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Dallas Buyers Club: Live Like You Were Dyin'

Dallas Buyers Club doesn't reinvent the wheel. It's a fairly straightforward account of the AIDS crisis early on, when patients had to take matters into their own hands to find treatments, in that second wave of people who didn't die immediately. It's a fairly conventional story of little guy takes on the big corporate/government machine, Silkwood or Erin Brockovich or Norma Rae plus incurable disease. 

I haven't done a conventional film review in a while... and part of the reason, I realized just now, is it's a lot easier to feel compelled when dealing with something on the level of Dallas Buyers Club. It's a film to remind you that there's no to reinvent storytelling when the story is worth telling. And worth telling well.

Ron Woodruff was a colorful character, a rodeo cowboy and electrician who led a hard life and wound up with and HIV diagnosis in 1985. Disbelieving, he looked into the science, and investigated treatments. That led him first to AZT, then to Mexico and other, more experimental drugs - drugs which are now the basis of most AIDS treatments. Like a number of enterprising patients in the early days, he pioneered an outlaw approach to getting necessary drugs to patients in need - a Buyers Club  that helped create the cashflow to go here the treatments could be found.

There are a lot of stories like Ron Woodruff's to be found in the history of AIDS and AIDS activism; it's safe to say that AIDS has, in many ways, transformed in the most fundamental ways the discussion we have around illness and treatment and health care. How we talk about life saving drugs, how we approach care for the most vulnerable, how we both value and question the medical establishment... before AIDS, this was a much different conversation.

The film is a beautiful, amazing, spare piece of storytelling. Woodruff is a colorful character, not in need of much embellishment. Jean-Marc Vallee has put together a remarkable narrative, one that doesn't insult an audience's intelligence, or condescend to the characters. These are real, flawed, desperate people. And desperation can lead people to do amazing things.

Matthew McConaughey has entered a remarkable phase of his career; there's a fearlessness to his acting lately that simply wasn't there before. It's not that he's taken roles which show no apologies for his sex symbol status (The Paperboy, Magic Mike) - it's that he's given these performances layers of unexpected depth and dimension. I haven't seen Mud, but I'm confident he's as good as people say. Here, he plays Ron Wooruff full out, no apologies, no regrets. Woodruff  wasn't necessarily comfortable with the perception of HIV/AIDS as a "gay" disease, but he doesn't want to die, and he's got the decency to share what works with others. 

Nor is McConaughey working in a vacuum - Jennifer Garner turns in some of her best work as Ron's supportive doctor, Jared Leto takes an even more fearless leap into playing the transgender woman Rayon, Ron's compatriot in building the Club. Even the thankless role of Ron's primary nemesis, the doctor who works within the establishment, gets a worthy portrayal from Denis O'Hare.

Vallee 's spareness in storytelling and shot composition cuts through a lot of the clutter that seems to turn up in movies these days, but he never loses sight of the urgency, the desperation, the simplest need to live. This, really, is what the eighties looked and felt like - that moment when you coudn't be gay and not just know about AIDS, but know about the drugs, the desperation, the frustrations. The death and loss was overwhelming... but beyond that lay the plight of the living. And that, somehow, was harder still.

It's hard for me to see a performance more worthy of an Oscar than McConaughey's (or Leto's for that matter, and probably Garner too). Dallas Buyers Club tells an important necessary story in a solid, compelling way. And really, that's what film is supposed to do, at its best.

 

Ain't That A Kick In The Head (... And Chest, And Shoulders...)

Every so often I find myself repeating the part about How I Hate Getting Sick, mostly because I'm sick again. This latest one is especially bewildering.

It started slowly last week, as I felt myself getting achy and uncomfortable. I assumed it was the lack of a chiropractic adjustment or just the changing weather, just as I kept trying to explain away the sudden chills and tingling sensations as just a reaction to the cold snap across the northeast. It was weird, though, how I would go to adjust the thermostat, and find it already set a usually comfortable 72 degrees.

And then Thursday, around noontime, all hell broke loose.

As the pain across my chest became suddenly more pronounced, and the tingles more sharp, I rushed to the bathroom and discovered that I was breaking out in a rash, compete with welts and bumps. I was confused, wracking my brain to try and recall exposure to poison ivy or poison oak; I contemplated a poisonous spider bite. After cancelling my afternoon plans, I tried calling my doctor, but no appointment was available. I rushed to the emergency room instead.

The emergency room is an odd place to go to alone. There's no one to stand by and say vaguely comforting things, or idle away the near endless time spent waiting taking one's mind off of impending doom. I realized, as I nearly fell asleep waiting to see a doctor, that I was also exhausted.

The diagnosis, though, was pretty much immediate: I had come down with Shingles, the adult form of chicken pox. For some reason, I had always assumed shingles meant painful, exposed, raw skin rather than a sudden rash (my mother says "that's psoriasis"), so it hadn't even occurred to me. I can now report that the principle sensation, as with chicken pox, is a sudden nervous flux - all my nerve endings, rash or not, were sending off confused signals (hence the chills and tingles, and the soreness in odd places), and my perplexed brain was in overdrive tryng to process and sort them out. 

Knowing, as they say, is half the battle; having shingles is difficult, but I feel better just having a diagnosis and a treatment. The round the clock antiviral pills are a bit of a chore, but they do seem to (gradually) be taking effect. And while I initially bowled myself over with pain medication, the discomfort seems to be decreasing, again slowly, and I'm trying to make do with a less extreme pain management approach.

When it comes to illness, I'm kind of old fashioned, in that I think sound mind eads to sound body; I don't think shingles just happens, and I suspect stress and moments of feeling down didn't help me to fight off whatever caused the outbreak to occur. It's hard, still, to give myself the room to just admit to my weakness, and let my body deal with fighting a virus without added stress. But I'm trying to let go of old notions that I'm just a weak person, who should've had more personal resilience to not get sick in the first place.

Mostly, of course, I just want this to be over, for life to resume its normal pace, to get on with the things I was planning to get on with before illness struck. That's not quite, I know, how this works. For the moment, I just have to deal with being ill, and hopefully, in a short, manageable period of time I will be well. But having to see this through... well, ain't that a kick in the head? Yes, it is. A painful one.

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You'll Be A Bust In The Hall Of Fame

I've finally decided to go back and write a fresh piece about this - I originally tied it to a post that started out about Madonna, and went sideways, but I think this deserves a post (and an action) all its own. Plus, since I've kept watching this, over the years, it's just become more embarrasing.

I'm talking about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And it's sorry record of adding women.

Since it began the process of "inducting" notable figures into the Hall, the Hall of Fame has been a decidedly mixed bag. The selection process is, at best, capricious; its standards are questionable, and the failure to properly recognize a number of artists is beyond glaring.

Where this all comes together is around the issue of female representation in American music's only tribute to key contributors of the rock era. It's been a cause that repeatedly gets brought up, year after year, as dozens of men are inducted, but only a few women, year after year. The first woman inducted (Aretha Franklin) wasn't included until the second year. In all, since 1986, 709 people have been inducted. Just over 50 are women. No women were inducted in 2003 or 2004. Seventeen men have been inducted more than once. As I did in the original post, here is a complete list of every woman inducted into the Hall, in chronological order (with designations that are used in the Hall's nomenclature):

Aretha Franklin
Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard (as The Supremes)
Bessie Smith (as an “Early Influence”)
Carole King (as part of the “non-performer” writing team with Gerry Goffin)
Ma Rainey (Early Influence)
La Vern Baker
Tina Turner (as part of Ike and Tina Turner)
Etta James
Ruth Brown
Dinah Washington (Early Influence)
Martha Reeves, Rosalyn Ashford, Betty Kelly, Lois Reeves and Annette Sterling (as Martha and the Vandellas)
Janis Joplin
Shirley Reeves, Micki Harris, Doris Kenner-Jackson, and Beverly Lee (as the Shirelles)
Grace Slick (as part of Jefferson Airplane)
Gladys Knight (and the Pips)
Joni Mitchell
Mahalia Jackson (Early Influence)
Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliott (as the Mamas, along with the Papas)
Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks (as part of Fleetwood Mac)
Dusty Springfield
Mavis, Cleotha, and Yvonne Staples (as part of The Staples Singers)
Bonnie Raitt
Billie Holiday (Early Influence)
Brenda Lee
Chrissie Hynde (with the Pretenders)
Debbie Harry (as part of Blondie)
Patti Smith
Ronnie Spector, Nedra Talley, and Estelle Bennett (as the Ronettes)
Madonna

Wanda Jackson (2009, Early Influence)

Annafrid and Agnetha with ABBA

Ellie Greenwich (and Jeff Barry as songwriters)

Cynthia Weil (and Barry Mann as songwriters)

Darlene Love (inducted by Bette Midler, who isn't)

Laura Nyro

Claudette Rogers Robinson (as a member of The Miracles - Smokey Robinson was inducted solo in 1987)

Donna Summer

Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson (as the leaders of Heart)

 

This year, yet again, only 3 women are even nominated: Linda Ronstadt, along with Alfa Anderson and Norma Jean Wright (as original members of Chic). That's out of 16 nominated acts or individuals.

The pace of women inductees is almost unbelievable, and while it's easy to argue that part of this is a function of the overall male culture of rock (a male dominant music industry, a plethora of all male bands), that's hardly an excuse. Nor is it excusable that the selection process seems heavily weighted to a male dominated group of rock critics and "industry experts" whose biases are all too apparent. There are, and continue to be, a variety of related scandals around the pace and timing of inductees into the Hall (such as the reason the Miracles were inducted last year, correcting only the solo representation of Smokey Robinson), around men and groups who should be represented, and that's fair game as well. There's also that ever present question of what consitutes "rock and roll" which the founders of the Hall have struggled with all along, with middling success. None of that, still, explains why, say, Pat Benatar or Joan Jett has never made it into the Hall of Fame, by any standard. Or why Carole King, one of the top selling album artists of all time as a solo act, is only inducted as a songwriter. With her ex-husband (much like Tina Turner, whose solo career goes unrecognized. Still). Never mind Cher. Or Judy Collins. Or Joan Baez... 

It's well past the time that all of this sits, unexplored and unaddressed, passed over year after year while occasionally someone mildly asks why aren't more women included. It's possible Ronstadt would speak up about it, except she's too ill to do it. Few of the women already in ever have spoken extensively about it. This past year, it was Elton John who publicly shamed the Hall over the failure to recognize Donna Summer. She was inducted posthumously.

It's fair to ask if a "Rock and Rol Hall of Fame" deserves to be taken seriously. After more than 25 years, it's clear, at least, that the music industry has adopted the concept fairly wholeheartedly, that fans welcome the recognition for their beloved artists, and the physical structure of the Hall has established a presence. All of which, after more than 25 years, makes the embarrassing failure to properly recignize the contributions of women all the more glaring, depressing, and unacceptable.  It seems clear that one of this will change until voices are raised, loudly, for some sort of improvement.

 

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True Blood, Reconsidered: Pretty, Bloody, Dirty Things...

This blog serves as an outlet for my many views, few so certain as my double dismissal, in years past, of True Blood. As something of a vampire connoisseur (blood and sex and magik), few shows so thoroughly disappointed as the first two seasons of True Blood, where bad southern stereotyping met louche sexuality in the Louisiana Bayou. And that seemed to be that.

But time passes, and True Blood soldiered on, and on, growing a devoted band of fans, and while I lacked HBO, I was not immune to thoughts that perhaps, somehow, there was some element to the story that I'd missed, that further developments had heeded my concerns... or maybe the sex had just gotten better.

And so, blessed with some free time, and free copies found at the local library, I began playing catch up with True Blood on DVD. Perhpas I'm just softening up, or perhaps years of vampires on TV have weakened my resolve... but I think True Blood, mostly, took some of its criticism to heart, or at least to head. A better richer, experience in its latter seasons, True Blood has solved some of its core missteps - but that doesn't mean it has, necessarily, dug its way entirely out of its own self made ditch.

First, the good: most obviously, the writers on True Blood seemed to face up to the fact tat the crude portrayal of smalltown southerners as dumb, oversexed hicks was retrograde, embarrassing and limiting. Season three seems to have launched a careful effort to add depth and complexity to nearly all the major characters, that culminated in an especially rich mix in Season four. In part, the writers jettisoned a few nonworking characters and storylines, and brought in several new, more complex characters, improving the mix. One of the show's better examples of admitting its missteps was resurrecting the ghost of Godrick, Northman's vampire maker, one of the show's most interesting characters, having killed him off too quickly in the middle of Season 2. When Godrick showed up as a ghost, I knew someone had been listening to feedback.

Even more noticeably, the show has worked hard to find a better balance of reality and fantasy. I can only imagine that a wide mix of other shows in the fantasy/supernatural genre (Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Twilight etc) showed the possibilities, and challenged the writers to think harder about what the audience really wanted to see. Then, to, this may be about the source material - though my sense is the show has strayed substantially, as others have. Regardless, layering in storylines about werewolves and faeries, embellishing the portrait of a vampire culture separate and beyond the humans, offered up a range of story options that had been missing in the narrow presentations of the first two seasons. Finally, in seasons, three and four, there seemed to be a genuine sense of how to develop dramatc tension, and bounce competing storylines off of one another to guve the show a sense of urgency it had sorely lacked (shocking cliffhangers notwithstanding).

Many of the sctors have risen to the challenge of finding fresh layers in their characters - most obviously, the show tapped Alex Skarsgard's versatility playing Eric Northman, the 1000 year old vampire, but seasoned regulars like Ryan Kwanten and Rutina Wesley probably made the biggest leaps in giving thinly drawn characters much needed depth. Having only just been exposed to Joe Mangiello's work as the werewolf Alcide, I finally see the mix of strength and tenderness he's brought to the show as well.

Of course being HBO (it's not porn, it's HBO is never truer than in Bon Temps), there's the limit-pushing use of grpahic sex, nudity and violence to consider as well. One of the show's better developments has been finding a better balance between the raunch and the rest of the show - the show still pants heavily, but the sex seems better placed to enhance and explain the plot, rather than merely to shock and titillate. Mostly. Many of the major actors - especially Kwanten, sadly - seem to have pushed to cut back extraneous nude shots. But generally, the cast is game, and the bodies are, well, impressive.

Still, the show has had its share of plotting missteps - Season three labored mightily to tie up the loose ends of previous seasons, and made good use of a new villain, the King of Mississippi. And Season 4 built well on the foundation, bouncing faerie stories, witchcraft, and amnesia off of one another to create a rich mix. But familiar signs of trouble started near the end, and Season 5 showed a striking drift into aimless plotting, disconnected from the show's real strengths. A meandering, confusing storyline about the main Vampre Council and quasi-religious overtones, veered wildly out of control by the end of that season... and Season six seems to have built on that shaky set of developments. In part, I'd argue that the show's most damaging recent loss was the character of Nan Flanagan, the Vampire world's PR spokesperson, crafting a carecful image of safe, harmless vamps who just wanted to coexist with the human world. Once Nan was brutally killed by Bill Compton and Northman, a key element of the whole premise - that True Blood, the synthesized blood product, combined with mainstreaming created the show's main source of tension between humans and vampires - was broken, perhaps permanently. Without that, there's mostly a tale of crazed killer bloodsuckers, with a little sex thrown in... and the show's balance has struggled as a result.

Even so, what once seemed like Alan Ball's lazy excuse to go sleazy after Six Feet Under has salvaged itself; I'd happily recommend Seasons 3 and 4 to anyone who likes the supernatural monster/fantasy genre as good examples of how it wrks when things go right. If Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer's central roles of Sookie and BIll haven't progressed much (Paquin's too dithery, Moyer's too taciturn), the ensemble has gelled smartly into a well running engine, chock full of interesting characters on their own journies. If the show could have been more, and done better... well, at least they didn't just settle for the low ball expectations of Seasons 1 and 2. Here's hoping the seventh season allows them to finish on a high note.

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Is This The Part Where We Say It Gets Better?

I'm often fascinated by sports stories that drift into the news pages - especially in this weird, backlash-y moment where gender divisions seem somehow reduced, yet stark. Certainly the Penn State/child molesting scandal, or say Lance Armstrong. There's something in this extreme media environment of 24 semi-news that's made news out of stories that used to languish on the back pages and inner sections of papers; it's also true that there's a certain way of comprehending the world of straight men that can't happen without admitting the role of professional sports in those men's lives.

Not being one of those men, I kind of feel I have an odd perspective watching the Miami Dolphins bullying story play out - I think one has to care more about the socializing in a locker room than I ever do (homo-eroticism is not reality) to give these events a lot of thought. It's a thing about guys and team sports that generally, and genuinely, mystifies me: what would be remotely appealing about spending that much time with that many men? Maybe it's just groups - I'm not a joiner. But hanging out, gabbing with a bunch of women has always captured my interest more than just men.

Still, it's been fascinating to watch the  discomfort, and dismay, of football fans trying to deal with the story that's dribbling out over Richie Incognito's behavior towards Jonathan Martin, and  team dynamics generally where hazing, rites of passage, and bullying coalesce and converge. There's been that odd moment where the embarrassed sportsman submits to an uncomfortable, living room interview in ill-fitting dress clothes (it's not a great look on Incognito, that's for sure); there's been the still odder moment of listening to otherwise enlightened feminists (especially women of color) try to balance their feminist instincts against the tension of liking male-dominated sports. And there's the professional sprts industry, trying its best to shove the dirty laundry back into the closet before anyone looks too closely.

All of which, really, is about as instructive an object lesson about the realities of bullying, and how we often fail to confront it, in our culture as one could expect. What's so stunning, as someone among those who experience it, is how reports of bullying make people uncomfortable - so uncomfortable that rather than deal with it, we sort of turn away from it, and try to explain it away. "That's what the locker room is like." "It's different when we're talking about team sprts, especially at the level of professional football." And then there's "maybe he needed to be toughened up" which sounds like the bullied variation of "they were asking for it."

(By the way - yes, those are generally, if not verbatim, quotes of things I've actually heard the past few days)

Of course, the Dolphins have suspended Incognito, and launched an investigation, so officially, someone does seem to get that there's a problem here. But the larger question is really how we got here - how football got to a point where one player's career was apparently wrecked by mistreatment at the hands of his teammmates, to the point of a breakdown, and how was that remotely going on unnoticed or not addressed?

We're here, in part, because the NFL has been on a fairly relentless, very public, campaign to "enlarge its brand." In these modern media times where everything is a marketing campaign, sports branding, at a corporate level, has become the reason for everything. The NFL is trying to  position itself versus Baseball here in the US, and internationally, against the juggernaut of soccer and teams like Manchester United. TV ratings have soared for professional football, now dominating Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights. The hottest teams have become even more dominant franchises. And star players are central to celebrity culture in a way that hasn't been seen in a good 30 years or so.

All of that attention has been carefully created and tended by professionals, but there's a point where all that attention leads to questions. For football, it started with reasonable, but difficult questions about padding and player safety (players are opting, mostly for optics, not to wear much more than shoulder and thigh pads, despite threat of injury). Those questions, in turn, led to revelations about long term head injuries and brain damage that football still can't shake. And the obscene amounts of profits have led to questions about team ownership, sweetheart deals, and a runaway discussion about money in college sports that's yet another can of worms. And now, into the morass of difficut press comes a messy discussion of player and locker room culture (and that, arguably, on top of loathsome behavior by players off the field).

One positive outcome to this may be that sports reporting - and treatment of sports coverage - is in some ways growing up. It's not enough, at this point, to simply throw these stories over to overgrown fanboys and cheerleaders from the sidelines. Sports reporting is, haltingly, trying to face up to the hard questions, and to at least try and fill in context around the good and the bad of these "brands." But in nearly every case, these stories have raced ahead of the sports departments, forcing many to play catch up. This bulying story is a good example of many sports reporters getting caught off guard about the public revelation of behavior they've seen for a long time. And what follows is a struggle to explain, mixed with a desire to explain away.

Like fraternity hazing, the worst of locker room culture is unlikely to survive public scrutiny. The familiar excuses of "boys will be boys" and qualifiers about how "it's so different when..." don't stand up well to stories of truly brutal, truly indefensible words and deeds. Some, including a number of admirable ex-players in the NFL, have pointed out that the sports world is our culture's last gasp of macho male behavior... and up to a point, I'll buy the idea that weekend sports watching serves as a sort of outlet. But like the other attempts to explain, this is really no answer at all. I don't think the fun in football is about blood sport, a new gladiator class we watch  battle to the death (though there's a class element there that has a point). Competition, a game well played... these things do not have to leave the competitors maimed, damaged physically and psychically. If that's how to do it... we're doing it wrong.

Then, too, there's a flip side to the hand-wringing about bullying that's also key here, a lesson again about the turning away and the impotence of trying to "combat" bullying with reason and sense. I'm one of the gay men exasperated by the "It Gets Better" campaign (we are more than a few) because it has so little to do with the lived experience of bullying and surviving it. I'm not sure It Gets Better... what I'm sure of is I Got Better. Emotionally I got more resiliient. I learned not to tolerate or accept mistreatement. I foudn others who shared my sense of things. If Jonatahan Martin is struggling, I hope he can tap into that inner strength. Football may not get better.... but he can.

In all of this, I always wonder "where are the grown ups?" My personal experience of bullying at its worst - when I genuinely feared for my personal safety - was addressed by a caring, responsible adult who confronted the bully and took responsibility for making hiim stop. That's what it means, I still believe, to have authority and use it properly. What's worst about the times we live in, just now, is how we fail to have the common decency to protect those who need protecting, our empathy for the suffering, our responsibility to defend the defenseless. It will get better when we get better. And God knows, we're better than this.

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Playing For Keeps

I'm sure I said, at some point, that it was a midstake for President Obama to say "if you like your plan/doctor, you can keep it/them," and not just for the pronoun disagreement.

I can't seem to find it anywhere on the blog, so probably I just say it in conversation, but I'm sure I said it.

It's interesting that this tension over "keep what you like" has become the dominant news story in the Failure of Obamacare storyline. Give conservatives credit for tripping over a storyline that finally works for them, though I'm pretty sure they don't understand why or how it can backfire.

Obama supporters, naturally, make excuses for their hero, but really, it was a dumb thing to say, one that betrayed at least some failure to appreciate the real problems in health insurance that needed reforming, probably due to lack of familiarity than (I suspect) a deliberate desire to mislead. In the wake of a dawning reality that at least some people - a lot, numerically, but a small percentage of all the insured - will lose health insurance plans they may have "liked," we are. imperfectly, moving into a discussion that may actually turn out to be healthy and necessary. Which is, again, why conservatives may want to be careful what they've wished for actually happening. 

The discussion we've needed to have, of course, is the one where people finally get some education and information on the realities of healthcare and health insurance in America.

Don't Axe Me (I Kinda Like It)

Men's grooming is a touchy topic.

Aside from that poor guy who gets stuck with the assignment at GQ or Details, most media studiously avoids it. Start talking about fragrance or moisturizer or makeup or hair dye and everything gets weird.

Ostensibly, this is because men are "not interested" in this stuff; mostly, though, its because aspects of appearance, "beauty" and such are considered feminine in our culture. Breaking through this wall, never mind breaking down the rigid notions of gendered expectations, becomes all but impossible - "that's girly," "that's gay..." any way to marginalize or label away anything that seems different.

Sure, we make occasional stabs at progress. The rise of out and open gay men as a consumer force has at least made some room for men's products on shelves. The halthing acceptance of straight men doing some grooming soetimes makes it inot mianstram press, usually followed by a backlash.

Like many gay guys my age, I've been dragged into this discussion mostly without wanting to have it. As gay men we have a kind of freedom to ignore gender expectations if we so choose, choosing not so much to accept some label of effeminacy as to resign from the discussion altogether. I started dyeing my hair in college. I started using moisturizer and other products once I started working in department stores (the gals and guys in cosmetics are more fun). And at this late date, I'm quite over discussing whether or not its masculine to use face cream. Do it, or don't... but don't loop me into your debate. Just get on with it... and get over it.

Which brings us to Axe.

Axe is a line of shampoos, body washes, and deodorant sprays from Unilever, one of the big companies in personal grooming and hygiene. Axe is a line for men, but is pitched, curiously and often controversially, at teenage boys. And it has, perhaps unsurprisingly, succeeded brilliantly.

One part of the controversy is the marketing. Axe pitches the scent of its products as simply irresistible catnip (in every sense) to women, its ads featuring bevvies of beauties, usually less dressed, falling over each other to catch some youthful male model doused in the stuff. The ads are over the top, and the sexism is breathtakingly obvious, but there's also a knowing wink of humor in the extremes of the "Axe effect"

   

The other, corollary issue around Axe is that success with teen boys: encouraged to create the "Axe effect", and lacking boundaries (not to mention sense), there's every indication that boys douse themselves in the stuff, layering body wash and spray until a cloud of scent emenates. It doesn't help that the fragrances (especially in the body spray) can be especially intense. This has led to tales - some that seem quite apocryphal - not just of insult, but actual injury from the assault of fragrance, especially in junior and middle schools.

If both of these "controversies" seem like a boon to Axe's marketing department, well, naturally; it can't hurt the product's general cache that parents and angry adults try to keep teen boys from the stuff, turning each purchase into a private rebellion. And popularity breeds more sales - if everyone is doing it, you can't be seen as weird or different for, well, wearing perfume.

In the wake of Axe, most of the major soap and fragrance makers have moved into the market. Old Spice has been probably the most agressive, but Irish Spring is now selling similar smelly washes, and Dial offers somewhat less "aggressive" offerings, less concerned with looking male and butched up, even humorously.

And for this gay guy, the competition has finally opened up options for buying body wash that doesn't smell like lavender (which I hate) or other especially light or sticky sweet scents often aimed at women, which for a long time seemed like all one could find in the body wash department... or winding up with some especially expensive option only available in a department store or high end male boutique.

My point is... as much as I get the sexist anger aimed at Axe's advertising, this debate shouldn't occur in some vacuum that ignores how we got here: if we hadn't constructed such an enormous stigma about men using scent, then companies wouldn't be left chasing teen boys with marketing as far removed as possible from even a whiff of homoeroticism rather than risk wasting millions only to be sidelined as only for gay men. We're nice... but we can't provide sales anywhere what Axe generates now.

I thought about this again this morning, as I showered with my Axe body wash (Apollo - because nothing beats astronaut), a pleasant fragrance that I kinda like and smells nice on me. I don't use the body spray (although I did while doing some community theater, sweating up a storm through ten costume changes), but the stick deodorant works well, too. It's not just for teen boys, after all. And I don't expect angels to fall from the sky and chase me... but if a nice man noticed me in the grocery store.... well, that's just fine.

I doubt we'll ever completely unpack all the gender issues and cultural complications around beauty and grooming... but changing it starts, most simply, by changing ourselves: I tend to think everyone is beautiful, in their own way. And if fragrance, or hair color, or a touch of makeup is what you want to add, well, then, go for it. You don't have to meet an unrealistic expectation, just be the person you want to be.  And when my eldest nephew starts pouring on the Axe, I know it will be the moment when his favorite Uncle can finally step in and teach him a thing or two about grooming.

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AXE Body Spray Gets School Shutdown, 8 Hospitalized

Well, That Happened.

I had a more birds-eye view of this year's elections than usual, because I've been working on campaigns at the local level. Since I started writing this blog, I've liked to look at the aftermath of elections, partly because in this age of over-polling, I tend to think elections are the only really useful test of the public mood. We'll tell pollsters anything, but in the voting booth, somehow, the truth will out.

While I hoped to write some things leading into the vote, truth is, this is the post I was planning to write anyway; the big elections went mostly as I expected, and predicted outcomes aren't the point. It's what we do with what we know, and what happens next that I tend to think matters most, so here goes... just some observations on the winning and losing trends from last night's elections:

Winner: Our Worst Instincts. In race after race, it's clear that nice does not cut it. Massive amounts of money spent on ugly, divisive ads, frequently featuring frank distortions of factual evidence to define one's opponent got results, and mostly, no one cared. Ken Cuccinelli was doomed when Terry McAuliffe did what he does best - raise tons of money and spend it on attack ads. Chris Christie hardly needed to bother, but he struck early painting Barbara Buono as a tax raising liberal. And poor Joe Lhota never had a chance, even if the worst he could come up with is that electing deBlasio might send New York back to the bad old days... that no one even remembers. More locally, County Executive races in the NY suburbs brought out similar tactics, especially in Rob Astorino's brutal ads agaist Noam Bramson, but Ed Mangano used similar tactics against Tom Suozzi on Long Island. We may say it's ugly and want to change channels... but the baseless charges often stick and many voters aren't especially concerned with details. That's not a good thing... but this isn't about good, or nice.

Winner: Your New Best Friend. Many Democrats and some Republicans needed that extra bit of coaxing to cross the party line. Hence the disappearance of party labels from closing ads, usually offering sunny pictures of sensitive family men and their ordinary guy stats. Chris Christie's just a nice guy trying to make things better, right? Rob Astorino portrayed himself as the average Westchester neighbor.... and in a large chunk of white suburban Westchester, he looked just right. Had Ken Cuccinelli been better advised, he might well have erased some of McAuliffe's created negativity by protraying himself less as a conservative firebrand and more as a concerned dad just looking out for Virginia's families. The reality is, Democrats are (still) hopeless at fighting this kind of presentation often, and it's why the GOP's star field is top heavy with handsome, yet sensitive, dads in suits. Someone needs to crack that code, not clone it.

Winner: Hillary Clinton. Isn't she always? But seriously. No, seriously. The Democrats top stories of the night - Terry McAuliffe and Bill deBlasio - share one point of commonality, whether it's McAuliffe's role as her go-to fundraiser, or deBlasio's hand in running her first Senate campaign. She's now got cllose friends running America's money and media metropolis, and the most key of key swing states. I dunno... are you ready yet?

Winner: Narcissism. All over the place, the big winners were more about a Cult of Personality than anything like a great set of fresh ideas, or a movement of like-minded leaders. There were no coat tails - both McAuliffe and Christie will still have to  govern against legislatures chock full of incumbents from the other party whose elections were never in any danger. Even if McAuliffe helped lead a full transformation of Virginia's top offices (if the squeaker for Atorney General stays their way), there's no mandate. And amongst Republicans, that's probably a good indication of the party's continued dance with death - Christie couldn't win embracing a traditional Republican label, but he could by casting himself as the hero of the whole story. But liberals and progressives should be concerned too, about an all too short list of the same names in big roles (like the Clitons and McAuliffe), the history of electing Barack Obama on similar grounds, and little in the way of fresh ideas. Bill deBlasio? Perhaps he does represent more of a progressive trend, but a near 50 point margin wasn't ever just about ideas, it was a big story about image (that family!) and backstory.

And what lost?

Loser: Extremism on the Right (at least in the open). Conservatives are already whining about money and time... but Ken Cuccinelli's failings were deep and obvious, and started with a string of extreme views that he never really tried to deny or hide. The honesty's refreshing, but hard right types need to face the reality, quick: you're losing with this stuff because people don't agree with you. Period. Cuccinelli's social positions, opposition to minimum wage, secession movements in Colorado and elsewhere... these are unpopular dead ends, and easy pickings for liberal ad makers. Avene if the GOP itself managed to right the ship a bit by dumping a Tea Party type in Alabama's special election, the party is riven by divisions over tactics and fundamental beliefs. And in that sense Chris Christie may yet be the Party's solution more than we realize - his real skill may be masking deep conservatism with moderate-friendly soft pedaling and a tough talking persona. Luckily, outside of New Jersey, true conservatives don't seem to believe him.

Loser: Mike Bloomberg. From top to bottom, the New York City elections were a rejection of virtually everything Bloomberg ever did: the next Mayor says his focus will be on people in need, affordable housing, smarter policing and a different approach to education. And if Bill DiBlasio can lose the urge to take up the soda crusade... then the public seems willing to go along. Bloomberg might well have saved himself and his reputation had he gone gently into the night after his second term; instead he sledgehammered term limits, remained tetchy and defensive when questioned, and offered a virtual blueprint on what not to do to win this year's Mayor's race. NYC may have some lovely improvements to point to in 12 years. Myself, I'm not a fan of bike lanes and those rent-a-bikes, but it's hard to deny the lovely upper middle class suburb Manhattan has become. Unless, of course, you can't afford it. And that's the problem, really, isn;t it?

Loser: Country Living. You coud say "winner: polarization," but it's more than that - this year showed the growing power of urban enclaves, which are getting wealthier and more socially liberal. From Northern Virginia to New Jersey's coast to Manhattan, the winners on Tuesday had to attract the sophisticated, college educated urbanite to win. And even in the suburbs, Republicans might win local elections (all of New York City's first ring suburban counties on the New York side are now run by Republicans), but they all won by collecting crossover votes of city working commuters - as did Chris Christie. Suburban towns and villages are feeling the weight of years of pushing urban problems onto their doorsteps - making poverty, food, and affordable housing suddenly their problems, too - but there are few good answers. While urbanites want liberal ideas  (and fancy amenities), rural voters want back to basics and not a lot of coddling. Result? Socially liberal boilerplate and promises not to raise taxes. Good luck with that.

Loser: Change. Maybe it's a feeling of uncertainty, maybe it's a lack of fresh ideas... but this was an election with little real change and a lot of safe voting. Even the "upsets" weren't especially upsetting, certainly not surprising. And Bill deBlasio certainly does represent the big exception here, but a liberal running New York City hardly seems that odd or unexpected - the oddity has been those Giuliani and Bloomberg years, where "New York City Republican" was the synonym for "unicorn". Which is to say, the more things changed this year... the more they stayed the same.

Loser: Localizing the healthcare debate. Cuccinelli may have crowed about making healthcare "central" to the election conversation in Virginia... but he still lost as a result. Opposing Obamacare may  ignite the faithful, but Republicans basically demonstrated, on a big stage, that this argument doesn't close the deal. It may be that hitting healthcare, combined with other factors, may produce winning results - Cuccinelli's other problems are the real story anyway. And if, say, Mary Landrieu were to lose next year, maybe healthcare can be blamed... but the GOP has wanted that scalp since Landrieu was first elected, and beating her will be about all of that history as well. Lacking a coherent alternative, forcing an argument mainly based on anger and obvious dislike for the President, conservatives don't really have a story to tell about healthcare, even with the troubled website and some people with hard stories - and it's not as if Democrats have been attractive to the kind of hard driving entrepeneur who runs a small personal business and banks on cut rate insurance and a plan to never get sick. That guy is a Republican, and always has been. On the other hand, some waitress whose restaurant owner never offered insurance, who can now find reasonable insurance on an exchange was, and will be, a Democrat. And that's why both sides can tell a story that works for them. Your move, conservatives.