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Written by Mike Shea
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Tuesday, 18 November 2008 00:29 |
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It’s all about marketing.
If you want people to buy your product, you have to show how your product will make their life better.
It’s rule No. 1 of business.
So, what the hell is up with the Republican Party these days?
They’ve successfully alienated themselves from just about everybody who isn’t white, socially conservative and older than 45.
I point the cause back to one “fact-of-the-matter,” as they say in cable shows: They’ve become the Party of Jerks.
There used to be a time when everyone in this country, much less the two major political parties, seemed to get along reasonably well.
Back in the Reagan years, jovial sparring partners President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill used to knock back a few while negotiating the latest bill for the betterment of the American people. There would be political jabs thrown, of course, but it was never vicious. If anything, it was more like wrestling — all for show.
That changed with the midterm election of 1994.
Newly minted House Speaker Newt Gingrich ushered in the Age of Jerks. |
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Thursday, 13 November 2008 00:02 |
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It’s fair to say that post-Election 2008, queer folk are thrilled — and pissed.
President-elect Barack Obama’s victory is being cheered by the 70 percent of gay and lesbian voters who supported him. But the overwhelming passage of California’s Proposition 8, which may strip 18,000 couples of their marriages, is stirring the pot and creating an outpouring of LGBT activism not seen since the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998.
Actions and marches across California in the past week are surprising plenty of pundits who thought apathy had overtaken the queer community. And this Saturday, protests will spread across the nation, including right here in Northeast Ohio.
Honestly, we try to keep things here at Spangle on the light and fluffy side. But all of this is far too big to ignore. After the jump, learn how you can make your voice heard in a nationwide action that found its start right here in Cleveland — and find out about a City Council meeting that could use your support, too. |
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Monday, 10 November 2008 00:59 |
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You might have noticed an ad rotating through the right-most column of Spangle’s homepage for the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland’s Fall Membership Drive.
For more than 33 years, the Center has been one of the cornerstones of our community, providing everything from a hotline to youth programming to meeting space for numerous organizations.
(And in the interest of full disclosure, multiple Spanglers are former employees or board members.)
We wanted to show a little love, so we phoned up the Center, reached Executive Director Sue Doerfer and got the lowdown on the drive. |
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Written by Tim Marshall
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Friday, 14 November 2008 00:29 |
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Jewelry. Glassware. Coffee services. Dog collars. Eggs — lots and lots of eggs.
This list isn’t the rider of some tripped-out rocker performing at the Wolstein Center. Rather, these are some of the items on glittering display at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s current exhibition, Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique.
Way before Fossil and Rolex were part of our capitalist vernacular, this legendary troika of tastemakers wowed the world with their elegant breakthrough designs. Artistic Luxury walks you through their achievements, from their shared presence at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris to their later works.
Curator Stephen Harrison gave Spangler Tim Marshall a personal tour of the exhibit and shared plenty of dish along the way.
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Written by Brian Patrick Thornton
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Wednesday, 12 November 2008 00:37 |
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The monologue is among the simplest and most difficult things in the world of theater. Simple because it’s just the one person; difficult because to carry off those one-sided conversations requires an actor of particular skill.
Luckily for the Beck Center’s Talking Heads 2, which opened in the Studio Theater last Friday and runs through Dec. 7, two talented local actors have signed on: the legendary Dorothy Silver and the less-well-known but no-less-talented Robert Hawkes.
Talking Heads 2 is simple: two acts, two actors, two characters, two monologues (or perhaps better put, two series of monologues). Out British playwright Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George and The History Boys) created six monologues as part of a BBC series a decade ago, and Beck has pulled two for this production. |
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Written by Mike Shea
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Tuesday, 11 November 2008 00:23 |
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I have a dear friend in Los Angeles who’s a bit of a mutt when it comes to matching up against the stereotyped L.A. gay man.
Yeah, he’s “sold his soul to the devil,” as he would put it, as he’s a bit obsessed with keeping his body in top shape. He gives me monthly updates as to how many packs have been added on his abs or how many additional miles on the 6 a.m. canyon run he’s managed to conquer.
For me, he’s turned into one of those friends who, when you go to visit him in his gay metropolis, you start feeling pretty insecure as to how far “behind” you are back in your little city in the Midwest. Your body isn’t hot enough; your clothes aren’t hip enough; your pop-culture references are a bit too 2004.
Anyway, he was always one of these “straight-acting” gay men. He’s in the music business, and despite what you may think, the entertainment world isn’t always the most homo-friendly, particularly the music industry. It’s still a bit of an always-boys club, and not in that bathhouse sort of way either.
So with him, it’s always been “If You Don’t Ask Me, I Ain’t Tellin’ Ya” when it came to being out in the industry. Usually once musicians got to know him the walls would come down, and thankfully even the hardest of rockers was always cool as could be. |
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The picture at left complete describes, in 1,000 words or less, our experience at Cleveland’s anti-Proposition 8 rally Saturday afternoon.
