This week was a socio-politial blur! That's why we need to do a quick review of what happened the past few days.

You know, it's like we all got on a new ride in a new amusement park and discovered that the roller coaster was a little more . . . extreme than we had anticipated.

When we first hopped on, it was, "This is going to be so fucking great! Can you believe this? Wooo!" So much excitement as the roller coaster car started moving forward. You know those ones that you loudly and mechanically climb up and up, and when you get to the top you pause, still? And when you reach the pinnacle, you feel like you can see the clean curve of the earth, and the unveiled beauty of the quiet world is suspended, motionless, right there with you for one long gorgeous moment? And you think, "This really is fucking amazing!"

But then you suddenly remember the other side, and then you start falling and falling and getting rag-dolled from one side of the dangerously rickety car to the other? And the nauseating ride goes on and on, and you sink farther and farther down the dirty seat of the car until you become terrified of falling completely out of the car like that one Tennessee girl you read about? And all you can hear is the wind ripping at your ears and a few faint shrieks coming from somewhere behind you, so you hold on even tighter, with bruised hands, to the thing that is actually responsible for ruining your life?

Yeah, that was kind of how this week was . . . .

So, let's do that quick review of the best and the worst of the week because it's Last Call at AKA William:

The first glowing reviews for "Milk" come in

What happens to all of Obama's leftover campaign money?

Pork's Listen Up (New Music Tuesday)

A different kind of race -- What if McCain were black?

Superbarack kicks some supervillain ass!

Gays know just what Nene of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" feels like

Jon Stewart: "Your gay friends hate you"

Bittersweet win -- Obama elected, gay marriage taken away

Civil Rights take a hit: Prop 8 passes

Is your straight friend really gay? The sure-fire way to find out.

Pork's Chart Attack: Billboard News & Moves

Design e2: The PBS series rethinks architcture and how we inhabit cities

Thousands protest gay marriage ban in California

Rachel Maddow nears sainthood -- no kidding. She deserves her very own halo.

Probably the worst news of the week -- Racial slurs fly at Prop 8 protest.

And here is a list of the Prop 8 protests happening all over CA this weekend

I was afraid this would happen. This is awful. Rod 2.0 is reporting that during the recent protest in front of the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood, some white anti-Prop 8 protestors began using the N-word against the people of color also at the protest:

The recent passage of California's Proposition 8 has exposed some of the latent racism of many within the LGBT community . . . Unfortunately the "blame the blacks" meme is being commonly accepted by some so-called "progressive" gay activists. A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected to taunts, threats and racist abuse at last night's marriage equality rally in Los Angeles.

Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice. "It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them."

More after the jump.

Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8signs and still subjected to racial abuse. "Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, 'Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!' A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were 'very disappointed with black people' and 'how could we' after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn't matter because 'most black people hated gays and he was 'wrong' to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.'

. . . There is more than enough blame to go around—the homophobia of the black church, lack of outreach by mainstream LGBT organizations, reluctance by the Obama campaign, many blacks gays and lesbians in the closet, deep pockets of the social conservatives, take your pick . . . . "

Read the entire article over at Rod 2.0. Something needs to be done about this and quick. I'll update this post as new information comes in.

Conservative NYT Op-Ed columnist David Brooks believes in change, too

Republicans are still saying it wasn't that bad of a loss? Congressman John Boehner is.

Two gay Obama supporters assaulted near White House on election night

Amid Rising Unemployment, A Few Bright Spots for Job Seekers

Because you can never have too much Rachel, here is Rachel Maddow on The Colbert Report talking about Keith Olbermann via The Daily Beast. How's that for an impressive feat of information wrangling?

A 1:46 clip of Obama's first press conference. In this clip he discusses the economy.

Obama really is recreating the world! Does this dog say "Obama?"

MP Iris Robinson, not related to Bishop Gene Robinson who won a Stonewall award for "Hero of the Year," voted "Bigot of the Year" at Stonewall Awards

A possible cure for AIDS:The startling case of an AIDS patient who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease.

Melissa Etheridge says: "You can forget my taxes"

The 50 skills every geek needs

Ted Casablanca's "Blind Vice": As we have made abundantly clear, there are a ton of closeted gay actors and performers in this business. Some are more flagrant (Toothy Tile) than others (Crotch Uh-Lastic).

HBO to air Obama documentary in 2009

Venus beats Serena in the quarters of the year-end Championships, Serena pulls out of tournament

LGBT Activists protest Simpson's episode? Aren't there more important things to worry about right now?

After Elton's "Best.Gay.Week.Ever" reviews everything gay

How can you not be deeply in love with Rachel Maddow? I mean, the whole world is! She's everywhere, and she deserves to be. From her interview in the new issue of The Advocate:

Rachel Maddow’s not only bringing thinking back to TV news, she’s assuring herself a spot on the Mount Rushmore of broadcasting, right next to Murrow, Cronkite, and Brokaw.

. . . Maddow clearly knows what she’s talking about, but she speaks plainly, with the familiar pop-culture dialect used in real-people discussions at the bar; she described the presidential debates as “non sequitur-y” and used the jack-o’-lantern to illustrate the economy’s collapse by comparing Lehman Bros. bigwigs to kids who gorge themselves sick on Halloween candy. When exposing the rhetoric and outright lies of politicians, she ditches courtroom-style accusations for barely contained mirth. She’s sarcastic, but not bitingly so, and everyone is in on the joke—even those from whom she’s gleefully demanding honesty. Whether by nature or keen observation, she’s broken from both the holier-than-thou and gloom-and-doom approaches to punditry and offers something different: truth, with a twist. She’s now the go-to gal for people too embarrassed to admit they were getting much of their news from Jon Stewart.

More after the jump.

Even more exciting than having achieved this level of success as an out lesbian is the fact that her intelligence, wit, and fresh take on politics have overshadowed the fact that she’s an out lesbian.

. . . There, over a perfectly made old-fashioned, Maddow -- out, proud, and unafraid to go head-to-talking-head with far-right Republican Pat Buchanan -- shows the first sign of not being completely at home in the spotlight. “I feel lucky to have all this attention and all of these people wanting to talk to me about what I’m doing,” she says. “The only hesitation I have is that I’m not interested in media about media. I feel like I sometimes struggle to be interesting in talking about how I got here.”

. . . That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon. Not only is Maddow in demand for being a sign of positive change, but she’s dedicated to being an agitator for truth. “I’m trying to make an uproar,” she says. “I’m at least trying to make jokes. If you talk about something in a funny way, people think about it.

Read the full Advocate interview here. I swear, I am moments away from converting to lesbianism. Moments. (And I gotta say that I called her success explosion weeks and weeks ago!)

Yglesias argues against the notion that gays pressed too hard and too fast for marriage by calling upon the judicial rather than the legislative branch to legalize gay marriage:

That aside, granting the backlash hypothetically, I never quite understand what the upshot of this sort of analysis is. Say you’re living your life with your partner and you want to get married. But then the local legal authorities tell you that you can’t get married. That seems like unfair discrimination to you, so you inquire with an attorney. The attorney says, yes, your state has never allowed a man to be legally wed to another man, but he agrees with you that it’s unfair. And not just unfair, illegal, a violation of your state constitution’s guarantees of equal rights. So you sue! Then the case comes before a judge and the judge thinks, yeah, the local authorities’ action is a violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. Is the judge supposed to rule against you even though he thinks your case has merits, offering as his reasoning “it would be counterproductive to the long-term political strategy of the gay rights movement for me to offer the ruling I believe to be correct”? That doesn’t sound right.

The "True Blood" vlog "Blood Work" is late coming out this week (I think everyone is suffering from post-election fatigue), but it's worth checking out if you want to feel fully prepared for this Sunday's new episode. The Blood Work vlog really is the best breakdown of each episode of "True Blood." Um, but in this episide, just go ahead and ignore the whole cat thing. This episode runs about 13 minutes.

Via No on H8 -- A list of upcoming Prop 8 protests:

FRIDAY
No On Prop 8 Peaceful Protest & Candlelight Vigil - Palm Springs, Friday 11/7 5pm Palm Springs City Hall, 3200 Tahquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs

No On Prop 8 Protest March - San Francisco, Friday 11/7 5:30pm
From Civic Center, Market & 7th Streets, San Francisco, March will continue to Delores Park.

No On Prop 8 Candlelight Vigil - Merced, Friday 11/7 6pm
Veterans Park On M Street, Merced, contact: Leslie or Eileen, PLFLAG Merced 209-725-1140

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Long Beach, Friday 11/7 7pm
Starts at E. Redondo Avenue & Broadway, Long Beach, Continues to Junipero & Broadway by 7:30, ending at Broadway & Alimitos (Hamburger Mary's).

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - San Diego, Friday 11/7 9pm
Balboa Park, San Diego, Marching to City Hall

SATURDAY
Inland Empire NO on Prop 8 After Rally - Rancho Cucamonga, Saturday 11/8 11am Heritage Park, 5546 Beryl Street, Rancho Cucamonga
Please bring a chair with you! Contact: Patrick Milliner, NO on Prop 8: patrickmilliner@yahoo.com

No On Prop 8 Protest - San Diego/Hillcrest, Saturday 11/8 12noon
1st & University, San Diego. Marching to 30th in North Park.

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Huntington Beach, Saturday 11/8 2pm
Huntington Beach Pier, Huntington Beach

No On Prop 8 Protest March & Vigil - Laguna Beach, Saturday 11/8 5:30pm City Hall 505 Forest Avenue, Laguna Beach. Marching to Main Beach

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Los Angeles/Silverlake, Saturday, 11/8 6pm. Gather at Sunset Junction, corner of Sunset & Santa Monica Blvds., Silver Lake

SUNDAY
No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Sacramento, Sunday 11/9 1-4pm
Capitol Building (west steps), Sacramento, West Steps of the State Capitol. Rally. Speakers. Show up and be proud. Bring Signs, Wear Protest Shirts. People from SF will be showing up at the West Steps to show support with us.

No On Prop 8 Candlelight Vigil - Rancho Santa Margarita, Sunday 11/9 5-8pm Lake Santa Margarita, Santa Margarita Pkwy, Rancho Santa Margarita, Contact: teenageanthem@gmail.com

LATER THIS MONTH
No On Prop 8 Protest - Irvine, Thursday 11/13 4:30pm
Corner of Campus & Culver Drive, Irvine, Marching to Culver & Alton.

No On Prop 8 Peaceful Protest & Candlelight Vigil - Long Beach, Saturday 11/29 7pm, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

Got a "No On Prop 8" event you want to publicize? Need more info?
Go to No on H8.

Model Bruno Rosendo.

Click thumbnails to enlarge. And there are three bonus NSFW-ish pics after the jump.

Last night, I came across the "Design e2" series on PBS narrated by Brad Pitt. It's not a new series, but I hadn't seen it before. And I had never thought about architecture in quite the way it was presented in last night's episode. Thinking of a city as "the most energy-saving device man has ever created" from a human energy expenditure standpoint never even crossed my mind. But now that it has, I can't stop thinking about it.

People merged, congregated, and built cities because it helped them expend less energy, it helped them survive. And the older a city, the more energy-efficient it is, human energy-wise. And the newer cities, the ones built around a car culture are necessarily less easy for humans to navigate on foot.

This makes me think about how so much of what we do is, at its core, motivated by something as simple and basic as self-preservation.

Via the AP:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- . . . The ballot measure passed Tuesday, which was sponsored by a coalition of religious and social conservative groups, amends the California Constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual act. It overides a state Supreme Court ruling that briefly gave same-sex couples the right to wed.

The protest came amid questions about whether attempts to overturn the prohibition can succeed and whether the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California over the past four months are in any danger.

For Cody Krebs, 27, four months was not enough time to fulfill his "intense hope" to marry one day; he and his boyfriend have been together for little more than a year, so they aren't ready to wed.

On Thursday, Krebs dodged eggs hurled at protesters from an apartment building. He said he'd seen worse growing up in Salt Lake City.

"It's important to come out like this because it gets the gay community into the public eye," Krebs said. "I feel like this has started a lot of conversations that had to get started."

The demonstration began outside the temple in the Westwood section of Los Angeles and noisily spilled through the western side of the city, with chants of "Separate church and state" and "What do we want? Equal rights." Some protesters waved signs saying "No on H8" or "I didn't vote against your marriage," and many equated the issue with the civil rights struggle.

Two people were arrested after a confrontation between the crowd and an occupant of a pickup truck that had a banner supporting Proposition 8. One demonstrator ended up with a bloody nose in the fracas. Seven arrests occurred during Los Angeles-area street marches late Wednesday.

Via Pink News, the only openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion, Gene Robinson, has spoken of his joy at the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States:

In an interview with PinkNews.co.uk he said that the new President-elect, the first African-American to reach the highest office in the United States, was a symbol of healing.

"I am just so excited as most of America is," he said . . . "I think he is the genuine article - he is who he seems to be."

. . . Bishop Robinson may be at the top of the Episcopalian Church, as American Anglicans are known, but he grew up as a poor child in the racist southern states of America.

"I remember a world of separate drinking fountains and segregated movie theatres," he told PinkNews.co.uk. "Barack's election is healing not just for the African-American community but for the white community as well.

Anglican leaders have sought a compromise with traditionalists over the acceptance of gay priests and the blessings of same-sex relationships, while Bishop Robinson has been a clear and consistent voice for gay people.

Bishop Robinson has been nominated for Hero of the Year at the Stonewall Awards being held in London.

Wake Up To These:

The Rachel Maddow Show 11/06 PM
1) Has the GOP hit rock bottom? 2) Voters say, "Smoking weed is okay, gay marriage is not" 3) Are Obama appointments reflecting change? 4) Late election results from Maddow as "Chuck Todd"

The New York Times:
NYT The Ethicist 11/07 (4:24)
NYT The Front Page 11/07 (4:53)

NPR:
Tell Me More
Stories: 1) Kenyans Find Glory in Obama 2) Obama Win Changes Perceptions Abroad 3) Civil Rights Elder Sees Dream Come True 4) A Taste Of Success

The Slate Explainer:
The Presidential Transition FAQ
Does the president-elect get to ride around in Air Force One-elect? And other questions . . . .

Audio player after the jump. Or click here to launch the player in a new window so you can browse while you listen. Or, head over to The Media Bar and listen there.

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Daily Song:
This Week's #1 Dance Airplay
Ercola feat. Daniella
“Every Word”
Check out the rest of the #1s on Pork's Chart Attack

Television:
"The Comeback"
Valerie Cherish sings "I Will Survive"
My friends, this is a double-dose of inspiration.

Movies:
"Everything You Wanted to Know About Gay Pornstars But Were Afraid to Ask": The series, directed by John Roecker (Live Freaky! Die Freaky!), will take you on a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of some of gay adult cinema’s hottest talents. Among the current and former porn stars featured on the series will be Johnny Hazzard, Brad Benton, Nick Capra, Jason Hawke, Nick Piston and Jason Ridge. (Video safe for work, the audio not so much)

Politics:
It's been a Kotecki kind of week. Whenever I get down or feel bad or wonder if I've made the right career choice, I can count on Politico's James Kotecki to inspire me to put aside my own troubles and focus on the the less fortunate, like James Kotecki.



Music Video:
Tracy Chapman
"Fast Car"
"Talkin' 'bout a Revolution"
We're gonna have two music videos today because when I was doing dishes last night, I got to thinking about Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." Probably because of its mix of hope and sadness, knowing that you deserve better. And then I got a little pissed and started thinking another Tracy Chapman song, "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution." So I'm serving up both.

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.


Daily Song:

This Week's #1 Dance Airplay
Ercola feat. Daniella
“Every Word”
Check out the rest of the #1s on Pork's Chart Attack

Television:

"The Comeback"
Lisa Kudrow as Valerie Cherish sings "I Will Survive"
My friends, this is a double-dose of inspiration.

Politics:

It's been a Kotecki kind of week. Whenever I get down or feel bad or wonder if I've made the right career choice, I can count on Politico's James Kotecki to inspire me to put aside my own troubles and focus on the the less fortunate, like James Kotecki.

Movies:

Everything You Wanted to Know About Gay Pornstars But Were Afraid to Ask: The series, directed by John Roecker (Live Freaky! Die Freaky!), will take you on a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of some of gay adult cinema’s hottest talents. Among the current and former porn stars featured on the series will be Johnny Hazzard, Brad Benton, Nick Capra, Jason Hawke, Nick Piston and Jason Ridge. (Video safe for work, the audio not so much)

Music Video:

Tracy Chapman
"Fast Car"
We're gonna have two music videos today because when I was doing dishes last night, I got to thinking about Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." Probably because of its mix of hope and sadness, knowing you deserve better. And then I got a little pissed and started thinking another Tracy Chapman song, "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution." So I'm serving up both.



Tracy Chapman
"Talkin' 'bout A Revolution"