larkin

In a few threads down, we celebrated The Boys in the Band. Another film that came out around the same time that had a not so subtle gay subtext was Mel Brook's The Producers. One of the great comedies of all time staring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. No one says it in so many words but it is a story about a relationship between an older man, “Zero” the impresario and the younger wallflower of an account Gene Wilder. No sex, but it depicts the best sort of Socratic relationship even if they were both criminals. The short clip below is so worth watching. Gene Wilder's red faced tantrum that made him famous. http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/223902/Producers-The-Movie-Clip-A-Minor-Compulsion.html The film “The Producers” finally got recognition and has been made into a Broadway play and a re-make also with Nathan Lane and Mathew Broderick. All due respect the these two wonderful actors, the re-make cannot surpass the original.

That's a surprise....”Boys in the Band” on Youtube in full resolution, no breaks. This movie never rose to the level of a cult film but instead became..a sleeper. The reason for this was it was perceived as an appalling collection of stereo-types that at one time or another could make the viewer uncomfortable through prejudice or unwanted identification.. and it did. I know it is difficult but imagine living in the closet and going to see this film in mixed company that didn't know about you? First a stage play in1968 and then a film in 1970, it foreshadowed gay liberation arising out of the Stonewall riots. Set in Manhattan 67 and 68 it characterizes inner city gay life just as it was beginning to emerge. Police with time on their hands would occasionally raid gay bars and arrest the queers. This was a paradox because police were accepting protection money from the mob that ran every queer bar in the country. Sodomy (sukindic) was illegal and you could draw jail time. Sometimes you'd see a story in the newspapers stating that investigators had broken up a ring of homosexuals. A ring is where an easily intimidated homosexual confesses and he would turn in his friends and they in turn would turn in their friends. This history is important. The play and the film documents the time and circumstance, leading up to liberation. I am not sure Stonewall could have occurred at that time without Mart Crowley's brilliant script. Try to overlook the strong role alcohol plays in the story because that is a separate issue that does not discriminate. However, in this film it serves as dialogue lubrication. If you were born on or about 1980, you should view this film before they pull it off Youtube.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMoICoHClaU Also for those who are interested, “The Making of BitB” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzCIsWv0aP4 Finally this is a review and analysis of the “Boys in the Band” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5_I_9TcBpo

It wasn't always, but today, it is a good sign that faking bisexuality can broadens a celebrity's appeal. Acting is one of the few professions where concealing an individual's homosexuality is justified. The reasons are professional. An out gay male will forever have difficulty getting certain acting roles. “Politicians are actors” Yes, I suppose they are.. But a politician that lobbies against homosexual civil rights or equal treatment under the law or fosters hate and discrimination, deserves to be dragging kicking and screamming out of the closet.

I posted this not so long ago and I didn't realized it, ..my apologies.

Skillfully written piece.. and they accuse me of being dark...

Over the last decade, our cable news has become the consolidated corporate media that specializes in narrowing the focus on many news stories in an effort channel the debate. The spectrum between FOXNews and NPR just isn't that broad. The difference is more about nuance and tone than about content. The article I am linking you to is from Glenn Greenwald's Intercept. It does not speculate on conspiracy but gives us more information than we are getting from cable news. FBI Still Concealing Almost All of What the Orlando Gunman Said. https://theintercept.com/2016/06/20/fbi-releases-partial-redacted-transcript-orlando-gunmans-911-calls-attack/

Very good dialog but it sounds governmental rhetoric designed to get more funding..

Hyperion The door opened and there was a woman with long red finger nails. Between the two fore fingers of her hand was a long lit cigarette held up right. She was an older woman about my Mother’s age that looked like she was once glamorous but not quite so much anymore. “Don’t tell me, you’re Conan? Yes, Conan, Richard told me all about you. I mean, Hyperion.” Her laugh was similar to his. She invited me into the small apartment and then still looking at me called out, “Richard!” Hyperion appeared from out of his room. “Conan, you want a tuna sandwich, I just made one for Richie, I mean Hyperion. I get his names so muddled up and as soon as I get use to it, he goes and changes it. “ Hyperion came up and stood alongside of her. “What did you call yourself last year?” Hyperion looked irritated, he said, “Let it alone Mom.” She smiled and said, “See how he is? Conan, I’m making you and a sandwich anyway and if you don’t eat it, Richie will later on.” We all sat around a table that was half in the kitchenette and the living room. “Richie, will you take apart Frank’s weights and stow all that stuff under the couch for me please?” She Looked at me and said, “Richie, I mean Hyperion’s brother left for the Middle East early this morning. I am going to be so worried about him. “He was so proud to be going off to defend his country.” I saw Hyperion roll his eyes. His Mother adoringly stroked Hyperion’s hair and then said, “Richie, does your friend know that you’re gay?” Hyperion stared at the half eaten sandwich and furrowed his brow in exasperation, “Mother! You are not supposed to do things like that! What is the matter with you?” He had a shocked look on his face followed by an audible huff. His Mother realized that she had upset him. “Well, I thought that’s how it’s done these days, you know coming out and all?” Hyperion raised his voice and said, “I’m supposed to come out.” He tapped his finger hard at his own chest and then said, “I'm supposed to come out! You're not supposed to drag unsuspecting people out into the open like that! And if you must know, yes, he knows!” His Mother distracted herself by lighting another cigarette. I found the whole exchange between Hyperion and his mother amusing. Hyperion's mother was nice and well meaning if not a little loony. She gathered up her keys, cigarettes and bag and said, “Well boys, I have to get to work. Richie, will you remember to take those damn weights apart before someone stubs their toe on them? Well, nice meeting you Conan, Richie always has the nicest friends.” Grabbing her coat she was out the door. Hyperion and I sat looking at each other across the table. A smile slowly appeared on his face. “Guess what? When Mom goes off to work, this becomes our home. Just you and me and we can do anything we want.”

If this has happened, of course i am grieved at this terrible senseless loss. But, i no longer trust the media at it's word. i believe that it bears a closer look on our parts. Pity and sympathy are not constructive for the gay movement. Two issues cross my mind.. (notacutandpastepiece) The first issue is the public's tendency to believe reality TV as if it was actually real. Programs like Real Housewives, The Apprentice, Pawnshop Wars and even Judge Judy. These shows blur the line between contrived production and reality. Americans seem to take it all in without question. Conversely, it amazed me that at the moment the tragedy was happening, just how much 9-11 mimicked an extravagant disaster film right out of Hollywood. People immersed into TV can be made to believe anything... Then there is the constant media voice-over explaining to us what is happening. “The facts are meaningless. The only thing that matters is the perception of things. The second issue is the need for basic detective work by individuals on the ground. Stay away from speculation and go after hard irrefutable facts. Document everything. Visit local hospitals, visit local morgues. Accumulate information. Acquire a list and visit the families of victims. If the news media is not going to do their job, then we have to... What happened? Who did that? When did it take place? Where did it take place? Why did that happen? If you cannot establish something as fact, it is unsubstantiated speculation. One does not need a college degree or credentials to follow these basic rules of information gathering and reporting. Speculation are clues to be sure, but they are not true until tied together with facts. I expect to get into trouble for this post but please consider, I have ventured no speculation or theory as to what happened in Orlando, I would just like to hear from non-media.people on the ground..

A page from Reddit alludes towards some early inconsistencies. https://m.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4nrvf1/man_cut_off_air_after_he_said_a_man_was_holding/?utm_source=mweb_redirect&compact=false

There are several.. The one I got was Natural Reader. http://www.naturalreaders.com/index.html It is free if you do not mind robotic voices. It is a little overpriced at $70. if you want the full version. Paying the extra money means that you can be read to in a very natural voice by a man, a woman, or a boy named Josh. There is also a function that turns the text into audio Mp3's so that you can take it on the road with a podcast player.

I have a confession to make. I have had dyslexia before anyone knew what it was. I had a very hard time learning how to read and I am very fortunate coming through this with a genuine love of books. Even today I read at vocal speed and I must exercise discipline to stay focused. This explains my preference for the short story and 20th century American literature because much of it is simple and conversational. However I can get terribly bogged down in the complexities of someone like Joseph Conrad's 100 word sentences. I have just found a brilliant program where I can pick-up the text and paste it into this program and it will read it in an almost natural voice. This allows me to close my eyes and truly imagine the writer's vision without my stumbling and irregular reading style. .

From the first I've always like your writing. While reading your story I began to think it was shaping up to be a variation on the Fox, chicken, grain puzzle. And then there is the 1950 Bristol 402 convertible. Handsome and and sporty, looking very much like a BMW of the same period. You might purchase one today in reasonable shape for 100,000 pounds or half a million in mint condition. I would rather drive a car like that than own a Rolls. See if you agree. https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/bristol/402/1949/254916 Let me guess, new in 1950, 550 pounds

I read Stephen King's book on writing and to be truthful I think he was fishing for plot ideas from his readers because he suggested that you send them along to him... I liked David Mamet's book, “Writing in Restaurants” a bit better. The Pecman's piece is excellent. I am glad he calls it tips instead of rules. Who knows you might invent a new style. My #1 rule is to bend over backwards to avoid cliches.. Oops, bend over backwards is a cliche. My point is that sometimes we don't even see them. Avoid them like a plague, oops, there's another one.. Think of a new way of saying something. Avoid the words that we over use and look for more accurate words to suit the situation. Someone who can type more that “lol” might provide a good chat log for a dialog. Print it out and reconstruct it. Don't just introduce your characters, design them. Give them unique characteristics but don't make them perfect. Give them some endearing flaws so that they become human. Only give enough to generally describe them but let your reader fill in the inessential to suite their own taste. Do this on another sheet just to acquaint yourself with the character ( a minibiography) Fall in love with your character and then, drop them in to your story. Add descriptive pieces here and there or as needed and after all that, get them into trouble.. I will carry on my philosophy concerning writing about sex in a subsequent piece.

I forgive you..

DesDownunder, I could not agree with you more. For me, film was literature brought to life in movies like Fellini's “La Strada”, Truffaut, “400 Blows” and Di Sica's “The Bicycle Thief.” Not to limiting it to European films, there was Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden and Street Car Named Desire. Movies about real life and struggle that had substance. These movies had the power to help us understand each other. There are movies that rise to that level today, but damn few.. After telling me that she wouldn't watch a black and white film, a young friend said to me, “You got the weirdest taste in movies.” Vampires and Zombies are fantasies brought to life. They are simple, superficial and do not test the intellect. It is easy to be afraid of something you don't understand but that should be the beginning not the end. It's not your students fault because I believe that it is intentional, systemic deprivation. This is the cost and consequence of the lowest common denominator. Who knows, perhaps it is time to cut away a lot of the past, but it is not being replaced with anything of value or substance, it is not being replace with anything human. I knew the answer and I didn't go to Google.

Although we agree on the bathroom issue, unlike most of the highly industrialized Asian states, the Philippines is an impoverished, corrupt, disaster with children living out of garbage dumps. That might be because it is a US client state not much better off than Honduras. In regards to the Spratley Islands, at the end of the day, it is about oil. Has anyone considered diplomacy first. Maybe a conference proposing a joint venture? it might not work, but has the us sponsored something like this instead of moving up fire power?

Windows 10: (Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.) notacut+pastepiece Why would huge corporation run the risk of alienating it's customer base by forcing an up-grade using coercive and deceptive methods? What could be more of a dishonest trick than changing the X and the right hand corner of the dialog box into an accept and install up-grade? What could be behind herding millions of people into something that many do not want and no one really needs? You've have heard it before. “We are not the customers.” Their customers are corporate interests for marketing and increasingly, the government. Microsoft is larger and more influential than many countries around the world. It is responding competitively to the rise of Google and Facebook and the needs of other governments. As annoying as it might be to be subjected to algorithms that determine what products I like or might buy,..I can live with that, but this trend is far deeper and darker. I read a piece where they can determine if someone is gay even before they know that they are gay. What are Win10 objectives? From what I can gather, Win10 is a move to establish a common platform for the myriad of devices starting with Your computer, your smart phone, your car, your house and any number of things that are not even conceived yet. Will employers keep track of all their employees? Will Cortana will tell you when to wake up and when to pay a bill and when you are overdrawn at the bank? These are applications that are presented to us as things that will help us structure and organize our lives. The trend in software is to stop selling their products and instead, begin renting them through the “cloud”. Adobe has developed a simple working model. They no longer sell Photoshop, they sell a subscription service at $50 or $60 per month. If you do not pay, it disappears. I think we can count on Microsoft to follow this model. They have already announced that there will be no more up-grades. I've heard that they might charge $1 per month for the solitaire game. I am not likely to play solitaire but this tells me that Microsoft is setting up a billing regiment. We will all be paying Microsoft monthly for the privilege of turning my computer, my private property, in to a terminal for the purpose of gathering data. As Jim Carey did at an award ceremony when he put his fore fingers up to look like devil horns and said, “IT'S PERFECT!” What worries me more than anything is that Microsoft's primary customer is government. Even now they have established a symbiotic relationship. This is the very definition of fascism. How soon will it be before we take our orders from Cortana? I am not against tech, I like the things that computers have brought us, but something unexpected is happening and as if in a fog it is hard to make out. I imagined that the day may come when people flee the internet. Looking at this situation from a futurist or Sifi point of view, you might say, maybe this is the way it is supposed to go. Perhaps we are constructing a responsive nervous system for the entire human organism? A foundation for this seems to be in the works. I believe that if this is accomplished, it will result in the death of the individual.. I would prefer not to be a part of that kind of future.

Are you sure you don't mean, The US is rattling a very large saber in the South China Sea,10 thousand miles from home.

In many a revolution or foreign invasion, capable women have often entered the conflict of their own freewill out of a sense of patriotism. This was the result of an on ground invasion. I don't envision much future conflict on a battlefield as we have known from the past. Even today, the West just writes a check to pay for proxy armies or mercenaries. Increasingly, the soldier's role today is, implementation of the bureaucracy, executing logistical tasks and piloting weapon systems. These tasks are gender neutral. Afghanistan is a laboratory for the next big war. This does not bode well for a future where targets will be dense population centers. The future war will be executed remotely with the male or female soldier using a joystick. The victims will be thousands of non-combatants. These are all terrible prospects but they are not far fetched. The real question is, are women less or more likely to challenge authority if the target is half a world away?

I feel that this is a non-issue used to stir-up ignorant people and distract from important things.. ( just my personal opinion) I think that bathrooms should continue to be gender specific for many reasons having nothing to do with the trans community. As for a trans person, they should adopt their gender of choice, strive for privacy and use a stall.

American schools have been cutting the traditional liberal arts oriented studies from high school for sometime now. History is often watered down and limited to what is accepted as the national narrative. 200 years of literature has been cast aside as irrelevant and perhaps it is, but many kids get out of high school without ever reading a book. There are many great books written in the 20th century that have the power to shape lives but if you are not exposed to them.. They might as well not exist. Harry Potter is a fine book for a young person and an adult seeking pleasurable escape. Harry Potter's success is two fold. It is well written and fun to read but it is also mass market with tons of PR. In the past there was a constant stream of mass market “Best Sellers”, They were not always good literature but the population was reading them. Not so anymore.. I have read many a Facebook profile that said, “Books? No way!” As for adults reading YA books, I am not surprised. For some people, there is still a desire to read and it often hits a person just after they get out of school. The choice of Young Adult or teen-books is directly related to the what they were exposed to and what they were encouraged to read when they were in school. Books are the original software. When the lights go out, they still work.

I would hope that the two characters in the first story survive the crisis of true love but there is the risk of their lives being ruined to the point of tragedy. As for the subject of this post, with respect, this is a piece of fiction. You are stating a moral principle as something to aspire to and that is admirable, but adhering moral conventions makes for very boring writing. All the political correctness will not change the world. There is no victim and exploiter here. It is a very common negotiation that could involve sex and just as easily not. It is a crafty interaction. I am not worried about the two boys in this story because self-interest is basic to survival. Both of them are looking out for number one and neither are liable to suffer a broken heart. In spite of moral standards and ideals, they will survive. It is sad but true that the rules tend to benefit those who break them. Today kids are often are infantilized by parents and society into their middle 20's poorly equipping them for life. Richard the Lion Hearted lead an army into battle when he was 15.

Thank you from the bottom of this attention whore's heart. This was an authentic adventure. The intruder was probably other boys not unlike Randy and Tommy.