A J Cowitt's Very Influential Blog

My new campaign

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:05:00 +0000

OK, here it is: replace the word "marriage" in all state law with "civil union."

Please, let's not waste any more time and money arguing over semantics. I don't care if the religious people get to keep the word "marriage" for themselves. (Note to religious LGBT's: I wish you luck as you carry on the fight for marriage equality in your churches, mosques and synagogues. But your religion is none of my business -- as long as your religion doesn't interfere with my life. I want civil rights, not religious rites.)

What I care about is having my relationship regarded as legally equal, under state law, to any other monogamous partnership between two consenting adults. If bigots want to say my relationship is not morally equal to their heterosexual ideal, fine. I disagree, but we will always disagree on that. I certainly hope a majority of Californians would agree that church teaching on homosexuality should stay in the church and out of the constitution.

Here's my campaign slogan: "Draw the line between church and state, not between gay and straight."

Great Ideas for 2010 Initiatives

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:34:00 +0000

I was just thinking, regardless of how Prop 8 does at the polls today, the fight to save traditional marriage and the American way of life will be far from over. Won't you join me in gathering signatures to amend the California Constitution to:

Ban divorce
If we don't, divorce will continue to be taught in our kindergartens.

Put minors in foster care if one of their parents dies
Because children have a right to have a mother and a father

Ban interspecies marriage
Because if we don't specifically ban it, activist judges will try to make it legal for a man to marry his dog.

Ban domestic partnership laws
Because we can no longer allow homosexuals to redefine "loving, committed, monogamous relationship" for everyone.

Ban Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and all other non-Christian belief systems
Because their adherents' refusal to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is religious intolerance and bigotry at its worst.

There will be more, obviously, but this is a good start.

Just to be clear: No on 8!

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Here's what the Orange County Register, one of the most conservative newspapers in the state, writes in recommending its readers vote No on Prop 8:

"Guarantees of individual rights are included in constitutions precisely to ensure that such rights cannot be taken away, by majority vote, legislative enactment or administrative decision.

"In an ideal world, the state would have little or no role in defining or regulating so intimate a relationship as marriage. However, the state has inserted itself into all too many aspects of our private lives. Given that it has done so, it is only fair that it afford equal protection to all. Vote 'no.'"

How's that for a conservative take on the matter?

I started reading the letters to the editor on the Register site, which was a bad thing to do. A law professor from Yorba Linda, bemoaning the lack of reasoned debate from the No on 8 side, opines, "...We are taught that nontraditional sexual orientation is the epitome of enlightened behavior," and, "Traditional marriage probably has less respect and dignity these days than does domestic-partnership status." While the generalizations are unsupported in his piece, and seem ludicrous to me, at least they don't come off as hysterical. In contrast, there's the Villa Park resident who decries the "judicial tyranny" and "intolerance for traditional marriage" behind the push for equality. She says what this is really all about: "indoctrinating children" and stripping parents of their rights.

For a progressive take on the legal battle over Prop 8, you need look no further than... the OC Register. And I refuse to look further than the OC Register, because I could get stuck here all day reading about this, and that wouldn't do anybody any good.

No on H8!

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:24:00 +0000

I just took Olive for her regular evening walk. Tonight, I wanted to make sure she got out before the sun set, or the rain started again. At the corner of Macarthur and Lakeshore, about a dozen Yes on 8 activists were out with their signs, shouting "Yes on 8!" at the passing cars. They were mostly young-ish, mostly Asian/Pacific Islander. A couple of intrepid white folks with No on 8 signs flanked them on one side.

Across the street, a young man was holding a Yes on 8 sign in one hand. With his other hand, he was waving a stick with a shredded No on 8 sign strung from it. Between that and the middle-aged woman fervently yelling "Yes on 8! Yes on 8!" as I walked by, I felt attacked. Anger and a little fear flooded my system. Luckily, I had to focus on getting Olive across the street, which prevented my fantasy of starting an argument with a fanatic from becoming reality.

When I say I felt attacked, I mean I felt it physically, though neither of the bigots addressed me directly. The shredding of the sign got to me because it felt like a symbolic lynching, as if this guy would feel as justified violently beating a gay person as he would shredding a gay rights placard. And the yelling, well, it's bound to be a little unsettling to walk by a person who's yelling that your rights should be stripped from the state Constitution. Especially if you're just not used to yelling being a part of your daily life.

As Olive and I headed down Lakeshore, inappropriate responses to what I'd just witnessed paraded through my head. As luck would have it, between the time I wrote that sentence and the time I'm writing this one, I had some delicious fresh spinach fettucine with a delightful tomato, mushroom and ground turkey sauce, and Michael and I watched a video. Thus refreshed, I came back to my computer and deleted all the unkind, sarcastic thoughts that went through my head as I continued to walk Olive.

This article about the disproportionate amount of Mormon money behind the Yes on 8 campaign makes me wonder if, for many voters, the whole thing is a $50 million clash over semantics. What a waste of money.

The question I'm left with is, why is the state in the "marriage" business at all, if marriage is a sacred religious rite? The other question, of course, is, Why would God feel compelled to adhere to the letter of California law in determining who's eligible for the afterlife? He could just say, "This is Heaven. We don't recognize your loving union here. Go to Hell!" Can you imagine? If gays and lesbians retain their right to marry, God would be forced to say, "I'd like to condemn you to eternal Hellfire, but that damned California Constitution compels me to allow you through the Pearly Gates into Paradise."

I could yammer on about this for ages. For now, though, I think I'll just go to bed and love the sinner.

The Chrysler Crossfire

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 05:13:00 +0000

There's a guy up the street who just got a new car. It's black and kinda pugly. But the thing that caught my eye was its model name: the Crossfire. The Chrysler Crossfire. Uh, isn't crossfire something you try to stay out of? When you're "caught in the crossfire," that's a bad thing, right? Even CNN knows that!

Art from the Artist

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 23:56:00 +0000

How much can you separate the art from the artist? This question has been on my mind of late. OK, that's a lie. It had been on my mind when Saul Bellow died a few weeks ago, because I'd read a thing in Altercation about how Bellow may have been prejudiced against African-Americans. Alterman's take was basically, "So, he wasn't perfect, but we can gain much by reading his work."

The question popped up again as Michael and I were headed across the Bay Bridge to Marcos & Isabel's house, listening to the new Beck CD. M said, "I was surprised you bought this, since Beck's a Scientologist." The thing was, I did actually consider that when I was buying the package (of course I bought the deluxe edition with bonus DVD). It was one of several factors. Knowing that a little bit of my money would be going indirectly to support a creepy cult didn't keep my from buying the CD, since I figured Beck probably doesn't get that much money from each one sold, and not all of the money he gets goes to the cult. So I figured, Scientology probably gets a couple pennies from me, tops. I can live with that.

The other factors included the 5.1 mix on DVD and Michael's enjoyment of Beck's previous records. Actually, I think M is not really more into Beck than I am. Maybe a little. Beck's work is often very clever, and I admire it for that. But it rarely moves me. Know what I mean? But I digress...

Buying the work of a living artist is a way of supporting that artist financially (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the artist's ability to get a good deal from a label/publisher). So if an artist were actively supporting causes I find immoral or otherwise unpalatable, I might avoid buying that artist's work. If Bellow were writing today, and he gave money to, oh, I don't know, the Republican party, I wouldn't buy his books. If Beck were a dues-paying supporter of the John Birch Society, I wouldn't buy his records. Scientology is creepy, but it's not KKK creepy.

But what of the media conglomerates? Should I buy books and records manufactured by companies that support evil causes? That's a tough one, because they probably also support some good causes (heck, even Republicans probably support some good causes). Oh, it's that slippery slope of moral relativism, which Republicans used to rail against.

Jesus Christ, am I boring you as much as I'm boring me? Either the time for this essay has come and gone, or is not yet here. Stay tuned, as I'm sure you're all on pins and needles waiting to hear more from me on this endlessly fascinating topic.

Should you read novels by racists? What about something like Huckleberry Finn, which some parents over the years have tried to ban from high school reading lists? I think the book is profoundly anti-racist, but some folks have decided that the mere fact of a character's name being Nigger Jim, reflecting the racism of the era in which the book was written, is enough to poison the novel for students.

But what of a truly objectionable authorial stance. Like, I don't know, John Updike's misogyny. I say, if you can stand to regard some art created from a different point of view than your own, you can learn a lot. Know your enemy and all that. Heck, isn't that a great thing about art? You get to confront other peoples' hopes, dreams and fears in a safe way? Mabye you learn something about other people, maybe you learn something about yourself.

When I saw "Chasing Amy," I loved its critique of the main characters' decisions, viewpoints and actions. M, on the other hand, just hated the two male leads' characters too much to enjoy the movie. As it turns out, the film was not a critique. It was just Kevin Smith's attempt to make sense of a failed romance. So OK, his movie doesn't offer a critique, but it does offer the opportunity for a critique. And the fact that Smith didn't realize his (characters') failings meant he put his truth up there on the screen for us to learn from, even if he failed to learn from his experiences. I don't mean to suggest that "Chasing Amy' is strict autobiography. But I do think it's an honest work (unlike, say, the painfully phony "Jersey Girl"), and that's what gives it both its power to entertain and its power to make us examine our attitudes about intimacy.

OK, I gotta feed Olive some dinner. That's my reality. There are people starving in the world, but I buy dog food for my canine companion. Should you really bother reading the blog of a guy who cares more about dogs than people? I leave that to you to decide.

Symphonic Euphoria

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 17:29:00 +0000

Friday night I went to hear the San Francisco Symphony, under the baton of visiting conductor, Kurt Masur, perform Schnittke's First Cello Concerto and Brahms's Second Symphony. The Schnittke was amazing, with thorny melodies on the cello underscored with a shifting focus between quietly dischordant shimmering and glorious thirds from various parts of the orchestra. The soloist was Natalia Gutman, for whom the concerto was written, and who played at its premiere nearly twenty years ago. She performed with command and sensitivity, with total control but still with a sense of spontaneity, as if the music were being created as she played. Sometimes I worry that our audience will embarrass itself by showing undue enthusiasm for a performance; in this case, I think the crowd should have been more effusive in its applause. God, am I sounding like Thaddeus Bristol, here?

The Brahms. What can I say? I first heard the Brahms, without knowing it, on a cassette tape of Mic & Suz's Le Petit Mauvais Chose (er, Michael, how do you spell that?), a radio show on KZSC in Santa Cruz. That was probably only a couple of years after Gutman premiered the Schnittke concerto. Anyway, Mic & Suz played for at least forty-five minutes a tape loop of a five-second snippet from the first movement of the Brahms Second. Only they didn't identify the source. I was intrigued, but didn't know how to figure out where the loop came from.

One day years later, when I was downstairs at Rasputin's in Berkeley, they were playing the first movement over the loudspeakers, and when I heard the familiar rising strains of that theme, I got very excited. I asked an employee what it was that was playing. He said I'd have to ask upstairs, because that's where the cd's are played from. I ran upstairs and finally found out where that tape loop had been drawn from: the Brahms Symphony #2. Not wanting to buy a mediocre or idiosyncratic version of the symphony, I didn't plunk down ten bucks on the first used version I saw. I had to consult the Penguin Guide, of course. Eventually I decided on the Mackerras/Scottish Chamber Orchestra version (the box set with all four symphonies and a few extra things).

And boy, do I love that Second Symphony. By the final fanfare of Friday night's performance, I felt almost levitated. I'm sure that piece of music is too fucking cheery for some folks, but I think it has just enough darkness to keep it from being the symphonic equivalent of a '70's Coca-Cola commercial. And the melodies and harmonies and rhythmic tricks are glorious. It's probably not the best piece of music to listen to when you're depressed, but when you're happy, it can leave you floating two feet off the ground.

Hello world!

noreply@blogger.com (A J Cowitt) — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 21:37:00 +0000

Are you there? It's me, Andy.