It's always interesting to see what people are talking about, what concerns people on the internet ... as anyone who reads blogs can tell you ~ sometimes it's funny, sometimes its somewhat frightening and then there are the days where irritation lands similar to a cartoon anvil.A number of the blogs were all "a-twitter" over a discussion the ladies (a term I might ...no, I won't go there) of "The View" had whether Hugh Jackman ~ known as Wolverine in the X-Men series ~ might be gay or not. Evidently no definite conclusions were drawn...at least by the time of the commercial break. (please note: Rosie was no longer on the show - and these were women who usually talk over each other doing news topics) No conclusions were reached other than that men who marry women not stunningly attractive, are considered possibly gay. (what a lovely thing to say about Hugh Jackman's wife!!)
Then - while in London Enrique Iglesias performed ~
neither by surprise nor free ~ at one of the Europe's largest gay nightclubs. He was doing his usual songs, and came to one of his signature pieces titled "Hero." At this point, he usually brings a woman up on stage and sings to her. In this case, he called up one of the bar's male patrons and sang the song. A large number of blogs went beyond "a-twitter" to almost hysteria...(including some that should know better) although any performer will tell you ~ you play to the audience you have. Ask Bette Midler.To make the day complete probably should have involved a phone call from
D&D, but instead I got a call from someone who might be a delightful replacement for them. I was regaled with a complete description of a movie he had just watched and had to listen to an extended description of the people in the movie and their possible orientation. (I have watched movies with this person before ~ this is nothing new)I'm going to be politically incorrect here ~ but at this point I was, frankly, suffering from "orientation" fatigue. After the 5th time of trying to convince my movie reviewer and performer sexual preference psychic, I gave up and gently but firmly ended the conversation.
I thought about why all this seemed to be going on, and why it mattered at all. I literally wanted to go out in the middle of the complex and yell ~ "WHAT DOES IT MATTER?"
My point is talent is talent is talent. If it's good it needs NO labels. If it's good it will cross lines, orientations and even - Lord help us - party affiliations. I don't spend my time while watching a movie wondering what someone does in their off-time. If the performance is terrible I will 1) regret that I'm there and have been known to
2) count patterns on wall paper or buttons on what someone is wearing to keep my mind and/or body from falling asleep.As a slight aside, my technical theater instructor in college told about having to design a really, really awful show. He painted grape clusters on the wallpaper of the set ~ only each cluster had a different number of grapes. His rational was that perhaps the audience might make it to intermission before they finished counting the grapes.
After I finished quelling the desire to yell and become a hermit, I realized what was really going on was something that I work hard NOT to do. All these instances were simply a desire for labels. Didn't matter if the label was/is accurate or not, the important thing was/is to get the label. And this is why it does matter ~ regardless of orientation.
As I've written about before,
labels are very handy for boxes, shelves and sock drawers, but deadly when applied to people...blonds are dumb(er), geeks wear glasses, people who appear smart or work hard are nerds...to the racial, orientation and intelligence labels designed to either hurt or put people "back where they belong."--more tomorrow
--the intro notes to Enrique Inglesias "Hero"
www.8notes.com/school/riffs/guitar/enrique_iglesias_hero.asp
--Twilight Zone picture unfortunately had no credits or year
--grape cluster picture
www.forchini.com/history.html
--fire picture
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/56877193/
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