Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

Finished Price + Murdoch's Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court last week. Highly enlightening, and highly readable. It reminds me a lot of Randy Shilts' work, in that it's so painstakingly researched, but yet still so accessable to the non-authority (and when it comes to law, I definitely am a non-authority). Without doubt the best work of non-fiction I've read this year. Speaking of Shilts, after dinner/before a movie with Chas last week, we saw the last half of the HBO Films version of And the Band Played On. Fuck. That's one of the very few films which has the ability to make me cry. Matthew Modine's performance is nothing short of phenomenal. Why haven't more people seen this?! I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: I empathize with the Reagans, I really do. Seeing my Grandma's decline due to Alzheimer's shows me that it can't be easy for anyone. But. I will not cry, nor gnash my teeth, with our former President dies. Because he has the blood of countless thousands of Americans on his hands, Americans who died of AIDS while he did NOTHING, not even uttering the acronym publicly until 1987. And not even death will wash that blood away, a blood to match the red of Nancy's Adolfo suits.

My train reading over the weekend was Timothy James Beck's He's the One, a fluffy cupcake of a big gay novel. A fun read, no aftertaste, but no real nutritional value, either. [Fun fact: TJB is actually four people.]