Hasta La Gadget!

What happened in North Carolina, with the fake repeal of HB2 in a so-called “compromise” that keeps discrimination in place for years to come, is abominable. The new “replacement” law  similarly invalidates pre-existing local anti-discrimination statutes protecting LGBTQ people, doesn’t allow passage of new anti-discrimination ordinances until 2020 (when Republicans will surely attempt to extend the law ) and prevents localities and public entities from protecting access to rest rooms for transgender people.

This complete capitulation by the newly-elected Democratic governor, Roy Cooper ― who cut the deal with Republicans, and, we assume, with big business on board to end boycotts ― will cause lasting harm, not only to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in North Carolina, but in other states, like Texas, where anti-LGBTQ forces are cheering and now feel emboldened in passing heinous similar legislation currently introduced.

And it’s a wake-up call to all of us about just how fragile rights for LGBTQ people are in a time when the White House, congressional majorities and the current Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, are hostile to our rights and, more importantly, supportive of religious conservatives who are trying to take them away.

There is a major, lesson here, too, that we hopefully have finally learned.

Big corporations and business ― and that includes college athletic programs, which are major money-makers for their backer and for states ― are fair-weather friends, ready to drop civil rights in an instant, because their ultimate goal is making money. We’ve become too reliant on them as the force for good, deluding ourselves about what their priorities are. That needs to stop.

We’ve always known that politicians, after all, can’t often be relied upon, and will do a complete turnaround, which is often the nature of politics. And that was true of Cooper, who very narrowly won the North Carolina election last year on a promise of repealing HB2 and with thousands of LGBTQ people and their allies raising money for him and getting the vote out. The stinging slap in the face must be challenged, but it’s something that has been all too familiar, and, frankly, isn’t a shocker. 

Regarding the college athletic programs, however, like the NCAA, which announced it is returning to North Carolina after this sham, and the Atlantic Coast Conference, which indicated it is likely to do the same, many LGBTQ activists were genuinely shocked. Many thought that after the facts were revealed and it was shown that this was no real repeal, and discrimination would continue, the sports programs would continue the boycott. Activists also now realize that ending the boycotts will validate the same action by companies and others who’ve boycotted the state. The executive director of Equality NC, Chris Sgro, said in a statement that the NCAA’s decision “put a seal of approval on state-sanctioned discrimination.”

He’s absolutely right. The state is now asking companies to return to the state. When it was revealed last week that the state had lost almost $4 billion in revenue, the state legislators and its governor became desperate for anything that would get those companies back. The fake repeal and the NCAA return will help do that.

Big business can be a tool of social justice activists but this is a stellar example of how, when relied upon too much, the strategy can give us a false sense of security and acceptance ― and blow up in our faces.

After Arizona was on the the brink of passing a discriminatory “religious liberty” bill in 2014, which was stopped by a national uproar that included threats by the NFL and major companies, LGBTQ rights activists were encouraged. The same was true after Indiana did pass such a law in 2015 which legislators were forced to water down after corporate threats. 

But Arizona, like Indiana, still has no statewide anti-discrimination statute protecting LGBT people, who are discriminated against in housing, employment and public accommodations every day. And companies have no problem doing business there. The watered-down law in Indiana, like HB2, still allows for discrimination, but the media coverage allowed it to appear like a win, so companies backed down.

That same year, in Arkansas, a horrendous anti-LGBTQ law was passed and signed by the governor under the radar of the national media, and Walmart, headquartered there, stayed silent throughout the process, not issuing a statement opposing it until the very end. Similarly, in Mississippi, wth little media attention, an anti-LGBTQ law was passed with little corporate outrage. 

Those are just a few examples in recent years. We must learn that big business is one tool ― not a panacea ― and cannot be relied upon at all when the going gets truly tough. It will do nothing if activists don’t push, and it will cave in the moment something can be called a compromise if we don’t keep its feet to the fire.

Meanwhile, changing hearts and minds on the ground, while making politicians pay for selling us out, is ultimately the only long-term solution. Hopefully, that’s one thing we’ll learn from the North Carolina debacle.

 Follow Michelangelo Signorile on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msignorile

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Ivanka Trump said she didn’t know what the word “complicit” meant, so hero dictionary Merriam-Webster came to the rescue.

The word “complicit” began trending (again) after Ivanka told CBS News’ Gayle King: “I don’t know that the critics who may say that of me, if they found themselves in this very unique and unprecedented situation that I am now in, would do any differently than I’m doing. So I hope to make a positive impact. I don’t know what it means to be complicit, but, you know, I hope time will prove that I have done a good job and much more importantly, that my father’s administration is the success that I know it will be.”

Merriam-Webster sent out the following tweet not long after a teaser for the interview with Trump and King was released Tuesday (the full segment aired on Wednesday morning): 

Merriam-Webster defines “complicit” as “helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way.” 

This definition makes it less likely that Ivanka’s interpretation of the word, issued during her first interview since taking on an official role in the White House, is in any way accurate: “If being complicit is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I’m complicit.”

Very clearly, that is not what complicit means.

This spike in searches for “complicit” isn’t even the first time the word has received a surge in connection to Ivanka. In mid-March, “Saturday Night Live” aired a faux-advertisement sketch for a perfume called “Complicit,” with Scarlett Johansson impersonating Ivanka.

Merriam-Webster did a more thorough analysis of the word then, updating it after the word saw a boost following the Gayle King interview. 

Many individuals have since come out on social media to offer their opinion on Ivanka’s thoughts on being complicit:

We wonder what Ivanka’s petty, fur-wearing neighbor would have to say about this…

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A monster movie is never just a monster movie. There’s always a metaphor lurking beneath any creature feature’s surface ― it’s just not usually as odd and intriguing as the one in “Colossal.”

Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, a haphazard New York party animal who’s lost her writing job, her apartment and potentially her boyfriend (Dan Stevens). Returning to her modest hometown in search of a refresh button, Gloria encounters an old classmate, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who owns a bar that provides no aid in curbing Gloria’s inebriated tendencies. But things get twisted when Gloria learns a Godzilla-esque kaiju beast in South Korea is mirroring her actions under very specific circumstances. From there, “Colossal” zigs and zags, morphing into clever symbolism about the commanding hand men often attempt to wield over women. It’s one of the year’s best movies to date.

On the afternoon of the film’s New York premiere, The Huffington Post sat down with Hathaway and Sudeikis to discuss “Colossal,” which was written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo (”The ABCs of Death,” “Open Windows”). Along the way, we gabbed about “Interstellar,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Intern,” being a public figure and how boys are raised to believe the world owes them good fortune.

I went into this movie cold, and I wish everyone could experience it that way. I only knew it was vaguely a monster movie. How was it pitched to you?

Jason Sudeikis: I remember there being a logline on a cover sheet, but I don’t remember what it was. I got it in its full script form, and I remember being delighted by it and very curious as it went because it made some interesting choices right off the bat. I knew the idea of a Godzilla-like monster at that point because of, I don’t know what, litigation reasons.

Anne Hathaway: Oh right, that whole thing. Jeez Louise.

JS: But it makes sense ― it helped to make the invisible visible. I was guns a-blazing. Did you read any coverage of it?

AH: No, what had happened was I had just seen a film called “A Field in England,” by Ben Wheatley, and it was so wonderful and weird and existed because Ben is a creative person and likes to make films and honor that creativity. So I just sent this really impassioned email to my representatives saying I need to do a movie like this. I need to know some weird things that are out there right now, I need to think, I need to be challenged ― this whole thing.

Had you just done a movie that made you feel like you need to go in a weirder direction?

AH: No, no, I feel like I had just done a lot of very serious films. I remember doing one of my final scenes in “Interstellar,” where I’m left thinking I’m ― spoiler alert ― the only person left in the universe, and just thinking, “How the hell do you play that?” and just going into this well and finding that I had just exhausted this well of tragedy. I remember sobbing and the producer, a wonderful woman Emma Thomas, coming over and putting her arm around me in between takes and me going, “I need to make a comedy.”

I was searching, and everything that was coming in, so much of it was high-quality, but there was a certain sameness to it. I’m very privileged ― I’ve made a lot of films, and I just needed to shake it up a little bit, you know? My wonderful agent, Maha Dakhil, sent “Colossal” and said, “This might be too weird or it might be the right weird.” So all I knew was that I was going to read something that was different, and I loved it, just loved it. I wrote back and said, “It’s the right weird for me. Can this guy direct?” And then I watched some of his short films and I thought, “This guy can really direct.” And then I met him and he was just the most adorable person, and it was a very easy yes.

It’s interesting to see monsters causing destruction in a movie that doesn’t have the same gargantuan budget as a typical “Godzilla” or “King Kong” would. Were you nervous the CGI wouldn’t hold up?

JS: I just trust that stuff.

AH: Yeah, I know! I’m so naive.

JS: I know it’s conditioning for me from working at “SNL,” where you get to work with Tony winners and Emmy winners. “What does the wig look like? You tell me.” I started training at “SNL”: Listen to the wardrobe, listen to the set design. When you write something, you produce it, too, so I’m just used to that. And it’s bitten me in the ass outside of that building several times, but I’d rather lean that way, where it’s like, “You be creative in your medium.”

AH: I just felt really protected because the way it was described in the screenplay is the way it is in the movie, which is that so much of the viewing of the monsters happens on devices. So I knew that, within the budget they were talking about, they could afford it. If they said that every shot was a huge lizard monster crushing buildings, I would know they couldn’t afford it and the CGI would be distractingly terrible. But to watch it on a phone is different. People can do the most amazing things on the internet with no money, so I just thought, “I don’t know exactly how this is gonna look, but I know it could look really believable if, on the big screen, it’s just on this little phone.” I thought that was a really cool way to discuss the way we would actually consume this news. 

Our sympathies toward these characters get twisted as the movie continues. Gloria is presented as past her partying prime; she’s irresponsible and aimless, and then we slowly see that Gloria has it together in ways that aren’t obvious. Whereas Oscar gets the opposite treatment, with “nice guy” written all over his forehead, and then we see an inner darkness emerge. Where did your sympathies lie?

AH: First of all, I want to kiss you all over your cute-as-a-button face for not saying she’s past her prime, for stopping yourself. No, but when I describe Gloria to people, I say, “She’s that person where it’s time to pull the party bus over. She doesn’t quite know how to do that.”

I felt the words “past her prime” bubbling up and I knew that was not what I meant at all. She’s young and able!

AH: It was a brilliant catch. Thank you. You just saved me. I was like, “I gotta go get into a dress tonight and stand in front of photographers and project something to the young women of the world!”

JS (imitating Hathaway’s performative insecurity): “That’s what all this is covering! The beauty within!”

AH (suddenly belting as though she’s in a musical): “This doesn’t matter, don’t look! But look!”

JS: Click! Click! Click!

AH: Cinema is life! [Laughs.] So, my sympathies in this movie really do lie with everyone. It’s been a wonderful ongoing conversation about this movie. Somebody said today, “Would you describe this as a feminist movie?” And what we settled on is that the existence of this movie is feminist, but the movie itself isn’t actually about that. One of the things I think you’re seeing is Gloria has this inner strength and inner confidence because of who she is, but also we can’t discount the fact that she has probably been told her whole life that she can do anything. She was probably told that especially because she was a girl, and you can’t overlook the fact that Oscar probably wasn’t told that. It was just understood that he could do anything because he was a guy and it didn’t need to be overtly stated. So when things don’t work out for him, he takes it down to a really dark place. I think we’re seeing that play out in the world right now. I don’t think the key is to stop telling Gloria that she can do anything; I think it’s to start telling Oscar that he can, too.

JS: Or that he can do something else.

AH: Yeah, and also that the world no longer owes you anything, and it never did, and that was a construct. That’s probably a really tough thing to swallow, but for everybody else who has never expected anything from the world, we’re just like, “Well, welcome to the human race.”

JS: “Welcome to Earth.” Yeah, I feel like I’ve been variations of each character. And then when you play someone like Oscar, or at least when I do, you can’t judge it. For lack of a better way of putting it, I know the punchline. I didn’t feel like Oscar changed. He was the same at the beginning that he was at the end ― it’s just that the audience doesn’t know that. Things are revealed that have been in motion for years and years and years. That toxicity may have very well been inherited, but we don’t know, which is nice because I would hate to have it forgiven. We’ve all got shit. We’ve all got baggage in the way of our intuition, and the more often you can clean it up and fold the clothes with it and put the bag in storage, the more in touch with your intuition you’d be.

Anne, in thinking about Gloria and your character in “Rachel Getting Married,” and as a public figure yourself who has to put on a certain air when you’re not behind closed doors, do you find a certain power in playing characters who don’t have it together?

AH: Well, I identify with them. Without stating a preference, it’s just a matter of identification. I identify with Gloria more closely than I identity with Jules Ostin from “The Intern.” Jules always felt like this lovely, lovely woman to me, and I was so, in a way, relieved at the end when it turns out that her life is falling apart.

For me, the thing about this movie that I love is how it plays with preconceived notions that you have coming into it. Earlier, two people in a row described her as a mess. “She’s a mess, she’s a mess.” And the word “mess” just denoted a finality to me. And then somebody else came in and said she’s struggling, and I really appreciated the specificity of the word that she chose, because I’ve struggled. My God, sometimes I’ll have a great month and then there’s that five hours in which everything falls apart, and then the ship rights itself. And sometimes it’s the opposite, where you have a whole month or more where everything has absolutely gone to pieces but you’re able to get it together for those three hours that you really need to have your life together, you know? We’ve all been that person. Some mornings you wake up and you meditate; some mornings you wake up and you’re hungover. We’re all all sorts of things, and I don’t feel a responsibility to represent that ― I’m just so relieved when I find it. It reinforced the experience I’m having as a human being, that we’re all contradictions and that we’re not only ever one thing.

Jason, this introduces an exciting post-“SNL” path for you. A lot of the comedies you made while on “SNL” fit in with the show’s M.O., if you will. Now you’ve got an Alexander Payne movie coming, and you’ve got “Kodachrome,” which is a road-trip drama with Ed Harris. Does this mean you’re heading in a weirder direction yourself?

JS: Yeah. I consciously say no to things a lot. Bernie Brillstein, who was one of the great talent managers of all time, was like, “A career is made out of what you say no to.” I heard that at the right time. Coming from a “yes, and” doctrine, the power of no is a good thing. But, look, I’m real lucky to have walked those halls with ― in my opinion, and I have a high opinion of that show’s entire history ― some of the best ever. The work that my generation has done post-“SNL,” I’d put up against anybody’s. As a fan of all those guys and gals, it’s nuts. It’s nuts. I was just trying to keep up.

But what you learn there is just to be part of something interesting and to be around people better than you even think you’re capable of. The concern of “am I gonna sink or swim?” is something we would feel every Tuesday night on writing night, every Wednesday on read-throughs. It’s something that, from job to job, I try to have, like in the instances of working with Matt Damon, or Annie Hathaway, or Ed Harris and Elizabeth Olsen. You’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, please. This is the same way I felt when working with Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Andy Samberg, Kristen Wiig.” I like trying to keep up with people. “Always a student, never a master,” as someone more succinct than myself once put it. I believe in that, so that’s what it is more than genre-busting or trying to exceed expectations. It makes sense that the people writing the checks are going to go, “Well, he can do this,” or “She can do that,” so I try to be a responsible show-businessman. But once those make enough money …

I applaud Annie for seeing that Ben Wheatley movie and knowing what it made her feel as a fan of the medium and to use the cachet that someone of her talent and her financial situation in regards to how her films have done, to be like, “Boom.” That’s a form of mentoring in a way. It’s allowing the audience and financiers to maybe see something they didn’t even see themselves.

AH: And, by the way, that’s why I’d never say that I prefer Gloria to Jules Ostin, because I love “The Intern.” I think “The Intern” serves a purpose. I don’t blame people for wanting to make money. As Jason said, I want to be a responsible businessperson, too, but ask anybody when they first start ― that’s not why they’re here. It’s great if that works out.

You asked me about personal responsibility before, and I feel a personal responsibility, especially now that I’ve gotten to do this for as long as I have, to look for the films that I personally, as an audience member, want to see that I’m not seeing out there. And if I can do anything to make them happen, I do. If they don’t connect with people, they don’t connect with people, but at least I’ve done my part in putting something out there that has the DNA that I’m interested in.

JS: It exists. That’s half of it.

AH: And now everyone else can do whatever they want with it. That’s not for me to decide. We were joking earlier when we were doing a Facebook Live thing ― I was like, “Jason, why do celebrities want to tell everybody want to do?” It’s like, now everyone can do what they want with it.

“Colossal” opens in select theaters April 7. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length. 

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A horse in California had a rough experience after a late-evening visit to Taco Bell.

The horse and rider were returning from the Mexican fast food chain near downtown Riverside on Saturday when the cover of a utility vault beneath the sidewalk collapsed under them, dropping the horse into a 5-foot-deep hole, the Press-Enterprise reported.

Photographs of the incident shared by the City of Riverside Fire Department show response teams working together to lift the horse back to the sidewalk. Firefighters called in the City of Riverside’s Heavy Animal Rescue Team when they realized they would not be able to lift the animal themselves.

Responders initially requested a crane, but the horse eventually managed to climb out of the hole with some help from authorities and the animal’s owner, the fire department said.

Luckily, the horse avoided serious injuries in the incident. A veterinarian said the animal suffered minor cuts to its legs, according to reports.

The Riverside Fire Department posted a photo of the happy horse back on steady ground.

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I borrowed a total of $81,000 in student loan debt—$23,000 of that was from my undergraduate degree from California State University, Long Beach, and then $58,000 of that was from New York University for graduate school. By the time I graduated from NYU in May 2011, I still had $68,000 dollars left to pay—after making payments for five years.

I struggled to find work in New York. I went on interview after interview after interview. (I have a pretty useless degree in something called “performance studies.”) Six months after graduation, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t live in New York and pay my student loans without a full-time job. So I moved to Portland, Oregon to be with my partner.

Once I realized that debt was holding me back from my goals and dreams, I realized I had to make some change. The move cut my rent in half. The worst of times came right after I moved to Portland, Oregon. I struggled. I was able to secure a temp job at $10 an hour as an admin assistant, which brought in about $800 a month. At the suggestion of a friend, I went on food stamps to help cover the bills. It was a really, really tough moment to graduate from NYU (my dream school) with my master’s degree, and then to move to a city I didn’t really want to be in and find myself on food stamps, which I never thought would ever happen.

I felt so overwhelmed. I still had close to $70,000 in debt. There was so much anxiety, guilt and shame: I went to a fancy private school and got a not-so-practical degree.

You reach that moment where you realize that you have to commit to getting out of debt, and the only person than can do that is you. Something that I talk about in my book is that getting out of debt is very similar to the five stages of grief. I went through denial. I went through anger. I went through bargaining, depression and acceptance. And for a long time, I was angry at the system. I was angry that my parents couldn’t pay for me. I was depressed about my situation, and thought I was the only one. Going through this whole cycle led me to acceptance, and realizing that nobody could help me get out of debt but me.

In January 2013, I started my blog DearDebt.com. It was really a lifesaver for me because I needed something to turn my negative energy into a positive. In my first post on Jan. 3, 2013, I wrote: “I am going to pay off this debt in four years. I don’t know how because I’m making $12 an hour at a temp job but I’m going to do it.” And ever since I made that declaration, my life has changed in a lot of ways, and I was able to get out of debt. In three years from that point rather than four, because of all of the things that happened: changing my mindset, side hustling, starting the blog and all of these opportunities that followed.

Find a Support System

Even though I probably had three readers at that time, I was committed to finding a community of people that were also getting out of debt. I wanted to create a safe space to talk about it. Other debt fighters found the blog, and we created a community of supporting each other. Every single month, I would write my “debt check in”—how much I paid off this month, my struggles [and] successes. People would root me on, and I would root them on, and it became this community effort of supporting each other to get out of debt.

Make More Money When You Can’t Cut Back Anymore

I shared a studio apartment with my boyfriend. I didn’t have a car, pets, a gym membership, and I barely went out—nothing. Aside from moving back home with my parents, there was really no more I could cut back. I hit a plateau. I was making $10 to $12 an hour at that point, and my payments were about a $1,000 a month. I did not want to only pay the interest on my debt, and so I knew I had to earn more money, and that’s when I started side hustling.

I pet-sat. I was also an event assistant, so I worked a lot of birthday parties, Hanukah parties, New Year’s eve parties. People are looking for help during the holidays; I got paid several hundred dollars just assisting people on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I didn’t get to spend time with my family. I worked as a coat checker. One of the weirdest gigs I did was [selling] water bottles at a rave from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. at a warehouse in Portland. I also became a brand ambassador. If you go to a sporting event or a concert, and people are handing out free swag, and that’s pretty much what I did. Those gigs can be $18 to $25 an hour.

I was working every single day at that point. I would scour Craigslist and Task Rabbit for any gig that could pay me. I struggled for so long to find a “real job.” But once I swallowed my pride and said, “how can I make money in any way possible,” I saw how many opportunities are actually out there when you’re not just looking at things in the traditional way.

Connect with This Money Mantra

My number one money mantra is…Treat money with respect. I think for so long, I thought of money as this evil thing. I thought, I would never be rich, I’d never make a lot of money and so I didn’t really care for it. Once I started treating money with respect, I started getting out of debt. Treating money with respect has earned me more money, and so I can use it as a tool to have a better life—that’s one of the most important things: Using money to have experiences, to live the life you want, and to spend on your values.

Listen to Farnoosh Torabi’s full interview with Melanie Lockert here.

Farnoosh Torabi is a personal finance expert, the author of When She Makes More, and the host of CNBC’s Follow the Leader and the award-winning podcast So Money.

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