http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/09/05/the-daily-show-sarah-palin-proves-shes-dickish-enough-to-be-vice-president/

After showing clips of Rudy Guiliani and Sarah Palin mocking and demeaning people who work every day to make their communities better and stronger, John Stewart came back with: "So to everyone out there trying to make a difference in your communities...FUCK YOU! You stupid asses! You jerk offs! You know what you are, people? You're a thou

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jh...

The Daily Show News Team reports from the Larry Craig bathroom, and Fred Thompson speaks at the RNC.

Brilliant episode...well worth your time to watch. The best coverage of this election is a comedy show. How pathetic is that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSxAIENqU0

Seriously folks, if you are LGBT, voting for McCain is just plain stupid.

Many of us have different definitions of what a "twink" is.  I did an online search, and I had a heck of a time finding a good definition, although I did find one here.  One that made me life was from something called "The Jargon File" which said a twink is "gay slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs (compare mainstream ..chick')."  That definition probably comes the closest to what I think of when I think of a twink.  Combined with the requirement that you be under the age of 25, as well as having a certain amount of shallow vapidness... I'm not a fan of the twink.

Yet, I find that the gay community is virtually obsessed with them, including guys who would never stand a chance of landing a twink unless he first showed his bank statement.  Lately, I've had a slew of friends who have expressed varying degrees of twink worship that I find disturbing.  I've never liked the overly skinny mostly because I first felt that I could break them too easily.  I'm a relatively strong man, and if I want to give my guy a bear hug, I do not want to have to worry that I'm going to break bones doing it.  Then, after I gained weight myself, I had a new reason to dislike the twink:  the twink's obvious, public, and utter disdain for my very existence.  

I respect people having different things they are attracted to.  Lord knows I have my own quirks.  One thing I strive never to be, however, is downright rude.  The twinks I've run into have made rudeness an art form.  Last Thursday night when I was out for my birthday with friends, I was feeling pretty good, and I was smiling and nodding "hello" to anyone to caught my eye.  It wasn't a come on; I was genuinely in a great mood and just being friendly.  However, I started getting a string of disgusted looks, eye rolls, and heads whipping in the opposite direction that it threatened to sour my evening.  And the perpetrators of this behavior were the twinks.  Others either politely smiled back, ignored me, or otherwise didn't react - all fine reactions.  But acting like I had walked up to them  and asked to fuck them in a public toilet was uncalled for....but with twinks, I find it's typical.

Perhaps it is the worship all things young and thin in the gay community that causes twinks to think that they are better than anyone else who is NOT them.   I have no idea, and I'm not particularly interested in why they behave the way they do.   I do have friends who qualify as twinks who aren't such insufferable assholes, but they seem to be the exception that proves the rule.  It's not like these twinks have anything to particularly be proud of.  They are young, which is an accident of birth...but time spares none of us.  They won't be twinks but a few years.  They are skin and bones thin, and look like young boys for the most part....an accident of genetics, drugs like crystal meth, or both.   They usually haven't even graduated college if they went at all.  Many of them dropped out of school to work full time in retail, figuring that having money to go out and party was more important than an education.   And those who are in college have the added irritation of feeling superior in intellect as well as body and looks....and they let you know it.   Their favorite hangout is the gay bar or club, and they usually can be found there a majority of nights, even during the week.  They sneer at those of us considered to old, too fat, or too WHATEVER to even breathe  the same air they breathe.   Yet the gay community as a whole worships them, even those who should know better.

Maybe this is what my friends feel when they meet some of the guys I date.  Maybe they feel the same sense of frustration, thinking "What in the HELL is going through his head?!?" as they resist the urge to shake some sense into me.   I don't know.   It just makes me sad when I see great guys who have a lot to offer mindlessly chase twinks for relationships because they somehow fetishize the type.  They think the twink they settle on will be different...one of the good ones.  They somehow think that the nightly bar hopping, and the lack of a real career or motivation to excel in the one they are in is somehow going to change once they are together.  Even when burned, my friends seem not to learn the lesson that perhaps they should expand their horizons a bit and be open to non-obvious attractions.   That's a lesson I've had to learn.  I have things that I'm heavily attracted to, but I don't limit myself to that.  If I click with a guy, I'm open to pursuing that unless there is simply no attraction whatsoever.  Sometimes you can't help that...no matter how great the guy, if there is zero interest, there is zero interest.

But the twink worship continues.   For my part, I would be happy to let the twinks have their own little fantasy world where everyone can be young, rail thin, and "fabulous" forever going from bar to bar and party to party.  Someday they all have to grow up (one hopes), even if that transition is tough for them.   I just don't have the patience to deal with the drama and bullshit that twinks dish out.  They have no interest in knowing me as a person, and I'm certainly not going to waste my time trying to convince them I'm worth knowing.

I just wish I could convince several of my friends of this....but I fear they may need to get hurt badly (again) in order to learn the lesson.

I turned 33 years old last Thursday. It still feels weird to say that, let alone type it. I remember when my parents were 33, since I was 8 years old then. That was the year that I started attending Sayre after the disastrous 2^nd and 3^rd grade merger in my public school. I can't imagine having an 8 year old right now. Shoot, I can't even find someone to date, let alone someone willing to share my life.

That leads me to the edge of the spiral that I went down in the days before my birthday. I never thought I'd be 33 years old and alone. My plan had been to settle down between ages 25 and 30, then maybe have a kid or two. Being gay did not change this initial plan, just the gender of my spouse. Of course, I never anticipated that I would have such poor judgment when it came to picking men to date. I never knew that I'd have this "rescuer" complex where I try to take on the wounded and troubled in hopes of helping to "fix" them which would result in their undying love and devotion toward me. I never knew that I'd try to settle with a guy that I wasn't in love with simply because he seemed to "make sense". So now I find myself at age 33, alone, and with no prospects for that changing anytime soon.

The night before my birthday, I was really wallowing in the self-pity. My dinner that night consisted of a bottle of Amarula, my favorite liqueur from southern Africa. It's not a heavily alcoholic drink, so I just got a healthy buzz. The thing about alcohol being a depressant is that while it gives you a buzz, it also keeps you down in the dumps. And boy was I depressed about my birthday the next day.

Then my actual birthday arrived. I was determined to feel bad all day about growing older, being alone, being overweight, and having no prospects that things would ever turn around. However, I started getting the legion of happy birthday notes and emails not only from Facebook but through general email. Many weren't just birthday wishes but some said things like "Sure am glad you were born!" and "I hope you have a fantastic day!" I found it impossible to maintain my bad mood in the face of all this love coming from the greater world around me.

By the afternoon, I even had plans for my birthday night. At first, I had no plans at all, which also contributed to the general "I'm a loser" feeling I had approaching my birthday. My friend John had said that we'd go have dinner, but I hadn't heard anything else about that. Turns out he forgot, but invited me to tag along on a planned trip to the Botanical Gardens for Cocktails in the Garden. I'd never been, so I decided to accept the invitation. Then I made dinner plans with Daniel, who just got paid, and was in the mood for some hibachi.

Dinner was great, as usual, and I left feeling stuffed. The Garden was nice, but it was HOT as hell. It didn't really cool down until 8:30pm or so. The cocktails in the park were weak, too. We even had a stalker who followed us around after eavesdropping on the conversation in line.

After the garden, we decided to head to Apres Diem for some real drinks. I had four Hendrick's martinis, extra dry, with a twist. They were really good. Turns out high quality gin tastes a lot better than the cheap stuff. The conversation was really good, and we definitely decided not to drive home. In fact, we didn't go home at all, but walked to Blake's where I proceeded to have 2-3 more gin and tonics.

Turns out I can hold my liquor better than John or Meg, so by the time we got a cab to take us back to their neighborhood in Grant Park, they were both pretty much passed out. We did get Meg in the house, and her sister drove John and I to his house where we crashed.

We awoke about 9am, and had to scramble to figure a way back to our cars. Luckily, Tim was driving to work, and when I told him the situation, he came and picked us up to return us to our cars. I had a presentation at 10:30am on the health plans for McCain and Obama, and I wasn't feeling it. My head didn't pound, but I sure did feel nauseated. Luckily, they had water, and I somehow muddled through it. I was a mess, but I didn't care… my birthday had been a blast!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5t2dJnN2eg

Bravo to HRC for putting this video together. Now let's see the Log Cabin GOP talk their way around these facts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c

John McCain is such a douche bag.

I could not let my last post sit there without a follow-up on what's happened since. The rhetoric was pretty heated, as you read, but it seems to be going in a direction that makes me happy and reaffirms why I am a member of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Atlanta, GA. The first thing that happened was my rector, Geoffrey Hoare+, posted his thoughts on Gay Marriage. This seemed to calm a lot of tempers. What I so admired in Geoffrey's post was his naked confession that he didn't understand bisexuality or bisexuals, and certainly did not understand the transgender...but he concluded that he was open to education on the matter.

The 2nd piece was a letter to the GALAS list from Elizabeth+, the priest assigned to our group. Her letter is printed in its entirety below:

Dear beloved GALAS,

I have remained on the sideline during much of this current conversation. I was present at the retreat during the time that the new mission statement was being formulated. People fell on both sides of the fence as to whether or not GLBT should be included in the statement. At the end of our discussion, it seemed that the entire group felt that this was a good statement to guide our work, not necessarily in terms of who we are now, but more in terms of who we are striving to be as a community.

We are taking a risk with this change and offering radical hospitality. We are expressing to the world that God's love is offered to everyone and that GALAS in our life and ministry together are intentionally offering a welcome to all who desire to come into our community.

We seek to be a visible and welcoming presence of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ for all people especially the GLBT community of All Saints'.

Last week it was reported that the clergy were against the explicit inclusion of bisexual and transgender persons in the mission statement of GALAS. I could not respond at the time because we had not yet had any sort of discussion about this as a group. During our Program Staff meeting on Tuesday we did discuss the new mission statement and the naming of bisexual and transgender persons in that statement. On behalf of the entire clergy staff I would like to say that we are in support of changes that are inclusive, we are in support of naming all four letters G – L – B – T. We support changes that do not exclude people from community.

This discussion has spurred much passion within the group, for which I am elated to see. I don't believe that the conversation has come to an end. As we continue to discuss our thoughts and feelings on these and other issues I want to remind everyone of a couple of guidelines. 1) Speak only for yourself. (Yes, using "I" statements) Please do not quote others, whether from casual conversations or sidebar e-mails. Allow them the freedom to choose to engage in the conversation when they are ready. 2) Please remember to be respectful of others, especially those whose opinions differ from yours. This is a conversation, a forum for communication and sharing of ideas, not a battlefield.

Finally a suggestion: If you feel strongly that a GALAS meeting should be held to discuss this issue with one another face-to-face, please e-mail your GALAS chairs directly Jamin Harkness jharkness@wesleyapartments.com and Patty Williams pmw8486@gmail.com so that they can either add this into the fall meeting schedule or if the discussion can not wait until the fall, then to possibly find a time this summer to gather everyone together.

I offer the following prayer for our continued discussion and discernment:

Most loving God, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Faithfully,

Elizabeth+

There really is not much more to say. I think that ultimately we will include GLBT in our mission statement, and then get to work on the education piece for ourselves, and the church as a whole.