Tag Archives: gay

WilSon, Love & Thanks – Thoughts for Valentine’s Day

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This is a “Thank You Letter” of sorts.

On Valentine’s Day, after an elongated mulling-it-over period, the character of Will Horton on Days of our Lives is going to accept the marriage proposal of his longtime love, Sonny Kiriakis.

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Guy Wilson (l) and Freddie Smith play Will and Sonny, a young gay couple set to be married on NBC’s Days of our Lives.

I thank the DAYS producers and writers and NBC for that. For making a same-sex couple a part of the landscape. For treating that couple no different than any other young lovers. For weaving them into the fabric of the core families and for understanding the importance of allowing this relationship to play out over time. They should definitely be thanked.

I also want to thank the young men who portray these characters — Freddie Smith and Guy Wilson. They are doing yeoman’s work and they’re excited about doing it, which is even nicer.

“Will said no when Sonny popped the question last month because it’s a soap and it has to be dramatic,” said Smith in an interview with The Advocate that was published online on Feb. 13. “But when I found out they were finally getting engaged, I was thrilled.”

Also last month, when I wrote about the significance of Sonny asking Will to marry him, I got this:

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I was really quite shocked, I have to say, even though I had already heard through the grapevine that he’s a genuinely nice guy. No one, least of all me, expected him to (A) read what I had to say, (B) care that I was saying it, or (C) think it was important to let me know. That’s rare.

So, thanks, Guy. Not only was it nice, but he turned me from someone who was a fan of the character to a fan of the actor. In my loooong tenure in the theatre, I learned that while the business is full of prima donnas, the nice folks who persevere always finish first.

(Also, in my other life, part of what I do is explain branding and marketing and relationship-building to people. That tweet? That’s marketing.)

In the Advocate article, Smith also said that he’s received many letters from fans telling him of the impact of this story.

“In fact, one of those letters that touched me the most was from a young man who told me he was able to come out to his grandmother by saying, ‘Grandma, I want you to know that I’m just like Sonny.’ That really tugged at my heart because without this storyline he may have continued to keep his feelings to himself, but he was able to be comfortable enough to be honest instead. That’s why I’m so happy DAYS is showing this, because it’s part of life and people need to see themselves reflected on TV.”

So, thanks Freddie, for understanding the broad reach and importance that can come from telling bold, yet distinctly human stories over the long term and telling them well.

I’ve said it forever — and often loudly in defense of the importance of the continuing drama — but we humans only exist by storytelling, by sharing our experiences with one another, by finding out what we have in common with others and what sets us apart.

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Will said no to Sonny, when he proposed last month. How he could resist that face is beyond me!

I am so excited, as a gay man, that we are seeing so much more inclusion and diversity in society and having it being reflected back by touchstones of cultural significance, like DAYS; it’s such a positive step forward. We have to press on and not let this fall by the wayside.

As I write this, I do wonder how it would have been if, when I was in my early 20s and coming out, I had been able to say to my own grandmother, “I want you to know that I’m just like Sonny.” That’s probably how I would have done it, too. Grandmother did love her ‘stories!’ Guess that’s where I get it from.

Anyhow, thanks world, for changing and for welcoming our “tribe” more and more into the rich polyglot of society.

My own husband is upstairs in bed. I’ll join him in a bit. He said he wanted a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day, so, not being the roses and chocolates type, I took him at his word and I will cook something a little fancy for dinner. Maybe we’ll uncork a bottle of wine.

The rest of the day, we’ll both do a lot of “gay things” that are so foreign to the rest of the world: work, run errands, walk the dogs through the infernal never-to-melt snowbanks that surround us. I may even do what I’ve been threatening and look for work in the warm part of California! We’ll end the day talking about our future, how happy we are, and how we met more than a decade ago because, even though it’s OUR story, it’s a good and funny one. Maybe we’ll put on a movie. Or maybe we’ll watch Will say yes to Sonny all over again. After all, it’s good to warm your heart before turning in.

Thanks, finally, to those who read these scratchings. Your thoughts, comments, shares and likes are well and truly appreciated.

Go love somebody. Happy Valentine’s Day.

How to Behave Around Your Gay Teammate in the Locker Room

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At the absolute worst, this teammate finds you attractive and has a moment of weakness and lets one little glance slip that you catch, and you notice because you’re (of course) already staring at him. Now you know how the thousands upon thousands of breasts you’ve stared at slack-jawed in your lifetime feel. Congratulations, Margaret, you’ve just become a woman!

via How to Behave Around Your Gay Teammate in the Locker Room | The Second City Network.

Priceless. It’s funny as hell — because it’s from Second City — but it rings pretty true. Take a read. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to head to a locker room!

Looking at ‘Looking’ Again: A New Look

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We’re now halfway through the first season of eight episodes of the new HBO series Looking and I thought it was time to cast another critical eye in its direction.

The show has opened to mixed reviews, including a few that were downright hostile. And today, unlike a few years back, much of the audience has its own platforms on which to weigh in, as well. (Hi, howya doing?!) A lot of those unsolicited reviews and comments have bandied around this dreaded word: boring.

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Murray Bartlett, Jonathan Groff and Frankie J. Alvarez in Looking on HBO. |image: John P. Johnson

In my initial take, I did not use that word (you’re welcome), but I wasn’t overly positive, either. That was after one episode.

After the second episode I was not sure whether I was coming back for a third time. I did, though, and I was glad of it. I felt that Looking was beginning to find its footing in the third episode. It made me eager to come back for number four.

That episode, Looking for $220/Hour, did not disappoint. In addition to continued realistic and nuanced performances from all of the principals, Groff’s palpable tension with guest star Russell Tovey (someone whom American audiences have seen far too little of), a nuanced little turn from Scott Bakula and another utterly captivating taste of Lauren Weedman’s Doris, we saw a storyline pull together that had been set up in the previous episodes, but the strings were just revealed here.

A lesser series, I am sure, would have had Groff’s Patrick falling in bed — or into those office chairs that could have so easily doubled as sex swings — with Tovey’s Kevin instead of letting us feel Patrick’s rocky emotional footing during the “fried chicken” scene leading to a reunion with Richie (Raúl Castillo) that was both beautifully executed and sexy as hell without being overt.

Actually, I think the problem was in how the series was originally packaged. Often, I think Americans expect “more, more, more” and expect that more to be better. Of course, that’s not always the case. (Generally, it’s not, in fact.) I do think that a half-hour is the right length for these episodes, but I do think that packaging the first two together would have given the series a stronger basis to build upon. (And I would have re-written them a bit, too, but maybe that’s just me!)

Groff told Michelangelo Signorile that he believed in Looking more than anything else he’s been a part of. Good for him. I think he should. For whatever faults it has, this is an intelligent series. Smartly written and directed and chock-a-block with canny performers.

So, boring? No. Well done? Yes. Worth another look? Absolutely.

What is homophobia? Why straight men are right to be afraid of homosexuality.

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Clearly, men in America have grown up learning to be scared of gayness. But not only for the reasons we typically think—not only, in the end, because of religion, insecurity about their own sexuality, or a visceral aversion to other men’s penises. The truth is, they’re afraid because heterosexuality is so fragile.

via What is homophobia? Why straight men are right to be afraid of homosexuality..

This is an intriguing article, but like some who commented on Facebook, I don’t like the title, either.

Here’s the thing: this intense aversion to male-to-male closeness is a twentieth century construct. It comes, in large part, out of Eisenhower era fears — communism, segregation, ‘women’s lib’ — as much as anything. Not that there was no homophobia before the 1950s, God knows, but we became intolerant, intransigently so, during the McCarthy years, and we haven’t veered off of that path very much in the years since.

This goes hand-in-hand with how we make boys stop showing affection to other boys when they reach a certain age. We need to stop that, too.

H/T Steve Grand

The Last ‘Tales,’ Closing the Doors on 28 Barbary Lane

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That address, 28 Barbary Lane, is, I would argue, the most recognized address in gay literature. It is, of course, the sprawling apartment building overseen by transgender landlady Anna Madrigal. It is a place where, if you were a new arrival from Cleveland in the 1970s your welcome might be a joint taped to the door. Or where your new GBF would introduce you to a world that you didn’t even know existed back in the Midwest. Or where, for awhile, a lunatic lived on the roof before he fell off a cliff and was gone for good. Or was he?

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The last one. Armistead Maupin caps nearly 40 years of stories about the denizens of 1970s San Francisco and their offspring in the ninth and final installment in the Tales of the City series.

The godfather of gay serial fiction, Armistead Maupin, has said that with the release of The Days of Anna Madrigal this month, the nearly 40-year-long run of Tales of the City will come to an end. Maupin said, in an interview with BuzzFeed’s Louis Peitzman, “I’ve taken a great deal of care with all nine of these novels, and I want to leave on a high point. I’m also going to be 70 in May, so I’d like to leave a little space for myself to explore some new ideas.”

Like so many gay men of a certain vintage, Tales had a tremendous effect on me. I have no recollection about how I heard about the books, but I did, and with great trepidation, lest some bookstore clerk think I was gay —gasp— I purchased Tales of the City and subsequently devoured it, then More Tales, Further Tales and then 1984’s Babycakes, which dates my discovery to around 1985 or so. I was 21 years old.

I bought Significant Others as soon as it came out in 1987 and 1989’s Sure of You when it hit the bookstore shelves and I read and re-read them all multiple times.

To me, these books allowed me access to a world that I had not even known to dream about, my worldview so stifled at the time by my conservative upbringing in North Carolina; but I was far from the only gay man in the 1980s who ever-so-tentatively stuck a toe out of the closet because of Armistead Maupin and Tales of the City.

By 1993, when the first mini-series aired on PBS, I was living in Washington, D.C., nearly 30 and mostly out and my friends and I would gather each week to watch Tales unfold on the screen while I taped the episodes on my VHS recorder to watch over and over again.

I have such a distinctive recollection of Mouse (Marcus D’Amico) and Dr. Jon  (Billy Campbell, who I had such a crush on!) waking up in bed together and Michael sneaking off to brush his teeth. When he returns to the bed, they carried  on their conversation like it was the most normal thing in the world. Because it was, right? Except that we had never seen anything like that on television before. Men. In bed. Together. The morning after.

And instead of the expected follow-up of, “You will now be damned to hell,” Mona brings them breakfast and Jon sticks his finger in the marmalade pot and licks it off in perhaps the sexiest post-breakfast average morning scene ever put on film. We were mesmerized.

This is really on PBS? It was, and it was so amazingly controversial that it took five more years to get the funding to shoot More Tales and until 2001 to do Further Tales.

Today, I can’t think of the radiant Laura Linney — gifted actress though she is — without first thinking about Mary Ann Singleton. Nor can I imagine anyone else ever in the history of the world playing Mrs. Madrigal other than Olympia Dukakis.

Today, we have HBO’s much-hyped series about gay men in San Francisco, Looking, we have multiple gay-themed series on the web and on cable, we have a cable channel devoted to gay and lesbian programming, and we even have a front burner positive gay storyline on mainstream Days of our Lives. How far we’ve come since it was a scandal to see Billy Campbell’s ass.

We’ve got a long way to go, but through the first quarter century and first half-dozen books of Tales, and after all three TV mini-series, no same-sex couple could get married in the United States. Now you can, in 16 states (depending on what’s being litigated today). That’s an impressive leap forward.

I can’t imagine being that scared, closeted, young gay man that I was when I first found Tales of the City. It’s not often that we can point to a particular piece of literature and say, “This changed the world.” The nine books of the Tales series have done just that. And they’ve probably saved lives, too.

Thank you, Armistead Maupin. Your work has made an indelible impact.

Looking: Pay TV Goes Where The Web’s Been Before

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HBO’s much ballyhooed Looking premiered last night and a lot of gay folks were hanging an awful lot of expectation on this half-hour. Trying to be everything to everybody would be a surefire way to set yourself up for disaster, so I wasn’t looking — as it were — for that. I didn’t have any expectations; I just wanted it to be good.

And it was, but I can’t help but feel a bit like Brad Bell, the co-creator/writer/star of Husbands, the hilarious marriage equality sitcom, who tweeted this:

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I’m going to come back to that in a second, but I also noticed that Rob Owen’s review in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called Looking the “latest descendant of Queer as Folk.” Well, I don’t buy that at all. It’s closer to a modern day Tales of the City.

Of course, the San Francisco parallels are obvious and Armistead Maupin’s classic stories are classic for a reason and they are more layered because there are simply more layers on the canvas, but Looking’s Dom (Murray Bartlett), the mustachioed waiter nearing 40 who is always on the pull, is a gay clone of Tales‘ Brian Hawkins, not QAF’s Stuart Allen Jones (or Brian Kinney, in the American version). And that’s not taking anything away from Bartlett — he’s lovely — but it bothered me throughout the episode.

I also have to admit being bothered by the opening scenes featuring Jonathan Groff’s Patrick going for a quick handjob in the park because that is exactly what would have happened in Tales of the City in the 70s and 80s; except that it wouldn’t have been interrupted by a cellphone call. If director Andrew Haigh (I am such an enormous fan of his work) and writer Michael Lannan were trying to be ironic, it didn’t read. It came off as another depiction of gay men being completely and utterly driven by sex alone. And, quite frankly, in 2014, we desperately need to get beyond that because, well, straight people.

Then again, see above re: being all things to all people. (And for the record, back in the day when I could have possibly pulled a trick I was too bloody terrified to contemplate it and now that I’m too old and married, I’m awfully too old and married!)

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Frankie J. Alvarez, Murray Bartlett and Jonathan Groff in HBO’s Looking, which follows the lives of three gay men in San Francisco. |Image: HBO

Look, Jonathan Groff is a wonderful, subtle, earnest performer and he’s so enjoyable to watch. Bartlett and Frankie J. Alvarez are equally competent hands on the tiller and you are interested in what will happen to them all enough to tune back in for the next episode. Also, it was nice to see people like Ann Magnuson,  Matt Wilkas (from the delicious indie comedy Gayby) and Tanner Cohen (Were the World Mine, the Shakespeare-inspired gay fantasy) who sports one of the most hilarious tattoos I’ve ever seen on screen.

Back to the Web
But, like Bell intimates, haven’t we seen some of this before? Is Patrick going through the same “slutty phase” as Jack in The Outs? Or are his attempts to find someone who is “not boring” akin to Thom in EastSiders? I have sense that we’ve been down this road already.

What set EastSiders and The Outs apart were the disintegration of a relationship (EastSiders) and the rebuilding of a different kind of relationship after a breakup (The Outs) and while Looking is not the same, it struck me as being a network version of a mashup of these two independent series. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t feel that Looking lived up to its hype. Not that it’s not good — because it is — but that there was too much lead in.

Then again, we’re so damn starved for entertainment in the gay community; so desperate that someone will turn that mirror back on us, that when there is something out there in the mainstream that may validate us, we want it to be as good as it possibly can be. And we’re always disappointed when it doesn’t meet all of our expectations.

It is unfair for me to compare The Outs and EastSiders to Looking, because they are each different animals, but I would urge you to look at their world views, too, if you haven’t already. The Outs is available here and EastSiders is available as individual episodes and cut as a full-length feature at logotv.com.

As for Looking, I’ll be looking in on it again next week because, since I just told a bunch of folks to give a recast on Days of our Lives a chance to settle into the role, it would be disingenuous of me not to allow this show to do the same.

P.S. — Don’t take my word for it. HBO has just released the first episode on YouTube for non-subscribers to see.

New Doc Premieres About Jerry Smith, Gay Washington Redskin

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You know I don’t “do” football, but if you live in Washington long enough (and I did) you start to absorb Redskins knowledge by osmosis. Jerry Smith was one of those Redskins who achieved a mythic quality among a certain generation of fans. And he was gay.

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Tight end Jerry Smith during his playing days with the Washington Redskins. |Image: Outsports.

And he couldn’t admit it.

It’s astonishing — I just wrote a post about a same-sex proposal on mainstream Days of our Lives — and here’s a reminder of how far we have come and how far we have to go. Pro football has given us many strong equality advocates recently, people like Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, but we still don’t have an out player in the NFL. Soon, I hope.

Anyhow, this looks like a terrific documentary. Reporting from Outsports below.

Documentary delves into life of Redskins tight end Jerry Smith, a star who hid that he was gay – Outsports.

Gay Men Make The Best Bosses

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Gay Men Make The Best Bosses| Gay News | Towleroad.

What [Snyder] found was that gay male bosses produce 35 to 60 percent higher levels of employee engagement, satisfaction, and morale than straight bosses. 

Yep. I think the argument behind this is sound. And for the record, I’m a damn good boss!

I Want My GayTV — Web and Broadcast Series Line Beginning to Blur

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(Jan. 7, 2014) — Tonight, the cable channel Logo will air a movie-length compilation of the series EastSiders. [Check your local listings, but it looks like 11:30 p.m. in the East.]

Kit Williamson and Van Hansis star as Cal and Thom in the web series "Eastsiders." Watch at www.eastsiderstv.com

Kit Williamson and Van Hansis star as Cal and Thom in “EastSiders,” which is seeing its cable premiere tonight.

So, what’s the significance of this — other than the fact that I’m a fan? Well, I think it’s because the series is at the vanguard of blurring the line between Web-based entertainment — the quality of which is seen often (and wrongly) as “less than” — and traditional broadcast/cablecast TV. Logo seems to be tentatively dipping its toes into the Web world to see what they can mine for their network. (The show was released originally on Logo’s website, after the first episodes premiered on YouTube.)

Down the TV Rabbit Hole
I’m actually not among the ones who think that a television deal is the end-all-be-all of the entertainment world. In fact, I tend to think that networks are looking to the Web for content because they are running scared — scared of the death of cable monopolies, scared of the death of cable bundling, scared of the increasingly small numbers of corporate parents, which tends to have a negative effect on diversity and innovation.

I mean, let’s get real, it’s great that Logo is out there, but it’s owned by one of the most powerful entities in the entertainment world: Viacom. And it does not exist because of any altruism; it’s because Viacom saw a niche where they thought they could make some money. Not making any money? BAM! You’re the next Discovery Health Channel.

It’d be great if the creators of EastSiders could tap into a bit of that corporate money to make a second series (or more), but not at the price that corporate tentacles usually bring with them.

Still, watch, if you’ve never seen it. It’s a terrific example of a program made independent of studio money or interference that’s simply just better than most anything you’ll find on a major network. It’s one of the first, of what I hope are many, programs to showcase different voices and points-of-view.

It’s Awards Season
It is. I know this because the New York Times on Sunday helpfully included and entire special section in the newspaper. One of the awards not helpfully included were the Third Annual Groovy Awards for Web Series Excellence.

There were a few outliers, but generally EastSiders and It Could Be Worse took home the most, er, …. well, I don’t know what groovy thing you get — statuettes? trophies? certificates? Starbucks gift cards?

Anyhow, here’s a rundown:

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Van Hansis, Kit Williamson and John Halbach of EastSiders.

Grooviest Drama Series: EastSiders
Grooviest Actor in a Drama: Van Hansis, EastSiders
Grooviest Supporting Actor in a Drama: John Halbach, EastSiders
Grooviest Supporting Actress in a Drama: Constance Wu, EastSiders
Grooviest Guest Star in a Drama: Sean Maher, EastSiders

It Could Be Worse received the following in groovy achievement:

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Wes Taylor, star and co-creator of It Could Be Worse.

Grooviest Comedy Series
Grooviest Gay Series
Grooviest Actor in a Comedy: Wesley Taylor
Grooviest Supporting Actor in a Comedy: Adam Chanler-Berat
Grooviest Supporting Actress in a Comedy: Alison Fraser
Grooviest Guest Actor in a Comedy: Audra McDonald

It Could Be Worse is the brainchild of Wesley Taylor and Mitchell Jarvis and fast-established itself as a member of that rarified position occupied by EastSiders, The Outs, Whatever This Is, and Husbands known as “Belongs on TV if TV Had the Balls to Produce It.” A second season is currently in production.

Meanwhile, I have to say, it’s an egregious slight not to include EastSiders creator and star Kit Williamson on the “groovy” list. He’s just as groovy as Van — and I’m not even being paid to say so!!

Teacher Fired for Obtaining Marriage License – And Other Bitchy Gripes About Bad Journalism

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Holy Ghost Preparatory Teacher Allegedly Fired For Getting Gay Marriage License: Report.

Where do I start. Okay…

1. Who in the hell writes this shit? And who in the hell edits it?
I say that mainly because of the headline above in the Huffington Post. “Gay Marriage License?” Are you for real? First of all, there is no such thing. Second of all, see “First of all.”

2. Journalism 101 Fail
Read the HuffPo article. Then ask the following questions that any decent cub journo should know to ask: Where did you apply since Pennsylvania is not an equality state? If it was in Pennsylvania, where you trying to make a political statement? Did you understand the reach of your employment contract before this event? Did you speak with your supervisors before your decided to apply for a marriage license?

For the record, it’s not just the HuffPo; the local news piece where this story originated (I guess) does not answer them either.

3. Dig a Bit
I did find my answers. In a story from UPI, of all places. UPI, the Unification Church-owned wire service which, to the best of my knowledge, is no longer held up as a standard of excellence.

They went to New Jersey for the license. And no, they didn’t seek out the school’s approval prior to getting the license which, while meaningful for the couple, won’t amount to a hill of beans in Pennsylvania.

4. Thoughts In General
Mr. Griffin, you may be a beloved teacher, but you’re a dumb ass. How naive are you to assume that a Roman Catholic Church school would embrace your same-sex marriage with open arms? Even in the interviews, you mention your employment handbook which states that behavior antithetical to Church teachings is ground for termination.

Look, I think the actions of this school — and this religious denomination for that matter — are vile and cruel and evil and ridiculous. There’s no denying that. But, sir, you knew you were dancing with the devil. You knew what Church policy was/is. You knew what the terms of your employment were. You knew those terms for the entire 12 years you were employed there. You brought this on yourself.

As someone who also lives in a state, like you do, without provisions from preventing termination for sexual orientation, I feel for you. And your partner. I really and truly do, but you knew better. And if you didn’t, well shame on you for not doing your due diligence. Until there is 100% equality for LGBT persons, that’s just a requirement for us all. You have to. Or you have to suffer the consequences.

If you want to change this for others, don’t roll over. Stand up. Be counted. Make change happen. But, if you are going to cry to the local TV and be upset that you were wronged, I don’t have any use for it. Nor do I have any use for simplistic reporting done by middle school interns.

On the other hand, if you are going to stand up and fight this, well, I’m with you 100%.