriages authorized by the officials are void and of no legal effect."
This is so horrible! I understand that same-sex marriages have had great successes this year but the single-blow annulment of ALL of the San Francisco marriages is painful to bear. But all hope is NOT lost in California. The case before the court only dealt with the question over whether or not city officials have the authority to issue marriage licenses in defiance of state law. The court has NOT taken up the issue of the constitutionality of that state law.
"The constitutional validity of California's statutory provisions limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman is not before our court in this proceeding, and our decision in this case is not intended, and should not be interpreted, to reflect any view on that issue," the court wrote.
So same-sex marriage proponents have lost the first battle but the war is not over yet.
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Valley Of The Dolls
What is it with those freaky-ass American Girl Place dolls? Tony emailed me an article about how Julia Roberts is producing a movie based on the American Girl dolls (Roberts Producing 'American Girl' Movie). Anyone who has spent any amount of time walking around downtown Chicago must know what I'm talking about. A couple of summers ago when Tony and I were in Chicago for a long weekend we kept seeing these scary-looking dolls poking out of backpacks and purses or in the arms of little girls everywhere. We found it extremely unnerving that the dolls were EVERYWHERE. It was weird! At one point we had to go inside the American Girl Place store just to see for ourselves what was so exciting about these dolls. The store was weird in and of itself. They had a restaurant where, at every table, there were seats and place settings FOR THE DOLLS. It was very creepy. Anyways, Tony sent me that article and I find that I am really disturbed that those dolls might gain more exposure and become even more popular.
I'm scared y'all
Hmm, what else ... Oh yeah, the first pictures of Nick Lachey on the set of Charmed have leaked to the Internet. As was previously reported, Nick is going to do a few episodes of Charmed as a new love interest for Phoebe (you can see in the picture that he will be working at The Bay Mirror, the newspaper that Phoebe works for). I'm supposing that if the ratings look good that they will keep him on for more episodes (like they did with the character of Chris -- who turned out to be Piper and Leo's second son). It's nice to see that Nick can have a career away from The Newlyweds and totally apart from Jessica. At least she has a singing career still going strong. Do we even know what happened with Nick's group 98°? Are they like broke up or something? There is like no news on that group anymore. Their official web site is no longer functioning. Anyways, that's all beside the point. I really hope that this stint on Charmed works out for Mr. Jessica Simpson. If not, I fear the poor guy is doomed to forever play second fiddle to the moronic but lovable Jessica. In other news:
- Justin and Cameron deny the wedding rumors. I'm just posting a follow-up, I still couldn't give a shizz about these two.
- Scott Stapp has finally fessed up about Creed's breakup. He claims that it was his steroid use that ended the band. His story is that he was ill and got to the point where he couldn't sing without taking steroid shots. Whatever the reason, thank Jesus Creed is over! Now if we could do something about a little band called Nickelback.
- The Backstreet Boys are going the way of reality TV. Their show will focus on them trying to find a new bodyguard. The "American Idol"-like competition will whittle down a group of contestants until one man or woman is left standing as the Boys' protector. Doesn't this sound so stupid? Yeah, it does to me too.
- Where you aware that August is Anal Sex Month? Hey, I'm just the messenger.
- According to a new study, Detroit, MI ranks as the 69th most literate city out of the 74 largest cities in the country. Toledo, OH comes in at #40, Oklahoma City, OK ranks at #39, St. Louis, MO ranks at #13, Washington D.C. ranks at #6 and Minneapolis, MN comes in at #1. You can read the full list HERE.
I've got to jet, tons of things to do before Saturday.
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