Welcome to online-astoria.com

By Kate

A major flaw in my writing habits is the vulnerability to inertia. When I get going, it’s too much; dishes go unwashed, nights pass un-slept. And then something pauses the pendulum, and suddenly it has been ages since the last Laid entry. But with a firm push forward, we iz back!  Keep writing in to sex@collegemagazine.com with any and all questions and comments.

Welcome to Bear Week 2009!

G and I are back from China and living in Provincetown, Massachusetts, way out there on the very tip of Cape Cod, and arguably the gayest small town in America during the summer months. Right now it’s Bear Week here, and Commercial Street is throbbing with fat, jolly gay men (and some of their skinny admirers, known as “bear trackers”) reveling in their shared fondness for utility kilts, body hair, and carbohydrates. The tropes of their most private longings, at least one week a year, are not private at all but rather the substance of communal celebration.

Unlike other social/sexual sub-groups that flood the town at prescribed times—like the GHB-guzzling circuit queens who take over during the 4^th of July, or the attendees of Women’s Week (which one of G’s co-workers described perfectly as “the week without grace”)—the bears are an unadulterated delight to the service industry peons such as myself. One of my fellow cab drivers, a born-and-raised local nicknamed Fat Boy, has been cashing in. Saturday night he trawled the leather club where the bears were congregating, blowing them kisses in the rearview mirror as he drove them around the block for the full fare of $5 apiece.

I do not intend a sociological explication here, though there is plenty of raw data to cull from.  The bears are small but well organized, with t-shirts, magazines, pornography, websites, and commercials on the Logo Network—even their own paw-printed version of the gay flag. What strikes me is how much they freakin’ love being bears. Maybe it’s just the self-loathing aspect of my bisexuality, which would prefer the one-or-the-other simplicity of dwelling on one neatly-defined side of the hetero/homo fence. Beyond that, though, I think the bears’ wholehearted dedication to their desires—and the self-knowledge that led them to their niche, their “cave” if you’ll allow the pun—is something that anyone on any side of any fence could learn from.

Tinseltown is eerily quiet this week, but I did find a few stories of interest. Just as a warning, they all made me feel happy to be the mediocre college student that I am, rather than a crazy celebrity. They are all loony, and their parents are sometimes even worse. Read on:

• Enduring the wrath of Eminem after straddling his face at the MTV Movie Awards is nothing compared to what’s next for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new character Bruno. The flamboyantly gay Austrian model is being sued by a woman who claims that his actions indirectly resulted in injuries that left her in a wheelchair. While filming this summer’s self-titled movie, Bruno showed up to be the caller at a charity bingo game in Palmdale, CA-to the horror of the plaintiff, Richelle Olson. The director of the charity, Olson claims that Bruno, an “extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent” caused her so much humiliation and stress that he caused a “shock to her nervous system”, which resulted in Olson collapsing and hitting her head on a slab of concrete. Reportedly, her injuries included “two brain bleeds” that ultimately forced her to use a walker and/or wheelchair to get around. Jeez, who would’ve thought that a leopard-print banana hammock could be the cause of such utter chaos?

Is it weird to notice that he has really toned legs?

• In trashy reality TV star news, Linda Hogan has proved to her estranged daughter and ex-husband, as well as to the world, that she is not a drug-addict. Linda decided to undergo a full drug screening in response to Brooke and Hulk’s allegations that she was using. The results indicate that the former Mrs. Hogan is totally clean, which begs the question: If she’s not on drugs, why is she so crazy?

There are so many snarky things to say about this picture, I am too overwhelmed to pick just one.

• How awkward would it be if your mom decided to talk to Good Housekeeping about your, um, sexual desires? Just ask Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. Their mom, Denise, spoke about the boys’ commitment to purity in an interview with the popular women’s magazine, stating that “They are men. They have desires. They have testosterone. If they make a mistake, I’m not going to hate them. I don’t think they are above or below being seduced. I would be foolish if I thought that. I pray for them.” Ugh. Now I’m re-thinking some of the JoBros most popular songs, and how they might relate to their Disney-repressed horniness. “Burnin’ Up”, “Video Girl”, “A Little Bit Longer”, and “Infatuation”? You mean to tell me that these songs are not the confessions of three teenage boys who are forced to resist the temptation of millions of equally horny teenage fangirls? Yeah, right.

Maybe they'll write a song about their mom's dress…recycled from a prison jumpsuit!

In the later years of the Carter administration, there seemed to be great potential for a National Health Care Insurance bill to be passed. But ultimately there was a disagreement over a technicality between Senator Ted Kennedy and President Carter. Now in 2009, it seems we are in the midst of finally passing legislation that will give every American health care, but how excited should we really be?

As someone who has long been passionate about this issue, I have many qualms with the language that seems to be expressed in President Obama’s potential health care plan. As a recent piece by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out, on the campaign trail Obama seemed open to working with private health care insurance providers for those who wanted to continue to have private care, but also advocated a Medicare-esque government run plan for the rest of the public if they so chose. Now, it seems that the private insurers have got their grip on Washington once again.

Last week, President Obama met with private health insurers to discuss plans for his health care legislation. In my mind, it is a fundamental flaw to meet with the people who are the very root of our problem.

While I realize Obama has been very pragmatic through his time in office so far, it is my belief that there are certain things that cannot be compromised. The greediness of these health care insurance providers is what has driven our system into the ground and given us the most costly health care system in the world and among one of the poorest performing health care systems in the developed world. It seems that Obama has abandoned the idea of government expanding a Medicare-like program for those who want it for putting money hungry health care executives at the head of the table.

Why should President Obama trust profit seeking health care executives to play by the rules all of a sudden and help fix the health care problem? These insurance providers have been raking in profits at the expense of the health of our population for years.

A for-profit system is a fundamentally flawed system. In order for that doctor or insurance-man to go on a two week vacation to the Florida keys every winter, people need to continue to get sick. In this system, there is little incentive for “real cures” because the priority is only to make money. A government-run, non-profit system, on the other hand could emphasize research and preventative care. The idea of President Obama enlisting the health care insurance industry to help fix the problem they already created would be like appointing Bernie Madoff to be Secretary of the Treasury or head of the Federal Reserve to fix our economy. It would make no sense.

While we have the chance to fix this broken health care system, let’s do surgery instead of putting a bandage on a potentially deadly wound.

Jaren Love also writes for www.dailyhorserace.com and can be reached at jelove@umd.edu.