Journalistic integrity/Sam Adams/Out Magazine

I am still fuming over the Sam Adams situation (incidentally, despite the uproar, Sam Adams the beer magnate/founding father still comes up in Google Images above our mayor), and I have to elaborate on it just a bit more. When people say he lied (about his relationship with Beau Breedlove) in order to get himself elected, I don't get it. Do they mean he wouldn't have been elected mayor if it was known he'd had a (brief) sexual relationship with a younger man? If so, ISN'T THAT MAYBE A PROBLEM WE THE PUBLIC HAVE, that we should look at, instead of demonizing Adams? Sam is not Bill Clinton - he doesn't have a wife to be cheating on! That's why I don't believe people when they say this is about whether he lied or not. And the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy. How many of you can honestly say you never tell a lie for any reason? I think it's far more likely that Sam lied to protect his privacy and prevent people from freaking out - just as they're doing right now! - than to get himself elected.

I just saw a news clip about how Adams supporters are banding together on the internet. (I'm planning to attend the City Hall rally next Tuesday, at least the first part of it, since I have to be to class by 1pm.) They had a timid, apologetic looking young fellow on there talking about how Sam made a mistake...but that shouldn't be the end of his run as mayor. That's a way more apologetic stance than we should be taking on this issue. What I intended to do with my letter to WW is TO TURN THE TABLES ON JOURNALISTS - I am one! - and ask THEM To hold themselves to a higher standard of journalistic integrity and look at the way THEY participate in these modern-day witch hunts. The way WW just rubs itself with oleaginous glee over being the first to break this putrid story - they have to remind you every five seconds - just makes me sick! And now for Marty Davis to join the chorus - the publisher of Just Out! - is the ultimate insult. Think about what you're participating in! I don't even care that I freelance for Just Out, I'm going to say it. I only have a month or two to go anyway.

Speaking of things that are gay. I got an issue of OUT Magazine last night, a leftover from the gay.com account I canceled (or at least stopped paying for) a while back. It has a few good articles in it, and I'm not going to deny I love some nice glossy eye candy as much as anyone, and yet, I see it as a good example of the way mainstream gay publications push an identity that you're supposed to adhere to if you're a good gay. Well, I'm not a good gay, and I never will be. I look at other gay bloggers and many of them toe the line, with encomiums to Madonna (I heard a new song of hers accidentally at a bar a while back and it sounded like "Get Into the Groove" just sort of re-mixed! But I think it was a new song, the lyrics were different. How funny/pathetic), obligatory cattiness, every shallow thing you can think of, virtually nothing intellectual. Gays are being dumbed down like everyone else. And their editor came off as such a moron. A reader who wrote in with constructive criticisms that were actually perfectly valid was treated to a snarky, dismissive response that didn't even make sense. It's things like this that make me feel I'm not a part of the gay community any more than I am part of any other community.

I think I'm gonna try to write for OUT. Subvert from within, baby!

An open letter to the Willamette Week

I am so furious over this bullshit. And now the paper I freelance for has written a similar editorial calling for Adams' resignation. I just wrote this letter to WW's editor.


Dear Mr. Zusman,

Honestly, I rarely read WW any more - I figured out a long time ago that it's written for (and by?) people who don't really live in Portland. But this Sam Adams thing is really a new low. You sent your reporters to his office because it was important for you to prove that he had a sexual relationship with Beau Breedlove? Did it never occur to you that even politicians deserve to have a private life and that the whole thing was maybe none of your fucking business? And now his career as mayor may be over before it even began, over THIS? And this is some kind of accomplishment that you'll go home and feel good about tonight? Hey, I think I know what's really going on here. Nigel Jaquiss scored with the Neil Goldschmidt story, so let's repeat the formula with someone currently in office, right? Press that "sexual panic" button and watch everyone jump. I'm not really surprised that someone in Sam Adams' position would lie to protect their privacy, and I see all the outrage over ethics as a thin veil over peoples' discomfort with the sexuality involved. Well, 18 may be young, but it's not child molestation. If Nigel Jaquiss wins a Pulitzer for this story, it'll be two more than he deserves. I think I'm going to assemble a group of citizens to come to YOUR offices. We will present the evidence we've collected that WW is an invidious muckraking waste of ink and time. Hopefully the Oregonian will then issue an editorial calling for you to resign from the world of publishing.

Anthony L. LeTigre

Portland, OR

Table of Contents of my book!

I have been madly working on perfecting my book so I can finally print some copies this week, and it's really down to the nittygritty now. This is the finalized table of contents! Showing everything "What I Really Want Is" will include. I plan to give copies to friends but it'd be nice to at least make printing costs back so I'm going to sell some for $5 (not bad for 100 pages). If you're interested in a copy message me, I'll have them soon.

xo

glam aka tony

Inauguration Day/Ann Coulter/Sex Lives of Politicians

Obama is in office! My feeling of excitement and hope for the future is balanced by my innate distrust of politics in general and presidential politics most of all. My roommate is watching an episode of South Park right now and they showed McCain and Obama after the election going backstage and high-fiving each other: "That was close, we were almost tied there for a minute." And even though I find South Park too puerile to take in more than small doses, there may be a little truth to that. As dramatic and inspiring as Obama's rise has been I'm too cynical to believe someone gets to the top of our fucked-up political landscape without the assistance and conspiracy of very questionable people and powers. But for the moment I'm with the many others who think this could truly be the beginning of a new, better epoch for our country. I like what he said in his inauguration speech about how we won't apologize for the way we live, since white American guilt is so rampant here in Portland. I like when he talked about a person whose parents may not have been served in a restaurant 50 years ago now taking the sacred oath to protect the country. Although I think it's a little weird how much he talked about fighting and defeating our enemies, since one of the best things he's always had going for him is that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning.

I just saw a clip of a new cast member on SNL doing an impression of irrelevant hag Ann Coulter on Weekend Update. Is Coulter for real? I mean, does she actually believe the shit she talks, or is she just cashing in on controversy?

Front page news today: Sam Adams, our newly anointed gay mayor here in Portland (pictured above), is embroiled in some scandal over an 18 year old male assistant he now admits he had a sexual relationship with after denying it previously. I guess he's going to be kind of our local, gay Bill Clinton. Funny thing is I remember Jill Freeman predicting this would happen a YEAR ago when I worked in the Dept. of Comm at PSU. My reaction, of course, is who cares? I am staunchly uninterested in the sex lives of politicians, local or otherwise. Let's talk about his ability to govern the city and leave it at that.

Happiness: not so alarming as it seems

To think that today I am a fiery eagle of soaring energy and limitless strength, and only a few days ago I was a bloated toad hiding in a murky pond. The vicissitudes of being human!

Went to my capstone course for the first time today – “Aiding Unwanted Pets Through Grantwriting” is the full course name. I am one of two male humans in the class of 15-20. (The rest are female; no trannies, at least none visible to the naked eye.) I absolutely love it, although we have to present an “individual skill assessment” on Thursday – basically selling ourselves to our fellow classmates for the purpose of forming grantwriting groups – which is a little nerve-wracking – a job interview is hard enough in front of just one or two people! – but then again I felt pretty much immediately comfortable with this class – partly because of how warm and likable and open the instructor (Becky Boesch) was right off the bat; she’s one of those people you can tell instantly that they KNOW what they’re talking about AND it genuinely exhilarates them – and partly because I usually feel more comfortable with women for whatever reason – with men I feel more like they’re judging me (so nauseatingly self-psychoanalytical, sorry). I’m really just a big ol’ girl, but we already knew that, I suppose. (But no, Mom, I’m not going to be getting a sex change, nor am I going to become the next Pregnant Man like that Beattie guy.) Well, sometimes I feel more female, other times I definitely feel male. I’m just an in-betweener, such is my curse and blessing. ANYHOW. We talked about Temple Grandin, a high-functioning autistic who writes books, designed a “hugging machine” for herself and crusaded to make slaughterhouses more pleasant for animals, so that they feel at peace. One girl unwittingly instigated a debate by saying the supreme court is considering the lethal injection of prisoners right now and relating it to euthanizing animals, but another girl, who has experience in this area, said what they do to animals is painless, they’re supposed to put them under with morphine or painkillers first (although some don’t), and in any case the lethal injection itself is an overdose of anesthetic, it makes you just relax, just relax, just go to sleep.

Walking home after class I saw an accident on Broadway: an old lady in a little compact car fought a big white pickup, and the pickup won. I thought of snapping a photo but decided that was just too tabloid. (I’m the kid who always AVOIDED fights in the hallways of junior high, while others gathered around to gape at them.) On the Max I saw a guy who really looked like Igor from Young Frankenstein, wearing a hoodie. He had that bulging lopsided eye. Spoke with darling Lisa this morning, the one lifelong friend (intuition tells me) that I took from my semi-disastrous summer in Glacier. She swears she is coming to spend our mutual birthday together on March 18th before I leave Portland; I hope so, she could really help me rock this town inside-out one last time before I leave on the greatest adventure yet of my adult life. She said she is finally straightening out her financial situation, which in Lisa-speak I think means she got a job? (Lisa, if you read this, just kidding, love ya babe!) Went to Edelweiss and the Yellow Toad (my disparaging nickname) confirmed what I already knew about how lame he is by saying he doesn’t like German beer because it’s not hoppy enough (!!!), which is so hilarious, because Kirk & I both go there as our oasis away from hoppy Portland beers and IPAs, and we both think German beer is so greatly superior. Different strokes I guess! But they have further reduced their holdings of good import hefeweizens which the paranoid part of me thinks is a nefarious plan of the Toad’s to keep us away, because of that time I was rude to him AFTER HE WAS RUDE TO US. Anyhow. Came home and found the new RAM card and installed it, so now my laptop runs at least 3 x faster, it’s beautiful. (Last week my roommate Scott helped me figure out where the memory card was on my laptop – took us forever but we finally found it under the palm rest to the left of the mousepad.) Also just received Kentucky Fried Movie and Little Britain: Season Three from Netflix. Life is grand!

I've actually been in a splendid mood since talking with my cousin last night and coming away from that conversation feeling that all is grand with the world and with my future, thanks largely to him. He’s excited about me coming out, which makes me even more excited about coming out, and he even said I can take the train down to San Fran instead of the plane, and he’ll meet me there and we can fly to Maui together at the end of March (since he knows I hate and fear flying). He told me about the vintage furs from the turn of the century that he scored off ebay, including a black bear coat, which we discussed in light of PETA protesters in Portland and elsewhere, and I came away feeling really good and pumped up about getting through these last few months and moving onwards and upwards. Speaking of which, Kirk said something about how I was “dissing” Portland, and I just want to clarify that in no way am I talking shit about Portland as a city, and a place, and a magical happening incubator of art and creativity and freedom of expression of every kind imaginable – Portland is a great, great city and has been my (over)indulgent mother for years now (since 1990, off and on, if you count junior high/high school in Hillsboro), and I will miss it forever, and may return some day, but this is the biggest opportunity of my life so far, or that’s how I’m looking at it, and I’ve got to make one big leap at the prime time while I’m still young enough and ambitious enough and full of piss and vinegar enough to do so, and that’s what I’m going to do, to go and get tan and lean and toned and healthy on Maui and then have my way with San Francisco, where I may be a small fish in a big pond, and it may be harder to make an impression and swim ahead of the school the way I have in PDX, but I’ll survive, as always, finding a way to make ends meet, meeting the people I’m meant to learn from, making twisted demented brilliant art with colorful zany indelible characters, and finding beauty where others scarcely thought to look for it.

But what I really want is...

I've changed the title of my book again! The FINAL TITLE (I swear) is

BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT IS

I love it! (new cover image above)

And for the ego police out there, I'm going to say that I don't think writing about yourself and your experience, in and of itself, qualifies you as a narcissist.

Who cares, anyway. There are greater evils than self-love.

I am on the last lap of finishing this thing, but it's so hard to top off a monumental labor like this, it's gone through so many mutations, it's 100 pages long now, but I'm really almost done, all that's left is the final edit of all the pages and then I can bring it in for printing by the middle of this month.

I'll hand copies out free to a few select friends before I leave Portland, and I'll sell them at $5 a pop to anyone who's interested. Email anthonyletigre@gmail.com. Trust me, once I deduct my printing costs and postage (if I'm mailing the copy to you) that'll be a slim profit margin indeed.

~TLLT~

The Unbearable Lightness of Getting Rid of Stuff

Well, I've finally crawled completely out from beneath the giant rock that crushed me for several days beginning New Year's Eve - which I spent with Justin & Emie of Advisory. I met up with them NYE at The Know where they played a set. Actually, Emie hasn't been in the band for a long time, the bassist now is a chick who kinda looks like a punk rock Strawberry Shortcake - her shoes, bass and hat were all a matching shade of lipstick red. Supposedly we are filming The Art Police primarily at their house/studio next Saturday the 10th. Tomorrow is the first day of winter quarter - my final quarter at last! - and it just started snowing. AGAIN. I got less financial aid than I did last quarter - a lot less - even though I only went down 2 credits. I'm going to talk to the FA office about it tomorrow, because what they didn't give me was my $1000 Oregon Tuition Grant, which of all my financial aid is the thing I would most want to have, obviously, over the loans. I am in a really irascible and pissy mood, have been for about a week now. I am housecleaning in more ways than one. I just finished going through a bunch of shit and rearranging my room. Took all the files out of my file cabinet, boxed them up to ship to San Francisco (at some point), then walked the beat-up crappy old file cabinet to the corner & dumped it. I've done it before & people seem to pick up the stuff I leave, so why not. I love the feeling of getting rid of stuff. But it takes a while to shed the accumulated clutter of years of living as an all-embracing pack rat. The truth is I am done with Portland and I really just want to be gone. I am also selling a desktop computer with lots of expensive software pre-installed (Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Final Draft and Dreamweaver!) and my bike, with pump and helmet included for a small extra charge. If interested, inquire to anthonyletigre@gmail.com (if you live in Portland, Ore. of course.) I suppose I'm going to watch the new "Brothers & Sisters" in an hour, although every time I watch it I ask myself, "Why am I watching this ridiculous, sappy melodrama?" Of course, it's just because of Scotty & Whatshisname.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR 2009:

1) No more alcohol

2) Stop being friends with passive-aggressive snakes who covertly despise me

3) Eat healthier, cook more, continue to exercise regularly and get back on a normal sleep schedule

That's all I got right now.

TIGER OUT

PS the photo above is from New Year's Eve, the rest are up on my Flickr page