The summer season of the WB’s show “Young Americans” ended last night. This is, certainly, one of the strangest shows I’ve seen on TV It’s almost a homoerotic wet dream with dozens of gorgeous, doe-eyed, apple-cheeked, buffed young men running around at an all-boys pre-ivy league prep school. Almost homo. They try to clean it up a little to get it under the hetero radar.
01 – Six Pacs – The Getaway People – Turnpike Diaries
02 – Sundown – Elwood – The Parlance of Our Time
03 – Tonight & The Rest Of My Life – Nina Gordon – Tonight & The Rest Of My Life
04 – Summerfling – K. D. Lang – Invincible Summer
05 – Extraordinary Thing – K. D. Lang – Invincible Summer
06 – Jeremy Newborn Street – The Nields – If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now
07 – This Town Is Wrong – The Nields – If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now
08 – If It Were Up To Me – Cheryl Wheeler – Sylvia Hotel
09 – Fall Of The World’s Own Optimist – Aimee Mann – Bachelor No. 2
10 – Daddy I’m Fine – SinŽad O’Connor – Faith And Courage
11 – No Man’s Woman – SinŽad O’Connor – Faith And Courage
12 – Promise – Eve 6 – Horrorscope
13 – What Do You Do – Bargain Music – Bargain Music
14 – The Man Who Murdered Love – XTC – Wasp Star (Apple Venus Vo. 2)
15 – Can’t Sleep – Tom Maxwell – Samsara
16 – Last Night On Earth – Mekons – Journey To The End Of The Night
17 – Nevermind Her Hips – Virgin Wool – Open Heart Surgery
18 – Roll The Dice – Dusty Trails – Dusty Trails
19 – Turn Off The Light – Nelly Furtado – Whoa, Nelly!
20 – I’m Gonna Make You Love Me – The Jayhawks – Smile
This started out to be a CD of songs about sex, but I realized some of the songs that I find arousing aren’t necessarily about sex at all… Like number 7 through 11, which are all songs that have a sort of hypnotic gypsy sound that I find erotic.
01 – I’m On Fire – Bruce Springsteen
02 – That Summer – Garth Brooks
03 – Shadowboxer – Fiona Apple
04 – Because The Night – 10,000 Maniacs
05 – You’re Okay – K. D. Lang
06 – Set The Prairie On Fire – Shawn Colvin
07 – La Serenissima – Lorena McKennitt
08 – Salva Nos – Maedieval Baebes
09 – I Am Stretched On Your Grave – Sine‡d O’Connor
10 – Maa El Kerro – Vþrtinnþ
11 – Gamen I Vulture – Garmina
12 – You’re Making Me High – Toni Braxton
13 – Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak – Macy Gray
14 – Touch It – Monifah
15 – Gett Off – Prince
16 – I Touch Myself – Divinyls
17 – Save Tonight – Eagle Eye Cherry
These are really songs that I liked when I was a kid more than anything; if I were really to try to create a CD of songs I sing when I’m in love, it would fill 9 CDs or so. So this is a collection of songs I wanted copies of for fun.
01 – Everything I Own – Bread
02 – The Air That I Breathe – The Hollies
04 – Your My Soul And Inspiration – Righteous Brothers
06 – You Are The Woman – Firefall
07 – Upside Down – Diana Ross
08 – Killer Queen – Queen
09 – Islands In The Stream – Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton
10 – Lead Me On – Maxine Nightingale
11 – Eternal Flame – Bangles
12 – Scarborough Fair – Simon & Garfunkel
13 – Do You Know Where You’re Going To – Diana Ross
14 – Endless Love – Diana Ross & Lionel Ritchie
15 – Moon Shadow – Cat Stevens
16 – Wild World – Cat Stevens
17 – Time in a Bottle – Jim Croche
18 – You Light Up My Life – Debby Boone
19 – The Way of Love – Cher
20 – Miracles – Jefferson Starship
21 – Higher Love – Steve Winwood
22 – You Sexy Thing – Hot Chocolate – Next Weekend’s Party
This CD wasn’t originally part of the “Love” series; originally it was supposed to be “kissing”, “love”, and “sex”. But somehow the kissing CD never got off the ground. This CD came about after a dinner-time discussion of Sting’s “Behind the Music” episode on VH-1. He mentioned that couples came up to him and told him they got married to “Every Breath You Take” and it freaked him out because it was a stalker song. From there we started talking about “Stalker” songs in general, and off the top of our heads listed all the songs here.
Apparently there’s a Sarah Maclachlan song we overlooked, but oh well. The first four songs all seem slow and dreamy and romantic, but if you listen closely to the lyrics, they’re pretty creepy. I originally had five Melissa Etheridge songs picked out, but I thought it might go to her head, so I only took three.
Work went okay; did the prototyping for the store and finished up the design changes on flat files.
Went looking for devil figurines today at lunch and after work; didn’t find any. I did go into a 80% off booksale in Castleton, ran into M., and ended up buying 3 books that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
Came home, watched a Friends episode I missed, a Charmed episode I missed, and updated the gayindy.org calendar. Started reading one of the books I bought – Ms. Behavior’s Guide to Gay and Lesbian Etiquette.
Boring day.
Friday – Tuesday were the long Independence Day weekend. It was pretty boring because I forgot to make plans ahead of time, and of course everyone had something to do but me. I read most of the time.
Friday I went to the Fashion mall and bought $52 worth of Aveda shampoo/conditioner/body wash, etc. A lot to spend, but it’s huge bottles and It all smells the same and is better quality stuff. Then I went to see Up At The Villa in Castleton. Not a bad little movie, but pretty slow paced. I guess it’s from a Somerset Maugham novel.
Saturday I went to Future Shock and bought two pairs of shoes; these wicked cool black leather pair with flames on them and a pair of Old Skool Vans. I wore the flame ones to Dan and Doug’s and they didn’t know what to think, obviously, so I guess they’re pretty over the top. But they’re cool and I like them and that’s all that counts. There were a bunch more pairs of shoes I want there, too, so I’ll be going back.
Sunday I went to The Abbey and had a nice Pesto chicken sandwich and iced coffee and hung out and wrote some quite extensive oulines/character studies on the regency novel. I got a lot done, then went to Target and Borders, where I found that five of the Georgette Heyer novels have been reprinted, so I bought four of them, along with Timelines in History, so I can figure out what books/events my characters would have been interested in.
I finished the prototyping I was working on on Friday, and then we reworked the basic site design for regeneration this week. It looks a lot cleaner and cooler, so that’s pretty cool.
Came home to find that Mary had a roofer come in to look at the leaky ceiling. I guess he resealed the roof but will be coming back in the next two weeks to redo the entire roof, which is a good thing, I guess, but I’ll be on pins and needles till then, since I’ll have to keep Idgie away from them, and since there will be strangers in my apt. I’ll have to walk around and put stuff away.
The difficulty with evil nowadays, is that we no longer recognize it. This isn’t because evil has changed at all, but because we now have a warped understanding of what it is.
Evil isn’t, and never has been, a James Bond (or Austin Powers) villain who twirls his moustaches and threatens to cut our hero in half with a giant band saw while telling him the secret plans for world domination. Evil people in the movies and on television are proud that they’re evil, and they do what they do with malice aforethought, and they articulate their enjoyment at seeing other people in pain. In the movies, the hero never has trouble telling who the bad guy is, even if sometimes they have trouble convincing others.
Real evil people don’t want you to think they’re evil. They don’t want to think they’re evil themselves, so they come up with elaborate rationalizations for why they’re good, or why their bad behavior is someone else’s fault. Have you ever seen a criminal face his victim and apologize? They have a tendency to say things like, “I’m sorry this happened to you” instead of “I’m sorry I did that to you.” They don’t own their mistakes. They might be apologizing, but it’s the apology of an innocent bystander rather than the perpetrator of the crime.
Evil people often do good things to cover up their evil behavior.
Like the Phillip Morris commercials that talk about how the company is donating money to battered women’s shelters and children’s causes when we all know they made their money from a product that kills people. Or the Nike “Mrs. Jones” commercials that talk about supporting women athletes when Nike is under fire for using child labor to make their products.
I remember when I was a little kid, I read a book about Camelot and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table–and because I was reading pretty far above my age level, I understood what I read, but I didn’t understand the context of it… meaning I didn’t really have a concept of history and timelines and things that happened in the past versus things that were happening presently.
I’m watching Dateline NBC… the special on the attacks in Central Park of women during the Puerto Rican parade.
I was outraged by this special, and not just at what happened, but at the way that you reported it. You blamed the victims and made excuses for the criminals, and that is wrong, plain wrong.
I can walk naked down the street with a rose in my teeth, and no one has a right to touch me without my permission. If they do, they should be arrested, and spend every second of the rest of their lives in jail. It’s as simple as that. The young women who were laughing and flirting before they were attacked were NOT at fault for what happened to them. They have a right to be out in public, enjoying themselves, and enjoying attention paid to them.
You practically apologized for the behavior of the men involved. You cited things like testosterone, beer, marijuana as the causes, not moral bankruptcy and total lack of conscience. Then you had the unmitigated gall to cite the squeaky clean backgrounds of some of the young men.
These young men were criminals. They’re bad and evil, and deserve to spend their lives in jail. I don’t care if his brother is a cop, or if he’s a barber.
Our society has this weird mass delusion that rapists are men that hide in the bushes and just jump out and rape women all day, as though that’s their job.
Rapists are people’s brothers, basketball stars, fathers and sons. They are regular people. The fact that we can’t realize this and deal with it is the reason that we can’t stop rape, and the reason that women can’t get justice when they’re attacked.
Watching this special, I got up several times and walked around my apartment, acting out what I would do if I were caught in this situation. I was raped in 1989, so this isn’t the first time I’m acted out this scene. And every scenario I came up with involves me attacking and hurting, maiming or killing one or more of these men.
I can’t begin to express the rage I feel that this can happen in our society and that we, rather than deal with the issue swiftly and punitively, make rationalizations about why it happened.