Link to NY Times article on 1970s gay marriage stuff

8738 pageviews as of 7-24-20155

 Link to NY Times article on 1970s gay marriage stuff http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/us/the-same-sex-couple-who-got-a-marriage-license-in-1971.html?


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/us/the-same-sex-couple-who-got-a-marriage-license-in-1971.html?

 
 Pencil Sketch of Jack Baker and Mike McConnell by Tim Campbell 
 (from photo by Angela Jimenez in NY Times May 26, 2015).

Link to wiki on: Everything not forbidden is presumed permitted since English common law times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_which_is_not_forbidden_is_allowed


Black Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition 1979 defines "lawful":

To say of an act that it is "lawful" implies that it is autorized, sanctioned, or at any rate not forbidden, by law.

(p. 797, Fifth Edition, 1979)

Pencil sketch by Tim Campbell of
Baker and McConnell

Second pencil sketch by Tim Campbell
Baker and McConnell from photo by Angel Jimenez in NY Times 5-26-15

FORCE MAJEURE EXPLOSIVE LOOK AT GENDER ROLES, FAMILIES, INSTINCTS

The Larousse Dictionary defines force majeure as

• (Cas de) force majeure, 

  événement d'origine externe, imprévisible, et qui met le débiteur dans l'impossibilité absolue d'exécuter (le cas de force majeure libère le débiteur et l'exonère de toute responsabilité) ; fait inattendu qui, aux termes d'une charte-partie, dégage le transporteur de sa responsabilité, s'il était imprévisible et insurmontable

The bright yellow is their color, so I guess this new film has earned them millions of hits.

This film is an incredibly cogent examination of gender roles, families, civilization, affluence and basic human instincts.  It's two hours of intense drama that pass very, very quickly.  

Do not miss this film!

GLC VOICE back issues now available on line at link below

When you get to this page, you will see an icon toward the top left of your screen which lets you choose the order in which to SORT BY>

Click on that icon and from the drop-down menu choose BYORDER OF CREATION to see the issues in chronological order.

The issues start with POSITIVELY GAY issues June 1979 and continue through the last issue of the GLC VOICE.  Tim Campbell was the Editor of most of the issues of PG and was given the paper in lieu of back salary.  Bruce Brockway, publisher of PG wanted the option of using the name Positively Gay for some other enterprize in the future.

Thanks for visiting this site and the other.

http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/search/collection/p16022coll2/searchterm/Quatrefoil%20Library/field/type/mode/all/conn/and/order/nosort







Sept 3, 2014 Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip  facebook/PearsComic

FOUR EARTH QUAKE EVENTS FOR GAYS

6741 pageviews to this site as of 5-19-2014

Four events have marked my life as a gay man
like earth quakes.

1. In 1962 Uncle Sam considered drafting me during the years following the Korean conflict but he thought he needed to know whether I had "homosexual tendencies."  I told him and have never hid it since.

2. In 1970 Jack Baker and Mike McConnell got married in Minnesota where I was teaching French as an Instructor and pretending to write my doctoral dissertation.  This led me to become a gay activist.

3.  Monica Lewinsky told the world she gave Bill Clinton a blow job in the White House (East Wing, I think.)  This  liberated the world in its attitudes towards oral sex, previously thought to be the evil of deviate gay men. This caused me to opine rather personally,  as young lesbians and their co-conspirators started rejecting the word "gay" and replacing it with "queer" or "LGBT", that I'd rather be called a cocksucker than a queer.  This also made me realize that gay men probably have more in common with Monica Lewinsky than we do with some lesbian feminists.

4. Michael Sam's KISS surprised and pleased me with all the same force as the first gay wedding, with the same force as the first Lewinsky for the historical record.



Young people dream up and do the damnedest things! 

Thank you Jack, Mike, Monica and Michael Sam!  

You have made the world a better place for this old ____________ (choose your noun).

May 19, 2014
I'd say queen myself.

Oprah show on Baker-McConnell marriage Oct 27

Jack Baker was unable to attend a recent event honoring his law triumph re gay marriage rights.
However the related email below explains his recent illness and gives a hint about the legal victory involved.
Oprah Winfrey is scheduled to do a related three-hour program Sunday October 27, 2013, primetime.



From Jack Baker

To Dale Carpenter II

Oct 15 at 10:57 AM

 

Dale Carpenter II, Editor
Constitutional Commentary
Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law
University of Minnesota Law School

I hope the October 4th event celebrating the 125th anniversary of the U of M Law School was a great success. Missing it was my misfortune. I will look forward to its report in the Law School's next bulletin.

I'm delighted to be able to report that I've made a much faster recovery from my recent surgery than even my doctor anticipated. So I would be open - schedule permitting - to attend another of the anniversary events. Please do keep me informed about these as times and speakers are finalized, etc.

I've regained enough energy to continue my self-imposed task of organizing records from the past. In doing so, I came upon The Family Law Reporter's 1974 analysis [attached] of the legality of our marriage. We forwarded a copy to the Oprah Winfrey Network to confirm their inquiry about the first lawful same-sex marriage.[1]

This excerpt,[2] in particular, affirms your conclusion that the first lawsuit to challenge the denial of marriage to same-sex couples originated at the U of M Law School, thanks to good teaching. It justifies assertions by news outlets that our lawful marriage has withstood the test of time.--
Jack Baker, Esq.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

[1] Oprah's Next Chapter, a three-hour, primetime special, will appear on Sunday, 27 October 2013.
[2] [T]he "federal constitution prohibition against ex post facto laws, U.S. Constitution Article l, Section 9(3), forbids the imposition of punishment for past conduct lawful at the time it was engaged", and hence the Minnesota high court's decision does not reach back to Baker and McConnell since the two were married "a full six weeks" before that decision. Donald A. Thigpen, Jr., Editor. The Bureau of National Affairs, 10 December 1974, vol. 1, no. 5, 2103.

News release that brought gay marriage to the modern world

5523 Pageviews as of June 3, 2013

This country's first legally-sanctioned same-sex marriage. At the time, Baker was president of the Minnesota Student Association at the University of Minnesota.

A personal friend of the pair announced that "they had a valid marriage license issued by the Clerk of District Court." It was signed by the Rev. Roger Lynn, a Methodist minister and returned to Blue Earth county, Minnesota (U.S.A.).

Baker and McConnell were wearing matching two-piece white knit tunic suits custom designed by Steve VanSlooten for the historic wedding. Rings were custom designed and produced by Terry Vanderplas.

The couple asked that they be granted the courtesy of living the first week of their marriage without outside interference.

 Photo by Paul R. Hagen

Michael McConnell (l) and Jack Baker (r)

3 September 1971

Published by Jack Baker, Esq. | His home page 

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tim Campbell's article about this marriage

from Pulse Twin Cities April 8, 2004

How gay marriage got divorced from gay rights

by Tim Campbell

The early years
Jack Baker and Mike McConnell applied for a marriage license on May 18, 1970 in Minneapolis. That is the first known gay marriage license application. The Clerk of District Court for Hennepin County summarily refused to issue them a license. Subsequently, Baker and McConnell went to Blue Earth County in southwestern Minnesota and got a license on August 16, 1971, from a different clerk. They were married on September 3 using that license. The Rev. Roger Lynn, a United Methodist minister, performed the ceremony.

That gay marriage required a little legal detour. In early August 1971, Baker changed his name to Pat Lyn McConnell. Consequently, the names on the license are Pat Lyn McConnell (aka Jack Baker) and J. Michael McConnell. They wanted the same last name in case they acquired children.

Baker was in law school at the University of Minnesota. McConnell had just been nominated as an instructor and chief cataloguer at the university library on the St. Paul Campus. In the wake of monumental news coverage over this controversy, the students at the University of Minnesota elected Baker student body president. The University Board of Regents, on the other hand, reacted by withdrawing McConnell’s nomination as a library head and university instructor.

During this media onslaught, Jack and Mike received four large boxes of mail from all over the world. I have met people who saw articles about the event in newspapers in both Paris and Athens. Most of the mail was supportive.

Moreover, Jack’s victory at the student polls was probably the first instance of a vote by the general, non-gay public, on attitudes towards gays. That vote made one thing clear: the time had come for gay rights.

The Baker-McConnell dispute also produced a wave of copycat gay marriages throughout the country. I was a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin at the time. There, I was invited to at least five gay marriages. One drag queen even asked me to marry her. Worse yet, I accepted. Fortunately, we both forgot about it when we sobered up.

Tell the whole truth. The bulk of that rash of gay weddings involved drag queens with butch-looking lovers. They were, however, performed by ministers. Most of them did not last longer than a good underarm deodorant. None of them, to my knowledge, involved real marriage licenses.

Gay marriage was not exactly a brand new idea, even back in 1970. Jean Genet described one in a novel in 1943 and John Rechy did so in 1963.There were big differences, however. The Baker-McConnell wedding involved same-sex appearance. It was intended to produce social stability like a straight marriage. By contrast, the Genet and Rechy gay weddings were staged to look like opposite-sex marriages and designed to scoff at society. They were not intended to produce social stability.

Baker and McConnell are still together to this day. In fact, they have been together a total of 38 years now, 34 of those married. Sure beats Britney Spears’ marriage record! Also beats the records of Zaza Gabor and Liz Taylor.

Decades of lawsuits
Baker and McConnell ended up in decades of legal haggling because of their marriage. The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the clerk who denied them a license. Its decision cited the Book of Genesis. Jack and Mike appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, Warren Burger and cohorts dismissed their appeal for lack of a “substantial federal question.” How would they rule today? Who knows. President George W. Bush certainly wants to turn gay marriage into a substantial federal issue now.

Baker, now a lawyer, argues their marriage was and remains valid since there were no laws or court decisions prohibiting same sex marriages on September 3, 1971. He notes: “Every court recognizes this basic principle: that which is not prohibited is permitted.” The Minnesota marriage statute actually has a section listing non-valid marriages. Same-sex marriage is not on that list. Baker argues their marriage is in fact more solid legally than the recent ones in San Francisco. Those marriages were performed after laws against same-sex marriages were passed.

Jack and Mike Had a Dream

Legal considerations aside, Jack and Mike’s genius was to perceive long before most, that the right to marry is an essential part of gay civil rights. Their point is: the fundamental right for gays and lesbians is the right to fall in love with and marry the person of one’s choice. Without that right, there is no such thing as gay rights. “It’s nonsense,” said Jack long ago, “to find two people (both competent to marry) incompetent because they chose each other.”

Many gay marriage activists say the right to choose your own spouse is probably the most characteristic social right of modern western democracies. Such a right was unheard of in ancient China. It’s a right rarely granted in the “oily-garchies” of the Middle East. Many contemporary Jews are still loath to marry outside their religion. Back in the `50s, Catholic parents hoped that none of their kids would marry outside their Church. Unthinkable was marrying outside one’s own race. But times changed. Times change because young people dare to love outside the box. They always have. They probably always will.

Early Legislation

While the news of the fight over gay marriage and McConnell’s job denial were fresh in the minds of the public and elected officials, Baker went to the Minneapolis City Council looking to include gays and lesbians in the city’s civil rights ordinance. Council Member Ed Felien, now editor of Pulse of the Twin Cities, took on the task and authored such a bill. It was passed unanimously in 1974 amid virtual silence on the council. Felien said recently, “They (the city council members) were afraid to say anything against it.” This put Minneapolis on the map as the leader in gay civil rights legislation.

Enter the Democrats

Minneapolis and Saint Paul also beat the rest of the country to the idea of separating the right to marry from the rest of gay civil rights. This was in direct response to Baker and McConnell’s marriage.

The anti-marriage contingent included, among others, Alan Spear, a gay history professor who represented the University of Minnesota neighborhood as a State Senator. Spear tiptoed out of the closet to a small circle of friends once Baker got elected student body president. He proposed to author a gay rights bill on the state level. Senate Majority Leader Nick Coleman Sr. agreed to help. Spear and Coleman were both career Democrats.

Coleman’s motive was that he was married to Debbie Howell who had a gay brother. I suspect Howell’s brother came out to them after Jack got elected student body president. That made me and hundreds of others come out. Howell herself was a wig at Minnesota’s main daily newspapers. In 1975, she wrote Alan Spear’s going public interview for the Minneapolis Star newspaper. Minnesota being a small pond, this trio constituted a power block.

Sex, Drugs and Secret Parties
(I mean fundraisers)

Spear and Coleman hired a part time lobbyist named Steve Endean to shepherd these gay rights bill through the state senate. There were a number of hearings and amendments before all the ordinances finally settled in. Endean was a piece of work. He was in his early 20’s, a college dropout, and stood only about 5 feet, 6 or 7 inches tall in a chubby frame. Everybody called him “Weebee.”

By day Endean lobbied at city halls and on Capitol Hill. By night he checked coats at popular gay discos—first at Sutton’s which has since folded, then at the Gay `90s which is still the biggest gay bar between Chicago and San Francisco. After bars closed, “Weebee” almost literally lived in the local gay bathhouses.

With all this gay contact, Endean got to know both the important closet gays and the hottest young gay guys. He was great at organizing private parties, hand picking guests from both groups. Some of the more outrageous called it “pimping.” Those parties rivaled the ones in Larry Kramer’s novel, “Faggots: Drugs, sex and rock and roll.” This was how gay money began to flow into the hands of Democrats back then.

Drag queens and the Baker-McConnell crowd were not invited to these secret, late-hour fundraiser parties. Baker and McConnell didn’t notice or mind being left out of the parties, but the drag queens did. Eventually, they went to the State Legislature en masse, in drag, to demand inclusion in the gay rights bill. What’s more, the drag queens won.

Gay marriage, on the other hand, was never included in Minnesota’s gay rights legislation. Sadly, the Spear-Coleman-Howell laws were carefully crafted to exclude the “crazies.” That meant the drag queens and radicals like Baker and McConnell who wanted gay marriage. The laws also left the University of Minnesota exempt from all these pieces of legislation.

Enter Half-Measures

The civil rights laws in Minnesota, scripted in the 1960s, had four parts: employment, housing, public services and public accommodations. The Spear-Coleman-Howell laws added gays and lesbians to those sections of said laws that dealt with employment and housing only. They did not add them to the sections of the same laws that dealt with public services and public accommodations.

Previously, public services and public accommodations referred to places like hotels, restaurants and barbershops. Nobody could decide exactly where marriage licensing fell. Was it a public service? Was it a public accommodation? They didn’t know.

Nonetheless, they were sure they weren’t going to push gay marriage and drag queens on anybody. Whenever the proposed legislation had a setback, Spear and Endean would cuss the “crazies,” that is, Baker-McConnell and the drag queens. They hardly worried about the wild parties. Note, however, that everybody agreed, even back then, that full gay rights would include gay marriage.

The Spear-Coleman-Howell triumvirate got gay rights laws introduced at the state capitol pretty soon after the Minneapolis and St. Paul ordinances were passed. Still, it just sat there. It never got out of committee and never came up for a vote in the whole house and senate. A public discussion of gay rights was not happening. Spear excused himself saying: “I don’t want to get some legislators in the habit of voting against gay rights.” Unfortunately, no one had to fight very hard for the bill either. The State of Minnesota did not pass a gay rights law until much later: 1993. Rural Minnesota dragged its feet.

Half-measures exported to Washington, D.C.

In about 1976, Spear and friends let the Minnesota legislation lie fallow and sent Endean off to Washington, D.C., to work with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He eventually founded the Human Rights Campaign. He figured even closeted gays would write checks to a group so broadly named. “Weebee” eventually died from AIDS but the groups he influenced have been resisting gay marriage ever since the `70s. They consider their compromise wise like Solomon. Democrats around the country have adopted the same “pragmatic” approach.

For example, Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts who sits in the U.S. House of Representatives, is currently notorious for his criticism of the gay marriages now occurring in San Francisco. Ironically, his constituents keep electing him even though he rented an apartment downstairs of his own dwelling to a well-known gay prostitute. Naturally, Frank claims he didn’t know. Clinton’s not the only dumb Democrat.

Supporters of gay marriage, on the other hand, consider this opposition a fungus growing under the nails of Democrats. While this may make easier work for politicians, gay marriage supporters insist it’s not very practical for their goals.

Alan Spear has now retired from the Minnesota Senate and lives with his longtime partner, Jun, a Japanese immigrant, in central Minneapolis. He reports that he and Jun have not yet gone anywhere to get a license or a civil union. “We’ve thought about it, but done nothing. Just laziness, I guess,” he said recently. Then, he added, “We don’t really need it.” At least Spear has been consistent!

Epilogue

The half-measure maneuvers of these Democrats did not reap many benefits for gays and lesbians in Minnesota. In the intervening years, practically no gays and lesbians have filed complaints with any civil rights departments anywhere. Someone in a position analogous to Mike McConnell, can’t even file a complaint under the ordinance because the University of Minnesota is exempt.

The bottom line is: More gays and lesbians have applied for marriage licenses this year in San Francisco in one week than have filed discrimination complaints throughout the country since 1975. That suggests lots of gays think the right to marry is a very important right. One might call it a “substantial federal issue.”

[E-mail timcampbellxyx@yahoo.com.]

Tim Campbell dogs the NRA Convention in Houston

5523 pageviews as of June 3, 2013
Posted May 16, 2013

 

When Tim Campbell heard people were demonstrating outside the National Rifle Association's 142 Annual Convention in Houston May 5, 2013, he whipped up the sign below and joined the demo. 

 "As I see it, too many pseudo-mach, white American  males (the NRA John Waynes) are spending megabucks, decadent tons of money on hobby hunting, hobby shooting and on fortifying their turf against imagined armed invasion.  Then they spend megabucks more on salaries for high-profile athletes who pretend to be engaging in strength, skill and survival activities in sports coliseums all around the country.  They subsititute watching and yelling for football, basketball and baseball yet rarely go to real wars. Meanwhile, the planet is burning up with global warming.  They remind me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.  Visualize all that macho money going to fight starvation and to harness clean energy. Visualize that. NRA wake up!  Wake up."  (Maybe no one should be allowed a gun who hasn't done front line duty.)

-

NRA John Waynes--Grow Up!  Use your megabucks wisely!
Global warming will kill you more surely than any damned firearms.

Lady reading names of persons shot to death since Sandy Hook Connecticut. Campbell. Ira Demper.  (In front of modern art which rains around downtown Houston.  May 5, 2013 outside Convention

Why I am protesting at the NRA Convention in Houston today

 I'm and old "Give Peace a Chance" guy.  Violence is our past.  The future has to lie in global peace and fighting global warming or mankind will no longer be reasoning.

My signs say "NO TO ARMS    NO TO FORCE."

Gun hobbiests need to sacrifice there toys so little boys don't shoot 2 year old girls.

 

Just say no to "LGBTQ" nonsense

Recently, I have been letting friends know I don't go for the "lgbtq" crap.  That's because I was one of the first to work for "gay" instead of homosexual.  We asked the media and friends to say "gay" and "lesbian and gay" because that's what people were in fact saying in the gay scene in the 60's and 70's.

The problem with straw letters for people is that they often give equal vote to people who don't show up or only show up in small numbers.  Gay men consistently outnumbered bis and lesbians in the gay scene and in the work of early organizing.  Sometimes groups call themselves lgbtq without having any of several groups actually working with them.   This is both stupid and fraudulent.

The linguistic problem is a minority are trying to badger the masses into talking their grammar.

When we asked people to  say "gay" not "homosexual," we were asking the press to honor what was already happening linguistically.

Because of my position on this, Pam Raintree called me a "transphobe."  Now there's a word in wide usage!

She also wants people to call us the "pink" community.  I know lots of dykes who hate pink.

Laughing at Pam's outrage, something made me recall

Little Red Riding Hood.

I was traumatized as a child by the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  As I recall it, the Big Bad Wolf ate Gramma and got into her clothes.  Surprising my parents let me read stories about cross-dressers so young, but then, I was one of eight kids.  My folks had no helicopters.  Not even a little one.  We only had an old 1929 Durant... the model with a cloth top.

Back then, grownups claimed often "You are what you eat!"  Not so with Big Bad.  He didn't resemble Gramma one teeny bit.  "My, what big eyes you have, Gramma!  My what long, sharp teeth you have, Gramma."  exclaimed Little Red, so frightened she grabbed the ax that stood next to the door and was on the verge of slaying the wolf.

"Slow down there now, li'l Sistah!" pleaded Big Bad calmly.  "Don't be such a transphobe.  Cross-dressing is my right.  I belong to the qlbtxyz community.  What kind of liberal are you, after all?  Let go of your prejudices, girl!"

This slowed  Little Red's just enough that the wolf gobbled her down in a flash.

Big Bad lived happily ever after, thinking she was really, really bad in Little Red's hoody.  Much nicer than Gramma's duds, dude!

The End!

  

Actually, I only feel compelled to check out trannies when something seems wrong...like the ears being way too big.  When the teeth seem long and sharp,  I also exercise extreme caution.  To that degree, there are quite a few trannies who would call me prejudiced.

Cheers!

Reviews of two related films: FLIGHT and Bill W

4300 pageviews

FLIGHT--BILL W—rigorous honesty. Two films side by side

FLIGHT starring Denzell Washington is the 2012 cinematic story of a contemporary alcoholic-addict whose line of work as an airline pilot had him spending lots of nights in hotels and motels.

BILL W starring at times Bill Wilson himself, at other times little known Blake Evans as Bill Wilson as a young man, is the 2012 cinematic story of a 1930s alcoholic-addict whose line of work, researching investment possibilities around the country, also had him spending lots of nights in hotels.  Commercial flying and motels weren’t common yet.

In my opinion, FLIGHT gives us the story of airline Captain “Whip” Whitaker with rigorous honesty.  By contrast, BILL W tells the story of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous with far less than rigorous honesty.

The term rigorous honesty comes straight from AA literature and makes a great tool for reviewing these two films about alcohol and drug addiction.  Rigorous honesty is perhaps best defined as “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” 

Let’s take a look at how honestly these recent films deal with six important parts of life:  alcohol, drugs, sex, gender, religion and race.

Alcohol and drugs.  Regarding alcohol and drugs or intoxicants in general, historical investigations have shown us for several decades now, that both Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith did lots of barbiturates along with their drinking.  Bill W even carried “goof balls” around with him while sobering up Dr. Bob.  Way back in the 1930s Dr. Bob was honest enough to tell us he was obsessed with two fears: one, that he would run out of booze; and two, that he would never fall asleep.  BILL W mentions barbiturates and LSD briefly, but in so doing, suggest they are not essentially related to alcoholism.  FLIGHT by contrast, shows us so much about alcohol and drugs, many younger people new to recovery have difficulty watching the film without being triggered.  Said differently, FLIGHT tells more of the truth than BILL W.

Regarding sex, BILL W never even hints that Bill Wilson was having lots of sex in those hotel rooms he inhabited while he was researching for Wall Street investors.  Even worse, BILL W leads us to believe he did all his drinking exclusively in the company of men.  BILL W even “recreates” one of Wilson’s last benders, a three day one in a cheap Manhattan hotel room, as though there was nothing in that room but Bill and booze.  Now why would a New York married man, chronically broke and famous for womanizing even in sobriety, be renting a cheap hotel room in downtown Manhattan?  Probably not to be a hermit! The film BILL W airbrushes the sex out of Bill Wilson’s story as did Bill Wilson himself.  Not surprising.  Times were different and Lois Wilson was often in the audience.  Nonetheless, BILL W suffers by telling us less than the whole truth.  Some guess those omissions led to long bouts of depression for Wilson.  FLIGHT by contrast, shows us how a traveling lifestyle leads to alcohol, drugs and lots of sex.  FLIGHT tells the whole truth.  Like most people, I like hot sex in my movies.

Regarding women, there are no women alcoholics in BILL W.  The wives of alcoholic men do appear, mostly to wring their hands.  BILL W is a documentary about married white middle-class men.  By contrast, FLIGHT fleshes out the stories of both a male and a female alcoholic-addict.  It gives us a little insight into the addiction of one of Captain Cocaine’s female trysts.  The women in FLIGHT are real, important.  They too are protagonists.  In this, FLIGHT is truer to life today.  Bill W is of another age, pre-suffrage.

Regarding religion, BILL W, filmed for 2012 audiences, assumes those audiences will buy a 1930s religious sensitivity without gagging.  For example, BILL W, an historical documentary, recreates Bill Wilson’s “white light” spiritual experience by treating us thru camera trickery to  bright light, clouds, and blowing wind literally filling Bill’s hospital room.  This skeptic guesses all that stuff happened only inside Bill’s drugged up head. Hospitalization back then was about medical detoxification.  Lots of drugs were used: Belladonna, paraldehyde syrup, various goof balls.  Camera trickery of this sort is not honesty.  It’s a bit more than the real truth. 

By contrast, FLIGHT handles the issue of belief systems and recovery with honest skepticism.  My favorite scene in FLIGHT is where Captain Whitaker meets with his co-pilot and with his co-pilots wife in the hospital room.  The co-pilot is laid up in splints and traction devices.  Medical dripbags hang from stands in the background.  Both the co-pilot and his wife are ardent Born Again Christians.  Mr. and Mrs. Co-Pilot and Captain Cocaine kneel in prayer right there in the hospital room. Denzell Washington’s face mutates subtly but he does not quite roll his eyes.  Oscar winning, magical realism here!  This scene merits viewing more than once.  FLIGHT invites the audience to like the young couple while our jaws drop at their religious innocence

Regarding race, FLIGHT handles race issues with sheer genius. This is of course  a Denzell Washington trademark.  The protagonist is a black male.  His sexual liaisons are tri-racial.  His lawyer is black, and very competent.  This lawyer is even slightly familiar with the cocaine scene.  Captain Cocaine’s union representative is a drug clueless middle-aged, married white male and clueless about drugs.  (FLIGHT does not make being clueless about drugs look like a virtue.  How true!)  On racial issues, FLIGHT soars.  The truths here will perhaps make this movie a classic.  BILL W by contrast, is a film almost exclusively about married white males.  Not surprising considering AA’s early history.

So what’s the point?

So what morals do these two films propagandize?  FLIGHT says clearly to the alcoholic addict: The truth will set you free. BILL W says confusedly: Self-knowledge (truth?) will avail you nothing against addiction.  You need God’s help.

The good thing about FLIGHT’s  theory is that it works whether God exists or not.  The problem with BILL W’s theory is that if God does not exist, all is lost.

If today, I had to offer a newcomer to sobriety a copy of FLIGHT or a copy of BILL W, I think I’d give FLIGHT.  BILL W is a 1930s censored look at men and alcoholism.  FLIGHT is a more honest look at life, people and addiction in 2012.  Bottom line, FLIGHT is a must see film anyone in recovery today.  Do not miss Captain Cocaine praying with the Born Agains.  Praise Jesus!

****Five Stars.  No reservations.

Tim C.

November 24, 2012

Houston TX

 Sober date: August 25, 1973

FLIGHT and BILL W: Two films side by side with rigorous honesty.

FLIGHT starring Denzell Washington is the 2012 cinematic story of a contemporary alcoholic-addict whose line of work as an airline pilot had him spending lots of nights in hotels and motels.

BILL W starring at times Bill Wilson himself, at other times little known Blake Evans as Bill Wilson as a young man,  is the 2012 cinematic story of a 1930s alcoholic-addict whose line of work, researching investment possibilities around the country, also had him spending lots of nights in hotels.  Commercial flying and motels weren’t common yet.

In my opinion, FLIGHT gives us the story of airline Captain “Whip” Whitaker with rigorous honesty.  By contrast, BILL W tells the story of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous with far less than rigorous honesty.

The term rigorous honesty comes straight from AA literature and makes a great tool for reviewing these two films about alcohol and drug addiction.  Rigorous honesty is perhaps best defined as “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” 

Let’s take a look at how honestly these recent films deal with six important parts of life:  alcohol, drugs, sex, gender, religion and race.

Alcohol and drugs.  Regarding alcohol and drugs or intoxicants in general, historical investigations have shown us for several decades now, that both Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith did lots of barbiturates along with their drinking.  Bill W even carried “goof balls” around with him while sobering up Dr. Bob.  Way back in the 1930s Dr. Bob was honest enough to tell us he was obsessed with two fears: one, that he would run out of booze; and two, that he would never fall asleep.  BILL W mentions barbiturates and LSD briefly, but in so doing, suggest they are not essentially related to alcoholism.  FLIGHT by contrast, shows us so much about alcohol and drugs, many younger people new to recovery have difficulty watching the film without being triggered.  Said differently, FLIGHT tells more of the truth than BILL W.

Regarding sex, BILL W never even hints that Bill Wilson was having lots of sex in those hotel rooms he inhabited while he was researching for Wall Street investors.  Even worse, BILL W leads us to believe he did all his drinking exclusively in the company of men.  BILL W even “recreates” one of Wilson’s last benders, a three day one in a cheap Manhattan hotel room, as though there was nothing in that room but Bill and booze.  Now why would a New York married man, chronically broke and famous for womanizing even in sobriety, be renting a cheap hotel room in downtown Manhattan?  Probably not to be a hermit! The film BILL W airbrushes the sex out of Bill Wilson’s story as did Bill Wilson himself.  Not surprising.  Times were different and Lois Wilson was often in the audience.  Nonetheless, BILL W suffers by telling us less than the whole truth.  Some guess those omissions led to long bouts of depression for Wilson.  FLIGHT by contrast, shows us how a traveling lifestyle leads to alcohol, drugs and lots of hot sex.  FLIGHT tells the whole truth.  Like most people, I like hot sex in my movies.

Regarding women, there are no women alcoholics in BILL W.  The wives of alcoholic men do appear, mostly to wring their hands.  BILL W is a documentary about married white middle-class men.  By contrast, FLIGHT fleshes out the stories of both a male and a female alcoholic-addict.  It gives us a little insight into the addiction of one of Captain Cocaine’s female trysts.  The women in FLIGHT are real, important.  They too are protagonists.  In this, FLIGHT is truer to life today.  Bill W is of another age, pre-suffrage.

Regarding religion, BILL W, filmed for 2012 audiences, assumes those audiences will buy a 1930s religious sensitivity without gagging.  For example, BILL W, an historical documentary, recreates Bill Wilson’s “white light” spiritual experience by treating us thru camera trickery,  to  bright light, clouds, and blowing wind literally filling Bill’s hospital room.  This skeptic guesses all that stuff happened only inside Bill’s drugged up head.  Camera trickery of this sort is not rigorous honesty. It's a little more than the truth.  By contrast, FLIGHT handles the issue of belief systems and recovery with honest skepticism.  My favorite scene in FLIGHT is where Captain Whitaker meets with his co-pilot and with his co-pilots wife in the hospital room.  The co-pilot is laid up in splints and traction devices.  Medical dripbags hang from stands in the background.  Both the co-pilot and his wife are ardent Born Again Christians.  Mr. and Mrs. Co-Pilot and Captain Cocaine kneel in prayer right there in the hospital room. Denzell Washington’s face mutates subtly but he does not quite roll his eyes.  Oscar winning, magical realism here!  This scene merits viewing more than once.  FLIGHT invites the audience to like the young couple while our jaws drop at their religious innocence

Regarding race, FLIGHT handles race issues with sheer genius. This is of course  a Denzell Washington trademark.  The protagonist is a black male.  His sexual liaisons are tri-racial.  His lawyer is black, and very competent.  This lawyer is even slightly familiar with the cocaine scene.  Captain Cocaine’s union representative is a drug clueless middle-aged, married white male and clueless about drugs.  (FLIGHT does not make being clueless about drugs look like a virtue.  How true!)  On racial issues, FLIGHT soars.  The truths here will perhaps make this movie a classic.  BILL W by contrast, is a film almost exclusively about married white males.  Not surprising considering AA’s early history.

So what’s the point?

So what morals do these two films propagandize?  FLIGHT says clearly to the alcoholic addict: The truth will set you free. 

BILL W says confusedly: Self-knowledge (truth?) will avail you nothing against addiction.  You need God’s help.

If today, I had to offer a newcomer to sobriety a copy of FLIGHT or a copy of BILL W, I think I’d give FLIGHT.  BILL W is a 1930s censored look at men and alcoholism.  FLIGHT is a more honest look at life, people and addiction in 2012.  Bottom line, FLIGHT is a must see film for live wires in recovery.  Do not miss Captain Cocaine praying with the Born Agains.  Praise Jesus!

****Five Stars.  No reservations.

Tim C.

November 24, 2012

Houston TX

Sober date: August 25, 1973