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This…

…is why people like Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry and that cunt from Wasilla think they can be president.  And why the rest of us should be terribly worried that they will.

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Thursday Dance Party: Saint Tropez – Violation

This was the first song I ever slow danced to with another man. David Martinez, August 1977 at The Forum in Phoenix, AZ. I remember being so disappointed when I actually bought the album and brought it home because it wasn’t on the same translucent pink vinyl that I saw playing at the club. It wasn’t until the late 90s that I finally got hold of the elusive pink version…

I was quite infatuated with David. We dated long distance (he lived in Williams, and I was at school in Tucson). He drove to Tucson one weekend to see Fleetwood Mac with me, and I made the six hour trip (by bus) shortly thereafter to spend a weekend with him as the trees were changing up north. We hiked to the top of Bill Williams Mountain where I took this picture of him:

I had also decided at this point it was time to come out to the rest of my family (my dad had known for some time already), and since I knew my Mom always went through my dresser drawers, I left a copy of the then-seminal Loving Someone Gay in the top drawer on the way back to school. Needless to say, this prompted another trip home the following weekend…

Eventually the pressure of living in two separate cities proved too much for the budding  relationship and David and I drifted apart.  I briefly reconnected with him via email in 2000 and had every intention of looking him up after I’d moved back to Phoenix two years later, but it never happened.

How did this get sidetracked from the Thursday Dance Party?

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Why Steve Jobs' Death Feels So Sad

From Lex Friedman at MacWorld.com:

On Twitter and Facebook, in my email, and through IMs, I keep hearing a similar refrain: Why am I so sad? Why am I feeling such a strong reaction to the death of someone I’ve never met?

Many of us feel tremendous sadness in light of Steve Jobs’s death. I can’t speak for my friends about why they feel so affected by his passing, but I imagine their reasons for tearing up mirror my own.

Welcome in my home

I can’t tell you the name of either one of RIM’s CEOs. Though I know his name, I honestly couldn’t pick Google CEO Larry Page out of a lineup, and I don’t know that I’ve ever heard his speaking voice, either. But I know just what Steve Jobs looked like, and just how he sounded. Not every CEO can—or should—show off his company’s products. But watching Steve deliver a keynote or host an Apple Event, I wasn’t struck solely by his much-lauded showmanship. Part of what made a Jobs-helmed event so exciting to watch was his very real, very tangible passion for the products he was unveiling. Steve didn’t just run Apple—he loved it, and you could see that love, that pride, beaming from his face.

You hear people talk about television actors as the people we don’t know who we let into our homes, since they show up in our dens each night. Every Apple event, Steve showed up in my home too, wherever my Mac was. I would read the liveblog first, then watch the video as soon as Apple made it available. I’ve watched countless interviews with the man, too. So part of the reason I think his death hits me hard is because I really do feel like I knew him—even if he didn’t know me.

(continued)

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Saturday Dance Party: Sylvester – I Who Have Nothing

This came up on random shuffle on my iPod the other day and I’ve been meaning to share it since. It is one of my favorite tunes of the era, but surprisingly was not one of Sylvester’s bigger hits. To this day I can’t understand why.

I agree 100% with the comments left by a guy who posted a slightly shorter version of this on YouTube:

There have been many “classic” versions of this tune done by many artists over the years (from Shirley Bassey to Tom Jones, and more), but in my humble opinion, nothing comes close to the emotional resonance of Sylvester’s version. Astounding and brilliant, it brings tears to my eyes, not only because of the beauty of his voice, but also because it was a such a special time period that will never be repeated. It didn’t matter who you were or what you were. Everyone loved Sylvester.

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