Simone Biles

The amazing Simone Biles leads the 2024 U.S. women's gymnastics team to Olympic gold. She now has the most Olympic medals ever by a U.S. gymnast.

Biles won her tenth Olympic medal with gold in vault today

President Biden: With fear for our democracy, I dissent

 

After his highly criticized debate in Atlanta President Biden flew to North Carolina for a campaign rally there where he said this:

I know I'm not a young man. I don't walk as easily as I used to. I don't talk as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. I know like millions of Americans know. When you get knocked down, you get back up. I give you my word as a Biden, I would not be running again if I didn't believe, with all my heart and soul that I can do this job

The entire campaign rally can be viewed here 

Here are Trump’s lies during the debate debunked with charts

Later President Biden addressed the U.S. Supreme Court decision that Donald Trump was immune from prosecution for official acts he took during his presidency.

“For all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do,” Biden said, adding that he pledges “to respect the limits of the presidential powers.”

“Donald Trump sent a violent mob to stop the peaceful transfer of power. We watched it happen, the attack on police, the ransacking of the Capitol, a violent mob hunting down the House Speaker, the gallows erected to hang Mike Pence. It was one of the darkest days in the history of America. Now the man who sent that mob is facing potential criminal conviction. The American people deserve an answer about what happened on January 6 before they’re asked to vote again this year.”

“It will now depend on the character of the men and women who hold the presidency to define the limits of its power. I will respect the limits as I have for three and a half years. But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law. I concur with Justice Sotomayor’s dissent. She said ‘In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.’ So should the American people dissent. I dissent.”

Watch the full speech here or here

Full transcript here 

Meanwhile, the leader of Trump’s terrifyingly fascist Project2025 plan just said this: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”

Kamala Harris

I love our Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris recently appeared in an interview on Morning Joe where she discussed how abortion bans are creating a healthcare crisis across the country. 

Later Harris appeared on Rachel Maddow to discuss the stakes of this year’s presidential election

At a speaking event Harris said of the President: “Joe Biden made clear this election is a contrast between someone who lies and someone who leads.”

When Love Breaks Down

When I was a teenager in high school art class we had to do a painting assignment that was two colors. I used this image from the back cover of the single When Love Breaks Down by Prefab Sprout. I thought I was so artsy. The painting is long since gone. I have no idea where it is now. Maybe it’s in an attic somewhere. Or maybe it’s landfill. The whole thing feels so juvenile now. But I wanted to re-create it because I remember it being such a pivotal part of my life where I became more serious about being an artist. I remember I added the hearts and some guy in the class asked me “why did you put the hearts?” as if that was the worst thing you could put with a male image. God forbid anything be even remotely gay. I said “because it’s called ‘When Love Breaks Down.’” And he goes “oh.” 

Ethan Slater

 My new man crush Ethan Slater star of the Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants. Slater will star in the upcoming Wicked movie based on the musical. 

All of Us Strangers

I watched the movie All of Us Strangers recently and it really stayed with me. It was a sort of a gay ghost story. I’d never seen a movie like it. It was about a man whose parents died when he was a kid. He ends up going back to his childhood home, and there he sees his parents as they were when they died. Now, they were the same age as him. Then woven into that story was a love story. The man meets another man living in his apartment building, and he has a beautiful, romantic affair with him. The parents tell him at the end that he should be with this man before they leave. It’s definitely one of the most moving and haunting movies that I’ve seen in a long time.

Jonathan Larson

 

I’ve been listening to a lot of Jonathan Larson’s music lately and thinking about him. 

Larson was so amazingly talented and like most of the men I draw I think he was really good looking. His music and life story has inspired me so much and some of his songs have moved me to tears. Larson wrote the musical Rent which was made into a movie in 2005. More recently in 2021 Larson’s musical tick, tick... BOOM! was made into a movie starring Andrew Garfield. The movie is about Larson’s work on his futuristic unproduced musical called Superbia. Some of the song lyrics are almost eerily prophetic.  Especially Sextet which I think predicts social media influencers, the internet, cellphones and society’s becoming numb to emotions. 
Larson passed away in 1996 at the age of 35 from an aortic dissection the day before Rent opened off Broadway.
Only days before, he had gone to the hospital complaining of chest pain but they sent him home undiagnosed. It’s a tragic story which I believe happens more often than people realize because what I’ve learned from having Adhesive Arachnoiditis is that doctors have unlimited power to cover up their mistakes. They have more power than even our elected officials and they can lie and cover up when their mistakes cause an unwrongful death. Because the hospital industry protects them and not the patient and there is no one to hold them to account. I know because they did it to me and are still covering up my disease to this day because it was caused from an epidural. 
Larson was outspoken, about social issues in his plays. I believe in 2024 He would have been a much needed voice for democracy. He would have helped fight the creeping fascism that exists today and is poised to takeover the US in 2024.  Larson would have been 64 this month. 
I will most likely die similarly to Larson. Undiagnosed and in my home. Jonathan’s work mattered so much. He touched so many lives but it wasn’t until after his death that so many people even got to know of him. I hope my art can touch people even in some small way like that when I’m gone. Here is my posthumous tribute to you Jonathan. Thank you for everything you did. I really love you.