Chicago

Like a lot of people in and around Chicago, I get tired of hearing that 30 people were shot over the weekend or that some politician or political appointee was brought up on corruption charges. I wish the people in power around here would come to the conclusion that many citizens already have and realize that something needs to change with the police force and with the hiring process of people whose jobs are to provide public service. Stop blaming everyone and everything else for the city's problems and start making some changes in the administration.

Disgraced and AHS: Hotel

I went to see the play Disgraced at the Goodman Theater yesterday and it was intense. It's the story of a Muslim attorney who's married to a white (blonde, of course) artist and things spiral quickly of control when the couple has another interracial couple (a black female attorney and her Jewish husband) over for dinner. It's an interesting look at relations between people of different ethnicities, religions, classes, and backgrounds. What I always find interesting about plays like Disgraced where you have a bunch of supposedly hip, urban, liberal types together (Clybourne Park is another example), is that when the PC niceness goes away, you get a glimpse at the "real" people here and you find out everyone isn't as liberal and PC as they like to believe (or want others to believe) that they are.

In other news, I watched American Horror Story: Hotel over the weekend since I missed the premiere Wednesday night and I thought it was largely a hot mess. At times it looked like a bad 1980s music video. Gaga and Bomer have no chemistry and Cheyenne Jackson seemed miscast. And the whole rape scene with the drug addict was awful. (And why wasn't there any blood after that? When Gaga and Bomer went to town on that couple they hooked up with, there was blood everywhere but no blood when a guy gets a drill bit up the behind? Maybe the sensors put the kibosh on that.) Ryan Murphy certainly has a "type" when it comes to the guys he casts in these shows. He likes the pretty boys. In any case, I'm not willing to bail on AHS: Hotel yet. I'm willing to give it another week or two before I decide if I'm in for the long haul.

Paris

I read that a new gay night club called Paris has opened in my hometown of Detroit. Color me surprised. I'm old enough to remember the slightly seedy gay clubs near Palmer Park. There used to be a gay bookstore in the area also and I remember going there to buy a book or magazine. That must have been in the early 1990s. I hope Paris makes it. Detroit is a hard area for any business to break into, but it's nice to hear some good news about the city for a change.

Really?

A friend of mine told me I should be Kim Davis for Halloween. I told her, "I'm Kim Davis EVERY Halloween (just not THAT Kim Davis." There's no way in hell you'll see me dressing up like Kentucky Kim. Ugh.

People keep having to learn the hard way that if you act a fool in public, chances are someone will be filming you and you'll end up as the viral asshole of the week. The week has barely started and there are already two candidates: some college kid who went crazy on a cafeteria worker (and was subsequently arrested) because there wasn't any mac and cheese available and some "bro" who decided it would be funny to post a picture of a black co-worker's child on his site so he and his friends could make racist jokes about the three-year-old. Mac and cheese and a three-year-old. Really? Jesus, how stupid can people be? Mighty stupid, actually.

And, Emily Blunt, STFU. Go back to the UK if you love your queen so much and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Oh, and we'd like your US citizenship and passport back also.

ATM Fees

I was reading an article today about how ATM fees are just out of control. Someone commenting after the story asked why people even need to go to an ATM given the vast amounts of places that accept debit and credit cards for transactions. Someone quickly noted that cash must be used for certain transactions (drugs, paid Craigslist hookups, etc.). Yeah, I don't think the weed man or rent boys take plastic and/or Apple Pay. As someone who uses plastic for a variety of transactions, I also use cash for stuff, mainly stuff under $20. I don't believe in charging a drink from Starbucks. If I don't have $5 in my pocket for a venti black tea lemonade (sweetened), then I highly doubt I'd whip out a Visa to pay for it. My feeling is that if I started using plastic for every little thing (a drink, a sandwich, hand lotion, whatever), I think I'd lose track of what I was spending. ATM fees are out of control and I try my best not to use an ATM that will charge me a fee. I shouldn't have to pay to get my own money, right? But I guess I'm paying for the privilege of letting a bank that isn't MY bank give me access to my own money (or something like that). We just seem to get nickle and dimed at every turn. Paying for checked bags at the airport, paying to use the ATM of a bank that's not our own. First-world problems? Yes, but that doesn't mean they're not still problems.

The Sound of Money

I'm sure I've stated before that I'm a big Eddie Money fan. I was listening to his greatest hits CD "The Sound of Money" on my way home from work yesterday and thought if Eddie Money tried to come out today as a pop star, he'd never make it. Eddie Mahoney (aka Money) doesn't have the "look" of a pop star and I doubt a studio would be willing to back him and that's a shame because he's incredibly talented. I'm glad he flourished in the music business before it turned into the marketing and PR bullshit campaign that it is now. By the way, "Baby, Hold On to Me" is a great song. I would totally use that as a book title if I could work a story around it. Also, if I'm finally forced to work under a pseudonym, I'd love to go with Kim Money. I'm just saying. Eddie Money hit it big with "Take Me Home Tonight" (also a great song with Ronnie Spector), but it doesn't have the juice of "Baby, Hold On to Me" (in my opinion).

Speaking of marketing and PR bullshit campaigns, I can't believe all of the excuses being made for the Pope's visit with Kentucky Kim. You can't just walk in off the street and meet with the Pope, I'm sure. That meeting was arranged and I don't believe for one second that the Pope didn't know what the deal was when he met with Kim. All of these cries of "he was tricked" and "he was bamboozled" don't pass the smell test with me. The Vatican is just trying to deal with the blowback they received as a result of this PR fiasco. Plus, why wouldn't the Pope meet with a gay marriage hater? It's not like he's an advocate for gay marriage himself. Let's keep it real, people. And did the Pope's people think Kentucky Kim and her attorneys would keep this meeting under wraps? Ha! Their PR machine just revved up for another round of bullshit.

Identity Politics

As I've complained before, it's hard being Kim Davis right now. Ugh. But, that's my name and I'm sticking with it in spite of the hell Kentucky Kim is putting in the universe right now. This week, I read that m/m author Josh Lanyon finally fessed up and admitted she's a woman (whose name isn't Josh Lanyon). After denying that she was a woman, I guess she decided to just come clean. It's hard these days to write under a pseudonym especially if you have some success with your work. I enjoy a lot of Lanyon's books and that won't stop now that I know she's a woman. (I kind of suspected she was anyway--the lady doth protest too much.) I do think it's sad that some writers feel they have to be someone else in order to gain an audience. I read recently about a white guy who used an Asian name to submit his poetry in a contest and won. He said he hadn't had any luck getting his work recognized under his rather bland (i.e., white) real name, so he decided to try something else and that something worked. The same goes for JK Rowling and her reasons for writing the Harry Potter books under a pseudonym. It's a shame that some people will discriminate against an author because of his or her name. I'll read anything by anyone as long as I'm interested in the book. I don't discriminate against an author because he's white (or not white) or because she's a woman. If you write something I want to read, I'm reading it. There's a perception that women and people of color primarily cannot write outside of their own identity. (White heterosexual men are the exception because, apparently, they can write about anyone and anything. /s)  I get annoyed with people (men, mainly) who say women can't write from a male point of view and women who say the same about men. I enjoyed reading The Hours written by Michael Cunningham that tells the story of three women and I thought he did a great job of telling those stories. He's not a woman, yet he wrote from a woman's POV. Yes, he's gay, but so what? Does that make him more apt to write about women? I don't think so. He's still a man! JK Rowling isn't a little wizard boy, yet she did a great job (I'm told) of writing about a little wizard boy. My point is people shouldn't box themselves in by dismissing a writer just because that writer happens to write about someone of a different race, sex, religion, class, whatever.