Planet Homo

Bruno Gives Eminem Butt View

Hip Hop Icon, Eminem can either take a good joke, or is not too happy with MTV at the moment. At tonight's movie awards, Sacha Baron Cohen, prior to presenting an award and a preview of his new Borat series, flew into the auditorium and ended bare-bottomed in Eminem's lap. Real or staged seems to be the question on everyone's minds at the moment. UPDATE: As suspected, it was a planned butt visitation. In fact, Eminem was NOT the first choice, but Paris Hilton! Entertainment Weekly is among many media sources reporting that Scott Aukerman, a writer for the MTV Movie Awards show, claims that Sacha Baron Cohen's ambush of Eminem "was staged." EW quotes a recent blog entry by Aukerman, which read, "They rehearsed it at dress and, yes, it went as far as it did on the live show."

Levi Johnston Changes Diaper

In a new interview, Levi Johnston gets a few things off his chest – starting with his shirt.

The teen father of Bristol Palin's baby is bare from the top up as he changes son Tripp's diaper in the July issue of GQ. In the article he says he believes Sarah and Todd Palin pressured their daughter to break up with him after Tripp's birth.

"Just going over there makes me pretty damn uncomfortable," Johnston, 19, tells the magazine. "Just going over there, and Todd and Sarah sitting there staring at me, doesn't do it for me. Todd never says anything, really. Sarah's ... a politician: She knows how to throw in a fake smile and look happy."

Cover Boy

'American Idol' runner-up Adam Lambert is not only openly gay, he is planning a Rolling Stone cover to confirm it after months of speculation, reports the NY Post.

'Idol' judge Kara DioGuardi is on a pretaped 'View' airing Friday, and during her sit-down she says he is out.

"I don't think that Adam was ever in [the closet]," she tells the ladies. "I think he was always openly out."

Meanwhile, Friday's NY Post reports he will be on the cover of next week's Rolling Stone.

    "AMERICAN Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert has steadfastly refused to talk about his sexuality despite photos of him on his Web site tongue-kissing men and dressed in full drag -- but not for much longer. A well-placed magazine source tells Page Six that Lambert will be coming out officially on the next cover of Rolling Stone.

File Under: Things We Never Knew

John Kelly is Joni Mitchell

In the event you have never seen John Kelly perform his homage to the master singer/songwriter, Joni Mitchell, he is performing his show, "Paved Paradise"  in New York City in June. Tickets available here.

David Hyde Pierce is Married

NEW YORK - David Hyde Pierce has revealed that he and TV producer Brian Hargrove got married last fall.

Pierce told “The View” that he and and Hargrove got hitched “very quietly last October 24th,” after having been together for 25 years.NEW YORK - David Hyde Pierce has revealed that he and TV producer Brian Hargrove got married last fall.

Pierce told “The View” that he and and Hargrove got hitched “very quietly last October 24th,” after having been together for 25 years.

Their wedding came a couple of weeks before Proposition 8 was passed by voters, banning gay marriage. The California Supreme Court upheld the ban this week, but said those who tied the knot when it was legal are still married.

Their wedding came a couple of weeks before Proposition 8 was passed by voters, banning gay marriage. The California Supreme Court upheld the ban this week, but said those who tied the knot when it was legal are still married.

High School Prom Queen is a Guy!

Sergio Garcia, a gay student, beats out the female candidates. His campaign started out as a bit of a stunt, but it ended up generating dialogue about gender roles on the L.A. campus. Full story here.

http://www.eugeniorecuenco.com/

With A Little Help From Our Friends (at AT&T)

In the scandal-a-minute file, news has it that American Idol winner Kris Allen had a little help from the only telephone service in play during the voting, AT&T:
News now that AT&T, one of American Idol’s corporate sponsors, provided phones for free text-messaging services as well as lessons for casting blocks of votes at two Arkansas final performance night fan parties - has many calling foul.

This would appear to have swung the vote in Kris Allen’s favor, as no similar free texting or block voting lessons were provided at Adam Lambert fan parties. Was American Idol rigged this year? Did Kris Allen have an unfair advantage?

While Fox hasn’t yet commented, AT&T issued a statement yesterday that read, “In Arkansas, we were invited to attend the local watch parties organized by the community. A few local employees brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested.”

Thousands Attend Protest in West Hollywood

A large crowd of nearly 5,000 protesters including actress Drew Barrymore attended last nights peaceful rally in West Hollywood. In other news regarding the decision the California State Supreme Court handed down yesterday, two attorneys plan to file a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles today claiming that the same-sex marriage ban imposed by the passage of Proposition 8 violates the U.S. constitution. Theodore B. Olson and David Boies plan to file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of two gay men and two lesbian women, arguing that the proposition violates the U.S. constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process. Details will be heard later today at a press conference.
The blogging world was clogged with comments and debate and it got nasty. At Queerty, commentors were harassed by someone named YESon8won, who insisted on making a day of it and commented for nearly eight hours. The debate ranged from the calls for violence, blaming Barack Obama, genetics, Christianity, quotations from the Bible and what would Jesus have done. A sample quote from a commenter yesterday:  "a huge chunk of people are not merely our enemies today, but are our enemies for life, and nothing we say or do will change that. Putting them out of our misery would be the most noble thing we could do…I really can't wait til the last boomer dies." Apparently a call to kill anyone over 40 as they are the reason he can't wear a wedding dress.
Elsewhere in the land of reason, Dan Savage offered a unique perspective:
A mere 9 years ago when California voters gave their opinion on marriage between same sex couples (Prop 22), they answered with a resounding no. With the Proposition 8 vote, the nays were not as loud. Yes a loss is still a loss (and spare us any quips about how being close only counts in horse shoes), but we are winning this argument. Right now  Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Iowa are states where same sex marriage is a reality, and anyone who says they could have predicted that nine years ago is a lying liar. The polls all point in our favor."
Photo by Walter Tabayoyong

When the Homosexual is About...

A mere 60 years ago homosexuality was a dreaded disease and films like this were made to be shown in high schools to "protect" the innocent teenager from the lurking, predatory, nearby homosexual. Produced by Sid Davis, Boys Beware (1961), produced with the cooperation of the Inglewood, California Police Department and the Inglewood Unified School District, warns boys of the perceived dangers of male homosexuals. The film includes the line "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick -- a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious--a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex."

Moore Not Less

Heard it and liked it. An album by Mandy Moore called Amanda Leigh is nothing less than a delightful stroll through pop music at its best. Inspired  by Joni Mitchell, Harry Nilsson and Carol King, Moore herself co-penned all 10 vocal tracks. Produced by fellow songwriter Mike Viola, Amanda Leigh is distinctly different from most of today's pop offerings: there are no vocal gymnastics, breathy phrasing or exhausting, repetitive electronic beats that remind us that programming has become part of the songwriting language. These are pop songs, catchy and immediate and sung with an innocence, and most importantly, memorable.

Report from San Francisco

Reporter Michael Davis was on hand this at city hall in San Francisco as the historic opinion was handed out this morning at 10:00 AM. He files this report:

The excitement driving to the decision rally was fueled by all the media coverage preceding it. All TV stations including the national morning shows were covering this historic announcement of the California Supreme Court on Prop 8 and the validity of 18,000 gay marriages.

It was peaceful as I walked around the steps of the courthouse but you could cut the tension with a knife. To witness the faces of all these loving gay couples and their supporters made you feel you are not alone on this journey for equality.

When the decision came via a  handing out of a paper document /press release, you knew it was not good when you began hearing moans of disappointment. Then cries for injustice.

Tears were shed by many and then angry shouts were screamed out.

 I didn't find out for at least 10 minutes that the 18,000 marriages were going to be upheld. That was great news!

So today was a split for our equal rights.  Just give it some time and some energy and I bet that gay marriage will be legalized in California within 36 months,

The winning formula:  communication,  dialog...money for the advertising  and then spread love peace and respect... and we will prosper.

San Francisco

Michael Davis has been sending some  great images from the streets fo San Francisco this morning as people took to the streets to hear the courts opinion on Prop 8.

Supreme Court Announcement: Soon

What will happen in the next fifteen minutes? The California Start Supreme Court will decide whether marriage, gay marriage is legal or not. California voters overturned the Court's ruling in an election last November. Which does seem to ask the question, how can you vote differently the second time around?

A Map of New York City

One Opinion

7 Reasons Kris Won

1. Blame the judges. Just like it's now bad karma to be the front runner in the Oscar race (as Frost/Nixon can tell you) or the presidential election (as Hillary Clinton can tell you), it also doesn't help if you're the foregone winner of Idol long before the season is over. And here is where the judges didn't help Adam's case. Week after week, they didn't just praise him; they declared him The. Greatest. Singer. Ever. In. All. Of. History. Yes, he's a rock god, but when there's a preconceived notion that you've got the Idol crown in the bag, it makes your fans lazy and you lose votes. Kris Allen, on the other hand, consistently delivered solid performances and received mildly positive reviews from the judges. His fans felt like they had to fight harder to keep him in the contest.

2. But you should especially blame Kara DioGuardi. The new judge hasn't been getting much love from the blogosphere—especially after her gaffes involving "Studio 57" (she meant "Studio 54") and "Saturday Night Live" (she meant "Saturday Night Fever")—but she really proved to be the Joe Biden of Idol after she co-wrote the worst coronation song ever, "No Boundaries." The last song is usually how Simon manipulates America into voting for his favorite contestant, by unleashing a parade of superlatives. Not this year. "No Boundaries" was such a train wreck that neither of the contestants could pull it off. It literally left all the judges speechless, including Kara, who said she wasn't going to judge Kris based on her own song. Huh? In the end, the confusion was good for Kris. The judges weren't able to make one big last push for Adam.

3. Did we mention that Adam is a rock god? Idol has always favored syrupy balladeers or pop singers. It doesn't matter how well you can rock out—ask Chris Daughtry or Bo Bice or Carly Smithson or even Allison Iraheta. Rockers don't win American Idol.

4. The Christian factor. Last week, I wrote about how Adam (who hasn't spoken about his religious beliefs on the show) might be hurt by the fact that he was going up against two devout Christian finalists, Kris and Danny Gokey. Most of Gokey's fans probably ended up voting for Kris over Adam, giving him the boost he needed to win. You could say—as many of you have in the comments—that religion is an irrelevant criterion for judging a singing competition. But the fact remains that Idol is one of TV's most family-friendly shows, and it draws a large number of Christian viewers. Five out of seven of the past Idol winners have been very vocal about their Christian faith. Kris Allen had the edge here.

5. The gay factor. Adam Lambert hasn't talked about his sexuality publicly, but TV Guide reported that he was "openly gay," Perez Hilton reported on his (alleged) boyfriend and there are photos circulating online of someone who looks like him kissing another guy. This shouldn't be an issue in 2009. But if you've read any of online chatter about Idol this year, you know that sadly, there's still plenty of hate out there. Adam has millions of fans, and it looked like he could strike an emphatic blow against homophobia, much the same way that Obama broke through the race barrier when he became the country's first black president. But his ambiguous sexuality still cost Adam votes.

6. The youth vote. Remember last week, when they played footage of Kris and Adam visiting their hometowns? Both were met with adoring crowds, but only one was greeted by wailing tween girls who looked like they were in the presence of a long-lost Jonas brother. Kris was the heartthrob who covered Kayne West and dressed like Chace Crawford. Lambert was the Broadway kid who sang Aerosmith and wore eyeliner. The girl vote went to Kris, an important victory—tween girls are the diehards who stay up for hours after the show texting and calling in their votes.

7. In the end, Adam was the better singer, but Kris might have been the more unique artist, despite what the judges said. Don't believe me? Prior to the finale, here are the Adam performances I most remember: "Black and White," "Tracks of My Tears," "Mad World," "If I Can't Have You." Here's Kris's list: "Ain't No Sunshine," "Falling Slowly," "She Works Hard for Her Money," "Heartless." Which songs are you more likely to have on your iPod? Kris beats Adam on mine. They're both terrific guys who have great careers ahead of them. But maybe Kris is the more deserving American Idol after all.

Exit Poll

The Sex at HX magazine

21% want their man to smell like sweat (Human sweat itself is largely odorless until it is fermented by bacteria)

38% are into to athletic bodies (what are the other 62% into?)

72% are into ol-one-on-one sex (threeways rarely work)

29% said that this recession has put a dumber in their libido (dumber???)

24% say they fantasize about doing it on their rooftop (Helicopter pilot heaven)

28% Cock - simple just want to go for the goods (its more like 100%!)

1.3% Feet - like it a little piggy (the few, the proud, the fetish)

6% balls - Can’t wait for tea time. Tea bagging time, that is.

30% Say they have been paid for sex (keeps Craigslist in business)

(completely stolen from yvymag.com, photographed by Karl Giant.)

Idol Bitch

One would have suspected in a season of change, America might have shown some balls, but that was not the case. American Idol declared Kris Allen the winner, much to the surprise, genuinely, of Kris Allen himself. We can look for metaphors floating like sharps and flats in a musical beauty pageant, but in the end, it is nothing less than business-as-usual versus something far more interesting. Adam Lambert clearly was the more exciting, auspicious singer. It some ways it was chills versus yawns, and the yawns succeeded due, one suspects, to a combination of humility, sweet, good looks and a camera-loving charisma. Lambert on the other hand, was and is, rock and roll, in the best sense of the word: individual, slightly reckless and contemptuous of the norm.
American Idol is in many ways like the Academy Awards of old, always predictable and tabulations squeezed out of a fondness for things comfortable. That Lambert may have made some people uncomfortable, what with his painted fingernails and heavy eyeliner and a voice that would never see the light of a Broadway stage, is ultimately to his benefit— he will go on. It's ironic that most people considered Kris Allen the underdog; gay people, at least those who could graciously embrace Lambert as one of our own, was always the the real underdog; a boy clearly crossing an invisible line in culture, the distinctions were drawn on the odd conceit of what is acceptable. So, in quiet defeat, we end another season of the remarkably successful American Idol, slightly dazed at the injustice, which we have become all to familiar with.

Vinyl History

“Mad About the Boy”  Camp Records  Hollywood, CA.  From the same folks that brought you “Homer the Happy Little Homo” and “Stanley the Manley”  The producers claim that the uncredited singers, musicians and arranger are all “well known Hollywood TV and screen personalities.”  Songs include “Make the Man Love Me,” “It’s So Nice to Have a Man Around the House” and “The Gentleman is a Dope” all sung by men of course! For more vinyl history visit here.

Mapping the News

One of the thrilling things about being alive is the news—it's always changing. One of the best ways to chart all this human activity is with this great website called Newsmap. Created by Marcos Weskamp, a design engineer in San Francisco, Weskamp is doing some of the most interesting things to be found on the Internet. His website, maramushi, is on the one of the most fascinating journeys into what the mind of the future is like. And if you're the kind of person who ponders such things, it is of note that this map will never be exactly the same, ever. Curious.

Anderson Cooper: Obama and the Gay Community

Watersports: Watermarking

The Internet has made thieves of us all. Without hesitation we grab images and in the case of Maureen Dowd, we borrow words. Copy and paste has made plagiarism all to easy. And when it comes to images, lookout, we have no morals or ethnics, it's open game. The problem is many of us like to watermark our images. A watermark is a  logo, often transparent, embedded in an image to remind the viewer of the website they are visiting. We first noticed this when the French boys at ohlalamag began adding their logo to every image, whether it was theirs or not. It was quelle surprise, annoying. It's like thieves adding a logo to eveything they steal. What gets lost is the fact that someone did create the picture. In the picture above, another blogger had their logo beautifully displayed until, via the magic of photoshop, we took it off. Grabbing a spread from W magazine doesn't make you the owner. Unless you commissioned, art directed or designed, you really have little reason to add your signature to other people's work.

thou shall have no false Idol...

Oh dear. America's perpetual obsession with religion has come to even something as seemingly not about religion as American Idol. Bill O'Reilly has guest, Ramin Setoodeh (Newsweek), discuss the possible influence of Christians voting for the Christian contestant versus the gay (allegedly) contestant on American Idol. Video here. And we thought it was just a battle of the pretty boys. So while Christians may be marshalling a vote based upon the perceived "christian value" of each singer, isn't that exactly what gay people are doing? But with a difference: gay people don't want to see Lambert lose because he's gay. Lambert is allegedly gay, though he reminds of us a young David Bowie who duped us into thinking he was gay or at best bisexual; it was an act. Lambert, indeed seems to enjoy the thrust of a young man's tongue into his mouth as witnessed in these pictures. And all this proves is that everyone should consider carefully every image you upload to the Internet. Yes, it should be about performance, voice, image, potential and bankability, but we have nasty habit of injecting religion into something as common as the weather. In the end, we can only hope that people vote with their heart, not their habits.

Shakin' With Mario Lopez

Celebrity sightings are not unusual in the Southland. It is not uncommon to see celebrities take a meal at a new restaurant or stealing a smoke at the hot new nightclub, so catching one actually standing in line for a movie is a treat. In this case, it was the lovely Mario Lopez, who visits a certain movie complex in Burbank quite often. At first glance, Mario is just another good-looking Latino (very common in LA) but when he smiles and those dimples burrow into the sides of his face, he becomes the star that he is. Accompanied by a girlfriend, Mario is quite affectionate in public (he's a Libra) and was seen kissing her on the escalator. The adventure with Mario ended there as he vanished into the darkness of some theatre. We were there to see the thrilling new Star Trek movie, which turned out to be very special; at around 8:45 PM, the seats began to shake, like when someone behind you with too much energy is bumping the seat with their feet. Sitting upright and taking notice, no one seemed to be aware of the seismic shift occurring. It went on longer than usual for an earthquake, but we were all in warp speed at that point and likely didn't notice. It turned out to be a 4.7 earthquake located about thirty miles from Burbank, in the town of Lennox. Leaving the theatre, there was no talk of earthquakes or Mario Lopez sightings from anyone.

Dueling GInsbergs

Waaaaay back in September 2008, slashfilm.com reported that a bio pic of the life of poet Allen Ginsberg was in the works: The Allen Ginsberg biopic, Howl, starring James Franco as the American weird beard beatnik poet and intellectual has filled out a lovely cast: Paul Rudd, Alan Alda, Mary-Louise Parker (so tempestuous on Weeds), Jeff Daniels, and David Strathairn have all signed. The actors will portray real-life characters involved in a 1957 obscenity trial, which saw the publisher of Ginsberg’s epic, landmark poem, “Howl,” forced to defend the work’s graphic descriptions of homosexual acts and its merit to society. The court ultimately decided in the publisher’s favor.
For some reason, Entertainment Weekly reported on this story last week as if it were news, which of course, it became.
We all remember the dueling Capotes? Infamous (2006) and Capote (2005), both films about literary darling and lion Truman Capote came out within months of each other, presumably cancelling some interest in the subject. Same thing may happen as Ginsberg gets played twice, by both Franco and Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg, star of Adventureland, plays poet Allen Ginsberg, while Evans (Fantastic Four) takes on the role of writer Jack Kerouac, and Whishaw (Brideshead Revisited) appears as Lucien Carr, the man credited with bringing together Ginsberg, Kerouac and William Burroughs. Newcomer John Krokidas is directing. Killer Films' Christine Vachon (Boys Don't Cry) is producing. This is all good news. While death can be unkind, bio pics are not: You get to have an astonishingly handsome actor play you. While certainly a Paul Giamatti would have held more truth in physical appearance, perhaps it is a younger version of Ginsberg we will be treated to. As for Eisenberg, he does look like a young Ginsberg. As usual, we will have to wait and see.

Gay Pride is Coming!

Any lyric that combines James Dean with Mattachine gets my vote!

They Keep Sending, We Keep Posting

From our new best friends at ( http://www.yvymag.com/ ).

Rush Limbaugh's Greatest Hits

1. Aired a song about Senator Barney Frank called “Banking Queen”.
2. Democrats will “bend over, grab the ankles, and say, ‘Have your way with me’” to African American and gay voters.
3. On the Mark Foley scandal: “In their hearts and minds and their crotches, they don’t have any problem with what Foley did. They’ve defended it over the — over the years.“ 
4. Openly gay students are “trumpeting” their sexuality, “inviting dissent”.
5. “When a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it’s an invitation”

Pressing Question of the Day

Pleasure Zone

 
YVY Mag give you in first hand Marcello de Giuli  in a new photoshoot photographed by the very talented duo Sandro & Maykson (http://sandroemaykson.blogspot.com/ ).
Location: Ibiza-Spain

COVER ART

LA Weekly with  hysterical cover art for the review of "Outrage".

“Once it was ‘the love that dare not speak its name.’ Now it won’t shut up.” So quipped Mike Nichols back in the day — so far back, in fact, that it’s impossible he imagined then that five decades later he’d find himself directing the television adaptation of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, a prime example of refusing to shut up. Nichols, like so many other show-business sophisticates, knew how the game was played: Gays and lesbians were everywhere, but everyone was supposed to pretend we weren’t. Heterosexuality ruled with an iron glove. You stayed “in the closet,” lying and hiding rather than risking the loss of job, family and even life itself.

Of course, there were exceptions. If you were well-fixed financially or well-connected socially, you could have a “private life” — even one of sybaritic excess like the one enjoyed by famed photographer George Platt Lynes. “For more than a decade [Lynes] conducted a triangular love affair with the curator Monroe Wheeler and the writer Glenway Wescott,” Armand Linanger recently noted in The New York Times. “He later got cozy with his studio assistant and, after he died in World War II, moved in with the assistant’s younger brother.” Clearly these were things that “everybody knew” in that rarefied and socially protected world. As for the outside world, the credit sequence of Milk, with its newsreel footage of police raids on gay bars, tells the story. “Sodomy” laws were still on the books, so those likely to violate them were “perps” by definition. The gay-rights movement, in which Harvey Milk was pivotal, fought back against all that. READ STORY HERE

Art House Film: Dalí and Lorca Love Affair

In a stroke of brilliant casting, Twilight's Robert Pattinson was cast as painter Salvador Dali in "Little Ashes". Ok, Pattinson does look just silly with the signature Dali moustache, but any movie about the 1922 meeting of three soon-to-be-renowned Spanish artists — filmmaker Luis Buñuel, painter Salvador Dalí and the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca — at the Residencia de Estudiantes, a Madrid arts institute has to be interesting; And, it’s a love story! In one of those only-in-the-movie plots, Dali and Garcia Lorca, in particular, shared a tortured romance (of which Bunuel was aware) that didn’t become known until after Dali’s death in 1989, or so the story goes. The past is always negotiable in film. At least it looks good.

Where do we go from here?

At some point everything grows tired. Music, art, books, television, painting, photography and even cinema grow dull—from a certain perspective. Some call it jaded, some called it experienced, but if you are of a certain age, you have seen and heard it all before. Too much of anything will make the heart grow less fonder, so when we consider pornography, and we all have, we have, due to the glorious freedom of the Internet, more cock than one would imagined twenty years ago. In fact, the Internet has offered us more of just about everything: more news, more images, more information and certainly more nonsense. When we have so much more of everything it dilutes the specifics, it all becomes a blur, and endless traffic jam of images and information. We grow bored with the expected. American Idol in whatever seasons it's in, has lost a few million viewers for no other reason than we know what to expect-the surprise is gone. It must be this reason that the Susan Boyle video took the world by storm: it was completely unexpected and genuine. It was in every way a surprise. So too, the recent cast of Hair on David Letterman, where the power of genuine exuberance seemed to reach out from television sets everywhere and touch us. It’s a paradoxical concept, we can only be surprised about something once, and yet we crave it, again and again. Culture craves it. As time and the archive of culture fills itself, originality and surprise become the rarest of things. Culture reinvents itself by recycling everything that has come before. Madonna was Debbie Harry reinvented and Lady Gaga appears to own some Madonna musical DNA. Which is great when you are twenty because it really does sound new. The same can said of photography in a digital age. Everyone can (and does) claim to be a photographer by virtue of owning a camera. Film, that costly thorn from the past, separated the amateurs from the professionals because it was expensive to play photographer. Not any more. There is no need to buy expensive lighting equipment because photography today is just like the Internet, it's immediate, and frankly the more "genuine" the lighting (lamps, flashlights, sunlight) the more immediate it will feel. Then there is the post-immediate school of photography which consists of digital imaging majors who know how to wield a photoshop brush until the flesh is surrealistically powdered with a glossy sheen. Raw versus composite. When everyone has the same tools available, one cannot assume everyone has the same talent. Duh.
So where do we go from here? What will the culture of the future look, feel and sound like? Will there ever be another Beatles, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Marilyn Monroe? Are they here already and only because there is so much information we are unable to discern their existence? If life is like jet or train travel, little changes over time. The stunning Concord aircraft was put to rest in 2003 and with it any hope for a modern airline. We remain saddled with the now, always expectant and more than eager for surprise.

Religulous Reviewed

Out now on DVD is Bill Maher's documentary "Religulous" which was released in late 2008. The doc takes on religion in all forms, Jews, Christians and Muslims are given the Bill treatment, which is where the fun and also the shortcomings of this film begin. Bill Maher doesn't believe in religion, which is clear from the beginning. He clearly dupes people into interviews only to casually debate and usually ridicule them. With a running time of one hour and 42 minutes, it is about the hour point that, one grows a little tired. Bill's points are nothing, if not simple: These are stories written by men, subject to context, faith, and propaganda. Maher simply can't resist belittling them. One encounter, with the actor who plays Jesus in "The Holy Land Experience" debates Maher and it is one of the few moments where someone actually articulate stumps Maher in his quest to make fun. Otherwise, we are treated to many people who take it all very seriously, while Maher does not.
In some ways a quest with the end already known, Religulous fails to engage a serious conversation about matters that could be easily debated. There is a lot of discussion of gay matters; in one instance Maher interviews two gay Muslims in an empty gay bar and jokingly says" I hope you're attracted to one another". On gay matters, Maher is clearly pro-gay, but one suspects that he doesn't really quite get it: It's a political issue, not a social issue.
Maher could have been better prepared to meet the people he interviewed. Instead of knowledge, he always returns to that slightly condescending, " how could you?" tone that in the end, reveals little about the truth, but isn't even all that funny.