shepp

Just discovered the dandy company discount my partner got for KBF tickets has expired. Anybody know the deal on Burger King discount coupons? Still available? When do they expire? Since I'll be arriving in SoCal the night of June 4th and going to Knott's the next morning, if anyone has a coupon lying around, maybe you could PM me and we could arrange for me to mail you an SASE to get it here before I leave? One less hassle that way... Thanks!

'Cause if I were allowed to invite a sixth, it would be Tammy Faye...oh, and then there's Arianna Huffington. I'd love to hear the two of them sit down for a chat. (Well, actually, it had to do with public image, private behavior, and the selling of dreams at theme parks.)

Well, it's been a while since I read the book, so I forgot about the astronaut thing. Sorry. As I said, not having researched the subject myself, I can't vouch for ithe book's veracity. Hell, I even mangled the title: it's "Hollywood's Dark Prince." But I do recall the FBI informant thing was backed up by a declassified FBI document reproduced in the photo section, and I certainly find it easy to believe that someone of Disney's background and generation could be anti-Semitic. The Nazi thing I'm not so sure about...maybe I was just overdramatizing. Sure, I grew up with good ol' Uncle Walt on the telly, and I read the book just as a lark. (I'm even heading to DLR in a few weeks.) And sure, maybe the exworkers and family quoted in the book have untruthful axes to grind; I have no idea. But why is it tough to believe that a shrewd businessman with an all-kindly image could be something a lot more complex (and perhaps less endearing) off-camera? (Without taking anything away from the nature of his achievement - Henry Ford was notoriously anti-Semitic, but his cars ran just fine. I'd just rather not eat dinner with him.) The Disneypark empire, after all, is built on the perfect simulacrum - it seems to be Everest or Paris or the Old West, but it's just a lovely facade pasted over clanking machinery. To quote U2, it's "even better than the real thing." And mightn't the DisneyCorp.'s hagiography be "propaganda" as well? Nahhh...the man who gave us Mickey Mouse (well, actually Ub Iwerks did, but no matter) couldn't be anything less than a saint. And, lest we forget, who built the most successful family-focused, religiously-based theme park on the planet? Yep, Jim Bakker.

To (more or less) quote Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class, "I know that I'm God, because every time I pray, I find I'm talking to myself." Interesting that Disney's such a favorite. Can't personally vouch for the book's veracity, but "Disney: The Dark Prince" paints a well-documented portrait of a WED who was an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer, a stool pigeon for J. Edgar Hoover, a union-busting egomaniac who took credit for others' work, a rotten family man, and a messed-up depressive. Not my idea of the ideal dinner companion. My idea of an interesting conversational group: 1. Oscar Wilde 2. Walt Whitman 3. Thomas Jefferson 4. Sir Ian McKellan 5. Tallulah Bankhead It would be interesting to have Reagan stop by, though, so I could ask him if he was having any second thoughts about creating the Taliban... Oh, and erinys, I commend to you the work of The Jesus Seminar, a group of Biblical scholars who, in two great books, separated out what was most likely said and done by the historical Jesus, what might have been, and what was most certainly made up by the folks who wrote and edited the Scriptures. Fascinating...

It's right across the Valley. Last time I was at Bridalveil in May, you couldn't actually see the base of it, the mist was so intense. And getting there was like being in heavy rain...carry an umbrella.

To masochistically destroy what little cred I have... Last night I saw Erasure's Acoustic Tour in a small venue (I was in row G). A guilty pleasure, and a lot of fun. Like I said, I work p/t at a rock venue, so I have a Joe Satriani and two Phil Leshes coming up in the next week, then Arctic Monkeys and Les Claypool at the end of the month. And then Tatsu.

If you've never been there... THE classic hike from the valley is the Mist Trail to the top of Nevada Falls and back. It will be crowded...if you're going on a weekend, even jammed...but the huge snowpack ensures two truly awesome falls en route. You will get wet, you may get soaked. But do it. Trust me on this. A lot of the things a first-timer should do are gonna be crowded - visiting Yosemite and Bridaveil Falls, driving up to Glacier Point, etc. - but that goes with the territory. Even the most rigorous day hikes, like climbing Half Dome or to the top of Yosemite Falls, are gonna be zoos. If the road and trails to Glacier Point are clear and there are enough people to do it, one of you can drop the others off at the top and the rest can return to the Valley via the 4-mile Trail. At this time of year, the Tioga Pass Road will still be closed...that's the easy route to the backcountry. And up near Wawona, things will be less jammed. The only way to avoid Valley crowds is to go in the winter, so resign yourself to that. Plan on coming back and doing multiday hikes...bt even then, the campsites can be crowded. Take the trams as much as you can. There's a filling (though not great) buffet at Curry Village. If you cross-country ski, find out if there'll still be any skiable snow up around Badger Pass. And remember there are hungry bears. All over the place.

NEWS FLASH: The Pope says homo-love is "weak." Oh yeahhhh? I'd like to see Miss Benedict, white dress fluttering, take the pretzel loop on Tatsu!

Well, naturally. But since I'm not a Rastafarian, and I'm not down with the hippie lettuce.....it looks like I'm stuck with Red Stripe (not that there's anything wrong with that ). Anyway, rock on, my brother....and long live Bob! Well, alcohol's killed a lot more people than ganja ever will...but when I was in Jamaica, I found myself wondering how many white folks wearing Rasta T-shirts actually believe that some dubious African despot truly was God Incarnate? Anybody?

Of course, the theme parks aren't IN downtown Los Angeles, any more than CP is in downtown Cleveland - which, BTW, has a robbery rate a full 50% higher than L.A's...and five times higher than Anaheim's. (The bucolic paradise of Sandusky, for its part, has a slightly lower robbery rate than Anaheim, but a notably higher rate of aggravated assault and almost twice the rate of rape.)

And, uh, the trees and grass in central Jersey look a lot better in June than they do in mid-April...

To narrow it back down to the original "what one park"... If coasters are your be-all and end-all, CP and MM are the obvious choices, though most here would give the edge to CP. But if you're looking for the overall park experience, I'd say IOA. Not only is the theming terrific, there are, in addtion to 2 (or 3, depending) topflight B&Ms, a number of attractions and experiences that are utterly unique to IOA....Spiderman, DDRR, and Bluto's Barges, for instance, as well as the amazing Lost Continent and Seuss Island theming...while lots of the best of WDW is also at DLP, across the Channel from you. Honestly, if someone said "You can only go to one more park for the rest of your life," I'd choose IOA...and USF is a 10-minute walk away. And they always seem to have better deals (at least for non-Floridians) than WDW.

Thanks for all the good advice, Don. Unfortunately, the Aladdin show will be dark on Tuesday. And unless there's a very, very early soft opening, POTC will still be down. Going Wednesday might be better - no EE, Aladdin playing - but that would mean pulling into Santa Clarita after midnight, then getting up early the next morning to ride Tatsu...a forced march, indeed.

Yeah, I know about the single-rider lines, thanks...Unfortunately, Indy no longer has one - Splash is apprently the only single-rider at DLR. And Grizzly River will be a lot more fun if I can watch my partner getting soaked. It's really the Disneyland situation - more to do, bigger crowds - that concerns me.

OK, Anaheim experts... I'll be at DLR on the first Tuesday in June with a one-day hopper. (Planning on big but not ginormous crowds.) Never been on Indy (a top priority), never been to DCA. Disneyland opens at 9, DCA an hour later. As of now, I'm planning to get to DLR about an hour before gate, riding Indy, heading to SM for a Fastpass, riding the Matterhorn if the timing looks good, then hustling over to DCA before it opens, riding Soarin', off to the TOT for a FP and maybe a ride, then to Monsters, Inc., over to Screamin', then gratefully slowing down, heading out of DCA mid-to-late-afternoon and spending the rest of the day and night at DL. Does this all sound reasonable? I have no idea, for instance, how long it would take to get from SM to DCA's gate. And maybe I should head to SM first and pick up an Indy pass on my way out? Or what? I know this is micromanaging, but...

To echo what others have said... Lost Continent at IOA. Standing in front of Poseidon's Whatever and looking around is always just so...amazing. I love both the details and overall look of Port of Entry, too. And the park-within-a-park aspect of JP always delights me. DAK's Asia has great, authentic details, too. Interesting that, despite its reputation, BGE hasn't gotten any mentions yet...

I, for one, found the Gs on M:S to be at least as intense than Goliath's infamous helix, and in a way more grueling. For one thing, the Gs on Goliath are kind of aimed downwardish toward your seat and feet, whereas the M:S forces hit you square in your torso. Goliath's helix Gs force blood from your brain (hello, gray-out!) while M:S knocks the wind out of you. It's like Gary Sinise is sitting on your chest. (Hmmm, on second thought, that might feel kinda nice...)

^No, I think that's a great tactic, talking to people. Studies show that once people get to know queers, they're much less likely to espouse homophobic views. What complicates matters, though, is that so much of current anti-gay stuff is faith-based, and faith is, by defiinition, not amenable to rational argument. Let me pick on Mormons for a minute. (I'm paraphrasing here, so if there are any errors in nuance, please excuse me. But I think the basics are pretty true.) They believe - based on a scripture that an angel delivered to Joseph Smith in the form of a golden book that he could translate with the help of magical crystals - that the fundamental unit of the universe is the heterosexual (though not necessarily, in the original doctrine, monogamous) family, husband and wife or wives, that god himself is married, and that Mormon families are destined to be reunited in the Celestial Kingdom. Now, there are all sorts of points at which Mormon doctrine bumps up against inconvenient facts. But they believe what they believe, and no amount of discourse will convince most of them otherwise. (And those who voice strong doubts are excommunicated.) So no matter how nice you are, no matter what you say, they might admit you're a nice guy, might even invite you in for a dish of Jello, but - unfortunately - you happen to stand in opposition to god's plan, and if you expect there to be same-sex marriage in Utah, you're sadly mistaken. (Try talking to some pair of Mormon missionary boys about queer stuff sometime. Loads of fun.) Neither does the Vatican "hate" queers. It just points out that, unfortunately, we're "intrinsically disordered." Since it took 400 years for the Church to forgive Galileo for pointing out the earth went around the sun, one might conclude that change, though possible, will come slowly. Right now, the hot Church debate is whether it's okay for husbands who are HIV-positive to use condoms with their uninfected wives to save their lives. Sure, plenty of Catholics do use condoms. Plenty of straight Catholics are okay with queers. But those with the most orthodox views are the least likely to value logical discourse. And boy, are they pissed that Spain legalized same-sex marriage.

^ Answering your last question first - yes, through sometimes involved legal strategies, things like inheritance and medical power of attorney can be granted to an unmarried partner. Gaining other rights, like hospital visitation, is more iffy. However, in California, many of those rights are automatically granted to registered domestic partners. That legislation on domestic partnership only came about as the result of several decades of labor by openly queer activists, and in most states - like yours - though some employers may provide some domestic partners benefits (e.g.., sharing health insurance), partners' rights are otherwise limited or nonexistant. Rightwingers are even pushing legislation that not only bans gay marriage, but domestic partnership laws as well. So...even if I had full legal rights, would I dislike those who'd seek to rescind them? ("Prejudice" is the wrong word, I think, to describe a person's rection to oppression.) Well, let's put it this way: I'm Jewish, too, and Jews have full legal rights in this country. Are Jews justified in hating neoNazis? Or is that somehow idealistically wrong? After all, except for the debatable limiting of free speech rights, Jews are not seeking to oppress neoNazis, except in the fascists' own sick minds. Likewise, I don't give a damn if the Pope gets married or not. He, however, is adamantly opposed to my doing so, and is using the power of the Catholic Church to prevent that. Is it "prejudice" for me to resent his actions? Sure, resentment and hate can eat up a life. But, hey, I'm not bound by the strictures of Christian love. I get to hate the Reverend Fred Phelps with a clear conscience. As to me (and others) miscontruing you... To paraphrase what I think you said: you believe that once a queer person is accepted by his or her peers (all one's peers? or just those one craves "admittance" from?), they should stop identifying as "queer" all the time, and stop hanging around disproportionately with other queer people. Otherwise, their "little" struggle to be accepted would be "pointless." Correct? Yes, social acceptance is important. Because your generation is more socially accepting of queers than people in mine, we can expect widening support of queer rights (including marriage) in the future. Great thing. But nobody likes everybody (unless they're on certain substances), and that's human nature. Hell, there are plenty of queer men I can't stand. I really don't care if the evolution-bashing, speaking-in-tongues fundamentalists around the corner find me distasteful or not...There are plenty of other folks in the world to relate to, and I doubt the parties they throw are that great, anyhow. However, I would like to know that should they buy my apartment bulding, they wouldn't have the right to throw me out of my home because I'm a "sinner." I live in San Francisco, where queers are more accepted than anywhere else in the country, and most places in the world. But I still hang out more with queers than straights. (And more leftists than Log Cabin Republicans, more bohemians than bankers, and more atheists than Mormons.) Beyond the possibility of a little slap-and-tickle, I just plain find them more sympatico, with more similar worldviews, aesthetics, personal histories, and attitudes about a whole range of things. Is part of that a result of us queers spending our earlier years in more oppressive circumstances than we do now? Well, sure, I guess. Is hanging out with people you have a lot in common with somehow self-defeating? Um, don't think so. To go back to the Jewish thing: After spending most of their lives in a mostly Christian suburb, my parents, born New York Jews, chose to retire to South Florida in large part so they could be around other Jews. (Despite their proximity to the Dania Beach Hurricane, I'd never want to follow suit, btw.) Was that self-limiting? Should they have been just as happy to move to Salt Lake City or the Bible Belt? Yes, fifty years from now, this may all be irrelevant, there may be no difference between growing up queer and growing up straight, and it may be a small world after all. Political gains may simply wipe out "queer culture" and "gay sensibility." Or maybe not. Since you're iinterested in sociology, I'd recommend reading "The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture" by Daniel Harris. It's quirk and infuriating, but it tackles these issues head on. Sorry to be so long-winded. Peace out.

I wonder how long this will last. Without the Gs, you're just looking at a little screen and fiddling with a disconnnected joystick. Watching silent cartoons at the Main Street Cinema is more exciting. Next up: TOT without the drop...

Wow...you live in Georgia, dude. In your great, sovereign state, there's no antidiscrimination law protecting gays. You can be legally fired or evicted or otherwise discriminated against just because you're queer (or perceived to be). You're currently not covered by either federal or state hate crimes legislation. There's no state domestic partners law, so even if you spend the rest of your life with someone, you'll have no automatic right to his health insurance or estate, the way it is for married hets. And, of course, you couldn't marry him under civil law. You wouldn't get the tax benefits of being a couple, or inherit each other's social security. Chances are you won't be able to adopt kids. You can't be openly queer and serve in the armed forces. Georgia actually went to the Supreme Court to sustain their bust of a gay male couple for "sodomy." (It's only thanks to a later court case that gay sex in your home town isn't a criminal act.) Oh, and how many Georgia state legislators are openly gay men? Um, zero. So when you say we've been granted "admission" (and thank you, massa, for letting us in), just what are you talking about? The Club of Second-class Citizens? Or do you think that the whole world is like high school, where the point is to fit in by acting like the cool kids, and once you get to hang with them at the mall, your life is complete?

From what I understand, DLR has been doing record business ever since the beginning of the 50th Anniversary thing...and that shows no signs of letting up. So - to be perfectly crass about it - why would the bean counters approve some mind-blowingly revolutionary E-ticket when the park is packed as is?

^ Well, people may be "stupid," but let's remember that we have a messianic moron for President. No, I don't believe that our government planned 9/11. But let's look at what we do know for sure. What came to be the Taliban was underwritten and generously armed by the Reagan administration during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. During the Iraq/Iran War, when Saddam's crimes against his own people were already known, he hosted good ol' Don Rumsfeld, who smilingly provided aid and comfort. To quote a New York Times report on the Downing Street Memo, "At their (1/31/03) meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said....There was palpable tension over finding a legitimate legal trigger for going to war that would be acceptable to other nations... Faced with the possibility of not finding any (WMD) before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein." And, of course, we now know we have a government that spies on its citizens without a warrant, sends prisoners abroad so they can be subjected to illegal torture, and has repeatedly, persistently lied and cherry-picked their "facts" to justify foregone conclusions. But hey, Jesus told George that it was his pre-Rapture duty to invade Iraq, and that's good enough for me.

Hey there, what gives you the right to say "ughh" to other people's activism? I mean, I respect your right not to do nothin', and I'm thinking maybe you don't know squat about gay history, anyway. But as a gay geezer who's seen a lot, let me politely inform you that what rights we queers do possess were achieved largely because people made a "big public deal about it." Yeah, you're only 15. But you happen to live in a state where you can legally be fired or evicted just for being gay. And someday when you grow up and move out of your parents' house and look for an apartment and have to get a job and maybe find a partner you want to form a legal bond with, or even adopt kids, maybe you'll understand things a little better and stop saying "ughh."