On Barbara Walters' pre-Oscar special, she asked host Hugh Jackman about rumors that he is gay. Jackman didn't deny it, but allowed his wife to do so for him again:
"Peter Allen has a great line. He goes, 'I know what you're thinking. You're just sitting there looking at me, and thinking now, is he or isn't he? Well, it's true. I am Australian.' Deb used to say - she came about 40 times to the show - and she used to go to the bathroom and she's be in the cubicle in the ladies bathroom, and she would hear people going 'I know he's married, but I'm sure he is. Is he or isn't he?' And she said occasionally she would yell out, 'he isn't!'"
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Source: www.digitalspy.com
Clay Aiken has apparently parted ways with his record label after his latest LP sold just 159,000 copies in the United States.
On My Way Here was released last year and flopped in comparison to his 2003 debut Measure Of A Man, which sold 2.78 million copies.
According to Billboard, the American Idol runner-up left RCA a couple of months ago.
Aiken, who revealed that he is gay last September, will next appear as a guest judge on the forthcoming series of America's Next Top Model.
My comment: Poor Clay Aiken. He is such a promising singer with a enchanting, tenor one voice. That man can hit those high alto-like notes. But his albums, even his mega-hit first one, are full of sappy, syrupy songs that never truly showcase his vocal prowess. Some critics claimed that coming out has hurt him. Perhaps. But I doubt it given the quality of his albums. At least he is going to get some solace from appearing on that popular, gay friendly model show--maybe he will learn how to settle for a hairdo that best suits him. So far, it has been a schizophrenic romp from frumpy to downright ridiculous. And oh, lose that silly glittery jacket too, please.
The AIDS virus is spreading rapidly among gay and bisexual men in Asia as younger people shun condoms and authorities fail to increase awareness of the disease, health officials said Friday.
The epidemic will worsen dramatically in coming years unless there is better education and stronger political will to combat the disease, warned Massimo Ghidinelli, the World Health Organization's regional adviser on HIV/AIDS ...
Asia is believed to have the world's largest number of men who have sex with other men, with a preliminary estimate of 10 million, according to WHO.
My comment: Young men are more susceptible to the AIDS virus because they often see sex as "playtime," one without any consequences. Such circumstances are further reinforced by first, the absence of any unwanted pregnancies, and two, society's equation of masculinity with aggressive sexuality. Both forces shape the youth mindset, which in turn, are harbingers of a sexual health tragedy.
While describing the figure as "extraordinary high," Ghidinelli said it still appeared to be conservative because of the stigmatization of male-to-male sex.
WHO said fragmentary information from the region indicated a rapid spread of HIV among gay and bisexual men, but that full data weren't available ...
Ghidinelli said low condom use among younger men in male-to-male relationships was fueling the transmission of HIV.
"Younger men engaging in sex with men are entering into a sexual arena without the same level of awareness and without taking the same level of protection that the older generation was taking," Ghidinelli told a news conference ...
My comments: Young gay men, regardless of race, class, or geographical origins, are in fact, at a greater risk of being infected by the AIDS virus due to two factors. First, they have this false sense of security that is shaped by the realization that unlike their straight peers, they will never have to face the consequences of a woman's pregnancy. Second, young gay men, like their straight peers, are part of this larger society's equation of masculinity with aggressive sexuality. The overall tone of gay porn is of that. Romantic sexuality is rarely depicted, even in soft gay porn or R-rated films. With such palpable media messages assaulting the young, impressionable mindset, what else can happen but hyper-sexualization of the penis, one unadorned by rubbers?
AIDS is just killing China. HIV became the top killer among infectious diseases in China last year when it sent 6,897 people to their graves, Xinhua News Agency reported.
According to data from the Chinese Health Ministry, the number of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infections doubled to 264,302 from 135,630 in 2005. The huge increase might be due to the fact that the state authorities refused until last year to acknowledge that HIV infections are a serious threat to China’s population.
However, things have changed and now state authorities began addressing the issue. State authorities promised anonymous testing and free testing for the poor and also vowed to fight the discrimination of the HIV positive people.
Nevertheless, Beijing authorities may have shifted their policy towards AIDS, but most Chinese are still reluctant to HIV testing and the number of people infected in China is actually estimated to be much higher than authorities said. According to a government and UNAIDS reported there may be about 700,000 Chinese infected with HIV.
Not only China faces this problem. The whole eastern Asia seems to record higher infection rates when it comes to HIV. In big cities such as Bangkok, the number of gay and bisexual men who are HIV positive grew 30% according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The main cause of infection is unprotected sex between gay men or MSM as researchers call it. The problem seems to be the fact the perception that gay men have about using a condom when having sex and not the lack of condoms.
“There’s this perception of gay men and MSM throughout the region that if you use a condom you don’t trust your partner,” said Edmund Settle, a HIV-AIDS policy specialist with the United Nations Development Program.
In China, nearly 5% of gay or bisexual men have HIV, while just 0,1% of all adults are HIV positive, according to Wu Zungyou, head of China’s national center for AIDS control and prevention.
My comment: The perception that using a condom seems to suggest a lack of trust of one's partner arises from a deeper, misleading sense that if someone says he or she is HIV negative, then indeed that is true. Even in the US, that attitude is still prevailing, one that has led to tragic infections. HIV education campaigns rarely talk about these intangibles, those unspoken fears. It is time that more concentrated efforts are made to discuss these self-deceptive behaviors.
Source: The Motclair Times, February 12, 2009 For Rufus Wainwright, being gay can be a bit of a distraction.
Wainwright, who has been open about his homosexuality since the release of his eponymous debut album in 1998, acknowledges that he isn’t the only gay pop star, but believes he is the first to begin his career totally out of the closet.
Though his personal life has resulted in tons of press in the past decade, it has also been a liability, Wainwright told The Times.
"It’s an exciting prospect, and always has been, but on the other hand, you know, it has diminished at times my success," he said. "But I can’t really – there’s no sort of skirting the issue, because it is just a plain fact."
Tomorrow night, Feb. 13, Wainwright, 35, makes his Montclair debut, playing a solo show at the Wellmont Theatre. It’s one of a handful of shows Wainwright is performing this February, including one in Red Bank (at Montclair and Red Bank, his half-sister, Lucy Wainwright Roche, is the opening act).
Photo credit: 3bp.blogspot.com
Though Wainwright is not promoting an album – his last collection of original material, "Release the Stars," was released in May 2007 – he is in the middle of a very fertile artistic period.
In July, "Prima Donna," his first opera, will premiere at Palace Theatre in Manchester, England. Wainwright, a U.S. and Canadian citizen who spent much of his youth in Montreal with his mother, the folk singer Kate McGarrigle, wrote the opera in French.
Wainwright has been an opera fan his entire life, evident in his lyrics, which are littered with operative references. On "Damned Ladies," the 10th track on his debut album, Wainwright serenades various opera heroines: "Desdemona, do not go to sleep/Brown-eyed Tosca, don’t believe the creep/I see it in his eyes."
"Prima Donna" – which focuses on a day in the life of an opera singer – will not be Wainwright’s last foray into the world of opera composing, he said.
"I intend to write many operas, and even if this one is a disaster, which has happened before in the opera world, I’ll just keep hacking away," he said.
On Wainwright’s five albums of original music, he displays an eclecticism rare in the pop world. One minute Wainwight is singing a tune that would not have been out of place on Tin Pan Alley ("Foolish Love"), the next he’s channeling 1960s pop group The Mamas and The Papas ("California").
The arrangements on his albums reflect this variety, ranging from Wainwright alone on his piano to bombastic orchestral pieces replete with hundreds of vocal overdubs. Wainwright said the arrangements are suggested by his often-confessional lyrics.
"I definitely lived my life in stages," he said. "I think the production of my albums much more reflects the outside circumstances I’ve been faced with, whether it’s been blissful ignorance of the dark side of addiction … or struggling with the war in Iraq, or subsequently being overjoyed about Barack Obama."
Wainwright’s lyrics tend toward the personal rather than the political, though he has ventured into topical waters. In "Going to a Town," the elegiac first single off his 2007 album "Release the Stars," he croons that he’s "so tired of America," while "Waiting for a Dream" on 2004’s "Want Two" laments the "ogre in the Oval Office."
Although his political slants may not make him many conservative fans, audiences at his shows are a diverse mix of young and old, gay and straight. Wainwright attributes this variety to his songwriting.
What does B.D. Wong, who plays Dr. George Huang on Law and Order television series and my friend, Brent, an average joe, a marketing executive, have in common?
Brent rants and raves--incessantly. He lives in Dallas, a large metropolitan center with a significant queer population. Yes, the new George Bush backyard, Dallas--the city with pickup trucks galore, shotguns in the back, and traffic mayhem 24/7. I suppose all that orgy of testosterone--let's shoot from the hip first, and think later--is most reassuring for some confused queens and heaven sent for the weekend "cowboys."
Yet Brent, in spite of being in man land, claims that dates are hard to come by. I didn't have the heart to tell him the obvious reason: he is a 49-year old man, going 50, which means all is lost forever, and has six children and an ex-wife, all of whom are in the dark about his true self. Queens can be harsh; they don't like "baggage" or guys with bags in their eyes.
So my poor friend joined match.com, which is quite gay friendly (certainly more friendly than e-harmony.com, which does not even accept gay patrons). I say quite, because, you know how gay men are. They rant and rave if they can't show a lot of skin, and match.com could care less if you are well hung or not.
Brent has been on match.com for months--actually, years. Has he met anyone? Sure. One guy stood him up, another ran for the hills when he found out that Brent has a daughter still living at home, and another, well, he just "lost" Brent's phone number.
Now mind you, Brent is attractive, average built, and dresses well (though he stretches his dollar by shopping at "upscale" thrift stores), enough to cover his small beer belly. And in the gay community, all that window dressing is almighty important.
So what went wrong? Who truly knows. Perhaps it's his age, his children, his closeted identity, anything or all.
So last night Brent calls me and confesses. He searched match.com, and found hundreds of potential matches--in New York City. Why New York when he lives in Dallas? Perhaps Brent plans to make one super leap to that city, not unlike Superman and his feats.
And guess who he ran across? B.D. Wong. Apparently, Wong is breathlessly man-hunting, child tailing behind too. You probably know that Wong is an openly out gay actor, who fathered a child some time ago, and recently split up with his partner.
It is at this point my friend, Brent, wails: "If a Hollywood star is on a gay dating site, then what hope do I have?" Actually, my friend threw in a few expletives, but I shall refrain from repeating them here.
After all the ballyhoo, Brent at least learnt one thing from Wong: take better--more alluring--pictures. Wong has more than ten, showing him in various sweet, innocent--read boring--poses. This is match.com, after all; one can only go so far! And yes, Brent, dump match.com!
Gays in Phoenix have been celebrating--to some extend--since yesterday. The city, smacked in the middle of Republican land, has launched the domestic-partner registry.
But before anyone can say, "welcome to the land of Dorothy," reality sets in and the fantasy ebbs. This registry is designed only to provide one, and only one, benefit: hospital visitation rights. Straight, unmarried couples who live together can also register for this same benefit.
So why all the hoopla? In some states, like Florida, my home state (click here for related Florida story), gays cannot even have this basic human right. Advocates of this registry hope that this small step toward equality will lead to giant leaps forward, akin to what happened in California, which started with a limited domestic partnership act of 1999 that gradually expanded to cover a multiple array of benefits, ranging from health to legal adoption of a partner's last name.
All that was progress until the fatal Proposition 8 this past November. For every step forward, it seems as though we take half a step back. Such is human progress. Click here and here for articles on the Phoenix initiative.
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government and the richest charity are offering bounties to a new wave of scientists to wipe out HIV, the virus that causes AIDS and is one of the world’s biggest killers.
Frustrated by one failure after another, the U.S. is asking scientists to outline a major program to find a cure for HIV, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle is offering grants of $100,000 for researchers working on ways to drive the virus from patients’ bodies for good. Scientists are responding with new methods to stamp HIV from human cells and tissues where traces of it can hide for years, evading treatment.
The above excerpt is from a longer article in Bloomberg.com (Click here). Apparently, scientists are frustrated with the lack of progress in finding a cure. So far, all experimental vaccines have failed to spread the disease, which these days, strikes down nearly 3 million patients per year.
I applaud these renewed efforts, but until we do find a vaccine, the US government, and all of us, common citizens included, must step up efforts in AIDS education. There is a squeamishness in the schools to discuss safe sex education. This squeamishness is regrettable, even deadly.
And some quarters in the gay community are still playing fire with their lives, barebacking being one of those means. After the heavy toll of the 1980s and early 1990s, there has been a more laissez faire attitude toward sexual intimacy in the gay community. The advent of more advanced drugs for HIV patients has led to a wrongheaded attitude that AIDS is just a minor pest.
Some of this risky behavior is sometimes rooted in self-hatred, which in turn, arises from rejection by the larger society. So greater acceptance from society can go some way to shifting the goalpost of the fight against AIDS. But no doubt, gays themselves must also share the responsibility of knowing what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps it is time for a renewed alarm.
Sometimes I re-watch certain movies, often because of the universality of the theme. Such is the case with "Farewell My Concubine" (1992, Chinese with English subtitles, 171 minutes). Do not let the length of the movie, or that it is in Chinese, daunt you. The film is worth several bags of popcorn (and you know how much they cost these days in the theater!), and more.
The story reminds me--to a degree--of a flip side to "Brokeback Mountain," that great film by Ang Lee that won him an Oscar for best director. If "Brokeback" is about overtly challenging the archetype of the American cowboy, demythologizing them as overly masculine, "Farewell" is about embracing the conventional understanding of Chinese gays as effeminate. Yet "Farewell," directed by avart garde director Chen Kaige, is hardly an endorsement of gay stereotypes.
Against the entire turbulent sweep of Chinese history, from the bloody era of warlords of the 1920s through the equally tragic Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, "Farewell" pivots around the male relationship between two Beijing Opera actors--Douzi (played by the late Hong Kong pop star, Leslie Cheung) and Shitou (played by mainlander Zhang Fengyi). Their complex friendship begins during boyhood at the grueling Beijing opera training school. Douzi is forced, against his will, to train to play female roles (in those days, all Chinese female operatic roles were played by men). Shitou, in contrast, trained to play male roles.
Years later, the boys have matured into accomplished actors, who each has earned stellar reviews from their adoring fans. But in private, the men have an uneasy relationship. Douzi, the effeminate one, has fallen in love with Shitou, but the latter does not return his affections. In fact, Shitou is a well-known womanizer, though one with strong brotherly affections for Douzi.
Soon Shitou's carousing catches up with him. A prostitute, Juixian (Gong Li), at a local brothel, claims that Shitou, during one of his visits to the establishment, has proposed to her, and now demands that he honors his promise.
Soon marriage arrives for Shitou. And thus trouble arrives too. Douzi, enraged by the turn of events, begins a tussle with Juixian for the affections of Shitou. Does Douzi get his way? How can he prove his undying "brotherhood" to Shitou? Will he betray his country, even his profession, so as to save Shitou from the march of history? Will unrequited love triumph over self-interests? Or will survival of the fittest overcome honor and friendship?
Never has a Chinese film been so ambitious in its scope. The backdrop of its turbulent history is more than just window dressing. It is the necessary setting for this probing look into how the line between public and private, between policy and creativity, between duty and desire, becomes blurred. Along the way, we realize that personal identity--the self--is made of many overlapping layers. Homosexuality is just simply one of them.
The film won multiple awards, include the highest honor at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars.
Postscript: Leslie Cheung, who plays Douzi, committed suicide in 2003. By then an openly gay singer-cum-actor, Leung had been suffering from depression. Look for eerie parallels between Cheung and his alter ego in this film.
I am a big fan of Hillary Clinton. Why you ask? I read her autobiography, Making History, from cover to cover. I read with bated breath the part about her parents' neighbors in Arkansas--a gay couple, a doctor and a nurse--who befriended her parents. This was more than a neighborly friendship. The gay couple came to her parents' aid in the worst of times whilst they daughter was thousands of miles away in Washington, DC battling a "right-wing conspiracy." That grace can enter one's life in the darkest moments is always a turning point. And so it was for Clinton; she credits this expression of unqualified love for her steadfast support of gay rights.
Well, fast forward to many years later on, now to be precise. Just a few days ago, Washington GLBT friendly politicians, including openly out Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, have begun lobbying Clinton, in her role as secretary of state, to reverse the longstanding discriminatory policy toward US State Department employees' same-sex partners.
Also, at the department level, diplomats and officials have begun making the same kind of noise. Read this comment from a gay diplomat made during a "town meeting" with other officials:
Ralan Hill, a gay diplomat, called the policy “active discrimination against me and my family.” “As one example, if I were assigned overseas to a post that came under a mandatory evacuation order, I would be required to leave, although the Department is under no legal obligation to do anything to help my partner. He could be left literally to fend for himself in a war zone,” Hill told Clinton (comment excerpted from this article).
Clinton responded in this manner:
She agrees that this was a “real concern” of “workplace fairness, employee retention, and the safety and effectiveness of our embassy communities worldwide.”
“So I have asked for a staff review of current policies, especially those that are set forth in State Department regulations and recommendations, and a strategy for making effective changes,” Clinton said.
But then Clinton threw this zinger. It is one of those that reminds you how complicated the legacy of the Clintons is.
Clinton reminded the audience that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) tied her hands since hat legislation defined marriage as a heterosexual union as applied to federal employees and partners.
And of course, DOMA was signed into law by none other than her husband--President Clinton. It's more than awkward; it's downright embarrassing. How will Clinton extricate herself from this tangled web of past ties?
Photo credit: www.farm1.static.flickr.com By LISA RATHKE – 11 hours ago MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Nine years after becoming the first state to permit civil unions, Vermont moved a step toward legalizing gay marriage Friday. A bill that would allow same-sex unions was introduced in the Legislature, causing a crowd of about several hundred supporters to gather at the Statehouse in celebration. "This really is a great day and a part of moving forward to a time when all Vermont couples will be treated equally under our laws," said a sponsor, Rep. Mark Larson.
I am not surprised that Vermont is going down this road. Attitudes in New England states have always been more progressive, more cosmopolitan. That in stark contrast to those in the Far West. Will New York, the Empire State, be the next one to go down this road of openness and equality?
"An acrimonious English department faculty meeting at Chicago-area Grover Cleveland High leads to murder in Zubro's intriguing 12th Tom and Scott mystery (after 2006's Everyone's Dead but Us ). English teacher Tom Mason's troubles begin after he discovers the corpse of teacher Gracie Eberson, an eraser stuck in her mouth, in a supply room also occupied by two male teachers engaged in a sexual tryst. The guilty pair deny Tom's official report about their illicit activity, and an anonymous tip implicates Tom in Eberson's murder. When the dead body of another teacher turns up behind Tom's car, Tom turns sleuth. Tom's lover, Scott Carpenter, and such friends as Meg Swarthmore, Grover Cleveland's feisty librarian, and police officer Frank Rohde lend support. Zubro, a high school English teacher himself, invests this whodunit with sharp insights into what can happen when prejudice rules as well as timely lessons on educational chicanery."
As described by Publisher's Weekly Review, this novel by Mark Richard Zubro, is a murder mystery with a gay twist. Published in 2008 by the reputable St Martin's Minotaur, the work is the latest addition to Zubro's "The Tom and Scott Mysteries" series.
For book nerds like myself, reading is a pleasure. This is particularly so for a teacher like myself, who spend endless hours plodding through mind-numbing student papers. But trying to find insightful, high quality reading material, in this over-commercialized and visually oriented age of ours is like trying to find needles in a haystack, to borrow a well-worn saying.
Thankfully, "Schooled in Murder" passes the muster--by the wisp of a hair (or should it be, by the particles of an eraser?). Pettiness arising from oversized egos rears its ugly head, and soon, it feeds into the twin murders at this high school. Each death in retrospect is not unexpected, as the disparate pieces begin to fall into place.
The protagonist, Tom Mason, finds himself in a conundrum. The discovery of the first body takes place soon after he stumbled upon a gay "sexual tryst." Incidentally, this so-called tryst is your typical gay man meets married man affair. But there is more tryst than sex here, just to forewarn you. As you read this novel, you probably will wonder: Does this tryst play a role in Tom being implicated in this murder? Is Tom indirectly being blackmailed? And what is the relationship between this first and the second murder?
Enjoy this book. It is a quick read. My one criticism is that the author sometimes chooses to use overly high-flaunt diction, when it is not necessary to do so. After all, this is not Walt Whitman-like, either in contents or theme.
"In July 2006, one evening I was sitting in a car with another man in a public park, in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. We were just talking, there was nothing sexual going on. This park is known among gay people as a place to hang out. We call it “lost world.” Around 10pm, a police patrol car with two police officers pulled up. I still remember that moment. I thought I was going to die. The officers were both Malay Muslims. They quickly approached the car and grabbed us. ONE officer dragged my companion about six to eight meters away. They pushed us each to opposite sides and quickly grabbed our IDs. They tried to force us to admit that we were doing something wrong so that they would have a reason to bring us back to the police station. I only had one thing in my mind there. I was so frightened. I thought that I am not going to see the morning tomorrow. The police officers made us stand with our backs to them facing the car and put our hands on the car. We said we did nothing wrong. They said two men inside a car in a public park was already wrong. I said again to them, “We did nothing wrong.” One officer said, “Don’t lie to me. We all know what people are doing in the park at this hour.” I said, “Officer, I don’t know what you had the occasion to catch people doing in the park at this hour but I am telling you the truth.” I was afraid because I knew that if I admitted I was gay I would be in serious trouble. I tried to act regretful, hoping they would have some pity and soften up. I was praying that the officers would believe me."
This anecdotal account is excerpted from a long, unpublished essay written by Dr. Walter Williams, a leading scholar in gay studies. In this extended essay, Williams overviews the insidious influence of Islamic fundamentalism in Malaysia, the country of my birth.
Like the Chinese Malaysian gay man of the above story, I too am of Chinese descent. And like that man, I have always lived in fear. I have lived in fear of my identity--but only for few years, unlike this young man.
Coming out to myself in my late teens, I was at that time hundreds of miles away from home. Then in college, my new home was a touristy island and a place of trade exposed for centuries to cosmopolitan ideas. At times, that island of pristine beaches and stupendous vistas embodied my aspirations, as I fell in love over and over again.
Even later when I was banished to a rural area of obvious Islamic fundamentalism to teach high school, I feared nothing. Respected and beloved by my students of all faiths and creed, iI found solace in my vocation. And I found someone to care for--a father figure, a man of little formal schooling, but of much wisdom.
So how is it that this "Mak Nyah" (Malay derogatory term for transvestites, but also used broadly to apply to homosexuals) ended up in America? When did my fears begin?
That moment of epiphany seemed so distant, so hazy. And yet, Williams's essay prickled my subconscious. It vexed me.
For me, perhaps that moment was seeded by the prim and proper English instructor--a woman who had attended Oxford, a woman whose skirt was always of the polite length--of my undergraduate years. Somehow, I received the assignment of making a speech on the sodomy laws of Malaysia as part of the coursework in the Speech class. I resisted, she insisted. Such is the irony of life.
I do not remember the exact parameters of my fifteen-minute talk, but surely I must have covered some highlights of the said laws, and here I quote from Williams's essay again:
"In Malaysia’s Penal Code, Section 377, the sentence for conviction of sodomy is flogging, plus up to twenty years in prison. Victims are flogged with a section of bamboo that is split into several strips. When bamboo is split it has extremely sharp edges, which slice the skin like knives. Flogging is quite bloody, and leaves permanent scars. In addition to Section 337, just to prevent any homosexual from escaping conviction, Section 337A provides for a male to receive up to two years in prison for any act of “gross indecency with another male person.” This vague wording allows prosecution for any kind of erotic interaction between two males. This law is explicitly applied only to homosexual behavior among males, but lesbians also suffer discrimination."
I thought little of these laws--a young man caught up in the frenzy of tests, quizzes, and paper writing could scarcely have time to mull over such heady stuff. But such thoughts must have remain in my subconscious, and like what Thomas Jefferson said, they came back like "a fire bell in the night," filling "me with terror." They came back one unexpected day.
Have you wondered why losing weight is such a losing battle for some people? As a gym enthusiast of more than ten years, I have seen this happen over and over again. Gay and non-gay friends always ask me my secret to a swimmer's built body, one that I have had since my teens. I tell them that I wear well-tailored clothing. Joke aside, the simple fact is that people can lose weight successfully if they follow these five simple, almost counterintuitive rules, and I assure you don't need fancy scales or endless calorie counting regimens:
1) Eat all the time. Now, before you start throwing tomatoes and potatoes at me, listen first. People eat irregularly, and so their metabolism is erratic. That in itself is bad for losing weight. To keep your metabolism consistent, eat six small meals (make a fist with one of your hands and that should be how large each meal is). Keep carbs in equal portion to protein, and fat to the minimal.
2) Exercise moderately and at varying intensity (meaning, huffing and puffing; if you aren't huffing and puffing, you aren't doing it right!). You don't want to burn off all your muscles. But you still want varying intensity. For example, on the treadmill, begin by walking at 3.5 speed with an inclination of 4.0, then after three minutes, increase it to 4.0 with inclination of 5.0, continue for three more minutes, then increase speed to 4.2 and inclination of 6.0, continue for three minutes, then bring the speed down to 3.5 and inclination of 4.0, then repeat entire cycle. Your goal is to challenge your body to work harder. If you keep the speed and inclination the same throughout the 30 minute (and yes, at least 30 mins.) you are not going to increase your metabolism. Also, this varying intensity will not strip your muscles quickly. Do this routine for 3-4 times a week.
3) Less cardio, more weight resistance. Most beginners do too much cardio, and too little weight resistance. No, I am not trying to make you into the next Mr. Olympic, but cardio only burn calories (and is good for cardiovascular health) but it is weight resistance that increases your metabolism--the key to losing weight, for the long run, period. Because gyms now have easy-to-use machines with instructions on them, you don' t need a trainer if you are budget conscious. That said, use the free one session (or several) offered by your gym when you first signed up. Do your weight resistance routine at least 3 times a week, with each one focused on just several body parts. For example, do your chest and arms in one session; then on another day, do just the thighs, calves, hamstrings, and glutes, and on the third day, do your back and shoulders. One word of advice: if you are not sore the next day, then your routine was too easy, and that is not good.
4) Drink lots, really lots, of water. Most of the people I work with don't drink water. They drink sugary stuff all day, and call it water! By water, I mean, spring or purified water. Drink at least 10 glasses (forget the conventional 8 glasses), even 12, for days when you were in the gym. Drinking fluids help to flush out toxins and promotes bowel movement, but it also gives your stomach that sense of being full, hence less binge eating.
5) Avoid stress. This may be hardest rule to follow, compared to the rest, given the nature of our modern society. But with peace of mind, you can concentrate better on your health goals. Get a massage now and then, walk through a park (not near the highway or busy traffic, for heaven's sake), take plenty of naps, join social clubs (no, I don't mean the kind where there is lots of drinking).
Photo of Earl Rynerson, candidate for Fort Lauderdale mayor Source: www.earlformayor.com
Fort Lauderdale, for those of you who have been living in the parched deserts of Africa, is of course the gay oasis in Florida. Circuit parties with free flowing booze and wild frenzy sex on the beach seemingly is the dominant image of this city. I have never seen much of that, but then again, I am a goody good two shoes.
That said, it is, still, a boring city. No one really cares about politics in that town. At least, not the average gay man who worries more about his sagging behind, Clinique concealer, and the next "date" than does he of sewers and sewage.
So when a gay candidate running for mayor grabs headlines, then you know it's serious business or is it? Earl Rynerson, an openly gay man, apparently is the man under heavy scrutiny. Why?
First, he admits that he has refused to pay a number of bills for services rendered, ranging from a fence built for his house to a vacation in Africa. If you ask me, he sounds like a "drama queen" who is high maintenance. I say to him: Pay the bills and end the B-rated soap opera. After all, it's just money; give it to some poor contractors or service providers who need them rather than the go-go boys.
Second, reports have surfaced that he has subscribed to sex sites, including one geared for men into bondage. Frankly, none of this is shocking to me. Most gay men have joined one site or another over a long gay lifetime. And if one has not, well, there is something wrong with him. He has never heard of the saying, "joining the herd."
Rynerson also tried to pass himself off as "Lt. Col. Earl Rynerson." Apparently, the man has not been in active duty for more than a decade, and military regulations dictate you cannot claim that rank in such circumstances. I say this is no big deal. The man obviously likes to play GI Joe. And gays always exaggerate anyways--it's either you are real young (when in fact, you are ten years older, wrinkled and all), real muscular (when in fact, you are actually stocky), or you are financially comfortable (when in fact, you are just making the ends meet).
So you see, life in gay old Fort Lauderdale is truly boring. In fact, gays everywhere are just like everyone--boring to the core, like all human beings. Click here for here an article on Rynerson.
Illustration courtesy of www.dannymiller.typepad.com
Apparently the Obama administration, according to one newspaper article , will be impaneling a commission to conduct a study of this longstanding policy on gays in the armed services. No doubt, there will be much more hand wringing before we get any kind of resolution to this dilemma. Not to mention more of the taxpayers' money going down the drain in a time of economic recession. Just what we need--more talk and less action.
Another article in the Huffington Post commenting on this proposed commission offers the following cogent comments:
"What we don't welcome -- what we strongly oppose -- is yet another "study," which is Washington-speak for saying "let's just kick this down the road a ways." Out of sight, out of mind. You see, we're for repeal but don't really want to take a public stand right now (or we're bigots but don't have the guts to say so, outright bigotry being pretty unfashionable these days). So let's appropriate money for a commission or a study, maybe both. We'll have to appoint some members. That alone could take months. Of course the commission will need a staff. And offices. It could easily take a year before they get down to actually studying the issue (that's already been studied to death). Eventually -- and it could be a very long "eventually" -- we may see a report, the most recent in a long line of reports that began in 1988. That's 21 years ago!
Let's be clear: a commission or a study group is not about change. That's business as usual. We do not need another report to tell us what we already know and what earlier reports have long since concluded: the sexual orientation of a service member is irrelevant. What is relevant is how well he or she does the job."
Until the administration lays down a new law and forces all military personnel to abide by a policy of integration, some quarters in the military will continue to protest. That is as certain as the sun rising in the east each day. For sure, attitudes sometimes are hard to change, but a good leader must lead, not follow.
Either this president has to have the guts to make a move that is in line with all of the major allies' policy of integration of GLBT people into the services, or he has none. Stop pussy footing. Stop dishonoring the services of gay personnel. Give them the respect they deserve. They are, after all, citizens of the US.
A recent study released by Ireland's Ministry for Health concluded that nearly a fifth of the respondents of this large-scale study (though the exact number of respondents was not reported) have attempted suicide. This inclination stems from their sexual identity and the "experiences of being abused and feeling isolated."
The study goes on make this startling revelation: 80 percent of the respondents reported as having been verbally abused due to their sexual identity and more than half had been bullied whilst in school. Some forty percent of them reported of having been threatened with physical violence. Click here for full article.
I find these findings quite alarming. One of the most recent studies for United States--sampling more than 2,800 interviewees--support the overall conclusions of that Irish study. More than one in five men have at least contemplated suicide. Twelve percent of the sample reported actual suicide attempts, and of this group, about 70 percent reported having tried to do so before age 25. Also, 45 percent of those who had attempted suicide had done so more than once.
The US study concluded that "gay and bisexual males—particularly younger gay and bisexual males—constitute a high-risk group for attempted suicide." And the risk factor for gays and bisexuals is much higher than that for the general population, and that risk is higher at a younger age since coming out among adolescents and youth exposes them to greater social stigmatization and hostility than at a later age. Click here here for full article.
Like many other gay men, I have had a troubled relationship with organized religion. I grew up in a Buddhist family, attended Jesuit schools, and considered entering the seminary. Then for many years, I consciously divorced myself from religion of any kind. I chose the path of atheism. It is only in recent years that I returned to Christianity, and found a comfortable "place" in a gay-friendly local Episcopal church.
So when I saw this film on the shelves of a Blockbuster store, I hesitated. I hesitated not because I fear the subject matter per se, but because I feared the evocations of the past. I feared the haunting specter of guilt. It is a guilt born out of deception, deceit, and disparagement.
Like some gay men, I used religion to mask my insecurities, to hide my identity. Subconsciously, I rationalized Christ (or Buddha at other times in my life) loved me in spite of who I am, rather than for who I am. I found solace in religion, but in a deceptive, misleading way. It is only in recent years that I finally realized that God has always been within myself, and that his Grace is within my reach. And my gayness is a blessing, hardly a curse.
This film, "Save Me" (2007, 96 mins.), reminds me of my personal journey of finding God and His meaning in my life. Filmed in New Mexico, which lends itself to sweeping vistas of open spaces and skies--evoking thus God's omnipresence and omnipotence--"Save Me" pivots around the life of Mark (played admirably by Chad Allen, who is an openly gay actor), a sex and drug addict. His brother, at the end of his wits, checks Mark into a low-key Christian retreat run by Gayle (Judith Light) and Ted (Steven Lang). The retreat's sole mission is to use spiritual guidance to cure its residents of their "gay disease." Brainwashing is far from its means, and in that respect, its mission is no different from other similar Christian centers devoted to the same mission.
Mark, predictably, struggles to fit into the retreat's modus operandi. Along the way, he befriends Scott (Robert Gant of Queer as Folk series fame) and soon, their relationship blossoms. And soon enough, they both have to confront their true identities. And interestingly enough, so does Gayle.
What this movie does well is its balanced, even handed treatment of both the residents and their guardians. It takes a sympathetic look at both sides of the divide. It never seeks to demonize any one side. Instead, it seeks to find a possible reconciliation between homosexuality and Christianity.
For a low-budget, art house type of movie, this production, filmed entirely within just two weeks, is a winner. Anchored by subtle acting on the part of all the major characters, the movie is moving, without being mushy or sentimental.
Have you wondered if it is possible for a gay man to have a platonic, yet intimate, relationship with a straight man?
I think this is one of the central, though no means only, questions, raised in gay writer Edmund White's new--and perhaps, most successful--play, "Terra Haute." Loosely based on another equally well-known gay writer's--Gore Vidal--work, "Terra Haute" is currently running in New York City. Unlike the play, Vidal's prose work is a series of extended essays. In them, Vidal documents his emotionally charged correspondence with Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Vidal, however, denies that he was ever remotely attracted to McVeigh.
Similarly, but not exactly, "Terra Haute" centers around the relationship between an aging, financially comfortable, bisexual journalist and a young, poor, masculine, straight terrorist awaiting execution. What happens when two correspondents, after developing a paper-only relationship, finally meets and sees each other in the true light serves as the conflict of this play.
The drama pivots on the theme of "different types of loneliness," to quote White himself. Like many of his earlier novels such as the highly celebrated, coming-of-age tale, "A Boy's Own Story" and "The Married Man," this play explores "distances in male relationships ... created by differences in age, sexuality or expectations," to quote a New York Times article. White explains also: “I’d hope that thinking about them in terms of their intimacy can raise questions about how they relate to the world,” he said.
So is "Terra Haute" a gay play? Not so, says the playwright. For ultimately this is a play about the humanity of even the most cold or menacing people. The sexuality in the play is simply a vehicle to convey the humanity, the commonality that binds men and women, old and young, children and adults--all of us in this iridescent world.
In that respect, for me, both of the most recent blog entries, speak to the same undercurrents; We must search for the inner war that often breaks out within us. That war rages on, incessantly, and only we, as individuals, can harness its energies for a greater good.
Last night at my antiseptic Blockbuster store, I had to choose between the above movie starring sexy Daniel Craig or one entitled "Saving Grace" on the influence of fundamentalists in brainwashing gays. Needless to say, considering this was Saturday night, I chose the former.
Who would not want to see Craig in some undressed form? Have you seen him in the two latest James Bond flicks? Have you seen how he sizzles up the screen with his magnetism? And if you answers are no, where have you been? Ambling through the deserts of Africa?
Alright, back to the movie. Craig plays Joe Scott, a washed-up, self-centered, but still likeable, Hollywood actor, originally from England. The movie opens with scenes of him engaged in an orgy of paid sex, drugs, and other acts of hedonism. Then the camera, ever so "subtly," pans to show Craig in all his glories. So gay and women fans will have an eyeful.
But soon tragic news arrives from back home. A boyhood friend has died in tragic circumstances. And Joe soon takes a path down memory lane. He recalls the pains, loneliness, and dysfunctionalism of his youth. This second act of the film is its core. But here the movie, trying to cover much ground, and too many details in its characterization, falls apart, somewhat. While young Joe's (played ably by Harry Eden of Oliver Twist fame) liaisons with girls are fairly well developed. the same cannot be said about those with his platonic male friends. And that is a patent weakness of the flick. The dynamics of the relationships with the other boys explain in turn his tacit turn affairs with those girls.
The choice of the setting of this movie--a seaside community (actually somewhere in South Africa)--was brilliant. It afforded the director the ability to use all the tricks in the bag for his cinematography. Given the breathtaking vistas, there are lots of wide angle shots but also plenty of close ups of scenes that suggest, rather than explain. For example, at one point, young Joe is being seduced by an older woman. All we see for a few seconds is Joe's response, rather than the woman's advances.
The film ends with the third act, which is rather clumsily tacked onto the other two acts. Here we return to the present time. The adult Joe has to face his past. But much of this third act could have been further compressed, as some of its scenes--especially those pertaining to the secondary characters--seem so tangential to the development of the plot.
That said, I still enjoyed the movie. For gay men, this flick should remind us that our past, our family life, and the relationships we developed in those yesteryears, can either tragically or heroically, nurture our sense of self and our identity. We can never divorce the past from the present (or the future). Our lives and the choices we make are often entwined with those of others. That to me is what I took away from this film. And if all that did not work for you, consider Craig's rugged looks and admirable derriere as added incentives to spend that extravagant $2.99 plus tax (did you know Blockbuster just reduced rates?) to rent this movie per night. Enjoy the Youtube trailer below.
South Dakota Bans Sexual Discrimination
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Source: http://gay-rights-law.suite101.com
The North Dakota Senate passes a bill banning discrimination based on
sexual orientation and gender identity in...
Chicken Enchiladas
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I got this recipe from a recently published cookbook (Sam Zien's Sam the
Cooking Guy), but found it too heavy in its original make up. So here I
have ligh...
