We are currently producing a documentary for MTV about people who live "other lives" online.

Do you sometimes feel as if you're living a double life? Do you have one identity in your everyday life, but a different one when you're alone and online?

Are you "out of the closet" on the web, but still "in the closet" in real life? Or, maybe you're in the process of coming out. Do your friends online know that you're gay, but not the people you meet face-to-face?

Do you have trouble expressing yourself offline, but when you're behind the comfort of your computer, the words just flow? Are you completely comfortable with your web self, but find it hard to maintain that persona in person?

Are you completely comfortable with your web self, but find it hard to maintain that persona in person?

If you appear to be between the ages of 16 and 28, and live another life on the web, email your story to: brosen@leftright.tv

Please be sure to include your name, location, phone number and a photo, if possible. Thanks!

Good luck! :)

Then as I walked closer, I noticed there was someone inside cleaning the bathroom and that there was another man at the ticket booth. It had some semi-recent movie posters, including one for "Life As A House," one of the earlier movies Tonya and I saw together. So I stepped inside to check the place out.

I asked the man at the booth, a nice Indian man, if they're open and he said "yes". Then I asked him if this was still a movie theater and he said "yes, yes". I looked around and didn't see any signs for what was actually playing there, so I asked him what movies they're playing. Then he finally said "oh, you've never been to this place before?"

Mind-you, my first impressions of our neighborhood is that it's a very "clean" neighborhood. There's some Russian restaurants and grocery stores, and also a lot of Jewish places (including kosher sushi, kosher burger places, kosher Chinese). I just found out there's even a Jewish gym called Kosher Gym that has a separate area for men and women out of modesty.

So the Indian man got a little giddy and he finally said "this is a porn theater!" Then he giggled and told me "we play gay movie too! Twelve dollah." So I smiled, told him "OK, thanks" and left.

Update: I found a funny TimeOut magazine review of the theater.

Seven Up! gets you through the door and it's probably the least interesting one since you're just watching a bunch of bubbly kids without a frame of reference, but each one after that is amazing in its own way. A few people go through amazing life transformations, while at the core you really see the same people (at age 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49...), the same personalities, as they were when they were seven. Some ended up starting families of their own and now even have grandkids. So crazy when you've "known" them since they were kids themselves.

I guess I have a number of reasons to be interested in this series. This past year since my dad had his stroke is the main one. All your life you hear the cliché about how life is so short and even how much you really don't recognize that until something has happened to a loved one, but as much as I'd like to avoid playing into the cliché myself I didn't really believe it as much as I did when that happened to my dad, not even after my brother died. There is no question that if his stroke was one vein over or he waited a little while longer to get treated, my mom and I would either be taking care of a handicapped person or dealing with his dad. Just like that, all my 25 years with him drawn to a close just like they have for billions of other people before me.

I feel like I'm also at a certain crossroads with my life right now too. I can see all my young years finally coming together and affecting my life now, like with my career and Alex. We plan on moving in together really soon, which will be a serious step for our relationship (and making me think about those same steps people from the Up Series took and what happened with them), and possibly even more serious is that I don't want to do it without my parents knowing why.

If you read my blog five years ago (five years ago!), you'd know that I came out to my parents and subsequently dealt with a brief onslaught of hearing anti-gay things from them (mostly my dad) for a few weeks. We haven't spoken about me being gay at all since then, except for another brief time when I was emailing with my mom after JP and I broke up, and I gave her a guilt trip about how much better JP's parents were at dealing with us being gay.

I really don't know how my parents will react this time. It feels like I'll be coming out to them all over again, although a part of me thinks it'll be different and this time it might have bigger, longer-term consequences. My dad deals with stress a lot differently now than he did before his stroke too. Usually he'd blow up and yell at me about things, but since then he approaches things in my life in a calmer way. In two weeks I'm going on a vacation with them, our first one together in a long time (maybe even since I came out to them??), so maybe that'll help me gage how things will go.

If he were a straight man who got caught trying to cheat on his wife in a public place with another woman, this situation would be completely different. It wouldn't have gotten nearly as much attention and his resignation wouldn't be demanded by his party so quickly and so easily. He's not a hypocrite of his party's values for being a cheater or a pervert, but for being a perverted homosexual. During his press conference responding to the allegations, he wasn't primarily telling us he didn't cheat on his wife, he was trying to convince us that he's not gay.

On t.v., in the press and on the Internet, people's ugly true colors have also revealed themselves through this story. I am sick of hearing backhanded, homophobic comments alluding to his homosexuality. Yes, I think he's gay, but as much as he might be grasping at straws trying to hide that from people, it's not a reason to make fun of him, even if he's a dick for voting for the Defense of Marriage act.

I wish I had kept the links to some of these sites I saw about him. One of them was from a religious organization in Idaho that basically implied that Larry Craig and all gay men are extremely promiscuous, have anonymous sex in public places everywhere and are incapable of monogamy. I could say the same thing about straight people after watching Mtv for five minutes...

In other pictures he looks like a cross between Malcolm in the Middle and a character from one of the live-action Dr. Seuss movies:

I was disappointed to find out the Rolling Stone guy was one of the main guys from Hairspray. Maybe he just needs a few more years. Or more flattering pictures on magazine covers.

We just passed the 40-year anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, on June 12th, where the final laws against inter-racial marriage were struck down by the Supreme Court. Before that time, even after, would it have been appropriate to make a comedy where a white man marries a black woman just to cheat the government into giving them a pension? When there were states that refused to allow such marriages, and in some cases downright made them illegal?

Today, outside of New York City, New York State doesn't even have a domestic partnership law. Very few states have laws that recognize any unions between same-sex partners. And unlike other marriage laws, for those states that do give rights to same-sex partners, the federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents other states from being obligated to recognize those rights. It even prevents the federal government from being obligated to recognize any of those rights on a federal level.

Gay couples will find ways to be happy despite any hostility from the government, but in a time like this, is it appropriate for a movie to be released that treats marriage between two men as an advantage and as a joke? When there are laws that are against it? Numerous organizations and court cases trying to ban it? Religious leaders deeming it immoral?

I read that GLAAD might have been involved in making this movie gay-friendlier, but I don't see how that's possible (or maybe they were just ineffective) even with the scenes shown in the trailer. At one point when the guys are getting married and they're supposed to "kiss the bride," one of them punches the other, playing into the stupid macho reaction of men to treat advances from another man with violence. Some gay men have gotten killed because of these reactions, yet this movie makes fun of it. Gay panic is so funny!

Whenever I'm in the theater and the trailer for this movie comes on, most of the time people are laughing before the joke even starts. They laugh at the fact that these guys are pronounced "husband and husband," they laugh when two guys have to kiss each other, they laugh when the guy forces himself to smack the other on the butt to "look gay" (because gay = butt...), they laugh when Adam Sandler says "I like men," they laugh when one of them has to have a "girl to girl" talk (stereotype of gay men wanting to be women).

This isn't a movie about gay people making fun of themselves, it's a movie making fun of gay people, for an audience of people that make fun of gay people. It's completely demeaning.

I have a post written up (on that dumb I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry movie) which I just need a few minutes to finish up. Not sure if I'm going to be able to get to it in the next few days, but I hope so. And I'm bringing my typing gadget with me so I can write posts from my parents'.

A week and a half ago, I saw a great movie shown at the Gen Art Film Festival (which my friend Tonya did the PR for) called Chalk. The premise of the movie is that half of all schoolteachers quit within the first three years of starting. It's shot like a documentary, taking place at one of the filmmakers' real high school with his real students, but the main characters are played by improv actors and it's really really funny.

I always hate hearing about how difficult it is to be a teacher and especially how difficult it is to be one in the city. One of the things I feel the strongest about in this country is people's attitudes about the education of their children and about our education system as a whole. In Europe, school and intelligence is taken much more seriously, but here we have half the country worshipping our president for not reading newspapers and being as dumb as they are.

It really bothers me how little is being done to make our schools better nation-wide, but especially in poorer neighborhoods that need our help the most. If teaching in these schools is so undesirable, then what hope do we have for these kids to succeed when they become adults and make sure their kids don't grow up in the same way that they did? How can people not want to teach in these neighborhoods to help these kids? I think about becoming a teacher all the time.

Chalk wasn't that grim (see Half Nelson, a movie about a drug-addicted inner-city middle school teacher). One of the characters was a pushy little lady with short hair who talked about having a crush on a male teacher and people thinking she's a lesbian cause she's a gym teacher. We see that male teacher starting his first year being awkward and nervous with the kids. Another teacher tries to be "friends" with his students and is serious about beating an old lady to become Teacher of the Year. And there's also an assistant principal who has so many new responsibilities she doesn't have time for her family at home anymore. The movie is ultimately about the humor of all the everyday situations the teachers and faculty face, but you do see that it's difficult and not for everybody.

The beginning of the book I found to be a little difficult to get through. It was hard for me to believe that society had degenerated so severely in such a short span of time. It didn't help that I knew things haven't changed so much from the late 1930s until 1984. But at the end it was all more justified.

One of the main themes of the book is the idea of making yourself believe things that aren't true and that your own beliefs inside your head are what determine reality. I couldn't help but think about all the news stories about people not believing in evolution, and worst of all that Creation Museum that opened in Kentucky recently. Millions of dollars ($27 million!!!) were spent by people that actually believe that Science and reason are wrong and created this place that looks like a Science museum but has all the facts distorted and other things completely made up. It's so shocking!

People are doing the work of 1984's government themselves, and who knows what they would do if they had more power. Just like in 1984, people are conditioning themselves and their children to completely ignore reality and to hide the fact that they are doing this from themselves. Faith isn't very different from doublethink.

That's not the only thing about the book that made it very relevant to today. We are being governed by an administration that is constantly spewing distortions and they have a "news" channel (Fox News) that does the dirtiest distortions for them. In the book there's even a perpetual, unjustified war that serves only to benefit the rich, scare everyone else and yet there are always declarations of victory...

I recommend the Signet Classic edition of the book that has an afterword by Eric Fromm. The book is a little vague (purposefully?) on the history before 1984, but Eric Fromm puts it all into perspective. I like the part that talks about utopian books made in the Middle Ages compared to dystopian books made by 19th Century authors like George Orwell. The utopian books were created in a time of poverty, when people could only hope for perfect societies, while 400 years later we live at a time when we have the abilities to eradicate things like poverty (but don't) and have books that warn us about things getting worse.

Recently I remembered that he used to have an old Palm PDA (a Sony Clié PEG-SL10) which he stopped using even before we met over three years ago. Then I realized that if I got a little keyboard attachment for it, I would have exactly what I wanted.

Part of the reason I haven't been blogging a lot anymore is because I don't like to be in front of the computer after I leave work. I sit in front of one all day and if I made posts as much as I used to I'd be spending all of my conscious hours in front of a screen.

Now I can take my little gadget everywhere I go and write posts when I'm waiting for a train or on a train or go outside and sit on a bench and type away. I guess this is where laptops come in but this way is much cheaper (I only spent $25 for the keyboard, with shipping, and $8 for a Memory Stick), more compact, and it will tie me over until I can get a smartphone or iPhone when my Verizon contract expires next February.

I'm hoping that this will be a new start on blogging for me. Right now I'm trying to covert my site to WordPress (a popular blogging tool) and make a new design. Fun stuff!

I sent out an email to a bunch of people not expecting anything and within a few minutes one of my co-workers donated $40! So nice of him! I only added $10.

I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment to let Miki pee outside without any money, my cell phone, my hair combed, or even a shirt underneath a hoody. This was 7:30 in the morning. I walked over to a nearby friend's apartment, but knew he was planning on being out of town and no one answered the door. I walked over to see if the locksmith was open, but they weren't. I tried calling them through a pay phone and then calling a friend collect, but collect calls weren't accepted and I wasn't remembering my credit card number properly. Dumpling has been away in Italy all week. Everyone else is in my cell phone.

My upstairs neighbors both have keys. One of them can even let me in through her apartment via a staircase that connects her apartment to a hallway that goes down to mine. This girl is extremely neurotic and passive aggressive. My last altercation with her involved a huge screaming fight where we were yelling at each other for an hour because of noise she *thought* was coming from my apartment. The next morning she left me a note and a gift card for the movies apologizing because she realized, after some "investigating," that the noise was in fact not coming from my apartment.

This woman also complained about music playing in my apartment two days after she moved into hers. No "hi, I'm your new neighbor,"just stomping from her apartment all the way to mine, banging on my door asking me to "turn it down a few decibels." I've even needed to make an agreement with her not to have my TV or music on after 11:30 every day just to appease her.

After our huge fight I vowed to never ask her to let me into her apartment every again, but I didn't have much choice. The guy above her has been away on vacation and wasn't answering the door, so I rang her doorbell and she wouldn't answer. I made sure to wait a while before each ring in case she needed time to put on clothes. Then finally I range a bunch of times for a while out of frustration, assuming she wasn't there.

Two hours later I ran into the lady that rents the garage in my building, hoping she had access to the my door since I'm pretty sure the previous person had access to the little storage room in my hallway. She didn't, but was really nice and offered to call my landlord and even gave me two quarters and his phone number in case I didn't have money, and offered to hold a spare key if this ever happens again. If she didn't need to be going somewhere, she said she'd even let me stay in her apartment (with Miki!). Turns out my landlord was two hours away though, so I decided to give my neighbor a ring one more time in case she "came back."

This bitch opened her door, not even giving eye contact or saying hello. The only thing she said was "7:30, Bart?" and she walked back into her apartment with the door slightly open. I didn't know if this meant she was letting me in or not, so she opened the door further finally and let me in. This was at 9:30. She knew it was me ringing the doorbell two hours earlier. My landlord was about to drive two hours to come open the door for me (AND I found out he decided to raise my rent when my lease is up for renewal next month).

Anyone know of any pet-friendly apartments in NYC? My tax refund that I just got yesterday is enough for a security deposit.