Courtney Love + Bill Clinton: Too good to be true

Check out this article from NY Mag's Culture Vulture, covering some Love-ly behavior at the 8th Annual Benefit for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. This woman's entire life is one sustained work of performance art. I love her so. And I would pay $$$ for a transcript of the conversation that took place during her breakfast with Hillary Clinton. (There's a photo of the two of them together published in Love's interesting scrapbook, "Dirty Blonde.")

A further rant on media's lack of ethics / Love Show / acting!

The local media is still gleefully gorging itself on the Sam Adams imbroglio that they created. It’s like when a hippo carcass washes ashore in Africa and the crocodiles have a time of plenty, feast upon feast. Our very own Bill Clinton scandal! Ain’t it grand? Who do you identify with? Most of the media obviously identify with Kenneth Star, but I identify more with Clinton/Adams. New revelations include Adams kissing Beau Breedlove in a bathroom at City Hall when Breedlove was only seventeen! (ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT! HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE MAN’S ABILITY AS MAYOR!) The funny thing is, with most people I hang out with, who are not part of the press corps or involved in city politics, this issue just doesn’t even come up. If it does at all, it’s only a response to how much it continues to be plastered all over every type of media in town (which is also the reason I blog about it! I’m on my way home from somewhere, pick up a paper, there’s WW at it again, it makes me mad, I have to write it out!) Many people just don’t care and see this for what it is: the media whipping up a controversy so it will have something to write and talk and be outraged about. Well, there are certainly SOME people who are eager to voice their opinion – the ones who demanded Adams resign immediately, the ones who are easy to stir into this knee-jerk reaction, the ones who are always happy to jump up on their high moral horse at a moment’s notice, THE ONES WHO VOTED FOR MEASURE 36! (You can say “It’s not about the sex!” all you want, but those ARE your allies in calling for Adams to resign!) Are you SURE you want to ally yourselves with those people? The media doesn’t care about ethics, it cares about having a story. And from the beginning, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve seen the whole thing as an interesting example of the lack of ethics in journalism and other media – even right here in supposedly liberal and enlightened Portland! – rather than of Mayor Adams. WHEN SOMEONE LIES TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY, IT’S DIFFERENT THAN WHEN THEY LIE FOR POLITICAL REASONS. Sam Adams is not Richard Nixon, and this is a sorry stand-in for Watergate!

Bottom line: the media likes power. They like to feel that they control things, that they manipulate reality according to their own designs. They set people up on a pedestal – Sam Adams the media darling! On every TV channel! In every paper! – and then knock them off, to exercise their contrived omnipotence – Adams in disgrace! How could he! He must resign immediately! Anyone stepping back and taking a look from outside the snow-globe can see exactly what’s going on. That’s why I will always be happy to remain in the background, a voice to be sure, but not on a pedestal, not a media figure – I won’t let people put me on a pedestal, because I don’t trust their motivations in doing so. I’m happy right where I am, thanks. Funny thing is a while back I sort of played the role of a person who craves fame for its own sake, in a tongue-in-cheek way, and some people who know me here think that’s what I am. I have to laugh, ‘cause that’s sooooo not what I’m about. Of course I want recognition, and I’m going to have it, but for solid artistic reasons, not the empty instant fame of modern celebrity culture. I find that kind of culture fascinating, but at the same time, unutterably pathetic. I’m going to set the bar a little higher. That’s why my blog isn’t 100% shallow coverage of every little thing that celebrities do, say, and wear, as is the case with a lot of other bloggers out there, particularly the gay ones. (I DESPISE Perez Hilton! Down with stupidity chic! "Intellectual" is not a synonym for "pretentious!" It simply means that you use your brain and devote yourself to things that actually matter!) Don’t take this personally, I enjoy your blogs sometimes, but maybe try branching out a little? Get out of the herd. Think for yourself. There are other things even more interesting than Angelina Jolie’s latest catfight with Jennifer Anniston.

I saw “The Beaches of Agnes” yesterday and it was SUPERB – gave it an A. Walking through the park blocks afterwards I saw someone had placed a sheaf of yellow flowers in the hand of Honest Abe.

This morning I was out again and saw “Dean Spanley,” a good movie for dog-lovers. Lots of close-ups of Peter O’Toole’s glassy-eyed, thin-lipped, occasionally drooling, skull-like face. But as an actor he is, of course, first-class. I’ve been thinking a lot about acting, lately. Reading Christopher Plummer’s memoir is factoring in here as well. I’ve often had the feeling that I missed my course and should have gotten into acting in high school, but I was too shy and withdrawn. Perhaps it’s not too late, though, eh? Is acting the new medium awaiting me in San Francisco? We shall see...

Had a good phone chat with Anthony, and we even touched on compensation and credit for the book, and I said I’d like to have my name on the cover, even if it’s in smaller letter than his, because I am trying to get my by-line out there, too. He said if it gets big and we do book readings he may have to send me to do them, ‘cause he doesn’t want to!

I have a few hours’ downtime before the Love Show. Autumn called to remind me of my alcohol monitoring shift. My job is to keep Olympic Mills and Pink/Haberman from getting in trouble with the Oregon Liquor Controlfreak Commission.

What should I wear?

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!

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.