Last night I saw a report on CNN that the LAPD is going to start
enforcing immigration law when making arrests. Previously the LAPD
wouldn’t check a suspect’s immigration status, instead adhering to a
“safe harbor” policy adopted in the 70’s.

My only question is: what took them so long?

See, LA has an enormous problem with gang members from Central America
or Mexico that have been convicted of crimes, deported and then return
to LA. Allowing the LAPD to access Immigration databases and enforce
federal immigration law gives the LAPD another tool to fight crime, and
why should they not?

The usual answer goes along these lines: “If immigrants are afraid to
call the police that will mean they’re more victimized in their own
communities by criminals and they also won’t cooperate with the police
for fear of being deported.” The problem with this line of reasoning is
that it’s based on the touchy-feely do-good ideas of the late
60’s/early 70’s more so than any logical reasoning.

Where is the evidence backing this up? Further more, illegal immigrants should be afraid they’ll be deported, they’re here illegally!
If you want to immigrate do so legally, like all the people do who
apply through normal channels. Showing up in the US and expecting to be
treated with kid gloves because you’re here illegally isn’t just
stupid, it’s also foolhardy.

Illegal immigration into the United States is a result of a vast
conspiracy between the government and big business to drive down wages
for lower-end workers in this country. If illegal immigrants weren’t
here the work they do would still be done, it would just mean employers
would have to pay normal state or federal mandated minimum wages and
benefits.

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s an issue of “decency” or “fairness”
because it’s not. It’s all related to business wanting an easy supply
of cheap, exploitable labor and the US government colluding with them
to make it easy. “Immigrant Rights” supporters who defend this
arrangement aren’t helping illegal immigrants at all, they’re just
fellow conspirators in their misery.

I’d know because today I did it.

Disgusted by Microsoft’s capitulation to right-wing Christians on the
Washington State Gay Rights Bill, I switched to Mozilla’s Firefox.

Fight the power. Switch to Firefox today!

… well sorta.

I had a great time in LA. I always have a great time in LA. I want to move to LA.

Saturday we ate lunch in Los Feliz and then lounged in a cabana poolside at The Peninsula. That night we went to dinner at Yamushura and two parties in Venice and then 5 of us ended-up back in my hotel room drinking and carousing until Sunday morning when we crashed.

My friends took me back to the airport Sunday afternoon and I flew home then went to another party 45 minutes after my plane landed. Damn I was tired. Now that I’m over thirty it seems to take me forever to recover from all-nighters. It didn’t used to. Or maybe it did but I was just too amped up on E and coke to realize how exhausted I was.

Anyway. Sunday’s party at the re-opened Trocadero Transfer was fun. Quite an older crowd with a lot of grizzled old leather daddies but also a fair number of cooler, cuter younger guys like myself. My boyfriend left at 10:00 PM and I stayed until 1:00 AM.

Work is such a downer lately. I don’t know how to please my boss and I know I’m not the only one. So today I’m interviewing with the VP of a different group. ‘Cause I wanna get out of here as soon as I can.

Sexy Alex emerged victorious from last night’s Apprentice.

I was intrigued to hear him say he studied in Israel and when asked what he studied he replied “Archeology and Rabbinical Studies.”

Huh?

Is Alex Jewish? Looking at his biography on the Apprentice home page it states he attended Seattle Pacific University, which is a Christian college in Seattle, that strangely, is right next door to my former place of business in Seattle. I always liked the fact that we were near SPU, they had a nice track which was open to the public and my old boyfriend and I used it all the time.

Alex also lists himself as the President of his law school’s chapter of “The Federalist Society.” In case anyone doesn’t know the Federalist Society is dedicated to a strict, very strict, constructionist view of the Constitution. Some members of The Federalist Society are also believers in the strange-yet-intriguing philosophy of the Constitution in Exile.

So it’s probably safe to say that Alex is not Jewish but instead a right-wing Christian. His background would certainly suggest it: He’s from an “apple farm” in Eastern Washington (not many Jews or liberals there), he attended a notorious conservative Christian college and he was president of his law school’s chapter of the Federalist Society.

Still, he is a sexy straight self-proclaimed “metrosexual” who dries his armpits with a hair dryer and has his hair highlighted on a regular basis. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep rooting for him now that I know he’s a Federalist, but it’s still nice to have him around as eye candy.

Yesterday someone hacked into my boyfriend’s Amazon.com account and ordered a $2100 plasma TV, which they kindly charged to our Citibank card.

Luckily I, ever the alert consumer, discovered this neferious activity when I checked the Citibank card on-line. So now I’m sitting at home waiting for a new Citibank card to arrive in advance of my afternoon departure for Los Angeles.

In other news San Francisco Magazine had a doom-and-gloom article this month about how badly the City will be devastated when the “big one” hits. Fire, destruction, looting and death are just some of the joys we’ve got to look forward to. All they forgot to add was a plague of locusts, which, if you’re watching network TV this weekend you’ll get a taste of early.

But this got me thinking when looking at the map above. Is a bunch of small earthquakes a good thing because they relieve the stress on the faults? Or are they bad? Maybe they’re harbingers of worse to come…

Jenifer Lopez is looking quite… strange lately.

In this pic she just looks weird. Maybe it’s the “my husband smacked me in the face” look she’s got going with that dark eye shadow. She’s taken the “smoky eye” a bit too far. Instead of smoky it looks black. And there’s a big difference between a “smoky” eye and an eye that’s blackened.

Also, what’s with her hands? They look corpse-like with that barbie-pink fingernail polish.

So she sat on an anti-aircraft gun while you were fighting in Vietnam.
Get over it, it was more than 30 years ago. If one woman sitting on an
anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam really damaged you that badly I
wonder why you were even a soldier?

Fuckin cry-babies. Shut the fuck up for once.

Here Saturday. I love LA.

The whole gay music scene has become remarkably stale and boring, stuck in an allergorical rut so deep it seems like light will never reach the bottom. It’s no wonder I hang out at straight bars and clubs.

It’s sad really. Gays used to be on the cutting edge, churning out new forms of music like disco and house, setting trends in the world of clubbing (Studio 54, Paradise Garage, Sound Factory, Twilo, Trocadero Transfer, The Saint) and generally creating a new standard of fabulousness. But with the growth of the cloneish Abercrombie and Fitch look a weary sameness has settled over the scene.

Look at the DJ list for any gay night or gay club event. It’s always the same, Roland Belmares, Kimberly S etc… These same, tired faces have been occupying the spot behind the decks for so long it’s like they’ve grown roots. Our DJs no longer set the trends, they follow them, churning out tired, vocal-heavy remixes of Top 40 tunes instead of creating and experimenting and forging new paths in dance music.

To what do we point the finger? The rise of the A & F look for sure and many people point to the rise in crystal use as well. Tweakers demand a dancefloor beat which matches their frenetic, crystal-revved personalities. Crystal has destroyed the friendliness and togetherness that used to be such a part of dancing. DJs are only giving them what they want, right?

Wrong. Today’s gay DJs are no better than an iPod on shuffle playing Masterbeat mixes over and over. It’s a sad state of affairs when the best trends in dance music and clubbing are being set by straight DJs like John Digweed, Sasha and Carl Cox and by clubs like Turnmills (of which I’m a member) and nights like Serious at The Cross.

Don’t get me wrong, those are my favorite DJs and clubs and I’ve seen them each more than 10 times. But I’m conscious of the fact that when I’m dancing I’m surrounded by mostly straight people, because all my gay friends are off dancing to some eternal Deborah Cox mix spun by a tired gay DJ whose musical tastes are stuck in Palm Springs circa 2001.

Having the HIV virus is not a crime. Knowingly infecting someone with the HIV virus, however, should be.

I’ll step out on a limb here and say that if you’re HIV positive and you don’t disclose to your sexual partner that you are positive then you should be held liable, civilly and criminally.

The most disgusting and glaringly obvious case of someone with HIV knowingly infecting someone else is that of former San Francisco Public Health Commissioner Ronald Hill. He knew he was positive AND he was the Commissioner of Public Health. Yet he knowingly infected his boyfriend with the virus and then stated that “he didn’t intend to infect his then-boyfriend.”

He also lied about his HIV status to two previous boyfriends when they asked him if he was HIV positive , explicitly stating that he was NOT HIV POSITIVE . The courts agreed that current case law in California only covers those who intend to infect. Simply having the virus, lying to your partners about having the virus and not telling someone when having sex with them isn’t illegal.

Well, it should be. It’s sad that Sen. Carole Migden has decided to take the side of those who refuse to take responsibility for their actions with her statements about “broken condoms.” Carole, condoms rarely break, unfortunately lots of people lie about their HIV status and doing so, if it infects another person, is not only morally wrong but should be a crime.

In addition Sen. Gloria Romero spoke about her desire to see this addressed as a “public health issue and not one of criminalization.” Knowingly infecting someone with a deadly disease isn’t an issue of “public health” Gloria. Instead it’s an issue which should involve law enforcement and the courts. All of this goes back to the tired old view that those with HIV are sad little victims who can do no wrong.

Bullshit.

Democrats in the Senate and the House like Migden, Mark Leno and Gloria Romero should stop parroting the line that HIV is an issue of “education” and not enforcement of law. That line has been followed now for more than 20 years and we’re in a worse position than we were before, with rising rates of infection and a glamorization of HIV taking place in the gay community. We’ve tried “education” now why don’t we try something else, like closing down sex clubs, stigmatizing the virus and prosecuting those who knowingly spread HIV?