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The 11th

September 9, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

That awful anniversary is this Saturday.
I think the part that shook us the most was the realization that we were hated so very much. The act itself was so unspeakably cruel. But the dancing in the streets froze our blood, stopped our breath.
We are a good-natured people, for the most part. The whole “live and let live” thing underlies all that we believe. Though we periodically lose sight of it, as we have these nine years since, our true north is an unshakable belief in the best in each other, that our best is always yet to be.
Our spirit of optimism has been under attack for a while. Advertising took over politics in the early 80’s and, as any good ad man will tell you, the easiest thing to sell is fear. We have been fed a constant diet of fear by politicians too lazy or maybe just not bright enough to come up with any original ideas.
Be afraid of the poor, the foreign, gay people, straight people, black people, Hispanic people, country people, city people, immigrants, conservatives, liberals, your neighbors, your government. Be afraid. We’re told over and over, cause that’s how advertising works. “They are the problem. I am the solution. Vote for me.” Dirt can’t hide from new improved Tide. It’s all the same.
Be afraid.
The relentless message eroded our best sense of ourselves and our essential goodness. Our growing fear took away our belief that we were loved like spoiled children, adored in spite of our faults. So, when the planes hit the towers and the images of people delighting in our pain filled our televisions and our front pages, we were convinced.
For a moment, when it first happened, the world was filled with a shared sadness for our loss. Love poured in over our borders. But as we slammed our borders shut to protect ourselves, we also began to wall out the love and support of those who did not hate us. Aided by the craven, the greedy and the self-interested, we have been urged to believe that “they” are our enemies and that we must band together to protect our American dream. Even against each other.
I’m sure we have enemies. We use ¾ of everything in the whole world. That’s gotta produce some hard feelings.
But honestly, we are the world’s great experiment. We are a little bit of every country in the world. We are everyone. We are attempting to live everyone’s dreams. Maybe not the crassness or the hyper-consumption, but the ideas of freedom and tolerance and compassion, the notion that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. Everyone, even the people who really do hate us, hope that’s true and in so doing, hope that we succeed. If it’s possible here, then maybe they too can live free.
The only way we can fail is to give up on those ideals. If we make Saturday a celebration of hatred, fear and intolerance, we have lost. Probably not the war, but certainly the battle.
I know how tough it is to believe in yourself when people keep telling you that you’re over, worthless, an abomination. I have lived through the fear that everyone hates me.
I’ve been gay in school in small towns in the south. I’ve been an artist in a world full of accountants. I’ve been over 50 in West Hollywood. I’ve been told by word, deed and law that “they” were my problem.
But my problem is me. If I go out into the world wearing my shit stole, I’m going to get a markedly different reaction than if I’ve got vanilla extract behind my ears. If I want to be loved, I have to be first in line. If I want to stop fearing people, I have to start treating them better.
If we want to stop being afraid of the world, we have to stop being afraid of each other. If we want to be loved, we have to behave like people we can love.
The good news is, this is an area where we already have a lot of experience.

The Prince’s Psalm and other books I’ve written are now available in all formats and platforms here: http://thedinnerpartyshow.com/albums/the-princes-psalm/

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Rights and Wrong

September 7, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

The good folks at Craig’s List are shuttering their Adult Services section. They have apparently come under a great deal of pressure over the potential issue of prostitution in their pages suborning the hideous human trafficking prostitution fosters.
So, that’s the solution? The way to end human trafficking is to cut a $36 million revenue stream from a website? Really? And if we don’t teach sex education in schools there’ll be no more teen pregnancy ’cause the kids just won’t know what to do.
Is anyone else sick of letting the world be run by morons?
Prostitution is only illegal because it’s against the law. That’s it. All of the ills of prostitution stem from the fact that it is illegal. If you want to end human trafficking, make prostitution legal, license it and tax it. We could use the income to pay for the schools we’re closing and perhaps teach a few future prostitutes some other career options.
The problem with legislating morality is that it creates crime.
The hideous drug cartels, the destruction of Colombia, the growing fissures in Mexico’s stability, the gang violence on our own streets, are all bought and paid for with our tax dollars. No one has stopped doing drugs. Prostitution is booming. And we’re spending zillions fighting a war to enforce unenforceable laws.
Sure murder is out. Stealing, still not okay. There’s plenty of stuff that needs to be against the law. But when people are making a choice about their own lives, what business is it of mine?
With all this talk of smaller government and getting Washington out of our lives, this seems like the perfect place to start. Not only does it eliminate a whole class of criminals, it takes away their funding. Plus, regulating and licensing the trade like any other business could create much needed tax revenue and might just limit the access of younger people.
Would drugs be the same kind of problem in our culture if we couldn’t get them until we were 21? There’d still be addicts, but maybe a few would be spared by making a somewhat more informed choice. As it stands now, no one is spared and only our prisons are thriving.
I think the reason we have these silly antiquated laws is that they create the illusion of control in a world spinning into chaos.
Unemployment: 20%. Banks robbing the country blind with usurious interest and fees while refusing to loan money to restart the economy they destroyed. Oil wells in the gulf popping like firecrackers on the fourth while corrupt politicians cry out against a moratorium on drilling until we can do it safely. Two endless and pointless wars that have bankrupted the country and damaged the lives of the thousands of young men and women we’ve sent to fight them. A national spirit of selfishness so intense that we’d let the poor go without medical care and destroy public education rather than pay our taxes.
Yeah, end human trafficking by closing the adult page on Craig’s List, that should fix it.

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The A-List

September 2, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

The way I figure it, I’m either A) so spiritually advanced that I have transcended human concerns or B) I’m just completely self-involved. I think it’s probably B. Whichever the case, it just never occurs to me to worry about what other people think.
Just for openers, other people are almost always wrong. What foolishness would it be to put my fragile psyche in the hands of the folks who did the macarena, sang along with Mambo #5, imprisoned Galileo and Nelson Mandela and voted for Taylor Hicks, Hitler and most elected officials.
But more than that, basing my choices on what other people think deprives me of originality and the possibility of self-worth. Obviously, I try to be considerate of others. (I said “try”.) And I think laws allow us to live in limited harmony in a crowded world. Beyond that? Well, that’s just soul crushing conformity.
Perhaps the greatest manifestation of the lock step, insecurity of the small minded is the idea of an A-List.
Born of an overwhelming sense of inferiority, the A-list allows a group of people to be “superior” to those not in their group for not being in their group. Group access is gained by virtue of ascribing to a randomly chosen series of criterion. The same haircut, brand of jeans, body type, tax bracket, skin color, etc. can allow any group to proclaim themselves better than those who part their hair on the other side or whatever.
I think the point is, there is nothing superior or inferior about those on any A-List.
Believing oneself to be on an A-List is simply the outward expression of deep inner feelings of inadequacy and no sense of belonging. Believing other people are on an A-List and attempting to join them is just sad.
The former are like those dreary people who insist on telling you how “wacky” and “wild” they are. Wild and wacky people do not need to tell you they are either. In fact the telling is the antithesis of both. Very good looking people do not need to put VGL behind their names like college degrees or tell you how good looking they are. Spending time making it clear how smart you are, really only demonstrates one’s intellectual uncertainty.
So too is the proclamation of or the aspiration to coolness.
Coolness is like humility. Once you think you are qualified to speak on the topic, you no longer are. Saying you are cool makes it anything but so. And you cannot be struck cool by adding your name to any A-List. Being an A-list anything, is the opposite of something special, it is announcing you are the same and nothing more.
I suppose the only exception would be if someone or some entity like a magazine or board of governors nominates you to be on some A-list or other. Like the Rock and Roll Hall of fame is an A-List of sorts, but it’s members earned their place on an arbitrary list made by someone else. The Rockers on the list arrived there because of their originality, not their conformity.
People from groups who feel especially disenfranchised can sometimes feel this pull the strongest. Minorities, like mine, have lived their lives on the outside. Hell the members of my merry band are not yet even treated as citizens.
As a result, the all too human ache to belongs is especially strong. Rather than being inclusive and supportive of one another, we find those within our own group to look down on. We come up with a set of arbitrary standards that describe us and declare ourselves the A-List. It’s instant self-declared superiority, a heady and seductive brew to someone who feels second class. Strict conformity mitigates those pesky feelings of alienation. Despite the fissures of insecurity, we can buttress fragile ego with the assurance of membership. Not just us against them, but we’re better than them.
It’s how gangs work.
So if you earn a certain income, fall within a proscribed age range, live in the right neighborhood, work in the preferred field, visit the correct vacation destination, have the proscribed body size, acquire a partner who meets the latest requirements for beauty, or you are said partner, you too can be on the A-List. At least, you can until any of those things change. Then you’re out. And, since you didn’t think much of yourself before, imagine how bad you’ll feel.
Sandra Bullock was asked after winning the Oscar this past year, what advice she’d give young actresses following in her footstep? Her advice was: “Don’t.”
Be an original. Make your own group. Choose them based on how good they are at being your friend, not on how they’ll make you look. Be the best version of you and let the lists fall where they may. And dear god, if someone tells you they’re on the A-List, run.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

Loneliness

August 31, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

We get hungry so that we remember to eat. The species would not have survived if we didn’t. We would have starved and never known what hit us. Pain causes us to seek a remedy.
The same is true of loneliness. Living our lives in concert with others is challenging. Given the violent and conflict spattered pages of our history, people seem ill-suited to live together in society. But for loneliness, we’d all be on our own. As it is, human relations are fearful, guarded and distrustful at every level.
We all agree that love is the best thing that ever happens to us, yet it characterizes almost none of human affairs. Imagine banking or even something obvious like medical care predicated on love.
We are together because we starve for one another’s company.
Being human, I have spent a lot of my life starving for companionship. For whatever reason, I have always been single. Add to that the fact that I’m apparently more than a little odd and possessed of a near complete lack of concern for approval. For this or whatever reason, my connections to others have been what might best be characterized as tenuous.
It’s been a painful condition, at times. I’m still human so I get lonely. I have the same longings for pair bonding as the next fellow. But at the same time I seem to lack either the physical or character traits to attract people into my life in a more meaningful way. I’m not even sure what those traits might be, but I cannot deny my results.
That great irony of this is that I have a host of friends and acquaintances, and a rich, full and joyous life. I’m very social. I have a good time at most parties and social events. I can’t imagine what anti-depressants would be for. I get on easily with almost everyone. Auto mechanics, to medical professionals, to folks at the dry cleaners light up when I arrive. When I had my wisdom teeth out a couple of years back, the folks at my local grocery store grilled my friends for details of my recovery. When I returned to shop, staff members actually left their cash registers and checkout lines to meet me at the door, welcome me back and inquire after my health.
So, I live in a world where I’m beloved literally wherever I go and where my phone doesn’t ring on the weekends. People seem to adore me. Yet, I have only been asked on a date four or five times in my whole life. I’ve done a lot of my own asking and the most common response is flight. Apparently my sexual interest must be something fearsome.
It’s a puzzle.
I spent years staring in the mirror trying to discover the fatal flaw that separated me from the rest of the world. I’ve tried to contort myself into some shape or form that seems to be what people are looking for. I’m clueless.
And then I made an amazing discovery.
A couple of years ago, on book tour, I met a man. He had not come to meet my famous writing partner, as most everyone else had. He had come to the signing to meet me. I was a little startled. My writing partner actually got his number for me. I called. He was visiting from out of town. I asked him out anyway. He agreed. It was a nice enough first date. Not the most amazing thing, but I had a good time.
He left the next day but stayed in touch. We spoke on the phone frequently. He seemed interested and persistent. Oddly, he never called me from home. Every call he made was placed while he was in transit somewhere else. He went on a business trip to New York and called while walking back to his hotel. He never answered the phone when I called. He only ever called back or on his own. He went missing without explanation.
“He’s married,” my writing partner pronounced when I told her about how it was going.
So, I asked him. He assured me he was single and that he would try to do a better job.
I took him at his word. Things improved. I was going to my parent’s home for Christmas that year and suggested making plans around seeing him for New Years. He was near enough to mom and dad for me to schedule flights the connected through Atlanta, where he lived. We talked about planning it. He agreed. Then he disappeared. I called to get his take on various plans and timing. No answer.
I was going to my parents anyway. I gave him their phone number so we could plan New Years. He was in retail. I knew Christmas would be tough for him. I tried to be understanding. I figured we’d talk after. I went to Mom and Dad’s. I had a great holiday with them. The guy never called.
My first instinct was to go to Atlanta and try to make things work. He seemed great. He said he was single. It wasn’t like I had any other offers. You can’t win if you don’t play, right?
And then it hit me. I want to spend New Years with someone who wants to spend New Years with me. What’s more, if no one does want to be with me at midnight on the 31st, then I’m just fine on my own. It was possibly the most freeing thing that’s ever occurred to me. I understood Gloria Steinem’s “fish without a bicycle” concept in whole new way.
I love my life. It would be great to find someone to share it with. But it’s going to have to be someone who actually makes a great addition to the life I already have.
I don’t have to examine me in the mirror, beyond regular care and maintenance. I’m just fine, thank you. I hope to meet someone who thinks I’m the cutest things since pigtails and the hottest since Tabasco. No more trying to shape me into what appears to be the object of others’ desires.
I want to be amazed, or I don’t want to play.
Hell, I’ve waiting this long. Right?
Meanwhile, I’m not starving. In my own weird way, I am surrounded by people who love me. I have great friends and a family I’ve learned to love people for being exactly as they are. I’m not lonely. And if who I am never qualifies me as husband material, then I get to have the wonderful life I’m already having. That’s not a sacrifice.
Best of all is knowing that I’m not single because there something wrong with me and there’s nothing wrong with me because I am.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | 7 Comments »

Response Ability

August 27, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

Somebody attacked a Muslim cab driver in New York this week.
The attacker’s motives are unclear. The reason it’s unclear is because of the irresponsible hate and fear mongering of the Foxpublicans and right wingnuts over a local real estate development zoning issue in lower Manhattan. It’s also unclear because the main stream and lefty pinko media cannot seem to stop expressing their outrage and moral indignation over the Foxpublican’s hate baiting.
To both groups may I offer a suggestion:
Shut up, SHUT up, shut UP!
I know many mourn the slow agonizing death of journalism. News has become an entertainment medium. It really always was. The purpose of TV news is to deliver you to their advertisers. The same is true of newspapers, magazines, radio, the lot. The reason they count the numbers in the audience is so they can charge their advertisers more. Right? My question is, how do you go about building those numbers?
It seems that rather than trying harder to do a better job or reporting the news more thoroughly and more accurately, the “Oldsmedia” has opted for a different, less nuanced strategy.
The scam was born in Hollywood, always trend setters in the world of entertainment. The “Oldcasters” who’ve taken the place of journalists and reporters adapted it to their own purposes.
The essence of the strategy is this: They do or say ANYTHING to get your attention.
That’s it.
In Hollywood, would-be-celebrities with large or noteworthy genitals make sex tapes that “accidentally” get “leaked” on the interweb and presto, they’re stars. At least until the next big one gets taped and posted.
Since no one wants to see Glenn Beck so much as take off his Christmas Sweater let alone any network or cable anchors cavorting naked in a suite at the St. Regis, they’ve refined the process. It’s called “he did it.” (Okay, maybe refined isn’t the right word here.) You remember this game from the playground in third grade. It goes like this. The Foxpublicans say something egregious and then everyone picks a side. The MSNBCemorats offer an opinion or go on the attack. The right wingnuts go bananas. Meanwhile, the CNNambulists impartially play the video of all of it every hour until somebody stabs a cab driver.
Then everyone yells: “He did it.” Remember?
It’s one things for no-talent plastic surgerites and celebutards to post photos of their big wang doodles and bodacious tatas. We have a pretty good idea where that leads. But when one claims to be reporting the news there is a point where it stops being freedom of speech and becomes yelling fire in the proverbial theatre. Doesn’t anyone remember that old caveat to the first amendment promise of free speech?
Bill O’Reily relentlessly attacks Dr. George Tiller on his program until some lunatic murders the doctor at church.
Tim McVeigh blows up a government building in Oklahoma City and the media makes him internationally famous. One year and a day later, two high school seniors from good homes in Littleton, Colorado opened fire on their fellow students at Columbine High School.
The government institutionalizes a policy of discrimination against gays in the military in 1993. Attacks against gays go up annually and by 1998 Matt Sheppard was tied to a fence, dying.
Prop H8 passed in a media feeding frenzy in 2008. In 2009 hate crime attacks against gay people went up dramatically but so did attacks on people for their religious beliefs.
I think reporting the news is very important. I think people getting to express their opinion on national television, not so much.
I’m not saying that we should stop. I’m just saying that I think rights come with responsibilities. I have the right to free speech. I also have the responsibility of free speech. I don’t get to yell fire in a crowded theatre. I don’t get to show heavily edited video tapes that produce a false impression and call it news. And I don’t get to use my pulpit to advocate against the right of others to have the same rights as me.
I have the rights of free speech and a responsibility to tell the truth. Not just as I see it, but the actual truth. There is only one set of facts though there are numberless opinions.
I suppose we all have the implicit right to be scoundrels. Right? It’s your network, your church, your cause so you’ve the right to make your own version of patent medicine and sell it to the unsuspecting. But does that imply for others the right to tar and feathers? I don’t think so. That just seems like more of the same game of “he did it.”
I have what I think is a novel idea here.
What if we actually try to be fair and balanced?

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Olds

August 25, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

When I watch or read what purports to be “the news” I believe I’m justified in the expectation that the information I’m receiving is in fact new or, at the very least, accurate.
Recently, a friend of mine had a change of heart about her religious affiliation (guess who.) She spoke earnestly of the growing conflict she felt between her faith and the church. It was a part of a discussion she was having on her Facebook fan page. Because she is who she is, her Facebook conversation became international news.
She was very generous about it. She gave interviews to network and cable television, NPR, newspapers, magazines, who knows what all.
Every interviewer asked her if she had parted company with the church because her son is gay. She said no. She said that she had been a supporter of gay rights, long before her son was born or out. She said she thought the church’s persecution of gay people was evil. Further, she talked about a whole host of reasons for her decision of which the church’s medieval persecution of gay people was only one a part.
Still, in story after story it was reported that Anne Rice left the church because her son Christopher is gay. They also often added that Christopher was a gay rights activist. He’s my best friend. I can tell you that while he does advocate equal rights for gay people, he is in fact a novelist.
She told everyone who asked that Christopher’s sexuality was not the reason for her decision. It made no difference. The “olds” media — for I no longer think it qualifies as “news” media – told the story they wanted to tell. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t accurate and, hence, it was not news. It was just the story they wanted to tell. It was Olds.
It’s midterms this year and the “olds” media has decided that they are going to tell the story of how the angry American voter is throwing incumbents out of office. It’s not true. So far, only 7 of over 300 incumbents up for re-election have been voted out. But they just keep saying we’re angry and voting the bastards out.
I am angry. But I’m angry because obstructionist Congress people and Senators are playing politics in a time of dire national crisis. It has nothing to do with incumbency. It has to do with inaction.
The “olds” media doesn’t care what I think. They don’t care what our votes indicate. There is no real effort being made to report on what isn’t happening and how upset we are about obstructionist politics. The “olds” media wants to show the right wingnut fringe with teabags hanging from their hats and report on the left wing drowning in disarray and ennui.
But to the people getting stuff done or the stuff they’re doing, why bother?
There’s some actual real problems that we need help with but why report on that when there’s some nuts freaking out about a religious community center being built in a depressed neighborhood in south Manhattan? And I mean the nuts on both sides.
The Fox olds network is so caught up in this not-a-story that they are now calling one of their own principal stockholders a terrorist for helping fund the project.
There are places and groups in the country with 20% unemployment. People are dying for want of healthcare. We STILL have not repaired New Orleans five years after Katrina. The Gulf of Mexico is flamable. This community center is simply not news.
But the lack of news doesn’t stop the “olds” media.
When they find a story they like, they just keep telling it until we believe it’s true. That just doesn’t sound like news to me. But it does sound familiar.
First, you create a problem that may or may not exist. Then you begin telling people about the problem until they believe it is a problem. Finally, you come up with a story that explains the problem and you tell it over and over again, until people believe that story.
It’s called advertising.
We have become conditioned to learn in a very specific way. It’s actually quite sophisticated. It requires years of media saturation and a whole belief structure built on this problem solution model.
It works like this. Bad breath prevents people from hooking up. Use this potion, tablet, strip, gum, whatever to fix your breath and get laid. Sales of said potion/tablet/strip go through the roof. Ergo, everyone’s getting laid right?
No.
Why? Because the story “Bad breath prevents you from getting any” isn’t true. Do a random breath check of those leaving the bars in pairs and see for yourself. Or better yet imagine, this: There he is. He’s dreamy. She’s just your type. He’s smiling. She tosses her hair flirtatiously. He’s coming this way. It’s late and it’s been a while. He offers you a drink. But oh no, he had garlic for dinner, so never mind. Yeah, right. Like that happened.
And I say this as a man who is physically addicted to Altoids and who hasn’t been asked out in years.
What we used to call the news has become advertising.
We must cut taxes for rich people so that the poor and unemployed will have a chance. There will be a stable Afghan government by next summer. Immigrants are causing unemployment. I am your fierce advocate.
If the “old” casters say it to us often enough, it won’t be true, but we’ll believe it.

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Invisible

August 23, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

I’m over thirty.

Okay, I’m WAY over thirty.

As a result it seems, the cells in my body have become less and less reflective rendering me virtually invisible, particularly to others who are WAY over thirty but also to the general population.

I was at a Lambda Legal event recently.  I was standing talking to a friend of mine who is only just over thirty.  A man, probably a little more on the WAY side than me, came up to us and began speaking to my friend as though I was not there.  When my friend attempted to introduce me, Mr. WAY responded irritably, as though being introduced to a child’s imaginary friend while in the midst of some life saving explanation.  He almost looked at me and then began speaking to my friend again before he’d even finished shaking my hand.  He never actually spoke to me.

That has been my most frequent social experience for the WAY number of years since I hit thirty.

Living in West Hollywood, where every day is swimsuit competition, I could easily take up bank robbery for extra spending money.  I’m convinced no one would see me walking into the vault and helping myself.

There’s this fellow, also on this side of thirty, who I know socially.  We have all the same friends, we work in the same field, we live nearby, vote at the same poll, I’ve been to his office, I’ve participated in a private screening of a documentary he made, given him notes, he has been to my house.  Yet he has never once remembered my name or recognized me.  On one such occasion, I was out with a younger blonde friend of mine that Mr. Memoryloss had met at my house.  Mr. M actually came up to us and began speaking to my friend and did not remember me or my name when prompted.

It’s really that bad.   Clearly I have faded from view, right? What other explanation could there be?

Well recently, I’ve hit on a new hypothesis for this phenomenon.  I call it Jaguar Theory.  It goes something like this.

The most popular car in the world — even with the whole “breaks optional” thing — is the Toyota Corolla.  It’s not the most luxurious.  It’s not the most comfortable.  It’s not the fastest, or the prettiest or even the best designed.  The Corolla is the most popular car in the world because it is the easiest to get.  It’s cheap, it’s available and it’s disposable.  For less than it would cost to maintain, you can simply throw it away and get a new one.  Nothing against the Corolla, they’re popular and dependable and affordable.  They’re even the most stolen.

There are far better cars, but they ask more of the driver.  The reason most people don’t drive Jaguars is not because they’re bad cars.  They don’t drive them because they are not up to it.  Too hard to get, too expensive to buy, too costly to maintain and too valuable not to.  Most people are not willing to do what it takes to drive a Jaguar.  It’s just easier to drive a Corolla.

I think the whole invisibility thing works the same way.  Men hang out at strip clubs, because the strippers will let them put money in their pants.  Women sleep with their trainers and pool cleaners because they leave after the appointment.  People are frequently with who they’re with because it’s too much trouble to be around people you have to treat decently.  Still more fearful and exhausting is trying to find people who treat us properly.

Men hit on people younger than they are not because they’re younger.  Age, it turns out, has very little to do with this.  Used Corollas sell briskly.  Men hit on younger people because they think they are stupid and easier to boss around.  The older man believes that he will be able to feel superior and act accordingly.   They’re usually wrong, but it’s easy to blame their age when they get rebuffed for their bad attitudes.   And, just like Corollas, the available young are plentiful and easily replaced by a newer model with less self-respect.

They call it settling down for a reason.

Dating a peer or even looking to settle up is too frightening, threatening and challenging for most.  And who can get it up when they’re scared? They look instead for someone they can dominate or someone who they believe will be so grateful for their attention that they will be free to do as they like. How daunting to chose someone you respect or, worse, to respect yourself.

This strange behavior of the majority to seek second or even third best creates the false sense of invisibility among the Jaguars of the species.  Just as our Toyota buyer never stops by the luxury motor dealer when he’s in the market, most people don’t bother to look at those they think they can’t afford.  Eventually they just can’t see them at all.

I know it’s easy to think this is about looks, but that misses the lesson of the Corolla.  Those puppies are all tarted up with power windows, Blue Tooth, IPod docks, reclining leather seats, surround sound, air conditioning, custom paint.  It makes a very seductive little package.  But like lipstick on the proverbial pig, it’s still a Corolla.

In ten years, it will be a ten-year-old Corolla.  A well-kept and maintained Jaguar is far more likely to become a classic.  Attend a car show and see if there are any Corollas there.   But why invest the care and maintenance when you could just scrap the first one and move on this year’s new model? And one would have to have a high opinion of themselves to drive the Jaguar.  Who wants a car that makes them look bad?

So, on days when it feels like I’m invisible I try to remind myself that I’m just a Jaguar in a world full of Corollas.  Which are you?

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | 10 Comments »

Equal Wrongs

August 18, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

So get this.  An angry mob is trying to deprive a minority group of their constitutional rights.  Can you believe it? Apparently, in an effort to find an issue on which they can campaign and raise money and viewership, a groups of political and media opportunists have whipped a local zoning issue in New York into a national frenzy.

All I can say is: “Welcome to my world!”

Monday, over 3 million Californians once again had their civil rights suspended.  But the news on every front page and network is that a religious group wants to build a community center and the Foxpulicans need an issue to run on since they haven’t done or stood up for anything decent in the last ten years.

It kind of kills me that no one sees or mentions the correlation.  It’s really the same issue.  The majority, whatever their feelings, does not get to deprive the minority of the rights that the majority enjoys.  That’s what the constitution guarantees.  It’s really the whole ball game as far as the founding principles of the country goes.  Taking away people’s rights is as anti-American as it gets.

My point is, when you let it happen to gay people, then it can happen to you.

So now it’s Muslims.  Who’s next? Catholics have gotten a lot of bad press here lately.  Maybe a majority will rise up and not want Catholic Churches in their neighborhoods or to allow Catholics the same rights to marry and raise children as everyone else.  If it can happen to me, it can happen to you.

Everyone is a member of a minority.

What if we start rounding up Republicans and putting them in concentration camps? They don’t believe the same things as the majority of Americans, so why not?

Because we’re all in this together, that’s why.  If I don’t stick up for your rights, then who will stick up for mine?

I was pleased that the President sorta-kinda-almost stood up for something there for a minute.  He said that Muslim Americans were entitled to the same civil rights as all Americans before he kinda-sorta took it back.  But if he really believes that, where the hell has he been on Prop H8 and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? What happened to repealing DOMA?

It isn’t a question of whether or not you believe that gay people should be able to get married or Catholics should be allowed to practice their faith openly or that Republicans should be free to move about the country.

The ONLY questions is:  Do you believe in equal rights for all Americans?

That’s it.  The people who don’t want the Muslim Community Center and the ones supporting Prop H8 do not believe in equal rights for all Americans.  They are Anti-American.  Let’s start painting them with that brush.  Let’s get away a from the politics of division and find something we can all agree on.

I believe in equal rights for all Americans.  Do you?

I think it’s a simple question and I think it’s time we started asking it of all these hate and fear mongers who’ve been doing all they can to get out the bigot vote, raise money and build ratings.

If we expect to start finding some answers, we have got to stop asking the wrong questions.  Do you believe in abortion? Do you believe in gay marriage? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you think the one true god is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet? Because the answer to all those questions is the same.  Who cares? Good for you.  This is America, you get to believe whatever you want and so do I.

The question that unites us and the one we ought to start asking these pundits and politicians who seek to divide us is:

Do you believe in equal rights for all Americans?

Honestly? I think we all do.  I just think in all the noise and confusion of this media fueled, soulless age of cynicism in which we live we’ve forgotten the only question that matters.

And it’s a tough question.

If you believe in equal rights for all American you believe in the Muslim Community Center.  You believe that gay people have a right to marry even if you disagree with their choice.  It means you believe that Catholics and Mormons can refuse to marry gay people in their churches.  It means that the Nazis and the KKK can believe whatever it is that they believe.  It means that even if you don’t believe as I do that you don’t get to tell me what to believe.  That is equal rights for all Americans.

And if you don’t believe in that, then you don’t really believe in America.

Let’s get this question out there.  Let’s start asking all those who would tear us apart for their own gain with their spurious questions of our articles of faith.  But let’s start where it counts.

The next time you hear some tree hugger or some right wingnut railing on about something that makes you want to sew their lips shut, ask yourself:  Do you believe in equal rights for all Americans?

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

Moddness

August 16, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

Okay, I’ll say it.  Mad Men is the dullest television show in the history of the medium and I have NEVER MISSED an episode.

Really.  The dullest.  Never missed it.

Here’s what happened this week:  (Spoiler 8/15/10)

Peter accidentally found out his wife was expecting from his father-in-law.  Don’s secretary quit.  Peggy went to a wild party that was raided (though neither we nor she saw the wild or the raid).  Peter asked his father-in-law about a larger share of the family’s advertising business.  Peggy was sad that things didn’t work out with Peter.  The focus of the episode’s big excitement was a focus group about cold cream.

People had feelings and lunch and lots of drinks all while smoking, but really, that’s it.

Just for contrast on my other Sunday show, True Blood:  (Spoiler 8/15/10)

Eric was raided, imprisoned, tortured and interrogated by the Vampire Police.  Sookie and Bill discussed their relationship while they cleaned up the dead bodies of the werewolves in her house they killed during their attack the night before.  Later, Bill was transported through his dream to another world where he discovered Sookie’s true nature.  The King of Mississippi discovered the remains of his dead lover, staked last week by Eric in answer to a thousand year blood feud.  Sam encourages Tara to seek help.  Jason was attacked by Crystal’s fiancé when he found her at Jason’s.  Crystal lied and told the fiancé that Jason had kidnapped and raped her, but then clubbed the man unconscious while he was strangling Jason.  Jason and Crystal left her fiancé tied to a tree with drugs in his pocket and reported him to the police.  Eric Betrayed the King of Mississippi and the Queen of Louisiana to the Vampire authorities revealing that the king had killed a vampire government official and was planning to take over the world.  Sam has a moment with his younger brother about partying too loud.  Tara joined a raped survivors group and met the new waitress from Merlotte’s there.  After some deliberation the Vampire Authorities  authorized Eric to finish the job and take out the King and, one presumes, the Queen.  Sam nearly beat a redneck drug lord – Crystal’s father — to death who refused to leave his bar and who had repeatedly threatened and disrespected him.  Sam’s brother steals Arlene’s tips.  Distraught, Arlene confesses to the new waitress that the baby she’s carrying is not her fiancé’s but her dead, serial killer, former husband and that she doesn’t want it.  Crystal broke it off with Jason, again, when he tried to prevent her from going to the hospital with her father.  Tara is attacked by the Vampire who kidnapped and raped her.  Jason, saves Tara and kills the Vampire.  Bill’s Vampire ward met the new girlfriend of the mortal who she broke up with.  The King of Mississippi killed a hot TV anchorman live on the air and declared his intentions.  And don’t get me started on the new romance with Lafayette and the nurse who cares for his mother at the mental hospital.  His long awaited mother and son reconciliation happened when she realized that the two had spent the night together during her escape from the mental ward, really sort of touching.

And I probably forgot stuff.

These two shows are the same length give or take a minute.  One is commercial and the other is not.  One has a supernatural element to it, but honestly, little of what happened this week was all that supernatural.  The body count on True Blood is higher, but Advertising while deadly dull, is rarely lethal.

So what is it that keeps me watching this show?

It is stylishly done, well acted and beautiful to look at.  Still, in its four year history, the most exciting thing that’s happened is that someone’s foot got run over by a lawn mower.  Off the hook, right?

I’ve worked in advertising and, while it was not like being a double-naught spy, it was more interesting than this.

Is this an addiction to the past? Or just a rejection of the present.  My other Sunday show is a fantasy.

America has invented a version of the past they we like and we are devoted to it.  Never mind that the gay liberation of the 70’s killed most of us, the majority of what people think happened in the 60’s was kind of seedy, violent and actually happened in the 70’s and the 50’s were mostly about repression, bigotry, social inequity and paranoia.  But that’s not how we remember it.  Movie makers and politicians constantly evoke the halcyon days of our none existent past.

When that doesn’t work, bring in the Vampires, Wizards and Giant 3D cartoons.

I know times are tough, but they were not when Mad Men first came on the air.  Has this always been the case? In the 50’s did they want it to be the 20’s? I don’t really see any evidence of that.  The past, as depicted in that period seems to have been brutish, short and dark.  We seem no longer able to stand our reality.  I don’t even think it’s just post 9/11.

We are fueled by a loss of national self-esteem.  We have fashioned a culture of covetous and envy and find ourselves constantly wanting.  We strive relentlessly for the perfect figure, job, mate, kitchen, gizmo, only to discover that someone else’s is bigger, better, newer, hotter.

We live in the land of never good enough, manufactured by the Mad Men depicted in that show I can’t stop watching.

Maybe it’s like a car wreck, I just can’t look away.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

The Jet Blue Crusader

August 13, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn

When Jet Blue Flight Attendant Steve Salter took the emergency route off the plane where he worked, he slid into the hearts of Americans everywhere.  He is our hero because we are sick of each other and we hate air travel.

I guess, the terrorists win again.

Oh, not those terrorists.  The 9/11 assholes only made getting to the airport and onto the plane a living nightmare.  No, the true horror of flying could only have been brought to you by those evil forces bent on destroying everything good and decent in American life.  I mean deregulation.

Like being able to deposit money in a local bank and know that it will stay in your own state to help foster growth and business there? Let’s deregulated that, because the folks at BofA are soooo much more helpful.  Like being able to just call someone and get your phone fixed? Quick, deregulate that away.  Like knowing that major institutions of finance are legally enjoined from taking us down the same road that led to the Great Depression? Let’s deregulate them.  It’s working out great, right?

Air travel used to be sort of elegant and at least civil, if not civilized, until deregulation.

When I graduated from college with degrees in Theatre and Philosophy and no “good” marriage prospects, I did the only thing I knew to do.  I went to New York.  Where else to go with no actual employable skills? I saved up my money working at Target (it was call Richway in the before times).   It took a little while, but I was able to salt away enough to pay for a couple of month’s on a friend’s sofa on West 44th and a coach airline ticket.

It could not have been a more lovely trip.  My friends came to the gate and saw me off with hugs and tears.  The flight attendants were lovely and helpful, making sure that I had a comfy trip, a nice dinner and that I arrived in New York refreshed.

It remains a treasured memory.

And it’s not like it was that long ago.

The airlines were “deregulated” in the mid 80’s and nothing has been the same since.  An act of Congress ended the ironically names Civil Aeronautics Board because, as experience teaches us, we consumers always benefit when industry regulates itself.

Increased competition was supposed to afford us more and cheaper air travel options while opening up opportunities for the “little guys” in the industry.

Since then, airline travel is up to sardines-in-a-can levels but most airlines lose money like Banana Republics.  Air travel has become an endurance test for passengers and the beleaguered air corps who fly us.  Every year another merger forms the new largest airline in the world – so much for the little guys – and every year more passenger services are stripped away.  With bankrupt airlines and slave ship passenger accommodations, apparently nobody benefitted from deregulation.

Add to this the dehumanizing and souls sucking security ordeal that simply boarding a flight now entails, and crashing seems the least of our fears of flying.

I heard a woman who’s running for Senate in Nevada say the other day that Government isn’t the solution, Government is the problem.  The people are the solution.  Two questions come to mind 1)If she thinks government is the problem why is she running for office? And 2) Who does she suppose the Government is if it’s not the people?

We have spent the past 30 years dismantling the country and selling it off piece by piece.  I’m not sure how that makes it better.  I look at places like Afghanistan and Somalia and think:  We’ll they don’t have any government and their lives don’t look that great to me.

Then again they’re totally deregulated.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

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