Another Gay Day

Posted on August 7, 2012 by queerlefty

There are few things in my life that has made me really proud of myself, but coming out is one of them. Therefore, the annual August 7 repost of my coming out story from 2008, Two Years Ago Today Since I Came Out, is below:

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August 7 is the one day of the year when I allow myself to be absolutely, unabashedly, one-hundred percent gay. I don’t know much about personal courage, living in a liberal country with my liberal friends and liberal family, but I can’t help but feel a little bit of pride when I think back at the day when I finally took the leap, and told others about my true identity. Continue reading →

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“We encourage spontaneous displays of patriotism…”

Posted on July 28, 2012 by queerlefty

Being a left-leaning sometime idealist, I like to believe I have an uncomplicated relationship with freedom of speech. I’ll defend the right to publish controversial cartoons from threats from religious extremists; I’ll defend the right to say incredibly incendiary things, so long as it steers clear of threats of violence. As a robust believer in public discourse, I think more speech is generally preferable to speech regulations, although I do also believe in disclosure and accountability. However, my relationship with commercial speech is less comfortable. I feel unease when reminded of Mitt Romney’s “corporate are people, too” comment, which implies that commercial entities are entitled to the same speech rights as individuals, and I don’t like the stupidity of most political ads. In that sense, I am not an absolutist. Continue reading →

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“Can I pass you the sensory assault?”: On Jay Brannan’s ‘Rob Me Blind’

Posted on July 10, 2012 by queerlefty

Ninety seconds into La La La, a track from Jay Brannan’s new album Rob Me Blind, he suddenly veers into something approaching 2000’s college rock, when the lyrics take an aggressive turn. It’s an unexpected development from an artist I had previously almost begged not to change. And yet it works, not least because producer David Kahne integrates such bursts of fireworks into the framework of the singer-songwriter tradition Continue reading →

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Two’s A Trend

Posted on July 6, 2012 by queerlefty

What a week it has been for casual coming-out stories. Tuesday CNN news anchor and daytime talkshow Anderson Cooper came out, and then a couple of days later R&B singer and songwriter Frank Ocean of Odd Couple set the Twitterverse on fire by revealing that his first love had been a man. Both in their own way represent potential game-changers in traditional bastions of heterosexuality – Cooper as the alpha male who addresses the camera from a war zone, and Ocean as a symbol of diversity in the notoriously homophobic R&B/hip-hop scene – but perhaps the most interesting is how elegantly they revealed the news. Continue reading →

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Euro 2012 Delivered The Goods

Posted on July 3, 2012 by queerlefty

Another soccer championship is over, and in the end Euro 2012 was satisfying in several ways. Sure, I was disappointed that the German Golden Generation, so determined and entertaining until the semi-final, once again stumbled when things started to get really serious. Just like in 2010, Holland did little to convince me that they have a team in the vein of the legendary Johann Cruyff, and the Swedes were mostly awful. However, there was also the unusual sensation of seeing Italy playing a beautiful game, and when it mattered most, Spain dispatched them by playing what very well could be the best game of the championship. Continue reading →

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‘Perks’ Gets a Trailer

Posted on June 19, 2012 by queerlefty

My two most anticipated movies of the year released trailers recently. Yes, it will be exciting to see Andrew Garfield as The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Jackson returns with The Hobbit, and I’m just as excited as the next guy about Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. But what really gets my heart racing, is the upcoming adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and a movie musical version of Les Miserables. I’ll try to return to the Les Mis teaser at a later date, but here I’ll focus on the former. Continue reading →

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Weighing In, Belatedly, On Obama’s Marriage Announcement

Posted on May 29, 2012 by queerlefty

I’m not sure if you can really be late to a party that shows no sign of stopping, but even if it’s been three weeks since Barack Obama came out, as it were, in favor of marriage equality, I feel the need offer my thoughts on it anyway. My first thought remains a sincere congratulations to all activists all over the US who have shared their stories in order to bring positive attention to the existence of happy gay families and stable and loving gay relationships, and to those people who never let up the pressure on the President to stop with his preferred stalling tactic – the famed “evolving” shtick – and just speak his heart and mind. Continue reading →

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“Hanson Day” Reflections

Posted on May 6, 2012 by queerlefty

As May 6 is drawing to a close here in Norway, I just wanted to wish everybody a happy Hanson Day, and, while I’m at it, try to address some comments that have kept on tricklinf in over the years as I have continued to post semi-regularly about the band. From my Shout It Out (2010) review  to the list of my 25 favorite Hanson songs, it seems the topic still inspires some readers to share their opinons. I’m sorry about the extremely late reply, but here are some of the things I’ve learned by reading comments on my previous Hanson posts. Continue reading →

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My Mood Piece on ‘Titanic’

Posted on April 28, 2012 by queerlefty

One of the many pleasures of rewatching movies is that you discover somethng new every time. And I don’t mean just what’s on screen. Repeated exposure to what you thought was a familiar narrative will reveal things you hadn’t noticed before, or, when you’ve seen it enough times, make you concentrate on aspects, whether technical, narrative or otherwise, that you were initially too engaged in the story arc to ponder deeply. (For an example of this, see my examination of how my almost compulsive rewatching of David Fincher’s The Social Network changed and expanded my experience of the movie.) Continue reading →

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Thoughts On The ‘Glass Closet’

Posted on April 18, 2012 by queerlefty

Out Magazine has a new column up today by Michael Musto, in which he revisits his controversial 2007 story about the concept of the ‘glass closet‘. In short, people in the glass closet are celebrities who, according to Musto, live relatively open gay lives in private and are careful never to deny that they are gay if asked, while never acknowledging that they are, either. As Musto quite triumphantly points out, several of the people he singled out in his initial piece – Clay Aiken, Wanda Sykes,  Sean Hayes – have since come out, but he bemoans that Jodie Foster and Anderson Cooper, two of the most prominent celebrities in his initial ‘glass closet’ have not come forward yet (or at least not in a way that satisfies Musto, considering Foster went a big step toward outing herself by thanking her female companion publicly a few years back.) Continue reading →

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