Ode to Voting

i love voting. it excites me in a way that it shouldn’t, making me feel so adult, alive, important. perhaps it’s the immigrant in me who knows that elections are a privilege to be cherished. i know not everyone is so lucky. i might not have been so lucky myself had my family not applied for our exit papers just prior to the grand exodus of 1979, when scores of Soviet Jews emigrated from the then-USSR, stripped of their citizenship and possessions, branded “political refugees” and sent on their way with a smack on the ass. i was a wee 3-year-old at that time, asthmatic and clingy.

though i don’t have any of my own “back in the motherland” stories to tell, i’ve heard plenty from my parents, who still call me each year to make sure i’ve voted, despite our political differences. they know better than anyone the value of democracy, with their own memories of having to work on Saturdays “voluntarily” for wages that were never seen and instead “donated” to communist comrades in Cuba. if they protested, they’d be out of a job. no recourse, no ballots to cast, only photos of Lenin to gaze at, found on the front inside cover of every book published during those dark, red years, when Soviet children would recite the communist manifesto as their pledge of allegiance.

to think that could have been me! the thought makes me shudder. and yes, while life in the former Soviet countries has decidedly turned more consumerist than communist in the last 20 years, it still sucks for jews. to get out when i did for the opportunities that i’ve had has been the greatest blessing of my life, especially when i ponder the alternatives. voting is a happy reminder of that.

election days are a thrill. i rise excited, early, eager to get my “I Voted” sticker first thing in the morning to show off at work all day. nowadays, i vote at a residential garage in my neighborhood, but like every other polling place i’ve ever voted at, the garage is run by hard-of-hearing octogenarians with warm smiles and stained dentures. i want to hug them all.

as i did four years ago, i will vote for Obama. i contemplated voting for Romney not at all, which isn’t to say i’m a diehard Democrat who thinks all Republicans are evil. i hate that kind of divisive thinking that pits both sides against each other in a dehumanizing way. i know plenty of lovely Republicans, my parents among them, and i understand why they vote the way they do.

we’ve had insightful discussions on the matter, some of which may have turned into screaming matches, but all of which have helped me understand their viewpoints better. we have since learned not to discuss our differences at the dinner table and not to try to change each other’s thinking. we don’t love each other less because of it. 

of course, i also live in the perpetually blue state of California, where Republicans are generally moderate in their views, like my parents, so i’ve never come across the kind of backwoods inbreds spewing party platitudes that you see all over YouTube. but it’s easy (and lazy) to make political parodies by cherry-picking interviewees, so i save my outrage for other things — like the fact that we only have two viable political parties to choose between, which has never made sense to me. 

i don’t fit neatly in either box, with my political fire being relatively low-heat and of the Sesame Street “live and let live” variety, which i outlined here four years ago during the last divisive campaign. having said this, i’ve never voted for a Republican for president since i cast my first ballot for Clinton in 1996 and i will never vote for one until all the sanctimonious churchiness is taken out of the party platform. i am not a churchgoer and never will be, so i don’t want it in my politics. i would love to see some admitted atheists as candidates, but that’s tantamount to being a satanist in the political world. if i’m a diehard anything, it’s a secularist. 

i’m ok with “moral relativism” and don’t give two shits about how people lead their personal lives, candidates included. i know this should make me a Libertarian, but i believe in socialized medical care and a moderately sized central government. i also believe abortion should remain safe and legal and that gays should be allowed to get married (if no other reason than to be allowed to get divorced and give us reality shows like “Gay Divorce Court”). these beliefs are more important to me than lowering my tax bill, which is why i’ve always voted for democrats and will continue to in the foreseeable future despite being a mostly middle-of-the-road registered independent.

at this point, i’m disillusioned by both parties and hate everyone equally. it seems to have become a business above all else, with everyone lying all the time in an effort to serve their own best interests. the amount of fact-checking that has followed every debate attests to how dishonest the political process has become, and everyone just seems to accept this as the way things are. i know we’ve always been lied to by our leaders, though now we are much more aware of it, yet nothing changes. as someone who is very much a “lie to me once and i’ll never trust anything you have to say again” person, i find this baffling.

with this in mind, it’s easy for me to understand why people get cynical about politics. i hope it doesn’t sound like i’m there yet because i’m still very much pumped on the democratic process. i still believe in the American Dream i witnessed my parents achieve. i still drink alongside them at every family meal, our house divided yet still respectful, as my Pops raises his first shot of vodka to toast to the country he’s proud to call his own. i still get tingles when i hear Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America,” my family’s anthem. and i still never take any of it for granted. 

so when i step between those plastic partitions on Tuesday and punch through my ballot (careful to remove any hanging chads), i will acknowledge how lucky i am for the opportunity. then i will walk out joyfully, my civic duty fulfilled and my spirits elated, before dropping my paper voice into the voting box and collecting my sticker. i can’t wait.

Dish-Interested: Why I Love Sarah Palin

Courtesy of Osmosis Online

There are plenty of reasons to hate Sarah Palin: She’s hokey, inarticulate, whiny, incurious and provincial — a quitter who’s prone to blaming others for her own missteps. Hating Sarah has become a national pastime akin to any other sport that keeps score and revels in recounting the bad plays of the game.

We’ve seen these plays televised in perfectly packaged soundbytes we’ve all learned by heart — from “I can see Russia from my house” to “I read all of them” to “you betchya!” — Sarah was a bumbling trainwreck loathed by many, revered by some and loved especially by me.

And if there’s one thing I love more than train wrecks...

Recession Depression

i’m convinced that this recession is the new black or at least the new election, maybe even the new Sarah Palin. it’s become one of those inescapable, overexposed topics that spits in your eye and pisses on your leg all day long. the feeling is similar to the campaign fatigue i had earlier this year, where i would turn on the radio or load up the Times to find endless stories on swing state voters and Katie Couric interviews and Obama’s terrorist ties, now replaced with foreclosures and layoffs and bailouts.

and hey, let’s make sure to examine every angle of this topic and interview an unemployed worker in each of the 50 states to see how they’re handling being out of work, and let’s interview every grandmother who’s lost her retirement in the market crash and is now facing foreclosure. let’s ask her how she’s managing the high blood pressure she can no longer afford medicine for. to balance things out, we can throw in a feel-good story on how you can stretch your pennies by making crafts this christmas instead of buying that flat-screen you really want.

come on, media people. is there no other news happening in the world? aren’t there Nobel prizes being awarded this month or some medical breakthroughs to report? how about just a cat being rescued from a tree or photos of the new baby panda at the zoo? i know journalism is known for its “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality, but when the whole damn news hour is a bloodbath, i begin to wonder why i should get out of bed each morning knowing that my day will be filled with dismembered limbs instead of rainbows.

i know i can just turn the news off, and rest assured that the radio station my alarm wakes me with every morning has now been set to mexican ranchero music rather than NPR. Mo and i have also found an awfully fantastic eighties station that we blast on sunday afternoons as we tool around the house, baking bread in our own uninspired attempt to follow the penny-stretching crowd.

yet i still can’t escape the bad news bears. they were out en masse at my company’s christmas party the other week. they looked a lot like my coworkers and stood huddled in corners, whispering about the bad economy like it was some secret, asking strange questions like, “think this party will have half as many people here next year?” someone even asked me what i would do if i got laid off. “well,” i replied, “this is just my first guess, but i’d probably look for another job.”

i know it’s serious stuff out there, folks, and that grandmas are losing their homes and i might even lose mine if things get really bad (though i would rather sell ass on the corner before i allowed myself to lose my house — not my own ass because i doubt anyone would buy it, but someone else’s ass, as i’ve always thought i would make a good pimp), but i don’t need daily reminders of how much worse things are getting.

if they get much worse, that’s ok. not like i didn’t see it coming. and if i get laid off — and i have no reason to believe that i will — that’s also ok because i’ve been laid off before, twice in a row actually. the first layoff was from the dot-com disaster eToys. it was right after christmas, early 2001 during the days of “dot com death toll” headlines. the CEO, a harvard MBA, called a company-wide meeting to announce that Toys"R"Us had made more money than we did during the holidays, which meant leaving our Aeron chairs, unlimited Snapples and free weekly massages behind because the entire company was folding in a month. i went home and cried that day. a year later, i was laid off from The Hollywood Reporter. i went home and cried some more.

and while i do remember those times sucking immensely, the days of crying and weeks of feeling like a loser, i also remember not having to sell any ass. i remember the world not ending.

Gay for a Day

Heteros for Homos: LA had a big No on 8 protest at City Hall this past weekend. part of me feels that this display of solidarity is too little too late, as the voters have already passed the proposition and we now need to wait for the courts to undo it, but i didn’t want to miss the opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with so many hot, shirtless men so i attended anyway.


Burt and Ernie were gay? this was news to me. i mean, i knew about Vanity Smurf, but Burt and Ernie? what about Kermit and Ms. Piggy? were they legit or was she just his fag hag?


burn, baby, burn: if hell is just an underground disco inferno, i don’t know that going there single is a bad prospect. just sayin.


worst sign ever: someone took his childhood fairy tales a little too seriously.


seriously, though: this is shepard fairey’s contribution to the anti-8 movement. this is a movement that is very near and dear to me because some of my best friends are in fact gay and in long-term, loving relationships that should be afforded equal recognition and protection under the law. to deny them this is discrimination. it’s unconstitutional. it’s unfair. i don’t think jesus would approve.


the pro-8 protestors: i don’t believe in organized religion any more than i believe in santa claus, so the argument that being gay is some abomination in the bible is pretty laughable to me, especially when you consider that the bible also advises against borrowing with interest and eating shellfish, two things christians seem not to be putting on the ballot. to cherry pick homosexuality as the mother of all sins implies that fundamentalist christians are not only super hypocritical, they are super uncomfortable with gay sex.


newsflash: gay sex is natural and has been documented in countless species across the animal kingdom. but of course if you’re one of those folks who thinks sarah palin is smart and creationism is king, then it won’t matter. to you, homosexuality will always be an immoral, correctable choice. to you i say sorry, we can’t be friends.


to my gay friends: i got your back.


even chickens get it: what made the passage of Prop 8 more insulting was the fact that Prop 2 passed the very same day. that was the measure that granted chickens raised for slaughter a roomier cage.


forget the chickens: i don’t think it’s fair to blame the mormon church for its fundraising or the African-Americans who voted 2 to 1 in favor of the proposition. truth is that the No on 8 folks ran a sloppy campaign that did little to reassure undecided voters that gay marriage wouldn’t harm their children. in order to win over that support, gay folks will just have to put their shirts back on and make some new friends in the communities that voted against them.


needs more color: she totally half-stepped it.


Mo was there: though he seemed more interested in the architecture than in the shirtless men. here he is staring down the CalTrans building on Main and 1st, designed by Morphosis.


architectural intermission: this is one of my favorite buildings in downtown LA. i have a window cube at work and can see it perfectly from my desk, and let me tell you, at night when it’s lit up, it’s sexy as hell.


sexy by day, too: LA’s Department of Transportation never looked so good.


back at the protest: we met up with friends Corey and Dave, also a straight and secure in their sexuality couple, to march with the crowd. Corey didn’t half-step her sign.


took a wrong turn at the sports bar: nor did Dave half-step his.


i half-stepped mine: i must confess that i didn’t create my sign’s profundity. it was handed to me by an outgoing protestor. but if i had created my own sign (which i will next time), it would have read, “Gay marriage makes for good TV. Ask me how!”

to see more of my photos from the protest, check my flickr account. for more on the fight against prop 8, visit Join the Impact.

Relief

i was having trouble sleeping for weeks leading up the election, petrified that it would be lost or stolen like past elections or a winning lottery ticket you had to wait to cash in. like everyone else around me, i had been following this election like a sport, glued to my computer, the refresh button overused as i searched for more stories to read, more polls to follow, more videos to watch.

even when i was disgusted by the campaigning, my obsession didn’t wane. at night, on the occasion i could sleep, i would dream about it, both nightmares and fantasies imagining the what ifs. i even had some wet dreams about the irresistibly sexy Obama, whose baby i’m aching to have. i also got in the habit of calling Mo “Morack,” telling him he should call me Michelle and we should rename our two female dogs, Juice and Pinko, after the Obama girls. Morack disagreed, and instead hung a framed Shepard Fairey Obama poster in the office.

i’m embarrassed to admit this, but i was a big Hillary supporter during the primaries. i preferred her to Obama because of her experience and because her election would have brought Bill back to the white house. i wanted to see both of them in there again, re-establishing the feel-good 1990s. i felt pretty good back then in my pre-9/11 college world, learning about life and this new thing called email.

but now i see that those days and that dynasty are past. the future needs something better, something different. i also see that Hillary could have never pulled off a win the way Obama did. for all the talk of Obama’s ability to transcend race, motivating people of all stripes to stand in line waiting for hours to cast their vote for him, the polarizing Hillary could never transcend herself. she simply wasn’t likable enough. she was missing the Clinton charisma gene that both Bill and Obama have in spades. it’s the same gene that Dubya and Sarah Palin have, the one that makes people flock to them for their ordinariness and relatability. i liked Hillary alright, but she wasn’t inspiring. she wasn’t transformational. she wasn’t Obama.

i didn’t like Sarah Palin, though i will miss her. she was the source of so much comic relief during this tense election cycle that her absence will leave a tangible void. part of me would like to see her return in 2012, if only for the SNL skits to resurface, but the bigger part of me would like to see her fall into the abyss she’s been skating around for months, never to be seen or heard from again. because for all the progress Hillary’s campaign made for women in politics, Sarah Barracuda’s weak intellect and hot legs took us about a mile back.

i’m also sad that my fellow Californians passed Proposition 8, effectively outlawing gay marriage and ruining my opportunity to pitch to cable networks reality shows like “Gay Divorce Court” and “Groomzilla.” thanks, California. you suck. not only did you ruin my chance to be a hollywood asshole, you ruined my post-election day euphoria. thanks also for allowing me the opportunity to say for the first time in my adult life that i’m proud to be an american but ashamed to be a californian. usually, the inverse is true.

but back in good news land, Obama is still our president, or will be soon enough. part of me feels bad for him, because who really wants the task of navigating through this lousy time in our country’s history? the pressure alone would overwhelm anyone. add to that the fact that the world is watching us again with renewed interest, expecting him to be flawless and swift in undoing the past eight years of damage.

to that end, i wish him luck and support, and a bit of worry. after all, i’m jewish and i worry about everything. plus, he is unproven as a leader and the crises before him are huge. but i have every confidence in the world that he will deliver in the way that overachievers tend to deliver. Obama seems exceptional in that way.

to be honest, he’s the kind of person i would secretly, slightly hate, the one who makes hard work look effortless and always says the right thing at the right time. he’s the type to never look sweaty, only virtuous and self-possessed, with a magnetism that generates an adoring fan base that will follow him into a burning building if he says that it will be ok. i’m part of that fan base now. and as much as i’d like to break free, as much as i’d like to know better than to be so taken with a politician, i’m as hypnotized as the sheep beside me. he’s just that good.

so if you’re reading this, soon-to-be president Obama, i would like to say a few things. first off, i’d be thrilled to have your baby or at least live out some of my sexier dreams about you. also, you spent two years at Occidental College, which is right by my house. i’m sorry that it was too hard for you and you had to transfer to the Ivy League Columbia, where the curriculum is so much easier, but at least you and i lived in the same neighborhood. i know it was at different times but that’s not important.

what is important is that you don’t ruin the country (anymore) or disappoint me and the scores of others who have been inspired by your dedication, discipline and humility. i’ve spent eight years with low morale, feeling defenseless and expecting to be lied to by a government motivated more by self-interest than by ethics. but you have renewed my faith in democracy and my celebration of my country as something limitless and fantastic.

thank you for making me a proud american again, an immigrant american who came here with my family at age 3, hopeful for the opportunity to achieve the american dream that makes this place so magical in the eyes of so many around the world. the same world that’s celebrating you now as we are, unified by optimism for the future, by hope.

your victory is a victory for my white immigrant family as much as it is for blacks, asians, latinos, persians, disenfranchised democrats, jews, muslims, gays and anyone else who is part of that growing demographic of “other” americans who saw ourselves in you. your election has affirmed us, reminding us that yes, we, too, can overcome the insurmountable to achieve the impossible, because you just did.

(take note, California.)

Campaign Fatigue

i’ve had a long-standing policy to never discuss politics here, but i’m thinking i should move away from that stance, if for no other reason than to share the terrific things i’m finding on the internets during this current election season, viewable here and here and here.

beyond cracking me up and making me watch SNL for the first time in years, this election is also making me sick. i know it’s important and the weight of the free world hangs in the balance and all that jazz, and of course i plan to vote in november, but the politicking from both sides is just nauseating.

the mudslinging, the partisanship, the misinformation — it’s too much. not to get all rodney kingish, but can’t we all just get along? can’t we all just stick to the issues for the few undecideds left in the country and move the election to tomorrow? then we can inaugurate the new president by thanksgiving, check out who he puts in his cabinet and carry on, hoping for the best.

call me a sourpuss, but i love watching campaigning as much as i love standing in line at an amusement park surrounded by screaming toddlers. i can’t endure any more TV commercials and the seemingly insane news stories that come out daily. since when does the tiniest thing warrant a “gate” a la “lipstick-on-a-pig-gate”?

i’m not pointing the finger solely at the republicans, because the democrats have been just as guilty of the nonsense. i know a lot of nice republicans, including my parents, who don’t believe that the world is only 5,000 years old. they, like most republicans, are decent, hard-working folks annoyed that their party’s ideology has been hijacked by fundamental christians who’ve reduced it to a culture war obsessed with god, gays and guns.

i also know a lot of nice democrats who are nothing like some of the democrats i met when i lived in san francisco — the kind of fascist liberals who think that anyone driving an SUV or carrying a plastic water bottle is an evildoer who should be reformed. to me, that’s the same type of fascism championed by fundamentalists who only allow for their interpretation of the mighty word of god. it’s two sides of the same ugly coin.

personally, my politics center on clichés like “live and let live” and “do unto others as you’d have done unto you.” i support people’s rights to live their lives as they please, be it conservative or liberal. the way i figure, if you’re not into abortion, then don’t have one. if you’re not into gay marriage, then don’t be in one. but don’t make that decision for others. similarly, i will support your right to believe in creationism, despite how stupid i think it is. i will also support your right to have as many guns as you want. because it’s not my place to tell you how to live or what to think any more than it’s your place to tell me.

perhaps i’m idealistic, but i think most people would prefer to be left the hell alone to believe and behave however they want, and would agree to leave others alone so they may do the same. it’s that 10% of extremists on both sides of the spectrum that ruin it for the rest of us. if we did away with them, the remaining 80% could figure out how to work together and would probably agree on wanting a cleaner planet, a more efficient government, safer streets, fewer taxes, better schools and affordable health care. the details on how to achieve this would be debated, and should be debated, but as long as we maintain focus on the problems instead of the parties, we should be ok.

but if we have to have political parties, can we at least add some more to the mix? let’s add one that represents the moderates, the middle-left and the middle-right. the fringe 10% can also form their own political parties, where they can commingle with like-minded loons who’ll never question their party’s platform.

the uber-right party could be called the Evangelicals, whose animal could be the snake — not because they are venomous but to represent the original sin, of course. they can sit around cooking up workshops for converting the gays while talking about how silly fossils are, bibles in hand, ready to thump the dissenters.

the ultra-left party could be called the Communists. if they had a sense of humor, they could make their party animal a pig, which they can ceremoniously slaughter at their conventions. their meetings would probably include a lot of people wearing birkenstocks or maybe uniforms and combat boots. they can sit around lambasting religion while extolling the virtues of communism, pointing to the many great examples of its success throughout history. they can point to my motherland, the former Soviet Union.

but hey, that’s just me. and i make no claim to know anything about politics, which is why i never write about it here. there are other websites that do it better, websites i tend to avoid so i don’t have to read a chorus of loony commentators repeating what amounts to “my sports team is better than your sports team, so suck it.”

thankfully, the two teams will have their superbowl in just a few more weeks, putting the campaigning to an end. then i won’t have to turn on the TV and hear an angry feminist who refuses to vote for obama because clinton couldn’t get enough delegates on her side to become the democratic nominee, and i won’t have to witness an old lady clutching her bible while talking about the gay agenda and how obama is a scary muslim.

at least not for another four years.

Home Alone

home alone with a glass of wine on a friday night; it's nearly 1 a.m. i would feel pretty pathetic if this situation weren't by choice, but luckily, i had options that i passed up to spend some QT with M, M & I (me, myself & I). well, the evening didn't exactly begin in solitude. i went to see a surprisingly good play tonight with ms. zahra the great. it was called "the shore," and i'm to review it for NoHo>LA. then zahra and i went out for an always satisfying girlie chat at a coffeeshop before retiring to our respective abodes. there was a raging '80s party going on, sponsored by pablo's business school, but after checking in with him via cell phone, i quickly realized that i was far too sober and unenergized to attend. so i mozied on home, found rock-star parking (which means within a block of my building) and fired up the iMac. hang on, lemme refill my glass.

back. so, what did i want to talk about? i don't know, i was thinking about delving into politics, an area i've deliberately avoided so far. and not because i'm apolitical -- i'm as opinionated as they come -- i've just realized that waxing realpolitik does little to further my understanding of the wacky world of politics. instead it gets me into heated debates with good friends, and ultimately never ends up in anyone's mind being changed. it only reinforces beliefs and sometimes sours friendships, at least in the short term. not that all my friends need to share my political beliefs (though it never hurts), they just need to respect them. and i know i need to work on respecting people who hold beliefs that differ radically from my own -- but to a point, cus if you hate homos or think i'm a murderer for the abortion i had when i was 19, then you can go fuck yourself.

but i'm digressing. i wanted to talk about ahnold. and not about his womanizing or nazi ties -- that all speaks for itself. i'm just curious why he's ahead in the polls when i don't know a single person who'll admit to planning to vote for him come election day. maybe it's cus, yes, i tend to surround myself with left-leaning folk (though no knee-jerkers, please), but where are these terminator fans coming from? are they too (rightfully) ashamed to come forward? i just don't see it.

i, for one, am still unsure of whom i will vote for. maybe i'll just vote no on the recall, period. or maybe i should throw my support to busterman, the only viable democrat, though i don't see him being too different from davis. i was all over the arianna campaign, but when that whole income tax thing blew up i just lost faith, and she's out now anyway. i do like camejo, but he hasn't got a true shot at it. i just don't know, i'll likely make up my mind at the last moment, and it'll probably go to bust-a-move-man, since i don't want to waste my vote. but i will say that i promise to give the benefit of the doubt to whomever is ultimately elected, ahnald included, though i don't see that happening anymore with all the bad press. god bless the LA Times.

in other news, juice has recently been diagnosed with hip dysplasia, which has upset me greatly. we're still investigating our options and might get a second opinion, but she's been limping in recent weeks. now she's on glucosamine and painkillers, and that seems to have made a slight difference, but i want to ensure that she enjoys a high quality of life, so i'm looking at the surgeries available to her (and the pet insurance available to me). and i still intend to start her on frisbee lessons in the park as planned, though she'll have to take it easy on those hind legs. it pisses me off, and i've resolved to do whatever it takes to help her. it might sound silly to anyone who doesn't understand the singular bond a pet can offer, but juice is like my kid, and i adore her with my whole heart. it's certainly been a distressing time. hearing the hip dysplasia news is like finding out your kid is retarded and will require special ed for his whole life. it sucks and you feel helpless -- yet determined.