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Thom Cardwell
James Duggan

Editor
James Duggan

Editor-at-Large
Thom Cardwell

All Rights Reserved - BUCKmonkey, LLC 

Expressed opinions are that of the author(s) and do not represent the thoughts, feelings and /or opinions of any person, organization, company, staff member, or any of our advertisers.

With what will forever be known as the "Fumo Letters," Federal Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter was swayed by letters submitted to the court by more then 300 supporters of convicted felon Vincent Fumo.  The authors of these letters heaped praise and adulation on the ex-senator for his 30 years of exemplary public service to the people of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Fumo, convicted on 137 counts, including 60 counts of mail fraud, 41 counts of wire fraud, plus obstruction of justice, and conspiracy charges, was facing between 21 to 27 years in prison under sentencing guidelines before Buckwalter cut that in half by issuing his own sentencing guidelines of 11 to 14 years. 

However, so moved by the outpouring of support for Fumo, Buckwalter deviated from his own guidelines and, on Tuesday, sentenced Fumo to just four and a half years; with good behavior Fumo may spend less then four years in prison.

The Fumo Letters seeking leniency came from an impressive array of lawyers, friends, and powerbrokers that included such notables as Frank DiCicco, Philadelphia City Council Member; Mark Segal, Publisher, Philadelphia Gay News, (who wrote: "I'm not going to tell you that Vince is a saint, he certainly is not.  But what I will tell you is that he's a public figure who can not control his image because of his ego"); Sylvester Johnston, Former Philadelphia Fire Commissioner; Sandra Schultz Newmen, Justice, Pennsylvania Supreme Court (retired); and Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania, who wrote on his official stationary that "the good that Vince Fumo did should count for something; in fact, it should count for a great deal.")

But perhaps retired PA Supreme Court Justice, Stephen A. Zappala, best summed up the position of the Fumo Letters when he wrote: "Having reviewed the man as a person, a political figure, a professional and a family man, I consider him to be someone worthy of having his many contributions and accomplishments recognized in this matter. It is my hope that the events that have transpired over a relatively small period of his public and private life would not completely overshadow all the good that has brought forth over the past three decades."

Poppycock!  This is not justice; it is the establishment taking care of its own.  The good works of a person should not, and can not, outweigh the affects of that person's violation of both the law and the public trust. 

With great power comes great responsibility.

Rather than being responsible to the power he gained over his 30 years in office, Fumo abused it for personal use.

While I do not fault the authors of the letters for expressing their support for the ex-senator,  I am opposed to their position that Vincent Fumo was such a great public servant and his accomplishments so profound that he should be treated differently (read, more leniently) then other defendants in his position.

So why is a queer advocate writing about the lenient sentence of a corrupt politician? Because with civil rights comes civil responsibility!  We can not demand one without acting on the other.  

The Fumo sentence is a clear expression of what is wrong with our politics and our courts. It has become a system that affords privilege over justice and rewards power over responsibility.  It is clearly broken and we all must take responsibility in order to figure out how to fix it.

The popular slogan, "just do it," has served Nike well.  Those three words and the well-known swoosh sign are synonymous with Nike and the company continues to reap the benefits of the "go get 'em" marketing campaign.

If that simple slogan can bring Nike such success, could I apply it to my personal life and expect some satisfaction too?

 I am not dreaming of millions of dollars or to change the landscape of athletic foot ware.  For the time being, my dreams are far less ambitious.

I am entering my senior year of undergrad education so the balls and glory of Nike need not apply until sometime early next year when I am looking for full-time work.  I am in fact very confident in my career path and look forward to receiving my degree.

But the area where I lack the most confidence is in my search for romance.  I say romance because the availability of one-night stands and random hook ups are pretty easy to come across.  I live close to the city's gay bars and have an excellent internet connection at my apartment.  Searching for men is never much of a problem.  Searching for a date has proved to be much more problematic for this young timid gay man.

I discussed my dilemma with a heterosexual friend of mine.  He told a story of how he saw a hot girl sitting in a Starbucks.  In his ever suave demeanor, he wrote her a note.  "Dear Pretty Starbucks Girl, you are cordially invited to attend the movies with me tomorrow night.  If you would like to attend, here is my number. If not, have a nice day and stay beautiful.  Love, Jonathan."  Jonathan's self-assurance paid off and he scored a date with Pretty Starbucks Girl.

Why don't I have this confidence?  Growing up a gay teen without knowing that other gay teens existed in my suburban high school set me back a ways in terms of self-esteem.  When I came out at fifteen, dates and romance were a nonissue for me.  I figured I was the only one.  So I dove into activism and demanded recognition and respect from my family and neighbors.  I won that recognition and respect.  But I am realizing that living in the city, my journey as a gay man is not all about politics, culture and one-night stands.  My journey is also a search for the right guy.

I can be inspired by Jonathan and my hetero friends.  I can also be inspired by the far-less timid gay men I surround myself with.  But when it comes to going up to that hot guy and asking for his number, I have to find the confidence within.  I am happy to report that I am growing in this area.  My game may not be as nonchalant as Jonathan's, but on Sunday night I got a boy's number.  Instead of going up to this hot guy and saying, "just do me", I listened to my inner voice that said, "just do it."

One of professional baseball's hottie "IT" man, our own Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels, is profiled in Men's Health (July 2009). The athlete's PR machine has, of course, done an outstanding job of making sure that Hamels has already graced the covers of everything from WHERE to Philly Style, so it was only natural and not too long before the national media (outside of the traditional sports media) would take notice of his record and status. His natural good looks and intelligence has attracted attention far from the stadium by fashion and grooming crowd who thought that he's be perfect to model men's clothing as an man of style himself. Never, it seems, afraid to be in the spotlight (though we hear that he's basically a fairly modest fellow) Hamel wasn't afraid to reveal some personal secrets about himself to journalist Phil Kita. Phillies Number 35 is rather philosophic and introspective about his career and love of sports. His challenges as a youngster and his current ones on the baseball field can be overcome due to Hamels' own sense of worth and self-determination. His permanent arm injury as a high school sophomore (he's got metal rods) led him to be prepared to discontinue playing baseball. But he didn't listen to doctors and others and went his own way. "I was building up a stronger mental approach. I was going to be the one guy to go out and prove everybody wrong. Now I know," he admits with stamina and inspiration, "Any time you go into something, you have to know what you're going to do and you have to think of two other ways out in case something goes wrong."

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Self-proclaimed "QUEEN of ALL Media" Perez Hilton might be a vampire!  After all, besides having a BIG mouth like most other gossip columnists, he goes, more often than not, right for the jugular!  The Miami native has been out there hunting down the dirt on celebrities of all stripes without ever mincing a word on anyone. He's survived several waves of controversy so his critics who have predicted his 15 minutes of fame would be quickly over have been proven wrong by the queer rights activist turned gossip columnist. He'll easily trash anyone--from his idols to his friends to his arch enemies. "He's a bit of douche" Perez told journalist Terri-Lynne Waldron (Fab, June 10-24, 2009) of his first celebrity crush Mark Walberg. "My first crush was Marky Mark. I remember loving those Calvin Klein ads 'way' too much," he recalled about his queer sexual awakening. "I knew that I was gay when I was six years old and I got naked with a boy next door."  Hilton who tends to be embroiled in controversy at the least jot of his pen when he's writing about the Hollywood community seemed to enjoy talking about himself in the recent Canadian magazine profile. Fondly, he says, remembering his first passage from virgin to sexual animal, Hilton admitted:  "I think I must have been 13 or 14 and I was fooling around with a friend of mine, a classmate. It was such a positive experience that we did it a bunch of times."

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Hollywood rebel Joseph Gordon Levitt is taking no prisoners, least of all, himself. The former television star of "Third Rock from the Sun" for six seasons was already at age 19 worried about his career and turning into a "teen idol."  Success was bittersweet for the young actor who was born and raised in the center of the entertainment industry in Los Angles. He even complained of the "Fascist cult of celebrity." At 20, the serious minded Gordon Levitt decided to abandon both acting (his first love) and his beloved state of California. He moved across country, lived in Harlem, enrolled at Columbia, and studied French literature. He also started over--with an acting career--on his own terms. He recalls that he kept asking himself (New York, June 29-July 6, 2009) as an actor: "How do I connect in a meaningful way?"  He's proud of his path and the roles that he's taken, though some are, admittedly, from some very dark places--the innocent male prostitute in "Mysterious Skin," the brain-damaged bank robber in "The Lookout," and the hyper-verbal detective in "Brick." Recently, he's being celebrated for his current role in the romantic Indie Feature, "500 Days of Summer." The 28-year-old actor feels this love story is about as real as it gets, that it breaks down the mythic, traditional, Hollywoodesque, romance that has, for decades, poisoned the public's mind. Instead, according to Gordon Levitt, "500 Days of Summer" focuses upon "the concept of truly connecting with another person."