Tuesday 12 March 2013
Gay Marriage Last Names; GRL "Featured" Authors; Real Life Billionaire Bad Boy Alki David
Posted on 08:20 by Unknown
Two updates below
I'm being presumptuous here, because until gay marriage is legal on a federal level the last name issue with gay couples is irrelevant. In other words, on a state by state level you still have to go to court and change your last name if you want it to be legal.
But it is something Tony and I have talked about, and we've decided that if and when gay marriage is legal federally we'll most likely hyphenate both last names. For work, my last name will most likely remain the same because that's how I'm known and I'm not starting from scratch again. But I'm still on the fence about that. I might just change it to the hyphenated version anyway and screw book promotion for once.
There's not that much out there on the topic yet, but I think there will be in the future. Here's one article I found that goes back to 2009 from NYT. It's focused more on the legalities and costs involved.
Since the federal government doesn’t recognize the right to same-sex marriage, even if you get married in a state that allows it, whether you can get the name change processed by Social Security or the passport office merely with the marriage certificate and required forms currently tends “to be hit and miss,” said Emily Doskow, an attorney in California who specializes in same-sex and transgender family issues and writes about marriage and divorce issues for the legal information publisher Nolo. “It depends on what local office you are going to, what the opinion is at the moment and whether you get a staff person who cares or doesn’t care,” she said.
I would imagine this will work much like it's worked for other issues in the gay community. The couple will decide what's best for them and choose. I think we'll be seeing a lot more hyphenated last names in the future.
But I doubt it will work the same way it does in the straight community. I've read a few blog posts about women who resent being forced to take their husband's last name. No argument from me. But I do like what Martha Stewart once had to say on the topic...and this is paraphrased. In an interview someone once asked her what was the best thing that came out of her marriage. I think her first reply was her daughter, and then she replied that it was her last name. No argument from me there either. Her father's last name was ethnic and the name Stewart sounds so much better when you're trying to brand a high end lifestyle and build a billion dollar empire. So it's all relative sometimes. I doubt anyone would question Martha Stewart's abilities as a strong business woman...or as an independent woman. If they did I would love to be around with a bag of popcorn.
GRL "Featured" Authors
When I post things about events like GRL I'm doing it as an outsider looking in, with an objective voice. (For those who don't know, Gay Rom Lit...GRL...is a yearly event for m/m authors/readers.) And I do it for readers because I know they are curious. As of today, I did a search for "Who are the featured authors at GRL 2013," and the best I could come up with is there will be 70 "featured" authors. And so far a full list of the featured authors has not been posted anywhere yet. I will follow up as soon as one is posted somewhere. If anyone knows where I can find one, please let me know. I might have missed it.
According to this web page, here is a list of authors that I assume are part of GRL. I'm not sure if they are all the featured authors, though. I didn't see a distinction on this particular web page. And it tends to get a little confusing (to me) because on this web page it says the event is limited to 100 authors. So I'm gathering 30 authors will not be the featured authors. The distinction between featured authors and those who are not featured authors is something I'm still not sure about yet. But I would imagine this is the main draw...these prime featured authors...and we'll see a list somewhere soon.
Anyone may attend GRL with a General Registration, but in the interests of serving our readers, author registration will be strictly limited to 100 writers.
I also found a post by m/m author R.J. Scott.
Scott says this: I am so damn lucky to have got a place
You can read more here. Evidently, most authors would be lucky to "have got a place." The spaces for authors at GRL are highly sought after in these circles. I'm not sure if Scott is a featured author or a non-featured author. She doesn't make the distinction in this post.
Update: Someone left a comment about how to figure out who will be a "featured" author and who will be a "supporting" author. Evidently, you'll have to click each author name to find out at the "author" page on the GRL web site.
Update #2: According to this author web site titled, "The Facts About GRL," I read what I think (I don't want to be misquoted) means 30 of the 70 "featured" authors had already been pre-invited to the event before the other 40 were able to register...I'm assuming these pre-invited 30 are part of "featured" author group. But I could be wrong.
What about the “pre-invites?” It is true that 30 authors will have the opportunity to register early. None of these thirty authors have been notified yet, so if you haven’t heard from GRL, it doesn’t mean you’re not on the list. (For the record, I don’t know who’s on the list. I am not privy to that information.) These 30 authors will have two weeks to register. They will pay full price as detailed above. Other than being allowed to register early, they will receive no special treatment. If the pre-invited authors choose not to register at all or miss their two week deadline, their spots will be released in time for other authors to use them.
There doesn't seem to be a list of the pre-invited authors posted anywhere.
Real Life Billionaire Bad Boy
When I'm working on a series like the Bad Boy Billionaires for any length of time, I tend to get caught up in all things related to the topic. And when I read this post about a real life Hollywood Bad Boy Billionaire, I wanted to post something to show how real life often imitates fiction.
At his Beverly Hills mansion, Alki David, one of Hollywood's biggest troublemakers, is showing his guests the 16,200-square-foot palace that, according to records, cost him $16.5 million in 2010. It's one of many places that Alki -- as everyone calls him -- likes to relax. The others include a mansion in Greece, a ski lodge in Switzerland and several properties in the U.K. His stateside residence allows him to consider the Hollywood of years past -- his home used to serve as Mary Pickford's hunting grounds, and his neighbors' mansions once belonged to Sammy Davis Jr. and Charlie Chaplin -- as well as to be navel-to-navel with celebrity neighbors, like newcomers to the hood David and Victoria Beckham.
It's an interesting article and he sounds fascinating. He's the heir to a this fortune. Besides being so bad boy attractive, his net worth is around 1.7 billion. And he helped build this by starting a TV streaming service and something called FilmOn. I think what he's doing is the future and I think commercial TV is a medium on the decline...in a general sense. Younger people aren't watching TV anymore, at least not like they did. And a lot of people are sick of paying hundreds a month to watch commercial TV...like Tony and me. We haven't started streaming TV yet, but we will in the future. This is why Alki David is considered such a bad boy.
In the past few years, TV networks have been resisting the passionate pleas from viewers who want them to stream live television -- and not just select events like the Olympics. To do that, executives from the networks and studios believe, would threaten the very underpinning of the modern television industry: TV still is an ad-based business, but ad buyers base what they will pay for commercials on Nielsen ratings -- which only measure conventional set viewership.
Sounds all too familiar to what's been happening in the publishing industry, with big publishers resisting e-books for so long. It will be interesting to see how long TV networks will resist streaming live TV. If you compare it to music I think the switch has already been made by a lot of people. I only listen to commercial radio when absolutely necessary now, and each time I cringe and feel as though I've gone back in time twenty years. As for commercial TV, we usually set the DVR and watch a day or two later so we can fast forward through all the commercials. Verizon Fios has a wonderful feature that skips 30 seconds and you don't even have to see the commercials in fast forward.
Photo attribution, here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment