Dildo downpour?

I've always wanted to say that.

When you see a campaign attack ad with a picture of one white guy surrounded by black and Hispanic people, under the banner "Don't be misled: Bad company corrupts good character," would your first instinct be to think "racism in campaigning"? Oh, silly you. The conservative Empower Texans PAC (famously linked to Houston property mogul Bob "Swiftboat" Perry) threw this gem out against Joel Redmond, the Democrat hoping to fill Houston's vacant House District 144 seat. On the classy flier, Redmond's image is in the middle of photos of Sen. Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Sen. Mario Gallegos, and Reps. Harold Dutton and Garnett Coleman. But apparently, the unifying factor is not race, it's that they're all liberals. Got that? After all, why look to be offended by potential implied racism when the same mailer rails about "the radical homosexual agenda" and claims that Redmond is "opposed to marriage," blah blah blah,bad for schools, blah blah blah, hates America, blah blah blah. PAC claims that this is a fair-game criticism are so unconvincing that even the implacable Harvey Kronberg of Quorum Report wrote, "In a year potentially sitting on the powder keg of racial politics, (this) may have crossed the line." But an interesting thought that some Democratic activists are quietly discussing: with a tanking economy and house prices stalling, traditional big donors like Perry may not have the money to throw around on too many hit pieces like this in the final hours of the campaign this year.

Here's something I found on Austin.Craigslist posted in the Men Seeking Men and Women Seeking Women/Casual Encounters section of Craigslist: Slim, flimsy yet sturdy, electronic voting booth ("Angelique", No. 5 at the Fiesta Mart) is revved up for your touch and waiting to be used. Discretion is assured, although, if you want to tell the world you just did me, I'm cool with that too. In fact, you'll get a cute little sticker to prove it. You will: Come in, speak with my associate, and punch in a secret code… then let your fingers do the walking across the matte plastic eSlate™ body. I'll click if I like what you're doing. Click. Click. I love it when passages of Monique Wittig's The Lesbian Body are read aloud to me. I'm DDF, but you don't have to be to use me. But please, be safe, and use protection.

To mark this year's season of the haunt, we are pleased as spiked punch to bring out another Ticket Giveaway. This one's an "essay contest." (By essay, we mean 1-10 sentences.)

Question: Tell us what is the scariest thing, to you, about Vice Presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin? (Could it be this? Or, perhaps, this?)

And if we like your answer the best, not only will we publish it on here, but we will also give you two tickets to this year's Ghouls Night Out, brought to you by Equality Texas. It's a Halloween-night party with over 200 women, a costume contest, cocktails, beer, wine, and food. Not to mention the dancing! Move it to none other than DJ Cheryl Coward! This will be a night to remember.

(For tickets to above party, sans Palin-bashing, go here!)

Click the link below for full contest details and how to enter right now!

What a catfight, huh? I'm sure you have the same burning question that I have: Who is Joe the Plumber?!? Perhaps the answers are to be found in the Gay Place Book O' the Month: Working Stiff: True Blue-Collar Gay Porn. Also see the Onion op-ed "The Plumbing Business Is Not as Glamorous as the Porn Industry Depicts".

Wow. Tune in at about 54 seconds into the video for a special message to LGBTQ populations: Commie faggots?!? Now I don't hold the McCain/Palin campaign accountable for the verbal diarrhea of their "base," but at least the terrorist bits come straight out of Sarah Palin's recent speeches, ya know, where she talks about Obama and who he's been "pallin' around with." The fact that so many of these folks think Obama is a muslim (and, ahem, that being a muslim precludes one from being the President of the United States) simply based on his name is riDONKulous. As my good friend has told those folks who hold this opinion dear on many occasions "My first name's Mary, does it mean I'm a Christian? Am I getting into heaven?" Most of the time they say no. And in the case of my friend, rightfully so.

It's been four years since Stephen Merritt and Claudia Gonson rolled into town to play to Austin's queerest, and how we've been hungering! I remember when I was an undergraduate only the coolest of queers knew who The Magnetic Fields were. I was woefully behind the times, but once I got caught up I never looked back. We built our lives around Stephen Merritt's lyrics. They are at once tragic and laugh-out-loud hilarious. And then you feel bad for thinking something so sincere could be so funny… This is from the song "Absolutely Cuckoo": Know now that I'm on the make/ And if you make a mistake/ My heart wil certainly break/ I'll have to jump in a lake/ And all my friends will blame you/ There's no telling what they'll do/ It's only fair to tell you/ I'm absolutely cuckoo 69 Love Songs is still my default gift for new acquaintances… and honestly, if you don't have 69 Love Songs, you're lame. There, I said it. So get it, lamers. The Magnetic Fields playing tonight at the Paramount. Doors open at 7:00 and show begins at 8:00. You've got two hours.

Oh NO! The ladies have left the building… The aGLIFF building. Programming Director Lisa Kasalek and Festival Director Ajae Clearway have both moved on to greener pastures, this even after they were recently named Gay Place Crush of the Week!?! Kasalek left to pursue personal projects and Clearway is now a staff member at the prestigious 1080. This is worrying, the fact that I'm a nervous nelly notwithstanding. Under Kasalek and Clearway aGLIFF chose to explore a more expansive and meaningful festival program. This past year's aGLIFF gave viewers films in which the gay characters loved, suffered, and made morally ambiguous decisions like the rest of us. There were also transgender oriented films (the number of transgendered films will only grow in years to come). I know that sex sells, and that it's easier to market Naked Boys Singing to a randy group of gay men. But let's hope that their departure doesn't signal a reactionary step backwards for aGLIFF. At this point in the festival's life, everything is on the line. Building an audience for a film festival chock full of internationally acclaimed films doesn't happen over the course of a year, or even a few years, it happens gradually. Dear aGLIFF: Don't hedge your bets with gay fluff, continue to build the internationally acclaimed LGBTQ film festival Austin deserves!

Today's AGLCC press release clears up a lot of things. Sort of:

Equality Texas came to the AGLCC's Pride Coalition to help determine the future of its event. After several months of discussion, it was decided that the AGLCC will jointly organize the Parade and the Festival with its Pride Coalition acting as an organizing committee representing all of Austin.

It's the first time we've seen the Pride Coalition specifically referred to as the AGLCC Pride Coalition. Back when the mysterious Pride Coalition was first announced, we asked some AGLCCers if it was an AGLCC committee or project, as they were the only local group really touting its formation and that the announcement webpage was part of AGLCC's web presence. At that time, they told us no. In fact, it was pointed out that the coalition had its own URL. It does. The launch of that 'organization' is now, however, more confusing than ever. So, to clarify. Apparently, there is no independent Pride Coalition. When Equality Texas handed the reins of Pride over to the 'Pride Coalition' earlier this summer, they were essentially handing over control of all Pride assets, responsibilities, liabilities, and resources to AGLCC? We think… Why didn't they just say that? It's still confusing. We're sorry for any confusion to which we contributed. However, the Gay Place still stands by our initial response to the Pride hand-off news. Consolidating Pride without any sort of independent oversight group is a bad idea. Let the anonymous blog commenting begin!