Writer, husband, etc. Books: Pictures at a Revolution, 5 Came Back, Mike Nichols (now in paperback). Next book in '26. Journalism: Now & then. Errors my own.
Some professional news to share: My next book for
@penguinpress
will be a history of American arts and pop culture as a battlefront in the struggle for LGBTQ rights, from 1960 to the present. It's a book that, in some ways, I've been getting ready to write for 30 years... >
I smiled at a woman in Columbus Circle. She smiled at me. We exchanged pleasantries about the beautiful day. Then she bent over, picked up a couple of oak leaves from the gutter, sniffed them, and ate them. I will see you all in another 15 months.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, the President of the United States endorsed a child molester who thinks gay people should be imprisoned over a man who prosecuted Klansmen who killed children. And the RNC went right along with him. That's forever.
One takeaway from tonight's debate will be how many times a woman of color, always smiling pleasantly, has to tell a white man, "I'm speaking," in order to STILL get less time than he gets. It is nauseating.
If true. If true. If true. All these men have opinions on my marriage and your uterus, sight unseen. But hand them a story told by a dozen women and suddenly it's the riddle of the goddamn sphinx.
I was at Entertainment Weekly when this would have been a hit, and in 1997 we absolutely would have given these two a full page with a photo shoot and a very short story that tried to get around the fact that they spoke no English.
If you voted for a law making it a crime to give voters water while they wait in a line that's long because you made it long, you're not "the opposition party"--you're a threat to American democracy, and nobody, including journalists, should pretend otherwise.
Just to be clear about what's being mocked today...
A single man adopting or fostering an older kid: Excellent.
Keeping it secret for 7 years: Weird.
Calling him your "helper" or "local student": Creepy.
Revealing his existence only when it's politically convenient: Contemptible.
Extraordinary: We are about to have a rare weekend of genuine significance in recent movie history--two non-sequels arriving simultaneously and turning into a bigger-than-both-of-them cultural event. And instead of considering what appetite that reflects and what it might mean...
I just went outside in a mask and three people who were one foot apart from one another walked past and one yelled "Don't be so paranoid!" and I yelled "Don't be a fucking idiot!" Human contact like that is so important right now.
Things are not canceled because of the WGA strike. Things are canceled because networks, studios, and streamers are not fairly compensating writers for their work.
Disputing the election isn't, for the GOP, about reversing the result. It's about crystallizing for their voters the idea that if they don't get what they want in the world, it can only be because someone else unfairly took it from them. It is a central tenet of the party.
Dear journalists: You can say millions march across the country. Millions. Not "thousands" or "crowds." "Millions" is correct. Even if it makes some of your readers mad.
When the first couple of seasons of Walking Dead aired, I used to complain that the show never explained how the population got so tiny. Now I know it was because 100 million dumbasses walked right up to the zombies yelling, "I refuse to live my life in fear!"
I don't know how long Obama's
#GraduateTogether
speech was--five minutes?--but it contained more warmth, hope, and basic human decency than we have experienced from a President in three and a half years.
The NYT, which would not use the words when Ted Yoho spoke them, uses them tonight to quote
@AOC
--and it describes HER behavior, not his, as "disruptive" and a "norm-shattering moment," one that it implies is about "amplifying her own brand."
JFC.
Sincere tweet: Steve Kornacki has done an exemplary job for MSNBC for three days running. Factual, specific, deeply informed, never gets irresponsibly ahead of the information he has. Very impressive display of focus under pressure.
“Does he know that my little company in my little corner of Michigan would lose 90 percent of its business overnight? Does he understand that a 25 percent tax on the components Lucerne uses would evaporate my profit margins? That it would shut us down?”
Barry, Atlanta, and Better Call Saul have all taught me that I am insufficiently biologically evolved to retain plot information about shows that produce 8 episodes and then pause for 94 years.
If Biden wins--and it's a huge if--a bunch of Republicans are suddenly going to find their tongues and talk about how they really lost their way, need to do soul-searching, etc. When that happens, let us all remind them that today, when it mattered, they were dead fucking silent.
Here are some things Cuomo hasn't said during his press conference:
--You're a terrible reporter
--I take no responsibility
--I give myself a 10
--Here, drink this chemical people pour into fishtanks
--It's the Chinese virus
He's not gonna croak. He's not gonna get impeached. He's not gonna get 25th amendmented. There is one road forward: Vote him into irrelevance in November and into oblivion in 2020.
Random thought: The obsession with Harry Styles' sexuality fascinates me, because it's where a new generation's golden rule--sexuality is fluid, you can choose from dozens of identities, etc.--crashes into an older rule: Tell us who you are so we can decide what we think of you.
I am sitting here next to my gay husband living my gay life reading a gay novel as research for my new gay book...and yet I am not and will never be as gay as whatever is haunting Tucker Carlson's fantasies.
The LeBron James tweet is not minor. The President of the United States, a long-proven racist, used his platform to attack two black men last night, one of whom just started a school for at-risk kids. If you're not angry and ashamed for our country right now, we part company.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence was founded in 1979. One was on Newsweek's first AIDS cover. They were major activists in the 1st years of the crisis. They are sewn into the AIDS quilt. This is a pathetic capitulation to bigotry and an insult to their long fight against it.
I'm not a "Let that sink in" guy, but...Trump woke up this morning thinking that today was going to be the best day of his Presidency, and it ended with him being booed, live, by more people than have booed him on any day of his life.
Sweet.
Garland taking 12 minutes to appoint a special counsel for Biden and two years to appoint one for Trump, both times because he's terrified of appearing to be partisan, is really something.
2 years ago I sat next to Diana Rigg at a Tonys party. She was in My Fair Lady--at 80. She told me it was a great role because she could get tons of reading done btw scenes. Then she gave me her phone and said, "Find Uber on this and get me the hell out of here." RIP to a great.
Note that none of the 7 people who died attended this wedding. So people planning a big Thanksgiving aren't simply jeopardizing their own families; they're saying, "I'm happy to kill strangers if it means I can have what I want."
This is impressive, put-in-the-hours reporting. The New York Times called Democratic and Republican election officials in every state. Not one of them reported any voter fraud or systemic irregularities.
I am still thinking about the combination of sheer panic, love of cruelty, deep hatred, and complete moral vacancy that would have led Tucker Carlson, in 1991, to put "Dan White Society" in a yearbook. And, to be clear, a college senior is an adult.
Today was my last day at Equinox. Goodbye, Equinox. I will miss your wifi and general plushness and convenient toilets throughout Manhattan. My new gym is cheaper and I pledge to donate the difference to candidates who will make your miserable owner more miserable.
It truly is something that in the year Black Panther, a movie made just about entirely by and with black people, grosses $700 million, the Academy's reaction is, "We need to invent something separate...but equal."
If Dems don't end the filibuster, the GOP will block everything, then run in '22 on the premise that Dems are ineffectual--which will be true. If Dems end it and pass a ton of stuff, the GOP will run on the idea that Dems have wrecked America, hate Jesus, etc. Let's do that one.
On West 70th St. today, a woman yelled "Eat shit!" at me and then, a few seconds after I hurried by, yelled "I thought you were someone else!" So you can drag every single one of your "New York will never be the same again" hot takes straight to the trash.
@elonmusk
It might help if people like you didn't treat legal elections as the opening offer in a negotiation with people who don't believe in legal elections.
Purportedly Moore’s main accuser Leigh Corfman has had three divorces, filed for bankruptcy three times, and has been charged with multiple misdemeanors.
Posts on Moore's FB page indicate that Corfman, has claimed several pastors at various churches made sexual advances at her.
Trump ranted incoherently for an hour last night but when a black man makes a lucid and coherent speech he's "lecturing us." Go away, you racist imbecile.
Saw a fascinating indie about a trans woman who seeks to reconnect with an old college roommate. He's never unkind to her but he is aloof--he doesn't want to hear about her journey. Then he realizes he's being selfish, and after looking into his heart... >
@chelseabwrites
I worked on my first book for 4 years. Six people came to the first reading. One person was someone I knew who foresaw the worst and brought 4 family members. The sixth person came in out of the rain. When you don't know whether to laugh or cry, laugh. And congrats on your book.
Criticize Ron DeSantis all you want, but Florida now has...the highest new covid case rate and third highest number of daily deaths in the U.S.
So really, criticize him all you want. Do it.
After all the Martin Short noise today, I have asked the New Yorker to hold my essay "Fuck Angela Lansbury and the Horse She Rode In On" while I refine it.
It would be great if journalists went into the next WH press briefing with the attitude that they are protectors of the truth holding a dishonest public servant to account, not middle schoolers trying to handle a mean substitute teacher.
I just rewatched the Succession finale, and one of the most impressive things about it on second look is that the series never forgot that its central four-season plot question was not "Who's going to get it?" but "Is Kendall going to get it or not?" Even when some of us did.
Of course we should be discussing mental illness. President Trump and Mitch McConnell are sociopaths. There, we've discussed it. Now let's vote these white supremacist accessories to murder out of office and pass some gun laws.
..."The Love Boat, season 5, episode 15" (1982), in case you have any doubt about how hard the political right has worked to make its core constituency stupider and meaner than they were 40 years ago. (BTW, the man, Gopher, was played by Fred Grandy, later a GOP congressman.)
So to recap:
--It never happened.
--My blackout-drunk bestie can confirm it never happened.
--It was horseplay.
--She is confusing me with my non-biological identical twin.
--I do not have it in the datebook I kept for 36 years.
--Please stop interfering with my destiny.
Between Pete Buttigieg's Fox interviews and Steve Kornacki's four-days-and-counting marathon, mainstream America is finally beginning to appreciate gay-nerd hypercompetence. I have waited my whole life for this.
The people who look at NY's numbers finally offering some reason for hope as proof that Cuomo was alarmist...I'll try to put this genteelly: The numbers are improving BECAUSE the alarm was sounded, you stupid, stupid assholes.