Category Archives: Video

The Gay Rights Movement

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I just stumbled upon this video through a friend’s Facebook update and immediately felt compelled to share here. It’s a trailer for a documentary titled “Second Class Citizens” which you can sponsor via Kickstarter.

This documentary is something that is very near and dear to me; someone who is considered by my state and country a second class citizen. By extension, I am a second class citizen to all my friends and family members who continue to vote for people who fight against equality, donate money to organizations and churches who cast aspersions on who I am and look the other way all the while.

Explaining what it is like to be gay isn’t easy. I kept it a secret until I was 18 years old because I feared that I might be made a victim of harassment beyond what I was already experiencing in junior high and high school. I was so stressed out about being gay that I became physically ill; acid reflux, debilitating migraines, panic attacks & major depression.

If it wasn’t for the friends I made in college, I don’t know that I would have survived to be where I am today. Far too many people like me don’t make it through the bullying. They are commit suicide or are murdered because they or someone else was unable to accept the person they were born to be.

I can’t tell you the number of times I was verbally or physically harassed, my property vandalized and my life threatened. My first semester in college a neighbor in the dorms threaten to hang me in the stairwell because I was gay. Try explaining to your parents why you have to switch dorms when that is your reason. I never did because I never had the courage to do so.

Ryan James Yezak is hoping to produce a documentary titled “Second Class Citizens” and has created a Kickstarter campaign to help fund it. I implore you to check it out and if you find it worthy, to invest in his film. I am going to do that right now.

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Rick Perry disgusts me

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I try not to make it a habit of writing purely political posts but the new Rick Perry YouTube video threw me over the edge. If you like the video, you probably won’t like this post.

There is no shortage of reasons I don’t think Perry should be a presidential candidate for the Republican party. I don’t even think he should be the Governor of Texas. It’s not just because he’s a goof who embarrases most people from Texas, like myself, it’s the way he markets himself as a candidate.

For whatever reason, the loud, far right conservative politicians on the scene these days treat culture and intelligence as negative attributes. They forget that Christian law, much like Sharia law, is not United States law. They forget that smart people create solutions where others can’t. They forget a lot of things, many of which were their founding principles. I’m not talking about all Republicans, I’m talking about people like Rick Perry.

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Check out the video of my Ignite Talk

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A few weeks ago the good people at O’Reilly Media uploaded my five minute Ignite Sebastopol 6 talk. I have been hesitant to share it with you guys because I have near crippling glossophobia that apparently continues on to the weeks after walking off the stage. Perhaps I’m just a little self-conscious.

But you know what? The reason I jumped at the opportunity to give an Ignite talk was an effort to conquer my fear of public speaking. So here’s to conquering another fear! The talk is about serendipity and how it brought me from a high school in Houston to the Ignite stage in Sebastopol.

Also, shoutout to my friend Lauren Kilberg who was probably the first person in the world to see the video on YouTube. In fact, Lauren was the first person to tell me it was on YouTube and she’s tweeting from Korea! True friends :D

As of this posting I STILL haven’t watched the video which has 90 views so far. Can’t believe I’m sharing this with you guys haha. Cheers and don’t be too mean in the comments! No promises but if I get enough positive comments here to convince me it isn’t a totally embarrassing train wreck, I’ll totally consider watching it.

It’s Time to End Marriage Inequality

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My Twitter friend Gabe retweeted a link tonight from @Padbury that simply read, “Please watch this, ‘It’s Time’”. I stopped what I was doing and decided to click the YouTube link. What followed was one of the best marriage equality videos I have ever seen. Zero dialog, remarkably real and absolutely magical. This is what matters.

Please share this post, this video, this message with the people in your life. Also, check out http://www.getup.org.au/marriagematters. There are half a dozen ways below this video to share this with all of your friends. Take this step for marriage equality.

That is all, thanks so much.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

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Check out this trailer for the film adaptation of, “We Need to Talk About Kevin“.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver, adapted into film, about a fictional school massacre. It is written from the perspective of the killer’s mother, Eva Khatchadourian, and documents her attempt to come to terms with her son Kevin and the murders he committed. -Wiki

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