I have moved the blog over to tumblr:

whatsurdamage.tumblr.com

I kinda miss wordpress for doing longer posts, but with tumblr I’m more likely to post little things on a regular basis so I’m giving it a go.

I leave you with “Late Night, Maudlin Street” by Morrissey. When I’m moving somewhere new I always play this song the night before as I pack up the last few things…

Batman's back, ALRIGHT!

It’s been forever since I’ve done one of these. I want to try and update this blog more frequently, but we’ll see how that goes. Anyway, on to the bitterness (Bitter B approves. Or disapproves. Whatever).

Sunday Bitter Sunday: Pride FAIL 2009

A few weekends ago, I headed over to SF to take part in some Pride related activities. I met up with my friend Sophia and we hung out with some other folks in Dolores Park before the Dyke March. Played some “People Watching Bingo”, enjoyed the sun, and did the March, which ends in the Castro for the Pink Party. Other than a cursory glance in our bags, we went through security with no problems.

We decided to leave the party for a bit to go eat dinner. Once we finished, we headed back to the party. Easy peasy, right?

And this was when it all went wrong.

The line (if you could even call it that), was this massive, poorly organized crush of people. The security guards were not at all helpful; it was all yelling and threatening and general abrasiveness. Yelling at people that there were no backpacks allowed and that if they had one, they’d have to take it home or throw it away. Very slowly, we started to move. And then I thought I heard someone say, “Women on this side, men on this side.” No way, I must have misheard. But as we got closer the security guards were yelling it and directing people to go to the correct line.

Yes, that’s right. Gender binary segregated lines. At Pride.

How fucked up is that? The whole thing was just so bizarre. One of those “You have got to be fucking kidding me” moments.

And as if that’s not enough, when we finally got to the front of the gate, they made me throw out my leftover Indian food from dinner and my Chex mix. What’s so dangerous about Chex mix?

I guess the moral of the story is that if you fall outside of the gender binary, you’re not welcome to even stand in a fucking line at Pride.

And you sure as hell better not have any Chex mix.

I have to agree with the article’s writer in that my first question when I heard about this was “Why?”. It’s all kind of random and bizarre. But I’ll probably watch the first episode anyway…

Why is it that almost every teen show ever is set in Southern California? Even my favorite Canadian teen show has four upcoming episodes set in Hollywood.  Oh mythic California, with your pristine beaches and hunky surfers and bikini-clad girls on rollerblades. Where there’s no smog or sprawl or traffic…

I remember back in college when Anh-Thu and I stumbled across a cheap copy of Season 1. Not that Sweet Valley High: Season 1 is ever really going to be expensive.

Anyway, we put an episode on. It was derivative, cheesy, poorly written, and poorly acted.

Of course, I loved it.

This is the basic premise of every single episode of Sweet Valley High: “Bad twin” Jessica does something mean, spiteful, shallow or just generally shady. She totally thinks she’s going to get away with it and might even come pretty close. Then it all blows up in her face and “Goody goody twin” Elizabeth helps her get out of the mess. Then everyone’s like “Ha ha, Jess really learned her lesson this time…”

Except that no, she did not learn a thing because the whole cycle starts again the next episode.

Needless to say, I think we ended up watching most of the season that night.

When I was a kid I was also quite fond of this little show:

Oh yeah, California Dreams. Aside from applying the same old 90s teen sitcom tropes, this show had a few bonuses: 1) It was about kids in a band so you got lots of cheesy songs. Not as many as MMC or Kids Incorporated, but still. None of this Zack Attack bullshit where it’s limited to a few episodes. 2) The blasian factor.

Aww...

I was in danger of having my gay card revoked so I finally sat down and watched the final season of The L Word.

We were not amused.

There were some choice moments like the one below with Alice, Tasha, and Jamie dressed like Salt N Pepa and dancing to “Push It”:

But overall it was a crappy show. The L Word is one of those shows that could never really decide what it wanted to be. With the final season they made the (incredibly misguided) attempt to turn it into a murder mystery. But what’s the point of a murder mystery if you don’t have a big reveal at the end? Instead we get an off-screen death, no clear resolutions of anything, and a stupid three minute montage of the cast walking in slow motion and smiling as a wind machine blows their hair:

(the walking part starts at about 55 seconds in)

Dumb.

But after six seasons, I think I know what the “L” in The L Word stands for:

Lazy.

First there’s the lack of consistent characterizations. Plus the total disregard for continuity. Heavy-handedness with foreshadowing (if you can call it foreshadowing when everything is so obviously telegraphed). Then the reduction of most characters of color to little more than stereotypes. It seemed like nearly every sentence Pam Grier’s character said had a “Girl!” in it somewhere. And then the shitty way the transgendered character was portrayed. They couldn’t think of anything for him to do so they did an asinine “plucked from the headlines” pregnant man storyline. And I could go on and on and on…

It seems like if the creator were better able to think beyond her white, upper class lesbian world and, I don’t know do a little research, be consistent, and really try, the show could have been a lot more. It was fun in a “this is terrible yet I can’t stop watching it” kind of way, but I can’t say I’m really sad to see it go.

But still, I’m really, really glad that Jenny died.

What?? How do you offer a Master’s of SCIENCE in Creationism? Makes zero sense.

This is (of course) via our favorite “fair and balanced” source FauxNews.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the film. The songs were great, the dialogue was funny, the story was strong… overall it was a great moviegoing experience. I also loved the little transitions in between scenes. Any movie that builds a shot of the SF skyline with tetris blocks = awesome in my book. Looking at the production values, it’s amazing to think that they shot the whole thing in 18 days. The director also has a part in the movie in addition to having written all of the music. He’s one of those ridiculously talented people who you wish you could hate, but you can’t because they’re also incredibly nice and cool.

The film is screening tonight in Berkeley at the Pacific Film Archive and on Sunday in San Jose at Cameras Cinema 12 so go see it! You can watch the trailer here: