Today the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage in the state of California.  The court also ”allowed” the 18,000 couples who married before the ban to stay married.  As one of those couples, I have this to say:  The multitudes of Californians who support the ban have lost the arguments they had against my marriage, namely that it would destroy the public school curriculum, destroy the foundation of heterosexual marriage and lay waste to religious practice.  Are all you couples in “different” sexed marriages shaking in your boots because I married my man?  Are your marriages falling apart?  Threatened?  Have your children been subjected to a subversive homosexual curriculum in their schools yet?  Do you expect them to be next year?  Two years from now?  Has your connection with God been lost?  Has your place of worship been compromised?  Has my marriage interfered with the way you practice your religion?  Please keep me informed because I’m married and I’m not going anywhere.  And I want to know. 

I am balls to the walls busy editing the first draft of my new novel. But I must take a moment to celebrate the recent gay marriage decisions in Vermont, Iowa, the District of Columbia, and now Maine. It’s a little embarrassing to live in California, the Golden State, where trends are supposed to start. But now we have the the passage of Prop. 8 banning gay marriage in California and Miss California and her chicken cutlet breast implants on her crusade against gay civil rights. Geez. California ran a wheel or two off, seems like to me.

Come back to me, California.

What follows is my economic stimulus plan, the Citizen Investment Initiative, CII, with a shout out to Jerry Gold, who has supported the idea from the beginning and, like me, is more committed to it with each passing day.

Every adult citizen of the U.S. (18 and older) will receive a check from the Federal Government for 1 million dollars by July 1, 2009.  The first payments will go to every adult who filed an income tax return in 2009 and to those who did not make enough money to file a tax return in 2009.  The second payments will go to the homeless and the off-the-grid citizens:  they can either come forward on their own; they can be located by various church affiliated and secular organizations who have the information to track them; or they can choose not to participate, no questions asked. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau tonight there are 307 million people in the country.  Close to 1/4 are under the age of 18.  But let’s just pretend we are country of adults — that is 307 million people, 307 million dollars.  Tack on some fraud (as if it’s not happening now with the banks and auto companies) and let’s agree we’re working with 350 million dollars. 

Check this out: 

My point is, the economy will spring to life the day the first payments are cashed.  350 million dollars is a miniscule drop in the bucket when compared to the bailouts the taxpayers are funding on a daily basis to the banking and auto industries.  We are a country of entrepreneurs.  Americans are innovative and cannot be stopped when they get a chance.  It is our turn now.

Mr. Luke: 

There is no one like you on the face of the earth.  Your nature, your instincts, and your vast reservoirs of love are tributes to your big brown eyes, specked in gold . . .  along with countless other attributes not to be shared in public.

You are the definition of an ”honorable man.” 

Happy birthday, my love.     

My maternal grandparents, from rural southwest Virginia, used to refer to the state of Iowa as “I ah Way,” the state that just legalized gay marriage thanks to the state Supreme Court.  Granted, the other side, the anti-side (why is there an anti-side in matters of love?) will do their best to change that decision as quickly as they can which isn’t all that quick at all when compared to the speed with which the voters of California slammed down the right to gay marriage last November, mere months after the right was granted.  I prefer the “I ah Way” way, myself.  And you can quote me.

A day or two after Obama won the Presidency my good friend, the astute political observer, Jerry Gold, said that it would be the Democrats who would be the biggest obstacle for Obama and his agenda.  And here we are, entering the third month of Obama’s Presidency and Jerry is proven right.  Senator Evan Bayh, who didn’t run for President and in fact sat on the sidelines, and Senator Kent Conrad from North Dakota, who endorsed Obama early on, and the rest of the “suddenly I can speak after 8 years” contrarian Democrats are standing up and attempting to block the progress that Obama was elected to pursue.  I knew the Republicans would not support Obama but I never dreamed they would state publically that they want him to fail.  But hey, they were bound and gagged for 8 years while Bush was in power, I guess they need to exercise their vocal cords.  But the contrarian Democrats, now they are a different story and a sorry lot.  They limped along during the Bush years, heads hung down, the “hangdog look” my grandmother used to say.  I thought the Dems had vanished from the earth while Bush was in office.  But no.  Oh, no.  One of their own was elected in a landslide and now they’re up in arms against him, acting as if they are all the President and suddenly the deficit is all the rage and they just can’t stop insinuating how misguided their President is.   

Here’s my question:  Do the blue dog hangdog Democrats want Obama to fail, too?  And if so, why?  And if not, what are they doing?  I’m open to suggestions. 

You would be 100 today.  I can’t believe you’ve been dead for 20 years.  I miss you.  I’m writing about you in my new book, I want to keep our bond alive…  We did our best with the father and son thing, don’t you think?

It seems I’m getting back to what matters to me.  I don’t give a shit about the doom-and-gloomers.  I’m a late bloomer.  Yes, had I followed my dancing career with an acting career, something to keep the applause coming, I might have turned out differently.  But I’m a quiet person, as difficult as that is to grasp.  It is asking a lot to expect my friends and family to believe I’ve changed, that I’m not the same person I was.  Who among us is?  I’ve never had any trouble with anyone who changes, expands, reinvents.  I encourage it.  I’ve gotten the feeling, at pinpoints in my life, that certain people want to bottle me, like a bloody Merlot, recline me in the cellar, head down, and bring me out when they need to pop a cork…

Cork me/take the time to spin me under your nose/I have a new scent/Taste me/I am an artist living in the late 00s/trying to make my way/Oh.

Why is it expedient/to tighten the reins on transformation/What grape is expedient/a foolish grape I say/Do not hold back/a new grape grows each day on the vines/the last laugh is yours/is mine.

When did the “main stream media,” oh how I hate that term, it sounds like a post-op urinary or prostate condition — anyway, when did the MSM — consumed as it is by editorial writers, television talking heads, ancient voodoo trolls, news show hosts, radio talkers, guests on other guests shows, NPR “I’ve been invisible behind my microphone for too long” — yes, you Scott Simon, your sniveling laughter was far more desirable coming out of a young man’s mouth — all start giving advice to the President on a daily basis and believing that said advice is valuable and may in fact be the word of God? When did that start? And more importantly, why did it start? It’s as if everyone now can give advice to our new President and surely they can, I would never limit free speech — but the trouble is, who checks and balances all that advice, who keeps up with how often the blowhard baby boomers puke their bile from one day to another, each day dawning as a fresh start, a new day for new advice — running the 30 or 60 minute television mile, the ripe column inches. They cannot believe Obama is not one of them so they twist and turn like desperate children who have been told they aren’t quite smart enough to govern so they will just destroy the government, which is the people, which is the country, instead.

These economic times require leadership and truth-telling. Americans understand economics far better than the talking heads or politicians. Every week, individuals, couples, families and households pay bills and plan for the future. They realize that it takes time for finances to grow, unless they win the lottery or inherit a chunk of money. They plan for college, a health issue to be taken care of or how to afford food for the following week. It’s not that complicated. We have fallen behind as a country in many ways but that’s about to change.

An exciting part of Obama’s stimulus package is money for high-speed rail. There are rail lines planned in congested corridors in the country that will serve high-speed trains. That in turn will inspire local entrepreneurs to create transportation to and from the train hubs. Obama inspires us to embrace mass-rail for this new century, rightly so as oil reserves will diminish. We went to the moon in the sixties, less than ten years after Kennedy declared we would do so.

(God, I sound like such a policy wonk! I swear I’ll write a poem next time — or a non-policy wonky piece.)