Today was a tough day on Capitol Hill, where the topic of hot gay statues was taken up and — as usual — soundly defeated. Fortunately, the issue is not entirely moot, and reader Tyler Green was kind enough to point us in the direction of something that until now had escaped our attention:

[This statue is called "Man Controlling Trade" and is by Michael Lantz] the brother of Walter Lantz of Woody Woodpecker fame, from outside the Federal Trade Commission HQ in DC.

Sounds like it might be worth a look?

Whoas. That guy’s controlling something, and it may or may not be “trade.”

Hey, that’s one way to end your “Depression.”

Thanks for the tip, Tyler. Let’s hope the “stimulus plan” delivers everything we were promised, including not only more hot gay statues in the nation’s capital but in every town with a population greater than 100.

Photo credits: Andy961 on Flickr (first) and Eric Marc Crawford on Flickr (second).

The Hot Gay Statue round-up:

• Rules and Guidelines
• Dan Savage Endorsement
• Washington Heights (New York City)
• Washington, DC
• The London Eye Clarifies an Important Issue
• Florence (Italy)
• The Park Avenue Amory (Upper East Side/NYC)
• Murray Hill (New York City)
• Madrid (Spain)
• Los Angeles
• Philadelphia
• The London Eye: “In Your Face”
• The J-Man Inspires
• George Washington
• Georgia (Republic of)
• New Orleans
• Columbus Circle (New York City)
• Two Davids (Florence)
• Franco Harris Statue (Pittsburgh)
• London Firefighters and Other Heroes
• Columbus Circle Mall (New York City)
• Miami
• Paris
• Grand Central Station (New York City)
• Albany, New York
• Chicago
• Albany, New York (Hot Gay Statute)
• The Metropolitan Museum (New York City)
• University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
• More Getty Villa (Los Angeles)
• Union Station Centurions (Washington, DC)
• Hot Gay Ladies in Washington Heights (New York City)
• Honolulu
• Stockholm
• Florence (Italy) II
• Vienna
• San Francisco

Some winter mornings, we wake up and consider the rooftops of Washington Heights, where — thanks to the sumptuous pre-war architecture, the expansive breadth of the Hudson and the gentle rise of the Palisades — we are charmed by the wisps of steam that trail from the chimneys; there’s something surprisingly bucolic about the scene, as if we were watching a village in the Bavarian Alps and not the most densely populated neighborhood in the country.

And then we see this (from 38 Fort Washington Avenue, not that they’re the only offender) and remember that we live in a city that cares nothing about its poor.

There is, however, some solace to be found in the idea that nothing we can do will ever change this, and our only hope is to escape.

The oily black smoke of 100-year-old boilers disperses daily across the rooftops in Washington Heights, heedless of those who suffer from pneumonia, asthma and tuberculosis. Officials and politicians? Not even footnotes in this story, which is about the aggregation of capital and the relentless rise of the metropolis.

The Wahi Lung Cancer & Asthma Roundup!

September 29, 2007

March 20, 2008

March 21, 2008

April 3, 2008

April 11, 2008 (Special Investigative Report)

May 11, 2008

May 18, 2008

June 19, 2008

July 8, 2008

November 16, 2008

We’ve always loved stencils (especially of Andy Warhol), so when we were in Vienna, we spent a lot of time checking out the graffiti stencils. Some of it was maybe really cute? Except does anyone know what this means, or why this girl is laughing, or why 2×3=4? We hope it’s not neo-Nazi propaganda. (h8 skinheadz.)

[Update: Jeff from Gay Power Living writes: The girl is non other than Pippilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump, aka Pippi Longstocking! Pippi is THE poster child of the punk movement, the anti-Shirley Temple. Astrid Lindgren wanted to create a child character to introduce the concept of dissent, especially against rules of society that children were taught to obey as the truth and never question. I'm guessing the 2x3=4 was Pippi mocking adult logic, her favorite target of rebellion was against adults...]

This one is maybe a lil more obv. It’s a picture of Barack Obama Ronald Reagan an evil capitalist. Note that this stencil has two colors. Black and Blue = symbol? (h8 u, u$a.)

This one is sending a message: ___________ . (miss u/h8 u elvis)

If this were ten years ago, we’d say this was a waste of film. (h8 baseball.)

This guy is throwing a Molotov cocktail even though one of his hands has already been cut off and he will quickly bleed to death. A pessimistic commentary on revolutionary violence? (h8 when u get ur arm cut off and u bleed 2 death.)

Don’t you wish more graffiti in Wahi was done with stencils? (miss u Vienna/h8 you Wahi.)

Prospective imperialists take note!

Today you may rule the world.

Tomorrow — just like the rest of us — you will have heartburn.

Friends! The government may be embroiled in scandal, and the legislation you seek may be decades away from the governor’s desk! Obviously these are not good economic times, unless you’re a professional athlete or a high-powered financial executive or really pretty much anything not related to old media and real estate and the auto industry. Whatever! Through good times and bad, we must always remain cognisant of one essential truth!

Yes, friends, not every cat is a lolcat.

Chances are if you’re geigh, you’ve heard about this movie called MILK! You might even feel guilty if, like us, you haven’t gone to see it yet because you’re gay and it’s about someone who’s gay and you should be eternally grateful that Hollywood would deign to tackle such a dirty and disgusting topic, although it’s great for laffs when the straight actors go on late-night teevee and asshole comedians groan and squirm about what it’s like to — ewwww! — kiss and “play gay.” But we digress! The point is, your editors at The Gay Recluse live in an actual (as opposed to gay) ghetto, with no movie theaters, and are too lazy to go see any movie in the theater, which means we probably won’t see MILK for ten years, when it reaches the top of our NetFlix queue.

Fortunately for us, Reader CB went to see MILK and provided the following analysis (in part a reaction to our post about subway homophobia), which we wanted to reprint in full. 

I went to see “Milk” tonight. It is, as the New Yorker and Charlie Rose had promised, quite well done.

I know the story from the excellent 1984 documentary, “The Times of Harvey Milk.” So I can’t say any of it came as a surprise. What did catch me off guard, however, was the degree of fury that rose in me as the picture neared its climax. I was literally shaking in my seat, and my fingers went numb, until I caught myself hyperventilating.

When I thought about it after, I connected to two, internal sources of anger:

1) The awfully ignorant, intolerant world of Anita Bryant, the Briggs Initiative, and the equation of homosexuality with bestiality, pedophilia, and worse, was the world in which I passed my formative years and adolescence. In my “sheltered” upbringing, I knew nothing of the hope and triumphs of the gay rights movement. It was rough going, and scars remain. The kind of violent hate crime touched on in the movie was very much a threat in my early adulthood, throughout the eighties, even in the supposedly more-enlightened world of Manhattan. One always had to be wary, and bashings were a regular fact of gay city life. So was suicide (a topic also woven into Milk’s story). The film coalesced feelings I haven’t visited much of late, but have certainly grappled with in my life: how much damage and pain was caused — to me, to people I knew and loved, to our culture — by dumb, hateful, or murderously insane people who felt strangely entitled to dictate the course of my life and other people’s lives, and of history? How is it that such people got away with the havoc they wrought?

2) How come they still get away with it? There are simply too many parallels between the world in the movie, with its obstinate, heartless, self-appointed “normals,” and our experience today. Recent statewide ballots (not to mention the past eight years of American government) make plain the ongoing co-opting of American sensibilities by homo-ignorant bullies. (As does the Recluse’s subway moment.) On the other hand, there’s little of the activism of Milk’s era today, nor the hope of setting an example: much of the civilized world has passed us by on civil rights. The cozy gay couple I saw the movie with provided cold comfort: they exist in complete and willing ignorance of the history “Milk” tells, and of the fragility and cost of the insulated, ghettoized “freedom” in which they live their material, suburban lives.

I came home from the movie to the Recluse’s sad subway saga. It was all too familiar, and too, too old a story. Not exactly an antidote to feeling that the gap between 1978 and 2008 is only a football field wide, perhaps, rather than a Grand Canyon which cannot be easily crossed back over.

“Milk” is an important, humanizing piece about a recent, pivotal moment in American (and gay) civil-rights history. The story is moving. But its reminder that the Dark Ages are far from over is chilling. I’m not so much sick of that, as shaking in my seat with rage.

Thank you for sharing, CB. As we always say: celebrate the new dark age.*

*Also the incredible title of an equally incredible Polvo record.  

Charles Blow/Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority

The Short Version: The gays are not about to win over black women — who statistics show are stupid, bitter, homophobic cows — by appealing to equality. Better to appeal to reproductive health!

In his words: “More specifically, blacks overwhelmingly say that homosexuality isn’t morally acceptable…So pitch it as a health issue.”

The Score: F (Fuck off!). In this piece, Blow displays a remarkable insensitivity w/r/t the premise of civil rights generally and the gay version specifically. Let’s begin with his premise that gays need “to pitch” the idea of marriage to anyone, and especially the few hundred intolerant, hypocritical black church ladies upon whom Blow obnoxiously ruminates. (And here we cannot resist offering another lol-quote: “Women who can’t find a man to marry might not be thrilled about the idea of men marrying each other.” Ha ha, that sounds like a SATC episode, Charles!). While it’s undoubtedly true in the most mercenary sense that gays do in fact need to sell the concept of marriage (or as we prefer, civil unions for all) to various constituencies, in a representative democracy, we are not obligated to appeal to those most hostile to our cause (and we certainly don’t need to hear it blithely framed in these terms from some tool making questionable extrapolations from a CNN poll). What Blow — who from his pic appears to be an African-American dude and from his bio appears to be straight (or at least a father of three children) — might like to consider is how he would have felt if in say, 1958, we had suggested that black leaders reframe the fight for desegregation in more palatable terms to a group of KKK members, whom surveys revealed to be omg rather racist. In short, just as the promulgation of civil-rights laws were not dependent on changing the views of asshole racists, enlightened observers will understand that the same should hold true for asshole homophobes; it’s not our job to teach or sell the idea of equality to those who are obviously incapable of grasping it and for Blow to suggest otherwise is insulting.

Last November, we published an essay on the suffocation of the gay voice in American literature, and not much has happened in the past year to change our opinion of this bleak, dreary landscape. The New York Times Book Review recently published its annual selection of notable books for 2008, and although we’re not familiar with all of them, as so often happens when confronting such lists, we were struck by an apparent lack of anything on the fiction half of the list — characters, themes, authors — that could be considered even remotely gay. Similar observations hold true for Janet Maslin and Michiko Kakutani‘s respective top-ten lists.

[A few preliminary notes/disclaimers: On the non-fiction side, there is a biography of Rudolph Nureyev, whose relatively unapologetic and well-documented appetite for men and death from AIDS makes the issue impossible to ignore completely (this is somewhat akin to real gays we sometimes see on reality teevee, which are so different than the usual stereotypes offered up by the networks, see e.g., every show ever made except maybe Six Feet Under!); in terms of the fiction list -- our primary concern here -- it's possible that some of these books do in fact deal with gay subtexts and themes (and if so, we'd like to hear about it!), but we could not glean anything along these lines from the capsules included.]

Which — i.e., this lack of “gay” — is kind of telling, given the range of other topics and themes we encounter while glancing through the list, e.g., we find authors confronting racism and ethnic stereotypes and politics and war and crime and terrorism (9/11!) and suburban/domestic ennui and the usual host of marriage/love problems. While all of these are admittedly compelling (or can be, in the right hands), we cannot help but ask: “If we were an alien coming to earth and knew nothing about humans except for these books, would we have any clue about the existence of homosexuality?” In this case, sadly enough, the answer is no, we wouldn’t.

This begs the question of wtf why, which in turn suggests three possible answers: 1) gay themes don’t really lend themselves to literature, 2) gay themes are less important than all of the above, and so we shouldn’t be any more disappointed not to find them covered here than we would if say, we were passionate about golf and found no novels on the topic in any given year; or 3) whether important or not, there were no outstanding works of fiction published in 2008 dealing with questions of gay identity.

As to whether gay themes are appropriate to literature, to say they are not would seem quite plausible if you were relying on the post-war American literary canon, because hey, there’s nothing gay about it, so it couldn’t be that important, right? This of course is casuistry; beyond obvious reference to literary masters both near (Michael Cunningham, Andrew Holleran) and far (Marcel Proust), there is a case to be made that homosexuality is the most universally reviled trait in the history of humanity — cutting across class, ethnicity, organized religion, gender and nationality — and thus the perfect window through which to examine well, pretty much anything, or at least anything related to a fundamental understanding of who we (collectively) are, which is certainly one plausible purpose (or at least effect) of fiction. (And we would go so far as to say that writers who ignore this do so at their peril, and that their works will be dismissed and forgotten as epitomizing the unenlightened tendencies of the dark ages in which we now but perhaps will not always live.)

Moving on to the importance of question number two, beyond the obvious hey-we’re-gay bias we bring to the table, we cannot help but look at the national socio-political-economic landscape of the past twenty years or and wonder if the issue of homosexuality — as much as race, class or gender — has not defined (albeit in many cases, in a largely unconscious manner) the national “dialogue” in ways that have had disasterous effects on all of us. We think back to how Reagan and Bush actively ignored the holocaust of gay men that took place on their watches, and then we observe the manic behavior of our country under the Clinton and Bush II administrations — the economic frenzy, the ascendancy of Moral Politics, the embrace of the sickeningly masculine culture of SUVs and rigidly stereotypical gender roles in Hollywood movies, etc. etc. — and we wonder if, at least in part, this could not be attributed to the failure of our country (outside of a few marginalized communities, obv) to truly acknowledge what happened twenty years ago, much less grieve or examine it in a meaningful way. Maybe it’s just us, but when we consider New York City, we are often left with the sense that there’s still a pervasive grief that hovers over a city where something like 100,000 people (mostly gay men) died, many at a brutally young age; it’s the skeleton in our closet that nobody really wants to talk about because it’s painful and depressing, but our guess is that until we address this in a broad, public forum, we will continue to be srsly fucked up in ways that both are and aren’t obvious.

As gay forces mobilize in the fight for marriage equality (or as we like to refer to it, civil unions for all), there seem to be practical implications to the sadly straight state of American literature in 2008, namely in the startling lack of stories (by which we mean the literary fictive kind) upon which this movement can turn for solace and inspiration; where, for example, is our James Baldwin? Sure, there are big gay filmmakers on the cultural landscape, but isn’t there something a little unsettling about throwing money at an industry where out gays cannot be considered for leading roles? Where we have to rely on Sean Penn — who omg was willing to “play gay” — for distribution? Whatever the case with movies, the desperate fervor with which these crumbs are gulped down by the gays suggests a strong demand that is largely unmet in the literary context.

Moreover, what books offer that movies do not is the ability to present characters as multifaceted, complex distillations (or reflections) of the kind of people we meet in the real world, i.e., those who do not conform to stereotype and generalization. Relevantly, this includes depictions of gay sex! Because high-minded notions of equality to the side, it’s also important for some significant percentage of the population — i.e., certainly more than could be said to exist now — to understand that cocksucking and assfucking (and whatever gay ladies do) are — or can be — equally valid means of sexual expression, as much as anything our straight peers might want to entertain among themselves, even if it leads to procreation. Bottom line: to be successful politically, we gays need to fight the “ew” factor, and having straights pretend on film is more of a disorienting spectacle than an honest depiction of this fairly serious aspect of our humanity (i.e., something that both separates us and brings us together, to be kind of “Hallmarky” about it!).

Except all of that said — and most depressing of all for us to consider — we have no obvious candidates for inclusion on the sad NYT “notably straight” list. It’s not like we’re outraged that ______, the new novel by _______, in which issues of gay identity are eloquently explored in the context of ______, was left off the list. (But if we’re missing something here — and it’s possible, because we’re not professional critics — please let us know!) The point it, it seems like a ridiculous state of affairs that there are not at least a handful to pick from every year, and we find the absence of gays no less startling that we would if the same were true of women or ethnic minorities. Until we see these books written and accepted (i.e., both critically acclaimed and commercially successful), and in a consistent, regular manner, there will continue to be a somewhat grotesque quality to how we’re viewed by those on whose good will (at least in part) we depend for the political reform we seek.

Since we are gay and in a long-term relationship — almost ten years! — we are constantly besieged by frenz and relatives with questions that more or less could be summed up as this: “Oh it’s so sweet that you’re together! If you could get married, would you?”

In the past, we’ve generally hesitated before offering something along the lines of: “Well, maybe — but since it’s not going to happen anytime soon, let’s not worry about it.” This answer, of course, is disingenuous to the degree that we would get married in a second if it meant we could receive the same tax/legal benefits that ”straight” couples currently receive. We would even like to throw a party — a$$uming we’re not bankrupt — because even though we’re reclusive misanthropic curmudgeons, “weddings” are fun and offer a few hours of unadulterated optimism before sending us back to the hard travails of daily life.  (Note: we do not ever want to call this a “commitment ceremony” – even if that’s essentially what it is – because omg “precious moments” barf!)  

And yet yet yet! The vocabulary of this process — marriage, engagements, bridezillas, groomzillas, fiances, even weddings — strikes us as distasteful and cumbersome to the extreme, and it’s really this — we now realize — that has been the root of our hesitation. In truth, we don’t ever want to get “married”; after fleeing the wasteland of suburban America — where every single house featured two people who were or had been married – we have no desire to return to that sad landscape of desparation and conformity. Along the same lines, we have never liked the words “husband” and “wife” and frankly never want them to pass our lips when describing our relationship partner, because these words are indelibly tainted by association with an outdated, homophobic, misogynistic and bourgeois mode of thinking (and society) that has absolutely no appeal to us (except in campy movies and teevee shows).  

Though we are obviously not the only gays to express frustration with marriage and everything it implies in this regard, we are often surprised by the failure of those doing so to make the following point, which to us is most critical in the current (and quickly evolving) political climate: it’s possible to be against marriage — even, or especially, gay marriage — but in favor of equality for all, and we should frame our political objectives in terms of the latter, while dispensing with the former. This, of course, is what Obama implied in the debates about “gay marriage,” and we should hold him to it!

Practically speaking of course, this would entail the promulgation of legislation that would strip the word and concept of “marriage” from federal laws and regulations (and by implication the states) and replace it with a ”civil union” that would be open to any two people, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation or even family status. (Because really, there’s no reason why say, two sisters living together shouldn’t have the option of filing a joint tax return and receiving whatever other advantages are offered to “married” couples.)

The reason this is important to consider now is that there is a huge opportunity to make this happen at the federal level and we (collectively speaking) should not squander it by squabbling over “gay marriage.” (Which careful observers should note is the term of choice for Republican assholes and fundamentalist nutjobs, i.e., “the gays want gay marriage! Outrage!”)

As any (good) lawyer will tell you – not to mention any political campaign strategist — legal fights are won and lost based on definitions of the terms involved. Let’s be honest with ourselves: ”gay marriage” is needlessly provocative and moreover a losing proposition in our seriously homophobic country, as California just demonstrated, particularly when we can express the same objectives in terms of ”equality,” which is more often a winning argument. 

So if people want to limit “marriage” to a man and woman, we should happily grant this, but at the same time press our allies (starting with Obama) to acknowledge that the state needs to get out of the business of ”marriage” asap in order to ensure equal treatment for all of its citizens. ”Civil union for all” is the most elegant way forward, and we should join the ranks of the enlightened countries that have already recognized this.

So OMG did everyone hear that Keith Olbermann had a “special comment” last night (or was it two nights ago, whenevs) about Prop 8 and gay marriage? Chances are, if you spent five seconds on the internet today, you did!

We were told not only to watch it thousands of times, but to send it along to all of our closest friends and relatives! If KO can get it, so can they!

And in truth, it’s not a bad clip. Even though KO makes a wtf point at the beginning when he notes that his family and personal life are not tainted by the presence of any gays, he does make an earnest and at times moving if melodramatic and overwrought appeal to the idea that love between two people of any gender is something that should be allowed to burn, or at least not be actively extinguished.

So our reservations here really have nothing to do with KO, even though we can’t help but ask why he couldn’t have made the point last week if he felt so strongly about it. But hey, better late than never — and trust us, this is going to be a national issue, so there will be plenty of opportunity for him to reiterate — and obv the world would be a better place if even five percent of the political shouting heads on teevee expressed themselves as eloquently as KO, and shared his socially liberal mindset. Maybe a few of them even have some gayz in their families!? Can’t wait to find out.

What struck us as kind of sad, however, was the fervor with which the appeal was made by some of our gay friends in their pleas to watch and forward this around. There was an aura of redemption, as if to say: “You see, this aggressively straight network teevee man with a deep, sexy voice understands, so now we are truly worthy. Finally — validation!”

This is a completely understandable impulse, given the extreme and oppressive levels of hatred we have all grown up with and still live under 24/7. Even if we’ve been “accepted” by our families and friends, it cannot be disputed that we are by and large considered disgusting freaks by what at most times feels like 100 percent of the population, as watching a few hours of network teevee (and the associated advertising) quickly proves. This is still a country — no, a civilization — where a gay kiss on the cheek is beyond the pale of most shows and advertising.

On some level, we too wish to be loved and accepted. We want our loves (and our fucking) to be appreciated or at least understood, we want acknowledgment that our forms of these passions are no worse than anyone else’s.

This is why KO’s message reverberated so strongly, we think. But if KO changed one person’s mind on this issue, we would like to hear from you, e.g., “I hated the gays and voted for Prop 8, but after hearing KO, I wish I could vote against it now.”)

The love and acceptance we crave is beyond the ability of KO or anyone else to grant, and so we try not to attach too much importance or expectation to what he or anyone else says. This is why KO’s gesture is kind but ultimately irrelevant and superficial.

We’re not talking about a political truth but a philosophical one, rooted in the notion that life is the heaviest of burdens, and our only task is to live it.