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posts tagged ‘gay’
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Friday, April 10th, 2009
silver (or gold) lined fabulousness
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
first of all, let’s just talk about how fabulous michelle (christian-missionary-wardrobe) obama looked today, especially after that election night outfit debacle. and what’s more, how good ol’ jill biden never disappoints and always has a hem at least 5 inches higher than michelle’s during any public appearance (and just for today: hooker boots). i watched the inauguration with jess and she was drooling over jill’s MILF-y look.
now that all that important stuff’s out of the way, let’s talk about me.
you might imagine that i’m pissed off right now, especially because i was openly pissed off about rick warren making the invocation on this day of days from the start. and also maybe because he talked a lot about jesus (or “yeshua,” as he’s known to friends) in his invocation - along with saying “malia and sasha” with creepy, child-molester intonation.
or, also because openly gay bishop gene robinson’s speech was conveniently left out of sunday’s “we are one” concert broadcast on HBO - a decision that apparently was made by the PIC (presidential inauguration committee). afterelton.com has this update, which includes a ‘takin’ the blame’ quote from the PIC, and an assertion that this morning, before the inauguration, robinson’s words (along with the enitrety of the concert) were to be aired on the mall’s jumbotrons before today’s ceremony. i still haven’t been able to find confirmation that that actually happened. anybody? anybody?
but alas, friends, i’m not too pissed off. but why?
as you may know, us second-class gays were not included in any laundry list of oppressed folk by any speaker this morning - although the sucker in me totally appreciated obama’s allusions to “tolerance” in various forms. “tolerance! that means he’s talking about the gays! we got somethin’! right? right!?”
so where’s the silver lining - other than in michelle’s monastic overcoat?
it’s here :
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.
what what WHAT!? did he say “non-believers!?!” atheists!?!?! WTF!?!?!?
yes, my friends. i might be a big ole fag, but i’m also a big ole “non-believer” - and while i can’t say that any remarks today were particularly envelope-pushing regarding the rights of me and my sexually deviant brethren, the inclusion of atheists in an inaugural address is MASSIVE.
of course, obama has mentioned us godless folk several times in speeches, and there have been allegations that his parents were atheists themselves, but the fact that at perhaps the most-watched, presidential-pattern-setting moment he decided to include us means that we exist. we exist, we are americans and we matter.
the gay in me is still seething, but the atheist in me is brimming with joy. of course this is a small victory - after all yeshua was there in full force all over that ceremony - but where as the gay rights movement is rolling in full force, atheists are continuously legally and socially oppressed wherever they go. we are a group that is more often ignored than condemned and in this religiously-righteous day-in-age any mention in the public theatre is monumental.
overall, i’m doin’ fine. gay and atheist angst inside my chest is swirling, but on this historic day i’d like us all to remember the following (my dad commented on my last post with this, yesterday):
Chris and friends,
I share your disappointment and anger, and deal with it by reminding myself that America is not simply a country, it is a process moving ever forward toward something more noble and inclusive. That process comes to a screeching halt the moment we become so disillusioned and bitter that we allow injustice to continue. Justice was not born with the universe, not essential to the cosmos as is gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear forces. Justice must be manifested by thinking, feeling beings. Barack Obama stands as president today because, despite the setbacks in his own life, he always remained true to that hopeful process. Let us in our own struggle also be true, and when the day comes when we watch the first openly gay American take the presidential oath, let that same arc toward justice compel us to include those who have yet to have their human dignity acknowledged. With that great process in mind, we can truly celebrate this inauguration day.
amen, y’all.
first of all, let’s just talk about how fabulous michelle (christian-missionary-wardrobe) obama looked today, especially after that election night outfit debacle. and what’s more, how good ol’ jill biden never disappoints and always has a hem at least 5 inches higher than michelle’s during any public appearance (and just for today: hooker boots). i watched the inauguration with jess and she was drooling over jill’s MILF-y look.
now that all that important stuff’s out of the way, let’s talk about me.
you might imagine that i’m pissed off right now, especially because i was openly pissed off about rick warren making the invocation on this day of days from the start. and also maybe because he talked a lot about jesus (or “yeshua,” as he’s known to friends) in his invocation - along with saying “malia and sasha” with creepy, child-molester intonation.
or, also because openly gay bishop gene robinson’s speech was conveniently left out of sunday’s “we are one” concert broadcast on HBO - a decision that apparently was made by the PIC (presidential inauguration committee). afterelton.com has this update, which includes a ‘takin’ the blame’ quote from the PIC, and an assertion that this morning, before the inauguration, robinson’s words (along with the enitrety of the concert) were to be aired on the mall’s jumbotrons before today’s ceremony. i still haven’t been able to find confirmation that that actually happened. anybody? anybody?
but alas, friends, i’m not too pissed off. but why?
as you may know, us second-class gays were not included in any laundry list of oppressed folk by any speaker this morning - although the sucker in me totally appreciated obama’s allusions to “tolerance” in various forms. “tolerance! that means he’s talking about the gays! we got somethin’! right? right!?”
so where’s the silver lining - other than in michelle’s monastic overcoat?
it’s here :
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.
what what WHAT!? did he say “non-believers!?!” atheists!?!?! WTF!?!?!?
yes, my friends. i might be a big ole fag, but i’m also a big ole “non-believer” - and while i can’t say that any remarks today were particularly envelope-pushing regarding the rights of me and my sexually deviant brethren, the inclusion of atheists in an inaugural address is MASSIVE.
of course, obama has mentioned us godless folk several times in speeches, and there have been allegations that his parents were atheists themselves, but the fact that at perhaps the most-watched, presidential-pattern-setting moment he decided to include us means that we exist. we exist, we are americans and we matter.
the gay in me is still seething, but the atheist in me is brimming with joy. of course this is a small victory - after all yeshua was there in full force all over that ceremony - but where as the gay rights movement is rolling in full force, atheists are continuously legally and socially oppressed wherever they go. we are a group that is more often ignored than condemned and in this religiously-righteous day-in-age any mention in the public theatre is monumental.
overall, i’m doin’ fine. gay and atheist angst inside my chest is swirling, but on this historic day i’d like us all to remember the following (my dad commented on my last post with this, yesterday):
Chris and friends,
I share your disappointment and anger, and deal with it by reminding myself that America is not simply a country, it is a process moving ever forward toward something more noble and inclusive. That process comes to a screeching halt the moment we become so disillusioned and bitter that we allow injustice to continue. Justice was not born with the universe, not essential to the cosmos as is gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear forces. Justice must be manifested by thinking, feeling beings. Barack Obama stands as president today because, despite the setbacks in his own life, he always remained true to that hopeful process. Let us in our own struggle also be true, and when the day comes when we watch the first openly gay American take the presidential oath, let that same arc toward justice compel us to include those who have yet to have their human dignity acknowledged. With that great process in mind, we can truly celebrate this inauguration day.
amen, y’all.
i love my dad.
Monday, November 17th, 2008
let me introduce you to my father, anthony giarmo. he is one of the most brilliant men i know and he supports me fully in everything i do.
this is a clip of him speaking at a NJ state legislature meeting describing the difference between civil unions and marriage. i hope his advocacy and intelligence help to shape your view on this issue, and more importantly those who do not seem to be on our side.
i love my dad, and i’m so proud of him for all he does to protect my rights as a human being.
let me introduce you to my father, anthony giarmo. he is one of the most brilliant men i know and he supports me fully in everything i do.
this is a clip of him speaking at a NJ state legislature meeting describing the difference between civil unions and marriage. i hope his advocacy and intelligence help to shape your view on this issue, and more importantly those who do not seem to be on our side.
i love my dad, and i’m so proud of him for all he does to protect my rights as a human being.
gaga / ancient roman amphitheater / basilique
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
i’ve officially been in lyon for a week. we’ve actually gotten to see a lot of the city, even though we’ve been working most of the time on our dance-theater piece. it’s been lovely. we’ve made family meals, explored the old city (vieux lyon), and tonight we got to see batsheva dance company in this :
this is apparently the oldest roman amphitheater in france. katie and i explored it on sunday and i snapped this photo. tonight we made a picnic hoping to be able to eat in the theater before the show, but we weren’t allowed to bring in knives and bottles so we ended up eating in a nearby park. anyway.
the show was amazing. i actually took a class with ohad naharin, the artistic director, at cedar lake last year. his ‘methodology’ is called ‘gaga.’ there were ‘gaga dancer’ classes and ‘gaga people’ classes. i took the one for people. it rocked. we were boiling spaghetti on the floor.
his company consists of the best dancers i’ve ever seen. i’ve seen a lot of dance. and i’ve seen some really amazing technicians, and some people with incredible style or execution, but never have i seen a combination of technique and execution like this. each company member is classically trained (it seems) but is also inundated with naharin’s teachings for years. witnessing this synthesis is a treat.
their facility and intention of movement are flawless, phenomenal. and there is also this layer of elasticity and abandon over their impeccable technique that makes it truly brilliant to behold. this company was recently at BAM, but i missed them. i guess i just had to wait see them in an ancient roman amphitheater instead. shucks.
the audience was extremely enthralled with the performance (the piece was called ‘decadance’ btw) and they stood and threw their seat cushions on to the stage at the end - missing mostly, and hitting innocent low level bystanders.
in a totally unrelated - except in a geographical way - here is a photo of the inside of notre dame du fourviere basilique - a big honkin’ church on a hill that was built in the early 1900s right next to the amphitheater :
you could buy these candles to light and place in a crazy candelabra for 1 to 3 euro. depending on how much you care about the person you’re praying for, you spend more or less! :
here’s me and katie being tourists overlooking lyon :
we had to walk up an insane amount of steps to get to this place so forgive if i look a little exhausted.
also, the night before kourtney and i went out on the (gay) town, and with the help of her franglais (that’s english and french) we got into some pretty euro-fun (read: lame) places. we made the best of it, though (read: got drunk). not too many fun stories about that. except when kourtney used this bathroom at ‘PINKS’ after some drunk french chick puked all over it, then had to explain to the rest of the people on line that it wasn’t her. genius.
we danced to the worst michael jackson remixes ever.
i’ve officially been in lyon for a week. we’ve actually gotten to see a lot of the city, even though we’ve been working most of the time on our dance-theater piece. it’s been lovely. we’ve made family meals, explored the old city (vieux lyon), and tonight we got to see batsheva dance company in this :
this is apparently the oldest roman amphitheater in france. katie and i explored it on sunday and i snapped this photo. tonight we made a picnic hoping to be able to eat in the theater before the show, but we weren’t allowed to bring in knives and bottles so we ended up eating in a nearby park. anyway.
the show was amazing. i actually took a class with ohad naharin, the artistic director, at cedar lake last year. his ‘methodology’ is called ‘gaga.’ there were ‘gaga dancer’ classes and ‘gaga people’ classes. i took the one for people. it rocked. we were boiling spaghetti on the floor.
his company consists of the best dancers i’ve ever seen. i’ve seen a lot of dance. and i’ve seen some really amazing technicians, and some people with incredible style or execution, but never have i seen a combination of technique and execution like this. each company member is classically trained (it seems) but is also inundated with naharin’s teachings for years. witnessing this synthesis is a treat.
their facility and intention of movement are flawless, phenomenal. and there is also this layer of elasticity and abandon over their impeccable technique that makes it truly brilliant to behold. this company was recently at BAM, but i missed them. i guess i just had to wait see them in an ancient roman amphitheater instead. shucks.
the audience was extremely enthralled with the performance (the piece was called ‘decadance’ btw) and they stood and threw their seat cushions on to the stage at the end - missing mostly, and hitting innocent low level bystanders.
in a totally unrelated - except in a geographical way - here is a photo of the inside of notre dame du fourviere basilique - a big honkin’ church on a hill that was built in the early 1900s right next to the amphitheater :
you could buy these candles to light and place in a crazy candelabra for 1 to 3 euro. depending on how much you care about the person you’re praying for, you spend more or less! :
here’s me and katie being tourists overlooking lyon :
we had to walk up an insane amount of steps to get to this place so forgive if i look a little exhausted.
also, the night before kourtney and i went out on the (gay) town, and with the help of her franglais (that’s english and french) we got into some pretty euro-fun (read: lame) places. we made the best of it, though (read: got drunk). not too many fun stories about that. except when kourtney used this bathroom at ‘PINKS’ after some drunk french chick puked all over it, then had to explain to the rest of the people on line that it wasn’t her. genius.
we danced to the worst michael jackson remixes ever.
photos du lyon pour vous
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
so right now i am sitting outside our residences at a lovely table that was once filled with a delicious meal prepared by jeff larson, big dance’s video master, consisting of coconut curry, lentils and rice. it was magnifique. here are some photos of my last couple days for your pleaseur :
this is the front of les substistances, where we have our residency. check out their awesome logo.
(more…)
so right now i am sitting outside our residences at a lovely table that was once filled with a delicious meal prepared by jeff larson, big dance’s video master, consisting of coconut curry, lentils and rice. it was magnifique. here are some photos of my last couple days for your pleaseur :
this is the front of les substistances, where we have our residency. check out their awesome logo.
(more…)
a jihad for love
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
last night i saw a jihad for love at ifc center. this movie was produced by the same guy that made ‘trembling before g-d,’ that film about gays and lesbians in the orthodox jewish community. a jihad for love deals with gays and lesbians living in the muslim world and reconciling their religion and their sexuality - a personal struggle that is exacerbated by the strict and discriminatory laws of the countries they live in.
the screening included an intro speech by the filmmakers - producer Sandi Simcha Dubowski, director Parvez Sharma - and Imam Muhsin Hendricksman, a south african muslim man who appears in the film. the filmmakers expressed joy that their screenings have made a huge impact on how gays and lesbians are dealt with in the muslim world, if not legislatively, then sociologically - screening to sold out theaters across the world. unfortunately the turn-out at ifc was weak. we rushed to the theater to get the best seats only to find a nearly empty house peppered with a couple of gay men and the filmmakers themselves. we got some free popcorn with jess’ auteur membership card and camped out in some cushy, center seats.
the film was fascinating/disturbing/heartbreaking/inspiring/informative and beautiful. in contrast to trembling before g-d, a jihad for love featured people who’s lives i could relate to easily. they were all relatively young and - i’ll say it - attractive. the ‘characters’ portrayed could easily have evolved into stars in the next big, gay sundance hit from the muslim world. the only thing this movie lacked was individual throughlines. most characters were only represented in one continuous segment and their stories weren’t given the freedom to resonate off each other.
another issue that was touched on but not thoroughly fleshed out, was the different experiences of gay men in the muslim world versus lesbians. gay men are persecuted and banished from society, but lesbians - specifically because they are women - simply do not exist. one scene in the movie showed a lesbian couple searching an islamic law book for verses against lesbianism and coming up nearly dry. in fact, one could make an entirely separate film about the struggles of lesbians in the muslim faith. there were so many unanswered questions that could have been posed to the women featured in this film. i wanted to know how their experience as a woman rates to their experience as a lesbian. do both just totally suck? does it even matter?
there was minimal discussion of transgender issues in the film - e.g. this one drag party that was documented in a trippy way and looked cool. but other than that there was only one man who described living as a woman and then realizing that it was displeasing allah to change the body he had been given, so he quelled his transgendered feelings, got a wife and had gay affairs on the side. as in most films (ye, any mass media representation) gay issues and gender issues are usually kept separate. unfortunately, the intersectionality of gender, sexuality and religion was kind of thrown to the wayside in this film - a mistake that may have limited a jihad for love to only scratch the surface of a tantalizing and fascinating world of issues.
all that said, it was still an important film screening that every gay person and their mother should have attended (don’t worry, i called mine to tell her about it). unfortunately new york gays are too ghettoized to realize that their community reaches outside the borders of manhattan and their cushy junior one bedrooms. just as the rich, white, gay intelligentsia has difficulty in associating with the transgendered community, gays in the muslim community also remain as strangers. the ramifications of a community of people discriminated against for the same reason, coming together to solve problems and actualize the goals of their social movement would be huge. unfortunately, most people had better things to do on thursday night. i only hope that like, trembling before g-d, a jihad for love makes an impact on the netflix circuit - maybe it’s easier to stomach international atrocities with cosmo in hand, on your crate and barrel sofa.
last night i saw a jihad for love at ifc center. this movie was produced by the same guy that made ‘trembling before g-d,’ that film about gays and lesbians in the orthodox jewish community. a jihad for love deals with gays and lesbians living in the muslim world and reconciling their religion and their sexuality - a personal struggle that is exacerbated by the strict and discriminatory laws of the countries they live in.
the screening included an intro speech by the filmmakers - producer Sandi Simcha Dubowski, director Parvez Sharma - and Imam Muhsin Hendricksman, a south african muslim man who appears in the film. the filmmakers expressed joy that their screenings have made a huge impact on how gays and lesbians are dealt with in the muslim world, if not legislatively, then sociologically - screening to sold out theaters across the world. unfortunately the turn-out at ifc was weak. we rushed to the theater to get the best seats only to find a nearly empty house peppered with a couple of gay men and the filmmakers themselves. we got some free popcorn with jess’ auteur membership card and camped out in some cushy, center seats.
the film was fascinating/disturbing/heartbreaking/inspiring/informative and beautiful. in contrast to trembling before g-d, a jihad for love featured people who’s lives i could relate to easily. they were all relatively young and - i’ll say it - attractive. the ‘characters’ portrayed could easily have evolved into stars in the next big, gay sundance hit from the muslim world. the only thing this movie lacked was individual throughlines. most characters were only represented in one continuous segment and their stories weren’t given the freedom to resonate off each other.
another issue that was touched on but not thoroughly fleshed out, was the different experiences of gay men in the muslim world versus lesbians. gay men are persecuted and banished from society, but lesbians - specifically because they are women - simply do not exist. one scene in the movie showed a lesbian couple searching an islamic law book for verses against lesbianism and coming up nearly dry. in fact, one could make an entirely separate film about the struggles of lesbians in the muslim faith. there were so many unanswered questions that could have been posed to the women featured in this film. i wanted to know how their experience as a woman rates to their experience as a lesbian. do both just totally suck? does it even matter?
there was minimal discussion of transgender issues in the film - e.g. this one drag party that was documented in a trippy way and looked cool. but other than that there was only one man who described living as a woman and then realizing that it was displeasing allah to change the body he had been given, so he quelled his transgendered feelings, got a wife and had gay affairs on the side. as in most films (ye, any mass media representation) gay issues and gender issues are usually kept separate. unfortunately, the intersectionality of gender, sexuality and religion was kind of thrown to the wayside in this film - a mistake that may have limited a jihad for love to only scratch the surface of a tantalizing and fascinating world of issues.
all that said, it was still an important film screening that every gay person and their mother should have attended (don’t worry, i called mine to tell her about it). unfortunately new york gays are too ghettoized to realize that their community reaches outside the borders of manhattan and their cushy junior one bedrooms. just as the rich, white, gay intelligentsia has difficulty in associating with the transgendered community, gays in the muslim community also remain as strangers. the ramifications of a community of people discriminated against for the same reason, coming together to solve problems and actualize the goals of their social movement would be huge. unfortunately, most people had better things to do on thursday night. i only hope that like, trembling before g-d, a jihad for love makes an impact on the netflix circuit - maybe it’s easier to stomach international atrocities with cosmo in hand, on your crate and barrel sofa.