8.21.11 Adam News & Info

*wryLOL* seeing all this (L)OUT stuff come back to the surface over the past coupla days makes me *feel ~feelings* . I think I'm over it and then I'm not. The thing most firmly guaranteed to make me NOT over it is to reread the interview, most particularly that last, heart-wrenching answer from Adam about doing the best he can, given, with eerie clairvoyance (or maybe just depressing realism), BEFORE the Hicklin letter was even written. I won't copy that answer here because it just sends me into such a tizzy that I don't think it would be good for the board .

I'm generally pretty chill and slow to take offense at attacks on Adam: he's a big boy and a public figure and it's part of the game and not everyone's gonna be on board, some for perfectly legit reasons, and I get that. But folks, this one really pissed me off back in the day. (Which means I'm all ??? :-/ >:( about the "up to his old tricks, hope I'm wrong" stuff too.) I agree, Suzie--aside from the gutting, slap-in-that-beautiful-open-face aspect of the letter, the most galling, shocking part of it all was how damn unprofessional it was. I'm pretty familiar with the journalistic world, and there's a pretty damn clear understanding that these sorts of negotiations are "off the record," so to speak. That's to everyone's advantage, not just the celebs/subjects. That means everyone can act naturally and behave like human beings and not have their guard up all the time, which is a real boon to reporters and interviewers who otherwise have to break through layers and layers of protective shells. Obviously this interviewer got no such shells from Adam.

The magazine also seemed to me to completely miss the point of what is so new and groundbreaking (and cause-advancing) about Adam (and, for example, about the Details photoshoot), which is that he is mainstream, that he does appeal to straight women (and straight men, for that matter), that he isn't just a movement hero but a legit pop star as well, and that he has achieved this "mainstream" success without in anyway toning down his sexuality (both in the sense of his "gayness" and in the sense of his aggressive sexiness) or his queerness (again, both in the sense of his "gayness" and his more general happiness to be bizarre and off-center). And he's not just a mainstream success--he's a mainstream sex-symbol--at once (to borrow from both Adam and Kathy Griffin at the EQ awards) "a weird fucking fag" and "a dreamboat." That's pretty groundbreaking progress if you ask me--entirely unprecedented. (But perhaps it is not progress of the kind that someone whose feelings about women are as transparent as "six-foot-Barbie" Hicklin's are has it in him to appreciate : >:()

At the time, after I'd taken a few thousand calming breaths, I wrote a long, polite, angry email to Out (addressed to the journalist/interviewer, not to Hicklin per se), and was shocked to receive, within a few hours, a fairly long, detailed email back from Hicklin himself, addressing and acknowledging the strength of some of my complaints, doubling down (mostly unfortunately, sometimes fairly) on a couple of his, but sounding largely overwhelmed by the response his letter had gotten, which gave me a little bitter pleasure. He also sounded, more than anything else, defensive, jealous, or what people on boards like this so eloquently call "butt-hurt." Still, I give the man credit for responding, although he still didn't seem to understand the outrageous unprofessionalism of his letter--a blindness which I can only understand when I look at it instead as a cynical, open-eyed publicity grab (as per Susie and the ontd_ai poster).

Today, inevitably, when I look back over our exchange, there are things I wish I had said that I didn't, and things I wish I had said differently, but on the whole having it gave me some form of closure. I just hope, as Q3 says, Hicklin doesn't go and fuck that up now. But because Adam is really a shining star in the gay community, and because OUT is the most prominent magazine representing that community, I for one will be happy to see him back in those pages where he should be, and Fuck Hicklin and his machinations.

ETA: just wanted to say quickly: rabbitrabbit--I totally agree with what you said, and know what you're talking about in general, but I think there's a definite difference between LGBT boards and websites and even magazines which are targeted (more or less exclusively) at the community itself and are something of a haven from a bigoted world, and OUT Magazine, which fashions itself as bigger player, targeting a wider audience. (Indeed, much of Hicklin's false outrage had to do with the fact that he felt his magazine wasn't being treated with the respect that mainstream mags get.) OUT wants, I think, to be in the general discussion in this way, and invites a wider readership specifically by having mainstream stars like Adam Lambert, Adam Levine, and NPH on its covers. So I think we should all feel free to "get in there," so long as, as always, we do it professionally and in a way that doesn't embarrass ourselves and Adam and everyone around us!!! I also think Hicklin's move in 2009 was so bad as to be a personal affront both to all Adam fans and to all journalists and to anyone who asserts the right to live their lives on their own terms, not anybody else's.

For the record and as a matter of full disclosure, I do not own any Adam bedding.
I do not think it's either creepy or hideous. I am, however, certain my children would think it so, even though they have all slept with everyone from Barney to Mickey Mouse. (My 20 year old daughter still can't throw away her Barney blanket, but she no longer sleeps with it.)

Anyway, I would still love to have Bamafan's pillow. Maybe I could just buy the pillowcase. Now where's that address? ;D

As for Hicklin, perhaps it's time for the new generation, with new ideas, to take over OUT.

I have an interesting question for a Sunday morning.

I remember the OUTgate and I was furious at Hicklin as were most of us at the time. I agree with both your posts Q3 and Noangel.

And what you wrote, Susiefierce, is really interesting. So....how does this fit with all the fuss re Piers Morgan's interview of Christine McDonnel? I have been 'siding' in my mind with Piers but when I read your post I am rethinking a little....did Piers 'blindside' McDonnel? She sees it that way, of course, but is this situation analogous to what happened to Adam?

A big difference, of course, is that Adam was not present to defend himself.....so that is not the point...but could Piers have caused himself any issues by veering 'off point'?

Do they really do that?

If that's the case, it really is the equivalent of Perez and even Perez is a leopard who has changed his spots in that respect.