Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!

While I have been an intermittent, at best, blogger, anyone who has read me for a while knows just how far in the tank I am for Hillary Clinton.  I was a gigantic supporter of her in 2008, which was the first presidential campaign I ever donated money to, and I went to every event she had in the state, which she actually did end up beating Obama in our primary, even though it was already obvious that Obama would win the nomination.

I am consistent.  I was a Clinton fan all the way back in 1992, when I was a senior in high school. Scratch that, I actually enjoyed Bill from his way too long debut at the Democratic National Convention in 1988.  Yes, I was that much of a political dork, even at 13. Anyway. my school was in a small rural community.  So, as you can imagine, Bill Clinton was not exactly a popular choice.  I would say there were probably more fans of Perot at that time, but I still wore my Clinton/Gore shirt the day after the 1992 election.  I went on to Butler for Political Science, and I was fortunate enough to intern at the Democratic National Committee during the general election in 1996.  So, I have been in the thick of Clintonland for many years, and even when my zest for politics was on the wane, when Hillary announced in 2007, I was back on the wagon full force.

Of course, things did not really work out for us then.  It took me a while to come around to Obama, and while there were still times during the last seven years, when he has made what I consider "rookie mistakes," I would long for the outcome to have been different, but it was not meant to be.  President Obama has certainly been able to get a lot accomplished against a Republican Party that completely hates him, and if he were not the president, then I am not sure we would be at the tipping point we are now.  Baring any gigantic errors, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States, and more importantly, I believe the Democrats will at least regain control of the Senate, with me being mildly optimistic that the House could come along for the ride, too.  The American people are fed up with Washington, more so than any time in my lifetime, and I think a strong Clinton campaign will have very long coattails.

A lot can happen in the next 19 months, and I fully understand the idea that an uncontested primary can be a bad thing.  The sense of inevitability is what tripped up the 2008 campaign, and if there are not any other people challenging Hillary, then it could easily fall back into that mindset.  The Hillary Clinton that lost in Iowa was very different from the Hillary Clinton that won in Indiana in May, and it was a change for the better.  However, when I look at how ugly the Republican primaries are going to be, it is somewhat of a relief to not have that internecine strife in ours.  It is also not Team Clinton's fault that her position is so strong that most of the people considering running are doing so just for a chance at VP.

Regardless, it is going to be a very interesting year and half.  When the announcement came on Sunday, I was literally aquiver reading all of the tributes on Facebook.  I am captivated by the political process, and if after all is said and done, I get to see a President Hillary Clinton, then I am ready for what needs to be done to make it happen!

The High Price of Expecations

Shifting a bit away from politics for a while, though this topic could easily be placed in that realm, too, but as we get closer and closer to the release of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, I am watching as my nerd friends start to noticeably quiver in anticipation.  Being a fellow nerd, I too share in the excitement, but as I have discovered over the course of the past year or so, I am much more excited for the DC Universe movies, like Batman V. Superman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad etc.  This is not because I truly believe Warner Bros./DC will manage to reach the heights of quality and consistency that Disney/Marvel has been able to do, but it just really comes down to how I like my superheros, which is more on the "super" side that just everyday folks with skills.  For instance, I am much more a fan of The Flash TV show over Arrow, even though Stephen Amell could have his way with me any day of the week.  The more out there and fantastic it is, the more likely I am to geek out.

So, my overall anticipation of Ultron is pretty muted.  I suppose part of it could be Ultron himself. Since I am not a big comic book nerd, I really had no idea about Ultron and his history with the Avengers.  He is not really a household name like, say, The Joker or Loki from the previous films, and without that cache, the whole character is a bit of cipher to me.  Also, the story of a sentient robot who evolves and rebels against it's creator is certainly well trod in the science fiction universe.  I fully realize that the vast majority of the story has not been spoiled in the trailers, but everything so far, while being of obvious quality, has left me pretty cold.

My friend, Ed, however is like a 5 year old on December 1st.  The anticipation for Christmas is real, and he just cannot wait for it to get here.  He is a Marvel true believer, and I cannot begrudge him his excitement.  However, it has made me wonder if the movie could every possibly live up to his hype for it.  The first Avenger's movie was less of a sure thing than we remember.  While Marvel had done the next to impossible by launching individual movies for Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, I think everyone was unsure whether they could pull of the epic team up, and while Joss Whedon was not exactly an unknown quantity, insomuch as his writing and some directorial credits, he had never taken on a movie of that size before.  The number of directors that have been chewed up and spit out by giant Hollywood movies is pretty legion, but when The Avengers actually worked and worked wonderfully, all of those doubts dissipated into the the dustbin.

I suppose part of me is waiting for the fall.  We have certainly never really seen a hit machine like Marvel in the history of Hollywood.  To have all of these movies be a hits in addition to it being a shared universe is truly something pretty exceptional, and perhaps they have every chance of keeping the cash cow mooing for years to come.  Word began to leak last night of the first internet critic's viewing of Ultron, and once again, the word is shock and surprise that they were able to pull it off. I suppose at some point there will be a failure. Ant Man certainly had enough trials and tribulations coming to the screen to end up being a mess, but the likelihood is that they will once again pull something from nothing, like they did with Guardians of the Galaxy. The bottom line is that for the nerds this is a Golden Age, and while we still continue to have extremely high quality, the superhero movie genre will continue to meet or exceed our expectations.

RFRA: Post-Fix, Post-Mortem

I have been sick this week.  So, blogging has not really been on the forefront for me, but I have been keeping track of the whiplash surrounding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The quick recap is that after a national shaming, in which the Republican controlled House, Senate, and Governor's Mansion feigned shock, even though they had been warned and had seen it on a much smaller scale in other states, those same "leaders" went back to the drawing board to "clarify" the law.  I put leaders in quotes because Democrats were not allowed to come to the table, because the Republican supermajorities are so vast.  The interesting thing is that businesses, specifically Eli Lilly and Salesforce, we the vocal proponents here, and their loud, economic voices drowned out the culture warriors like Eric Miller and Micah Clark.  In the end, we got LGBT protections against religious beliefs codified into Indiana law for the first time, and while it is not perfect, it is a great step in the right direction.  It is most certainly not something that anyone would have foreseen as an end result of this debacle.

The biggest step forward is that these same businesses have indicated that they will be lobbying the 2016 session to get sexual orientation and gender identity added to the protected classes of the anti-discrimination law of the state.  The biggest change the "fix" brought about was to negate the language in the original law that trumped local human rights ordinances.  It was never a sure thing it would have, though it probably would have ended up in the courts, but 11 municipalities offer these protections.  In these areas, LGBT are protected fully now.  However, in the rest of the state, those protections are really only extended to everyone in the cases of religion, though one would argue that there is really no other way someone would discriminate, but I suppose there could be some wiggle room.  The "fix" also didn't address healthcare and education, and it just kind of makes things a jumbled mess, though obviously better than where we began.

My fear is that the short attention span of the casual political person will screw us over again, though I realize 2016 will be a tempest year from the Presidential race on down to Governor and every member of the Indiana House of Representatives.  We need very high turnout to not only win the Governor's race but to hopefully chip away at some of these supermajorities.  I'm not crazy enough to think that the Democrats could retake the house, but if they get to a point where Republicans have to negotiate, it will make things a lot easier for everyone.

Those issues can rest for a little bit because the 2015 elections still need to happen, though the Democratic Party needs to be locating viable candidates right now.  The issue facing us right now is repairing the damage done to Indiana in the thoughts and minds of people in the United States and all over the world.  This quiet, mostly level headed state, has been branded a land of bigotry, and after 20, if not 30, years of hard work to make Indianapolis a place for people to have conventions and large sporting events, that reputation is in jeopardy due to our very shortsighted Governor Mike Pence.  I love Indiana, and I am tired of it being a national punchline.  Unfortunately, I think it is going to be for many years to come.

RFRA: The Morning After...

I took a bit of a social media break last night, mainly because I was exhausted from all the anger and frustration from my fellow Hoosiers on Facebook.  Plus, as the story began to pick up steam, I was seeing reactions from people all over the country and the world.  I do not know if I would label it embarrassment, but it is certainly difficult to be the subject of derision and jokes.

While mainlining episodes of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I did try to analyze my thoughts on the repercussions of the day.  From the reaction of local business owners, at least in Indianapolis, I cannot believe there was a very large contingent of people who were calling for this bill.  For most, the bottom line is the bottom line, money is money, and the only one I have seen crowing about it is some obscure asphalt guy, which I think we can all agree is a pretty niche market.  The fact that this bill is being pushed by religious rights groups, mainly due to the story about the Oregon Baker being sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for gay couple is pretty galling considering the damage that has been done to the state's reputation.  The amount of business lost in Indianapolis, which relies heavily on convention traffic, is going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars if the boycotts hold weight.  Is all of this worth that?

I will admit to be a little mushy on the notion that a business should be forced to do something they do not want to do.  However, I take umbrage at the notion that a business is a religious institution based upon the owners beliefs.  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court disagrees in such cases as Hobby Lobby wishing to not provide coverage for birth control. Putting aside the LGBT implications of this bill, does this now mean that an owner can fire someone for not practicing their religion or following their beliefs?  If an owner is specifically anti-Semitic, will it now be okay to refuse to cater to Jews?  It is just an incredibly muddled thing.  Why was this needed?  How can it be justified in the face of lost revenue and jobs?  These are just some of the questions to figure out as we move forward.

For me, I believe we are all equal in the eyes of the law.  Do what you want, love who you want, pray how you want, etc.  However, there has to be a line where your beliefs do not start to be used against other people.  We all pay taxes.  To open a business, you must have government permits, and in essence, you are entering into a contract with the government.  You are serving the public, and the public is not just the narrow group of people who think like you do. Taxes pay for the roads that bring customers, sidewalks, police to protect you, and in exchange for this, we the people expect you not to be a dick to us.  Your religion is not a part of that social contract.  You can be a bigot in your home and in your church, but if you do not want to serve a certain group of people, then maybe you should think about doing something else with your life.

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Side note:  Below is the official picture sent out by the Pence Administration.  As someone who is pretty cognizant of social media and public relations, I just cannot believe anyone thought this was a good idea. It looks medieval.

In fact, I just realized it reminded me of The Spanish Inquisition segment from The History of the World, Part 1:

I Am Not Ashamed. I Am Energized.

I have lived in Indiana all my life, and I have dealt with the assumptions and negative connotations people have lobbed against us.  At one point this blog was called "I may be from Indiana, But I am NOT an Idiot," for a reason.  People have these notions that we are mostly rural, redneck, and very uneducated.  With most stereotypes, there is a grain of truth to this, but having grown up rural and having spent the majority of my life in Indianapolis, I can say that your assumptions are not always correct.  On a whole, Hoosiers are a pretty pragmatic people, and the notion of "live and let live" is a strong one.

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Of course, it is difficult to fight these notions when Governor Mike Pence and his Republican supermajorities in the General Assembly just passed and signed into law the so called Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which is an open way for people to discriminate under the umbrella of their religious beliefs.  It is a  jarring setback to a state that has enjoyed a rapid expansion of LGBT equality culminating in a successful maneuvering against a proposed anti-marriage amendment and the eventual overturning of the whole thing in the courts.  We were happy.  We thought we had turned a corner. We were complacent.  With the lowest voter turnout in the nation in 2014, we let the Republicans gain even more seats in their supermajorities -- losing Democrats and Republicans that had stood up for us just months before.

I have been banging my head against the voter turnout issue since writing an editorial in the Butler Collegian in the mid-90s, if not before that.  In fact, I came across that editorial recently, and it is eerie how so much has not changed. Indiana has a voter turnout problem.  The problem stems from the feeling of helplessness caused by government passing things like the RFRA or just seeming to be in it for the power or to help businesses.  I do understand that.  Unfortunately, my sympathy for the malaise ends when I look at the numbers.

Using 2008 as a basis, which showed very high voter turnout in the euphoria around Barack Obama, if those same numbers had voted in each of the next three elections, one could make the easy assumption that Republicans would not have the amount of power they have right now. Indeed, perhaps the Democrats could have remained a majority in the House, and most definitely, the redistricting that happened after 2010 would not have put Democrats in the wilderness for the next 10 years.  It is also easy to see that Governor Pence, who did not even have 50% of the vote and won by a only about 82,000 votes, may not have won if Democrats had shown up. Granted, it is a giant contextual leap, but I am choosing to assume the silent majority is at least middle to middle left.

The amazing conundrum of all this is that people do not vote because they do not feel government is working for them, but the more they do not vote the less likely government is to change.  How do we motivate people?  How can we get them out to vote?  How do we teach them that the elections between Presidential ones are just as important as the rest?  These are questions that will be on my mind for the coming months and years.

Bringing it back around, I am not ashamed to live in Indiana.  My world has not spun off its axis today.  I realize now there is much more work to do.  I am ashamed of our elected officials. I am ashamed that the populace has chosen to not participate in the process. However, even with that knowledge, Indiana is ultimately filled with good people.  People who want to do the right thing, and people who do not want to be seen as the backwater yokels we are made out to be.  It is this reason that I am energized by all of this.  I can feel change awakening.  It just needs to be harnessed to keep the fires burning, because there is a long time between now and November 2016, when real change can happen. I still love and believe in this place.  I am comfortable in the knowledge that we, the people, are better than Mike Pence, the Indiana General Assembly, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Almost Spring...

I am certainly not one to complain about winter.  Yes, the grey days totally get me down in that Seasonal Affected Disorder kind of way, but when it is sunny and cold, I love it.  I can operate pretty well in the high 20s to 50s range, and I do not end up a sweaty mess like I am when I do anything over the 50 degree mark.

However, it seems like this winter had just dragged on, and while we got a taste of spring last week, we've been bopping around in the 40s ever since.  Don't get me wrong, it's better than the below zero temps we had two weeks ago, but just having one 70 degree day and now a low of 30 on Monday, well, it just drives you a little batty.

This weekend I am heading out of town down to Cincinnati and then up to Dayton.  This year I have vowed to get out of town every month, even if it is just little trips like this. In January, I went to New York, and I was in Chicago in February for Single's Awareness Day.  I have friends in Cincy that I want to see, and then I will be working my way to Dayton with stops at IKEA and Jungle Jims, which is a gigantic international grocery store. Then Saturday and Sunday will be spending time with my friend's in the drag community at the All American Goddess at Large Pageant.

I am READY for a fun weekend.  I need it!  Hope you all have a great weekend, too.

Religious Freedom Vs. Freedom to Disciminate

Monday, the Indiana House of Representatives passed what they are calling the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," which like similar bills passed in other states, gives businesses protections against doing business with those who do not jive with their religious beliefs.  I wrote a post about it on Facebook (original post at the end), but I decided to flesh it out a bit more.

The growing number of these bills is a reaction to LBGT marriage equality that is now the law in a majority of states, and unless something truly shocking happens, will become the law of the land via the Supreme Court sometime this summer.  With marriage equality, there is the ghoulish specter of conservative bakers and florists being forced to serve gay couples, even though they are religiously against such marriages. Indeed, there have been issues, such as a baker in Oregon being successfully sued for refusing to cater to an LGBT couple, and there is even a local Indianapolis story about a baker doing the same, which did not lead to legal action but they did eventually close.  The conservative social war groups were seeing their giant cash cow issue of anti-marriage equality disappear before their eyes, and they quickly pivoted towards this idea that now people of faith are being discriminated against.

While I agree that an individual should not be forced to do something against their will,  unfortunately, I draw the line at businesses being able to deny services based upon a religious belief.  Private businesses that serve the public, should not be allowed to discriminate against any group of people based upon religion, race, sexual orientation, or any other reason.  My mind keeps going back to my old Political Science days and the idea of the Social Contract, which boiled down to the basic idea that we all sacrifice a little for the greater good of society and for the protections brought by government.  We all pay taxes into the general pot to support the government, and in turn, we are given roads, protection from police, fire, and other benefits of government in return.  Conversely, we provide services and acceptance to the public.  Plain and Simple.

While this is mostly being marketed as an anti-LGBT bill, it is obvious that this will end up a problem for other groups.  What if someone does not want to serve a Muslim? A Jew? Or someone who is significantly disabled?  What if someone, in the name of religion, only chooses to serve whites? How about a Christian paramedic refusing to treat someone who is gay?  It is that proverbial "slippery slope," which just leads to all sorts of ridiculousness.

The second part of this issue is that Legislatures have skewed incredibly to the conservative because that group is a guaranteed voting block. Liberals and minorities generally only vote in big elections, and since this has gone on for so long, the power has concentrated around the motivated conservative voter, and Republicans have successfully gerrymandered themselves into a position that is not easily assailable without years and years of dedicated voting by these groups that regularly stay home.  Of course, if creating districts were not in the hands of the people most likely to benefit, then everything would be a lot better, but again, that is not going to happen with the current power structure in place.  Arizona tried it, but it is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.

The bottom line is that we are going to continue to see these ridiculous and blatantly unconstitutional bills for a long time unless something is done at the state and local level to win back power from these powerful conservative groups.  This is a problem of the progressive's own making, and it is going to take a lot more than raising money to engage liberals, minorities, and Millennials.


Original Facebook Post -
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As most of you, I am disgusted by the License to Discriminate Bill that is sailing through our legislature.  It does not just harm LGBT Hoosiers, but it will absolutely allow discrimination based on sex, ethnicity, and even other religions.

However, I am aggravated because it does not have to be like this, and it did not happen overnight. This legislature does not represent all Hoosiers, just as much as it does not represent me.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of people do not care about politics until it directly effects them.  We have elections nearly every year, but we ignore them.  Then piece by piece, in the vacuum of our negligence, the government became a representative of narrow special interests that do not care for anyone but themselves, who feel that discrimination in the shadow of religion is their right.

We absolutely have a reason to be outraged, but we also need to accept our culpability in this sad state of affairs -- be it not voting, not encouraging our friends and families to vote, or just not keeping tabs on what is happening in your City, State, or Federal Government.  We have a super computer glued to our hand, and this is much more important than anyone trying to "break the internet."  It took time to get to this point, and it will take time to get out of it.  This legislature is not Indiana.  We are better than that, and it is up to us to prove it in EVERY election until it is fixed.

Oscar Apathy, Part 2

Well, I survived Oscar weekend, which was filled with baking for a party I co-hosted with friends.  The show itself is pretty much a blur, but I consider it to be an above average undertaking, though I think Neil Patrick Harris got swallowed by awesome stage design.  There were some very high notes, and I missed most of the jokes that died.  The big headlines however are that the ratings were at a six year low.  Why is that?

After quite a few years of hiatus, I re-entered and won the Oscar pool.  This is mostly due to the fact that I am still an avid reader of awards websites, not because I have seen all the movies.  My friends who tried to compete with me came at the Oscar ballot at an extreme disadvantage, because while American Sniper is an outright blockbuster, the rest of the nominees from Best Picture on down (save Animated Feature and the industry awards) are all middle of the road money makers, even though The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson's top grossing movie. Wes Anderson is no Steven Spielberg.

I really do not believe that the glut of awards shows is the problem, either, because I do not believe most people even care outside of the Golden Globes, which is really just watched to see if some drunken celebrity will do something stupid.  Unfortunately, I think the Academy is more likely to assume "awards fatigue" is the problem instead of truly looking inward at themselves.  Here are some of the issues I see:

- Art vs. Entertainment

I cannot begrudge the Academy for wanting to honor those movies that strive to be art, but unfortunately, it is rare that those movies end up being popular with the general population.  Sure, there are quite a few Best Picture winners that have scored over $100 million (it would be interesting to see how much nominations and wins effected that earning), but there are only three since 1990 who have achieved more than $200 million - 2003 LOTR: The Return of the King, 1994 Forrest Gump, and of course, 1997 Titanic.  Of course, the great argument is whether these blockbusters were actually the "Best" movies of the year, but it is a pretty subjective question anyway.  However, if you're going to look at just ratings of the telecasts, the highest ratings of all time was the year Titanic won, and the highest ratings since 2000 was the year of The Return of the King.  So you see, the ratings have nothing to do with who is hosting or who is singing what, it has everything to do with the general populace buying into the horse race with enough passion to want to tune in to see if their favorite won.

Of course, I would never want to see a Best Picture race comprised of the top ten grossing films of the year, because, obviously, popularity does not connote quality, but if year in and year out we are going to bemoan the falling ratings of the telecast, then the Oscars really need to figure out a way to celebrate movies that reach the cultural zeitgeist as well as those that are the pinnacle of the craft.

Source: Box Office Mojo & WikiPedia

- The Show Itself

I have already established the connection between popular nominees and ratings.  It certainly was not Neil Patrick Harris' fault that this year's show tanked.  However, the show itself is a bloated mess and a joke in and of itself.  Everyone already knows that it will run long, but they keep adding in more and more in the hopes of keeping people engaged.  I really think the whole things needs to be scrapped and start from scratch, with nothing sacred even the current category structure.  Of course, this will never happen because of the structure of the Academy itself, and it would be a slippery slope to say that you'll just include Writing, Supporting Actor/Actress, Actor/Actress, Director, and Picture. Best Original Song at least brings something to the proceedings, though the rules are so arcane it makes for odd choices.  However, despite the artistry, no one really cares about Documentaries, Shorts, Foreign Language Film, and the majority of the tech categories (except maybe for special effects).

With that being said, their could be MORE categories, too.  Each of the shows that have popped up seem to have at least one innovative category.  The Golden Globes split Drama & Comedy (usually not well), the Screen Actor's Guild honors Best Ensemble, etc.  There should be something for stunt people, too.

- Eliminate the Host

I decided to break this one out on it's own from the one above.  No offense to everyone who has come before, but being the Oscar host has to be the single most thankless job in entertainment.  Jesus Christ herself could get up there, and someone would still complain.  The reality of the matter is that outside of the opening, there really is no need for one.  It's better to just get out of the way and start the show.

I am sure I could armchair quarterback this some more, and I know I do not fully comprehend the pressure the producers are under to make the show the same every year.  However, something needs to change, and I have not even gone into the nuts and bolts of this whitest Oscars in many years.  I just hope they have a real conversation about it.  Things need to change.

Oscar Apathy

When I first started messing around with websites back in the 1994 (ughhhh), my first Geocities site was a movie related page called Binky's Movie Hut.  My nickname in college, was inexplicably, Binky, and it all just rolled together with my love of movies.  I had a pretty full list of movie reviews and the like, which I wish I had backed up somewhere.  I mean, I wasn't going to threaten Roger Ebert, but I was pretty happy with my writing at that time.  

As the '90s progressed and my skills became better, I morphed my site into Awards Avenue, and it became much more focused on the awards show circuit.  I covered music, television, theater, and of course, the Road to the Oscars, which became quite a very busy time between November-March.  I was really in on the ground floor of what became a cottage industry of prognosticators orbiting around movie awards.  Theater also got me a lot of hits, because there really were not a lot of people covering it, but the big focus was the Oscars.  I got a lot of hits for a fan site, and if I had not given it up because it was beginning to interfere with my real job, I really think something good might have come out of it.  My crowning achievement was my super inclusive calendar of Oscar precursors (critic and guild awards) being quotes by leading Oscar site OscarWatch, which is now AwardsDaily.com due to the Academy being stingy with their copywrites.  Years later, I am friends on Facebook with Awards Daily diva, Sasha Stone, and I think I comment enough on her stuff that she knows who I am.  It is the little things, but I digress.

During this time, I also held my annual Oscar Party, which started out as something at my apartment and grew bigger into my friend, Melissa's, house.  It then outgrew itself into a fundraiser for a local organization called Indiana Still Cares, which was my first tip toe into the Indianapolis gay community.  I got on the radar of Gary Brackett, who was also President of Indy Pride at that point, and I think you can see where this is going.  I owe a lot to my love of the Oscars, which is why my apathy for the show is a little disconcerting.

The Oscars have not changed with the times, and even though they seem to add more and more diversity every year, the decisions made for winners still seems to be stuck in the fuddy duddy white voters.  The fact that there is not one person of color nominated in any of the major categories or a woman director is just abysmal, and that is not to say that every nominee is not deserving.  It is just unfortunate that the wealth cannot be spread.

There is a lot more wrong with the system than I care to get into here, but the fact that I have only seen two of the nominated Best Pictures is pretty indicative that the Oscars are not in line with my tastes.  I am really hoping that piece of jingoist propaganda, American Sniper, does not win Best Picture on Sunday, because that might just be the final nail for me.

Obligatory Post About Aging - Or How Madonna Taught Me To Act My Age

I am in an transitional year right now.  While I have never really been fearful over the aging process, the milestone birthdays themselves are enough to put one in a reflective mood.  I turn 40 in May, and I have to say I more angst filled over the thought of organizing a party for everyone else than I am about the actual number.

Aging is an interesting thing, especially as life expediencies get longer and longer.  The whole "40s are the new 30s," "50s are the new 40s" drivel is just a silly way of saying that people are enjoying life much higher up the scale than they did in the old days.  Because of advances in medical technology or even just general health consciousnesses, you are not destined for a nursing home (or worse) at 50.

Vintage '80s Madonna

For the heterosexual man, aging has always been a bit easier.  You never grow old.  You just become more distinguished, and if your penis stops working, you have a whole raft of prescriptions out there that can get willy working again.  I do not want to discount that for the heterosexual male, aging is just as tough on the body, mind, and spirit.  However, for the gay male and especially women, there seems to be an almost metaphysical pressure that goes along with the aging process.  You are supposed to "Act Your Age" and become a bulky-sweater clad grandma.

This has come into even great prominence for me as we are experiencing, what I am calling, a Madonnaissance.  As any good gay boy growing up in the 80's, Madonna was a force for me. I traded my sister a cassette of Air Supply (was a gift) for True Blue, and the rest was history.  I even named my cat Madonna, and she was with me from 1990-2011.  While I have always been a fan, her last two albums have left me pretty cold, and if I can be completely honest, Confessions on a Dancefloor, which was considered her return to form after the "failure" of American Life, was pretty robotic for me.  I enjoyed it, but it certainly was not my favorite.  I also posit that the lameness of the videos were proof of how Madonna felt about it, too.  Further, while it has its problems, American Life is probably the closest musically to the heart of Madonna we were ever going to get (though the new music might), and I truly believe the rejection of that album is why the last three albums have been so reactionary to popular trends and, for the most part, total fan service.  Hard Candy and MDNA were the first two albums of hers that I did not purchase outright.

However, something happened in the years after MDNA, and all of the sudden, Madonna gives a fuck again. She's engaging in social media more than ever before, and the nine songs that have been released from Rebel Heart are some of the best, most personal work she has put out in years.  The video for "Living for Love," is also her best video since, well, "Don't Tell Me."  There is a palpable joy in what she is doing.  It is infectious, and I think Rebel Heart will be her most popular album in a long time, and she may even have a number one single again for the first time since "Music" (2000).

Madonna at the Grammys 2015

Bringing all back to the "Act Your Age" idea that started all this, Madonna's performance on the Grammy's, which hewed very close to the video for "Living for Love," showed her dancing and singing (yes, she sang, but there was a heavy tracking vocal) like a diva half her age.  She was also wearing a pretty revealing ensemble, showing off her enviable body. Unfortunately, this is where people start to show their stripes. "I don't want to see her granny ass!" they said, or something of the like. Now, while I will admit that seeing her dancers is much more pleasurable to ME, I can say without equivocation that Madonna has an amazing body, and as the saying goes, if you've got it, flaunt it. There is deeply held misogyny and ageism in these comments, and even with my high level of support, when she sat on the stage and spread her legs, even I was a bit put off.  Why is that? Because we are taught from an early age what the role of women should be, and that aggressive women are, for lack of a better term, bitches or sluts.  We try to put women in a box, and this notion that a woman in her mid-50s is still able to feel and be a powerful sexual being, it challenges us at our very core.  Madonna will continue to be agent provocateur until the end, and I personally thank her for that.

So, what does this have to do with me?  Well, as I approach 40, I suppose aging is much more on my mind.  I am single and happy.  I rent and do not own (though I could).  My family is in a fairly good place, and I am actively working to strengthen friendships that languished a bit while I spent nearly 8 years involved with Pride here in Indianapolis.  However, I still feel a bit of the pull of midlife crisis.  I am not completely sure what a 40 year old should do or be.  There are these hidden rules about being a gay of certain age: you shouldn't be single, you shouldn't go out, you shouldn't wear this or that.  The gay Peter Pan Syndrome is a real thing, and the eternal pursuit of youth can be a strong pull.  I suppose aging for me as never been much of an issue because I have always been a pretty old soul.  Plus, I started going grey around 18, and while my hair slowly got shorter and shorter until I shaved it completely, I just embraced that as a fact of life and genetics.  I have never really given any thought at all to botox or the like.  I like being expressive, and much like I could not talk without moving my hands, I really do not think I could without moving my face either.  I guess this is just a way of saying that I am comfortable in my own skin, even if I am harder on myself than anyone else.

While I know I will not be flashing my crotch on television anytime soon, I do choose to make Madonna an example of what to do as we age.  She may take things too far occasionally, but at least, at the end of the day, she does not care what other people say about her, even if the initial sting does hurt.  Telling someone to "Act Your Age," really is not about them, it is about how their ability to be themselves makes you feel.  These tiny boxes we place people into and then look down upon them when they break out are constructs of a society that does not (or should not) exist.  I am going to live my life with no regrets. I am acting my age, and much like Madonna, I have earned it.

Another Attempt

It's becoming rather comical to me about this whole blogging thing.  I really do like to write, but as I've said before, Facebook has usurped a lot of the stream on consciousness observations that I would keep for blogging.  So, when I try to think about things to write, the well is pretty dry.

However, I am giving it a go again.  I've even rebranded everything, mainly because my old blog title was a bit negative sounding.  Nick About Town came into play when I started doing Instagram more often, and it has just kind of stuck.  The whole minutiae thing came that way, too.  It's in my profile on Instagram.  I really do have far flung interests, and if I'm going to do a blog that is like a brain dump, then you can expect pop culture, science, and even politics.

I make no allusions to the fact that no one may ever read any of this, but it is a good mental exercise for me.  I just need to stick to it.

Movie Maddness: Mockingjay

I have to admit that I had a lot of trepidation about Mockingjay, and it wasn't really because they decided to split it into two movies.  My issues really stemmed from my dissatisfaction with the book itself, especially after loving Catching Fire, which is still my favorite book of The Hunger Games trilogy.  While I wasn't really upset with the book being different from the pattern created in the two books (emotional buildup until we hit the arena), I just felt that the book was rushing to get us to the end, and even though the acts of the finale were a shock, what felt effortless in the first two books, seemed hurried and labored in the third.

****It should go without saying that there are spoilers in the rest of this post.  I will attempt to keep things clean of what will transpire in Mockingjay, Part 2, but you've been warned.****

To be completely honest, I began this blog last Monday, November 24th, but due to work and the holiday, I haven't been able to finish it.  So, I am picking this up a week later after marinating on it some more, and I would like to go see it again, which is the best recommendation I can give.  I've also bandied about re-reading the book just to see how close things jibe to the adaptation, and if I do, I will probably to an follow up.  However, I am still pleased with the movie, and I believe the changes truly enhanced the narrative.

While the first two novels were enhanced by Katniss as the first person narrator, Mockingjay really
suffers from it.  There is so much going on in the background while Katniss is dealing with the horrors of the Games, that moving to a true third person narrative for the film really corrects some of the problems I had with it.  Plus, you're able to see District 13 through your own eyes and not just through the PTSD addled view of Katniss.  For instance, President Alma Coin is a much more fully realized character in the movie, which will make the ending of the Part 2 all the more intense.  You are also given a lot more time to learn about Gale and Prim, who have been nothing more than ciphers.  All of this is very important to the end of Part 2, and I could not happier with how they are portrayed.

I am a bit infuriated with the number of people that I have heard say, "Nothing Happened!"  The fact that the creative team took their time to develop characters in Part 1 should be commended. Everyone needed to take a beat and witness the spreading fire from the second film.  The scenes from the Districts 5 and 7 showing the rebellion were absolutely necessary to show, and the raid on the Capitol, which wasn't much in the book because Katniss was still in District 13, was a great set piece to bring the movie to a close.  Not to mention the hospital scene and "The Hanging Tree," were just powerful ways to show Katniss coming to terms with her role in this whole thing.

If I have one complaint, it is that I think the movie should have ended with a true cliffhanger, at least for people who haven't read the book.   In interviews, I've heard this referred to as the Breaking Bad ending, because it was so bleak and people might have been angry.  **Heavy Spoilers**  I think once Peeta attacks Katniss, and she starts to black out.  The movie should have faded to black and rolled the credits.  It just seemed a bit lame to go through the explanation, and I also absolutely don't think Alma Coin would have monologued the plan for the second movie in a broadcast that could have been intercepted by anyone!

This was a very fine addition to The Hunger Games universe, and I would like to close with two other stray observations.  Bringing Effie Trinket into the movie was just brilliant, because she gives quite a bit of comic relief.  Also, since the rest of Effie's team really wasn't that developed in the previous movies as they were in the books, it just made sense to not introduce unnecessary characters.  Secondly, Natalie Dormer as Cressida is a major standout to me, and if she doesn't get cast as a Marvel Superhero soon (Captain Marvel, for instance), there is no justice in the world!

6 Months Until the Big 4-0

Actually, it is less now.  Yesterday, November 17th, is technically my half birthday, and frankly, any other year the date has passed without much notice at all.  It is probably the next frontier for Hallmark cards, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter all that much.  However, since I'm reaching a milestone birthday, the date is taking on a little more importance.

40 is one of those weird ages, especially in the gay community.  I have friend's in their 20s who constantly dread and think their lives will end at 30.  I've always been of the mind that the 20s were pretty horrible and my 30s have been great.  I've certainly done a lot in my 30s from finally getting to New York to being the head of a large metropolitan area Pride organization, but 40 is quite the enigma for me.  I don't have any sort of dread about reaching middle age.  There is very little I would change up to this point.  Do I really know where I want to be in the next 5, 10, or 20 years.  No, not really, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

How did I celebrate my 39.5 birthday?  Well, I stayed home from work, and then I went to my CrossFit class where we were doing 1 rep maxes for dead lift.  I've been having a mental block with it of late, after having a pretty early success lifting 420 pounds probably close to a year ago.  I have no doubt I am strong, but something in my brain was psyching myself out whenever dead lifts would pop up on the schedule.  This coupled with inconsistent visits through the summer basically lead me to believe that I was a weakling who couldn't lift that much anymore.  Well, I powered through, and I bested my max by 25 pounds (445).  I'm pretty proud of myself, and if I can keep this up, I might actually be in better shape when I turn 40 than I was when when I turned 30!

Movie Madness: Interstellar

I am a big fan of Christopher Nolan, even though I do not always agree with some of the moves he makes in his movies (hello, ego -- like my opinion matters), but as someone who enjoys movies from strong directors, I really cannot think of many others in this current generation that can be mentioned in the same breath as Kubrick or Wells.  Of course, trying to compare Intersteller with 2001 is really the easy way out, and I don't even plan on mentioning that movie again in this post.

Anyway, I have been looking forward to Interstellar since it was announced.  Only Nolan would have the audacity to take a scientific text by physicist Kip Thorne and build a story around it.  Steven Spielberg attempted to do it with Nolan's brother, Jonathan, but it never came to fruition. I'm not sure if there has been any stories written about what remained from the original Spielberg adaptation, but I would be interested in that information.

As is typical with Nolan, very little was known about the plot of the movie.  Of course, we knew the casting, that something catastrophic was happening to Earth, and that it takes us to space and through wormholes, but we didn't really know what the crux of the story was or where it was going to take us.

Being a bit of a space junky, I was excited to see Interstellar, and I really loved the first two hours of this movie. The depiction of space travel was amazing, and when they are around Saturn and navigating into the wormhole to close proximity of Gargantua, the black hole (pictured), my mouth was either agape or in a stupid grin the whole time.  I totally bought into the reasoning for leaving earth, and while I wasn't nearly as emotional as some, I definitely understood the sense of abandonment that Murph (Mackenzie Foy) felt as well as to why Coop (Matthew McConaughey) needed to leave her.  I even was okay with the "ghost" concept, though I certainly didn't see where they were going with it.

I would give this movie a recommendation on the space exploration alone.  It is intense, and if I may be gauche, it is pretty edge of your seat.  I do need to point out that there were times I felt nauseous in this movie.  I get motion sickness pretty easily, but after getting through Gravity without any issue, I though I would be fine.  It is not a spoiler to say that they way they get gravity on their ship is because it spins, and there are times when you see the spinning out the window in the background.

Unfortunately, there is one aspect of the movie that is sticking with me for all the wrong reasons, and it almost derails the whole thing for me.

*****Beyond This Point; Thar Be Spoilers*****

As I said, I was buying pretty much everything Nolan was selling.  Of course, I knew that things were going too well for our crew.  If by "going well" you have one death (Doyle - Wes Bently) on Miller's water planet and Romilly (David Gyasi) aging 23 years, while a few hours pass for those on the planet.  I was honestly okay if they just continued the exploration aspect, even if they ended up stranded.  However, Nolan went down a path that really just annoyed me to the point that I was completely taken out of the story, and what should have been the emotional impact of the ending, really ended up doing nothing for me. When Matt Damon is introduced as Dr. Mann, I just felt the story take a very easy turn into melodramatics. Yes, it is understandable that a man left alone for 10 years on a icy planet would totally crack under the strain of the loneliness.  Unfortunately, from the crying jag upon his awakening from suspended animation to the dismissive way he explained the dismantlement of his robot, it just became very obvious that space madness was going to be the next dramatic turn, and it seemed like Nolan took nearly every opportunity to telegraph it to the audience.  In fact, I am pretty sure Helen Keller would have figured out that Mann was up to no good.  Let's talk about his name, too.  I get the fact that Nolan wanted us to understand that our own worst enemy is man itself, but to name the character Mann was like hitting us over the head with a brick.  It didn't help that the whole sequence just seemed like it was an entirely different movie.

There could have been a number of ways that Nolan could have moved the story along and still arrived at the intended ending.  I am pretty sure they could have omitted the entire Damon section. The team could have landed on the ice planet with the team discovering his death and false claims about the planet with it being too late for them to use Plan B.  Romilly could still have died in an explosion at the base, and the Endurance module could have been damaged in orbit by any number of interstellar anomalies. The stories on Earth could have happened without alteration, with Murph (Jessica Chastain) finding out the truth on Professor Brand's (Michael Caine) deathbed and transmitted it to an unknowing Dr. Brand (Anne Hathaway).  Of course, you wouldn't have Mann there to corroborate the depth of the subterfuge, but I don't think that really changes much in the story.

It just seems so tone deaf. This is a mistake I do not expect from someone as tightly wound as Nolan. I fully expected there to be some sort of complication, but this one made me angry and took me out of the story completely.  While some may have problems with the ending, having loved movies such as Cloud Atlas and Contact, I am more than willing to accept some mysticism with my science fiction, and I could probably write an entire blog about how the denouement on the space station could easily be a post-death experience for Cooper. However, I cannot seem to get past this misstep. The greatest recommendation I can make is that I would purchase a movie for my home collection, and at this point, I cannot say that I can do that for Interstellar.  I am motivated to watch it again, but what I was hoping was going to be a glorious three hours, turned into something incredibly mixed.

Ain't No Party Like a Democratic Party...

...Because the Democratic Party don't VOTE.

Pardon the bad turn of song lyric, but it really just popped in my head as I was thinking about today's blog.  Then I found a graphic, too!

It is exceedingly frustrating that people, especially ones within the Democratic Party apparatus, just choose to accept the conventional wisdom that the Democratic base doesn't "do" midterm elections. The fact is that if they do not vote during midterms then the party is failing to engage them.

I get it.  Presidential elections are much sexier than races further down the ticket.  Take my home state of Indiana in 2014, the highest level race was for House of Representatives, and then the next step down was Secretary of State, which unlike at the federal level has nothing to do with foreign policy.  In 2015, all we have are municipal elections, specifically Mayor of Indianapolis, which as of yesterday is without an incumbent.  I can see why it would be difficult to get people motivated. However, what is the point of having a cohesive political party if  you're just working from presidential campaign to presidential campaign?

Of course, you could say this falls to the state parties to get things together, but for the most part, those parties are terribly underfunded, especially when you have the national organizations sucking up all the money, and for this blog, I am going to disregard the obstacles to voting that the Republicans have put into place across the country.  It certainly does have a chilling effect on things, but it is too complicated of an issue to handle at this moment.

Doubling back, what do we do to get people to vote in midterm elections?  It really comes down to educating the younger and minority voters on their vote's importance.  Unfortunately, it has to be quick and concise, and major issues like gerrymandering power and judicial nominees is pretty difficult to whittle down to fun size.  It needs to happen though, because midterms are just as important, if not more so, than electing the president.  The senatorial and congressional campaign groups touted how they kept raising more money than the Republicans, but what happened to it?  How was it used?  If it was just ad buys, then it was money poorly spent.  It should have been used for GOTV (Get Out The Vote) campaigns.

Using Indiana as an example again, we currently have Republican super-majorities in both houses of the legislature.  This didn't happen until the 2010 midterm election.  Of course, that coincides with another Republican wave election on the national stage, but with the Democrats losing their slight hold on the House by a wide margin, they had absolutely no say in district mapping.  Consequently, the it is going to take a major act of change to get some of these joker's out of office.  Democrats have a real chance of defeating Gov. Mike Pence in 2016, especially if he goes off and runs for president, but what good is a Democratic governor if he or she has to work with super-majorities and wields a very weak veto pen?  No one in their right mind would run for that.  So, no attractive candidates, no turnout, and the cycle continues.

We should be seeing turnouts in the 80% to 90% for every election, but we struggle to get over 50% even in the presidential elections and 35% in the off years.  It is galling that the cradle of democracy has one of the lowest turnouts.  The first thing that needs to happen is that the Democratic Party needs to stop trying to be Republican-lite.  Get out there and educate the voters as to WHY we have the best ideas, and frankly, show them that their ideals match up more with us than with the Republicans.  The Republican Party is much better at telling lies than we are at telling the truth, but the raw material is there if we just embrace it. As I said yesterday, running away from President Obama was the worst choice they could have made. Every election should be about what makes us better than the other party, as well as furthering educating people on the importance of voting.  It needs to be innovative, too, because incessant campaign commercials and mailers aren't going to do it.

Giving up and just saying "the young and minorities do not vote in midterms" is not enough anymore. Get those groups involved to find the best way to engage them, because if we can get them moving towards the polls, this Republican winning streak can finally be broken.