Essays

Virgil and Burns
Yesterday evening, I was walking up Virgil, and a half block from the corner of Burns, I saw a stereotypically dressed and affected hipster — that slur for creative class types — strolling around the corner laughing on his cell phone. He strolled right into the collection of votive candles that have populated the southwest corner of that intersection since Leonardo Gabriel Ramirez, a 17 year old boy from the neighborhood, was shot and killed on May 23.


His truth is marching on
Selma, the brilliant film about King and the Selma marches of 1965, was nominated for Best Picture, but its director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo were not, and those are as egregious snubs as any in many years.

Music. 2014.
Yes, the Golden Teddy Awards for Most Excellence in Music is being posted in a timely fashion. I know, shocking. Anyway, here it is. These

Movies. 2014.
This year’s Golden Teddy Awards for Most Excellence in Movies starts with the list of my ten favorite movies of 2014 from LGBT Weekly and then goes into choices for excellences in various Oscar-ish categories as well as things like “prop chomping” and “dystopian art direction.”

Chris Pratt. That’s all.
Three days after its release, the voters on IMDb have declared Guardians of the Galaxy the 32nd greatest film of all time. This is, of course, absurd.