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Helping A Brother in Need
Fundraiser to Benefit Writer Stuart Timmons
Saturday, November 15th 3 to 5 p.m. at the
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
909 West Adams Blvd – Los Angeles, California
Renowned Gay writers and artists will gather on Saturday, November 15, to honor celebrated author Stuart Timmons who suffered a major stroke last January. Malcolm Boyd, Chris Freeman, Trebor Healey, Michael Kearns, Felice Picano, Derek Ringold, Terry Wolverton, and others will read and perform from 3 to 5 p.m. at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives. The fundraiser target is $20,000 to help pay for much needed (and very expensive) medical support in Timmons' ongoing recovery.
Timmons wrote the biography of Gay movement founder Harry Hay, The Trouble with Harry Hay and most recently co-authored the best-selling history book, Gay L.A. In addition to his writing, Timmons is a longtime community organizer, active in ACT-UP LA, the Coors beer boycott, the labor movement through his recent work at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and as former director of ONE, the world's largest LGBT library.
After complaining to a friend of troubling neurological symptoms, Stuart was taken to Kaiser Hospital in Los 
Angeles where the stroke was diagnosed and he received life-saving surgery. Stuart is 51 years old. Timmons, who has been unable to speak or move during the past eight months, has been under the careful watch of doctors, concerned family and friends. Recent improvements in his physical condition have been encouraging, says his sister, Gay Timmons, but his recovery will be a long one.
The benefit afternoon will raise funds to provide much-needed (and did we mention very expensive and not covered by insurance?) hours of physical therapy and other medical necessities beyond what routine insurance can allow. "The more additional hours of therapy Stuart receives, the sooner he can return to a functional life," says Gay. "The signs for recovery are good, but now is a critical time for the community to step up and lend its support."
Contributions can be made in person at the door or sent to:
The Stuart Craig Timmons Irrevocable Trust
c/o Gay Timmons
P.O. Box 472
Los Gatos, CA 95031.
The ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is located at 909 West Adams Blvd., near the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles. Parking is available behind the Archives building, located three blocks west of Figueroa Ave. at Scarff St., as well as in the immediate neighborhood.
Reservations are requested at (213) 741-0094.
The event is being sponsored by the ONE Archives, Lambda Literary Foundation, Monette/Horwitz Trust, White Crane Institute and the Drk/rm photo lab, which will be contributing rare photographic prints. Other artwork will also be available for purchase to further assist in the fundraising effort.
Corpus Christi
Terrence McNally’s controversial play Corpus Christi is playing at the Rattlestick Theatre, New York City, October 14-26. Nic Arnzen directed.
Corpus Christi is a retelling of the Jesus story, updated to 1950s Corpus Christi, Texas. Originally opening ten years ago at the Manhattan Theatre Club to intense protest and bomb threats it disturbed conservative Christiana with its depiction of a "Gay Jesus."
The cast includes Nic Arnzen (Peter), Amanda Axelrod (Simon), Jan Ambler (Andrew), James Brandon (Joshua), Steve Callahan (Judas Iscariot), Melissa Caulfield (John the Baptist), Elizabeth Cava (Matthew), Mark "Colby" Colbert (James), Steve Hasley (Bartholomew), Molly O’Leary (Thomas), David Pevsner (Philip), Sheilagh Polk (James the Less — Week One), Scott Presley (James the Less — Week Two), and Suzanne Santos (Thaddeus).
Presented by the LA-based 108 Productions, this revival is performed in honor of Matthew Shepard, whose brutal murder occurred just 24 hours prior to the play’s world premiere in 1998. Proceeds from the show benefit The Matthew Shepard Foundation, now also in its 10th anniversary, in support of their efforts to "Erase Hate" in today’s society. For more information, visit www.108productions.org.
Circle Voting
We want to call your attention to an important website in this election season. Long time Gay activist, Murray Edelman, who was the editorial director of the Voter News Service, a polling consortium of ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, and the Associated Press that famously was involved in the 2000 Bush/Gore contest and the fate of the Florida vote, has been developing the idea of Circle Voting.
Murray helped develop the first exit polls and has conducted them for over 20 years. One of his legacies is the only continuous body of Gay/Lesbian voting data from the exit poll since 1990. Edelman received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Illinois and his PhD in Human Development from the University of Chicago in 1973. He has been the only out Gay President of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), the largest and most influential body of survey research professionals.
Please, check out Circle Voting.
And VOTE!
A full conversation with Murray appears in the fall issue of White Crane, Community. But one of the most important ideas in his Circle Voting project is this: Fully 1/3 of registered voters who say they voted in the last election did not. That bears repeating: 1/3 of REGISTERED voters in the last election, who say they voted…did not. We can’t afford this in this next election. The stakes are too high.
I’d Rather Lose an Election…
Than what, John?…where, exactly, do you "draw the line"?
…Ambition First!
Voodoo Economics
Feeling trickled on yet?
The Republicans never tire of promising the average American great prosperity based on how many yachts the wealthy can ski behind, based on their never-ending tax cuts, tax breaks and the other nonsense…who was it?…oh yeah, George Herbert Walker Bush…back when he was in truth-telling mode…called “voodoo economics” shortly before he laid down, threw his legs into the air and became Ronnie Raygun’s partner in crime.
These crises, ladies and gentlemen, are the wages of voodoo economics.
Throw the bums out!
We’re being told on a daily basis that the sky is about to fall, and unless we act now, unless we act quickly, dire consequences will follow. Just like they did for the Patriot Act and just like they did for the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction. Are there no alternatives? Is this sledge hammer plan the only answer? Do we live in a world that has only one answer to any question? A rather badly figured alternative "plan" has been circulating around the internet, calling for a mass redistribution of the $85 billion we’re buying AIG with…or the $700 billion the whole mess seems to be costing (and even that figure seems to be something they picked out of thin air…and the air is pretty thin at the levels this is being decided)…and distributing those monies to every 18-year-old-and-above citizen. The math is way off…but not too long ago all we were hearing was how expensive it was going to be to "save" Social Security…and now, all of a sudden, we can put our hands on $700 billion to "save" Wall Street and the credit market? I’m sorry…how’s that again?
Something stinks. Who do you trust? The banks don’t trust each other. The taxpayer is being held hostage by threats of economic collapse. And, even more disorienting, I find myself nodding when I hear Newt Gingrich talk!…and that’s just terrifying. And McCain is talking out of both sides of his mouth
Here’s one thing I firmly believe: Can’t we please take the microphone away from this President? Hasn’t he caused enough damage? What is served by his continued blathering drone, reciting the obvious and offering nothing but the grim face of his flaccid intellect?
And maybe…just maybe, the economic health of the nation shouldn’t entirely be based on the wealth of corporations? Isn’t this a perfect time to question the "personhood" of corporations? Why do corporations have the same rights…in some cases more rights…than you and me and every other individual taxpaying citizen? I would love to hear someone start talking about "corporate responsibility" and "corporate bootstraps" the way we get treated to "individual responsibility" sermons.
Stop holding an economic gun to our heads and start talking sense.
A Friend and An Ally
We don’t usually do a lot of "celebrity news" here. But it is truly sad to hear, this morning, of the passing of Paul Newman. Alas, Mr. Newman was not a Gay man. He was married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years. Lucky Joanne. Lucky Paul.
But both he and Ms. Woodward were longtime allies of the Gay community and in 1978 wrote a fundraising letter to raise money to fight yet another California ballot initiative…the first anti-gay ballot initiative, the Briggs Initiative, aka No On Six for those of us who fought it.
I know about this letter because I wrote it, under the guidance of David Mixner, and then, one bright Los 
Angeles morning, drove it over to the Newman home for their signature, where they…Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for god’s sake!…invited me in and served me coffee and talked about how important it was to defeat the initiative. The maid had showed me in, and took me to the room and invited me to sit. As I entered the room, there was Paul Newman, talking on the phone, sitting on a low sofa in a sunroom at the rear of the house…in his underwear and a bathrobe. He waved me in and pointed to another place on the sofa for me to sit (me not knowing where to not look…not at his underwear or not at his ice blue eyes!!)
He got off the phone and shook my hand, calling out "Joanne…you got some coffee in there?…you want some coffee?" he said, turning to me. And before I could respond, out comes Joanne Woodward with a tray of coffee and danish. She poured me a cup. They both sat and reread the letter and, after a little coffee talk, signed the letter and I was on my way…floating just ever so slightly above the surface of the earth for the rest of the day. What we talked about, I couldn’t have told you five minutes later. But I do remember how comfortable they made me feel. How unaffected they both were, and how concerned they were that Gay rights be defended. Aside from the millions of dollars he went on to give to charities and will continue to give as those companies continue, the Gay community has lost a great ally in a time when we still need allies.
Our sincerest sympathies and condolences to Ms. Woodward and the entire Newman family.
It’s an honor just to be…
Well, well, well…this humble blog, powered by Typepad, has been selected as one of the "Featured Blogs of the Month" along with none other than Andrew Sullivan. Check us out…here. We’re just after "Petopia" and just before "Gaia’s Horse." Nice company.
Thank You Dave…
Dave pretty much says it all here:
My favorite is: What are you going to do if you’re President and there’s a crisis? Suspend being President? Seems to me Senator McCain has signaled quite clearly where he thinks he belongs. In the Senate.
This Is an Emergency…
Here are some of the thoughts going through my mind as this financial crisis obtains (and which is giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “Wall Street bull”):
· I am reminded of nothing so much as the run-up to the Iraq war, when we were stampeded by dire predictions and images of “mushroom clouds.” The "boy who cried wolf" keeps coming to mind.
· This is the administration that has signed on to the idea of “reducing” the Federal government to a 
size where they can “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” What better way to do that than to bankrupt it?
· Aren’t the people who are "fixing this" the same people who got us into the mess in the first place?
· I sure as hell don’t think any of the executives who drove these institutions into the ditch should get anything like a Golden Parachute as they go out the door. In fact, I think there ought to be a decidedly punitive aspect to this (for them), and hundreds of these greedy, grabby, dishonest and disingenuous people ought to pay back some of the money they got on the way into the ditch.
- Who is looking out for the interests of the taxpayers? Perhaps the solution ought to be finding a way to help the people who were swindled, not the swindlers? And make no mistake about it…this was a swindle. Lies were told. Deceit was perpetrated.
- "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Right. Because "no accountability and lack of transparency" has worked so well this far. This is the Financial Patriot Act.