To those of you who've been checking this site regularly the past few days wondering if I'm going to be posting about the Burbank 2008 Xena Convention or the 2008 Lucy Lawless at the Roxy concert, the answer is yes, I will. However, I'm feeling less than stellar this week (for reasons I won't bother you with here), and as a result, I won't be doing the battery of pre-event posts that I've done in the past. You can expect my usual concert report with photos later this weekend.

In the meantime, here are some good Xena-related links to kill time with:

• My fellow AfterEllen.com scribe Christie Keith is live-blogging the convention. So that her site doesn't get creamed by the Xenite hordes, Christie's posting her updates at AfterEllen.com instead of her personal blog. But I notice she's posted a few Xena tidbits over at her personal site, Dogged Blog, as well. Hope you upgraded your server, Christie.


• There's some great pictures from the totally righteous Xena Fan Support Day on the WGA picket line at MaryD's site, Twink's site and LAist.com.


• Because it had to happen sometime: LOLxena. I found this site via XenaCast. You can see I've made my own LOLrenee picture for this post. If you're a fan of the LOL phenomena, the LOLxena site also has a lengthy blogroll of LOL sites. I especially enjoyed the blog on LOLchaucer, which also featured lengthy posts on topics ranging from Britney Spears ("STOP YOUR SCLAUNDRES OF BRITNEY!") to Brokeback Mountain ("I WOLDE I KNEWE HOW OF THEE I MIGHT BE QUITTEN!"). You kind of need to know some Middle English to appreciate it. However, I feel confident that there's some degree of overlap among Xena fans, lulzspeakers and Middle English buffs.

Specifically, has the Pope read Ex Machina numbers 32 and 33? I wonder, because the very day after I had put down issue #33, in which the man-machine hybrid Mayor Hundred undergoes a forced exorcism by the Pope, I read the news that Pope Palpatine--or whatever his name is--will be introducing new "exorcism squads" to fight the rise of godlessness and the occult.

This "Say No to Satan" campaign will be led by the Chief Exorcist of Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth. It's too bad that the AMPTP is allowing the writers' strike to drag on; I think these exorcism squads could be the subject of a S.W.A.T.-style drama, with special guest targets like Christopher Hitchens and J.K. Rowling.

Perhaps the timing of Ex Machina's storyline and the Pope's announcement was just synchronicity (a godless concept, I'm sure), since I just encountered an instance of exorcism in the novel I'm currently reading as well. The novel, Trance by Christopher Sorrentino, is set in the 70s and includes a passing reference to the bestselling book, The Exorcist, which it describes as being about authority figures trying to change a young girl's personality.

I mention this third instance of exorcism because it dates from a time period, the early 70s, that has many interesting similarities to the current period in U.S. culture and politics. Why is this significant? Well, as Fr. Gabriele Amorth states in an excerpt from his book, An Exorcist Tells His Story, there are times in history that are more oppressed by Satan. I find it fascinating that Amorth points to another period often compared to our own, the period of Rome's decline:

Even if this battle against Satan concerns all men and all times, there is no doubt that Satan's power is felt more keenly in periods of history when the sinfulness of the community is more evident. For example, when I view the decadence of the Roman Empire, I can see the moral disintegration of that period in history.

Amorth sees "decadence" as the point of connection between today and the end of the Roman empire. I'm sure he'd find the early 70s, once dubbed the "me decade" for its individualistic (or narcissistic) concern with human potential, were morally decadent, although Amorth is quite approving of both the book and movie versions of The Exorcist, artifacts of that era. So there is one conservative interpretation of a connecting thread between these three periods.

One doesn't have to stretch to see political connections between the 70s in the U.S., the U.S. present, and the late Roman empire. The continuing debate over presidential impeachment, the comparisons between Nixon's and Bush's approval ratings, and the presence of former Nixon administration officials within the Bush White House make that part of the equation a no-brainer.

The last several years have seen a profusion of dramas and documentaries about the rise and fall of Rome in which comparison to the present is implicit. The HBO series Rome, which recently covered this subject matter, took its inspiration from the famous 70s series, I, Claudius. One of the most pointed documentaries I have seen linking the Roman empire to present day designs on empire is the four-part BBC series billed as "an alternative history of Rome," Terry Jones' Barbarians.

A mashup of these three periods in history results in quite a vision of the powerful under pressure: Pope Benedict XVI herding the diminishing faithful under increasingly authoritarian doctrines; the Romans deploying their army and an arsenal of rarefied torture techniques to subjugate the far-flung nations and peoples under their rule; Nixon's stonewalling under the scrutiny of the press; U.S. neoconservatives' brute use of propaganda to deflect and contain criticism.

But now let's turn away from the powerful and towards the voice that must be silenced, exorcised, disciplined, or reprogrammed. There's Regan, of course, the possessed girl of the Exorcist. Women often stand in for the demonic in patriarchal religions; she is a demon's most conducive host. (And a casting natural: women played the role of the devil in the Catholic horror films The Exorcist and in The Passion of the Christ.)

But more importantly, women are the voice of hysteria, and it is their image in popular culture that the voice of society's hysteria can be heard. Women like Linda Blair's character, Regan, who are seized and possessed by the public. Women who are, to be sure, interesting in their own right, but become sensations for their ability to stage the public's fear and anger, to vomit the culture's resentment and loathing into the face of unjust power and authority.

There are other women in 70s popular culture who serve as vehicles for public hysteria: kidnapped and converted Patty Hearst, whose free will became a national obsession; abused Sybil, whose shockingly multiple personalities seemed to mirror the emergence of variant and controversial lifestyles existing outside the confines of the traditional and fragmenting family unit.

Rome in its decline had many female virgin martyrs--thousands, according to legend--whose crimes of declaration inspired many creative applications of torture. Today, we have Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, celebrities whose main role appears to be acting out the culture's embrace of and revulsion towards material excess. It is a cycle of hysteria that, like Regan's head, spins round to look you right in the eye.

Today, there was an international show of support for the writer's strike, with demonstrations held in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, France, Mexico and New Zealand.

There's been tremendous fan support for the writers on the web, but it's also good to see that people understand that the writers' fight for fair pay is every worker's fight.

If you haven't done so already, you can sign a petition in support of the writers.

I'm making up for the time since my last post with a catch-up post, summarizing my experience over the last few weeks. I decided the easiest way to do this was to divide the major events in my life into two categories: those keeping me sane and those driving me towards the brink. Here are my highs and lows of the past month:

Keeping me sane

• The Force is with me. The sister and I went out one night together and bought matching Sony PSP Star Wars Bundles. We had both held out on the system until now; she wanted it for Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, and I wanted it for Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. We both love Star Wars, and Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, the game that came with the bundle, proved to be more fun than I expected.


• Karma junkie. Under the Bush administration, I've become impatient with reading the news. I want my news straight up these days, that's why I depend on Max and Stacy's daily Karmabanque podcast. They don't futz around with the intricacies of party politics. They just give me what I want to know, raw: who made how much money killing, oppressing and impoverishing who. Their Gulag Wealth Fund provides a shorthand method of tracking what's really going on.


• Screamin' like a banshee. Joe sent me the CD of Siouxsie Sioux's new solo album, Mantaray, for my birthday. It's pretty gorgeous. Years ago, I remember hearing Siouxsie and the Banshee's song "Desert Kisses" when Kaleidoscope first came out and thinking to myself, "This is kind of lesbian." That's also been my reaction to almost every song on Mantaray. In this case, however, Siouxsie's said a few things in the press to confirm that interpretation.


• Girly stuff. I really, really like the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend's Elmo panties. The hot pink ones, with "Love Me" written in bubble letters above the picture of Elmo on the crotch. I know, I know. TMI.


• Aspirational television. I have been totally hooked on the show Damages. Week after week I've watched in awe as Glenn Close opened my mind to immense new vistas of bitchiness. Through the character Patty Hewes, Close has brought me to understand levels of bitchiness I never even knew existed. I ask myself: can I possibly aspire to such intensely bitched out behavior in my lifetime? Am I up to the challenge? Thank you, Glenn Close. You have raised the bar for me.

• Where there's fire there's smoke. The air in Los Angeles after the Southern California fires has been an abomination--a miserable, foul toxic brew. There is just no way to explain to you how bad the air feels, tastes, smells. The best word I can come up with to describe it to you is: chewy.


• I was robbed. Anyone who has had a girlfriend knows there's a brief window of time after your girlfriend has swiped some an item in your wardrobe when it's possible to get that item back. If you act forcefully within this time period, taking back the item in question, one can retrain the girlfriend, much as one would an errant puppy: "No. Put that down. Put it down. No! That's not for you!"
  However, if one misses this brief window, one has no option but to give the item up. And so I say now: "Goodbye, faithful bedroom slippers! Fare thee well."


• Another one bites the dust. Johnny Bacardi is leaving the blogosphere after five years of publishing The Johnny Bacardi Show. But all is not lost, as he can still be found on livejournal and at his Elton John blog.


• La nausee. While shopping in the Container Store with the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend, I suffered an existential meltdown as I was confronted with the full extent of my own lack of organization. I shuddered as the world was revealed as just so many things in need of being boxed.


• Don't tell mama. I missed Lucy Lawless's show in Chicago, a fact of which I am not proud. But I poured over the pictures and commentary from the event, and I contributed this lovely wallpaper derived from the show, which I encourage you to download. I will be there both nights of Lucy's Roxy shows in January. Email me if you want to meetup.

I recently started writing for AfterEllen.com, a website devoted to lesbian and bisexual women in entertainment and media. I've been impressed with the way the site has grown over the past year and I'm happy to be writing to it. My feature on Latina playwright Odalys Nanin is up on the site as of today. The piece I wrote touches on politics as well as lesbian and gay issues. I hope you will go check it out.

There's been a call for a General Strike in the U.S. on 9/11.The slogan is, "No work. No school. Hit the streets." The General Strike is embracing a wide and important range of issues, including the Iraq war; election fraud; surveillance, torture and civil rights; corporate media; military profiteering; and the 9/11 coverup. You can read about what's being planned nationally and locally and find flyers and web graphics to help spead the word here. You can also join the Facebook protest group or the MySpace action group. If you're disturbed by what's happening in the U.S., participating in the general strike is an excellent way to make your opinion known. Nothing makes tyrants more nervous than the power of the people to gather, to share, and to demonstrate.

I went to see Sicko,Michael Moore's documentary film about the health care industry in the U.S., this past Friday with the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend. Go see it: the movie is every bit as good as the critics say it is. It's opening tonight in 100 more movie theaters, and Friday in another 200, so if it wasn't showing near you last weekend it may be by this weekend.

I was very impressed with the way Moore built his argument in Sicko. The movie encompassed so many varied emotions and ideas. The film's even structure and the depth of meaning Moore was able to bring to the subject brought to my mind the satisfaction one feels reading a beautiful, well-written essay. Of course, it was funny, too, but amusement is not the main feeling one takes away from this film.

I had trouble figuring out what I wanted to say here about healthcare. I have an extraordinary number of hair-raising personal healthcare stories I could tell you. I thought about sharing tips on how I've reduced my own out-of-pocket healthcare costs in the last year. I considered sharing various alarming facts about the number of uninsured in Los Angeles, where I live.

In the end, these anecdotes, instructions and statistics all seemed too small to pair with a movie as ambitious as Sicko. The problems with the U.S. healthcare system are enormous, but Moore's film isn't content to just look at what's wrong with our healthcare system. Sicko addresses what it feels like to live in a country that is relentlessly driven by the desire for profit.

Over the course of the Bush administration, I have noticed a change in many of the ordinary business relationships I have with companies I do business with, whether it's the bank, the grocer, an insurance company or even an employer. These are no longer relationships between customers and service providers, defined by a measure of good will and a presumed desire for mutual benefit.

There is a new rapaciousness that has turned each business transaction into an opportunity for profit on the one hand, loss on the other. The new terms and charges that go along with this trend include re-stocking fees, trick credit card fees, restrictive EULAs, and most recently, Supreme Court approved price-fixing. The healthcare equivalents include disputing of routine claims, lagging insurance payments and rising co-pays.

We need to insist on broad changes in our culture, and not settle for whatever healthcare reform or business reform gets pushed forward by the very industries that need changing. If Sicko is a success, inevitably the healthcare and pharmaceuticals industries will be first out of the gate with their prosposals for how to make things "better." That's when we will all need to keep our eye on the prize--and that prize is universal healthcare.

I've been riveted by the four-part series on Dick Cheney that the Washington Post is running this week. Finally, someone seems to have shed some light into the dark recesses of the veep's operations.

The situation with Cheney--and with politics in the U.S. generally--is so grave that I have to distract myself with something amusing after thinking about it for any length of time. So I decided to look at my library of Richard M. Nixon books and see what our late President had to say about the current vice-president.

As it turns out, Monica Crowley recorded what Nixon had to say about Dick Cheney in her book, Nixon Off the Record. In the following conversation, Nixon is weighing the chances of various future GOP candidates. RN says:

Cheney is smart as a whip and would probably be a responsible and strong president, but I don't know if he is likable enough--you know, with the personality--to be elected. Besides, he's another one who skipped out on Vietnam.

That's so precious. You have to really be scraping the bottom personality-wise for Richard Nixon to be looking down on you in the likability department. But if you read the Washington Post articles, it looks as though the GOP found a way to get around Cheney's personality issue.

Although Nixon never offered his opinion on Paris Hilton, his words sprang to mind recently as I was considering her current prison plight. I went out with Joe and the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend a few weeks ago for Gay Pride to see some comedians and it seemed like every joke was at Paris's expense. It was such a dramatic turnaround from just two years ago, when I blogged about Paris serving as Grand Marshall for that year's Pride March. I don't know Paris personally, but if I did, I would share with her these words of wisdom from our 37th president: "Only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain."

Yesterday the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend and I went to see WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Geffen Contemporary, a satellite location of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

I had read that the show was monumental in scope and the truth is that it was completely overwhelming. WACK! covers feminist art from the 1960s to the present day, both in the U.S. and abroad. The physical layout of the show was confusing and mazelike, and a minimalist approach to labeling (no narrative context, no translations) made it difficult to get a handle on many of the pieces on display.

Nonetheless, it's a collection that's worth making an effort to see and understand. WACK! represents the work of over 120 women artists, including Mary Kelly, Tee Corinne, Faith Ringgold--whose work is pictured here--Barbara Hammer, and Judith F. Baca.

The WACK! website seems to contain much of the context that wasn't present at the exhibit. There are photographs, exhibit walkthroughs, and podcast lectures by represented artists as well as feminist art historians available online for free. Also, the exhibit catalog is massive and well-organized, providing additional depth to this encyclopedic show.

Artwork from the late 1960s and 1970s in the U.S. forms a major portion of the show. One of the pieces from this period that intrigued me was General Strike Piece, by Lee Lozano, an avant-garde NY artist. In a series of written pages from a peyote-fueled journal, Lozano chronicles a series of acts she takes in pursuit of "TOTAL PERSONAL & PUBLIC REVOLUTION."

Another work, Prostitution Notes, by Suzanne Lacy, consists of handwritten or drawn notes on cardboard documenting the working lives of L.A. prostitutes, as well as her own reactions and relationship to the women she observes. Like Lozano's piece, Prostitution Notes, is as much about self-interrogation and self-discovery as it is about confrontation with patriarchy.

Some of the art in WACK! struck me as strongly dated. Visual works that incorporated magazine advertisements as a means of critiquing the representation of women seemed to veer into kitsch. Similarly, a few works that were taken as powerful gender critiques when they were originated seemed crude in light of more recent art informed by gay, lesbian and transgender perspectives on gender.

I enjoyed many of the sculptural and installation pieces in the show, including walking into Faith Wilding's cavelike Crocheted Environment, shown here in an older photo. My girlfriend and I were both mightily impressed with photos of Ana Mendieta's earthworks series, Siluetas. Mendieta created a working volcano shaped like a vagina and then documented it in the act of exploding. We loved seeing the earthworks vagina spewing red hot fire. I wish the MOCA gift shop had printed Mendiata's work on a coffee mug--I would have bought it.

Over at the Mother Jones site, I ran across a fantastic photo essay called American Happiness and the Need to Consume. The sequence of photos is very tightly constructed, taking the viewer from a starting point at the mouth of a mall-based retail store to an endpoint in a grocery store, facing a wall of stacked goods.

The selection of photos is taken from a larger project called Copia by photographer Brian Ulrich. Begun after 9/11, the intent of the project was to explore the Bush administration's directive to the people of the U.S. to stimulate the economy in the wake of the attack by going shopping.

I find a lot to admire in these photos, but I was particularly drawn to the faces of people while shopping. Ulrich has captured that moment of intense decision-making in consumers' expressions, which I recognize from my own experience of shopping. I know that look has been on my face, and I've seen it often on people around me. But captured in photos, the expression appears catatonic.

A few weeks ago, I heard an amazing podcast interview with Larry Kramer, founder of ACT UP, or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, on Democracy Now! I recommend it strongly to anyone who is interested in contemporary politics in the United States. I heard about the show through Wanda Wisdom at Lucky Bitch Radio, who discussed the show on her own podcast.

The interview was conducted to commemorate the anniversary of ACT UP's inception. Kramer talks about why ACT UP was successful in its time and the need for similar activist groups today. My favorite part of the interview is when Kramer calls Ronald Reagan a monster for his part in the AIDS epidemic and says the number of infections and deaths worldwide to date are his true legacy. It was so fucking marvelous to hear Kramer cut through the bullshit sentiment the U.S. has created around Reagan and tell it like it really is.

Whether you're gay or not, you really should listen to this podcast. In addition to being relevant to the continuing AIDS situation, it's also very on point regarding our current health care problems in the U.S. and what can be done about them.

Friday night was the main event for us. We had signed on the for the Dinah Shore Weekend VIP package, or as I like to call it, the Very Into Pussy package, which provided us with tickets to a VIP Cocktail Party prior to the big PURE White Party.

The Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend requested four to five hours to get dressed and ready to attend the night's events. This did not surprise me. The CLRHG had already spent that much time culling through her wardrobe and makeup in order to pack, and had wound up taking three to four times as much luggage as me. My most meticulous packing activity for Dinah was probably double counting my underwear to make sure I brought enough.

While the Girlfriend changed her outfit a dozen times of more, I had time to kick back in our luxury room and reflect. Although I had never been to Dinah before, I had been to another type of lesbian group event, the women's music festival. Actually, I had been to several, both the women-only and lesbian-only variety.

I first heard about women's music festivals during my teenage years. I had read an interview with then-punk performer Phranc where she talked about participating in all-lesbian camp-outs. I wasn't out yet and didn't know a single lesbian personally. I was deeply intrigued by the idea that somewhere there existed many lesbians and by the idea that they camped together. It almost seemed too far-fetched to be true.

But I later discovered it was true. There was even a festival circuit of sorts, which fostered many musical talents. Melissa Etheridge was one of the notable singers to come up through festival culture. Lilith Faire, in my view, later took its cues from the lesbian music festival.

Although music was the focus, these festivals also offered comedy, short plays, indie films, and informal seminars on every imaginable topic. But often the topic was politics: feminism, socialism and various forms of activism. I didn't see anything like that on offer at Dinah. Of course, I also wasn't suffering through primitive camping shower arrangements or working the co-op volunteer labor shifts that were part of women's festival culture.

The comparison between Dinah and women's music festivals seems relevant to me because, from what I understand, the festivals are on their last legs. As lesbians embrace the pro-capitalist consumer culture of Dinah, I wonder: are the choices open to lesbians becoming more plentiful, or less?

I had to pick up a copy of Wildstorm's Red Menace series as soon as I saw it on the rack (it's what my FBI agent would expect me to do). It's such a fabulous story! And of course when I say fabulous I don't mean just any fabulous, I mean Commie Pinko Homo Fabulous.

Red Menace is a six-part comic series set during the McCarthy hearings, and although the focus of the title isn't on McCarthy, the story weaves in significant people and events from that era. The plot involves a costumed superhero, the Eagle, whose loyalty to the state is questioned. I'm not sure where all the story threads are headed yet--they include mobsters, Soviet spying, and the mentoring of a younger hero--but so far the comic has tons of retro style and atmosphere and I'm enjoying the ride.

Much of Red Menace is set in Los Angeles, and I really like the way the artist has captured many of the architectural oddities of the city. Whether the story unfolds at the Pantages Theater, in front of a neon-lit nightclub, at the race track or inside a cheesy west coast apartment, the attention to setting gives the title a unique feel.

Last week, the character of Phyllis Kroll was added to The L Word. I'm really happy about this new character for a number of reasons. I think it's fantastic that the series is including older women as cast members and showing them to be active, sexual beings.

Phyllis is in her 50s and has enjoyed a long conventional married life when she begins to reconsider her sexual orientation. I don't know what is true today, but when I first came out, it was definitely more common for women to come out after having married than before. Coming out in one's teens was not a typical experience back then, and I sometimes wonder how much things have changed. In any case, I think Phyllis's narrative is an important one to include on the show.

While it's unusual for television to promote older women as sex objects (there are exceptions, of course, like BSG's Mary McDonnell), I don't think it's unusual in terms of lesbian sexuality. In my experience, lesbians have tended to be more flexible than the mainstream about what constitutes female beauty. It's nice to see that reflected with the inclusion of attractive older characters like Peggy Peabody and now Phyllis.

But the best thing about Phyllis, in my opinion, is the casting. Cybill Shepherd's great with goofball humor, and I love her past work, including two (!) Martha Stewart TV-movies that I absolutely howled at, and her sitcom, Cybill, which dealt with a variety of women's issues. Plus anyone who dated Elvis is just inherently cool.

But my most positive associations with Cybill Shepherd stem from her willingness to participate in the 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights at a time when things were not so rosy for gays and lesbians. I was at that march and I remember the lift that it gave people to see a Hollywood celebrity in the streets with us. I will never forget it. In the complicated playbook of my affections, if an actor who plays gay gets 10 points for bravery, an actor willing to march with gays gets about 1000.

You can hear Cybill Shepherd talk about her activism for gay and lesbian and women's causes on this week's L Word podcast.

By coincidence, I am reading The Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK today, on the 43rd anniversary of JFK's assassination. It's not a book I ever expected to read, as I've never been particularly curious about the Kennedy family or the various mysteries surrounding JFK's death.

Earlier this year, however, I picked up a copy of Don DeLillo's novel Libra, a fictional recreation of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. I was attracted more by the author's name than by the promised storyline, but as I read I became increasingly involved with the personalities, motivations and unanswered questions behind JFK's assassination.

Not long after finishing Libra, I downloaded several audio lectures offered by the New York Sound Posse. One of these was called Who Planned The Murder of JFK, Who Carried It Out, and Who Covered It Up, delivered by Joan Mellon. I highly recommend giving it a listen.

If you don't do audio, the transcript of the lecture is also available online, where it is presented in article form under the descriptive title How the Failure To Identify, Prosecute and Convict President Kennedy's Assassins Has Led To Today's Crisis Of Democracy. The title pinpoints what interests me in this topic and why I started reading The Ultimate Sacrifice.

Although the foreground topic, the question of who killed Kennedy, is an absorbing one, it is the background topic--deception and its consequences--that ties past to present. Mellon discusses how the United States refusal to deal with the death of JFK reinforced patterns of institutional dishonesty in the press and in government and created a tolerance for such dishonesty among the American public.

I was born almost a year after JFK was killed. As a result, I never thought I could really grasp what his death meant to those who lived through it. It was as though the distance between the start of my life and the end of his created a gap I could never get past. It is strange to think that as more time passes, I find my understanding of the meaning of his death growing so much deeper.