fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
When the tweets came out that the US Supreme Court would hear cases challenging 1996’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and 2008’s Proposition 8, I paused. Most of the initial responses I saw seemed happy that the cases would have their day before the Supremes. My enthusiasm was tempered, however, and I can explain my…
(Full Disclosure: I am a supporter of Rebecca Kaplan for City Council. But this is one of the reasons why.) Why? Why is long-time Oakland City Council member Ignacio De La Fuente running for the at-large city council seat? Mr. De La Fuente has served on the City Council representing District 5 for the past…
(Editor’s Note: We here at the gar spot came across a discarded script for a political ad that was never produced. From what we could tell, this script was meant as a silent movie, with black and white photography, broad pantomime performances, and placards that displayed the dialog. There also would have been in the…
I missed the first presidential debate. From what I’ve been hearing, though, President Obama tacked towards the timid and let Romney be the aggressor and controller of the evening. That’s a pity. Because Romney’s performance will likely be what folks remember about the debate, not the accuracy, or lack thereof, of his facts. But during…
Remember Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed? I read it religiously in college. The strip’s resident nerd-genius, Oliver Wendell Jones, had a habit of hacking into mainframe computers at large governmental or business entities. Matthew Broderick had nothing on this kid. In one series, Oliver hacked into the New York Times to impress his friend Milo…
One fine day in 2004, shortly before the great state of Massachusetts was about to become the first state in the Union to permit same-sex couples to marry, a group of folks, plaintiffs of the court case that ultimately brought marriage equality to the Commonwealth, had a meeting with then-Governor Romney. The meeting did not…
My reason, bluntly, honestly, is quite selfish. I need President Barack Obama to win reelection because I need his healthcare initiative to take full effect on schedule in 2014. This isn’t for me personally. I have a full-on, old school, civil service-type job with old school, civil service-type benefits. My partner and I are covered….
There’s a photo making the rounds on Facebook showing three African Americans, two males and a female, faces turned to a wall while a harsh stream of water pins them against the building. The water is hitting one of the young men directly in the back. A caption in red letters reads: “This is why…
The oddest moment during the last night of the Republican National Convention wasn’t the awkward pantomime by Clint Eastwood. It came later, during Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech. He spent part of his time introducing himself, going on about his family history, how he likes strong women, and so forth; and part of the time bashing…
Rachel Maddow, God bless her, has tried and tried to educate the men in politics and power about the whys and wherefores of women’s anatomy. She has her crew bring out the props — pennants, football helmets, brewskies — to help her enter the Man Cave, replete with a CGI backdrop of a pool table,…
