BOOK REVIEW: Nighthawking (DS Adam Tyler, #2) by Russ Thomas

Nighthawking is the second book in the Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler series written by Russ Thomas. These British police procedurals are set in South Yorkshire, where the openly gay protagonist DS Tyler is a member of the Cold Case Review Unit (CCRU) of the Sheffield Police.

Nighthawking is set about a year after the events that transpired at the end of Firewatching. DS Tyler is working with (formerly PC) now DC Mina Rabbani on a cold case involving the disappearance of a young boy when the body of an unknown young Asian woman with ancient Roman gold coins over her eyes is discovered on the grounds of the Sheffield Botanical Gardens by a nighthawker, someone who uses metal detectors to seek out buried and hidden items of value on public lands.

DS Tyler is busy with and distracted by his obsessive investigation into a personally significant cold case: his own police detective father's suspicious death two decades ago when Tyler was a teenager. It thus falls to Mina to try and solve a case which is much more complicated than it first appears.

As with the first book in the series, the primary appeal of the story is seeing first hand how Tyler and Mina, both outsiders in the police force due to race, gender and sexual orientation, go about their jobs as police officers trying to solve crimes. In Nighthawking, there's less depiction of Tyler’s gayness but there’s more depiction of Mina’s intelligence and I’d say that’s a net positive. That being said, it’s a lot rarer to have an openly gay police detective than it is to have a smart female police detective in these genre books so I hope that the author doesn't shy away from depicting his protagonist's sexuality in future books, just as one would expect it to show up as one aspect of a heterosexual character’s life.

Another similarity Nighthawking has with Firewatching is the complexity of the plot, along with a veiled depiction of events from the perspective of the perpetrator. In Firewatching there were curious blog posts describing the work of a serial arsonist as intertextual elements between chapters. In Nighthawking we get brief reports from nighthawkers summarizing the results of their forays and searches. Both times we eventually realize that these elements are providing clues about the identity of the perpetrator.

There are many plots in Nighthawking. Tyler finds a lead which may lead to more information about his father’s death, and he also ends up cracking the cold case of the disappearance of the young boy, mostly inadvertently, as Rabbani does most of the work to identify the dead girl and whoever killed her. Of course, other dead bodies and near-fatal incidents also appear in the book along the way before we get a surprising resolution to the book’s primary mystery. The final scene of the book is a stunner; it presents the reader with new information about Tyler’s father’s death that will surely reverberate in the next book in the series, Cold Reckoning.

Title: Nighthawking (DS Adam Tyler, #2).
Author: Russ Thomas.
Format: Hardcover.
Length: 384 pages.
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Date Published: February 23, 2021.
Date Read: December 21, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Firewatching (DS Adam Tyler, #1) by Russ Thomas

Firewatching is the first book in the Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler series written by Russ Thomas. This British police procedural is set in Sheffield (South Yorkshire) where the openly gay protagonist of the books is a member of the Cold Case Review Team. In the begining of Firewatching a body is discovered after a fire broke out during renovations of the country estate of dodgy financier Gerald Cartwright who had disappeared six years before. DS Tyler convinces his boss (and godmother!) DCI Diane Jordan to let him work the case even though it's now decidedly much more high profile than his typical cold case. When he does so, Tyler neglects to point out that he hooked up with Cartwright’s handsome 21-year-old son Oscar the night before the discovery of the body. Despite his own uncertain status on the force due to his sexual orientation and his policeman father’s suspicious death years before when he worked with DCI Jordan, DS Tyler nevertheless uses what pull he does have to get a fellow outsider, feisty Muslim Detective Constable Amina Rabbani seconded to him, and together they work with Tyler’s frenemy Detective Inspector John Doggett and the preternaturally lazy Detective Sergeant Guy Daley to try and discover how and why an unknown person sealed someone else inside the house and left them to die. 

Of course, as with most mystery novels, there’s more than just one puzzle to solve and in a small village almost everyone can (and probably should) be considered a suspect. In the case of Firewatching, the fire that led to the discovery of the body is just one of several recent suspicious fire events that seem to have clear connections to Gerald Cartwright. 

The strengths of Firewatching lie in the characterizations of the main characters. We get first person accounts from both DC Rabbani and DS Tyler (and often they are thinking about the other) which are both revealing and entertaining. Additionally, there are multiple subplots which are based around events that happened 20 and 40 years before, which demonstrates how the events and crimes of today are often sourced in the past. And then, of course, more bodies (and more fires) start to show up as the plot thickens and the mysteries deepen.

Eventually, DS Tyler does solve the main case of how the body got to be found in the Cartwright mansion as well as who's setting fires around Sheffield. Along the way he meets a handsome, very muscular firefighter who also happens to be Black, so in addition to the tension of “will they or won't they (have sex)” is the question of “is he or isn’t he a suspect?” As I have said before, the strength of a detective series is often in the supporting characters, and their relationship to the main character/protagonist. Here those relationships are intriguingly complex, and involve issues that are not often discussed in the British police procedural genre: homophobia/racism/xenophobia/sexism in policing, lingering effects of traumatic events from childhood, and work/life balance. If the two existing sequels, Nighthawking (2021) and Cold Reckoning (2022), are even half as well-written as Firewatching I look forward to reading them and hopefully many more after that!

Title: Firewatching (DS Adam Tyler, #1).
Author: Russ Thomas.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 365pages.
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's' Sons.
Date Published: February 25, 2020.
Date Read: December 19, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

CA Now Has Two Black LGBT State Supreme Court Justices!

Martin Jenkins

Kelli Evans

LGBT History was made this week with the retention election of California State Supreme Court justice Martin Jenkins on November 8 and the approval of Kelli Evans to join the state's highest court by the Committee on Judicial Appointments on November 10. Jenkins, 69, was nominated to the California Supreme Court in October 2020 by Governor Gavin Newsom. Evans, 54, was nominated to the court by Newson in August 2022. The California State Supreme Court now has seven members and is amazingly diverse:

• Carol Corrigan, 74, white female
• Kelli Evans, 54, African-American lesbian woman
• Joshua Groban, 49, white mam
• Patricia Guerrero, 50 Latina/Hispanic woman
• Martin Jenkins, 69, African-American gay man
• Leondra Kruger, 46, African-American woman
• Goodwin Liu, 52, Chinese-American man

The court is majority women, majority people of color (one-third Black) and two-sevenths LGBT!

Guerrero is the brand-new Chief Justice of the State of California. Guerrero, Jenkins, Groban and Liu were all successfully retained in the November 8 election.

FILM REVIEW: Bros

There has been a lot of discussion of the movie Bros in the last few weeks after its opening weekend box-office gross was below expectations and Hollywood basically labeled the film as a "flop." Writer and star of the film Billy Eichner said on social media that "straight people [...] didn't show up for Bros" and that it was "disappointing, but that's what it was." That tweet was later deleted but the audience reception to an explicitly gay rom-com that was released by a major Hollywood studio in movie theaters was bound to get a lot of tongues wagging and think pieces written and read. However, despite the historic nature of the release of Bros, in the end I think the main reason is that it's just not a very good movie, and that may be the reason why ore people didn't rush out to see it and make it a box-office success. (Right now it's still an open question of whether it will make a profit, but it seems very unlikely .)

To be more precise, I do think that there's a version of Bros which could have been a very good movie. The major flaw in Bros is the casting of Eichner as the lead character. Eichner plays Bobby, a somewhat neurotic podcast host and executive director of the inaugural National Museum of LGBTQ History. He is happy to go on Tinder and Grindr "dates" to hookup with other New York City gays.  Eventually he runs into Aaron (played by Luke MacFarlane), a hunky, handsome estate lawyer who hates his job and is also happy to "play the field." Eichner's Bobby spends a lot of his time yelling his (admittedly funny) lines to anyone within earshot, which includes his coworkers, his straight friends, Aaron, Aaron's mom and many more. The first problem with casting Eichner as the lead is that he doesn't have the dramatic chops to provide a nuanced portrayal of Bobby, so he comes across as a bitter queen. I think it is at least possible that a more nuanced actor could have played the role as written where Bobby is still annoying and acerbic but in a way that the audience could still root for him to succeed. I appreciate what Eichner was trying to do with Bros: create a gay rom-com without sanding over the rough (or unfamiliar to non-gay folks) edges of urban gay life to not scare off the straight people. But even as a gay man, I thought Bobby's character was A LOT and problematic in multiple ways. (He has a LOT of opinions on how gay people comport themselves which frankly would have seemed homophobic or demeaning if said by a straight character and even by the end of the movie it's not clear that his opinion about other gays has really changed that much.)

The second problem with casting Eichner as the lead is the resultant glaring lack of diversity in the two leads. In 2022 to think that a gay rom-com should have two gay white dudes as the lead is just hubris and tone deaf. (It stuns me that the coin-counters and pencil pushers at the studio thought this concept would be one that is worth spending $20-30 million on production and marketing. But then again, how much do you want to bet these fiduciary decisions were not being made by a diverse set of greenlighters at the studio?) Yes, the film (cleverly) tries to overcome this lack of diversity in the leads by adding cameos from gay icons as well as making Bobby's workplace a setting with a tapestry of the members of the LGBTQ rainbow. There's a butch lesbian, not one but two(!) transwomen of color, a bisexual and a Generation Z non-binary person who constantly streams their life online. But in now way are these characters are central to the story. The other notable bit of diverse casting in Bros was in an (actually pretty funny) hookup scene that Bobby has with a muscular, masculine Black guy after meeting him at the gym during a "straight-acting" phase. The hookup doesn't end well when Bobby's post-coital voice is an octave higher than his pre-coital one and this revelation that Bobby's butchness was a facade (unsurprisingly) freaks the Black guy out, but maybe not for the reason we might think at first. "Well, would you have hooked up with me if I had talked like this before?" Bobby asks, and the guy says, "Yeah, probably, because you're hot." "Thanks!" Bobby says. "But not now! Now you just seem weird!". On the way out Bobby notices a huge Barbra Streisand poster next to the door, which shows that even butch Black gay guys in New York City love their divas! Yay, intersectionality!

With all that said there are lots of good parts of Bros to like. There are fun cameos by gay icons like Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy), Bowen Yang (Fire Island), and Debra Messing (Will and Grace) to name just a few. Aaron is very easy on the eyes to look at, and we see a LOT of him (and his well-sculpted body), as the film doesn't hesitate from depicting typical sexual situations gay men like Aaron and Bobby get into in an urban mecca like New York City (and Provincetown). That fact that almost gthe entire cast (even the straight roles) are played by well-known out LGBT actors is kinda cool. Also, the script is firmly committed to being a parody of Lifetime romantic comedies (this is a fun inside joke, because the actor who plays Aaron has been in more than a dozen of them) and these gags are well-executed. The film has interesting things to say about body image in gay men and how the trappings of (hyper)masculinity distort how gay men interact with each other in multiple social settings (from hookup apps to gyms to going out to even just walking down the street).

But in the end, although the audience is supposed to be rooting for Aaron and Bobby to get together, it's hard to make that sale because I, for one, didn't buy that the two are actually right for each other. Bobby has a LOT of internalized homophobia which comes out as extreme criticism of modern gay life and an reluctance/inability to commit. Aaron has the more interesting character arc as he makes changes to his life when the initial relationship between Aaron and Bobby doesn't work out because of both of their insecurities. (This is not a spoiler because of course in any rom-com the two star-crossed lovers don't live happily ever after after the first fling!) Another interesting twist on the rom-com is that the movie ends with the two just promising "to date each other for three month and re-assess" not a lifetime commitment (sic) and that gives the overall plot verisimilitude with these characters.

Overall, I agree with some of the reviews who say that even though Bros was not the historic achievement Bill Eichner wanted it to be, it is still a milestone in LGBT cinema that he should be proud of and I am glad it was made and exists in the media landscape. After all, for true equality, LGBTQ people need to have the right to have all sorts of media telling our stories, and some will be crappy and some will be sublime. (My primary complaint is that we still really haven't had a diverse LGBT film that connects with today's audiences.) The one thing Bros did do successfully is to bring us closer to the day where the future of LGBTQ representation in the media is not dependent on any single vehicle.

Title: Bros.
Director: Nicholas Stoller.
Running Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong sexual content, language throughout and some drug use.
Release Date: September 30, 2022.
Viewing Date: October 3, 2022.

Writing: B+.
Acting: B.
Visuals: B-.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: B/B+ (3.16/4.0).

Star Rating:  ★★★½☆☆  (3.5/5.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Razorblade Tears is the first book by this author that I have read; it is his first book after his wildly successful Blacktop Wasteland which won a bucketful of genre awards (Los Angeles Times, Anthony, Macavity, Barry ). The reason I started with Razorblade Tears instead is because it was on sale for $2.99 on Kindle and also because of the intriguing blurb describing the plot.

The first thing that strikes you as you read Razorblade Tears is the superior quality of the prose; Cosby is a master of metaphor and is unafraid to dazzle the reader with the brilliance of his writing. There were several times in the first few chapters that I highlighted sentences and turns of phrases. Eventually one becomes accustomed to instead of entranced by the poetry of the text and the breakneck forward momentum of the plot demands one’s full attention.

The story in Razorblade Tears is incredibly fast-paced and action-packed. After the two dads Buddy Lee and Ike team up as an avenging odd couple trying to find (out) who killed their gay sons, they start poking around and unearth a hornet’s nest of violent gang members, racist bikers, corrupt rap moguls and drug kingpins who are connected to a conspiracy to keep an explosive secret out of public view. Unfortunately for them, they are up against two guys who have suffered the incredibly painful loss of their only sons and fueled by their grief at the violent deaths and their own shame at their own homophobia that warped their relationship with them when they were alive, Buddy Lee and Ike are ready and willing to go as far as it takes (and beyond) to find and punish the people who have brought them such pain by killing their sons. The body count rises rapidly and by the end of the book vengeance has been meted out but at a price which is significant and life-altering to the survivors.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with this first encounter with the work of S.A. Cosby and I intend to read his other work. That said, I wouldn’t call Razorblade Tears a nuanced or complex book. It’s not trying to occupy the niche of the cerebral, densely-plotted mystery that unspools with increasing suspense and narrative tension. Razorblade Tears is more like a full barrel of bourbon rolling down a steep hill with a burning Confederate flag stuck in its side into a large hole that’s leaking profusely: it’s a combustible, compelling spectacle.

Razorblade Tears story moves so quickly that at first you don’t realize how simplistic the plot is. (It’s very easy to figure out who the person behind the boys murders and other crimes is.) But this flaw is outweighed by the overall message that parents should accept their LGBT children for who they are and not try to “change” or disown them because of some heteronormative vision they had of their (and their children’s) lives.

Title: Razorblade Tears.
Author: S.A Crosby.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 336 pages.
Publisher: Headline .
Date Published: July 6, 2021.
Date Read: March 8, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A+.

BOOK REVIEW: China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh

I have been hearing about China Mountain Zhang on Goodreads for so long that I finally decided to break down and read it. China Mountain Zhang is famous for being the debut novel of Maureen McHugh that was nominated for many of the most prestigious awards in speculative fiction: the 1992 Hugo Award, the 1993 Nebula award, the Locus Award for Best First Novel (1993), the James Tiptree, Jr. Award(1993), and the Lambda Literary Award (1993) and winning several of them (Tiptree, Locus and Lambda). China Mountain Zhang is also well-known for its unusual structure: it is a mosaic novel, i.e. a collection of intertwined stories, all set in a 22nd century United States (and world) dominated by China, and featuring a character named Zhang Zhong Shan, which contains two of the most famous names in the Chinese language, akin to being called George Washington Jones. It so happens that Zhang, the title character, is a guy with multiple secrets. He’s a closeted gay man in a culture rife with state-sanctioned deadly homophobia. Even though he appears to be ABC (American-Born Chinese), in actuality he has a Latino father, his mother named him Rafael and (illegally) provided him with spliced genes that give him his Asian appearance that aligns with his public identity as Zhang. The reader learns about the world of the twenty-second century through cleverly curated details provided in the stories. For example, we know that the United States is no longer a capitalist democracy because Zhang has to go to a special government office to obtain a new job when he loses (or leaves) the first job we see him have in an early chapter. (This indicates that even in New York City there appears to be a planned economy.) Socially and culturally, China appears to be the zenith of society in the book, and going to China is what most people we meet in the stories aspire to do. Eventually Zhang goes to spend a difficult 18 months near the North Pole in order to get credit that he can use to finance an education in China that will provide him with engineering and architectural credentials that will allow him much more job flexibility and earning potential in the future. (There are multiple references to communism and Mao Zedong but individual ownership of property does not seem to be outlawed in the United States, although collectives appear to be popular and socially favored.) In my opinion, Zhang is the most important (and frequently appearing) character in the book and his stories are the best passages; it makes sense that he’s the title character. Overall, although I’m glad that I have finally read China Mountain Zhang, I was not really that impressed with it. Having an openly gay character in 1992 (was and) is definitely ahead of its time, but being unable to realize that societal homophobia (even in a world dominated by Chinese culture) might have abated was not a possible future the author envisioned. So my overall takeaway from the book is that it produces a vision of a downbeat, if not dystopian, future. Of course, not all books need to be upbeat but my hope is that in most books I read the story will be engrossing or engaging to the reader in multiple ways, either in wanting to know how the story ends (here since the book is a mosaic there is no “plot” per se, so this is not a factor) or depicting characters or the setting in a way that cause a visceral connection with the reader (neither really worked for me here although I was curious about how exactly China came to dominate the United States but that story is not fully given). So in the end I view China Mountain Zhang as a creative but not compelling read; it’s suitable for sci-fi completists but probably not for casual aficionados of the genre.

Title: China Mountain Zhang.
Author: Maureen McHugh.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 321 pages.
Publisher: Orb Books.
Date Published:  April 15, 1997 (March 1992).
Date Read: October 17, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-
WRITING: B+

BOOK REVIEW: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a legendary book about a legendary gay love story. Being gay myself, I had heard about this book from several gay acquaintances and had been warned about the powerful emotional wallop it delivers. I can confirm that it is very easy to become emotionally invested in this story about Patroclus and Achilles, told from the perspective of the lesser known Greek. There’s a reason this book has more than 310,000 ratings averaging well over 4.2 on a 5-point scale on Goodreads. It connects on a visceral level with the vast majority of readers; this is an amazing feat since at its heart The Song of Achilles is a love story between two men (both mortal, but one with a goddess for a mother).

For anyone who has even a passing interest in Greek and Roman mythology, The Song of Achilles is a treat. Many, many famous and familiar names fill its pages. To name just a few: Odysseus, Heracles(Hercules), Apollo, Athena, Agamemnon, Helen, et cetera. And there are many more included whose names you probably should know, but don’t. For me, these were people like Peleus (Achilles’ mortal father), Thetis (Achilles’ mother, a sea nymph), Pyrrhus (Achilles’ son), Briseis (longtime female companion to Patroclus and Achilles), Hector (hero of Troy) and Diomedes (one of key leaders of the siege of Troy).

The Song of Achilles is told from the perspective of Patroclus from beginning to end. We learn that he was also a prince, the son of Menoitius, who himself was the son and grandson of kings. Through a horrible accident at the age of 10 he ended up killing another young boy, the son of another king (there were so many tiny Greek kingdoms at this time that the land was chock full of princes). As a result, Patroclus was exiled and taken in by King Peleus, Achilles’ father. Patroclus was shy and Achilles was literally the golden child, with bright blond hair, green eyes, a perfect physical specimen of male beauty (even at the young age of 10) and the center of attention wherever he went.

Essentially from this point on Achilles and Patroclus grow up together, becoming inseparable companions, beginning as platonic friends and eventually becoming soul mates. As told from the viewpoint of Patroclus, the deepening of their relationship is detailed, heartwarming and incredibly romantic. Miller makes the interesting decision to downplay the presence of homophobia in Greek society as having any impact on how Achilles and Patroclus view themselves or their relationship, while all the whole making it very clear that EVERYONE knew that the two were lovers. (At one point the witty Odysseus says, "One tent's enough, I hope? I've heard you prefer to share. Rooms and bedrolls, both, they say.") This is somewhat explained by the cultural practice at the time that boys often took other boys as lovers “in their youth” but that there was an expectation that on reaching the age of maturity (at 16!) men would find a woman to settle down and make a family with.

Soon after Achilles turns sixteen, the Trojan war begins and it is fascinating to see how many of the major players viewed the conflict at its onset. For example, no one expected that it would take over ten years to "rescue Helen." Since Achilles was known to be the most skilled warrior since Heracles, the Greeks were extremely confident of their eventual victory, but they were unaware the role that the Gods (especially Apollo) would play in the conflict. (Or they thought that the gods on their side were more powerful than the gods on the other side.) Tragically, they were wrong about multiple aspects of the war.

One aspect of the book which enhances it’s salience and emotional impact is the fact that despite the story being so well-known The Song of Achilles still provides surprises. You probably already know the contours of the story (Troy falls, Patroclus dies, Achilles dies, Helen lives) so one can't really say these are spoilers. But there is a fair amount of predestination; Achilles was told his fate (by his immortal mother who heard it from the Fates) that if he doesn’t go to Troy he would not have eternal fame, that if he went to Troy he would die there, and that he would not die before Hector. All of these “spoilers” in the story turn out to be true, and it’s this foreknowledge that is absolutely devastating to the reader, especially since Patroclus is aware of all the predictions as well, and basically unable to do anything about it. It's hard to read the last 10% of the book without being emotionally devastated.

The Song of Achilles is both a tragedy and a love story; it’s a familiar tale with a completely unfamiliar and riveting plot at its core. The motivations and motives of the main characters are so recognizable yet simultaneously frustrating that it is hard to overstate the emotional investment of the reader in the resolutions of their conflicts. It’s a book that stays with you for a really long time. And to me, that’s the best kind! I'm definitely looking forward to picking up Circe, by the same author.

Title: The Song of Achilles.
Author: Madeline Miller.
Format: Kindle.
Format: 389 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: March 6, 2012.
Date Read: April 14, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A (4.08/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Patrick Bumatay Becomes First Openly LGBT Federal Appellate Court Judge

Openly gay, Filipino Patrick Bumatay, 41, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a 53-40 vote to a lifetime seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Cort of Appeals. Bumatay is the first openly gay man to be appointed to the federal judiciary at the Circuit Court level (one rung below the U.S. Supreme Court) and is also the first Filipino to serve in that capacity. His nomination was opposed by both of California's U.S. Senators, Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, which prior to the Trump administration would have doomed his candidacy. He was also opposed by basically every major LGBT and/or civil rights organization. He is Trump's 49 confirmed appointee to the circuit courts.

08/08/19: Married 11 Years Today!

Although we have been boyfriends since 1991 and living together since 1994, domestic partners since 1999, and civilly united (in Vermont) since 2000, we were only married in California on August 8, 2008 (Roger Federer's 27th birthday!) before Proposition 8 passed and after the California Supreme Court legalized marriage equality in the Golden State with the In Re Marriage Cases decision and upheld my marriage (and 18,000 others!) in Strauss v. Horton.

The above pictures were taken on our latest vacation in Valencia, Spain in July 2019.

Happy anniversary, hubby!

UPDATE: Michael Johnson (Black, Gay ,HIV+ Man) Released From Prison Early!

Michael Johnson (left) with Dr. Steve Thrasher

There's an exciting update in the ongoing saga of Michael Johnson (also known as "Tiger Mandingo"), a Black gay man with HIV who at the age of 23 in 2015 was sentenced to 30-years in prison for knowingly exposing several gay men to HIV (some of whom subsequently tested positive for HIV later). Johnson's case was a textbook case of HIV stigma combined with racial animus leading to a problematic criminal justice result. Happily, this conviction was overturned in 2016 and last year Johnson agreed to a 10-year Alford plea deal with the last 3 years converted to parole.

One of the key journalists and activists who raised the media profile of the Johnson case was Steve Thrasher (@thrasherxy) (seen pictured with Johnson above the day he was released from prison on July 9, 2019).

A New York Times report on Johnson's release said:

In theory, H.I.V. exposure laws are meant to encourage H.I.V.-positive individuals to disclose their status before having sex, and to practice safer sex, with the ultimate goal of preventing the spread of the virus.
But there is no evidence that these laws have reduced risky behavior or encouraged disclosure, said Catherine Hanssens, the executive director of the Center for H.I.V. Law and Policy, which provided legal support for Mr. Johnson’s case.
In the eyes of the law, an H.I.V. diagnosis is conflated with malice, she added.
“These laws effectively treat an H.I.V. diagnosis itself as evidence that the person acted with bad intentions when sex or other types of physical contact are involved in a crime,” she said.

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this case. Johnson will be moving to and living in Indiana with a friend and says he plans to continue his education and would like to share his story as part of advocacy for HIV prevention and treatment,

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Alphonso David, 48, Named President Of HRC, Largest LGBT Lobby In The USA

Alphonso David, a 48-year-old Liberian refugee and civil rights attorney who served as counsel to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been named the next president of the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest LGBT political advocacy organization.


I haven't given HRC a red cent since they endorsed a Republican senator (Al D'Amato) instead pf a Democratic challenger (Liz Holtzman) in 1992! This decision may cause me to reconsider my boycott.

BOOK REVIEW: Witchmark by C.L. Polk

Witchmark  is the first published book by C.L. Polk and is nominated for this year's Nebula award for Best Novel, which is quite an accomplishment. It is an unusual melange of various forms: romance, fantasy, murder mystery and an Edwardian story of manners. 

The central character is Christopher Miles Singer, who is a former military surgeon serving as a psychiatrist treating veterans of the war he was also in for “battle fatigue.” Miles also happens to be gay and a witch. He lives in Aeland where both of these identities are heavily stigmatized and must remain secret because even though magic is highly regarded, it can only be wielded by high-status mages. All people discovered to be witches are believed to eventually go insane and are sent off to asylums. Similarly, since Aeland is modeled after Edwardian England, the cultural expectations of men and women are centered around heteronormativity and rigid gender roles. 

The book begins with Miles being present when another witch dies (having been poisoned) and gives his soul (and associated powers) to Miles, providing him with a second "witchmark." This is the primary event which animates the plot because Miles spends the rest of the book trying to discover who killed Nick Elliott. He is assisted in this investigation by a handsome stranger, Tristan Hunter, who has secrets of his own.

Pretty early on we learn that Miles ran off to join the military to avoid his family’s expectations and plans for his future as a “Secondary” to his sister Grace, who is a mage. Apparently mages get their power from using bonded (some might say enslaved) Secondary witches as sources. The plot thickens as Miles reconnects with his family and the threads of the story begin to connect as Miles and Tristan discover links between why veterans with battle fatigue appear to be going crazy and murdering their families, what Nick Elliott discovered about witch asylums that got him killed and why Miles’ family is so keen to have him conform to their expectations that he be "seconded" to his sister.

Overall, I would say I was pleased with the gay romantic elements of the story but frustrated with the plot holes and the pacing of the story resolution (everything is revealed in a headlong rush in the last couple chapters). The primary weakness is the world-building. The reader is given lots of information (primarily through Miles’ thoughts) about the constricted cultural mores of the Aeland society and glimpses of the magic system and magical hierarchy of Witchmark’s world. But this is not done in a way that really gives the reader a fair chance to solve the mysteries of the plot and, in my case, distanced me from the book. I (sort of) care about Miles and Tristan, but do I really care that Aeland society is based on a lie and that it’s war with Laneer is so horrible that their enemies have planned a devastatingly deadly revenge? Not really.  Also, it is not really explained clearly enough (to me) why Miles is so invested in finding out who killed Nick Elliott, especially initially before his connection to a bigger conspiracy is known. I think the source of most of my nonchalance towards “Witchmark” is the Edwardian setting, which is something we have seen before many times yet is simultaneously off-putting.

RATING: 3.5 STARS, rounded up to FOUR for the degree of difficult involved in writing a gay romantic steampunk fantasy debut novel.

Title: Witchmark (Kingston Cycle, #1).
Author: C.L. Polk.
Paperback: 318 pages.
Publisher: Tor.com.
Date Published: June 19, 2018.
Date Read: April 30, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.42/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: B.
WRITING: B+.

Federal LGBT Civil Rights Bill #EqualityAct Introduced In U.S. House

There are 28 states where it is perfectly legal to fire someone for being a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community today. Most American believe that LGBT citizens should have (and already have) equal civil rights in the United States.

On March 13, the Equality Act, a comprehensive federal LGBT civil rights bill was introduced into the Congress with one House almost certain to pass it due to the fact Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives.

The Williams Institute at UCLA Law School did an analysis of the state of cvil rights for LGBT Americans and published a report summarizing its findings. Key among these, are:

• An estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers age 16 and older live in the United States. About half of these workers—4.1 million people—live in states without statutory protections against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in employment.
• There are over 3.5 million LGBT students age 15 and older in the U.S. About 2.1 million live in states without statutory protections against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in education.
• There are an estimated 13 million LGBT people age 13 and older in the U.S. Approximately 6.9 million live in states that do not statutorily prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in public accommodations. 
• There are an estimated 11 million LGBT adults in the U.S. Over 5.6 million live in states without statutory protections against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in housing and 8 million lack such protections in credit.

Hat/tip to Williams Institute

REPORT: 4.5% of U.S. Adult Population is LGBT, 11+ Million People

The Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, an LGBT public policy think tank, has released their latest estimate of the percentage of the size of the LGBT population in the United States. The number is 11.3 million, or 4.5% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Hat/tip Williams Institute

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Eric Bauman, Openly Gay Chair of CA Democratic Party, Resigns In #MeToo Furor

Eric Bauman, longtime chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and former vice-chair of the California Democratic Party under John Burton, was elected chair of the California Democratic Party in 2017 after a close and hotly contested election with Kimberly Ellis. He is the first openly gay man to lead the largest Democratic Party state organization.

This week Bauman was in the news again because he abruptly announced his intention to resign his position as party chair one day after multiple accusations of improper sexual comments and unwanted physical contact by Bauman were documented in a blockbuster Los Angeles Times story published on Wednesday November 28.

After the article came out Governor-elect Gavin Newsom and openly LGBT Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins were among the high ranking state Democratic politicians who called for Bauman's resignation.

I have known Bauman for years (and been to the annual holiday party at his house multiple times). I never witnessed any unwanted sexual comments but I would say that I have definitely seen him "tipsy." (It was a holiday party, after all!) Initially after word of the accusations were raised last week, Bauman had announced he would take a leave of absence to get treatment for "a problem with alcohol" but soon it became clear that in the current #MeToo era that response would be insufficient. I am somewhat surprised that these accusations of imroper behavior did not come to light last year when the internecine battle between the establishment party folks who backed Bauman and the progressive "Bernie-crat" folks who backed Ellis was raging.

BOOK REVIEW: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Less is the title of the award-winning novel by 48-year-old, openly gay author Andrew Sean Greer about an openly gay author named Arthur Less who as his fiftieth birthday approaches decides to go on an extended trip around the world primarily in order to avoid any social obligations involved with the imminent marriage of his former (much younger) lover Freddy Pelu to another man.

I am somewhat ashamed as an openly gay man myself who is an avid reader (and who turned 50 this year!) that it took me this long to discover and finally read Less. (I think I remember some of the buzz when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Novel in 2018 but even that didn’t provoke me to pick it up then). I’m here to urge you to learn from my mistake and read Less sooner rather than later! 

For one thing, the book is relatively short (well under 300 pages) and laugh-out-loud funny. I literally laughed out loud multiple times, especially in the first half of the book. In some circles the fact that a humorous novel won the Pulitzer is more significant than the fact that an openly gay author won for a book with a central gay character. 

Less is essentially a travelogue, a cautionary tale and a love story all in one. It is also cleverly structured (it uses long chapters that revolve around Arthur Less’s trips to various countries like Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan). While sticking to these forms it also pokes fun at them in interesting ways.

Less reminds me of Mohsin Hamid's How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, which subverts the self-help form to make profound observations about life, destiny and virtue. Greer does something similar by subverting the story of the solo American traveler traipsing around the world to make profound statements about the nature of love, aging and happiness. The two works are similar in another way in that they both deploy the narrative voice in tricky and surprising ways. Although Arthur Less is the protagonist of Less, he is not the narrator of the novel. There’s someone else who narrates key scenes of the book and the reason is not clear until the very end. Although there are substantial hints dropped along the way the end of the book still packs an emotional wallop.

In many ways Less is a tour de force. I hope Armie Hammer has called his agent to get the film rights, because he would seem to be perfect casting for the lead role of Arthur Less (who is described as blond,VERY tall, handsome and average in most ways, with innocent eyes).

Title: Less.
Author: Andrew Sean Greer.
Paperback: 273 pages.
Publisher: Lee Boudreaux Books.
Date Published: July 18, 2017.
Date Read: November 13, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+ (4.08/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A+.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Jared Polis Becomes 1st Openly Gay Man Elected Governor

Former Congressman Jared Polis has become the first openly gay man to be elected as the Chief Executive of a State. Polis, 43,  is now the Governor-elect of Colorado, having been elected as a Democrat on Tuesday November 6 with 51.7% of the vote. He is a dot-com millionaire and he and his partner Marlon Reis are parents to a son and daughter.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Openly Gay MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Gregg Gonsalves

The 2018 MacArthur Fellows were announced yesterday and at least one of the "genius grant" winners is openly gay: Gregg Gonsalves, a well-known HIV/AIDS activist who was instrumental in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) in the 1990s. More recently he has become a global health advocate and received  a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale University in 2017.

The official summary of Dr. Gonsalves' work from the MacArthur Foundation is:

Gregg Gonsalves is an epidemiologist and global health advocate integrating his experiences as a community activist with quantitative analysis and operations research to improve responses to global public health challenges. For nearly three decades, Gonsalves was an HIV/AIDS activist, working with domestic and international organizations such as AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. His efforts to connect the HIV/AIDS community with top-tier researchers and scientists were a critical catalyst to fundamental advances in scientific knowledge of the disease. These experiences deeply informed his later training in epidemiology and current efforts to optimize the effectiveness of health programs for epidemic diseases, particularly within poor and marginalized communities. 

Using a variety of quantitative approaches and operations research modeling, Gonsalves has determined how to identify hot spots for HIV testing in real time in order to maximize identification of undiagnosed HIV-positive persons; shed light on ways to minimize dropout of HIV-positive patients at key points in the care continuum; and assessed the epidemiological costs of emerging epidemics of HIV in the United States due to intravenous drug use and lack of needle exchange programs. In another line of research, Gonsalves examined the link between high rates of sexual violence against women living in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, and the lack of indoor sanitation—the remote location of facilities left women vulnerable to attacks. He developed a mathematical model that determined the optimal number of new facilities and demonstrated that sanitation investments by the city would significantly reduce instances of sexual violence as well as their associated costs. 

Gonsalves co-founded the Global Health Justice Partnership (GHJP), an interdisciplinary initiative between the schools of law and public health at Yale University, to further advance human rights and social justice perspectives in public health and legal research, practice, and teaching. Working in cooperation with local nongovernmental organizations, GHJP mobilizes research and evidence around pressing health issues and translates that evidence into action. For example, GHJP and colleagues in South Africa documented the failure of mining companies and the South African government to compensate families for tuberculosis (TB) and silicosis acquired in the mines, and they continue to advocate for policy reform based on their comparative research. Currently, GHJP is working with organizations in Brazil to investigate the role of the war on drugs and high incarceration rates on the community burden of TB as well as advocacy for wider availability of hepatitis C treatment in U.S. prisons. Through these initiatives, Gonsalves is training a new generation of researchers who, like himself, work across public health and human rights sectors, scholarly research, and activism to correct disparities in global public health.

Congratulations!

QUEER QUOTE: Are Bert and Ernie Gay?

There has been longtime speculation abut whether Bert and Ernie, two puppets on the Sesame Street television show who are depicted as living together, are "gay." Puppeteer and director Frank Oz, who created the puppets said on twitter that the two are not gay. Oz said, "I created Bert. I know what and who he is." These quotes are in response to an exclusive interview in Queerty with Mark Saltzman a writer for the show from 1981-1990 said that he based the interactions of Bert and Ernie on his own longtime relationship with his male partner. "I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple," Saltzman said.

However, Sesame Workshop, the producer of Sesame Street released a statement which is today's Queer Quote denying (again) that Bert and Ernie are gay:

As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.

Regardless of what Sesame Workshop says, it has not stopped other people from recognizing that Bert and Ernie behave like and resemble a same-sex couple.

Queer Quote: Indian Supreme Court Invalidates Sodomy Law (Finally)

In a victory for tens of millions of LGBT individuals, the Supreme Court of India has finally invalidated India's colonial-era sodomy law, decriminalizing homosexuality and ruling that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal in a near 500-page decision.

The battle to have Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code struck down has taken decades. In 2009, the Delhi High Court ruled the nation's sodomy law unconstitutional but the ruling was appealed to the highest court in the land even though the Indian Government agreed to abide by the decision in 2012. Then in 2013 that Court upheld the law in a shocking ruling that maintained the ban on "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." However, the Court agreed to re-hear that decision in 2014 and today's result follows that litigation.

The opinion is quite comprehensive and ends with some stunning conclusions:

(i) Section 377 of the Penal Code, in so far as it criminalises consensual
sexual conduct between adults of the same sex, is unconstitutional;
(ii) Members of the LGBT community are entitled, as all other citizens, to
the full range of constitutional rights including the liberties protected by
the Constitution;
(iii) The choice of whom to partner, the ability to find fulfilment in sexual
intimacies and the right not to be subjected to discriminatory behaviour
are intrinsic to the constitutional protection of sexual orientation;
(iv) Members of the LGBT community are entitled to the benefit of an equal
citizenship, without discrimination, and to the equal protection of law;
and
(v) The decision in Koushal stands overruled.

This an amazing victory for sexual minorities! Note the highlighted section which indicates that the ruling goes far beyond just striking down sodomy laws (like 2003's Lawrence vs Texas).

Today's Queer Quote is from Jessica Stern of OutRight Action International (formerly the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission), who reacted to the ruling by saying, "The sodomy law that became the model everywhere, from Uganda to Singapore to the U.K. itself, premiered in India, becoming the confusing and dehumanizing standard replicated around the world [and] today’s historic outcome will reverberate across India and the world."

Woo hoo!