We’re the state that has it all!

Author Michael Grunwald allows that the winters are nice, and has a conversation with Gov. Crist that brightens his outlook a bit, comparing the guv to “human Prozac.” But the overall tone is grim, ending with the  point that Florida may know how to grow, but has yet to learn how to grow up.

It’s W’s worst nightmare! But EcStim isn’t talking about performance art à la Karen Finley, she who rubbed foodstuffs all over herself and caused an NEA ruckus some years back. What EcStim is doing is cabaret, but cabaret with a subversive twist: it’s a revue of songs by the master of the sardonic song lyric, Tom Lehrer. From “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” to “The Vatican Rag” to “The Masochism Tango,” Lehrer’s songs still pack a satirical wallop even though they date back to the 1960s. Come to think of it, George might like old Tom even less than Karen and her comestibles.

EcStim’s An Evening Wasted with the Songs of Tom Lehrer will be performed July 23-26 at 11 p.m. at American Stage in downtown St. Petersburg. It’s a pay-what-you-can arrangement, so it’s up to you how much of your rebate check you want to spend on live theater.

In Miami last year, Langbehn was about to embark on a cruise with her partner of 18 years, Lisa Marie Pond, and three of their four adopted children, when Pond suffered a brain aneurysm and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital. According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the hospital, the staff “refused to accept information from Langbehn regarding Pond’s medical history, informing her that she was in an antigay city and state and that she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as family.” Langbehn and her children were denied access to Pond for nearly eight hours. When the family was finally allowed to see her, the priest was administering last rites. Langbehn, with the help of Lambda Legal, is now suing the hospital and staffers for “negligent infliction of emotional distress.”

What happened to Langbehn — a heartless, by-the-book bureaucratic foul-up if there ever was one — could become even more commonplace after November’s election. If demagogues convince Florida voters that a same-sex marriage ban, already a law, should also be enshrined in the state constitution, the same thing could happen to anyone in Florida who defines family as other than one man/ one woman in a state-approved union. Unmarried heterosexual couples, senior citizens living together as companions, committed same-sex partners raising a family in relationships lasting 10, 20, 50 years — all of them would be at risk of being treated the same way as Janice Langbehn was treated.

Only if Amendment 2 passes, it won’t be just boneheaded hospital staffers denying people their civil rights. It’ll be the Florida Constitution.

If for no other reason than to show the world that you don’t want that to happen, march in the Pride parade Saturday and show your support for a grand marshal who deserves all the support we can give.

Later this week, I’ll be posting my interview, captured on ImGay.TV, with Lambda Legal’s Beth Littrell, who’s handling Langbehn’s case. And on Saturday, look for Creative Loafing staffers, including myself, riding the Azalea fire truck in the parade and handing out copies of the Openly Gay Issue and special CL “branded” condoms — much better than “beeeeaaaads.” And check out CL’s booth at 25th & Central.

The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible. What I didn’t realize was that those ideas and that urgency — and the sense of self-importance that made me think anyone would be interested in hearing what went on in my head — could just disappear.

But that passage made me wonder: Is this what makes a successful blog click with readers? The sense of spontaneity, of observations recorded on the fly, particularly if they reveal something personal about the blogger? Do the same requirements apply to a news blog? Where some reflection (or at least some research) would seem to be required? Or is the quickest route to massive hits a recipe of snark, gossip, self-revelation and impassioned opinion? And if so, what’s any of that got to do with news?

Just some questions I’m pondering as we make a concerted effort (have you noticed?) to post more on our respective CL blogs. Emily, by the way, drew 1216 comments, last count, on the NYTimes site.