Cranky Lesbian

On November 8, 2008

So I was minding my business, ~~lifting some lead off the roof of the Holy Name church~~^* looking for information about an old Sidney Lumet film at IMDb (I know how to have fun on a Friday night), when I decided to skim today’s WENN offerings. That’s how I came across this odd little blurb about Elizabeth Banks banning her in-laws from seeing her latest movie:

Elizabeth Banks has banned her husband’s parents from watching her strip in saucy new movie Zack And Miri Make A Porno.
The actress jumps into bed with pal Seth Rogen to make a sex tape for cash in the Kevin Smith comedy.
And Banks hates the idea of her in-laws watching her have sex with anyone other than her spouse of five years, Max Handelman.

Am I going crazy or is that last sentence rather disturbing? The piece goes on to quote Banks in a way that kind of explains the wording, but that doesn’t mean my face hasn’t been frozen in horror for the last five minutes anyway.

^* Damn that Morrissey. Once he gets in your head he’s there all day.

A Weekend Geography Lesson

On November 8, 2008

Because it’s never too late to learn (and gloat):

Spain is in Latin America.

Venezuela is in the Middle East.

Czechoslovakia still exists.

Russia is in Alaska.

New Hampshire is in the “Great Northwest”.

Canada is in Alaska, too.

As for Africa … well, Sarah Palin will “have to get back to you” on all of that.

But most importantly, John McCain is not in the White House. And Sarah Palin is back in Alaska, where she can only harm 683,478 people instead of 305,603,000. Ah, Alaska. As its ever-chipper governor might say, in between “you betchas” and winks, Alaska’s reward is in heaven.

Why Are British Lesbians So Slutty?

On November 7, 2008

Throughout history, British women have been total players.

Every goddamn week, it seems, British lesbians want to sleep with a new celebrity. I know this because I receive e-mail alerts about it. Why it’s considered newsworthy that anyone wants to have sex with Maria Sharapova, I really couldn’t tell you, but then there are a lot of things about Britain I don’t understand.

Jodie Marsh and Kerry Katona immediately come to mind — can anyone explain those two to me? And then there’s that troubling national obsession with truly awful cover songs, often of tunes that were terrible the first time around, performed by hacky boy bands and girl bands that seem like they were assembled by comedy writers who have nothing but contempt for the public.

I’ve been careless in keeping track of all the famous women these very social British lesbians have set their sights this year, so I’m sure I’m missing the results of a poll or twelve. Still, this should give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

“There Is No Gray Area Here”

On November 7, 2008

That’s what Erica Hahn said to her kind-of girlfriend Callie Torres at the end of what was reportedly actress Brooke Smith’s final episode of Grey’s Anatomy. After learning of some all-time rule-breaking involving a misappropriated donor heart that had gone on at the hospital, Hahn told Callie off about right and wrong, black and white, gay and not gay kind of matters, and stalked off.

In other words, nothing was resolved. And we’ve been led to believe that Smith is officially out the door. That ABC wanted her gone faster than that Heather Graham sitcom that was practically canceled before its first commercial break had ended. “Forget about finishing the goddamn Cadillac storyline, or whatever those Internet freaks call it” the network suits presumably said. “Get her out!”

So she’s out. But how does “Callica” end? The preview for next week’s episode, which dramatic voice over narration guy warned is trauma-heavy, included a shot of all the doctors standing around either an operating table or a gurney, looking somber, with Callie apparently sobbing. So, yeah, my guess would be there is no gray area here. Just a large, vast area (yes, I get that that’s redundant) of unmitigated suckiness.

We’ll see.

To cheer up any depressed Hahn fans who might be reading this, I’ve posted a picture of Penelope Cruz looking really dykey and grabbing Salma Hayek’s ass. I know that always makes me feel better when I’m upset about something.

Katie Couric: Friend of Gays, Enemy of Math

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric recently took a few minutes off from practicing gotcha journalism (sample questions: “What’s your name?” and “How do you spell cat?”) to point out that while Barack Obama’s Tuesday victory is being celebrated as a “triumph for civil rights in America,” we’re still a pretty hateful country, as evidenced by the fact that gays and lesbians were viciously bitch-slapped by millions of bigoted voters in no less than three states on the day Obama was swept into office.

After noting the Chicago race riots of the 1960s and the progress the civil rights movement has made since then, Couric concluded: “In 1969, there was another riot called Stonewall. Thirty years later, gays and lesbians hope for their moment to return to the streets and cheer.” Thirty years?! Did she get that number from a sad old queen dressed entirely in Abercrombie garb?

What’s This Canadian Blogger Talking About? (Updated)

Another day, another opinion about Grey’s Anatomy trying to straighten itself out like a Saturday Night Fever star hooked up to an E-meter. This time it’s Vancouver Sun blogger Shelley Fralic who caught my attention, mostly because I’m not entirely sure what she’s talking about:

Sometimes, even in television, relationships just don’t work out, lesbians and otherwise. And you have to wonder why the ABC executives would be skittish about a gay storyline. It’s not like this one was breaking any new ground: gay relationships are now almost standard fare on TV, and no one much bats an eye over them any more, whether they’re on daytime soaps or on primetime chart-toppers like Will & Grace and Brothers & Sisters.

That, of course, is incorrect. Eyes are still batted, and they’d be batted even more if network television bothered paying attention to lesbians, which they don’t. At all.

When Dirty Spam is Misleading

I received a piece of spam this morning with the subject line “Hot lesbian slut gets punished by her girlfriend for fucking another boy!”

(The exclamation point was theirs, by the way, and I commend whoever put the spam together for using it instead of a more anti-gay frowny-face emoticon. In the wake of three states passing gay marriage bans on Tuesday, it makes me happy to know that spammers are so enthusiastic about homosexuality.)

As far as the substance of the subject line goes, I’m O.K. with hot lesbian sluts. I approve of them in much the same way that I approve of the progressive tax system and Velvet Underground records. And if this particular lesbian or, for that matter, any lesbian — hot or not, promiscuous or monogamous, or partly monogamous with a 30% chance of infidelity — likes getting punished by her girlfriend, I’m completely supportive of that.

It’s the “for fucking another boy” part that I’m having trouble with. Doesn’t “another” imply something that “lesbian” and “girlfriend” don’t? I guess what I’m getting at is, I don’t know, I’m not so convinced this hot slut is really a lesbian.

In Which I Vote and Listen to Giggly Teens Talk Politics

Alas, Mink Stole was not a volunteer at my polling place.*

Four years ago, when I voted in my first presidential election, the line outside my polling place — a small, shabby church with a kitchen whose ancient refrigerator was covered with alphabet magnets and children’s fingerpaintings — was long and grim. And that was at six in the morning, when the polls first opened.

Everywhere I looked there were tense, glum men in business attire, yawning and impatiently checking their watches and cell phones. It was cold and dark outside, and every now and then the wind would pick up and sting my face. The wait ended up being a little more than 90 minutes long, and by the time I stepped into the church my hair was tangled and my fingertips were numb. As it turned out, the day didn’t get any better from there.

Mid-morning yesterday I went back to the same polling place, thinking of the bleary-eyed zombies who’d surrounded me in 2004, when my candidate lost. Again the line was very long, but the volunteers were better organized this time and everything moved faster. It was nice outside, warm and breezy, and the leaves rustling overhead seemed more colorful than I remember anything looking the day George W. Bush was re-elected. The atmosphere was oddly idyllic.

TV Critics Respond to the De-Lezzification of Grey’s

On November 5, 2008