Ellen vs Rosie
Kim Ficera, talking about how it is irrelevant whether Ellen DeGeneres is contractually prevented from visibly being a lesbian or mentioning anything about lesbianism, or whether Ellen is self-willing her lesbian-silence – either way it makes Ficera want to switch to an alternative viewing network and watch out-and-loud Rosie O’Donnell:
Ellen DeGeneres might be out and proud (although not as publicly proud as she once was) but Rosie O’Donnell is out and loud. Many lesbians will tune in to The View just to see what gay outburst Rosie will make next. Likewise, people who don’t like lesbians will tune in for the same reason. That’s surely something Walters thought about when she asked O’Donnell to join the show.
Conversely, no one — not even the biggest lesbian in the world, wherever she might be — tunes into Ellen’s show to watch her discuss lesbian issues, because she never talks about lesbian issues. And that’s fine. I understand completely why Ellen might not want to discuss her personal life and politics in depth on the show. I just wish she would mention being a lesbian in passing now and then, in the same way she mentions that she’s got a new dog or, you know, in the same way that Oprah mentions her “best friend” Gayle.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
Perhaps in the beginning it made sense to ease Ellen The Lesbian into daytime TV by focusing on Ellen The Jester and avoiding the lesbian aspects of her life. But in the few short years that Ellen’s been on the air, the world has changed, and the media has changed right along with it. Barbara Walters can’t be the only TV exec to see that lesbians, like short people, are people too. We not only watch TV, but we are now what people watch on TV. And I don’t hear a lot of complaining, except from the usual suspects.
I doubt Ellen hears much whining either. I suspect she gets emails like I do — letters from so-called straight, stay-at-home moms who are happy to confess in intimate detail that they aren’t so straight and stay-at-home as many would like to believe.
So, the most obvious questions are, whose decision is it to avoid all-things-lesbian on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ellen’s or ABC’s; and will anyone at Ellen’s show rethink their strategy now that Rosie’s re-entered the daytime arena?
The most likely queer-party pooper is NBC. As Karman Kregloe reported in her review of the Emmys right here on afterellen, “According to Los Angeles Times awards website, The Envelope, NBC is rumored to discourage DeGeneres from mentioning de Rossi on her talk show.”
An interesting tidbit, and not at all hard to believe if you’ve seen the show, but is it true? And if it is true, how exactly does NBC “discourage” Ellen. Is she under a contractual obligation to pretend she’s asexual for one hour a day, or have execs simply threatened to stop waving to her in the halls?
Plus, why discourage Ellen at all? It’s clear that she’s found her niche and is happy there. I doubt NBC has to fear that she’ll one day take the stage and say, “Next up, fire-eating Lesbian Avengers!”
Source: Kim Ficera
Collaboration
How can you possibly respect someone who cannot get off her butt and write but wants to tell others how to? Nope, I think it is unacceptable. And it makes me completely neurotic. Seriously. my ex showed me some of her writing, where she saw birds flying in the moonless night sky. Needless to say, after my ‘revisions’ I never got asked again. I never jump off the cliff and can never be ‘revised’, but I submit others to ‘revising’. Uh, Uhhh.
Editing isn’t work to me, unless you present me with a deadline. I love doing it. What I hate is doing what (I hate)[I don't really hate it, but it's not what I desire to do]{typesetting/design} for my friends, and then they think that they can get more out of me and make demands on me than they would on an ordinary typesetter. And the laws of business just disappear out the window. Guilt arrives for almost anything an ordinary day would call minor.
When you do it willingly when asked, putting your soul into it, it’s a collaboration, even if you are paid a nominal amount. If paid the value of your time it kinda gives the person the right to say, whiningly, “No, I think the writing at the top should be in green, don’t you agree?”[always with the 'don't you agree' like they think that I think that their uneducated, visually impaired 'revisions' have any worth whatsoever]… With raised eyebrow: “No, I don’t. Otherwise I would have made it green.” A collaboration it is governed by the laws of friends, who never, ever call each other moron, not even halfwit. A collaboration is an exchange of respect for the efforts of the soul of the other.
Or you could trade me, mention my efforts positively in the acknowledgements. That way your Rowlingesque success can cast a warm glow nearby my feet. Not on them, you understand, just nearby.
Meme tagging: Books
I’d say there are roughly 6000 books lurking around the house. A
trillion years ago I read Mills & Boons and when I gave them away
finally there were 486 ~ and in those days you handed two books into a
second-hand book store to get one. And then there was the discovery of
Better Books, a credit card hell where the owner only gets second-hand
books in that are on his discerning list, NOT just anything. And then
there was the discovery of the safeness of ordering from Amazon. And
the collection of uteral feminist books from Exclusive Books back when
I was studying. Yip, I need a bigger house.
Can one operate in the singular when finding oneself in a book
department? I really only read the books on palmistry and feminism, the
others I just put my eyes onto the words.
This definitely goes down in the singular, especially since the
implication is that I read the book in it’s entirety. I read mostly
non-fiction, so at different points I read different bits of books.
Many fiction books lie around the house in the process of being read
and rehoused.
Tricky…
I have read this book more than any other. Every time I read it I
discover new layers of metatext that I missed the previous times.
(Another way of looking at this is that I have a sieve for a brain and
in each reading I reread and think it’s new.) I stopped counting the
amount of times I had read it about 10 years ago and then it was 10,
but I read it roughly once a year. What appeals to me is the fact that
much happens to Homer, little is directed by him. The Little Prince in
Maine. This aspect attracts me to all of Irving’s books.
This ‘almost cuntionary’ is more a dictionary of concepts. The
almostness is described in the foreword. The inextricability of
language and thought is a basic principle in my thinking and this book
is evidence. Each word is given it’s context and a woman is credited
with creating or re-creating it’s meaning. My reference to all things
feminist.
Many of my values were lifted wholesale from childhood books, with only
slight modifications made as the years passed ~ tweaks if you will. One
of my pet peeves is the negativity of the spoilt. They need a good
smack in my opinion. I have taken the glad game and installed it into
my thinking pervasively. Heidi by Johanna Spyri also made contributions
to this phenomenon.
I really believed there were magical worlds just out of sight. Waiting
to be bumped into. Damn, I hate real life.
I wish I had people to tag. This is the result of picking up someone
tagging her friend on the Internet. I am a voluntary (secret) taggee.
Loving advice
This advice from [Dan Savage] to the loveless is timeless, and so well put… Listen up, girls.
Your awkward/repulsive stage will pass. In the meantime, here’s what you need to do: Worry less about getting your 15-year-old self laid and start thinking about getting your 18- or 20-year-old self laid. Join a gym and get yourself a body that girls will find irresistible; read so that you’ll have something to say to girls (the best way to make girls think you’re interesting is to actually be interesting); and get out of the house and do shit–political shit, sporty shit, arty shit–so that you’ll meet different kinds of girls in different kinds of settings and become comfortable talking with them. Some more orders: Get a decent haircut and use deodorant and floss your teeth and take regular showers and wear clean clothes. Go online and read all about birth control and STDs, and learn enough about female anatomy that you’ll be able to find a clitoris in the dark. Masturbate in moderation–no more than 10 times a day–and vary your masturbatory routine. I can’t emphasize this last point enough. A vagina does not feel like a clenched fist, TGTW, nor does a mouth, an anus, tit fucking, dry humping, or e-stim. If you don’t want to be sending me another pathetic letter in five years complaining about your inability to come unless you’re beating your own meat, TGTW, you will vary your routine now so that you’ll be able to respond to different kinds of sexual stimulation once you do start getting the girls. Good luck, kiddo.
