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Spilled Milk: Homo’s Odyssey

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This post is the fourth in a series of Spilled Milk columns by Emmy Award-winning writer and producer William Lucas Walker that chronicle his journey through parenthood. Spilled Milk, which originates in The Huffington Post, appears on these pages every Saturday.


Not too long ago, our little clan took a road trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. Road trips are one of those mysterious things families feel compelled to do but no one knows why, like camping in the Mojave Desert or supporting the career of Miley Cyrus. I predict in the end it won’t be gay marriage that brings about the destruction of the American family. It will be the road trip.

After getting the kids settled into the back seat of our Honda Odyssey with their DVD players and movies, we hit the freeway. Once out of L.A., I was finally able to sit back, pop open my laptop, and begin jotting down a few ideas for this column. That’s when Kelly woke from his nap and grabbed the steering wheel from me, babbling some nonsense about “safety” and not using my computer while driving. So we switched seats.

Relocated to the passenger side, “safely,” I narrowed my list of possible topics to two: “Surviving Your Child’s K-Mart Taste” and “Parents I Hate.” Then suddenly — at 70 miles per hour — the transmission on our car blew out. And a column was born.

I’m an American, a proud gay American who was raised to believe that bad things don’t happen to Hondas. Yet ours has blown two transmissions in five years.

As we decelerated, the plume of smoke belching from underneath our hood began to panic my unflappable daughter. I tried to calm her as Kelly looked for a place to get off the road. “Think of it as an adventure, honey! We’re inside a fire-breathing dragon who just lost a leg!” She began to cry.

Somehow we managed to limp across four lanes of traffic to the next exit and turn down a hill into the welcoming parking lot of a visitors center that overlooked a picturesque lake. A visitors center with bathrooms and vending machines and other kids to play with. A visitors center we soon noticed had a chain-link fence around it and a propped-up sign gloating, “Closed for Renovations.”

“Look, an abandoned castle!” I tried, failing.

We called AAA Roadside Assistance and waited. Turkeys cook faster. An hour and 40 minutes passed as my iPod faded from Gaga to gone and the sun sank deep into the lake. The battery on our cell phone now dead, our world turned pitch black and eerie quiet.

When our Triple-A savior finally arrived on the scene, I could have jumped for joy. Instead, I froze. The white knight who showed up for our rescue turned out to be a physical composite of every high school bully I ever suffered: a tattooed skinhead-type, complete with soul-deadening stare and missing front tooth.

I hesitantly approached the massive flatbed tow truck idling before me and handed up my membership card through the cab window. Barely looking up, he grunted, “You know we only tow free for seven miles. After that it’s 10 bucks a mile. You got about 15 miles to the next town.” I asked if he could fit a family of four in his cab. His shrug said he’d manage.

After finishing his paperwork in silence, he finally lumbered down from his cab and stopped, getting his first, long look at my family. He stared at Kelly, then at me, then at our kids, finally speaking in the slow, guttural tones of a wife beater:

“These kids y’all’s?”

We answered that yes, they were.

Traveling as a two-dad family can have its challenges. Twice a year we visit my parents in South Carolina, a state so welcoming that its constitution bans not only same-sex marriage and civil unions but birth control and bagels. On its face, California might seem an improvement, until you find yourself stranded in the dark off I-5 in one of those counties where Prop 8 passed with 98 percent of the vote.

This man, whom I had now cast as the bastard love child of Ned Beatty and his horny hillbilly in the sequel to Deliverance, stared at us for what seemed a heart-thumping forever. Then he moved off. He spent the next few minutes hauling out huge, heavy chains with giant metal hooks. In my mind I pictured him encircling them around Kelly and me after he’d shot us, to more easily sink us to the bottom of that all-too-convenient lake.

After attaching the giant hooks to our Odyssey — of course, to complete our family portrait and ensure our suspect status, we were two men driving a minivan — he moved to the side of his flatbed and began pulling mysterious levers that caused his vehicle to groan as it slowly tipped its flatbed to meet our homosexual automobile.

This was too much for our youngest, James, a boy so Bam-Bam butch that for years we’ve referred to him as God’s joke on the gay daddies. By now he truly was jacked up by the adventure of it all. Biologically drawn to the smell of metal and grease like a moth to a blowtorch, James pushed forward and started peppering our AAA guy with questions: “Is our car dead?” “Do you have a bathroom in your truck?” “Who knocked out your tooth? Was it Batman?”

At this point Kelly intervened: “James, stay back so he can do his work.” Mr. Triple-A stopped what he was doing and looked at us. “His name’s James? I got a boy named James.” He had six kids, he informed us, all named after famous people in the Bible. Of course you do, I thought. A home movie began unspooling in my mind, starring a toddler Moses and barefoot Bathsheba helping their brother Goliath blow up frogs by sticking firecrackers up their butts.

Then he did something unexpected, something… perfect. This man whose menacing silence and sidelong glances had me rattled took off his work gloves and asked James to hold out his hands. He then began to gently pull the huge, oil-stained gloves over our son’s tiny fingers. Next he asked if James wanted to help him work the levers on the side of the flatbed so that he could haul our minivan up onto the truck. Mute with awe, James could only nod. As the chains grew taut and our car began to make its slow ascent up the ramp, James’ eyes widened to the size of the moon that had finally peeked through the clouds overhead.

Before long we were all crowded into the cab of the tow truck for the ride to the nearest town. I never would have thought it possible, but somehow the five of us fit. My family was safe. Jesse — he had a Biblical name, too — pulled out his phone and handed it to us so we could see pictures of his family. As the glow from the faces of his wife and kids lit up the inside of the truck, he looked at Kelly and me and said, “So… did you guys get married when y’all had that little window a few years back, before the Prop 8 thing?”

We said that we did. “That’s good,” he said. “My mom did, too,” he said. “She called up me and my brother and sister and told us, ‘Me and Maggie’s gonna have a wedding. You got a week and a half to figure out a way to get here.'”

From there on out, this man I was so sure I had pegged continued to upend my preconceived notions. When he learned we live in Hollywood, he told us that as a teenager he’d been bused in from the suburbs, commuting 20 hours a week to attend the Hollywood High magnet program in theater arts. Theater arts?

“Yep, it was great. For P.E. we took dance. Spent English readin’ Shakespeare. Instead of shop, we built sets for musicals. I loved it.”

He never charged us the $80 he should have for the extra mileage. Instead, he directed us to the one motel in that truck-stop town that had a swimming pool for the kids. Then he advised us which mechanic to see the next morning and which taco stands to avoid. And before lowering our big, gay minivan into the parking lot of the auto shop, he stopped to put his gloves on our daughter so she could work the levers this time, sending her into a spiral of rapture. After that he offered to drive us to our motel.

After we’d said our goodbyes and settled into our room, we made sure to sit the kids down and tell them how lucky our family had been that Jesse was the one sent to help us. Being kids, they got it: somehow the five of us fit.

After Kelly and the kids fell asleep, I got curious and Googled the name Jesse. Turns out it’s Hebrew for “God’s gift.”

 

* * * * *

William Lucas Walker is an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer whose television credits include Frasier, Will & Grace and Roseanne. He co-created the critically-acclaimed Showtime comedy The Chris Isaak Show. Bill and his husband Kelly are the parents of Elizabeth and James, born in 2001 and 2005. The children were gratified by the legal marriage of their parents in 2008, an event that rescued them from a life of ruinous bastardry.

Spilled Milk chronicles Bill’s misadventures in Daddyland. The first recurring humor column by a gay parent to appear in a mainstream American publication, Spilled Milk has regularly landed on the front page of The Huffington Post.

Follow William Lucas Walker on Twitter: @WmLucasWalker, @SpilledMilkWLW or Facebook: “Spilled Milk” by William Lucas Walker.       

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‘Last Thing I Want Is That Guy’: Dem Warns Against Musk ‘Trying to Control the Airspace’

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U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, the Ranking Member of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, issued sharp criticism of President Donald Trump’s Director of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, and cautioned him against “trying to control the airspace.” The Washington Democrat said she would ask the U.S. Department of Transportation to prevent Musk from participating in efforts to reform the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), while also citing concerns over an alleged conflict of interest.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday (video below), Senator Cantwell announced she was sending a letter expressing her concerns to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.

“It’s a clear conflict of interest, and Secretary Duffy should make sure that Mr. Musk is not part of the FAA air transportation system,” said Cantwell, who also serves as an ex-officio member of the Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations, and Innovation, and the Subcommittee on Space and Science.

“He has been fined for violations. He worked hard to try to get Mr. Whitaker, somebody who was approved 98 – 0, I think, out of the system, and it is a clear conflict of interest,” she noted. Senator Cantwell was referring to Michael Whitaker, the now-former head of the FAA who “clashed with Trump ally Elon Musk by proposing that his company SpaceX be fined over safety issues,” according to The Independent. The Guardian reported Whitaker had been “forced out” after Musk “called for him to quit.”

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Reuters reported Secretary Duffy “said he spoke to Musk on Tuesday about airspace reform issues and to Musk’s government reform team.”

“‘They are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system,’ Duffy said on X.”

When she was asked, “how bad of an idea is it to have DOGE involved in FAA,” when their goal is to “cut cut cut and they’re short on controllers?” Cantwell pointed to Congress’s efforts to increase the number of air traffic controllers.

“Congress has spoken, we want 3,000 more air traffic controllers. If President Trump and the administration want to talk to Congress about ways to get even more air traffic controllers because they’ve been working six days a week, we will certainly take that conversation, and if they want to help implement NextGen faster, we will take that, and if he wants to help implement standards for both the military and other commercial airplanes to have this, what is called ADS-B in and out, which gives you more information about who’s in your airspace, we gladly welcome that, too,” Cantwell explained.

On Thursday, Trump “vowed his administration will create a ‘great computerized system’ for air traffic control that, had it been in place, could have prevented the recent midair crash involving a passenger jet and a helicopter that killed 67 people,” Politico reported. “Trump is likely referring to the NextGen program, the FAA’s multiyear effort to move from radar to a satellite-based air traffic control system that has been underway for years. However, it has beset by cost overruns and delays and is expected to be less transformational than originally promised.”

Senator Cantwell drew a line at Musk, she said, “trying to control the airspace.”

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“What we don’t welcome is a man who’s regulated by this sector and who has had fines for violation of safety, which is launch issues related to protecting the flying public, at a time when you need the FAA to call the shots and say, ‘don’t launch now because there could be a conflict in the airspace,’ the last thing I want is that guy trying to control the airspace.”

Professor William J. McGee, a Senior Fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project and an FAA-licensed dispatcher, responded: “Sen. Cantwell is right. There’s no question this is a clear conflict of interest.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Demagoguery’: Comer and Republicans Melt Down When Democrat Tries to Subpoena Musk

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Trump Vows to Eradicate ‘Anti-Christian Bias,’ Says ‘We Have to Bring Religion Back’

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In a “meandering” speech filled with off-script jokes, recycled campaign lines, and religious-themed policy announcements, President Donald Trump addressed religious and political leaders at the controversial National Prayer Breakfast at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. He pledged to “protect Christians” and announced plans to direct the U.S. Department of Justice to create a task force to “eradicate” what he called “anti-Christian bias.”

“Well, we wanna bring religion back stronger, bigger, better than ever before. It’s very important,” the President declared. “We have to have religion and it suffered greatly over the last few years, but it’s coming back.”

“We have to bring religion back. We have to bring it back much stronger. It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time. We have to bring it back.”

He promised to “protect Christians” in schools, the military, in government, workplaces, hospitals, public squares, and said, “I will always protect religious liberty,” as he continued unveiling religious policy promises.

READ MORE: ‘Democracy Weeks Away From Disintegrating’: Democratic Senator Issues Warning — and a Plan

“And that is why today,” he declared, “I’m announcing that I will be creating a brand new presidential commission on religious liberty. It’s gonna be a very big deal, which will work tirelessly to uphold this most fundamental right. Unfortunately, in recent years, we’ve seen this sacred liberty threatened like never before in American history. There’s nothing happened like the last four years what’s happened with so many things have gone bad, but religion, what they’ve done, and the persecution that they’ve executed, have been just horrible.”

“The mission of this task force will be to immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible. The IRS, the FBI, terrible, and other agencies,” Trump alleged. “In addition, the task force will work to fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers, nationwide. We’ve never had that before, but this is a very powerful document I’m signing, you’ve got it, you get it now.”

Trump praised himself for “showing up to the Prayer Breakfast,” falsely implying that his predecessors had not. He also hinted at the possibility of running for a third term—an idea some Republicans are backing with congressional legislation—and firmly asserted that the President of the United States should be a person of faith.

READ MORE: ‘Demagoguery’: Comer and Republicans Melt Down When Democrat Tries to Subpoena Musk

“We have a mandate and lets say the most consequential election in 129 years, and that’s good because I’m a believer, like you’re a believer, and we want to have a believer in this position,” Trump said.

“I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief,” he added. “Let’s bring religion back. Let’s bring God back into our lives.”

The President mentioned the tragic loss of 67 lives in a recent mid-air crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, saying their time on earth was over but they are now with God. He swiftly transitioned to talk about the assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, declaring, “It was God that saved me,” and claiming his son Don’s embrace of religion had increased as a result.

Before falsely claiming, as he has countless times before, that his election allowed Americans to once again say, “Merry Christmas,” Trump said that “from the very beginning of our republic, America has always been a nation founded by people of faith and strengthened by the power of prayer and united by four simple, but very beautiful words: ‘in God we trust.’ And you all know there was a movement to get that out.”

“In God We Trust,” was officially adopted as the motto of the United States in 1956.

He also told attendees, “we get rid of woke over the last two weeks.”

The American Humanist Foundation on Thursday declared that the “National Prayer Breakfast and its ties to the Fellowship Foundation, an extreme Christian Nationalist organization, are a sham. Holding a government-run, taxpayer-funded Christian ceremony in the U.S. Capitol disrespects the secular ideals that founded this country.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Democrats Vow to Hold the Floor ‘All Night’ to Block Trump ‘Project 2025’ Nominee

 

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Democrats Vow to Hold the Floor ‘All Night’ to Block Trump ‘Project 2025’ Nominee

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Senate Democrats are uniting to block — or at least delay — the confirmation process for Russ Vought, the self-describedChristian nationalist” architect of Project 2025, as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. To push back against his confirmation, they plan to hold the Senate floor starting Wednesday afternoon, vowing to speak “all night.”

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), who has urged Democrats use their power to stall Trump’s agenda, announced that “more than 35 United States senators on the Democratic side” will “take the floor for 30 hours.”

“Russ Vought is the main author of Project 2025,” Senator Schatz said. “He’s the guy that established this federal funding freeze. He is the architect of the dismantling of our federal government, harming us with Medicaid portals shut down, with Head Start shut down, with agencies illegally stormed and the servers being seized. We’ve got to fight back and we’re united, all 47 Democrats in opposition to Russ Vought’s nomination.”

“If confirmed, Russ Vought may be the most important man that no one’s ever heard of,” declared Senator Schatz on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.

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Vought has been getting some attention in the press.

“In times past, Vought — who famously asked ‘Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’’ in Newsweek in 2021 — would have been seen, and dismissed, as an over-the-top extremist well outside the boundaries of mainstream politics,” wrote Thomas B. Edsall in a New York Times opinion column on Tuesday. “Today, he is a lauded Trump loyalist on the verge of his second tour of duty with the president, in one of the most powerful posts in the federal government.”

“In Vought’s vision of the apocalyptic battle for the soul of America,” Edsall continued, “Democrats are ‘increasingly evil.’ The federal work force, in turn, is the enemy that must be forced into submission. ‘When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,’ Vought, who is 48, declared last year. ‘We want to put them in trauma.’ ”

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to have Vought confirmed this week.

Senate Homeland Security Democratic Ranking Member Gary Peters last month during Vought’s confirmation hearing told him that when he ran OMB during President Trump’s first term, “you consistently ignored laws passed by Congress that directed how taxpayer dollars should be spent.”

“In 2020, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that OMB, under your leadership, broke the law eight times.”

Peters said Vought “inappropriately delayed disaster relief funding for Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria,” and “knowingly delayed getting critical resources to communities following a disaster even after Congress passed a law specifically requiring the funds be disbursed on time.”

READ MORE: ‘Democracy Weeks Away From Disintegrating’: Democratic Senator Issues Warning — and a Plan

He also, Peters charged, “pushed for” replacing “nearly 50,000 nonpartisan, career civil servants with appointees whose only qualification was their political loyalty.”

Senate Democratic Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray has called Vought “incredibly alarming,” and one of Trump’s “anti-abortion extremists.” She noted that Vought was “the lead author of Project 2025, which called for ripping away birth control, allowing states to nigh women, lifesaving emergency care, and effectively banning all abortion nationwide.”

“He has said he wants abolition of abortion in the United States,” Murray added. “In other words, a national abortion ban without any exceptions, even in the cases of rape or when a mother’s life is at risk.”

“Vought has called to outlaw medication abortion, block funding, for Planned Parenthood, and advocated for President Trump to appoint a new special assistant in the White House to coordinate anti-abortion policies across government.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blind to What’s Happening on His Watch’: Rubio Slammed After ‘Cheap Shot’ at Aid Groups

 

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