What’s Blake Berris From “Days of Our Lives” Doing in Buenos Aires?!

There’s nothing I hate doing in Buenos Aires more than I despise venturing downtown. Why leave leafy, leisurely Palermo to head to that Godforsaken concrete jungle where the broken sidewalks are way too skinny to accommodate the throngs of people crowding it? Luckily for me, in the five weeks since I returned to town, I’ve only had to go down once.

This afternoon, though, duty called again, and as I stood in the Subte, squished between the subway door and a car full of stoic porteños, from the green line’s Plaza Italia stop all the way to 9 de Julio, I was silently cursing the day I came back to BA. I had to sign important documents for the sale of my apartment in the office of the escribiano (fancy Spanish for “notary public”), so I figured that while I was begrudgingly making the journey, I might as well make it about more than just the escribiano and take some more photos for the Bangkok Post piece on Buenos Aires that I turned in this morning.

As I was setting up another shot of El Obelisco, this one on the corner of Avenida Corrientes and 9 de Julio, I noticed something strange yet familiar in the lower right corner of the frame.

Could it be? No, it couldn’t be? But I’d recognize those sleepy eyes and pouty, bee-stung lips anywhere. It was Nick Fallon!

Had I stepped out of my downtown nightmare — complete with overpopulated sidewalks, noisy traffic and sinus-clogging urban fumes — and onto the Days of Our Lives set? I’d literally just finished watching Monday’s episode on YouTube, and when I last saw the homophobic genius ex-con, he was tied up in a dingy cabin on Smith Island, trying to talk down a gun-toting madman.

Then I snapped back to reality.

“Are you Blake Berris?” I asked after approaching the familiar face in the frame.

He seemed as surprised to be asked it as I was to be asking it, his face lighting up the way tourists’ often do when they unexpectedly encounter a fellow traveler who speaks their language.

“I never would have expected anyone to recognize me here,” he said to both his female friend and to me, smiling invitingly.

Since I’d just finished watching him on YouTube, his face was fresh in my head, but I didn’t tell him that because in that same head, they sounded like the words of a creepy stalker, not unlike Vargas, the ex-con who seems to follow Nick Fallon everywhere these days.

The truth, which I didn’t bother to share with Blake either, was that even if he hadn’t been on a U.S. daytime soap, or if I didn’t watch that soap five days a week, I wouldn’t have missed him. He’s taller than he appears on TV, and more muscular, too. His sharp, angular features, which are so pronounced on YouTube, seemed softer, even more handsome in person.

He told me he’d just arrived yesterday from Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he was for the Fantaspoa International Fantastic Film Festival, which was screening his movie House of Last Things, and he decided that since he was already in South America, he might as well check out Buenos Aires for the first time. So far, so great.

I had a ton of questions I wanted to ask (like was it in the script for Nick to wag his finger when he called Sonny “fancy pants loverboy” last week), but I couldn’t think of any of them because I was flustered in the way I get when I’m suddenly standing on a busy intersection, talking to a long-lost acquaintance, somebody famous, or a very good-looking guy. So I asked the dumbest one that popped into my head:

“Any scoop on what to expect on Days?”

I felt like I was back at Entertainment Weekly, using words like “scoop” and dying for the workday to be over so that I could go home and get back to the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest.

He wouldn’t share any juicy spoilers other than that things are about to get very intense this week and, inadvertently, this little nugget, which will be good news to Blake fans but perhaps not to those who hate his alter ego for what he’s doing to his cousin Will Horton: Nick isn’t going anywhere soon. Days tapes three months ahead, and Black is due back on the set next week.

After a little more conversation, Blake and I parted ways. He told me to look him up on Facebook; I told him to enjoy the rest of his time in BA. And while he’s at it, he’d better make sure that bastard Nick Fallon stays in line, too. I’ll be watching.

25 Pressure Points of Sheer Bliss

Or “25 Nooks of Fun I’d Like People to Tickle Me In.” Both titles, as well as the general concept, were suggested to me by my friend Adriaan, who was interested in reading the bright side of my recent post “I Hate When People Say That!: 25 Things I Hope I Never Hear Again.” I like to think of myself as a fairly positive person, but considering how much more difficult this list was to compile, maybe I’m not so much of one.

1. “Yes” At the end of my professional bio, which I wrote several years ago, I included a questionnaire that’s set up like James Lipton’s on Inside the Actor’s Studio. First question: “Favorite word?” What else? The opposite of “No,” which, incidentally, was not my least favorite word — that would be “Death.” Some things will never change.

2. “Lovely” My favorite adjective. Too bad it’s not as heavily in conversational rotation in the U.S. as it is in the UK and Australia. The discourse of us Yanks could use some classing up.

3. “I was just thinking about you”/”I miss you” In lieu of fancy presents, florid declarations and promises you can’t — and won’t — keep, keep it simple and honest. Sometimes it’s the smallest sentiment that makes the biggest impression.

4. “What’s your story?” Years ago, I covered a political event in North Carolina where Jesse Helms publicly berated a reporter for asking what the then-N.C. U.S. senator described as a “loaded” question. I wonder what he would have thought of the terribly open-ended one that a friend of a friend once asked me on a Saturday night at Starlight, which for years was my favorite gay bar in New York City. Surely the late Helms would have disapproved of the setting, but compared to some of the loaded ice-breaker questions I’ve been asked in similar places, this one was a winner. Maybe it was the piercing blue eyes of the med student with his arm draped over my shoulder, or the way he looked at me like he actually wanted to know my story, but I was more than thrilled to spend the next few hours telling it.

5. “Sweet [or insert other adjective] as” Speaking of things that cute guys can get away with… It’s something that hot twentysomething Aussie men say to show that they’re impressed (or perhaps not so much, but I’ve only head it used positively — and by hot twentysomething Aussie men). Sample use: “You’re going to Cape Town? That’s sweet as.” I’m not sure where it comes from, or why a simple “Cool” won’t do. (Is it an un-profane twist on “Cool as shit”?) But I’ll never get tired of being referred to as “hot as,” though the first time someone said it to me, I thought he was talking about my butt. I think Justin Timberlake should bring “sexy” back again and write a song called “Sexy As.”

6. “A que dedicas?” Literal translation: “To what are you dedicated?” It’s a formal Spanish way of asking “What do you do?” that creates the (possible) illusion that the speaker actually wants to know more about the person and not just his or her job.

7. “Aflojo” (Literal translation: “I relax.”) For those of you who think it’s woman’s work(out), Pilates is a lot tougher than you think. I can’t tell you how many Pilates classes in Buenos Aires I’ve spent praying for that one little word to come out of the mouths of my instructors (in Spanish Pilates, commands are always given in first person), letting me know that whatever torturous routine is killing me at the moment is now officially done.

8. “Good work/Nice job” Just two simple words, and totally arbitrary ones at that, but for the lazy and the procrastination prone, there might not be any greater non-monetary motivator.

9. “I’m proud of you” The flipside of “I’m disappointed in you,” the worst thing my mother ever said to me, which she thankfully hasn’t said to me since my first body piercing more than 20 years ago. Mom, who, thankfully, never skimped on “I”m proud of you,” is a large part of why I eventually let all three of my piercings — one in each ear and one in my right nostril — close up. I once read an interview with Barbra Streisand in which she lamented her difficult relationship with her own mother. The one thing she always wanted to hear her mom say, was “I’m proud.” (Diana Streisand Kind finally did, albeit grudgingly, backstage in a 1994 Vanity Fair article.) Moms and dads, those two words say so so much.

10. “You’ve been accepted/approved” For anyone impatiently waiting on a response after filling out a loan or college application (or anything else requiring an outside force to grant you a thumbs up), possibly the greatest stress reliever possible.

11. “My treat”/”It’s complimentary/on the house” My friend Marcus recently showed up at my apartment with the coolest pajamas he’d been given for free in the first-class cabin of his Sydney to Santiago Qantas flight. One can certainly buy far cheaper and nicer sleepwear for a fraction of the cost of a first-class plane ticket, but really, it’s the thought that counts, and even richer-than-God celebrities live for freebies.

12. “We’re giving you an upgrade” Unfortunately, unless you’re richer than God, have tons of frequent flier miles or friends in high places (like on staff at Qantas), or work for a generous company that’s footing the upper-class bill, you’ll probably be sleeping in your street clothes in coach.

13. “You look younger (than you are/looked two years ago)”/”You haven’t aged a bit”/”When are you going to start aging?”/”You’re like Benjamin Button!” Isn’t it funny how something that can make you groan up to around age 21 can make you glow at any point after you hit the legal drinking age in the U.S.? Those soap opera teens (Kristina Corinthos on General Hospital and, more recently, Summer Newman on The Young and the Restless) who’ve been tarting it up to attract slightly older twentysomething guys with tousled hair will be dying — and possibly Botoxing — to pull a Benjamin Button any year now.

14. Red carpet banter that doesn’t involve a young starlet saying she feels “like a princess” or any references to “old Hollywood glamor.” That’s why you’ve got to love that Jennnifer Lawrence. She’s thoroughly modern (Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly were great beauties, but can we all move on?), and it’s hard to imagine an Oscar winner who does a shot before meeting the press backstage and then salutes them with a middle finger ever comparing herself to prissy royalty.

15. “The hunter gets captured by the game” One of my favorite song titles of all-time, and one of the most sophisticated musical and lyrical statements to come out of Motown’s 1960s hit factory. Whether it’s being sung by the Marvelettes (who took the Smokey Robinson composition to No. 13 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1967), covered by Grace Jones (on her 1980 Warm Leatherette album) or Massive Attack featuring Tracey Thorn (on 1995′s Batman Forever soundtrack), or being quoted by General Hospital‘s Luke Spencer in his wedding vows to Tracy Quartermaine a few years ago, this lyrical twist that finds the player getting played is a poetic expression of poetic justice at its most just.

16. “You’ve got mail.” Remember when AOL was boss, and AOL Mail would announce that someone cared enough to write every time someone cared enough to write? The catchphrase even spawned a 1998 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy that I probably enjoyed more than I should have because I was in love at the time. I never really got into anything else about AOL Mail, always preferring Hotmail’s warmer design, but now that Hotmail has been folded into Outlook, would it be too much to ask for an end to the silent treatment when incoming mail arrives? A little bit of fanfare would be nice (or at least the option to turn it on and off)!

17. “CHOOSE LIFE” Remember when George Michael was an ardent supporter of the sentiment? Though the Wham! t-shirts with the words emblazoned across the front (always preferable, I thought, to “FRANKIE SAYS RELAX” — perhaps Frankie should have said, “AFLOJO” instead!) are as dated as Michael’s then blond-highlighted hair, the catchphrase remains as relevant as ever. When you think of the alternative, how can you not choose life?

18. “I’ve quit smoking.” What an effective way to choose life! No offense to my smoker friends. You know I love you just as much as I do the ones who don’t smoke, though I’m at a loss to explain how a nasty habit that was once practiced solely by the dregs of high school society became perfectly acceptable in respectable company only a few years later. But if all of my smoker friends were to say it (“I quit”) and mean it, maybe I’d never again have to come home smelling like an ashtray.

19. “I”m not going to be able to make it tonight.” Let me let you in on a little secret known to only one person (my friend Cara, who knows exactly where I’m coming from). I hate being the bad guy, and I hate planning nights out before the afternoon of, so unless there’s a hot guy and a hot date involved, or it’s my birthday (or party), I’m almost always secretly relieved whenever a friend calls or emails or texts to cancel. Now there goes my social life — what’s left of it!

20. “I had a great time tonight.” I know it’s against the rules of romance to play it so uncool, but texting or phoning or emailing your glowing review of our date within an hour after it’s over is the surest route to my heart — or at least another date.

21. “There is a light that never goes out.” Few songwriters in the history of rock & roll have consistently constructed songs with titles that hold as much lyrical weight as those of Morrissey (also architect, as a member of The Smiths, of “Pretty Girls Make Graves,” “Meat Is Murder” and “Barbarism Begins at Home”). Whether you want to think of that light as the burning eternal flame of love or simply as a beacon, in the throes of gloom and doom (which is generally where all Morrissey songs reside), that it never extinguishes itself remains a thoroughly comforting thought.

22. “Thank you for being a friend” I’ve seen every single episode of The Golden Girls at least 100 times at this point, but still, no other theme song in the history of television brings me more joy. “Jealousy is a very ugly thing, Dorothy. And so are you in anything backless!”

23. “Diva” Something else of which I never tire. If I were a woman, I’d want to be a  described as a “diva” (in the positive sense of the word) — or at the very least, “saucy.”

24. “I love you (too)” As Woody Allen suggested in the title of his 1996 film, everyone says it. But when they really mean it, (as the late Luther Vandross and the late Gregory Hines declared in their 1987 No. 1 R&B duet), there’s nothing better than love… sweet love. (Sing it, Anita!)

25. “Go!” It’s positive, permissive and proactive. Most of all, it means the wait is finally over. It might very well be my second-favorite word.

When Bad Spelling/Grammar Happens to Good Singles

Could it possibly get any worse than this?

What if will.i.am and Justin Bieber’s “#thatPOWER” and Mariah Carey’s “#Beautiful” kick off a new bad habit in pop: hashtag hits? Isn’t it bad enough that they’re already continuing another one: The hashtag hits are the latest in pop’s long tradition of bastardizing English with its song titles.

As usual the end results are mixed, with only Carey’s single coming close to warranting its hashtag hype. The shameless bit of built-in marketing doesn’t ruin the fact that it’s Carey’s best single in five years (since 2008, when she barely dented Billboard’s Hot 100 with “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time”). Here are some other cases where poor orthography didn’t spoil the song. (Interesting orthographical pop fact: Though few might question the grammar in the title of Tina Turner’s 1984 career-redefining hit, which is now so entrenched in our vernacular, if an English teacher were to pose the question in real life, it would be “What does love have to do with it?”)

“Ain’t That a Shame” Fats Domino/Pat Boone/Cheap Trick Have you ever heard the one about Pat Boone and how he tried to alter the title of Fats Domino’s 1955 release (which ultimately reached No. 10 on the Hot 100) to “Isn’t That a Shame” because he didn’t want bad grammar to alienate his squeaky clean (read: white) pop constituency, which sent it to No. 1 anyway? In the end, he left well enough alone — sometimes “isn’t” just doesn’t have the same ring as a well-placed “ain’t” — paving the way for the continued pop-staple status of latter. And that ain’t no shame.

“Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)” Sheena Easton Would she have had an easier time tracking down her elusive lover if she had used a telephone instead?

“Kool Thing” Sonic Youth For some reason that completely escapes me now, a friend and I recently devoted several minutes of conversation time to naming our favorite Sonic Youth song. Yes, how ’90s of us. I almost went with Sonic Youth’s 1990 first major label single as the best of Sonic Youth, but then I remembered “Bull in the Heather.”

“Hungah” Karyn White The 1994 single that ended White’s short run as a crossover pop star holds up better than I thought it would at the time.

“Grapevyne” Brownstone I wonder what the late Marvin Gaye would have done if he had heard it through the grapevyne instead.

“Da Funk” Daft Punk Considering that the French duo’s 1996 breakthrough single was an instrumental, it easily could have been called “The Funk” without missing a red-hot beat. At least they didn’t call it “Da Phunk.” No good ever comes of “Phunk” for “funk,” as The Black Eyed Peas have proven over (with 2003′s Elephunk) and over (with “Don’t Phunk with My Heart” two years later).

“Giv Me Luv” Alcatraz It’s gotta be “luv” for “love” (as Robin S. had sung three years earlier, on her 1993 single “Luv 4 Luv”), so come here, and giv it to me.

“Sexx Laws” Beck I don’t know how to explain it, but Beck’s 1999 single probably wouldn’t have sounded the same with just one “x.”

“Dirrty” Christina Aguilera featuring Redman A much better use of an extra “r” than Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” but unfortunately, pop fans thought differently. While Nelly’s dreadful 2002 anthem topped Billboard’s Hot 100, Aguilera’s valiant effort topped out at No. 48. At least the UK, once again exhibiting superior taste in pop, sent it to No. 1.(Fun fact: With her next single, Aguilera took her own “Beautiful” into the Top 3, which I suspect is right where Carey’s is headed.)

“U + Ur Hand” Pink When my iPod shuffle landed on Pink’s 2006 Top 10 hit yesterday morning, I found myself wondering wondering why “Ur” for “Your” never caught on quite like “U” for “You.” (Fun fact No. 1: Did you know that the official styling of Alecia Moore’s stage name is P!nk, another twist in proper orthography. Fun fact No. 2: A pink-coiffed Gwen Stefani once told me that she worried about the long-term prospects for a singer named after her then-hair color, meaning P!nk, who was on her first album at the time. Look who’s the one still regularly cranking out No. 1 hits more than a decade later!)

“I Would Die 4 U”/”Take Me With U”/”anotherloverholeinyohead”/”U Got the Look”/”I Wish U Heaven”/”Gett Off” Prince and “Nothing Compares 2 U” Sinead O’Connor (written by Prince) The King of Misspelled Pop certainly had a way with words — and symbols — until I started losing interest some time around Diamonds and Pearls. Few pop stars could temporarily change their moniker to an unpronounceable symbol and return to normalcy (I’ve always loved that “Prince” isn’t a delusion of grandeur — or royalty — but his actual birth name) with his reputation more or less intact. Let’s hope he’s not eyeing this hashtag trend and getting any bad ideas.

10 Random Thoughts I Had While Listening to the Top 30 on This Week’s Billboard Hot 100

No. 6: “Come and Get It” Selena Gomez As big a star as she is (with or without Justin Bieber as her arm candy), I’m surprised that it’s taken Gomez this long to finally score herself a Top 10 hit. I’ve heard far worse (like her 2011 single “Love You Like a Love Song,” which spent forever on the Hot 100 without ever rising above No. 22), but I wish it didn’t sound so much like a cold leftover from the recording sessions for Rihanna’s first album.

No. 11: “Heart Attack” Demi Lovato I still secretly wish Lovato’s second No. 10 hit (and third Top 10 overall) were a cover of Olivia Newton-John’s 1982 No. 3 single of the same name.

No. 12: “The Way” Ariana Grande featuring Mac Miller The pure-pop sound is pure 2000 (and Miller’s sweater in the video so The Cosby Show, circa 1984), and there’s no evidence here that Grande, a Broadway and Nickelodeon star making her Hot 100 debut, is a better or worse singer than the Top 20′s other two kiddie actresses-turned-pop stars, but it’s the only one of their current singles that I actually wanted to hear twice. That said, I’ll also say this: The callow, regressive pop sound of the genre’s new princesses (Gomez, Lovato and now Grande) has me praying for the swift return of some of the old ones. Come back, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, all is forgiven!

No. 15 “Get Lucky” Daft Punk featuring Pharell Williams Not only does disco not suck, but it never really went out of style. Daft Punk’s first U.S. hit single may be a highlight in the Top 30, but I miss the French duo’s Gallic electronic edge, which, to be fair, never got them higher than No. 66 on the Hot 100 (with “One More Time” in 2000).

No. 16 “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light ‘Em Up)” Fall Out Boy I was never a Fall Out Boy fan when they were huge in the mid aughts (the band’s song titles were always more interesting than the actual songs, which hasn’t changed), and I’d forgotten all about the guys before they recently resurfaced following a five-year hiatus. As comebacks go, this one is fairly whatever, but I’m glad the single’s a hit if for no other reason than that Pete Wentz can now glare at his ex Ashlee Simpson (where has she been?) and say, “Take that!”

No. 20: “#thatPOWER” will.i.am featuring Justin Bieber Here he goes again. More state-of-the-art overproduction and the biggest collaborators that money and superstardom can buy in search of an actual song. I respect will.i.am’s skill as a producer, but must everything about him be so damn pretentious, from the ridiculous spelling of his name to the hashtag in front of the title of his latest single to the complicated styling of the title itself? Is he trying to hide the fact that behind the beats, there’s actually #zer0SUBSTANCE?

No. 23: “Highway Don’t Care” Tim McGraw With Taylor Swift The man who inspired the title of her 2006 debut single brings out the best in Swift. Infinitely more listenable than “22,” two notches down.

No. 24: “#Beautiful” Mariah Carey Ugh, another hashtag. I know they’re very 2013, but shameless marketing ploys should have no place in the title of a single that probably would have hit No. 1 anyway. Still, I adore this track’s modern Motown vibe, and it’s, well, beautiful (sans hashtag) to see Carey back in the upper echelons of the Hot 100 where she belongs. But a part of me wonders why it had to be a trip for two. It’s a bit — well, maybe a lot — ageist of me, but there’s something off about seeing a 44-year-old mother of twins parading about in next to nothing next to a 27-year-old guy with a flat-ironed coif when she’s got a 32-year-old husband at home.

No. 26: “Next to Me” Emeli Sandé About a year after my friend Trudi sent me the video of this, the third single by UK sensation Sandé, it’s finally a hit in the U.S. Though it’s always nice to welcome genuine talent into the Top 30, with Sandé, I appreciate her talent more than I actually enjoy her songs. In that sense, she’s the British Alicia Keys.

No. 30 “Here’s to Never Growing Up” Avril Lavigne I know Lavigne fancies herself a true artist (because she writes her own material, and compared to pop’s princesses, she’s kind of rock & roll), but at 28, she really needs to start changing her tune. To be forever young at heart is an understandable ambition, but “Complicated” was 11 years ago, and she’s pushing 30 now. Is she still spelling “Sk8er Boi” with a numeral and an “i”? Guess what? Time to grow up — at least in song. Leave the sentiments of being 22 to someone who actually is, like Taylor Swift.

Gays Against Gay Marriage: Why They’ve Got It All Wrong

At some point, possibly within the next lifetime, if not in mine, people will probably look back at the gay-marriage debate and ask, ” What were they thinking?” That gays were once legally barred from calling their civil unions “marriage” will seem as unfathomable as the idea of women not being able to vote or a world without Facebook.

In the meantime, the debate continues, with some unexpected players popping up on both sides. President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama have been openly endorsing it at least since last year’s National Democratic Convention. And notice how many straight rappers now publicly support gay marriage, from Jay-Z to Eminem to 50 Cent to Snoop Dogg to T.I. to Macklemore, who along with his DJ/producer partner Ryan Lewis, recorded “Same Love,” a No. 1 Australian hit, in favor of it.

As the United States inches closer to nationwide enlightenment and legalization of gay marriage — on May 14, Minnesota became the 12th state to go there (13th, if you count Washington D.C.) — some dissenters refuse to let their increasingly outdated opposition go. Shockingly, a significant number of them are the very people who would benefit from it, though those gay detractors beg to differ. I saw several attempting to explain themselves once on an episode of Rick Lake’s talk show, and some prominent ones I’ve never heard of shared their points of view in the 2010 book Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage.

I know the title was supposed to be ironic. They don’t actually think they are “against” equality, but really, by associating themselves with a movement that’s long been a platform for homophobia and intolerance, they are. That’s the point of this post/rant.

The first time I ever heard the anti-gay marriage argument coming from a gay person, it went a little something like this: In making gay marriage the gay cause, it sends the message that marriage should be the end game for any self-respecting gay person, creating a new generation of gay youth who grow up obsessing over it, thinking it’s the only way to true human bliss. Opposing it is for their (gay youth’s) own greater good. While the idea of hundreds, thousands (millions?) of gay bridezillas-in-training gives me a headache, it’s a pretty weak reason to deny gay people access to the same deluded upbringing as straight people.

I, for one, don’t want what I can and cannot do to be dictated by the psychological effect it may or may not have on young people I don’t even know. By that same argument, should women’s rights groups start lobbying against straight marriage because too many young girls grow up dreaming about their perfect fairytale wedding? I no more get that mindset than I do the institution of marriage in general, but it’s not for me to get.

Someone I know once made the argument that gay people can enjoy more or less all the rights and benefits of married people — all that’s missing is the word “marriage.” That’s it exactly. If “civil unions” offer the same rights and benefits as “marriage,” then why not just call them “marriages.” Suggesting that they shouldn’t be — whether for reasons that revolve around tradition, history or religion — is tantamount to suggesting that gay relationships are somehow less valid than straight ones. It’s the principle that counts, and principles count.

It’s like the episode of Frasier in which Frasier and Niles kept trying to upgrade their membership in an exclusive club. Every time they advanced one level, they’d hear about a higher one and desperately want in. Although at some point, the benefits between levels became fairly commensurate, only they were offered in different sections, Frasier and Niles wanted to go higher. Weren’t they just as good as the people beyond the wall? They deemed the other side higher because they were restricted from it, and ultimately ended up in an alley next to a garbage bin.

I’m not saying that the state of holy matrimony is a bunch of trash (though, in general, I don’t think that much more highly of it), but that’s how gay people feel about the “marriage” that is still denied to them in 38 states and in countries around the world. It might be little more than a title at this point, but denying them that title suggests that they aren’t worthy of it, and like Frasier and Niles, they are left stranded — segregated — on the other side. Why aren’t all of these anti-gay marriage gay lobbyists carping about the damage that’s doing to the collective psyche of young gay people? It’s basically telling them that their relationships are inferior to straight people’s, not worthy of equal recognition in the eyes of the law.

Where have I heard something similar before? In the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown Vs. Board of Education in which the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, tried to make the argument that it was okay to segregate black students from white students in learning facilities that were separate but equal. That “separate but equal” spin didn’t fly with black people then — nor with the Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently inequal” — and it shouldn’t fly with any gay person with any intellectual capacity.

I’ve also heard the argument that the nature and dynamics of straight relationships and gay relationships are different (duh!), and the straight institution of marriage simply doesn’t fit into gay culture. Now let’s consider this for a second. For decades, gay people have been saying to homophobic straight people, “What happens in our bedroom is none of your business!” So is what happens in those bedrooms, in those relationships, the concern of gay-marriage opponents, whether straight or gay? If you don’t want your relationship to be defined by “straight” ideals, don’t let it. But stay out of mine. In the end, it feels like politicking for the sake of politicking, with no discernible goal beyond distancing gay romance from straight romance, which feels like stepping backward instead of forward.

More and more people around the world are realizing that regardless of where you stand on marriage or on gay people, there just isn’t any rational reason to continue denying gay people the same institution of marriage, along with the same title, that straight people enjoy. As Eminem once wisely said, “I think everyone should have the chance to be equally miserable, if they want.”

Well, perhaps not completely miserable, for there are great benefits to marriage, which is the only reason why some straight people choose to enter into it. I might actually be able to get behind a general anti-marriage movement on the grounds that “marriage” discriminates against single people, who aren’t afforded the same financial and immigration breaks as married people. It’s an outdated institution whose symbolic significance has been cheapened by the sheer number of people who casually enter and exit it. But it feels unfair and wrong to single out gay marriage as the greater of two evils.

Those who are content with their “civil unions” and/or have no interest in walking down the aisle are free not to. I, for one, have no interest in ever being a groom, but that doesn’t mean I won’t dance at my best friend’s wedding and maybe even catch the bouquet. If gay people are going to demand the right to privacy when it comes to what goes on in their bedrooms, they need to extend the same courtesy to what goes on in other people’s relationships and how people choose to legally define them. In this case, hypocrisy and bigotry may be separate vices, but their end results are equally intolerable.

Thoughts on Horror Fiction: Can Words Scare the Crap Out of Me?

I’ve got to hand it to Stephen King. I’ve never read one of his books, and bits and pieces of Carrie, The Shining and Dolores Claiborne and all of Stand By Me and Misery aside, I’ve skipped the film and TV adaptations of his work, possibly because being scared has never been my idea of a blast, even when it’s someone else whose life and limbs are in danger.

Although I’ve had such minimal exposure to the best of King, I now have a newfound appreciation for what he does best. It started with an offhand comment by my friend Marcus, who, at my request, had just read the synopsis for my book. He enjoyed it (much to my relief), which, he pointed out, was not necessarily a given beforehand because he tends to like to read, in his words, “physics and horror” only.

My first thought was that there can’t possibly be anything scarier than reading a book about physics. Even more so than chemistry, my second-worst subject in school, physics always went straight over my head. I couldn’t imagine reading a book about it for fun, much less understanding it, but I’m glad that Marcus does. The knowledge gleaned from his leisure scientific reading — like, I imagine, all that arcane stuff about the properties of AC adapters that stopped me from having to buy a new one for my laptop yesterday — occasionally comes in handy in my everyday life.

But horror? The horror! I knew that scary books existed, but I’d never before really stopped to think about it as a literary genre, particularly from a writer’s point of view. What a frightening undertaking that must be! I’ve spent the last year trying to master the art of writing narrative non-fiction, foreign territory for a journalist trained in news and feature writing. That was difficult enough, but I can’t even begin to imagine how tough it must be to scare the shit out of someone with only words at your disposal. What would Wes Craven do?!

I recall a scene from The Golden Girls in which Rose was trying to frighten the girls in her Sunshine Cadet troop by telling them a spooky story during a camp out. The girls were thoroughly unterrified. It was possibly because the camp out was actually a camp in, taking place in the middle of the Golden Girls living room, but I always thought it had more to do with this: In order to be scared by something in a story, you had to see it — or not see it, since onscreen, what’s implied is often far scarier than what actually happens — to be afraid of it.

I’ve always considered horror to be primarily a visual medium, one that’s never really appealed to me in movie form — and with the exception of Curve’s “Horror Head,” Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash” and David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), but not Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” a song whose appeal I never really understood, not in music form either.

It’s not because I’m a film snob or anything (though I admit that I am). It might not be my thing, but I have complete respect for the horror genre. Still, I can live without ever having to spend another 90 minutes to two hours watching a screen through my fingers, terrified of sudden slashing movements and things that go bump in the still of the night.

I’m such a wimp when it comes to fright flicks. I once had to call my friend Dave and tell him to come over while I was in the middle of watching Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which isn’t even a horror movie, because I was certain things wouldn’t end well for Diane Keaton. I couldn’t bear to see what Richard Gere or Tom Berenger or some other scary monster (and super creep) might do to her while I was sitting alone in my New York City apartment on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I was a grown man in my 30s at the time, so imagine how traumatic it must have been for me to be 7 years old and watching The Omen for the first time in 1976 on HBO. To this day, it still qualifies as the scariest thing I’ve ever seen onscreen.

It might be the reason why the only true horror movie I can recall ever going to see in the theater was A Nightmare on Elm Street (directed by the aforementioned Wes Craven), which I went to see eight years later with a group of work friends from the Publix Supermarket at Mill Creek Mall in Kissimmee, Florida. Mostly I went for the honor of sitting in the dark next to a colleague I had a crush on named Barbara. She’s the only reason why I got to see Johnny Depp in his first screen role.

But now that I think about it, would The Omen (and the less horrorfying Damien: Omen II two years later) have had the effect it had on me if I’d skipped the movie and just read the book, which was written after The Omen was filmed but before its June 1976 release? Sure the Biblical Book of Revelation was always good for jolt when I was forced to read any of it in church as a kid, but its words would have been far less scary had I not bought them at the time as the future of the world. I’m not sure that The Omen would have given me terrifying nightmares well into my teens had I just read about Damien’s antics instead of seeing them played out in full color onscreen.

I’ll probably never know. I have no intention of ever reading the book, or any other book that’s intended to frighten me into a state of extreme entertainment. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be over here where it’s safe, re-reading The Great Gatsby before diving into the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

Why “Nashville” and “Smash” Have Me Wondering About My Psychic Powers

Two recent episodes of two of the major-network TV shows that I watch religiously (the just-renewed Nashville and the just-canceled Smash) got me thinking: Either television has become way too predictable in its old age, or in mine, I spend so much time watching it (usually on my laptop) that it no longer has the capacity to catch me off guard.

(Regarding Smash‘s cancellation and Nashville‘s renewal, both of which were announced on May 10, is there only room in prime-time for one musical featuring original songs and dueling divas, one sugar and spice, dark-haired, and in love with a recovering something, the other troubled and bitchy, blonde, and constantly at odds with an overbearing mother? Make that two. It just dawned on me that I almost could be writing about Rachel and Quinn on Glee, too, if the high school musical had fewer covers, and we included Rachel portrayer Lea Michele’s real-life relationship with rehabbing Cory Monteith.)

I generally know what’s coming up on my beloved daytime soap operas because I never let a weekend go by without scouring the various soap websites in search of spoilers for the coming week’s episodes. With prime-time TV, however, I’m generally spoiler free. When the “unexpected” happens, I should be just as surprised as the characters. Unfortunately for the part of me who likes to be shocked by an unforeseen turn of fictional events, they’ve been rare lately, with two recent sequences in particular making me wonder if my psychic/predictive properties are really all in my head.

One of them involved two hot guys on a couch on the May 1 episode of Nashville. For me, it wasn’t wishful thinking, bad acting or amateurish writing that screamed where the scene was headed. Well, maybe it was a little of the former, but both Sam Palladio (as Gunnar) and Chris Carmack (as Will) played the beats expertly, and the writing on Nashville is as high caliber as its original music. Speaking from personal experience, I can say the build up to the attempted kiss, in both the acting and the writing, perfectly captured the awkwardness of the pre-plunge sofa moment, even when the two couch potatoes/players involved are out and proud. That it felt so familiar may have been part of the reason why I was so certain what would happen next. (If you haven’t seen it, or want to see it again, click here.)

But I went into the scene with my suspicions already in place because of what had begun to transpire in the previous episode. From the moment Gunnar and Will took that joyride across the railroad tracks, rocking the dynamic of their bromance, I knew it wasn’t going to end well. It’s not that I would immediately expect a reckless driver/daredevil to be a closet case. It’s just that it became clear that Will wasn’t what he seemed to be. The last time that happened with a TV Will (young Mr. Horton, on Days of Our Lives), he lost his girl and eventually ended up with a guy. There was no place for Gunnar and Will’s increasingly intimate friendship to go but under the bus.

Which, for all we know, may have been what did in Kyle at the end of the April 27 episode of Smash — a bus. That episode, incidentally, was the first of the entire series, which will air for the final time on May 26, to feature an original song I actually wanted to hear twice: “Don’t Let Me Know,” performed by Katharine McPhee and Jeremy Jordan.

More likely, it was a car that sped into Kyle since anyone who’s ridden a New York City bus knows they rarely move fast enough to do that kind of damage. From the minute poor Kyle started singing Jeff Buckley’s “The Last Goodbye,” I knew the song would be his. Even if the camera hadn’t kept panning to his feet signaling something momentous to come, I would have made the death connection because Andy Mientus’s first big Smash number happened to be a song by a singer-songwriter who died tragically and too young.

It’s too bad Mientus had to go just as his character was being given a personality beyond being Jimmy’s keeper. In the previous episode, he’d suddenly morphed from saint into sinner, and in his post-mortem episode, he ironically got more screen time than he had during his entire time on the show, doling out words of wisdom like the stereotypical wise gay BFF. Who knew he and Julia (Debra Messing) had become such close confidantes off-screen?

The writers didn’t have to go out of their way to make Kyle sympathetic again after the brief character assassination that found him cheating with Tom. I, for one, still liked him, and found him to be a far more engaging character than the insufferable Jimmy, which is no offense to Jeremy Jordan, who is a fine actor and singer, though not wholly convincing as a tortured straight twentysomething male.

Unfortunately, to make us — and every character on the show — feel sorry for Jimmy and crowd into his corner, they had to give him something truly worth pounding his fists over while railing at the unjustness of it all. Exit Kyle.

I prefer the way Nashville handled the fallout from its own gayish plot twist to the Saint Kyle flashbacks on Smash. I like that Gunnar, though clearly spooked by Will’s amorous advances, hasn’t been a homophobic asshole about it. Though some of his actions lately have put the ass in front of hole, he’s generally a pretty decent guy. As for Will, his morning-after behavior — a mix of shame and denial — felt completely real. He did exactly what I probably would have done if I had found myself walking in his cowboy boots. (When in doubt or just plain ol’ embarrassed, blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol!)

Now here’s a bit of definite wishful thinking: I’d love for Nashville to pursue a Gunnar/Scarlett/Will triangle, with Gunnar, not Scarlett, as the grand prize. I’d buy Will as bisexual, and Gunnar and Scarlett could certainly use more interesting relationship drama than the his career vs. her career stuff that broke up her and Avery. What if Gunnar’s response was so ambiguous, never quite crossing over into full-on jerk mode, partly because he’s a decent guy and partly because he’s not so sure how he feels about Will?

It would be daring, it would be sexy, and it would convince me that I do indeed have the power to predict the future on TV.