Day of Decision: Doos & Doo Nots

Less than an hour ago, the California Supreme Court upheld the legal marriages of 18,000 same-sex Californians who were married in 2008. (Doo!) Sadly - though not unexpectedly - the court also upheld Proposition 8. (Big time Doo Not!)

Tonight, "Day of Decision" rallies will be held all over the country in reaction to the court's ruling. The Daily Doo will be out in full force at the WeHo rally, which starts at 7 p.m. at the intersection of San Vicente and Santa Monica Boulevard. We hope to see you there!

To find a "Day of Decision" rally in your area, text "RALLY" plus your ZIP code (e.g., "RALLY 90069", "RALLY 10025") to 27336 - or click here for more information.

The Pick-Up Artist 2: Dork Danger

Peacocking. Negs. DHVs. IOIs. These are just a few of the buzzwords bandied about on VH1's The Pick-Up Artist 2.

On November 30, the surprisingly likable (and even more surprisingly attractive) Pied Piper of Pussy, Mystery, plucked this season's winner from a handful of shrinking guy-lets. But Mystery may be doing much more than play cupid for the stammer set--he may be fucking with the future of the whole human race.

See, by teaching his secrets to dorks whose sexual advances would otherwise be confined to the pixel pastures of The Sims Online (or some other non-reality in which palm sweat, ear hair and bed-wetting are sins indeterminable), one might argue that Mystery is upsetting the balance of sexual power by which humans have propagated for millenia.

Take Greg, for example: the flush-cheeked, baby-faced second runner-up whose tremulous George McFly sotto voce managed to sound at once like a whisper and a scream. (As in: "Hey you -- get your damn hands off her.") This guy should be getting about as much ass as an ice skating rink during a Scott Hamilton performance in the early '80s (and the same quality); instead, we see him kissing girls -- on the LIPS! -- in bars throughout the Phoenix area, where the show was shot. (NB: Phoenix is also the home of ASU, a school so famous for indiscriminate promiscuity that one of its dorms, Manzanita, is commonly known as "the 15 Floors of Whores." Which is to say that the standards for pick-up artistry in Phoenix aren't exactly rainbow high.) After Mystery's mental ministrations, Greg may be able to reach second base (hand up shirt, not hand down pants) by age 35 -- an estimated 7-year bump up in the ranks of the sexually delayed.

Then there's runner-up Matt: he of the decent face and self-proclaimed "gift for story telling" (but not for pectoral muscles or modesty). Unfortunately, Matt's penchant for pontificating to would-be targets brought him more blue balls than booty calls. Indeed, if there is anything to be learned from Matt's field errors, it's that a pick-up artist must know when to shut his proverbial pie-hole and pull the tongue trigger. Although this lesson eluded White Carlton Banks to some extent, he still sucked the face of at least three Manzanita residents--which is three more faces than he would have sucked two months ago.

Which leaves the winner of PUA2: sweet, skinny Simeon with his cowboy hat and Freddie Mercury charm.

All shit-talk aside, Simeon seems a sweet lad--no doubt a result of 25 years spent cultivating his personality and frenching his pillow. While we may not be convinced that he actually wants to snog the targets he so deftly renders supine, $50,000 in prize money and the chance to stare at Mystery's lip piercing on a long-term basis may have been motivation enough.

We hope Simeon won't waste too much time pretending each tow-headed target is Orlando Bloom (as Legolas) before he finally goes in for the real deal. In the meantime, we congratulate him for his pick-up artistry and wish him the best of luck at The Abbey on many Saturday nights to come.

Who is Harvey Milk?

Wilshire Boulevard was especially irritating tonight.

Out in full force was that particular breed of asshole, the LA driver -- the guy who speeds up to red lights, only to idle his hulking SUV in the pavement marked "DO NOT BLOCK"; the woman who lingers indecisively in an intersection making an unprotected left turn, wavers when the light turns yellow, and then slams on the brakes when it turns red, leaving both of you stranded in the intersection (at which point the light turns green for the assholes on either side, who proceed to aim for your car at full speed, skid abruptly to a stop, and punch down on their horns -- as if surprised that you're still there in the intersection, stranded by the asshole in front of you).

So anyway, the assholes were out, and together (I don't necessarily except myself from this group) we were crawling along, trailing an angry carbon footprint down Wilshire like a skid mark on the underpants of the city.

As I passed Rodeo, I saw lights up ahead to my left: a premiere. Now I was gearing up to unload on the real assholes: the quasi-unemployed self-important "industry people" whose premiere was fucking with my commute. The cars slowed even more as I rolled into position next to the red carpet lined with posters of Sean Penn's unattractive face. Also printed on the posters, the name of the movie: Milk.

On the other side of the street, to my right, I noticed another crowd: a sober, somber, candlelit counterpoint to the frenzy on my left. In slow motion, I saw them: people holding hand-written signs, most of which seemed to contain the word "Hope." I got ready to honk my horn, thinking these people had turned out to protest Prop 8 -- but something about the sad, charged expressions on their faces made me falter and stay silent. No one else was honking. What was this about? I saw a name on one of the signs. The name was Harvey Milk.

Ten minutes later I'm at home with my computer on my lap, finding out the answer to the subject of this posting -- an answer many of you may already know. That Harvey Milk was the first publicly gay man elected to public office in California. That Harvey Milk, the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Castro Street" (he actually served on the Board of Supervisors), is largely responsible for making San Francisco the gay haven it is today. In Milk's day, Proposition 6 -- aka the "Briggs Initiative" -- was the repulsive anti-gay ballot measure brought under the guise of "protecting children". As shocking as this now seems (even in the aftermath of Proposition 8), Proposition 6 actually called for the mandatory termination of all openly gay public school teachers (as well as any unabashed straight supporters of the gay lifestyle).

In campaigning against Prop 6 (which ultimately lost by more than a million votes), Milk addressed the crowd at San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade with the following words, in what has come to be known as "The Hope Speech":

I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight.
For themselves, for their freedom, for their country ...
We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets ...
We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions.
We are coming out to tell the truths about gays,
for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence,
so I'm going to talk about it.
And I want you to talk about it.
You must come out.

I'm glad I saw the silent watchers on the south side of Wilshire with their candles and their signs; if I had taken the bat route down little Santa Monica, I would've missed them. But I didn't miss them -- because lucky for me, I was just one in a long line of assholes tonight.

Image, above: Mural of Harvey Milk by John Baden with Milk's quote, If ever a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door; displayed in Given at 575 Castro Street (the store that was Castro Camera)

A Powerful Message

NO on Proposition HATE

Below: pro-Prop 8 commercials spin fear and confusion.

California's Proposition 8 would amend the California constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Proponents of Prop 8--including, La Linguetta is ashamed to say, the Knights of Columbus (an Italian masonic order)--have unleashed a fury of commercials claiming that voting no on Proposition 8 means children would be "taught" gay marriage, and that "traditional marriage" would effectively be shat on. One reader of The Daily Doo reports viewing a commercial aimed at Chinese-Americans in which an old woman considers a wedding cake with a figure of a man and a woman on top, then grows horrified as the man and woman are replaced with two men, and the two men are replaced with a man and a dog.

Are you offended?

What is "traditional marriage"?? And do we really want to listen to this guy?

Here's the bottom line. Voting NO on Proposition 8 does not mean schools can "teach" gay marriage. Voting NO on Proposition 8 does not mean gay marriage will be written into the constitution (though that would be nice). Voting NO on Proposition 8 means we will leave the California constitution as it is: open and inclusive of all Californians, regardless of sexual orientation.

When you vote today in California, think about other times when Americans suffered discrimination based on religion, race, heritage, and ideology. Think about laws that made interracial marriage illegal -- laws that, if allowed to stand, would have prevented many of us from ever being born. Think about Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps during World War II because "they might sympathize with the enemy." Think about how your ancestors were treated when they first came to this country; were they embraced, welcomed, accepted for their difference? Or were they ridiculed for their halting English, or the smell of other spices on their skin; for the shawls on their heads, and the icons in their windows?

We don't always get it right in the beginning -- but we get it right eventually, and that's why we're awesome. If you don't agree with homosexuality, remember that others might not agree with how you live your life, and recognize that we have the right to be different. If you don't see what the big deal is about gay marriage because "civil unions are the same thing", remember that separate is not equal. If you don't believe in marriage yourself, recognize that you still have the choice -- and the freedom to change your mind. If you are religious, ask yourself, in the words of Rufus Wainwright, "do you really think you'll go to hell for having loved?" If you don't care about gay marriage at all, consider how you feel about amending the constitution so as to limit fundamental rights -- a disfavored act since this country's inception.

Today, we have the opportunity to stand up for a minority group that has long been a target of discrimination. We have the opportunity to support equality in the face of prejudice; reason over fear. We have the opportunity to live the principles we purport to stand for. We have the opportunity to vote NO on Proposition 8.

It's a Doo: Obama Costumes

New Yorker/chihuahua Bonbon, above, scored the coveted "Miss Congeniality" award for his Obama costume at the Times Square Dog Day Masquerade on October 19. When asked to comment on his gender-bending win, the Manhattanite quadruped cryptically quipped: "Vote no on Prop 8."

Diss Me Like You Mean It

With the holiday season upon us (Ramadan; Rosh Hashanah; Fantasy Football), I recommend someecards.com for all of your subversive e-greeting needs. I recently pissed away an afternoon creating a few cards of my own using the "Create Cards" function:

In honor of an upcoming California Ballot Proposition:

...lawyers:

...and, finally, the perfect diss for the producer in your life:

Enjoy!