This Week's Quote

Image:  Facebook

First of all I'd like to say I'm proud to be here to represent Team USA and to represent our country. But we'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention what's going on in Minnesota, and what a tough time it's been for everybody. This stuff is happening right, right around where we live, and what's happening in Minnesota is wrong. There's no shades of gray. It's clear.

Rich Ruohonen, Olympic curler, lawyer, and at 54 the oldest athlete ever to represent the U.S. at a Winter Games

Source:  YouTube

Aghast From the Past

Image:  Wikipedia

As a fan of old cartoons, I often find myself watching the cable channels that revolve around nostalgia. That's how I caught an ad the other day that shocked me like I was Daffy Duck grabbing a power line.

It was an ad for CarShield, a company that provides "vehicle protection plans," and whose spokesperson is usually rapper and actor Ice-T. But this time the hawker was Michele Bachmann.

Yes, that Michele Bachmann, the conservative Christian politician from Minnesota who many of us remember as a well-coiffed thorn in queer sides. She claimed nutty things, like gay people wanted to abolish age of consent laws so adults could "prey on little children sexually."

All the while she was married to a man who struck many of us as being gayer than a night on Fire Island.

Bachmann, a Tea Partier, took her anti-queer, anti-abortion act national when she mounted a short-lived run for the 2012 presidency. She retired from Congress a few years later, and I don't recall hearing a thing about, or from, her since.

Then she shows up in 2026 shilling on TV for CarShield, a company that has been in deep trouble for deceptive advertising. Considering Bachmann and her husband ran a Christian counseling center that practiced conversion therapy despite their denials, I'd say she's perfectly suited to her new gig.

Hey, it's not everyone who can lie with a beatific smile and get paid for it. Thank God.

Shutdown

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In response to the ICE atrocities in Minneapolis, it's "National Shutdown" day. Activists want us to ditch school and work and not spend money on Jan. 30.

The citizens of Minneapolis pulled that off beautifully a week ago, but I fear there hasn't been enough time to mount a paralyzing nationwide strike.

Still, I'm in. I was supposed to do a happy hour with a couple of friends at one of Seattle's waterside restaurants today, but I let them know why I can't, in good conscience, be there. To acknowledge those killed in Minneapolis (and Chicago and Los Angeles), I can certainly forego shellfish and wine.

Not a sacrifice of heroic proportions. Giving up the chance to gossip, though, that was a little harder.

The Helmet Hides the Nazi 'Do

 

When Your Closet Is a Locker Room

Image:  Facebook

How about some good news for a change? Good gay news at that. I might even charge you for the dopamine hit.

After being inspired by the smash HBO Max series "Heated Rivalry" about male hockey rivals-turned-lovers, actual hockey player Jesse Korteum came out. He wrote on Facebook earlier this month of growing up the youngest of four boys in hockey-crazed Minnesota. "I loved the game, but I lived with a persistent fear. I wondered how I could be gay and still play such a tough and masculine sport," wrote Korteum.

Tough and masculine. Yes, I assume his dance card will be full in gay bars from Mankato to Manitoba.

Australian former pro basketball player AJ Ogilvy also came out recently in a video chat. The guy he was chatting with, Isaac Humphries, came out as gay while playing in the Australian league in 2022, and Ogilvy credited Humphries with giving him the courage, saying it was "hugely beneficial to have someone of your stature and attitude be able to step forward and say this is who you are."

Fans noted "Heated Rivalry" may've also had something to do with Ogilvy's revelation. What we know for sure is media representation matters, and individual athletes coming out matters.

I'm feeling greedy, so I hope at next month's Winter Olympics we'll be treated to more male athletes coming out. Flamboyant American former figure skater Johnny Weir will be in Milan to commentate on skating, but perhaps he could have a side hustle:  "Oh, yesterday a Canadian bobsledder came out, and today it's a Dutch speed skater! I'm not allowed to mention how good they both look in Lycra, so I'll just say they can go for my gold anytime!"

Norman Rockwell Now