Filed under: people from rhode island | Tags: dalmatian print, five fucking dollars for a bud light with lime, pride
Rhode Island Pride was over a week ago now. I only stopped by briefly, and took some remarkably uninteresting photos. Namely these. (more…)
Filed under: heterosexuals, people from rhode island, porn | Tags: jackasses, stormy daniels
Adult entertainer Stormy Daniels came to Providence this weekend to perform at the exceptionally turquoise Club Fantasies. I’ve never actually been inside there, for some reason, even though my boyfriend works about two blocks from there and I used to have friends living across the street and I drive by it every day and also I really like strip clubs. But anyway, if I hadn’t been getting working all night I might have rallied and made it over there.
Except that I guess it didn’t end up so fun. Here’s what Stormy just posted on her Twitter (which I started following after rumors spread this spring that she might run for a Louisiana Senate seat):
Yeah. Way to keep it classy, Providence.
Filed under: books, gay, hookers, hot, music, people from rhode island, personal | Tags: art, rhode island, pride, kate bush, a newfound interest in massachusetts, solange, bearapalooza, stonewall, michael jackson, the coup, chuck barris, flickr
Two years after a hatchet-and-gun attack in a gay bar, New Bedford, Massachusetts, had its first-ever gay pride event last Saturday. New Bedford used to be one of the world’s major whaling ports, and it’s still a very surly, very Portuguese Catholic, city. (If you’re curious, it’s also the city where I bought the cutest pants ever, as it’s also become kind of an antique/vintage haven.) Here’s a tedious photo montage thing of last weekend’s events. I don’t mean that in a mean way, and I’m glad they’re doing it. But really, what a tedious photo montage thing.
San Francisco Pride, happening tomorrow, is bound to be infinitely more exciting, though.
Speaking of festivals, in the unlikely event that you happen to be near Longfork, West Virginia, next weekend, it’s Bearapalooza. (And, if you do get there, I’d like to see pictures!)
Joe.My.God reports on the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall riots and incudes a really condescending Daily News article from 1969.
With so many people rushing to their blogs to broadcast their love of all things Michael Jackson, I’m glad that somebody remembered to mention “Lisa, It’s Your Birthday.” [via Art Fag City]
As I’ve noted before, both anti-prostitution bills in Rhode Island might stall, with the legislature wrapping up before its summer break and spending some of its last hours debating whether or not we should be allowed to have Yankees license plates. (On a brighter note, they might finally legalize MMA fighting in Rhode Island.)
Irish Kate Bush fans attempt to co-opt James Joyce’s holiday, for some reason. (Okay, that happened two weeks ago, but still, why?)
For some reason this song, which appeared on a mixtape someone made me about ten years ago, started running through my head the other day.
Chuck Barris, former game show host, alleged former CIA agent, and inspiration for the wonderful, wonderful Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, has a new mystery novel out.
Check out the Nudie Blues, as pictured above. I’m not sure who made them; the Flickr profile just says it’s a male in Berlin who is taken. I’m assuming his name is Alain, but I don’t know anything beyond that.
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: rhode island, prostitution
The House is out for their summer recess, which means that they won’t be around to pass Sen. Paul Jabour’s anti-prostitution vote. This is good, because even the state police and the attorney general thought it was a bad idea. The Journal article is actually pretty interesting, and I just woke up so I don’t think I’ll be able to do much more than link to that right now.
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: rhode island, prostitution, the law
The Senate passed the bill.
Now, either Paul Jabour’s bill (which fines prostitutes and their clients equally) needs to pass the House, or Joanne Giannini’s bill (which is theoretically more lenient to victimized women) needs to pass the Senate. Or they can come up with some sort of compromise. Which may or may not happen, given Jabour’s tone in the Journal article: “Representative Giannini has done a tremendous amount of work on this,” Jabour said Thursday. “If she wants something passed, I want Joanne to consider amending her bill.”
This bill wasn’t even on the Senate’s calendar yesterday. Another one, aimed at human trafficking, was supposed to be voted on. That bill was sponsored by Rhoda Perry, who opposed the anti-prostitution bill until yesterday but ended up voting for it anyway. I have no idea whether her bill was voted on, or what the changes were that led her to change her mind.
I’ll let you know more as things develop, although I’ve got an article due today for someone else and at 11:30 I have a press conference to go to. So we’ll see.
A potentially very alarming blog comment about tonight’s anti-trafficking legislation:
“It just passed, but the -entire- text of the law was replaced with different wording that seems odd to me, sentences are dramatically reduced, and the wording is possibly unenforceable. Is it -legal- to require STD testing of criminals? I was unaware that people forfeit their bodies to the state unless they’re incarcerated.”
I wasn’t there, unfortunately, so this is all I know right now.
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: rhode island, prostitution, taiwan
Tonight the Rhode Island senate is going to be voting on the anti-prostitution bill. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to pass, which is a good thing, and it also doesn’t seem like people are even that interested; the Providence Journal article about the senate hearings mentioned that six of the ten senators on the committee didn’t even stay to hear all the testimony.
That didn’t stop URI professor Donna Hughes from calling the event a circus, though. In an editorial published yesterday she describes the “outrageous appearance” of people who didn’t support the bill, mentioning, basically, that one had tattoos and the others were Asian (!). Megan from Oh Megan–the one with the tattoos pictured above–responded with a letter that’ll be published in tomorrow’s Journal:
Putting quotation marks around my profession was insulting. And yes, it is not “made up” that I am a contributor to the sex-workers magazine $pread. Is it so shocking that sex-workers can read?
It’s true, Hughes does like to use quotation marks, even referring to sex in her editorial as “it.” If she were my grandmother, that would make sense and be fine, but this woman teaches women’s studies and was presumably raised at some point after 1930. You’d think her views of sex would be a little less spinsterish. But no. At least the editorial has a bright side, in that she’s pessimistic about the bill actually passing.
In other news, Taiwan today (or yesterday, I guess, or maybe tomorrow–I don’t understand time zones) opted to decriminalize prostitution, thanks to sex workers advocating for their own rights.
Filed under: gay, hookers, lists, movies, music, not hot, people from rhode island | Tags: the gays, bloc party, hiv, movies, blogs, porn, the 700 club, michelle rhee, amber rhea, timbaland, mcsweeney's, geneology, hoaxes, abortion
Former Rhode Island senator/current gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee came out in support of gay marriage this week, with an editorial in New England gay rag Bay Windows.
Speaking of Rhode Island, our ridiculous governor made an appearance on The 700 Club the other day.
The Washington Post had a pretty fascinating report on Michelle Rhee, who heads the DC school system. (Not particularly relevant to this blog, but worth the five-page read nonetheless.) The most disturbing part of the story, I think, is the part about how lots of kids can’t graduate each year because bureaucratic nonsense prevents them from getting the credits they need.
Audacia Ray guest-posted on Feministing about the HIV scare in the porn world.
Amber Rhea is done, uh, being.
Timbaland’s getting sued for unauthorized sampling.
McSweeney’s is looking for new columnists.
Bloc Party just announced a new non-album single, which will be out in August.
Al Capone’s possibly-grandson has a website that came across my path last week. I don’t even remember how.
Anti-abortion website April’s Mom was, it turns out, a hoax. Allegedly created by a woman pregnant with a terminally ill child, social worker Becca Beushausen eventually birthed a doll. In a fit of crazy, Beushausen says that the had originally created the site only for a few of her friends. Because, I don’t know, who doesn’t think it’s a lot of fun when their friends make websites devoted to their imaginary terminally ill fetuses?
Unreality came out with a list of the ten most polarizing movies of the last decade. The list is all Hollywood, so Demonlover and Irreversible aren’t on there. I’m pro-Eyes Wide Shut and anti-Moulin Rouge, for what it’s worth.
David Archuleta’s dad was caught up in a sting at the Queens of Reiki massage parlor in Utah this past January.
Finally, if you’re looking for something else to follow on Tumblr, I really like Nashville Needs More Metaphors.
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: prostitution, rhode island
The history of prostitution in Rhode Island is highlighted in today’s Providence Journal, starting with the 1976 lawsuit by COYOTE against the state. Back then, prostitution was a felony with fines of up to five years in prison.
The whole thing is interesting, because it includes lots of wheeling and dealing, the Catholic Church, and the 1980 decision to reduce a conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor. I also liked how, in 1998, the State Supreme Court ruled that the anti-prostitution law was “primarily to bar prostitutes from hawking their wares in public” and couldn’t be applied to what people did in private.
(I’m actually writing a similar article for a different publication, which I actually have to hand in tomorrow.)
Filed under: gay, heterosexuals, hookers, music, not hot, people from rhode island, personal
Stuff that happened this week that I didn’t get to post about because I spent all day yesterday drinking Miller High Life and watching grown people play kickball.
Dr George Tiller, who performed abortions in Kansas, was murdered this morning on his way in to church, presumably by a pro-life loon. His clinic had been vandalized earlier this month and reportedly the FBI was asked to investigate.
I pulled Reclusive Leftist off my Google Reader; there’s only so much time in the day and I don’t know want to spent any more time than absolutely necessary being completely annoyed. (I know this isn’t news because I’m sure no one cares, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.)
Bat For Lashes has a new video.
So do the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
And somebody thought it would be a good idea to include Brooke Hogan on a remix of Birthday Sex.
Voting’s open in Peta2’s Sexiest Vegetarian Alive contest. I went with the same two as last year, Erykah Badu (because she is eternally awesome) and Sage Francis (because he is from Providence, and also hunky.)
Melissa Gira Grant reported for Slate on why the Craigslist decision hurts more or less everybody.
Rhode Island has its first gay internet radio station. I expected to hate it and, um, I’ll be nice and say that it’s not as bad as it could be. But jeez, the first thing I heard was a house remix of I Hate This Part.
Echidne of the Snakes, one of my favorite feminist blogs, is ceasing to be. So, for that matter, is All Aussie Beef, which mainly had rugby-dude porn.
Finally, today I unsubscribed from the frankly very annoying change.org weekly newsletter. Every Sunday morning I was getting a list of things to be worked up about, and while theoretically I think it’s great that people are getting informed about government abuses and animal rights and civil liberties, the presentation usually comes across more like “Panic about this! Wait, stop, now panic about this! And then this other thing, panic about that, too!”
The final straw was today’s e-mail blast, which listed “falsely excusing prostitution” in the same string of articles that also included battery-caged hens and government lies about Guantanamo. Here’s what they had to say:
Often times the excuse that “Prostitution is the oldest profession in the book” is thrown out there as a means of avoiding the harms caused by the practice. As Human Trafficking blogger Amanda Kloer writes, this excuse is B.S. Prostitution is old. So is hunger. So is poverty and murder and tyranny and cancer and child abuse. Just because something is old, rooted in society, and difficult to fight, doesn’t mean that it should be ignored. Because, as Kloer writes, the pervasiveness of prostitution in history does not make the 14-year-old on the streets of Las Vegas any less exploited.
I have no use for e-mail blasts like that.
[Sage photo by Anthony St James; ganked from the Myspace.]
