Category Archives: Just Sayin’

07.03.22
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Declaring Your Independence

I’m not a patriotic guy in the same way I’m not a religious guy and for the exact same reason I hated day camp.  I truly despise mandated group activities.

You will never find me on a cruise or part of a tour group.  And even as a member of several unions, a political party and any number of biological and chosen families, I like to leave my options open.

This makes perfect sense to me

This is one reason I love living in Los Angeles.  You bring your car, you get to leave whenever you like.  My $7 gallon of gas, my choice.

This includes weddings.  Especially destination weddings.  On a remote island.

Anywhere.

I do send good gifts though

I also have a raging biological aversion to group think.  This might seem contradictory to being a lifelong Democrat or member of the Writers Guild.  But really, it’s not. 

Both groups vocally and often rudely scream their disagreements loudly, publically and privately to the point of self-sabotage.  And we’re seldom happy with the nuances of any group decision we reach to move forward, if we ever truly do.

Anyone want to join my book club?

We’d likely win our battles a lot more quickly and less bloodied but what difference would that make?   We wouldn’t be us.  Who we are and what we stand for is all we have.

This does not mean I am against compromise or sometimes doing what I don’t want to do because it’s the right thing to do or because I care about another person.  

See: Destination Wedding

That’s the easy counter attack so don’t get cute, even intellectually.

Because when compromise is your default position, or you fear for your position or your life when you dare to speak your mind against authority figures holding you hostage in a group situation, you’re nothing but a ________________.

Feel free to fill in the blank this Fourth of July week.

Ahem.

‘Merica!

The last two episodes of Stranger Things Season 4 dropped on Friday and I along with many millions of others made it the most watched program in the history of Netflix.  

SEVEN BILLION plus minutes of the show were viewed this past week, breaking all Nielsen ratings for a streaming show.   It also became the most watched series in Netflix’s history with 930 million total hours viewed worldwide.

Admittedly, you and I don’t truly understand ratings anymore, or so much else, but suffice it to say – that’s A LOT. 

Sure is.

Barack Obama has the most followed account on Twitter and he’s only got 131.4 million followers.  Though if you think that indicates anything encouraging about us, just know #2 is Justin Bieber (114.4 mil), #3 is Katy Perry (108.9 mil) and #4 is Rihanna (106.2 mil). 

The latter three likely tell us a lot more about who we really are.

But so does Stranger Things.

NO SPOILERS HERE but one reason the series is so popular is its core characters have an absolute and undying dedication to fight true evil at all costs. 

They might be a gang of unpopular, marginalized young misfits who argue amongst themselves but they’re willing to risk their lives to save their town, and in turn the world.

Plus a lot of bad 80s clothes.

They might secretly crave popularity but what they know better than the majority of their viewers is that it too often comes at a lethal cost. 

And lethal doesn’t necessarily mean their own death.  It means the loss of every good thing they’ve seen or has happened to them because they decided to be corrupted by power, or play it safe and hide behind it, for some petty personal gain.

That and A LOT of monsters, special effects and sappy, nostalgic storytelling also helps.

But, well, dollops of sappy, nostalgic cheesiness is never a bad thing in storytelling. 

We see you Will Byers

Your mind, and everyone else’s, only gets reduced to nothing when it becomes a full course meal.

Once that happens, you’ve truly not you. 

Not to mention what it does to the rest of us when that new majority of you(s) you’ve created takes hold.

So — Happy INDEPENDENCE Day!

If you know what I mean.

Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”

03.13.22
by

Double Trouble

I’m finding it an especially interesting time in history to be gay and Jewish.

I say interesting because I don’t live in a war zone, my life is not in danger and my general risk of being leveled for either on an average day in Hollywood involves someone making a nasty remark about me or my kind within earshot.

I don’t make the rules

For the latter they’d get an earful from me and this might affect my safety if I get unlucky enough to talk back to a crazy person, as my sister constantly reminds me. 

But it’s a calculated risk I’m willing to take (Note: Among so many, these days) since that’s pretty much been my behavior my entire life.

… and I’m stickin’ to it!

Of course, in a moment my life can radically change. 

The Ukrainian people are currently living testimony to that.  So is the history of each generation of gays and Jews that came before me.

Ukraine gets slowly reduced to rubble daily by Russian mortar ordered by an anti-Semitic dictator who paradoxically claims to only to want to stop the Nazification of Ukraine by doing this.

But, well, Ukraine’s Pres. Zelenskyy is Jewish and he won in a landslide in a general election so, um…where is the logic in that?   

proceed…

There is none except the logic of disinformation.  There is also the idea that in order to achieve the greater goal of safety (nee dictatorship-like domination) we can use whatever means or illogical argument necessary to destroy the lives of those less powerful. 

It’s enough to get you thinking, which is the last thing any dictator or politician bent on rolling back the rights of any minority wants.

To whit, the Florida Senate and House last week passed a bill now generally referred to as the Don’t Say Gay Bill even though it’s official title is the Parental Rights In Education Bill.  #Tricky.

Here we go

Essentially what this bill says is that there can be no mention whatsoever about gender identity or sexual orientation in the classroom, which includes the use of the word gay.  It also lets any parent sue any teacher or school that allows it.

That methodology didn’t work well for the 1990s relic of a bill about gays in the military, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and will be even worse here. 

I say this as both a teacher and a former third-grader. 

The minute anyone told me I couldn’t saya word as an 8-year-old boy was the moment I managed to say it.  Never mind my behavior as a teacher.

You know I’m pressing that button

This is why I so appreciate and love the response of Hollywood celebs to the inverted logic of this disinformation campaign/bill.  And it probably accounts for why I decades ago relocated to the left coast to begin with.

https://twitter.com/RoArquette/status/1501399107226652678?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1501399107226652678%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fhollywood-celebs-are-fighting-floridas-dont-say-gay-bill-with-performative-tweets

And to my knowledge, none of the three of them are even GAY!

I will spare you what me and my fellow gays are saying.  Though I’m sure if you searched far and wide, or merely called a few names in the membership roster of the Log Cabin Republican Clubs nationwide, you’d find some supporters of that bill.

No minorities are monolithic in their opinions of what to like and/or support.

I, for one, am one of the few gays who never got Sex and the City; wasn’t a fan of Britney Spears or Madonna; and truly dislikes the work and persona of Andy Cohen and every Housewives TV series that he has poisoned the earth with.

God he is so rich

However, I am not so threatened that I’d engage in disinformation or twisted logic in order to prove my point to try and stop them. 

You might argue that the stakes on that aren’t as high but have you seen the scientific studies on what occurs in the  human brain after watching a dozen or more episodes of Watch What Happens Live?

It’s something like this

The point is when you try to exterminate words and thoughts and people on the basis of the category they fit into you’ve planted your feet atop a very slippery slope of morality and logic.

Many young people these days recognize this.

Two of them from my Jewish subset – first year Harvard students Avi Schiffmann, 19, and Marco Burstein, 18 – LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AGO started a website to help the now 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees that has quickly garnered worldwide activity and huge attention. 

UkraineTakeShelter.com became an instant free Airbnb for Ukrainian refugees, with more than 4000 listings worldwide of rooms, apartments, houses, condos and school dorms for those forced to flee their homes on a moments notice.  The boys launched the site in three days and since then numerous other countries and cities are following their lead with similar programs.

Heroes

Not only that, but they are now expanding into providing transportation to Ukrainians from their hiding spots, as well as offering shelters for animals and providing a means to report bots (nee Russian infiltrators) attempting to lure them into danger.

On the other side, we have a renowned Jewish Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, 55, a man who has spent the last twenty years lavishly spending in the U.S. and Great Britain huge portions of the $15 billion plus fortune he made in Russian oil under the auspices of the Putin regime and via his close relationship with that dictator..

Despite a white hot hatred for the U.S. and NATO it’s always been the dictator’s plan to infiltrate key Russians in the west in order to slowly and avariciously turn the cultural tables on us and generate pro Russian western propaganda through his affiliates.

To that end, Mr. Abramovich has used his personal means to buy many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate on New York’s upper east side and in London; acquire hundreds of millions of past century and contemporary art work; and buy and reinvigorate UK’s almost defunct Chelsea soccer team with enough expensive players to ensure them an unprecedented array of championships in the early to mid 2000s.  This in turn purchased him relationships with some of the top power players in the world, including the Trump and Kushner families.

.. and that feels kind somehow

Then, in 2018, after Russian spies poisoned a couple of people in the UK and things got a little too hot for him, Abramovich bought his way into Israeli society and citizenship through generous donations to hospitals, universities and Holocaust exhibits.

Yet all the money in the world, a disrespectable percentage of which he did once leverage, can now not spare him from the Putin Stink and worldwide sanctions on his financial fortune.  Nor will it prevent him from morphing into an international pariah in real time and before our eyes.

Sorry not sorry

When the hospitals, universities and Holocaust museums you once so generously bought into announce one after another they have severed their relationships to both you and your money, it’s hard not to see where his third act is leading.

It also shows you that we Jews, like we gays, and we humans of any type, can either surprise or horrify you.

Resist lumping us together or you risk becoming the new world pariahs.

Barbra Streisand – “Don’t Rain on My Parade”