Two fun facts.

#1
"There are only two things more beautiful than a gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere. Ever had a good...Swiss watch?"

- Cherry Valance (John Ireland), Red River, 1948

Seeing these sexy dudes size up each other's guns made the Duke feel all funny inside.

#2

At the start of filming for the 1948 Howard Hawks film Red River (which I reluctantly watched and thoroughly enjoyed thanks to the great Roberto), there was concern that John Wayne and Montgomery Clift would not get along due to their matching outspokenness on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They agreed to steer clear of politics on set, but Wayne and Walter Brennan both made it a point to avoid Clift off-camera because he was a known homosexual. Shit really hit the fan when a rumor made it to the Duke that Monty was having an affair with John Ireland, at which point the Santa Ana Airport's namesake actually lobbied to have his costar fired.

So I can be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting that John Wayne made some (some!) really good films, but I maintain that the guy was a complete jerk-off. 

Thank you, Public Enemy.

"Pow, you're dead." (1932-2011)

The Westboro Baptists have come to serve some practical purposes in American society, not least of which is to paradoxically confer honor on their declared foes. If you've earned a Westboro Baptist picket line at your funeral, you're okay by me.

So the fact that they've announced their intention to picket Elizabeth Taylor's funeral shouldn't just elicit anger. Rather, it should enable us to chip away at the patina of celebrity craziness with which Taylor's been tarnished for at least as long as I can remember.

Also: damn, she was pretty!

Many of the people most repulsed by the Westboro Baptists today seem to have conveniently forgotten that for a while back when they lived in Reaganland it was perfectly acceptable and quite common to talk about AIDS much as the Phelps family does now: as God's punishment for the abomination of homosexuality, or at least as the natural consequence incurred by a population for living in sin. And while most everyone else with a high profile was either maintaining a cowardly silence or running in the opposite direction, Taylor came out and voiced her unequivocal support for a segment of the population whose suffering was for most Americans little more than the butt of tasteless jokes.

So child star, addict, alcoholic, home-wrecker, serial monogamist, odd religious convert, narcissist who did and said some crazy things in that long strange second half of her life--whatever. Dame Elizabeth has earned her Westboro tribute, and whatever else one might say about her career or her very public personal life, that gets a tip of the hat from this humble blogger.

Bigots and brains.

Last week, Iowa psychiatrist and Republican Congressional candidate Pat Bertroche advocated tagging illegal immigrants with microchips.

This week psychologist and Christian crusader against the disease of homosexuality, George Rekers, got caught with a male prostitute. It's like clockwork with these family values guys.

In his own defense, Mr. Rekers told the popular gay blog Joe. My. God. that he was--like Jesus--hanging out with a sinner so as to convince him of the error of his ways and nurse him back to spiritual health. That doesn't exactly match the original story that the good doctor didn't know "Lucien" was even gay, that the young man was hired as a "travel assistant" to carry luggage, but I guess Rekers could have come to the realization of what had happened and then clicked into salvation mode.  I suppose that he might have initially missed the fact that rentboy.com is a website for finding "rentboys." And hey, maybe he thinks it's normal for a luggage carrier to advertise that he has a "perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)."

I'm sure this is just a big misunderstanding.