When we started asking people if they wanted to get married, several couples were surprisingly quick to agree. Even though the ceremony would be cut-rate, because this was for a public access TV show, our haphazard huppah seemed festive enough, and we even had a real reverend on hand — our own Reverend Jen, a Lower East Side art star/writer/performer who had done some paperwork at some point to earn her title. Her diminutive elven appearance made her all the less threatening, which was good, because some of these wedding vows were going to be a little racy and specific to the couples who had just agreed to wed, and we hoped they would take it the right way. At least we were giving them collectible pipe-cleaner wedding rings we made ourselves, as well as homemade wedding certificates.

Not only did the couples laugh knowingly, but we were blown away by the emotional outpouring by the time we finished our short ceremony. Even in a hasty bit shot on a street corner, their love was real, and today before a crowd they got to announce it in front of everyone and to each other. This was such an important human right to be able to recognize.

And fifteen years later, much has progressed, but much more progress is yet to be made. While the issue is current and these reactions still funny, we are at another turning point in history. While we have the first president to acknowledge this right, we have a ways to go for marriage equality to be fully recognized under the law.

Here is the complete Gay Pride episode of Toolz of the New School, which also includes The Magic Closet that turns people gay, a Brief History of the Stonewall Riot, the North American Man Bird Love Association, and Libby the Lesbian Leprechaun.

Toolz of the New School was a cult comedy show on New York public access last century. More of the stunts and story of Toolz will appear in the forthcoming film PAY 2 PLAY.

We are raising money through Kickstarter to finish the film before the elections, and need your help to get this out!

In an economy run into the ground by Bush’s $2 trillion tax cuts, after the unrelenting arrogance of Speaker John Boehner’s sole recovery strategy to continually tweet “Where are the jobs?” he has an answer: about 2 million more of them in the last six months, according to the latest jobs report.

It gets worse for the corporate raider that made mountains of money from firing people at other companies. The most talked about moment from the Super Bowl today is not Madonna or Manning but Clint Eastwood, and his Oscar-winning skills waxing a thank you from Detroit to Obama for keeping the auto industry (and its jobs) alive. So stirring and inspiring was this Republican filmmaker’s ode to Obama that Karl Rove, the master of anonymous attack ads and Super PAC media saturation, scoffed that he was offended by the Chrysler spot. Clint Eastwood and Halftime in America were trending the next morning on Twitter over anything else Super Bowl related, including the hash tag “#SuperBowl.”

It’s bad enough that Romney has to make repeated remarks about how weirded out he is about poor people. His handlers know that just looks bad, but it’s not like they’re losing any poor people’s votes.

But the reason Team Romney is walking off a pier in concrete wingtips is because his campaign represents the most clueless padded elite, at a time when most Americans are so desperate, they are devoid of the “fall back” mentality of automatically forgetting recent history, blaming whoever is in power and voting for the default alternative.

In the wake of Romney’s resurgence after the South Carolina primary, much attention was paid to the boost he received from his debate performance, where he embraced an angrier tone, imitating Newt Gingrich’s successful indignant white man outrage. Too much attention was apparently paid to Romney’s debate coach, Brett O’Donnell, because he was dumped from the campaign after receiving media recognition, according to Politico. Romney staffers chaffed at the credit, and O’Donnell was not invited on to continue with the campaign as had been expected. Romney himself wanted to be emphatic that he could come up with his own comeback, not anyone else.

And here is the abject failure of leadership in not just Mitt Romney, but of the interests he represents, the vultures who prey on society under self-righteous claims of capitalism, but whose innovation is the exploitation of their workers. Whereas free markets purportedly offer a justice and balance to the universe akin to karma itself, and successful ideas are rewarded with elevation, here we see the same shark-like, short-sighted sensibility that is the real Mitt: Where someone succeeds at their job, rather than reward, they are fired, so that Mitt can reap their rewards. At a time when people are struggling for jobs and being shoved the tired Republican tripe of letting rich people keep more money as a solution to your own problems, Mitt Romney is firing the one guy doing his job well, because he’s viewed as a threat. Anti-competitive practices are how he rolls. Romney and the rich giants influencing our legislation didn’t get rich by competing on an open market with a level playing field. They got rich by takeovers and consolidating their competition so that they can monopolize.

Here’s the problem with Romney: even Republicans don’t want to vote for Romney. Many conservatives hate Obama based on conjecture or manufactured misinformation or basic policy difference. But they know why they dislike Romney. He oozes insincerity as he seeks to empathize with the struggles of the nearly half of America that is near or below the poverty line. Inherent partisan diversions won’t work in his favor. Mitt Romney lacks something in common with pretty much everyone else in America: what it’s like to look for a job.

It was epitomized in the moment where Romney was campaigning last year and spoke to a Florida unemployed man and commiserated that he, too, was also unemployed. Romney’s tin-eared joke about his own presidential aspirations to a representative of the millions of struggling Americans kind of says it all about what he’s in this for. Romney’s only offering over the other Republican candidates for president is that he can speak without specs of spittle flying from a frothy rage venting at immigrants, Muslims, or debate questioners. That, and his quarter billion dollars taxed at half what you pay on your income.

All of this is not to assure Obama this is his to play safe, down the middle. If one has ever had an opportunity to lead in American history, if there has ever been a president with the wind to his back and his foes flinching in their petulant obstruction, that time is now. Obama knows what Romney will learn, that you don’t get to be president by default.

Though the manifold problems of money pouring into our campaigns have become a source of daily news and mounting public backlash, the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission is an opportunity to review how this transformative decision was reached – the perfect storm of politicized jurisprudence, corporate entitlement, and a narrowly tilted bench.

As Chief Justice, John Roberts has expressed such concern over corporate rights, one might think he was found as a boy abandoned, taken in, and raised by some corporations. It was Roberts who directed the narrow issue of FEC penalties over ads for Hillary: The Movie to be rewritten and re-argued as a much broader debate over the right for corporations to spend money freely on third party advertisements.

The murky reasoning in the 5-4 decision is a swirl of citations to numerous codes that apparently somehow offer sufficient paradox that a century of laws passed by lawmakers over generations of Congress that restrictions on the federal and state level had to be knocked down, leaving almost no sense of legal authority on the subject.

How has this decision stood, two years later? Well, people have literally been taking to the streets across the country in outrage over this decision and corporate influence on public policy. In fact, this decidedly undemocratic ruling — five opinions against American law and overwhelming public opinion — has been such a galvanizing injection into the populace, Citizens United vs. FEC may prove to be the birth to an era of reform.

When Thomas Jefferson warned, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” he probably wasn’t talking about the liberty of businesses to spend unlimited amounts to promote their interests in elections, particularly foreign businesses.

The Watergate scandal revealed major cesspools of money flooding into elections under Nixon, and the Watergate break-in itself was eventually linked to cover-up efforts regarding campaign money laundering through Richard Nixon’s brother. Nixon is notorious for having had ‘briefcases full of money’ flown in to Washington on a private plane, which would fly right back to its very anonymous donors, be they in Texas, Greece, or who knows where – actually, that was the problem, nobody knew where or how much.

It was thus in the wake of Nixon’s resignation that the House of Representatives introduced a wave of campaign finance legislation — because public outrage demanded it. These laws were the fundamental legal basis for much campaign regulation until Citizens United vs FEC.

In a country struggling with unemployment and under-employment, a foreclosure crisis, and Mitt Romney trying to start a war with Europe, it takes a lot to make overturning a Supreme Court decision a national priority. But the opportunity we are presented with in the aftermath of Citizens United vs. FEC is the chance to bring about new laws that improve on the loophole-ridden pay-to-play culture that allowed Jack Abramoff to thrive like bacteria in a swamp.

Two years after Citizens United, this anniversary can become recognized as a national reminder of the better democratic future we are now building.

This new short documentary covers the curious evolution of the case Citizens United vs. FEC and interviews the attorney who first argued the case, James Bopp, accomplished battler of campaign laws and Vice Chair of the Republican National Committee. Authorities contributing to this analysis include John Nichols of The Nation, Bob Edgar, Doug Clopp and Kathay Feng of Common Cause, Nick Nyhart of Public Campaign, Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog, Professor Mark Crispin Miller, Jessica Levinson, and Lee Fang.

This short is from the forthcoming feature documentary PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes, a film journey about trying to overcome the problems we face from money in politics.

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Filmmaker Donn “D.J.” Viola was struck by the odds of inclusion in the coveted landmark independent film festival: Out of 11,700 entries, only 180 were chosen, 1.538%. Parallel to the Occupy Movement’s empowering the bottom 99%, Viola sought to provide some kind of platform for the approximately 32 films made every day of the last year.

Going further, such a context could allow for more political films than might usually be included in the crop of Sundance selections. While Sundance has long been a strong supporter of environmental topics, the timeliness of a film festival is a unique challenge — where the transformative Occupy Wall Street movement sprung up in October and swept the national discourse, the deadline for submissions to Sundance was in September.

Occupy Sundance will be a chance to watch movies covering the range of topics that have fed the Occupy movement: documentaries covering the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s incestuous ties, microfinance and social business, Citizens United and campaign reform, election integrity and voter suppression, media consolidation and broadcast activism, even the recent battle over public unions in Wisconsin. Going into a pivotal election year, these are issues that can’t wait to submit to Sundance next year and hope to make the cut in 2013.

Viola asks, “What’s the hardest thing to do at Sundance? See a movie. You have all these people who have come from all over, bundled up, packed in to this small town, just to see movies, and everything is always sold out.” In the meantime, Viola was discovering how hard it is just to get friends to watch a link to the short film he had poured his heart into, as people have become inundated with media to the point of meaninglessness. Bringing the overflow of quality content to the overflow of movie watchers in Park City seemed necessary.

And so Viola has set up a venue across from the Slamdance offices on Main Street at a restaurant where there will be a gallery of viewing stations to watch films from the Occupy Sundance collection. This offers another solution to the overwhelmed festival-goer – the opportunity to see films at one’s convenience. Some projected screenings of the timelier topics may be arranged, but as much as sharing films, the aim of Occupy Sundance is to facilitate connections and foster a temporary community. As the Occupy movement has brought thousands and thousands of people out from their insulated routines to discover like minds and organize, Occupy Sundance offers filmmakers, buyers, activists, and the uninitiated the chance to meet, learn about films and issues, and get the jump on how this medium will make a difference in 2012.

Occupy Sundance is open to those who show up, like the Occupy Movement. Filmmakers not attending but wishing to submit their films do not need to pay a fee, but do need to get their films in by January 17th. Visit the Occupy Sundance website for more info at www.occupysundance.com and follow on Twitter at @OccupySundance

Occupy Sundance will be at Cisero’s Good Times Bar at the top of Main Street, across from the Slamdance offices, running Jan. 19 – Jan. 29th, from noon to 8 pm daily.

Sunday, Jan. 8, will be the final day of Mr. Brainwash’s Art Show 2011, an exhibition which has drawn thousands each day to behold the childlike imagination of Thierry Guetta. This abandoned industrial space also happens to be adorned with a significant contribution from the street art community of Los Angeles, after Brainwash allowed 20,000 square feet of the ground floor to be entirely covered with other people’s posters, paintings, stickers and spray paint.

This mammoth art show will not be viewable somewhere else down the line. In fact, after this last day of viewing, the building is reportedly slated to be demolished. Street art is not intended to last, and here it won’t even last inside an empty building.

And yet, it was the barren behemoth building that first drew Thierry Guetta to tackle it with his vision of graffiti-fueled pop art installations and wild remixes of celebrity iconography. In this exclusive short documentary, Thierry Guetta shares his dreams and travails of trying to turn a dilapidated factory into a Street Art Vatican.

But where most of Hip Hop seemed to descend into a clatter of techno-fused beats and hooks about either partying in the club or partying in the strip club, there stood out a surprisingly positive groove that seems to best put a face on this year of the Occupy genesis.

Weaving an interpolation of Modest Mouse’s 2004 upbeat hit “Float On,” Lupe Fiasco uses his verses to unify the impoverished and privileged alike, urging courage to resist everyday oppressors, drawing strength from both childhood dreams and the power that a rarefied performer gets to observe when audiences are chanting his lyrics back to him around the world.

And yet in his open-ended challenge that “Ain’t nobody leavin, nobody going home, even if they turn the lights on, the show is going on,” there seems to be the prescient call for in-person assembly and energy that so many apparently desired deep down, across America, and around the world.

For those who still don’t get what the Occupy Wall Street movement has been about, think about it like this: it’s a like a vigil for a plan, or an intervention on behalf of an country all too obligingly suffering the painful cuts and deep gouging of corporate greed run amok in our political process. That outrage and alienation turns into empowerment with shared goals and the recognition that the voices of many are suddenly much louder than the voice telling us what additional austerity we should all endure because of some bankers’ rampant criminal enterprise, which goes unpunished.

When future generations look back at us and our time, I hope they can associate this song with this tumultuous, inspiring era.

Here are the lyrics and music video for “The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco, from his album LASERS. Follow Lupe Fiasco on Twitter: @LupeFiasco

Lyrics via LupeFiasco.com

Chorus
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on

Verse 1
Have you ever had the feeling that you was being had
Know that shit that make you mad
They treat you like a slave
Put chains all on your soul
And put whips up on your back
They be lying through they teeth
Hope you slip up off your path
I don’t switch up off I just laugh
Put my kicks up on they desk
Unaffected by they threats
Then get busy on they ass
See that’s how that chi town made me
That’s how my daddy raised me
That glitterin may not be gold
Don’t let nobody play me
If you are my homeboy
You never have to pay me
Gon and put your hands up
When times is hard you stand up
LUPE the man
Cause a brand that the fans trust
So even if they ban us
They’ll never slow my plans up

Chorus
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on

Verse 2
One in the air for people ain’t here
Two in the air for the father that’s there
Three in the air for the kids in the ghetto
Four for the kids that don’t wanna be there
None for the n—s tryna hold them back
Five in the air for the teacher not scared
To tell those kids that’s living in the ghetto
That the n—s holding back
That the world is theirs
Yea yea the world is yours
I was once that little boy
Terrified of the world
Now I’m on a world tour
I will give up everything
Even start a world war
For these ghetto girls and boys, I’m rappin round the world for
Africa to New York
Haiti then I detour
Oakland down to Auckland
Gaza Strip to Detroit
Say hip hop on a destroy
Tell him look at me boy
I hope your son don’t have a gun, and never be a D-Boy

Chorus
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on

Verse 3
So no matter what you been through
No matter what you into
No matter what you see when you look outside your window
Brown grass or green grass
Picket fence or barbed wire
Never ever put them down
You just lift your arms higher
Raise them til your arms tired, let em know your there.
That you struggling, surviving that you gon persevere yea
Aint nobody leavin, nobody going home
Even if they turn the lights out, the show is going on