For Frying Out Loud (18 page)

June 2009

THE GAYEST WEEK EVER…

For me, last week may have been the gayest week ever.

We visited NYC to attend a fundraiser and have a
gay
old time (adj. “having or showing a merry, lively mood”). First stop, Chelsea Pines Inn, the
gay
(adj. “indicating or supporting homosexual interests”) B&B operated by my delightfully
gay
(noun. “A male homosexual”) high school boyfriend.

While waiting in our
gaily
(adj.) adorned room, before meeting our
gay
(noun) son for cocktails, we flipped on the TV to find Turner Movie Classics playing Judy Garland's
Meet Me in St. Louis
. How
gay
is
that
? (Okay, I have no idea what part of speech covers that one).

On Saturday night we had drinks at The Ritz lounge, saw the spectacular gay-themed play
Next Fall
, and wound up at gay ground zero, Christopher Street, to kick off the 40th anniversary celebration of the Stonewall Inn Rebellion. There's something about standing in a dark, dingy piano bar, surrounded by a hundred musical theatre queens and belting out “Oklahoma!” that positively screams GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

The bar, Marie's Crisis, has been there for over 35 years and quite possibly the gin-soaked piano player has been there that long as well. It's the only kind of place I can “sing out, Louise” without fear of sending listeners into seizures.

But Sunday evening held the weekend's signature event: Broadway Bares – the 19th annual fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The collective chorus boys and girls from all the Broadway musicals rehearsed for months on their days off putting together this giant burlesque show. The dancing, singing, costumes and lights, fabulous as they were, took a back seat to the buff, beautiful bodies, male and female, stripping, teasing and showing off their um, assets. Charitable giving has never been such fun.

Recuperating back home in Rehoboth after all this gay
culture, we switched gears from fundraising to activism.

Finally, after 13 long years of painful and futile efforts, a bill (SB 121) to add the words “sexual orientation” to Delaware's anti-discrimination statute seemed poised to pass in the Senate on Tuesday, June 23. By doing an end-run around some anti-gay legislators, the plan envisioned the bill passing in the Senate, with our Representative Pete Schwartzkopf ready to run it across the hall, suspend House rules and take it up instantly for passage.

Man plans, God laughs. It was an
end
-run alright. As I was on the way to Dover for the 2 p.m. session I received a call that the President Pro Tem of the Senate, Thurman Adams, the man who'd locked the bill in his desk drawer for years, passed away mere hours before the bill was to have its hearing. Forgive me, the old coot said it would pass over his dead body, and….

Suffice it to say, we feared he'd managed to scuttle the bill once more, this time from the great beyond.

Fear not, Senator Sokola and Representative Schwartzkopf managed to reschedule the bill for 3 p.m. the next day.

Readers, you are lucky you weren't there. The opposition attached three ugly amendments to the bill, essentially saying that the bill would make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation unless individuals or businesses had deeply held religious beliefs against homosexuality, and then it would be fine to discriminate. Really. Passage with that amendment would be worse than having no protection at all. The right to discriminate against gay people would be the law of the land.

We sat in the Senate hearing, listening to four miserable hours of insulting, mean-spirited, ignorant testimony from a handful of legislators and their witnesses, favoring this and other heinous amendments.

Since it's 2009, not 1999, our unworthy opponents felt compelled to compliment gay people as good tax-paying citizens, even calling some of us their friends, before trying to stuff their religious values down everyone's throats.

Frankly, I liked it better when bigots were out of the closet. It would have been easier to listen to folks in white hoods saying, “I hate homosexuals so we shouldn't enact this bill.” At times I found myself gnawing on my knuckles to keep from screaming.

I also blogged on Facebook:

- Killed one amend of three. Keep u posted
.

- A woman with “a Christian bakery,” whatever that is, says she should have the right to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding
.

- Killed second stupid amendment
.

- Now Sen. Venables is yammering that “lesbians can be made.” Gay men, not so much. What the hell does that mean?

- I wish I had a catheter
.

- If a student has two mommies, there's a yutz saying that the school should not even acknowledge it
.

- My god, these people are scared that protecting gays from being fired will lead to teachers being instructed to teach tots about homosexual sex. I'm practicing abstinence–I'm not shrieking!!!!!

- Three amendments down and roll call to go

- Bill passes in senate! 14 YES, 5 NO
.

- Get me to the ladies room!!!!!!

- Pete called House back into session. Same crappy amendments introduced.

- Another hour of ridiculous hate speech
.

- Spooky: the rain outside just stopped and a giant rainbow is over Legislative Hall. Somebody saying “not so fast” to those ugly amendments? Judy come to help?

- It passed!!!! 26 YES, 14 No. Tears of joy! We've been sitting through this battle for 13 years. I just congratulated Pete Schwartzkopf for being an incredible advocate and a man of his word
.

- Over and out, kids!

So gay people in Delaware are now protected in employment, housing and public accommodations. That's a relief. I
hope the religious bigots know that the bill also protects them from being discriminated against for their peculiarly hurtful religious views.

Saturday was the capper on the gayest week ever. The Delaware Stonewall Democrats hosted a joyous party celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Inn Rebellion that launched the gay rights movement. Governor Jack Markell attended, made moving remarks and announced his commitment to sign the anti-discrimination bill at CAMP Rehoboth the following Thursday.

Thanks to Governor Markell, our wonderfully supportive legislators, and everyone who has worked to make this happen for 13 long years.

Great day. Great week.

I am very, very gay (noun and adjective).

July 2009

I'M ALL ATWITTER…

I'm being followed. All the time. I feel like I'm in Witness Protection, with the mob gunning for me. In fact, I know exactly who is following me and to date there are 157 of them – just waiting to know what I am doing every single moment. It's scary.

Who's guessed? Ta-da! I am Twittering!

FayJRB: It's July 5. I have laryngitis. Why is everyone laughing?

Now if you have been under a large rock for the last year, or simply go catatonic at the mention of 21st century technology, here's a primer.

Twitter is a communications network – minus anchors, commercials, studios or high definition. Best of all, no talking heads come uninvited into your living room.

Mary Matalin and Rush can stand in a forest and Twitter, but thank goodness, to me it doesn't make a sound.

FayJRB: I am sitting, covered in hard-shell crab debris, picking crab meat.

Is this something inquiring minds want to know???? Joining Twitter means developing a network of twits you want to follow and see which twits want to follow you back. Oh, and the tweets you write are only allowed to be 140 characters long and are only allowed to answer a single question: “What are you doing?”

FayJRB: Oh, crap, I'm wiping Old Bay seasoning off my Blackberry.

Twitter allows you to fritter away your day twittering. Everybody's Clark Kent at the
Daily Planet
. Not only are people living their lives, but they are tweeting about them in real time.

Now it's one thing to tweet “I'm at Aqua drinking a Cosmo” and entirely another to tweet “I'm driving 45 mph around the circle on Rehoboth Avenue.” I have seen this scary thing–a
moving car with the driver balancing an iPhone on the steering wheel and twittering away. Please god let the next tweet say “got pulled over before I killed somebody.”

FayJRB: I'm procrastinating. Went to play 9 holes instead of writing my column about Twittering.

Here's what I don't understand. Why should somebody except my editor care if I'm golfing instead of completing my work? Some people use Twitter to give a running commentary on their entire lives. Along with a great big who cares, how can they pay attention to what they are doing while simultaneously tweeting about it?

Back in the early part of this century (2002) I thought that the crawl on the TV while the anchor was talking was distracting. Ha! That's nothing compared to somebody playing hoops and tweeting about the last 2-pointer. This is happening. Maximum multi-tasking.

FayJRB: Got up early to finish column so editor doesn't strangle me.

So just how did I become such a twit? I downloaded something called Tweet Deck, which is not at all like a tape deck, which is, I hear, totally obsolete. In addition, the word Tweeter itself reminds me of Woofers and Tweeters – those parts of your stereo speaker system (I think that whole concept is obsolete as well) that used to be housed in walnut cabinets the size of a dining room table.

No, this is the new kind of tweeter alright and I'm trying to determine if it's for me.

FayJRB: Still have laryngitis and post nasal drip.

Why do I think this was not what the internet or cell phone was invented for? Who cares if I am hacking and coughing and tweeting about it? Does this interest you? Say yes and I will send somebody over with a butterfly net to take you away.

FayJRB: Oops, time for my sinus wash.

Now there's a real scoop for the
New York Times
. This is the kind of thing people are twittering about. Just got a new one. Great, an acquaintance just walked his dog, and the dog did
two number ones and one number two. Is this insane, or what?

FayJRB: I'm deciding between my Yankees t-shirt or my “Be careful what you say or you'll end up in my novel t-shirt.”

Gee, if this isn't Pulitzer stuff, nothing is. I'm so glad to be using this free social utility to stay connected to other Tweeters in real time. This is need to know stuff.

FayJRB: I'm thinking of heading to the back yard to pick up dog poop.

Yes indeedy, this micro-blogging thing really works for me. I sure enjoy this always-on social network presence. Oh, here's another Tweet for me. Wow, I've got a colleague who just had a bagel with whitefish salad. Quick, call CNN, this is breaking news.

FayJRB: I'm wasting time on Twitter. Nothing is getting done. No column, no laundry, no nothing.

Maybe this Twitter craze will Tweet itself out. Oh good, now six more people are following me to the back yard for scooper duty. FYI, I wish they were actually following me and helping. There's a lot of poop out here…in the yard and out in the Twitosphere.

FayJRB: Twit, here, over and out.