If TurboTax isn't playing some kind of joke on me - some cruel and sadistic monetary prank - I should be getting back a... well, let's just say a MUCH bigger tax refund than I expected! Everyone should use this thing! I knew I was (voluntarily) having an extraordinary amount of money withheld from my paycheck, but holy crap! HOLY CRAP!!!

If you were getting back a larger tax refund than you expected - how much larger? Use your imagination - what would you do with it?

Journalists should be willing to come right out and say, 'Are you gay?' and print the answer. - SF Chronicle

An excellent op-ed about journalism and the controversial topic of "outing." (Thank you, Jess for pointing it out. I heart SF.) The journalism junkie in me was like, "Right on!" but the actor in me couldn't overcome one particular objection. Read: Traditionally, outing was used by anti-gay people as a means to ruin a gay person's life. The revelation that someone was homosexual was so horrible, it meant their demise.

What the hell kind of distant history is this guy talking about?! Maybe he's not aware that being openly gay is still the ultimate Hollywood career killer. Drug addiction? Getting caught with prostitutes? Having sex with a 14 year-old in a videotape leaked to the public? You bounce back. Being gay? "Why yes, I am dead in the water, thank you!"

Name me ten gay hollywood celebrities who are out. And I'm not talking like Clea-DuVall-level-indie-flick celebrities. I'm talking red-carpet-trashy-magazine-cover-Tom-Cruise-level celebrities. I'll give you:

1) Ellen DeGeneres
2) Rupert Everett
3) Nathan Lane
4) Sir Ian McKellan
5) Rosie O'Donnell
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

I dare you.

Disclaimer: For the record, if I ever made it big, I honestly don't know whether I'd go back into the closet or not. I've been out for long enough that I think going stealth would be practically impossible anyway (and therefore moot), but I really have no idea whether I would if I could. I don't know if I'd be willing to risk potentially sacrificing my career...

I made this a comment on Sylvia's LiveJournal, but got so worked up about it that I thought I'd share with y'all. Lucky you!

Why do these stupid things still piss me off so much a month after they happen?! Did you hear about this?

In January, ABC cancelled a reality show called "Welcome to my Neighborhood" on which different families competed with each other to win a house in a very selective suburban neighborhood. The (obviously diverse) contestants included a gay couple and their adopted kid. All of the competing families had to court the council of other families in the neighborhood with dinner parties and the like, and all of the good Christian families on the council started off the show absolutely appalled that a gay family would even think of invading their neighborhood...

...but by the end of the season, all of the families had totally embraced the gay family. One of the neighbors was even inspired to make amends with his own estranged gay son. Get that? In a conservative neighborhood, THE GAY FAMILY WON and was awarded the house.

So why did ABC pull the show ten days before the first episode even aired, the New York Times reported? Because they didn't want opposition from groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association, (which had endorsed boycotts of the Disney Corp. for anti-gay reasons in the past) to interfere with their efforts to promote Chronicles of Narnia among those same groups. Allegedly. Probably.

*inaudible mumbling and swearing*

First off, thank you to all of you excellent people who responded to my last post by saying, "Dude. You don't have sheet music? You're fucked." It was so NOT what I needed to hear ON THE MORNING OF MY AUDITION to inspire confidence. However, there was (thank the gods!) a sheet music store around the corner from the theatre, where I picked up the Maroon 5 songbook out of Utter Fear, so I could use "Harder to Breathe" as a backup to the song I wanted to do a cappella.

Me: I have a song a cappella which is really fun, or something a little more standard from the songbook. Which would you like?
Them: Er, why don't you do something so we can hear you with the piano.

Best Dumb Suggestion award goes to , whose idea was to call Rob in the middle of the night, have him arrange the song for piano accomaniment, get the song back from Rob, and get it into paper form (which would've involved going to Kinko's with my laptop) before leaving for the audition at 8am. Genius, buddy.

All in all the audition went decently. I had to re-start twice because of nerves, but made (if I do say so myself) a stellar recovery, and sounded great. After having waited for me to get through the song properly, one of the auditioners commented, "Thanks for coming. It was worth the wait." They didn't call me back, but that felt pretty good.

Info about helping me land an indie horror flick. Vote for Screamer 178!

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I made the best discovery at work the other day. While looking up "Sacroiliac Pain" in the big book of ICD-9 Codes (used to record diagnoses unambiguously for billing/referral/precertification/etc. purposes) I found the following:

846.# SACROILIAC DISORDER

846.0 Lumbosacral (joint) (ligament)
846.1 Sacroiliac ligament
846.2 Sacrospinatus (ligament)
846.3 Sacrotuberous (ligament)
846.8 Other specified sites of sacroiliac region
846.9 Unspecified sites of sacroiliac region

302.84 SADISM (SEXUAL)

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Academy Awards in 8 hours, 32 minutes and counting. Let's see them fudgepackin' cowboys win them some Holl-ee-wood approval! I wish you all could come to my Oscar Party...