A Big Gay Victory?: The Chance to Spend $25K on a “Fairy Tale Wedding”

I am a huge proponent of equal rights for our nation’s many, many gay citizens and have long been both appalled and embarrassed by the shameful and pointless refusal to grant homosexuals equal rights. So needless to say, I was thrilled to hear this morning of a major victory for the rainbow coalition. Disneyland, a place perhaps more symbolic of America than any other, will now welcome the gay population with open arms, allowing them to emerge from behind closed doors so that they too may marry in public display of saccharine overspending in the Magic Kingdom.

So let me get this straight: A shocking number of Americans persist in the belief that homosexuality is a horrible, evil affliction curable by a stay at some sort of summer camp. Not even the most liberal of politicians will find some balls and openly embrace gay marriage. Homosexuals are legally unable to visit their sick or dying partners in the hospital, and when their partners do die, they face estate and inheritance issues that straight couples will never have to deal with. If a gay person falls in love with a foreigner, the only sure way that they can be guaranteed a life together is to defraud the government with a sham straight marriage. Clearly flaming celebrities persist in the belief that it is better to live a public lie than risk the damage that coming out would do to their careers, despite the fact that a) there are openly gay entertainers who are very successful and b) they are silently reinforcing the homophobia that they themselves so fear.

Michel Foucault (who was gay, and is my hero – the two are unrelated) had a theory that society deals with that which it finds most threatening and objectionable by absorbing it into the mainstream and neutering it. As usual, he has a point. When people say “But look at how much more accepted gays are today!”, what the fuck are they talking about? Sure, there are the aforementioned openly gay celebs and gay characters on tv shows. But think of the elision between the depiction of straight romance in the media and that of gay. Gay sex is neutered – if you judge by the mainstream media, people have nothing to fear from gays because they never fuck!! They hug a whole lot, though. Scary!

Foucault would fucking love this Disney shit. It is the ultimate realization of his theory. What bigger slap in the face is there than to say “You still can’t get married in 49 states and are constitutionally forever forbidden from doing so in at least 13, but you can go right ahead and, with our blessing, pump $25,000 into the corporate behemoth that is Disneyland for the chance to be greeted by a fanfare of dressed up idiots with trumpets as your horse-drawn carriage pulls up in front of Cinderella’s castle prior to your legally meaningless civil ceremony. Rest assured that much of the income this brings in will further line the pockets of the very people who donate massive amounts of money to the Republican party and support Bush’s constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.”

The saddest part of this is that there are probably oodles of gay couples with their AmExes out as we speak, dialing Mickey to book their nuptials. There is no greater evidence of the justification for gay equal rights than this – homosexuals are just as big of jackasses as the rest of us.

Bad Georgia

The Stooges are reunited and touring. They are NOT coming to Atlanta. I adore the Stooges; they are pretty much my favorite band of all time, ever. Iggy, Ron, Scott - if you are reading this, please know that I find the use of sleigh bells in Now I Wanna be Your Dog to be the closest thing to evidence of a god in this fucked up universe. The part where you, Iggy, say "lose my heart on the burning sand" in that Michigan accent is seriously the sexiest and most awesome vocal styling of all time. So why don't you add Atlanta to your tour dates. My friend Kriss-T saw you in Lawrence, KS a while ago and won't stop rubbing my poor tear-streaked face in it. I show all my friends pictures of your penis, and my number one fantasy is to have you c. 1972 carve my name (my real name, not Russ) into your chest with broken glass. You are my favorite character in Please Kill Me and I really enjoyed counting how many times you had sex or almost died in tghat book. Ron and Scott, you are hands down the coolest brothers-in-a-band ever, not to mention the greatest guitar-drums combo ever. So you see, I really appreciate you guys and have been deconstructing your songs while stoned since I was about 14 and bought a cassette of Raw Power at the gas station. So come to Atlanta.

Are You Smarter Than a Paramecium?

I watched TV last night. As you may or may not know, depending on how closely you have read this blog, I do not have TV at home and barely even relish the opportunity to watch it at this point. The exception is when I am at my parents’ house, and can watch Tivo’d stuff on their gigantic, ostentatious, and thoroughly awesome TV. If you are going to watch TV, a giant TV with Tivo is really the only way to roll. You watch only stuff you actively want to watch, don’t have to watch the commercials, and can see every single strand of stubble on Hugh Laurie’s face (I watched House. I love Hugh Laurie. I was a diehard Jeeves and Wooster and Blackadder fan and am really enjoying this new stage of Hugh’s career, where he has suddenly and surprisingly become extremely sexy. He reminds me of my Narn Airn husband, with a lot of grey stubble and very blue eyes.) There is one catch though – you don’t have to WATCH the commercials, but you do have to fast forward through them, and occasionally stop during one of them and catch a little in order to not miss any of Hugh Laurie’s stubble. So last night I’m watching House, making my way merrily through the commercials, and happened to catch a few seconds of a promo for a show called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, in which the inbred cretins known as “Average Joes” compete in a trivia tournament against 10 year olds (or 9 year olds with summer birthdays, I guess). Ok, first of all, if you have to ask if you are smarter than a fifth grader, the answer is most likely “NO.” Second, I know that we live in a country that considers stupidity a virtue. I know that a lot of the appeal of W is because he seems like “regular folks” (see above my opinion of “regular folks”). And I know that people are generally not driven to feelings of suicidal despair by such new items as the fact that the number of people who are able to identify the Three Stooges is far greater than the number that are able to identify the three branches of the federal government (I am quite sure W is one of these people). I know all of these things, yet it still shocks me and gets me down. The fact that some fat prick from Peoria is literally pumping his fist in the air and cheering for himself because he answered a question correctly before a FUCKING FIFTH GRADER makes me seriously fear for the future of all of humankind. David Bowie said it best – homo sapiens have outgrown their use. Boy, that Bowie is even smarter than a seventh grader!!!!

PS The show is hosted by Jeff Foxworthy. Nuff said!

You Got Some Splainin' To Do

OK, I have HAD IT!!!! How much longer am I going to have to listen to these jackass politicians assert that Gonzales "has some explaining to do." Incorrect - he HAD some explaining to do. He now has some RESIGNING to do. I popped the cork on the cnampagne bottle over a week ago and that shit is flat now!!!

Also, do you guys think that he ditched that 'stache because it made him look too Latino? Doesn't the 'stache make you wonder what else he has shed on his road to being the biggest oatmeal cream pie in tarnation (def. oatmeal cream pie - n. - a Latino version of an oreo)? If I were able to dig up some pics of him from twelve years ago, would he be wearing a plaid shirt, cowboy boots, a belt buckle the size of my head, and a Chivas de Guadalajara scarf?

What Do We Think of Edwards?

Ok. I’m way confused. At first I thought Edwards was a putz. I thought Stewart hit the nail on the head when he called him John “Supercuts” Edwards. I mean, shit, that hair. But fucking look at him – dude is 53 fucking years old and looks 12. BUT. I basically would jump into a volcano for krugman and he loves Edwards. I’m all about health care and Edwards is the only one with a viable plan – or a plan at all, instead of platitudes and either black (it looks more purplish to me) skin or a vagina. And he’s all about unions and I have a romantic liberal passion for that shit. I read too much dos passos. Yeah so I dig him and at work, it was weird today. Because I knew the announcement was coming, but didn’t care. But about five of us (all women)watched it on the tv at work - I'm pretty sure it was the first time it was ever on anything other than sports. Anyway, so we all stood there and watched and by the end I still had no idea what me or anyone else thought of Edwards, nor was I sure why any of us were taking time out of day to watch. All I could muster was to say: ”I mean, it sucks if he drops out; he’s the only one with a health care plan etc.” Everyone Else: Silence. I think the only thing a lot of women are sure about with him is that they think he’s foxy. Yuck! Something about him reminds me so much of a smarmy classic southern democrat. I grew up with this shit – Georgia was almost ALL democrat when I grew up and now it’s almost ALL republican…and it wasn’t just the jesus and the brainwashing that made it that way…politicians here were sleazy. It’s like Louisiana is now – look at that asshole with the money in the freezer. Anyway so yeah there’s something sleazy about Edwards. That youthful look smacks of Faust or Dorian Gray or some shit. BUT….what he was doing today was sleazy, kind of tacky exploiting personal shit, but a) people would have been in their business regardless and b) his angle was brilliant from a PR perspective…his thing is healthcare. They’re all like, “we’re going through hell, but we know it would be worse if we were broke like most of you and had shitty or no health care, so for that reason we are staying in!” Smart!!! But it kind of working on me. But it’s all moot…isn’t it? I mean, isn’t it all decided? Somehow I’m not so sure. So I’m going with the most populist guy. I guess I’m a fucking hippie, or commie - i am a populist at the end of the day. I covet shit on the United Farm Workers website store. But at the end of the day I want one thing, and I will throw Supercuts to the wolves if I have to for it, and you know what that is…no Naders this time...we all have to agree to disagree and concede a fuckload...because anything is better than this.

Camera Phones at Concerts: ENOUGH!!!!

Okay, I have really had it. This is officially now a mission.

I went to a concert last night - Lily Allen - a very fun, upbeat, poppy show with music that makes you really want to dance (half the crowd was 14, but that's a different story - like I didn't feel old enough at concerts already). However, as is the case nowadays at every show I go to, every inch of primo floor space was occupied by these fucking morons with their phones in the air. So not only is there no room to dance, but also the real heart and soul of the audience - the floor crowd - is one solid, unmoving mass of idiots who aren't engaging with the music in any visible way, and only seem to be there to take a photo. A shitty, tiny, grainy photo that they may open up their phone and show to their co-workers tomorrow. Or put on their fucking MySpace page with 800 other tiny, grainy, shitty photos.

These people are ruining concerts for those of us who are there to enjoy the music, dance, and have a good time. And engage with the performer! I felt so bad for poor Lily, who was putting on a great show only to be faced by this sea of people standing there with one arm up in the air like Michael Jackson, but not even saying "HOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Someone I was with tried for a second to compare it to holding up a lighter,, but holding up a lighter was all about engaging with the performance, not trying to cut out a tiny piece of its heart and put in a jar to take home.

I won't even go into the twisted postmodern statement of going to a live show for the sole purpose of bagging a non-live relic. There's some Walter Benjamin to be applied, I'm sure.

Oh and off, the topic, whatever happened to skanking??? All this ska-infused music and not one Jerry Dammers in the whole place. Not only do people not dance, they don't even seem to know how to dance anymore. I remeber going to The Toasters or The Specials not even 15 years ago and it would look like a fucking Two Tone convention.

But I digress. Who's with me on this camera phone business? I seriously think it should be like cell phones in the movies - a serious anti-social crime that results in the bvoos and glares of your fellow audience mebers.

Russ's Collage du Jour

Originals vs. Covers

I often find cover versions of songs to be not to my liking. They generally range from derivative (the band doesn't "make it their own," to use the parlance of American Idol) to inferior to downright blasphemous. However, as with all things in life, there are some exceptions. I have begun burning a series of CDs that put originals alongside their near-as-good-as or even better cover versions. In some cases there are multiple versions of a song. I'm really into blues, a genre that has definite standards that have ben picked up and reworked many times.

I have quite a number of songs already on the playlists, but am curious as to people's input. Let me know some cover songs you like or loathe.

For the record, my favorite original/cover combo is Gallows Pole as originated by Leadbelly and covered by Zep. Close second are the Iggy/Bowie takes on China Girl (also my karaoke standard - you should see me when I stumble into town just like a sacred cow - not a dry eye in the house).

A Poem by Russ

Disclaimer #1: I am not big on poetry. I mean, if you're good at it, great, I love it. If you're like Ginsberg or Wiliam Carlos Williams or Ezra Pound or whatever, fine. But there is very little more painful than bad poetry. Possibly bad theater. And most is bad, in my opinion.

Disclaimer #2: I am generally nauseated by the "response to September 11th" genre. The sole exception is Spike Lee's 25th Hour (criminally underrated and one of the best movies about NYC ever. People need to get over their stereotypical conception of Spike Lee. The man is genius.) I digress (for a change...). I wrote the following poem after September 11th. It's a true story and one of the most visceral experiences I have ever had. Anyone who was in NYC those few days following "the events of September 11th," as they are known, knows that the weirdest thing was how quite NYC was. And how NICE people were to each other (shutting the fuck up for once being a major way of being nice in NYC). Anyway. Feel free ti pillory me, but I'm exposing myself big time here, so pillory gently.

"Snap Out of It"

The beauty of life here
Cannot cease to amaze
Even though that brief time is gone
When we all loved each other
In warm silence

It ended abruptly
With an unattractive girl
Pushing her way onto the Q train
Yelling at an old man
To fuck himself

We all looked at each other
(Acceptable on that day)
And through shell-shocked eyes
We silently agreed
She was evil

It was the one day in the long life
Of this invisibly burning city
That everyone agreed on everything
And suddenly this girl came forward
Breaking the truce

God bless her ugly soul
For her selfless willingness
In the face of great adversity
To keep the spirit of New York alive
To be normal

Russ's Collage Du Jour

Bad Georgia

(To your left you will find Johnny Isakson, quintessential Georgia Republican Senator. I went to school with his son, Kevin. That's not Kevin he's holding. I'm assuming it's Kevin's spawn.)

Georgia can be good or bad, and I will be posting on Good Georgia and Bad Georgia quite a bit. Okay, to be honest, when it comes to politics, it's not great - it's not as bad as most of you out there may think, but I'm not here to blow smoke up anyone's ass. There is great diversity, a ton of cool people, wonderful restaurants (except Italian), and a decent amount to see and do (and I can actually afford to see and do here, unlike NYC, and cool concerts aren't instantly sold out, horrific mob scenes where you wait an hour in line to get your coat back, getting rapidly sober and almost guaranteeing a subway ride marked by an almost uncontrollable urge to pee b/c the asshole bouncers won't let you use the bathroom after you finally get your coat, plus your scarf is no longer stuffed in the sleeve or anywhere to be found, for that matter). BUT it is predominantly super religious, super conservative, and bleeding heavy flow period red.

I'm sure many people are familiar with the “Fugees” soccer team debacle and heard the abhorrently redneck, racist, chump stain mayor of Clarkston making an ass of himself and all of Georgia on NPR (if not, got to NPR.com and search for Clarkston). But here are a few fun facts you may not know, coming straight at you from the "Empire State of the South":

1. We have the strictest anti-immigration laws in the whole country.

2. We are about to start forcing women seeking abortions to have a mandatory sonograms. Don't worry, the law, as drafted, stipulates that "no patient would be forced to the view images of her unborn child." That makes me feel SO much better. And it's not like women have to pay for the sonogram: "The expectant mother would be given a list of health care providers, facilities and clinics offering ultrasounds free of charge." The proposed list of such venues consists primarily of the so-called "pregnancy crisis centers" run by Christian groups, which are proven to spread misinformation and myths about abortion (e.g. causes breast cancer and suicide) and browbeat women into opting out of abortion.

3. The state has now proposed a law to increase the chances of a convicted prisoner receiving the death penalty. Under the proposed law, a jury would only need 11 out of 12 jurors to vote for death, as opposed to the full 12. The idea is to "prevent one juror from negating the wishes of a majority." Isn't that kind of the whole point of a jury???

I could go on and will be back with more (some positive, I promise). Let me leave you with this.

4. A co-worker - who is senior to me - today told me that crime in Atlanta is up so much in recent years (it isn't; it's always been a cauldron of crime, and the statistics are pretty steady) because of a) Katrina refugees and b) immigrants (which we all know means "Mexicans", which we in turn all know means Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorians, and pretty much anywhere else south of us that produces people of a brown skin tone). Of course it is not news that people think this way (see #1), but I am still un-cynical enough to be scandalized that people think they can say shit like that to me.

But hey, we are talking about the same co-worker who asked me if I was Christian.**

**this person has an HR role, making these transgressions of the basic tenets of HR 101 all the more egregious.

Russ's Collage du Jour

This one is called "Flayed Lambs on Parade."

Thoughts on Bob Dylan

I’m trying to make my way through Don't Look Back, which just came out on DVD - Dylan touring England in 1965, D.A. Pennebaker directed, year before Dylan went electric, blah blah blah. It is so hard to watch because Dylan is such a HUGE dick and his manager is an even HUGER dick and Joan Baez is Dylan’s girlfriend at the time and is always there and SINGING. Dylan is definitely so genius, but the elision between his music and his persona is incomprehensible. I am convinced that the obsession and fascination with him beyond even what his (admittedly amazing) music would dictate (that crazy, make a four-disc documentary, write a bunch of books, spend eternity analyzing type of obsession) is because his lyrics seem so deep and filled with meaning, yet he refuses to indulge in any self-analysis or to attribute any meaning to his lyrics. He is the opposite of a conceptual artist, where all the meaning comes from the artist's intentions and you have to know the intentions to get it. The more one attempts to study Dylan, the more he slips away, which I think makes people want to chase after him, hoping there will be some confession or acknowledgement that will shed some light, and there never is.

Plus he looks like such a Jew when he's young, like my cousins or something, and, as a Jew, it's difficult to not focus on that since he makes no sense as a Jew. None!!! He makes even less sense as a Jew than he does in general!

The Arcade Fire Grinch

I am the Arcade Fire Grinch. I really tried with Funeral, but it's so cacophanous. Now I am listening to Neon Bible and it's just okay...i like it better than Funeral (barely) but a) she sounds too much like Bjork, b) a lot of their songs wind up sounding like Band Aid due to all the bells - the bells don't work like they do in "Hitsville UK" by The Clash - I dig those bells - let's not even TALK ABOUT THE BELLS IN "NOW I WANNA BE YOUR DOG!"!! - but these make me feel like Bono is going to chime in with "Tonight thank god it's them instead of you." The DJ on my crappy download said, after one yet another annoying songs finished, "If this music doesn't get you somewhere special, then there's something wrong with you." Okay. Oh and c) she sounds too much like Bjork. Well worth saying twice. It's egregious. Oh and d) please tell me that track 2, "Keep the Car Running," is not IDENTICAL to that song "On the Dark Side" by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band from the movie Eddie and the Cruisers???

When it comes to French-Canadian, I'll stick with Voivod.

R.I.P. Jean Baudrillard

"The order of the world is always right - such is the judgement of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgement behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin." - from Cool Memories.

This really speaks to me. I feel that many "god-fearing" people are exactly that - terrified of god (Baudrillard goes big G, I love him but not enough to follow suit). They are religious more out of fear of Judgement Day than any true religious sentiment. Do you want a happy god or a vengeful god?

It's also a cool response to his ancestors. It's like he's saying "God isn't dead, not when he exerts a pull over so many people. God may be dead to you, Jean-Paul, but not to me." And then Sartre would be all like "You're dead to me!", exactly the way Janice Dickinson said it to poor Brooke on America's Next Top Model that one time.

He would have a point, because they are both dead now (Sartre and Baudrillard, not Janice and Brooke. Although Brooke could conceivably have died and we wouldn't have heard about it, because you don't even hear anything about the girls who win, let alone the third one to get sent home. I sure hope not. If you're out there, Brooke, send a shout-out...).

Celebrity Tanka of the Day: Hilary Swank's Boys Don't Cry Oscar Acceptance Tanka

Although I myself
Am not gay, lesbian, bi
Even transgendered
I was married to Chad Lowe
Which is kind of the same thing

Sequins, Spankies and Sass: My Day at the 2007 National Cheerleading and Dance Championship

I’m going to go ahead and rank Cheersport’s 2007 National Cheerleading and Dance Championship up there with the 2003 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show as Events I am Most Glad I Decided Not to Smoke Pot For. There are, quite simply, some things in this world that are perfect on their own. So perfect, in fact, as to almost provide me with that ever-elusive Evidence That There Is a God, and that He/She Has a Wicked Sense of Humor.

Some background: Cheersport, aka “The Future of Cheerleading and Dance,” is America ’s premiere organization for competitive cheerleading and dance (a very specific sort of dance). The National Championships this year took place at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. There are 800 teams competing and over 8,000 attendees, making Cheersport the third largest convention in Atlanta, coming in behind the national Poultry and Egg Convention in second place, and, in first place – predictably enough – something Christian. So if convention attendance is any way to judge the character of a city, the things Atlantans hold dearest are cheerleaders, chickens, and Jesus. Not my top three, but sounds about right.

The Georgia World Congress Center is a pretty big place, big enough to hold Cheersport and then some, so this year the event fell on the same weekend as World of Wheels, a hot rod car and motorcycle show, and the Bronner Brothers Mid-Winter Hair Show, an African-American hair extravaganza. This made for quite a mixture of crowds, as portly bearded hicks clutching model replicas of the General Lee weaved their way through gaggles of very large black women made even larger by towering, Divine-worthy hairdos, only to get cut off at the pass by 25 teenage girls standing bent at the waist while their friends attempted to scrape all of the pony tail bumps out of the backs of their heads. It was at this point that my friend – a naughty Atlanta Convention and Visitors Center employee who shall remain nameless – informed me that the hotels and other venues participating in Cheersport had designated special “Glitter Rooms’ for the application of glitter after having spent the better part of last year having all of their furniture and carpeting industrially vacuumed only to have guests still complain of being covered in leftover glitter. I can confirm that even previously applied glitter gets around, and the floor of the Congress Center was covered with a sticky paste of glitter, sequins, Rave #4, and liberal snippets of gold rick rack that had made a successful escape from the trim of someone’s spankies.

The team names are heavy on sports-style boasts – The Something All-Stars seem to be a favorite. Sting Ray All-Stars, Thunder All-Stars, and – my personal choice for Best Name – The Freedom Eagle All-Stars. Guess what flag figured prominently in their costume? If you guessed United Arab Emirates, you guessed wrong. Although a Freedom-Hater All-Stars with little girls in burkas would be awesome…

The competitors range in age from about 6 to about 18. They are overwhelmingly female, with a handful boys thrown in for good measure. The young boys generally seemed semi- to very uncomfortable and mostly stayed near the back during the routines, save for one little flamer who was very talented and the unquestionable star of his team’s show, which ended with the 15 or so girls parting like a sequined sea to allow him to slide triumphantly all the way to the front of the stage on his queer little knees. And how could I forget the poor man watching his twin sons merrily fly through the air – he was smiling and clapping, but his eyes betrayed a soul curled into the fetal position, softly murmuring “I can’t believe they’re both gay.”

And then there were the older boys. Oh, the older boys. 16, 17, 18 - they were all jubilantly, flamingly, homosexual - out, proud and louder than the crowds of mothers screeching “Caitlin!!!” and “Schuyler!!!” at their competing spawn. One of my favorite sights of the day was a young biracial pair of cheerboys of about 17, coming down the escalator as I went up (they were Kelly LeBrock, and I was Robert Downey, Jr. I know it’s LeBrock that goes up in Weird Science, but trust me – they were LeBrock). Both had stripped down to their cheer vests and had their cheer sweaters jauntily thrown over their shoulders as they clearly relished whatever tawdry gossip and dissing of the competition they were indulging in. They were a lovely couple, positively exuding well-adjusted sass, and absolutely made my day. Cheerleading may strike me as a relatively miserable extracurricular option for a girl, but if you’re a Lance Bass in the making, it seems like a pretty good option. There was even a sizeable contingent of gay teenage spectators, such as the pair clearly on furlough from their Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered After School Club – an excitable and exactingly-groomed young man with as solid a grip on the rules of cheering as he had on the wrist of his utterly lesbonic chum, who he dragged from Arena H to Arena G as if she were a ragdoll. Once again, adorable, and made my day.

One of the finest nuances of competitive cheering is, it turns out, not to be found in the cartwheels, round-offs, and back flips, but rather in the vast iconography of facial expressions. My high school cheerleaders smiled, and that was it, unless someone broke something or happened to clap eyes on an offensively unpopular student. Those days are over. Cheersport girls boast a range of expression not seen since the gargoyles of the 14th century. There were growls, sneers, grimaces, bug eyes, Standard Pouty Face, Puffed-Out Cheek Pouty Face, Super-Duper Surprised Face, and so on, all accompanied by a constantly side-to-side waggling head (picture the way someone would move their head while giving a classic delivery of “oh know you dih-uhn’t”). These girls had more attitude than Mr. T, Gary Coleman, and SheNeNe all rolled into one. And 90% of them were white! (We soon figured out that the black cheerleaders were far superior – especially when it comes to facial expressions - and learned quickly how to scour the spectators in the friends and family section to get an idea if a particular group was ethnically mixed enough to be worth watching. Oh how we long for the day when the Cheersport program indicates the race of the teams. This is far from racist – after all, it’s not like we wanted to know where the black cheerleaders were so we could avoid them – quite the opposite!).

I find myself entering potentially offensive territory, so I will leave the particulars of the Special Cheerleading Competition to the reader’s imagination. Better yet, I recommend that anyone with a taste for the absurd come to Atlanta for Cheersport 2008, and help me cheer those gay twins.