Random Friday Thoughts — September 1, 2023

Happy September! Goodbye summer!

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself since a new heat wave is building across the country, including Illinois!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my random thoughts.

NOW THAT IT’S “METEOROLOGICAL FALL”

“Meteorological fall” is September, October, and November, the three months between the hottest and the coldest months.

Some call Labor Day the “unofficial end of summer”, but if you want to just stick to the autumnal equinox (fall), that’s September 23rd at 1:50 a.m. CDT.

Photo Credit: Shairaa/Shutterstock

EMMY AWARDS POSTPONED

With the Hollywood writers and actors strike going on, this year’s Emmy Awards have been pushed back to NEXT YEAR on January 15, 2024.

I guess this gives you time this fall to binge watch shows and performances that have been nominated.

“MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY”

When the true crime series, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” hit Netflix in September 2022, it was a huge success.

The series and its stars — Evan Peters as Dahmer and Niecy Nash as Glenda Cleveland, Dahmer’s neighbor — started winning huge industry awards. The series and stars are nominated for 13 Emmy Awards (seven in the Creative Emmys category).

I watched it and it was an excellent crime series and the acting was superb!

GRADE: A-

CONTROVERSY

However, Netflix, the producers, and even the stars faced backlash from the families of the victims. They’re accusing those involved in the series of “profiting off their traumatic experiences” and “retraumatizing” the family all over again.

One victim’s relative stated, “I want people to understand this is not just a story or historical fact, these are real people’s lives.”

I fully understand that and they’re right. For them, I know the pain will never go away and seeing shows or documentaries about it dredges up the horrible memories.

However, it’s been 30-plus years and dramatizing events for television or movies are not new and it’s not unique to the Dahmer case.

I know if it was my family member, I wouldn’t be watching!

MY CONNECTION (?) WITH DAHMER

Back in the summer of 1990, at the age of 25, I moved from Kentucky to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While I was only there for a few months into the fall, I enjoyed my job as a bartender at “Partners”, one of the oldest LGBTQ bars in the city.

One night I went out drinking with my friends and co-workers in the seedier part of the gay district at C’est La Vie and Club 219.

Needless to say, I had way too much to drink and the scary alley, while unsavory, was a great place to puke before we moved on elsewhere!!!

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but when serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested, I got chills. Club 219 was one of his favorite haunts and he picked up some of his victims there!

I used to keep journals and my night at Club 219 coincided with the stalking and murdering timeline of one of his victims.

He very well could have been lurking in the corner that night I was totally wasted!

“THE GREAT”

I just finished season three of the Hulu hit, “The Great”.

Both leads, Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult were nominated for Emmys in the lead comedy categories last year.

While I loved the first two seasons, I only liked this one. It had its moments.

As I watched this season, I found myself hoping this would be the last season. And, then when a major character was killed off (?), I realized three seasons were enough.

Well, be careful what you ask for. Earlier this week, it was cancelled.

If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it.

SEASON 3 GRADE: B-

“GOLDA”

While “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” are still dominating the box office around the world, “Golda”, the movie about Israel’s first (and only) female prime minister opened to a decent box office.

In only 883 theaters, it made $1.7 million in its opening weekend. (For reference, “Barbie” was played on 3,700+ screens.)

I definitely want to see the movie, but I may have to wait until it streams or is released on DVD since it’s not playing in Decatur, Illinois.

“GOLDA: THE LIFE OF ISRAEL’S PRIME MINISTER”

For many years, I’ve been obsessed with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Peggy Mann’s biography is like a lover letter to the late prime minister. While a very easy and informative read, the book came out in 1971, which was bit of letdown for me.

It ended before the 1972 Olympics slaughter of Israeli athletes and how Meir handled that tragedy and it didn’t cover the last seven years of her life. Meir died in 1978.

One of the most interesting things I learned about Meir is that while she was born in the present day Ukraine, she grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Denver, Colorado, before heading back to Palestine in 1921 to help found the state of Israel (in 1948).

Her first job offer was teaching students English, but she turned it down. However, when she and her husband joined a kibbutz (a collective community based on agriculture), she took a job picking almonds!

In the 1930s, Meir went to work for a union that was one of the first to offer insurance to its workers called “womb to tomb” coverage!

Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said of Meir: “Some day, when our history is written, it will be said that there was a Jewish woman who raised the money which made the state possible.”

In 1956, Ben-Gurion asked Meir to take the job of Foreign Minister, the second most important job in Israel. B.G., as he was known, said “She’s the best man in my Cabinet.”

When a reporter asked Meir how it felt to be a woman minister, she tartly replied, “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been a man minister.”

When she took the Foreign Minister job, she chose the name “Meir”, which meant “illuminate” in Hebrew. (It’s pronounced May-EAR). Her married last name was Myerson.

I’ll share more things I learned about Meir next week.

THAT’S IT

With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!

Anthony

Random Friday Thoughts — June 3, 2022

June is here! While the calendar says it’s still spring, “meteorological summer” started June 1st, and Memorial Day weekend is the “unofficial” start to summer.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my random thoughts. Have a great month ahead and be proud. I am 365 days a year!

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!

Cheers queers and cheers to all of my “straight, but not narrow” friends.

Have you ever wondered why we celebrate Pride every June (some hotter places celebrate it in the cooler months of fall)? It all goes back to the “Summer of ’69”! Now, that should be a song!

Well, we owe a big thanks to the queens that stood up for what would be the forebearer of LGBTQ+ rights and gay pride!

Back in the day, gay bars weren’t popular like they were pre-pandemic. Those “safe havens” catering to the gay community were often targeted and harassed by police. 

“The Stonewall Inn”, a bar on Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, was owned by the Mafia.  Its clientele were the poor and those that faced rejection by a majority of society.

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, plainclothes policemen, uniformed police officers, and detectives arrived at the bar and yelled, “Police!  We’re taking the place!”

Well, one thing led to another. When an officer shoved a drag queen and she hit him on the head with her purse, the mood changed and people started throwing beer bottles. Word spread that people inside the bar were being beaten by police.

Within six months of that police raid on the bar, which became known as “The Stonewall Riots”, two gay activist groups were formed, and one year later, gay pride festivals were held for the first time in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

If you want more than just that little soundbite version of “Stonewall”, here’s the original blog I posted almost ten years ago. Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 53 years now!

https://anthonypeoples.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/push-comes-to-shove-43-years-ago-the-stonewall-riots/

“COMPTON’S CAFETERIA RIOTS”

And, let’s not forget about the Compton’s Cafeteria riot in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district three years before Stonewall.

This restaurant was a popular hangout for transgender women and drag queens. Sadly, even gay bars weren’t very welcoming to trans women and Compton’s was a place where they could meet publicly.

In August 1966, police were called because the women and the drag queens were becoming unruly. After roughhousing from police, a trans woman threw a cup of coffee in an officer’s face.

At that point, the place “erupted”. Sugar shakers, tables, and chairs were thrown, the front glass window was shattered, and the violence moved into the streets on the first night.

Even some San Francisco police said “unnecessary violence” was used by the department.

“LOGICAL FAMILY”

Armistead Maupin is one of my favorite authors and one of the leading advocates in the LGBTQ community. Yes, there were trailblazers before him and many came after him.

However, by bringing his “Tales of the City” adventures to readers of the San Francisco Chronicle in the 1970s, he showed them that we’re just like everyone else. Take that Anita Bryant! (Yes, she’s still alive!)

Since Pride month is here, I want to talk about his beautiful 2017 memoir, “Logical Family”.

You probably figured out what he means by “logical family”, but Maupin says, “Sooner or later, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us. We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.”

The book covers his conservative upbringing in North Carolina, his “discovery” that he was different, his military service in Vietnam, and his adventures once he moved to San Francisco.

I really loved the story of his history with the virulent homophobe that hired him for his first television job in North Carolina and how one day Armistead would publicly attack this man’s hateful antigay and anti-HIV politics in his home state at Pride.

Yes, that hateful man was none other than five-term U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, who served from 1973-2003.

I also loved his stories about Bryant, his FW (occasional) B relationship with Rock Hudson, and why he “outed” Hudson as gay when it was revealed he had AIDS.

And, there’s there’s the funny story about finding chewing gum on his pants during a meeting! That’s not the kicker. The kicker is what he did on his lunch break and how the gum got there! 😉

“TALES OF THE CITY”

Maupin’s “Tales of the City”, which aired on PBS in the U.S., is still one of my favorite miniseries and my favorite book series of all time.

I watched it for the first time, in early 1994, as I was getting ready to make my big move to Chicago from small town Kentucky — just like Mary Ann Singleton did in the series, moving from Cleveland to San Francisco! 

And, I was just as naïve as Mary Ann, too, also thirty years ago!

Yes, that’s a very youthful Laura Linney in the early-1990s!

If you’ve never read the nine-book series or watched the first three series, “Tales of the Cities”, “More Tales of the City”, and “Further Tales of the City”, and 2019’s Netflix “Tales of the City”, please do so.

So enjoyable! I’m going to read the books and watch it again!

“THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN”

And, there’s a documentary on the incredible man, too!

THANK YOU ARMISTEAD!

In a 2014 blog, I praised the author and activist for inspiring me to try one more time to kick off my television weather and news career in 1996.

At the time, I wrote, “Armistead, thank you for giving this small-town Kentucky boy the motivation and the courage to move to Chicago just four months shy of my 30th birthday, just as you allowed Mary Ann Singleton to leave Cleveland, Ohio, for San Francisco.“

Here’s Laura Linney as Mary Ann Singleton in the 1994 “Tales of the City” miniseries, almost 25 years before Ozark’s incredible Wendy Byrde!

Click here if you want to read that blog about my inspiration (it should open in a new window):

https://anthonypeoples.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/armistead-maupin-thank-you-for-motivating-me/

Here’s Armistead and his husband, Christopher Turner. They still live in San Francisco.

Oh, by the way, Happy Belated Birthday Armistead!

“SUMMER OF ’69”

Since I mentioned the Stonewall Riot and the “Summer of ’69”, why not share the incredible hit song from one of our LGBTQ allies.

Canadian rocker Bryan Adams cancelled a concert in Mississippi in 2016 over an anti-gay discrimination bill.

“Summer of ’69” was Adams’ seventh hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It reached #5 in 1985.

Now, in full disclosure, Adams isn’t perfect.

As the COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping the world in the spring of 2020, he made a very racist social media post about having to cancel his shows.

He blamed it on “some fucking bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards”!

He apologized for his insensitive comment and the post was deleted.

“THE REACH OF A CHEF”

Last week, I posted a few interesting things from Michael Ruhlman 2006 “The Reach of a Chef”. Here are a few more just about my favorite city, Las Vegas.

When Vegas became a hot spot for famous chefs to open restaurants in casinos and hotels, the money started rolling in.

Rob Valentino, then president of the Venetian, which features many famous chef-fronted eating establishments, told Ruhlman that in 2005, they did $175 million in restaurant sales and another $100 million in banquet and bar sales.

Valentino says, “I don’t know another hotel in the world that does $300 million dollars in food and beverage.” On top of that, the casino and hotel brought in another $1.2 billion (that’s billions with a “B”), for a total of $1.5 billion!

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!

Here’s my favorite picture from the last Chicago Pride I attended. I can’t believe it’s been ten years!

THAT’S IT

With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!

Anthony