The Saga Continues

So, it's been about a month and a half since we last checked in on the gay soap character front, and Luke Snyder, As The World Turns' gay teen character, in particular. Any soap fan knows that a month and a half on a soap can be filled with more action and drama than most real people's whole lives.

First up, let's all give a sarcastic thanks to General Hospital for truly going the traditional route with their gay character, shall we? They don't need to be modern or groud breaking over at GH, the classic route is good enough for them, damn it! They introduced a gay storyline just long enough to have the character come out and then get bashed, and then? Crickets began chirping.

Lucas Jones was seen so rarely in recent months that his portrayer, Ben Hogestyn, who'd never been elevated beyond recurring status, just signed a contract to play a (presumably straight) character over on Bold & the Beautiful. No word yet if GH will even bother recasting Lucas, but if I were you I wouldn't place any bets on the character ever being mentioned again.

Some good news, though, over on All My Children. The pioneering character of Bianca Montgomery (who, as I explained in my Gaytime TV post, was daytime's first gay character from a core family) is returning to the show this October, reportedly for a long term stay. The character hasn't been on the show regularly since 2005.

On the off chance you were wondering, no new gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters have been introduced in daytime since last we checked in.

With those updates noted, lets turn our attention back to Luke Snyder on As the World Turns. This storyline continues to impress me, even with some detours that do distract from the core of the story, which is Luke's sexuality.

When we last looked in on Luke, his mother had fallen into a coma after a tumble down the stairs and his biological father was pretending to accept him while secretly scheming to send him to a 'Scared Straight' camp and drive a wedge between Luke and his much more accepting father, Holden.

Well, Lily is still in that pesky coma (and Martha Byrne, her portrayer, is still on maternity leave), but last week was a big one for Luke. For weeks, Damian continued to manipulate Luke to keep him from reconnecting with his father and it worked right up until doctors performed a c-section on Lily to bring her and Holden's new baby son into the world.

The birth of the new baby brought Luke closer to his family than ever and he was on the verge of returning home when he found out 'by accident' that Damian was dying. Damian 'reluctantly' admitted that he'd just wanted to spend his last days getting to know his son and urged Luke to return to Malta with him.

Luke didn't want to leave his family, especially with his mother's life still hanging in the balance, but Damian was all alone in the world. How could he deny his last request? Van Hansis, Luke's portrayer, did an amazing job conveying both Luke's reluctance to leave and his belief that it was the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, as Luke's father, grandmother Lucinda, and cousin Lucy, all worked to prove that Damian wasn't really dying, the audience learned that a shady Mafioso type was forcing Damian to bring his son to Malta.

Now, none of this really has much to do with Luke being gay, so many people felt (and justifiably so) that the story had gone off track. I'd argue, though, that it continues to be a ground breaking daytime story. Why? Luke is still front and center. He hasn't vanished like Lucas Jones or all the other gay characters before him. He's not just hanging out to give advice to female friends.

A major storyline is revolving around him, and that's something you haven't seen for gay characters before now, with the exception of Bianca Montgomery. Not only is Luke front and center, but he's been made into a character that the audience truly cares about and roots for. A lot of that has to do with the vulnerability that Van Hansis brings to the role. You can't watch him as Luke without wanting to protect him from the bad guys. You just want this kid to find happiness and love. And that's what classic soap characters are all about, really. You're supposed to watch them week after week, year after year, and root for them. As the World Turns hasn't just created a gay character in Luke, they've created a classic soap character in the best sense of the term.

Luke hasn't forgotten that he's gay. He finally brought himself to tell his best friend/ secret crush Kevin that he "wasn't interested in girls" after Kevin asked him to go on a double date with Kevin & his girlfriend and a friend of hers. Unfortunately, Kevin took Luke's confession to mean that Luke preferred women over high school girls and Luke allowed himself to be talked into going on the date.

How many gay teens out there have felt forced into going on dates with the opposite sex, either to prove something to themselves or to their friends? This was an incredibly believable scenario that played out just like you'd imagine. Luke wanted to spend time with Kevin, but his crush wanted alone time with his own girlfriend and Luke was left alone with the other girl, who was coming on strong, and a bottle of Vodka.

Feeling frustrated and upset, Luke ended up ditching the girl and hitting the bottle, leading to an angry confrontation with Kevin that left Luke feeling more alone than ever and played a part in his decision to leave town with Damian.

Last week, things with Damian came to a sudden conclusion and the show once again shined while putting Luke's sexuality front and center. Damian, it turned out, needed Luke to sign some papers waiving his inheritance so that Damian could use it to pay off his own enemies. This all came out at the airport when Holden and his cousin Jack, who is a cop, showed up to stop Damian and his shady friend from leaving the country.

It all ended with a bit of gun play at the airport, followed by a phenomenal confrontation between Damian and Luke. I'm going to quote a few of my favorite lines from the episode, but I really cannot do them the justice they deserve. Just writing them on the screen doesn't convey the hurt, anger, and sadness that Van Hansis brought to the table as Luke in these scenes.

Luke finally realized the extent of Damian's lies: not only was his biological father not dying, he also didn't accept Luke being gay. This came out when an angry Damian lashed out at Holden, telling him that he wanted to get Luke away to undo the damage Holden had done, and that if he'd have raised Luke, the boy would have turned out to be a 'true man'.

After hearing this, Luke confronted Damian himself, using bitter sarcasm as he asked his biological father what he meant by a 'son to be proud of':

Luke: Because you accept me as is, right? So then it would have been cool for me to bring guys home, hang out, maybe even get into a long term relationship?

Damian: Or discover that's not how you want to live.

Luke: And start to like girls? Maybe date, get married, have kids, the right way?

Damian: Luke, you should have children.

Luke: And maybe I will. In case you didn't know, Damian, science has caught up to freaks like me.

As Damian prattled on about it taking a young man a long time to find out who he is, a light bulb went off in Luke's head and he realized that Damian was sounding an awful lot like Ross Kreeger, the director of the 'conversion' camp for gay teens. Putting two and two together, Luke realized that Damian had been behind the plan to send him to the camp, not Lily.

Damian admitted as much, and tried to tell Luke that he felt the camp was what his son needed. Luke summed up the camp's methods:

Luke: Deprogramming in a resort setting. Enjoy the Olympic sized pool while a staff of trained professionals messes with your head, tries to unscrew something that wasn't screwed up to begin with!

The airport confrontation ended with Luke signing over his inheritance to Damian and telling him that he's always been a Snyder and that's all he'll ever want to be. And so ends the Damian chapter of our story, at least for now. The show left it open for a Damian return somewhere down the road, and if that happens, I'd like to see Damian struggling to accept Luke. One thing was made clear through both the writing and the acting of the character by Paolo Seganti: Damian does love his son. He truly believed that he was trying to help Luke (other than that whole inheritance thing, of course, which he just viewed as an unfortunate necessity). I'd like to see Damian return someday, hopefully when Luke is in a relationship, and see him deal with the reality of who his son is.

Luke being gay was a big factor in the story when Damian first arrived, and it turned out to be a big factor in the story at the end, but the main body of the story revolved around Damian lying and manipulating Luke to keep him away from Holden and the Snyder family.

But, that's okay. As I said, Luke was front and center in the story, and that alone is a step forward. And of course, not EVERY story about Luke has to be about him being gay. However, we still have a long way to go. Now that Damian is out of the picture, it's time for the story to focus back on Luke himself. He still hasn't come out to very many people, and in particular he needs to come out to Kevin. Rumor has it that this is coming in the next few weeks, and I for one am sitting on the edge of my seat in true soap fan fashion!

No matter what happens with Luke outing himself to Kevin, the next step is a relationship for Luke. They don't necessarily have to rush into this right away (although it should be noted that they didn't hesitate to rush the straight teens on the show into relationships in the past year), but they need to begin to build up to it. If they're going to keep the momentum of this storyline going, it can't end with Luke coming out. They're not shying away from Luke being gay, and they're not sidelining him as a character, so dare we hope that they actually will take the next step? Will Luke find love?

as the world turns
van hansis
luke snyder

As The Closet Opens

Okay, it's been awhile since I've blogged, but that's life. Days go by and then weeks and finally months, and nary a word written, in spite of good intentions.

It has been over three months since my Gaytime TV post, and tonight I'm writing this as a follow up on the Luke-is-gay storyline over on As the World Turns. Don't bother asking what has happened with the other gay guy, Lucas on General Hospital. From what I understand, he's gone the traditional route for gay characters and faded away, except for when a female friend needs a confidant. Ugh!

But things have been different with Luke. He's remained front and center in the past few months, and the actor playing him (the very talented Van Hansis) was even signed to a three year contract.

When we last left Luke, his father Holden suspected he was gay and had been trying to get his son to be honest with him about it, all the while hoping he was wrong about his son's sexuality. Then, along came Jade, Luke's supposed long lost cousin who turned out to be a fraud and more or less blackmailed Luke into pretending to be sleeping with her.

So, long story short, the Luke/Jade deception went on for far too long before Luke finally had enough and, in a series of well written, beautifully acted, and very believable scenes, came out to his parents.

ATWT turned the more stereotypical parental reactions upside down. Father Holden, who, because of his suspicions, had more time to come to terms with the idea of Luke being gay, accepted Luke immediately and let him know that he was loved, no matter who he was, but mother Lily took the news very badly.

Completely unprepared for what her son was telling her, Lily ran the gauntlet of parent-in-denial reactions: Luke was too young to know for sure he was gay; Luke had had a very difficult year and was just confused. She also wondered what, exactly, she had done wrong as a mother.

In the weeks that followed, Lily continued to struggle with accepting her son, even consulting Dr. Bob Hughes about Luke's 'confusion'. The good doctor, however, merely advised that LILY see a counselor to help her deal with the news, rather than suggesting that Luke seek help.

Meanwhile Luke found allies elsewhere, such as his friend Will Munson. Luke came out to Will before he'd even told his parents, and though Will was shocked, he was there when Luke needed to talk and advised him to come out to his parents and end the deception with Jade.

Luke also found other strong allies within his own family, like his maternal grandmother, Lucinda, who didn't bat an eye when she found out the news from her daughter, informing the worrying Lily that Luke being gay was no more her 'fault' than his hair and eye color were her fault. Lucinda also pointed out to her daughter that it had taken a lot of courage for Luke to come out.

When asked by Luke why she wasn't upset, Lucinda responded with a question of her own: "Can I change it?" When Luke said no, Lucinda replied simply, "Then I accept it" before going on to tell him that she loved him just as he was.

Cousin Lucy was also very accepting, and Luke's coming out to her marked just how much Luke was beginning to feel more comfortable with his sexuality. Instead of a dramatic coming out conversation, Luke outed himself to his cousin a bit more directly one day a few weeks ago when they ran into his best friend/secret crush Kevin at the club.

When Lucy asked Luke if Kevin was a friend of his, Luke simply said "I used to love the guy." Lucy, much like their grandmother Lucinda, barely batted an eye before asking if their break up had been 'over-coffee-friendly or breaking-furniture-messy?'

Of course, Luke has yet to out himself to Kevin (who has been onscreen only twice in recent months as the story has moved away from Luke's crush on him to Luke coming out to his parents), let alone be in a relationship with him or anyone else.

I'm hopeful that ATWT will take the next step and move the storyline in the direction of Luke experiencing a relationship, either with Kevin or with someone else.

While it's admirable that the show has kept Luke's storyline front and center all year long and made the character of Luke someone that the audience roots for and can love, they are currently taking the story in a direction that has little to do with him finding himself as a gay man and more with the over the top reactions of his mother and biological father.

Which is not to say that there haven't been excellent moments, even within that storyline.

Luke's biological father, Damian, an Italian Mafioso type who had been in hiding from his enemies since Luke was a small child, returned to town unexpectedly, hoping to reunite with Luke and be a part of his life. Unlike Holden, Damian did not take the news that his son was gay very well. His immediate response was "My son would never be gay." He also immediately blamed Holden, believing that it was his failures as a father that resulted in Luke's 'confusion'.

Ah, yes, there's that macho, narrow minded, masculinity-threatened-by-a-gay-son, father figure that was missing from the story!

Only, Damian pretended to accept Luke to get on his good side while playing up Lily's doubts and fears as she continued to believe that Luke was 'just confused'.

Damian introduced Lily to Ross Kreeger, a man who's family foundation runs a special summer camp for 'confused teens' like Luke. Damian convinced Lily to let Luke meet with Ross, making her believe that the camp just helped kids sort out their confusion, figure out who they are.

Of course, in typical soap fashion, Lily waited until the camp director was alone in her house trying to convince Luke to come to his camp, before going to the library to look the camp up on the internet. Only then did she discover that the camp' s actual specialty was 'gender realignment', aka turning gay kids straight.

When Lily confronted Damian about his deception and heard his narrow minded views articulated for the first time, she realized how she herself must have been sounding to Luke since he'd come out and declared to Damian that she loves Luke as he is, gay or straight.

This being a soap opera, Lily realized this too late to prevent further drama. She rushed home and kicked Ross Kreeger out, but a terrified Luke refused to believe that it wasn't all a ploy to get him to go to the camp. When his mother tried to reach out to him, he knocked her hand away and sent her tumbling down the stairs and straight into a coma while the actress playing Lily (Martha Byrne) goes on maternity leave!

It's all a bit over the top, as any good soap is, but the scenes at the top of the stairs were all too believable because many children have been forced into such 'scared straight' camps and had their lives destroyed because their parents won't accept who they are and believe they can be changed. Watching the scenes of Luke and Kreeger, I could easily feel Luke's growing fear as he began to realize what was going on and to believe that his own mother was behind it.

Van Hansis completely shined in these scenes, making Luke's terror and his anguish very believable as he half-yelled, half-sobbed to his mother "He said you wanted to fix me!"

All in all, ATWT is still doing a wonderful job with this storyline. Hopefully, they're opening the eyes of viewers to the struggles gay teenagers go through and to the ridiculousness of the idea that any gay person can be 'cured' or 'fixed', or even that being gay is a choice someone makes. They're showing that gay people aren't some alien race, but rather the boy or girl next door, the kid you've watched grow up, the son of your favorite soap supercouple, Lily and Holden Snyder. And maybe, just maybe, your own child.

I'd like to see Luke come out to Kevin and begin a relationship at least as realistic as those of his straight contemporaries on the show, straight teens Maddie & Casey and straight teen newlyweds Will & Gwen. That's the next barrier that needs to be broken down. We've yet to see two gay male characters on daytime television have a realistic (or as realistic as any soap can be!) relationship or even kiss onscreen.

Hopefully that will come. For now, we're seeing Luke deal with his guilt and his sorrow over his role in his mother's fall down the stairs and subsequent coma. We're also seeing him fall more and more into the clutches of his biological father, since Luke is still clueless about Damian's role in the camp fiasco and Lily is too comatose to warn him. Damian is using Lily's fall to drive a wedge between Holden and Luke and seems convinced that, somehow with his help, Luke will eventually be the straight son he 'should' be.

We've seen some really wonderfully written, wonderfully acted scenes in recent months and I hope this continues. Even Damian, who I now love to hate, is being played by an actor (Paolo Seganti) who manages to show us Damian's love for his son, even as he tries to change him. Hopefully, Damian, like Lily finally, will come to realize that true love means accepting your child as they are, even if it's not who you expected them to be.

If you want to see some of the key moments for yourself, check out vanhansis.net. They have several videos from the storyline, including the coming out scenes.

as the world turns
van hansis
luke snyder

Family Tradition

I'm once again hurrying between classes, but I wanted to highlight this article from the Washington Post about gay and lesbian families planning to attend the traditional White House Easter Egg Roll this year. It's the perfect way to demonstrate to the Bush Administration and to America in general that gay and lesbian families are just as real and as loving as any other family in this country. An event like this should be representative of every sort of family in America. Hopefully, this will become an annual tradition for many gay and lesbian families.

washington post

The Watchers

I'm hurrying between classes at the moment, but check out this story about the Pentagon spying on gay groups who oppose Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Some Highlights

Well, Spring Break has come and come, and I'm finding myself back in the same old cycle where I never quite manage to find time to blog, no matter how much I mean to.

Well, that's not 100% true. I made time last weekend and I worked on a post for a few hours, but I just couldn't quite get it together, somehow. There was just something off about it. I'm far too much of a perfectionist and the result is that where some people can just jump on and blog frequently, I find myself putting in an unconscionable amount of time on each post. I've tried to break that habit and do quick posts, but it never works. Once I'm on and blogging, it becomes an event.

So, there are a few things I want to do tonight. One is a belated cry of joy at the resignation of Tom DeLay! I was doing a happy dance here when I first saw the news. How sweet it is! But, remember, he's really just the tip of the iceberg. It would be all too easy to rejoice at his downfall and forget that the culture of corruption is barely scathed by this. We've got a loooooong way to go. Still, it was a sweet, sweet moment, no?

Over at The Sharp Side, Ellis has an excellent piece on the character assassination in the British press of left wing figures George Galloway, Noam Chomsky, and the sort of left Simon Hughes, who is as left as they get when it comes to candidates running to head the center-left Liberal Democrat Party in the UK. Check it out. I'm ever fascinated by British politics.

I'd like to thank those who wrote in response to my last two posts. I appreciated those who took the time to let me know they liked what I had to say. It was a bit scary to out myself as a soap fan, given the stereotypes and, let's face it, the wretched state of the genre overall. To hear from a few fellow soap fans who want to see the shows start having real social value again was great.

Of course, I also had one e-mail complaining about me taking the time to watch soaps at all, let alone blog about them, when there is so much else going on in the world.

To that, I can only say that as far as watching soaps go, they're a form of escape. We can't all be on and tuned in to serious matters 24/7. We'd go insane if we didn't have our brief little avenues of respite. For me, those are books and soaps, the latter in moderation.

As for blogging about them, I think there's just as much social merit in discussing how soaps are dealing with a woman's right to choose and with gay and lesbian issues as there is in anything else. The writer of the e-mail used my own words from a previous post, in which I lamented my Aunt discussing Nick Lachey & Jessica Simpson's break up at Thanksgiving dinner as if it were 'news' to point out that I was 'pretty much doing the same thing'.

I disagree. I'm discussing soaps from the perspective of the left, examining how they're depicting our society. I'm not writing about the hook ups and break ups of the characters as if that in and of itself were news. If Luke Snyder is allowed to have a serious boyfriend on As The World Turns, I will blog about it, because it will be a groundbreaking moment in daytime. And I will be writing (in a future post) about the way women are depicted on many of these shows, and that will include some discussion of relationships as they pertain to that issue.

If you think that's a waste of your time, I won't be hurt if you don't read it.

There's more to say, but I've got class early in the morning and some reading to finish before I get some sleep.

I'm going away for the weekend to attend a family celebration, but my plan is to post again late Sunday night/early Monday morning.

Gaytime TV?

Great, so I come out as a soap fan and later that very same day I read a news article on a new study that declares that older women who watch soap operas are 7% more likely to show cognitive impairment!

More fuel to the fire of that myth that being a soap fan is a sign of a lack of intelligence. Soaps are no more or less likely to attract viewers of low intelligence than any other genre of television entertainment.

Many soap fans, myself included, are also avid readers. Many of us also pay attention to the world around us, know what's going on politically and culturally.

I'm sure there are just as many clueless soap fans as there are clueless sitcom or cop show fans. Just as there are decent, well written sitcoms and crappy sitcoms, there are also intelligently written soaps and soaps that only serve to insult the intelligence of soap fans.

I wonder how many of those studied were fans of Passions and Days of Our Lives, for instance? Because between you and me, the way those shows are written under James E. Reilly, the cognitively impaired stand about as much chance as the rest of us at following that mess.

At any rate, my task today is not to lament the latest public insult to soap fans, but rather to discuss what seems to be becoming the latest trend on daytime: gay characters.

Gay characters have become more common on prime time TV and in the movies in the past couple of decades, but if you're a fan of the daytime soaps, you know that it's taking them much longer to weave gay characters and storylines into their shows.

Now, I'm not an expert on every storyline every soap has ever done, so forgive me if I miss something (and feel free to write in and let me know if I have), but here is the history as I know it of gay characters on soaps:

Up until the 80's, there wasn't much gay related activities on Soaps. Back in the 70's, there were a few minor blips on the radar, both on Days of Our Lives. Neither was exactly a stellar moment in soap history. First, a minor female character made an advance on Julie Williams, the lead character on the show at that time, and Julie reacted with disgust, fleeing the scene. The character who made the advance on Julie was promptly dropped and no further mention was made of the incident. Later, Julie's young cousin Mike Horton briefly questioned his own sexuality, until sex with a woman made him put all doubts from his mind once and for all. The character has come and gone over the years, but has been resolutely heterosexual ever since.

The 80's brought daytime's first real gay character, and the pioneering soap was All My Children, which introduced Dr. Lynn Carson, a lesbian, in 1982. Lynn remained with the show for only a year, and never had a love interest.

It wasn't until the end of the decade that daytime's first gay male character appeared, over on As The World Turns. There, fashion designer Hank Elliot came out to friends and had an off camera boyfriend with AIDS. Hank also lasted only a year.

The 90's really weren't much better. One Life to Live featured a gay teen character, Billy Douglas, for about a year, starting in 1992. Like Hank and Lynn before him, Billy wasn't connected to any of the soap's core families and was easily written out once the storyline had run it's course. All My Children featured a gay teacher, Michael Delany, for a couple of years mid-decade, but there again the character was easily dropped after the initial "He's gay!" storyline ran its course.

It's worth noting, by the way, that the short lived late 90's soap The City featured daytime's first and so far only (post op) transexual character, Azure C. The character had a romance with a male character that was just heating up when they were dropped from the show and left town together.

In other words, the soaps seemed to think it daring to introduce glbt characters, make a big deal about their being gay, and then quietly drop them.

All that began to change, however, in 2000. That year, daytime got its first gay character that was connected to a core family, and not so easily dispensable. The great Agnes Nixon was lured out of retirement and back to All My Children, the show she'd created, and it was under her pen that Bianca Montgomery, daughter of the show's lead character Erica Kane, came out of the closet as a lesbian.

For the next five years, Bianca remained a main character on the show, and though the handling of her love life was mixed, especially after Nixon stepped down as headwriter, she was one half of daytime's first lesbian kiss.

Something else it seems to have done was set off a new trend on daytime. Gay characters are no longer just strangers passing through. They're now the sons and daughters of the shows established couples. At the current moment, though Bianca is no longer on All My Children, three other soaps have had young characters from core families come out of the closet.

While another soap, One Life to Live, went the more traditional route, even they used a connection to the soap's established families that would have been unheard of before Bianca Montgomery came out. OLTL featured a closeted gay politician who married one of the show's heroines to maintain his public image, while carrying on an affair with a gay college student in secret. Unfortunately, the character resorted to murder to keep his sexuality a secret.

But what I really want to focus on are the three current gay characters, all of whom have come out recently. On General Hospital, Lucas Jones is the son of long-time characters Tony and Bobbie, and the nephew of the famed Luke and Laura. On As the World Turns, Luke Snyder is the son of supercouple Holden and Lily. And over on Passions, Simone Russell is the younger daughter of TC and Eve, and daytime's first African American lesbian.

All three of these storylines obviously owe a debt of gratitude to Agnes Nixon and All My Children's Bianca. Nixon proved once again to have the courage to break new ground on soaps, and others are following in her wake, at least as far as writing gays and lesbians as part of soap families, rather than as outsiders goes.

Now, I have to warn you that I do not regularly watch General Hospital or Passions. I've made my opinions clear on the latter soap, and General Hospital is a soap that has become completely wrapped up in violent mob storylines, all centered around one Mafioso character. It's basically the Sonny Corinthos show and any and all other stories are secondary to that.

I do, however, watch As The World Turns. So, if you notice some bias (and you will!), you have been forewarned.

Let's start with Simone. She'd previously been written as a straight character, having minor romances with one or two guys over the years. Then, along came out lesbian Rae. For Simone, it was true love and she came out to her family, only to learn that the show's super villain, Alistair Crane, had hired Rae to 'turn' Simone gay. That's James E. Reilly's talent at work, folks.

But, more recently Rae has resurfaced with real feelings for Simone and the show actually featured some decent dialogue between the two about gay marriage and love, followed by some serious making out.

Passions is basically a cartoon, but I don't think I've ever heard of any other soap discussing gay marriage, so I do have to take my hat off to them there. What will happen with Simone in the future remains to be seen.

Over at General Hospital, Lucas Jones came out to his friends and family with little fuss or fanfare and practically no build up and was promptly accepted. He was also promptly gay bashed by a guy who pretended to be interested in him. Typical of General Hospital's violent nature to immediately take the gay storyline to a violent place. Lucas has talked of dating, but nothing has materialized yet.

If I sound down on this storyline, I have to say it's because it pales in comparison to the beautiful job they're doing over at As the World Turns.

Luke Snyder is a typical soap teen. By that I mean, he's only in high school and he's already been suspected of murder (he didn't do it), been kidnapped by Mexican organ harvesters (long story!) and had a kidney transplant. And that's just in the last year.

All of that aside, Luke is really just a typical teen. He likes to hang out with his best friend, Kevin. In fact, he likes it a lot.

The Luke-is-gay storyline started a couple of months back, when Holden caught his son giving Kevin a back rub. It was all perfectly innocent- Kevin had hurt himself playing basketball, and Luke was just lending a hand.

But Holden, and we viewers, could tell it was more than that, simply by the look on Luke's face. This boy was IN LOVE.

To As the World Turns' credit, this storyline has unfolded slowly. No immediate coming out and acceptance, no gay bashing. Luke is a teen struggling with his feelings, and Holden quickly became a dad who was struggling with questions and fears.

Holden's suspicions were deepened when he happened upon Luke's blog, in which the teen wrote that his family would hate him if they ever found out the truth about him. As Holden pressed his son to be honest with him, telling him there was nothing about Luke that could ever make his parents hate him, Luke came close to coming out, but always held back at the last moment.

At the same time, Holden took his concerns to his cousin, Jack, and confessed that he'd love Luke no matter what, but that he doesn't want his son to have to face the hatred and prejudice that gays have to face.

The writers and the actors- particularly Van Hansis as Luke and Jon Hensley as Holden- have done an amazing job with scenes like this, quiet, emotional scenes in which these characters struggle with fears and facing up to the truth, but never leave us doubting that there is love involved. Holden loves his son, no matter what. He doesn't want him to be gay (and what straight father does want that for a child, no matter how accepting they may come to be?), but he could never hate him for it. Luke doesn't see this yet, of course. He's a teenager who doesn't want to be different and is terrified that his family will reject him if they know the truth.

This is daytime drama at it's best. It's dealing with a serious, real life issue- coming out, for Luke; dealing with the realization that your child is gay, for Holden- in a way that both makes for good entertainment and drama and hopefully opens people's minds.

Of course, it's a soap. There are a few flies in the ointment. Holden doesn't want Kevin- who may or may not be straight, we have no real idea yet- around Luke. Holden sees Kevin as a bad influence, and he may not be wrong. Kevin is always trying to get kidney-transplanted Luke to drink with him. But there's also the underlying, irrational feeling Holden has that Kevin is responsible for Luke being gay, and Holden has more or less scared Kevin away from Luke.

And then, there's Jade. Luke's long lost cousin, who turns out to be nothing but a con artist and not really his cousin at all. At first, Jade was excellent for Luke. She quickly picked up on Luke's feelings for Kevin and was supportive. Luke came out to Jade in beautifully written scenes in which he spoke of the first moment he realized that he was in love with Kevin. I have to say that I've never seen anything like it on daytime before.

Jade was not only a supportive listener for Luke, she also pushed him to reveal his feelings to Kevin, to take a chance and see if he felt the same way.

But, in the past few days, things have not gone so smoothly. Soaps can often start out telling an excellent story and then get bogged down and lose their momentum. I hope that's not what's happening here, but I think it may be.

Jade has been exposed as a fraud, and she's now convinced (ie blackmailed) Luke into pretending that they're in love. Luke's mother Lily, who was on to Jade but still clueless about her son's sexuality, was set up to discover the two in bed together.

And that about brings up to speed on Luke's storyline so far. Luke is clearly struggling with what he's done, and I'm hoping that lying to his parents about being straight and in love with Jade will make Luke realize that he doesn't want to live a lie.

I'm also hoping that As The World Turns lives up to the potential it has shown so far with this storyline, that they keep Luke around as a character after the coming out storyline has wrapped up, that they even dare to give him a romance and a love life of his own, with Kevin or with someone else.

I think back to when I was a teen struggling with the realization that I was gay, and I wish that I had something like any of these storylines to watch. I would have felt much less alone and scared if I had been able to see the way that Luke looks at Kevin when he thinks no one is watching, or heard Luke's description of the moment he realized he was in love with his best friend.

Daytime has broken down many barriers over the years, and storylines like these seem to indicate that they could still do so, barring interference from network execs.

I have to point out, though, that Van Hansis, the actor playing Luke on ATWT, is currently on recurring status. For those who don't follow soaps, that means the actor is working without a contract. Typically, when new characters debut on a soap, the actors are given three year contracts. For instance, even the actress playing Jade, Luke's non-cousin, arrived on the show under contract.

So, why is this central character involved in a major storyline played by an actor on recurring status? Is it so the show can drop the character and storyline quickly if need be? Is that a network mandated decision? Jean Passanante, the headwriter of As The World Turns, is on record as saying that Luke will not be shipped off after he comes out, that he'll remain a fully integrated part of the cast. Great. So give Van Hansis a contract already!

Like any true soap fan, I'm invested in the character Luke and I don't want to see him fall victim to the traditional 'He's Gay! Now, he's gone!' soap storyline. It's about time that soaps showed that there is more to being gay than just coming out. It's time for soaps to give us long term gay characters who have real love lives and storylines. After all, a sizable portion of the viewing audience is made up of gays and lesbians. And no doubt there are many gay and lesbian teens out there watching Luke and Lucas and Simone and for the first time feeling like there is a representation of who they are on their TV screens. What message does it send if those characters then fade away after their coming out process is over?

Daytime has yet to feature a kiss between two male characters. Will As the World Turns be responsible for that milestone? Will General Hospital beat them to it? Or will both shows chicken out? Tune in tomorrow, folks.

as the world turns
days of our lives
passions
all my children
one life to live
soap operas

Like Sands Through The Hourglass.........

I'd like to start by thanking Martha, who wrote me with some kind thoughts about the member of my family who was in the hospital when I last blogged. I really appreciated that.

I'm glad to say that, while he is going through treatment at the moment, the prognosis looks excellent at this point. The cancer was caught early and hadn't spread, and the doctors seem certain that they got it all, and that this treatment will prevent it from recurring.

It's been a difficult time. As I noted in my last post, I lost a family member to cancer when I was young, and once you've had to live through that it's impossible not to fear the worst in the face of the same diagnosis for someone else.

But, things are looking very positive at this point, so I'm thinking good thoughts and leaving it at that.

I return to the blogging world today with a coming out of sorts. You all already know that I'm gay, of course. This, however, is something that I tend to keep in the closet. Not that many people know this about me. It's a guilty little secret.

Okay, I'll say it. My name is Seth, and I watch daytime Soap Operas.

There. I've said it. Perhaps it fits some sort of stereotype you have in mind of gay men. I had one e-mail referring to me as a 'lisping gay boy' because of the title of my blog (Seth in the City / Sex in the City. Get it?) and no doubt the author of that e-mail is saying to himself "I knew it!".

The number of gay men I know with a lisp? Zero. The number of gay men I know who watch soaps? Well, zero, unless they're in the closet about it, too! However, if you go to ANY soap chat room or message board online, you'll soon realize that gay men are a HUGE part of the soap audience.

Soaps have a bad rep, and more and more these days, it's probably one that is deserved. When people think of soaps, they tend to think of over the top, badly written and acted storylines, with people coming back from the dead every other day.

If you tune in to either of the NBC soaps, Days of Our Lives or Passions, you'll find these stereotypes confirmed. That's because they're both written (and in the case of Passions, created by) the same person, James E. Reilly. Reilly takes all that has ever been said in a negative fashion about daytime soaps and glories in it. He makes everything that gives soaps a bad name a reality on his shows: nonsensical, inconsistent storylines with characterizations that go out the window for the sake of a current plot; storylines that drag on for months on end with no real forward momentum and dialogue repeated day after day; characters who return from the dead at least once a year, in some cases; history that is re-written or ignored on a daily basis. It's all very cartoonish, to put it mildly.

Now, Days was the show that got me into soaps. Like many soap fans, I got hooked because a parent watched. My mother was a Days fan, and so was her mother. I can vividly recall scenes that had me on the edge of my seat when I was four or five years old. One of the best thing about soaps is that they never really end (unless of course they're cancelled) and you can follow characters for literally decades. I grew up with many of the characters on Days who are still on the show today, and in a world without James E. Reilly (or JERk as he's dubbed by longtime Days fans) I'd probably still be watching, still be invested in the characters. As it is, I'm just waiting for the day that he's shown the door and a new headwriter comes along. In the meantime, I've turned to the CBS soaps to get my soap fix on.

Soaps haven't always been this way. In fact, there have been many times where soaps have been incredibly socially relevant, and I think they still could/can be.

Back in the day, All My Children featured television's first legal abortion and took on the Vietnam War. One Life to Live featured television's first interracial couple. Traditionally, Soaps have not been afraid to take risks in telling stories, and they have been unique among all television genres in the ability to allow such stories to unfold day after day with all their repercussions explored.

But, that was then. Where is the social relevance today? None of the current soaps even mention the war, with the one hideous exception of Days of Our Lives, which turned the entire thing into a cartoonish plot involving the show's super villain capturing a character in 'the war zone' (the word Iraq was never actually mentioned) and holding him prisoner until other, non-military characters from the show hopped on a private jet and flew to 'the war zone' to save him. Huh?! Don't expect anything to make sense on Days. Meanwhile, none of the characters expressed any doubts about the war at a time when the rest of the country was talking about little else!

Part of the problem today is that all of these soaps are written by the same group of people over and over. It's all rather incestuous. Headwriters are fired from one show and promptly show up at another a short time later, recycling their own tired storylines over and over. The genre needs fresh blood in the writing department in a major way.

The real root of the problem, though, is network interference. Once upon a time, soaps were really the vision of the people writing them. Soap greats like Agnes Nixon (creator of All My Children & One Life to Live) and Douglas Marland were allowed to create a vision for a show and tell their stories. Today, the networks execs have a hand in just about every story that airs (and reportedly kill many more before they reach the air) and the ever falling ratings reflect the poor quality which results from this.

For instance, over at All My Children, the powers that be have decided to create an 'exciting' new storyline wherein it is discovered that Erica Kane, the show's lead character, has a long lost son. Okay, sure. Long lost relatives are a soap staple. In fact, just over a decade ago, Erica's long lost daughter was discovered! It must be a coincidence that the same woman, Megan McTavish, was head writer then and is back as head writer now, right? There's that environmental friendly plot recycling again!

But, that's not the worst of it. A decade ago, they explained the long lost daughter by making her the product of a rape when Erica was a teenager. They're explaining away the long lost son by undoing one of television's true milestones. According to this current storyline, the child that Erica believed she'd aborted back in television's first legal abortion is alive and well.

What the hell?! It seems the doctor simply removed the embryo and implanted it in his own wife. Fast forward three decades, and you've got a long lost son.

This is truly criminal. Not only are they messing with soap history, they're messing with television and cultural history as well.

It comes at a time when the legality of abortion itself is at risk, and because of that it couldn't be more irresponsible of whoever is making these decisions. Indeed, many are questioning whether or not the fact that ABC is owned by Disney has anything to do with this storyline. How much is the parent company's politics playing a part?

With a woman's right to chose in question, the soaps of old would be telling realistic stories about this very issue, touching on every angle. But don't hold your breath. Along with Erica's non-abortion, we only have Days of Our Lives giving us their take on the issue:

Last year on Days, the character of Mimi Lockhart found out she was expecting. Mimi was a young college student in a committed relationship with her boyfriend, Rex Brady. Rex and Mimi planned to marry and have a family some day, but Rex had made it clear that they weren't financially ready for that, since Mimi was still in college and Rex was employed as a bartender. The two lacked the trust funds that many soap characters seem to have, and for once the show seemed to be making a relevant point about not being able to afford having a family.

When Mimi found out she was expecting a child, she decided to have an abortion because of the very reasons listed above. Of course, this being a soap, she did so without ever telling Rex she was pregnant. After many months of hiding the truth, it of course came out and Mimi lost Rex because she hadn't been honest. The truly disgusting part, though, is that Mimi had to be suitably punished by the writers (and the network?) for having had an abortion.

Mimi soon found out that because of the abortion, she could no longer have children. Months of guilt and anguish on Mimi's part ensued, until finally she was visited by an apparition of the Virgin Mary and forgiven for her sin. The message? If you have an abortion, you'll lose your man and your ability to have children, but if you feel bad enough about it and repent, God will forgive you.

No, I am not kidding. This storyline unfolded in 2005, not 1955.

So, that's how soaps today are dealing with this issue at a time when it's very much an issue we should all be focusing on.

How much of this is the responsibility of hack-ish headwriters and how much of this is the network execs making 'creative' decisions?

Daytime soaps have been a slowly dying genre for the past decade, ratings wise, and decisions like this are going to continue to strangle the life out of the remaining shows. Soaps today seem unwilling to truly tackle any controversial social issue in a meaningful way, or take any real risks with storylines.

There could be some hope left, of course, and my next post is going to focus on the issue of gay characters on daytime soaps, an area where the shows seem to be slowly taking some steps forward.

days of our lives
passions
all my children
one life to live
soap operas

Dark Times

Things seem so dark sometimes. It's been a really rough time these last couple of weeks, both personally and on a larger scale. A family member who means a great deal to me is currently in the hospital, having been diagnosed with a serious illness. The outlook is said to be very, very good at this point, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still scared and worried. I watched another family member die from the same disease when I was nine years old and it's hard not to fear the worst after that.

Meanwhile, while I deal with that, I also have to deal with all the crap that everyone who cares about this country and it's future are dealing with, and the prospects there seem far worse sometimes. Watching Alito sail through his confirmation and take his seat on the Supreme Court was no picnic and the news about the latest hate crime against gays, this time in New Bedford, Massachusetts, scares and sickens me.

This world has never been an easy place to live, especially if you're gay, but sometimes you fool yourself into thinking that things are getting a lot better. And I suppose they are, on many levels. But the religious right mentality is what leads to hate like this, and it's that mentality that is in control of our entire Government at the moment. Waking up to that thought every morning makes me not want to get out of bed at all.

I wanted to be voicing my sadness, anger, and frustration here on the blog, but I've gone through a rather grim period of 'What's the point?'

I mean, what difference does me rambling on make? I'm just one voice, and a voice that isn't very frequent or consistent at that.

But, if nothing else, it's another voice letting the rest of the country and the world know that the Bush/Alito neo con narrow minded, hate filled mentality is not my mentality, not the mentality of the majority of this country.

Sometimes, we just have to do the best we can and get through each day snatching what hope we can from wherever we can.

Alito + Supreme Court = Nightmare Scenario Come True

I'm between classes at the moment, so I thought I'd grab the chance to do some blogging.

It's been a hectic new year already, as I'm trying once again to balance a full class load and working more hours than I probably should be. But, you don't want to hear that old story again!

I've been trying to grab spare moments here and there to catch some of the Alito hearings either online or, should I ever happen to be around a television set during the day (unlikely!), on C-Span.

From what little I've seen so far, it seems to be going as expected. By that I mean, the Republicans are lauding him for being the second coming (or so it always sounds when they're laying on the praise) and the Democrats are trying their hardest to get some real answers from the man and not succeeding.

Most chilling, I think, is the fact that Alito bragged in '85 (on a job application for the Reagan White House) about having belonged to the group Concerned Alumni of Princeton, though now he has come down with selective amnesia about the group and his membership in it. How convenient for him. Senator Kennedy had a poster made of a quote from the group's magazine, and this really says it all:

"People nowadays just don't seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns black and hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and hispanic, the physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports, and homosexuals are demanding that government vouchsafe them the right to bear children. And now... and now come women."

This is the sort of man they're trying to put on the court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. The Democrats and any even halfway moderate Republicans should be coming together to stop this from happening. They're literally holding the future of countless Americans in their hands and if they screw this up...

I don't even want to think about it. But suffice it to say, we'll all know who failed to stop this. The Democrats have been in danger of losing the left for a long time now, and if they let Alito receive confirmation without putting up a real fight, that could be the final straw for many of us.

I say filibuster the nomination. If the right then takes away the right to filibuster, at least the public knows that the Democrats put up a real fight. If they let this go to a vote without a filibuster, they've caved in yet again to the right.

On a completely different topic, I've been waiting impatiently for Brokeback Mountain to go into wider release so that I can finally see it. And at long last it's finally coming to a theatre near me tomorrow, so I'm greatly anticipating that. Hopefully I'll have time to see it this weekend.

I also have been told that I should watch the show Book Of Daniel on NBC. So I'm going to try and catch the show tomorrow night.

It has Christian Campbell in it, brother of Neve, and star of one of my favorite gay movies, Trick, so that alone is reason to try and catch the show, especially since he's playing a gay character in Book of Daniel as well.

Happy New Year

Well, it's 2006 at long last. A new year, a fresh start. One of my top resolutions this year is to blog more frequently than I managed to do in the final months of 2005.

2006 should be an exciting year. We'll start off with hearings over a contentious Supreme Court Nominee and we'll end up with Democrats having a real shot at taking back control of Congress in the mid term elections.

I hope everyone has had a good start to this brand new year. I spent most of the day working, but since it is a holiday, I got paid time and a half, so I do consider that a good start!

Tales from Holiday Retail

I'm home from a long day at work and soothing my tired mind and body by catching up with the online world.

Money is tight right now for me, and I'm taking advantage of winter break to work as many hours as they'll give me at the book store. Of course, the holiday season falls in the middle of all of this, and I'm sure we can all agree that no matter what holiday you celebrate, it tends to be somewhat expensive.

One thing I will say about this year, compared to my other years working in retail during the holidays, is that the people I've encountered so far have been pretty nice. It always feels so much better to help people when they've been decent to you. This time of year usually seems to bring out all the frustrated, cranky, and rude people (quite often non-readers shopping for readers) who avoid social interaction the rest of the year. But so far this year the pleasant people outnumber the jerks, and on behalf of all my fellow employees, I thank all of you who are nice to those of us who are truly doing our best to get you what you're looking for.

The best thing about working in a bookstore is that most of the customers are readers, though I do work at one of those chains that also carry DVDs and CDs, so that's not always a guarantee. But when you're dealing with someone who is a reader, no matter what they read, there is usually a common bond between you on some level, and I love that. I don't think people who work in other forms of retail get that very often.

The holiday I celebrate is Christmas, and I'd like to take this moment to ask Santa to leave Jake Gyllenhaal under my tree this year, wearing nothing but a big red bow and that Santa hat from Jarhead.

About a month ago, I had a birthday. My friends all wanted to take me to see a movie, and their original plan was to take me to see Elizabethtown. It's time to confess an embarrassing secret. I used to like Orlando Bloom waaay too much. What can I say? I really like guys with British accents and he totally did it for me in Pirates of the Caribbean. But that's the only thing he's ever done that hasn't sucked, in my opinion. Now, don't be bombarding me with e-mails, all you Lord of the Rings fans. Those movies just aren't my cup of tea. I think they present a really ridiculous good vs evil, black or white, overly simplistic picture of the world. It's far too easy to watch those movies and hear Bush saying "You're either with us or against us." That's the kind of mindset those movies embody for me.

Anyway, back to my embarrassing crush on Orlando Bloom. So, my friends all know that he was my guy not so long ago and were set on taking me to see Elizabethtown. The last Orlando movie I bothered to actually see was Troy, which pissed me off because it eliminated the part of the story where Achilles goes mad over his LOVER'S death by changing Patroclus into his cousin. Please!

My waning affection for pretty boy Orlando and the dismal reviews for his latest film lead to me suggesting we pick a different movie, and we ended up going to see Jarhead. Jake Gyllenhaal is one of those guys who can be either really hot or kind of scary looking (he did nothing for me in The Good Girl, for instance), but lately he's been looking oh so fine. I really love the hairy chest and he's got one of the hottest treasure trails I've ever seen.

Jarhead was an okay film. For entertainment value, it didn't do all that much for me, other than giving me a chance to ogle Jake. But I did think it dealt very well with a lot of the harsh realities of a soldier's life, especially after they've been to war and more or less tossed aside (I'm talking about the flashback to Jake's father, a Vietnam vet, and the end of the movie itself).

I really can't wait to see Brokeback Mountain, speaking of Jake. My only concern is that they won't come near to doing justice to the short story, which is truly beautiful. It's about time, though, that Hollywood presented a gay love story between two men who are the idealized version of 'manhood' (ie cowboys) and just happen to be gay. They're still so stuck on the accepted stereotypes of gay men for the most part.

Anyway, I guess that's all for tonight. I just wanted to write because I've been a very bad blogger so far. I freely admit this and hope to do better.

Mea Culpa

Okay, okay. I seriously misjudged the amount of time I'd have free on a holiday weekend. And the week since has been what is affectionately termed 'Dead Week' here on campus.

Now, I hear these wild tales that some colleges actually give students the week off from classes to study in the week before finals, hence the name 'Dead' week. Here, though, it's called Dead week because you're dealing with looming finals on top of classes and many Profs think it a dandy time to have projects or papers due.

Finals week starts tomorrow, but I think for me this term Dead Week was actually much worse, so I can actually start to breathe a bit easier. Once my finals are behind me, I'll have a month of 'freedom', at least from classes.

Anyway! I've got a stack of things I've been jotting down to blog about for over a month now. Most of it is already hopelessly outdated, so I'm going to just start fresh.

I hope those of you who live in the United States had a pleasant Thanksgiving. I know dealing with family can be less than fun a lot of the time for most people. One of my favorite holiday films is Home For the Holidays. If you haven't seen this movie, you really should. It's very funny.

Still, I did enjoy seeing most of my family this year. I did have to refrain from throwing a turkey leg at one of my Aunts, though. This particular Aunt is a 36 year old single mother to a nearly five year old daughter. You'd think she'd have a lot of important things on her mind. But what was her main topic of conversation at dinner? The split between Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey!

I wish I were kidding, especially given the fact that most of the people at dinner had no idea who she was even talking about.

Don't get me wrong. Celebrity gossip can be fun at times. It has its place. And I don't mind saying that I wouldn't say no to a few sweaty hours of alone time with Nick Lachey should the opportunity present itself, though I'd hate myself the next day!

But this was clearly the topic that was of most interest to my Aunt and it depressed the hell out of me to see someone so given over to the inanities of pop culture (if you can even call Nick & Jessica that) and so blinded to anything that really mattered.

One such thing is the proposed splitting up of the Ninth Circuit court. I live in one of the states that will be most effected if such a thing occurs, and it's truly a scary thought. Yet if I'd raised the issue at dinner (and really, why didn't I? That's a failing on my part that I must own), I'm probably not wrong in thinking that no one would have had any idea it was being planned.

Bernie Sanders, the man who should and hopefully will be Senator Elect Sanders at this time next year, had some very important things to say on this topic in his recent interview with The Progressive.

Like with many issues, I seem to be one of the all too few around me who understands that what is happening in politics isn't just some distant sideshow you can tune in and out of and that has no bearing on your life. The Simpson/Lachey breakup would be what falls under that category.

Most people do just want to tune out, like my friend Andie who always proclaims "I don't want to talk about anything negative today!" While they're tuning out, things are getting worse. Maybe being a gay man lends me a more attuned awareness of how it all matters? If straight people had to watch the political climate to see if they could marry or not, maybe they'd pay more attention to Washington DC and less attention to the The Newlyweds?

No, that's not fair. And it's also not accurate. I've been gay all my life, but I used to be just as oblivious as others are. And Andie is a lesbian who just doesn't want to think about serious matters.

I guess I just had the good fortune to make a friend or two who were able to help me open my eyes to what was going on.

And maybe that's what we all need to do. Next time you're talking with a friend or sitting across from an Aunt at Thanksgiving dinner, listen politely to their in depth discussion of the current murder case du jour or the celebrity break up of the week, and then respond by going just as in depth on something that REALLY matters.

I'll have to keep that in mind for Christmas dinner.

E-Mails

Turning to the old e-mail inbox, I have two or three e-mails lamenting my naivete when it comes to electoral politics.

One, from Rose, wonders the following: "Do you really think that you can just urge people to kick certain politicians out of office and it's that easy? Hello, the system isn't controlled by the voters (and never was), it's controlled by MONEY. No candidate can gain enough voter recognition to get the vote unless they've got massive amounts of money, which means they're already tied to special interests and not working for those who vote for them. Until that changes, nothing in D.C. will change in the least."

Rose makes an excellent point, of course. To effect real wide scale change, we do need to see some serious, no-loop-hole electoral reform legislation pass, something that does take the money out of politics. There are many ideas out there that have been espoused for years by progressives, such as providing free air time to each candidate and having public funding of elections, that would be a huge step towards leveling the playing field and getting more people into office who actually care about public service.

But while Rose and others who wrote are right in what they say, it does come down to the voters in the end. If enough of us turn out and vote against someone, they're not going to be holding office. If enough progressive minded people got together and organized behind a candidate, be they Democrat, or Green or whatever, who was more progressive than the Incumbent, they'd stand a real chance of electing that candidate. And even if they didn't actually succeed in electing them, they'd still be demonstrating to the Democratic party that they're going to be facing serious challenges from the left if they don't quite moving away from their base.

We won't get serious reform of the corrupted electoral system until we send more serious reformers to Congress. Maybe if more of us got out and did something besides just voting (which is obviously very important in and of itself!), we could help get alternative candidates elected in both primaries and general elections. Volunteer for a Green candidate or a truly progressive Democrat, help them raise their visibility and get their ideas out there in a system that is indeed stacked against them from the beginning.

It's easier on a local level, of course, and it's equally important that we fill state and local offices with progressive candidates. But, naive or not, I do truly believe that we can bring about change if we work hard enough. We can start the ball rolling.

Nose_in_a_Book (love the name!) writes to ask what I've been reading since the last time I mentioned what I was reading. Well, just as I've had so little time to blog lately, I've also had less time than I'd like to read. Bearing that in mind, the books that are currently stacked up on my bedside table in the process of being read are Nicholson Baker's A Box Of Matches; Bernard Malamud's A New Life; David Lodge's Small World; and David Leavitt's The Body of Jonah Boyd. Then, of course, there are various anthologies and collections (short story anthologies such as several volumes of The Best American Short Stories series & the Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories; essay collections like Gore Vidal's United States) that I'm always slowly working my way through and enjoying, one story or essay at a time.

And of course, my stack of magazines. I subscribe to several weekly, monthly, and quarterly magazines and I'm always doing my best (and often failing!) to keep up with them in addition to everything else.

I have an e-mail from a reader wondering which of the TV reviews on Third Estate Sunday Review is my very favorite. That's a tough question, because each weekend those reviews are truly the highlight of my Sunday morning. I'm going to have to be honest and say that my favorite is whichever one I'm reading on any given Sunday morning, and last weekend's review of Freddie was no exception!

I laughed so hard while reading it, and I recognized so much truth amid the humor. This one especially rang true, because Freddie Prinze Jr was totally the sort of blandly sexy, safe crush I used to have a few years back! Of course, for me he was even then always overshadowed by others. I mean, you can't watch I Know What You Did Last Summer and come away with any other male image in mind besides Ryan Phillippe's locker room shower/towel scene!

Speaking of Ryan, my ultimate crush of days gone by, I recently saw the movie Crash. I have to tell you, I was seriously impressed with the film itself, and with most of the performances. It's one of those all too rare films that really makes you think, and not just for a few minutes after the film ends. I think it's one of the best films dealing with the realities of racism in this country that I've ever seen. So if you haven't seen it, you should really think about renting it.

With that said, Ryan Philippe looked oh so pretty as always, and I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't still gladly take him to bed for a meaningless fling. But as usual, his performance was all surface. It just stood out more in a film where he was working with some truly talented actors, and which called for some real depth on his part.

Maybe one of these days, Ryan will end up trying to salvage his career with a TV show. Maybe he could even go back to his roots, having once played a gay teen character on the soap One Life to Live. Ryan's performances, based so much on looking hot while he fails to emote, are a staple of daytime TV these days. Someone should do him a favor and slip him the casting director's number at Passions.

Opposition Required

It's really not my intention to only post once a week. It's just worked out that way lately. I've had mid term exams, work, and the death of a pet to deal with in the past week.

And then, on top of all that, the nomination of Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. I expected a far right Conservative (and, honestly, I think that's what Miers was, too). This one comes with a long paper trail demonstrating his far right Judicial activism, which should make it easier for the Democrats to filibuster the nomination.

Of course, that could lead to the elimination of the filibuster, since the infamous 'Gang of 14' is said to be splintering. What a shock that the Republicans who agreed to that deal (that they would vote to protect the filibuster if the Democratic Senators would agree to only filibuster 'extreme' nominees) would break it the minute the issue arises!

The message the public is getting is that Congress will only be an independent branch of the Government when it suits the Religious Right. At least it's a message that's coming through loud and clear, and one that can only benefit the left in 2006.

One of the things that bothers me the most about the nomination of Alito, aside from the obvious, is that Bush would be cutting the number of women serving on the court in half. Do we really need another white male on the court? The answer to that is a resounding NO.

A picture from a few years back comes to mind. Remember when Congress passed that bill banning so called Partial Birth abortions, and the picture was of Bush, surrounded by a group of other white men, signing the bill into law as they all smiled?

Make one of the men African American and slap on some Judicial Robes, and you could have the future slim majority of five on the Roberts court as they take away a woman's right to choose.

The Democrats may be fighting a losing battle, but even if they are they've got to fight it. They can't back down from using the filibuster on Alito. If nothing else, it sends the strong message that the Democrats WILL be an Opposition Party. They may even be able to cobble together enough votes from some of those seven Republicans from the 'Gang of 14' or other more moderate Republicans to actually save the filibuster and keep Alito off the Supreme Court at the same time.

We'll never know unless they try.

The Senate Dems showed some backbone yesterday, surprisingly, by forcing the Senate into a closed session to discuss the lack of follow through by the Republicans on an investigation into the pre-War intelligence and the Bush Administration's possible manipulation of it. Let's hope they continue that trend of standing up and making themselves heard with Alito.

They also need to start an investigation immediately into the revelations today that the CIA is running a secret prison system for terror suspects in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and Thailand. We've seen what the Bush administration allows to happen to prisoners in non-secret prisons like Abu Ghraib. My blood runs cold at the thought of what the CIA are getting up to in the secret ones.

I'd say 'That's not America', but the sad fact is that it IS America these days, and we've got to put a stop to that.

I've got to work tonight. I have some e-mails to respond to, which I may write about after work tonight, but if I don't get to it then, I will tomorrow.

A Week of Milestones

Man, I take a week 'off', and look at all that happens. Indictments are about to be handed out, Miers is pulled as the nominee to replace O'Connor, and the death toll of American troops in Iraq passes 2,000.

Speaking of which, I attended one of the many candlelight vigils held all over the country yesterday for the 2,000 Americans (not to mention the countless Iraqis) who have died in Bush's illegal war, and I have to say that it was a truly moving event. The thought of so many people, most of them already victims of this country's poverty epidemic and of what passes for an educational system here, losing their lives so that big business could get their hands on Iraq was devastating to all of us as we stood in the cold with our candles.

One woman standing near me was the mother of one of those lost soldiers, and her determination to see that this war is brought to an immediate end and that those who lied to us to force us into war are brought to justice was truly inspiring.

We're starting to see a glimmer at the end of that tunnel, I think. The Plame case is highlighting for everyone the lengths that this Administration went to get the all out war on Iraq that they wanted.

Now the Democrats need to wake up and realize that continuing to support this war will not do them any good. With so many now opposed to the war, I really wonder what it's going to take to wake them up to this reality. What are they waiting for, a time when the polls show 100% are against it?

It's yet another failure of the Democratic party to LEAD on anything. That's largely why we ended up in this mess in the first place, but they don't seem to have learned any lessons.

Which is why I was loudly cheering Cindy Sheehan this week when she called on us all to oppose Hillary Clinton in 2008 if she continues to support the war. That needs to be our stance with all candidates for high office, both next year in the Mid Term elections and in 2008. If they're not in support of bringing our troops home now, they don't get our votes. It's as simple as that.

John Kerry, meanwhile, is finally starting to get the idea, as he called for the withdrawl of 20,000 troops in December after Iraqi elections. Bit late, John, and way too short of the necessary total withdrawl. But at least you're starting down the right path, at long last.

It's sad that a Senator calling for a reduction is such a big new story, though. We should be hearing multiple Senators (and Members of the House, and Governors, and State officials), not just a precious few, joining in the chorus of the American people calling for immediate and total withdrawl. We need to make these people realize that they serve at our pleasure and we'll be holding them accountable on election day.

Well, Harriet Miers is no longer a Nominee for the Supreme Court. Clearly, the next step is for Bush to nominate a hardcore Conservative with a paper trail to prove it and please the people he really works for, the Religious Right. The upside is that the Democrats are pledged to filibuster any extreme nominees, so this could work in our favor. But anything that depends on Senate Democrats is a big if in my book.

Still, I firmly believe that Miers was just as much a hardcore conservative as John Roberts is and as whoever Bush nominates next will be. So we're not losing, as some are suggesting, a moderate nominee in favor of a Conservative one.

No matter how you look at this, it's a huge blow for the Bush White House. They're falling victim to the curse of the Second Term, and I couldn't be happier. By pulling this nomination, he's made himself look like the weak, lame duck President he's becoming, and he's also highlighting his indentured servitude to the Religious Right. After this, there can be no question in the minds of Americans who Bush's masters really are.

Call me optimistic, but I think all of this is going to work in our favor in a major way in 2006 and 2008. Even in the short term, it means we'll have O'Connor on the Court for the next few months at the very least, so the precarious balance there will be maintained.

And if you're still worried about what's going to happen with the Supreme Court (and who isn't?), you should read this Howard Zinn article in the new issue of The Progressive. Zinn reminds us that we shouldn't be looking to the Court (or Congress, or the White House) as the source of justice or for our basic rights.

Here's an excerpt, but you really should read the whole thing:

"The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than twelve hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance.

.................

The right of a woman to an abortion did not depend on the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. It was won before that decision, all over the country, by grassroots agitation that forced states to recognize the right. If the American people, who by a great majority favor that right, insist on it, act on it, no Supreme Court decision can take it away.

The rights of working people, of women, of black people have not depended on decisions of the courts. Like the other branches of the political system, the courts have recognized these rights only after citizens have engaged in direct action powerful enough to win these rights for themselves."

Zinn is right, and we all need to be reminded that the real power for change comes from us and no one else. The people of the United States have forced every single change for the better that has occurred in this country's history. Nothing was handed to us by Courts or Congress, and nothing ever will be.

Zinn's faith in the people to stand up for what matters is one I share, especially after attending that vigil last night.

Certainly the death this week of Civil Rights pioneer Rosa Parks should be a striking reminder to us all of what one person can accomplish. But Rosa Parks wasn't alone in her determination to bring about change, and neither are we.

Harry & Harriet, Sittin' in a Tree.....

Things are a bit less hectic now, so hopefully I should be posting more regularly than I did this past week.

Where to start? With Miers, of course.

Seems that back in 1989, Harriet Miers supported a ban on all abortions except when the mother's life was in danger.

No one should really be surprised at this news. Bush was never going to nominate a moderate or anyone willing to put their personal beliefs aside in favor of the rule of law.

So now the far righters can breathe a sigh of relief and rush to confirm. And what of the Democrats? We've got a Minority Leader in the Senate who praised Miers the moment she was nominated and in fact bragged that he recommended her to Bush. How much of a fight are they going to put up now?

I say we should flood the Minority Leader's office with calls, letters and e-mails demanding his resignation as the leader of the Senate Democrats for his support of Miers. Reid himself is anti-choice and he seems to have made sure he recommended someone to Bush who held the same beliefs.

The danger with Miers is that all we really have to go on are her personal views. She hasn't ever been a Judge, so we have no way of knowing how she'll let those personal views affect her rulings. But given the views she has and the crowd she hangs around with, we can assume the worst.

We can assume that she'll help set back the clock on a woman's right to choose, on gay rights, and on civil rights in general. We can assume that she'll be a great friend to big business over individual citizens, and a supporter of the tyranny of the Administration she's served over all of our civil liberties.

And we can assume she'll do all this not based on a fair assessment of the law, but on political and ideological reasoning. That sort of Judicial activism has no place on any of our courts, let alone the highest one.

I'd have no problem with Miers or anyone who is personally anti-choice being appointed to the Supreme Court if they had a record that demonstrated that they put the law above personal ideology. No one should be blocked from any job based on personal views. But they should be blocked when they're going to make all decisions based on those views and nothing else.

These aren't abstract issues. These are people's very lives at stake. How many women will die from botched back alley abortions if these neo cons get their way?

This is my very life at stake. Forget for just a moment about the rights I should have but don't yet like the right to marry the person I love someday, or adopt a child anywhere in the country. My very right to have sex with another guy in my own bedroom could be taken away. It was only just officially guaranteed a couple of years ago, remember. My right not to be fired from a job (or to be hired at all) because of my sexuality could be taken away.

These are issues that matter to millions of real people in this country, and the Senate Democrats seem to be doing nothing about it. They need to oppose and filibuster Miers and any other nominee who either can't demonstrate they won't be an extremist on the court of has already demonstrated they will be.

I know how we got stuck with this gang of incompetent thugs in the White House. Some old fashioned electoral fraud (not once, but twice!) took care of that. But how did a putz like Harry Reid end up as the leader of the left in the Senate?

Oh, yeah! Duh. I forgot. The 'left' is more than just the minority in the Senate (and the House, for that matter). They're in the minority of the minority!

Most of the Democrats in Congress are Centrists like Hillary Clinton. Many aren't even really of the left at all. Look at Joe Lieberman. Look at that old homophobe, Robert Byrd!

With Democrats like them serving, it's no wonder they chose a guy like Harry Reid to be their leader.

They're are probably about 15 Democrats in the Senate who can be relied upon most of the time to be reasonably liberal, maybe 20 if we really stretch our definition. Even those 15-20 disappoint more often than not. In the House, there are probably 30-40.

This is a sorry state of affairs. Why do we let these men & women get elected time and again? We need to send a message next year and send some truly progressive people to Washington to start kicking some ass!

Look, the current Supreme Court is a very aged group. Chances are, Bush could nominated 1 or 2 more Justices. Hopefully, if that happens, it'll be AFTER the mid term elections. We'll have had another chance to change the make up of the Senate and put people in there who will really oppose far right nominees, to the point of stopping them from being confirmed.

Let's take a serious look at the 2006 Senate races and see what we can do. And that doesn't mean supporting Democrats and opposing Republicans. It means supporting progressive candidates and opposing Center/Right candidates, no matter their party.

Kick Joe Lieberman out of office in Connecticut. Kick Bill Nelson out of office in Florida and Ben Nelson out of office in Nebraska. And for God's sake, let's not give Robert Byrd another term! I don't oppose any candidate based on their age or the amount of time they've already served. If they're doing a good job, let them keep doing it. But Byrd, though he may have scored some points by speaking out against the Iraq war, is a homophobic relic. So let's kick him out.

We need to replace Republicans with liberals, but we also need to replace many Democrats with liberals. If we just keep sending back the same people, or their ideological clones, we're the ones who are enabling all this.

I wanted to talk about several things tonight, but I guess I climbed up on my soap box and now it's getting late.


Still Here

Hello again. I've done something incredibly foolish. I agreed to take on 'extra' hours at work several nights this week. The problem with that, of course, is that those hours aren't really 'extra' for me. I usually spend them doing my reading for classes and my blogging.

So why, then, did I agree to do this? I have this natural inability to say no when asked for a favor. It seriously gets me into all kinds of irritating situations. Example: last Spring Break, instead of enjoying the week off by doing something fun, I agreed to house & pet sit for some friends who were going out of state for the week.

Which lead to a truly miserable week of sitting around their house watching DVDs and staring out the windows at the rain, bored to tears.

But did I learn from that? Hell no. When my boss came up to me at work this weekend and asked if I had any 'extra' hours, my reply should have been "Other than those five or six I waste sleeping every night? No."

Instead, I found myself saying yes and giving up prime study hours.

All of which is by way of explanation for the lack of posts so far this week. I did write a lengthy post on Saturday, however. The reason you never read it was that it ceased to exist somehow or other before it was completely finished.

At any rate, tonight isn't one of the nights I'm working, so I'm sacrificing some study time to blog so no one thinks I've run off with some campus stud for a life of passionate sex that leaves no time for blogging.

I do have a few e-mails to answer. There were a few asking where I was, so that's been covered. I had a question from Book_Fanatic asking me if I'm reading anything good lately. Great question. I'm of course swamped right now in class reading, so that doesn't leave a lot of time for personal reading. And of course, I tend to be scattered between several books at once anyway. But, yeah, I'm reading a few interesting things. I tend to read more fiction for fun while classes are in session and more non-fiction during Summer break or times when I don't have a ton of non-fiction I'm already reading for classes.

I just picked up Senator Boxer's new novel, A Time to Run. I'm a fan of the Senator from California. I can't pretend that I'm discovering any great literary talent (she has a co-author, as many famous people tend to when they try their hand at writing), but the story is interesting and reveals a fascinating insider's look at politics. The basic outline of the plot is that a liberal female Senator from California is handed documents at the last minute that could derail the all but certain confirmation of a far right Latina law professor who has been nominated to the Supreme Court.

I'm also reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which is basically a reflection on the grieving process, written a year after the sudden death of her husband John Gregory Dunne. It's proving to be an interesting, if sad, read. Anyone who's ever suffered a personal loss will find a lot to relate to. Didion really impresses me with her amazing ability to take whatever is happening to her or in the world around her and relate to it through the written word.

I'm also about to start Barbara Ehrenreich's newest, Bait and Switch. Nickel & Dimed was incredible and I have high hopes for this one, which is actually more in line with my own situation, since I'm currently in college and in massive debt to pay for these classes I'm knocking myself out to pass!

What else? I swear there are at least ten more books I've started and am in the process of reading. Oh, one is In Maremma, by David Leavitt and his partner Mark Mitchell. Leavitt writes short stories and novels that I strongly recommend everyone read. They're among my favorite books overall, and certainly among my favorite when it comes to gay fiction. I love the short stories best, but the novels are very good, too.

Anyway, this one is non-fiction that the two wrote together about their experience buying a run down farm house in Italy (in the unfashionable part of Southern Tuscany) and making it into their home.

God, I'd love to do that! Not necessarily in Italy (thought not necessarily not in Italy!), but it would be really amazing to find some place in the world that you truly love and make a home there with the person you love.

Okay, you got me. I'm a romantic at heart, in spite of all the lusting after hot guys I constantly do.

Speaking of which, I also had an e-mail from Nigel wondering, since I'd joined Rebecca in expressing our mutual lust for Paul Walker, if there were any guys in politics I thought were hot. (By the way, Rebecca has several new picture posts up of other lustworthy celebs up, so check those out!)

That's a tough question, Nigel, given that most of the guys in politics aren't exactly matinee idols. It may just be that I'm trying too hard at the moment to think of someone, but the truth is I could only come up with one person in politics that I'd actually want to go to bed with and that's San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

I can't think of anyone in the House off the top of my head that I'd find sexy. Over in the Senate, the pickings are mighty slim. Senator Kerry is a very attractive man, but I can't say I'd ever consider him to be sexy. Senator Obama is just too skinny for me, somehow. Senator Feingold isn't too bad.

But, really, I just don't see myself adding any of them to any top ten lists any time soon. Everyone feel free to share your own political pin ups, if you've got 'em, and I'll try and think of others.

Enter Miers, Stage Right

The master of low expectations has struck again. Today Bush nominated his close friend and confidant, White House Counsel Harriet Miers, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

What do I mean about the master of low expectations? Bush drove all our expectations down last July when he nominated yet another white male to replace the first female Justice ever to serve on the court, thereby cutting the number of women serving in half.

This time around, I'm sure many people are so relieved that it's at least a woman nominated to replace O'Connor that they already see this nomination in a more positive light than they did the Roberts nomination. Even I was relieved in the first moment of reaction to see that another woman had been nominated, regardless of her views. Two is certainly a bare minimum of female Justices, a number the court should never again go below.

But, truly, we're seeing the Bush team in action here again. Make sure the people expect nothing and then, when you give them the tiniest fraction more than nothing, they think it's a victory. They've been doing this since before the 2000 election and it's worked wonders for them most of the time, I'm sorry to say.

It already sounds like certain Senate Democrats are lining up to confirm Miers. It was reported today that Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader, 'likes' Miers and in fact had recommended her to Bush as a candidate to replace O'Connor.

Of course, Harry Reid is hardly who I'd look to for advice on a good Supreme Court nominee. He's an anti-choice centrist.

John Roberts had a record that he deflected with personal charm while refusing to answer most questions. Harriet Miers has never served in a Judicial capacity and probably has a lot less of a paper trail to indicate her positions on crucial issues.

Stories have already come out saying the Conservatives are angry at Bush for picking Miers, saying her views are unknown and she could be pro-abortion or pro-any other of the right's bogeyman issues. Of course, Conservatives were going to be angry if Bush picked anyone even a fraction to the left of Justices Scalia and Thomas. But it's doubtful he did.

No one seems to know for sure what Miers' take on important issues like abortion, civil rights and gay rights are. But c'mon. This is a close personal friend and trusted adviser of George W. Bush. Is she likely to prove a moderate on the court?

So far we already know that when she was President of the Texas State Bar, she tried to get the American Bar Association to change its position endorsing the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision.

Does that mean she'll be anti-choice once she's on the Court? No one can say for sure. But it's not a good sign.

The Democrats need to take their time with this nomination, make sure they sound Miers out and go over all available documents. Just because she's a woman doesn't make her another O'Connor, and this is the crucial 'swing vote' we've all been talking about for the last three months.

With what Reid said today, though, I fear that Miers is all but confirmed in the minds of many Centrist Democrats, barring any surprises. I'm so sick of seeing them roll over so Bush can rub their tummies! But we shouldn't be surprised. They just stand for more toned down versions of what he stands for, after all.

We need some real liberals to come to Congress and start kicking ass, people!

Anyway, it was a busy day for me here. I've wanted to blog about Miers since this morning, and this was my first chance.

On a completely different note, I have to say that I really enjoyed Rebecca's picture post celebrating Paul Walker's nips! Truly, a woman after my own heart! Paul Walker was once just the sort of blond pretty boy I lusted after back in the She's All That/Varsity Blues days, but he's matured into a sort of rugged sex appeal, less pretty and blond, that still earns him a spot in the top ten on my Celebrities I'd Fuck list! Mr. Walker would look even better with a bit of chest hair, I might add. He's already got a sexy treasure trail that I'd LOVE to follow.

See, even when things are looking down, you can always take a moment to enjoy some healthy, old fashioned lust for some celebrity beefcake!