May 14, 2014

Dolly Parton Talks About Gay Marriage...


I adore 9 to 5 icon Dolly Parton, from her endless talent to her amazing community work to her bawdy humour, she wins all around for me. Even like the plastic surgery and how she openly talks about it. Like her enough to forget about that crappy movie with Sylvester Stallone... almost.

I have lots of her music in my car for road trips... love it!

Parton is out on a media blitz promoting her new album Blue Smoke, and was asked about marriage equality.

Same-sex marriage might not be recognized in Dolly Parton's native Tennessee, but the outspoken Parton, herself married for almost fifty years,  supports equality for all. 
"I didn’t know any gay people in my childhood. I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out," the singer, who was one of 12 children in a Pentecostal family living in Locust Ridge, Tenn., told Britain's Event magazine.
"I think everyone should be with who they love," Parton, 68, continued. "I don’t want to be controversial or stir up a bunch of trouble but people are going to love who they are going to love. I think gay couple should be allowed to marry. They should suffer just like us heterosexuals. Ha ha ha!"


May 9, 2014

10 Reasons To Oppose Marriage Equality...


Making fun of people who oppose gay rights just got a whole lot easier...

The sad/scary part is that some people use a serious take on these arguments!

May 6, 2014

Listen To The Squawking Chicken...


I have been an avid reader since I was a kid -- fiction, histories, business books, auto-biographies, almost everything except war stuff. And while I am always waiting eagerly for the next Sue Grafton mystery, I am currently on an autobiography frenzy, and last week's read was Elaine Lui's Listen To The Squawking Chicken.

Elaine Lui is a social media icon in Canada -- blogging as "Lainey" at www.laineygossip.com, appearing on E-talk television (our low rent version of Entertainment Tonight) and co-hosting The Social (our low-rent version of The View). Lainey is always a hoot -- she is smart and fast and funny and bitchy and totally awesome.

And while Lainey is fast and funny and bitchy, I excepted the same from her autobiography. I was wrong. While Squawking Chicken is interesting and fascinating, it is not funny or bitchy... it is more passive and dysfunctional, like a Chinese-Canadian traffic accident I could not look away from.

Lainey's "Squawking Chicken" is her overbearing mother, who she lived away from for many years and who was -- and apparently still is --- controlling, judgemental and dictatorial. Lainey talks about being "feng shui blackmailed" and "shamed" through her life.

Laine has lived an interesting life and -- as she always does - has interesting stories to tell. She seems to know that her mother's behaviour is abnormal and controlling and socially unacceptable and yet she accepts and somehow condones it. Weird. Interesting to read though.

My issue with the story -- not the book, which I zoomed through, but the story itself -- is that strong outspoken Lainey has a Stockholm Syndrome-y thing going on when it comes to justifying her mother's behaviour. She rationalizes the Squawking Chicken's humiliating remarks, excessive meddling, demands for money, over-the-top control, imposition of superstitious beliefs, and  condemning attitude towards everyone. The woman is damaged and mean.

I guess all families are weird in their own way, and Lainey's is not an exception. While this dysfunction is disturbing, Lainey is a strong writer and her story is interesting to read about... now bring on the next book, Lainey, and make it dishy and funny!







May 4, 2014

Beware The Gay Mafia!


Yep, I went there, from the Mozilla CEO scandal to the furor over a new book by a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer... is there a gay mafia?

Click through to read my post...