I’m A Gay Icon

This is just too funny.  I was checking to see who’d visited here today and found 3 visits from the tag-surfer feature on WordPress.  The tag they used to visit was “gay icon.”  Look at what is produced for that search:

*Sniff* I’m touched, truly I am. To be held in such esteem by my peers is praise indeed. Accordingly, I’d like to thank the Academy, my mother, my partner Norm, Keanu Reeves for existing and getting me through my teenage years . . .

What’s that? I have no peers? Oh, stop before I blush . . . Huh? You say it’s only because I’m one of the few people who’s used the tag “gay icon,” and that’s the only reason?

Well.

Fuck me, Agnes.

*sigh*

Never mind.

You WILL Submit!!

The Washington Blade is requesting your Coming Out stories in time for October11th, National Coming Out Day.  I submitted mine (curse words redacted and it should be up tomorrow, hopefully)–which is no big deal because it’s been on the net in one form or another for about 3 years now–and highly suggest you send in yours.  Everyone’s experience is different, yet just as valid and potentially helpful to someone out there who’s still in the closet and needs some reassurance.  Share your story and help build someone up. 

Did I mention:

The two stories with the highest ratings will each win one round trip airfare ticket to anywhere in the continental United States courtesy of Orbitz! Contest will end on Octber 9th and winners will be notified through verified e-mail.

Two tickets would be better, ya know . . . so, yeah . . . read mine and rate it a big ol’ 5.  lol

THE CONTEST ENDS OCTOBER 9TH!!!  THAT’S NEXT TUESDAY!!!  VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN!!!  IT’LL TAKE 24 HOURS FOR YOUR STORY TO APPEAR ON THE SITE!!!  SO GO BACK TOMORROW AND VOTE FOR ME!!!  (So shameless.) *chuckle* 

Thanks.

Datalounge Delusions

The extent to which some gay people will go just to vilify someone else, even another gay man, like me, will never cease to amaze me. 

I pride myself on being very open, honest, and middle-of-the-road in my beliefs.  Look at my Coming Out page, or It’s All About Me, and you can see what I mean.  I don’t think labelling people as “liberal” or “conservative” in order to conduct a conversation is helpful at all–in fact, it prevents serious consideration of ideas you or I may never have honestly considered before simply because we don’t like the source of the ideas.  Like Republicans who think Bill Clinton could never have a good idea, or Liberals who think Pat Buchanan could never have a good idea.  The reality is that they have both had both good and bad ideas, and each idea needs to be judged on its merit, not the merit of the one proposing it.  So discussion, even vehement disagreement, is healthy, and, IMHO, a necessary part of honest learning and human progress. 

Regular readers of my blog know that I often “get into it” with some commenters in particular over certain issues, and I may even get frustrated, but I make no bones about it: I may disagree with something you have to say, but I’ll defend your right to say it–unless it’s way over the line.  And what I consider “way over the line” is apparently just fine at Datalounge. 

In a thread over at the Datalounge entitled “Log Cabinette Website Hosts Vicious Anti-Gay Attack”, the hostility is unhinged, to say the least.  This was the most recent message posted by one of the braintrusts on that site:

Run along Jamie, no one wants to play with you and no one is interested in you or your friends. You can go back to worshiping Matt Sanchez and making excuses for the GOP on your own sites.

Because that’s SO what I’m all about.  Don’t get me wrong, I can take being called a GOP’er (even though it’s vastly off-base); to me that’s the same as being called a liberal.  I’m neither, yet called both all of the time.  Having to deal with immature commenters is part and parcel of the internet “raison d’être” and one must simply learn to live with it. 

What I would never, ever condone, however, and would hope most readers here wouldn’t as well, is telling someone that they deserved to be bashed.  Or that they “wished they had a bat right now.” 

That’s the type of commentary that’s evidently welcome on this supposedly “pro-gay” site.

Also from the thread: one Charles Wilson, who’s obsessed with Matt (Dirty) Sanchez.  Despite the fact that I defended him from the accusations hurled at him by both NDT, whom I consider a friend (must be a cardinal sin or something) and Gregg Carpenter, Wilson just posted this outright fabrication:

The Cabinettes of the “Malcontent” site got their “AIDS dementia” stuff at a different site, which is linked below. And they got it from “The Bwog,” which is run by people at Columbia University. The first person to spread the “AIDS dementia” stuff about me was none other than Matt Sanchez. . .

So, this is how the wingnuts work: tell a lie on one website, and then start replicating it around the web. “The Malcontent” is just one more group of wingnuts happy to do it. Wouldn’t you think the fact that they’re gay themselves would make them draw a line?

Actually, I draw the line at dishonesty and lack of integrity.  Never once have I supported Matt Sanchez or the GOP.  This all started over at the Malcontent during a thread discussion over Larry Craig, Mike Rogers, etc.  After clicking through many, many links, I took this position:

I have to say, NDT, I just read both Charles’ site and the article you linked to. While I do find Charles’ obsession a bit over the top, Gary Carpenter seems a definitive ASS who likes to throw around AIDS as an insult and weapon with no regard to veracity or conscience, but just because it makes him feel good and elicits a “hurt” response. And his “evidence” against Charles is more like browbeating than any type of real evidence.

I’ve made a point of telling those who DO belong to LCR that they should not support any party that has discrimination integrated into their platform.  And then there are my other posts, like this, and this, or even this, that should be demonstrative evidence of my non-party affiliation, but the Datalounge cretins won’t even be bothered to check out a nuanced point of view.  The truth is evidently not important to them.  In their minds, if you’re not an ultra-liberal, then you must be a “Cabinette.”

Please do yourself a favor and make a note of it.  Those people are either evil or stupid.

Gayer Than The Original

Saw this on DailyDish and just freakin’ had to steal it.  The dancers in the background are just. . . oh, just watch it. 

YMCA in Finnish:

And while we’re on gay-themed music videos,

Bad Boys–Miami Sound Machine

Oh, Please Just Shut Up

I do so wish our musical icons would keep their social commentary to a minimum. 

Elton John, excuse me, Sir Elton John, font of all wisdom musical, has declared that we must shut down the internet.  His reason?  It is destroying music:

He claims it is destroying good music, saying: “The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff.

“Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision.

You Jackass. 

First of all, TV stopped people from going out and “creating stuff” decades before the computer was in every home. 

Secondly, the not only has the internet not further stifled “artistic vision,” it has embraced the concept in ways undreamt of before.  You’re not concerned about “artistic vision,” you’re concerned about money.  And that’s fine with me, just be honest about it.  If you were concerned about “artistic vision,” then you’d take a look at Youtube or other videosharing sites and see that the amount of exposure for new “artists” is huuuuuuuge. 

Oh, but Sir Elton isn’t done being ridiculous:

Elton also complained about the quality of music being released.

He said: “In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic.

“Now you’re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality.”

Ten albums a week in the seventies were fantastic? 

Someone was on a lot of drugs.