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Swine Flu Tweet

Something I tweeted at Ron Hogan last night is getting re-tweeted a bunch. He orginally tweeted:

Ah, Seth Godin: “More people are killed by deer than sharks, but you don’t see park rangers running around like nutcases.” http://is.gd/vgjb

to which I replied

@RonHogan & regular flu kills 3k people annually in the US, whereas swine flu has killed 0 so far.

& then added:

@RonHogan whoops. that’s closer to 36k. via brian williams: http://dailynightly.msnbc.m…

… so the credit goes to Brian Williams for keeping his calm and putting this swine flu panic into perspective.

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NYC Air Scare

Thank you, Brian Williams. The point he made tonight on Olbermann — that 9/11 was 10 minutes ago to the people who experienced it first-hand — is only too true. I have no doubt that tons of people are upping their anti-anxiety meds and having those awful apocalyptic nightmares again as a result of this stupidity.

I remember flying from Denver a few years ago & hearing a security officer ask a flyer about their anti-anxiety meds, wanting to know if they were because he was a nervous flyer. He answered something more along the lines, “No, I’m just from New York” and a moment later, in an aside to his wife, “We are all on anti-anxiety meds.”

Yeah. We are. I don’t expect ever to have the same feelings about fall that I did before 2001.

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Westboro

Westboro Baptist Church is going to Boston on an anti-Semitic, homophobic rant. King of astounding, but you know? I can hear Allen Ginsberg laughing:

Song

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human–
looks out of the heart
burning with purity–
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love–
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
–cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

–must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye–

yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

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Help Vicki Marlane

via Susan Stryker:

Michelle Lawler is producing a documentary film about Vicki Marlane, a 74-year-old transsexual woman who is an amazing drag performer, and who still puts on two shows a week at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. Drag performance, particularly the traditional “record pantomime” style that Vicki does, is a joyous, subversive, heart-warming art form. Vicki has been doing professional theatrical drag for 50 years. She is a total inspiration to me, and an honored elder of my community.

Michelle and her editor Monica Nolan have completed a final cut of the film, titled “Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight,” (so-called after a line in Vicki’s signature number, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”). We expect the film to premiere at Frameline’s San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival in June 2009–look for the official press release on May 19!

We’re still trying to raise the last few thousand dollars we need to pay for music rights and the final audio mix to finish the film. I’m writing to ask you to make a donation that will help us complete this important film.

You can watch a short clip from the film at our page on the BAVC web site (our fiscal sponsor). Check out Vicki’s performance, too, while you’re at it.

You can make a tax-deductible contribution online from that page or you can make a non-tax deductible donation by sending a check made out to the film’s Executive Producer, Kim Klausner, at 1541 Alabama Street, San Francisco, CA 94110.

All donations — $5, $25, $100, $500 or whatever — will help. Feel free to forward this email to people who might be interested in supporting this project.

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RIP Bea Arthur

Bea Arthur died today. We shared a birthday, and we shared being the butt of jokes about masculine women and women with facial hair and women who prefer comfortable shoes, but she did that on the national stage, and for many, many, many years, with grace and humor.

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider / She didn’t’ care if the whole world looked.
Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her / She was a sister who really cooked.

Isadora was the first bra burner / And you’re glad she showed up. (Oh yeah)
And when the country was falling apart / Betsy Ross got it all sewed up.

And then there’s Maude.
That old compromisin’, enterprisin’, anything but tranquilizing, / Right on Maude

She was, most famously, Maude, which by my accounting is one of the funniest shows that was ever on television, – and it was about a feminist! – followed closely by The Golden Girls, where she played Dorothy.