Talk:Dan Savage

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See also Talk:Rick Santorum, Savage Love

How is it more appropriate for Dan Savage and Savage Love to be a single entry than not?

We have separate entries for Catch-22 and Joseph Heller. We have separate entries for This American Life and Ira Glass. We have separate entries for Peanuts and Charles Schultz.

The concept that an artist and his work should be merged into the same entry, even if one part of the work is of dominant interest, eludes me. I'm going to change Savage Love back to a link. Please convince me how I'm wrong. --The Cunctator 20:05, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There is less verifiable, informative information about Savage Love than about Peanuts. See our recommendations on the ideal page size, for example. As and when we have ~10K of information on Dan Savage and his column to warrant a seperate article, the articles can of course be split. Martin 20:13, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Well, if we do merge them, I hope it will be under Dan Savage rather than under Savage Love, because the author of multiple books and writer/director of dozens of plays should not be treated just as a columnist. -- Jmabel 21:32, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I wonder if we can get Dan Savage to eat his words?

Think of it, santorum on the lips of 1.3 billion people....

Seems to me that it is redundant to link to the "Spreading Santorum" web site from this page. We are also linking to it from Savage Love.

-- Jmabel 21:32, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Keenan Hollahan? What? -Branddobbe 22:45, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

This was the name under which he did his theater work in the mid-90s. I'm not sure of his motivation, but he used the name pretty consistently in his theater work for several years. See, for example, http://www.kittenpants.org/09_winners/dansavage2.htm: "I'm Dan Savage. Keenan is my middle name. Hollahan is a family name (my grandma's maiden name)." Do you think we should go into this in more detail in the article? -- Jmabel 23:02, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I removed "The idea that he was primarily a "neutral party" advising heterosexuals quickly fell away: today, gays are undoubtedly disproportionately represented among his correspondents." I read "SL" regularly, and straights make up the huge majority of his questioners. --zenohockey 21:51, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are you seriously saying that the gays, who make up less than 10% of the population, do not make up considerably more than 10% of Dan's correspondents? -- Jmabel 05:38, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
I did a random survey of six articles from his [archive]; specifically, I look at the columns he wrote from 3/20/03 through 4/24/03. Here's the breakdown (I removed the letters where the writer's orientation was unclear):
3/20: 3 straight
3/27: 4 straight
4/03: 4 straight
4/10: 1 straight, 1 gay
4/17: 1 straight, 2 gay
4/24: 2 straight, 1 gay
TOTAL: 15 straight, 4 gay
Okay, I admit I was wrong. :-/ I'll go revert to the original. --zenohockey 17:18, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
But I'm leaving out the sentence about "neutral party." He's not exactly giving straights advice biased towards gays, is he?? --zenohockey 17:23, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No, the original concept was that he would be unbiassed between straight men and straight women. -- Jmabel 18:06, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
I see what you're saying. I'll revert. --zenohockey 19:00, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
While I can see the intent of this phrase, it scans poorly. I initially read it as a suggestion of gay-bias, although that confusedly. Further, I contend his readership isn't really particularly queer, but moreso mostly atypical. People who feel their sex lives are atypical tend to write him, which incorporates some amount of queerdom. I think this description misses that essential element. JoshuaRodman 04:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name

I'm not saying this edit is wrong—in fact, I'm inclined to believe it is right—but it is uncited, and it is not common knowledge. Citation would be in order. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I've put in a link to the kittenpants interview mentioned above in which Savage clears that up. -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.70.34.5 (talk • contribs) 8 Nov 2005.

[edit] Removing content from the article

If people want to discuss whether content in the article is inappropriate and see if there is consensus to remove it, that's fine. If people want to anonymously remove material without so much as an edit summary, that borders on vandalism. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:11, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iowa

We've had some back and forth about this in the article. Our article currently says that "he claimed to have volunteered for the campaign of conservative Republican Party presidential hopeful Gary Bauer in order to infect the candidate with influenza virus." Savage's own account [1] tells a somewhat different story. "My original plan was to follow one of the loopy conservative Christian candidates around -- Bauer or Alan Keyes -- and write something insightful and humanizing about him, his campaign, and his supporters. But then, from my deathbed [Savage had the flu], I catch Gary Bauer on MSNBC. 'Our society will be destroyed if we say it's okay for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman,' he says…In my Sudafed-induced delirium, I decide that if it's terrorism Bauer wants, it's terrorism Bauer is going to get. Naked, feverish, and higher than a kite on codeine aspirin, I call the Bauer campaign and volunteer. My plan? Get close enough to Bauer to give him the flu, which, if I am successful, will lay him flat just before the New Hampshire primary. I'll go to Bauer's campaign office and cough on everything. Phones and pens. Staplers and staffers. I even hatch a plan to infect the candidate himself; I'll keep a pen in my mouth until Bauer drops by his offices to rally the troops. And when he does, I'll approach him and ask for his autograph, handing him the pen from my flu-virus-incubating mouth." And, as we cite from [2], "Savage later said much of the article was fictitious." So while our statement that he claimed "to have volunteered…in order to infect the candidate…" is technically true, it is somewhat misleading. It is technically true that, according to his account, he already had this intention by the time he specifically volunteered for that particular campaign, but by that same account he did not have that intention when he first headed for Iowa; also by later account the original article was at least partly fiction, and anyone who has read Dan Savage at all would be confident that he would have added lurid details, not removed them. - Jmabel | Talk 07:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Since 6 days have gone by without response, I will edit. - Jmabel | Talk 03:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD of Santorum

I feel it is important to bring to your attention an AfD on Santorum going on over here that will likely have implications for page naming and disambiguation of Santorum as a search term and dab content on the Rick Santorum page. -- cmh 19:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect reports of Savage's age

The following appeared in Savage's column of August 22, 2006. He is clearly joking, but someone might take it seriously and try to revise the Wikipedia birthdate based on this joke. Please keep this quotation here for future reference. Tomgally 00:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Q. You write that you met your boyfriend "when I was 23" 11 years ago. C'mon, Dan! You're not 34 (23 + 11, as the column says), at least according to multiple online sources. (Wikipedia can be edited, but it's got the same date as IMDB and lots of other places.) Lying about your age is beneath you! —Boy Utterly Saddened to Encounter Deceit
A. You're right, BUSTED, I really shouldn't lie about my age. But I worry that people won't take my love-and-sex advice seriously when they learn that I'm only 27 and I've been with the same guy for 11 years. Readers might conclude that I can't know all that much about dating, relationships, and heartbreak if I've been with the same guy since my junior year of high school. But I guess the cat's out of the bag now—damn you, Wikipedia!

Yeah, I'd noticed last week when he lied about his age again. I'm amused to see him busted. And, indirectly, by us. Hi, Dan, if you're reading this, I'm a fan, but not a sycophant. - Jmabel | Talk

[edit] Dan Savage in Canada !

In the Edmonton, Alberta free weekly paper called See Magazine reprints his Q&A latters. Is thair a anthor paper in Canada that reprints his Q&A ?--Brown Shoes22 21:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. NOW, a weekly alt-paper in Toronto, syndicates his column. The Savage Love page also mentions a paper in Halifax. Gloriana232 15:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The alt-paper View in Hamilton reprints Savage Love, and I believe Echo in Kitchener-Waterloo does also. --Saforrest 03:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
The Georgia Straight in Vancouver pubishes Mr. Savage's articles, as well. Tenspeeder 20:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
The "x-press" publishes savage love in Ottawa 99.240.232.231 (talk) 23:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hate section

A section collecting the hate-mongering of Dan Savage would be useful, collecting it one place instead of all over the article as it is now.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.145.145.31 (talk • contribs) .

Care to clarify, or just trolling? - Jmabel | Talk 06:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Photo?

what happened to dan's photo? (the flattering one which he just mentioned in the latest SL) --Katwmn6 03:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering that, too. Plinth molecular gathered 16:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it was removed by User:OrphanBot following Wiki's guidelines on unsourced images: "Removing image with no source information. Such images that are older than seven days may be deleted at any time." Maybe someone else has a decent picture of Dan or one that falls into the public domain or falls into fair use guidelines. The old one looks like it was a publicity photo lifted from one of his books. Zotdragon 18:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Since he's made favorable comments about Wikipedia (and especially that photo), perhaps he'd be willing to donate a picture. Does anyone feel like writing to him? -Will Beback 01:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been in touch with him. He's "bummed" about it being removed, but, of course, he's not the photographer, so it's not his copyright to license. He seems to find this as ridiculous as I do. - Jmabel | Talk 06:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Do you ever see him in person? If so could you take a photograph of him? -Will Beback 23:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Where is the original photo? I'm sure his office has licenses to plenty of flattering press photos, the current one should go lower down n the article. JeffBurdges 15:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe the original photo can be found in an online article in the Philadelphia Weekly [3]; perhaps someone more knowledgeable about the Fair Use requirements could see if this means the photo can be added back to the Wikipedia entry. The one that's up now hardly even shows his face, and it should be removed.

Check fair use criterion #1, if there is a free alternative to a fair use image, it must be used. Since Savage has expressed an interest in his Wikipedia article, perhaps he will choose to release a better picture under an acceptable license (GFDL or CC). ˉˉanetode╦╩ 23:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal opinions is a bad section?

I dont think the personal opinions section is unuseful and its kinda too incomplete (and too incompleteable if thats a word) and really it should be scrapped or the focus should be taken away from the strange things and changed to just a random list of his personal opinions —The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs) some time in November 2006.

Needs citations too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.162.53 (talk • contribs) 13 December 2006.

I think it's a bad idea. It's really easy to bias this article either way by picking and choosing his personal opinions. He's been writing since 1996, so it's impossible to include all of his opinions. My two centsRWgirl 16:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why cut?

Why was the following cut?

Jmabel | Talk 01:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased?

"Savage has been asked about his advocacy of dragging political opponents "behind a truck until there is nothing left but rope" in reference to the Senatorial campaign of Carl Romanelli in Pennsylvania in 2006. The statement was an obvious reminder of the racist murder of James Bird in Texas by a couple of criminals. When appearing on the NPR national show in February 2007 discussing racist and homophobic statements by other entertainers, he did not choose to explain this cruel statement."

I think the abovoe comment has too much personal commentary from whomever wrote it. Firstly, he wasn't advocating for the dragging of anybody behind a truck. It was tasteless humour. Secondly the "obvious reminder" sentence is biased. There's no way to know what Dan was or was not alluding to. It is author opinion unless further explanation or references can be added. Thirdly, the last statement is too vague. Did he not explain because he wasn't asked? Was he asked and declined to comment? Was he just asked about statements he made in the past in general? Also, remark that it was a "cruel statement" is author biased. It was tasteless, and not funny; yet it was meant in the vein of humor. It's a world of difference for an entertainer to say something utterly tasteless than to actually make a call upon the public to perform said action.

I'm removing all the biased words. For now I'm leaving the "James Bird" remark, but I'm qualifying it with a "some believe" until I or someone else can come up with a source that shows intent.RWgirl 15:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this quote had already been covered in the Personal opnions section. I removed the redundant portions. I also found a link to the [interview]http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2006/10/dan_savage_gives_daily_pennsylvanian_thoughtful_nuanced_interview.html.
I'm looking for a source for the NPR interview. I really am curious about context.RWgirl 15:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] His kid

Savage's son is 9 years old and has never been mentioned by name in Savage Love or SLOG (the Stranger's Blog). There's no need to have his name or age on this page; he can simply be referred to as "Savage's son." This is way off base. Savage's son, DJ, is the subject of one of the book's that he has written. Both the name as well as how Savage and his boyfriend settled on it are openly discussed in the book. In an essay on parenting that he recently contributed to This American Life, Savage identifies his son by name and age. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.34.24.74 (talk) 01:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] His problem with Pride

Can someone please offer a reference for his opinion that Pride fails at building gay community? Because I read his book about the seven sins, and an entire chapter was devoted to this. He felt Pride was GOOD for building gay community in that you get to come out and see all the other queers, and the diversity of the subculture, and have fun and dress up. What he was attacking in that chapter was people trying to use Pride as a legitimate and primary political vehicle, for the very reason that Pride is more about dressing up in crazy costumes, getting drunk and high, and getting laid - all of which Savage thinks are great things, but not necessarily effective in a political discourse. Long story short, he felt Pride is entertainment and should not pass itself off as activism. I have the book somewhere I can look later and change it, unless someone provides evidence against this.Rglong 18:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dan Savage, Bauer, and voter fraud

Hi! In 1999, Dan wrote a great article on Bauer in the primaries; it was very controversial, and probably worth mentioning. The Advocate, on Dec 19 2000 reported that on 7 November, 2000 that Mr. Savage pled guilty to voter fraud, was sentenced after pleading guilty to same. [4] It would be great if we could find more citations on this (although that one citation is pretty good; can anybody in Seattle go get the court record? I'll try to pull it myself...).

How to work it in, and how to find more good documentation; I think the fact that Dan's a criminal is worth mention.

- 66.92.73.52 23:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Another site I've found, NNDB (internet only, not printed, less reliable than The Advocate) suggests that Mr. Savage pled guilty to a lesser charge. [5] , so we need to figure out exactly what it was. - 66.92.73.52 23:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
The Advocate is reliable but the NNDB is not. I have to step away from the computer for a while, but go ahead if you want and draft some text. Based on the short Advocate article, it's proably worth a short paragraph, maybe three or four lines. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Will. I now have another cite, this time from the New York Times. In the article "How to be Iowan for a Day", Mr. Savage wrote on 7 January 2004 about what the did[6]. Between the article in "The Advocate" about his conviction and sentencing, and his article in the NTY about what he did; I think this is pretty well cited. Unfortunately, I've not read more than the synposys to thee above story; I'll pull it at my public library to read the whole thing for details worthy of biographical inclusion. I'll also call the court and see if the record is easily avaialble. - 66.92.73.52 23:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I can probably look that up in their archive too. I wouldn't go to any trouble about the court records, we don't normally like to use primary sources of that type. An NYT article is much better. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
BTW, have you actually read over the article? There's a full tretment of the matter under Dan Savage#Political advocacy. Sorry for not catching that sooner. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Birth Date

There seems to be some controversy here about what Dan Savage's birthdate is. Was is in '73 or '64? So far the only evidence in either direction is IMDB. Being largely user-contributed, IMDB is not a strong reliable source (see WP:Citing IMDb). Therefore, since we don't have a strong source, and since this does fall under WP:BLP, I am removing the birthdate completely. It should not be re-added until a better source is found. -Seidenstud (talk) 01:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No need. I imagine that this is a response to some remarks he made in the course of his last podcast, to the effect that whoever wrote his Wikipedia page must be dyslexic, because he's 34, not 43. I'm pretty sure he was kidding. And never mind IMDB. Just use yer noggins: If the guy's been writing "Savage Love" since 1991, then--unless he was a really exceptionally insightful 17-year-old--1964 makes more sense. So please: whoever's changing the guy's birthday on this page, please stop. Thanks. Buck Mulligan (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
But this is more than a common sense issue, really. This is a verifiability issue. As obvious as the truth seems to you, it has become controversial. WP:BLP clearly states: "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." As much as I want wikipedia to have as comprehensive bios as possible, it strikes me that this datum does not comply with official policy here. -Seidenstud (talk) 02:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think your reading of official Wikipedia policy with respect to controversy is perhaps a bit overly broad. The fact that somebody decides to change Mr Savage's birthday--incorrectly--doesn't automatically make that birthday a matter of controversy. I could change random facts in this article to my heart's content, and no reasonable person would conclude that these facts had thereby become matters of controversy. I understand that IMDB isn't a good source of information, but many famous people's birthdays are listed in this encyclopedia without any reference at all. This is because their birthdays are uncontroversial. Savage's birthday would have been left unchanged on this page, had he not cracked a joke about it on his podcast this week, which tells me that his birthday isn't actually very controversial at all. Somebody (or several somebodies) misunderstood him and changed the info, that's all. But why don't we see what other people who read and edit this page have to say? Anyone with an opinion on this matter will probably be chiming in, any time now... Buck Mulligan (talk) 02:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
While I don't think imdb is a very reliable source, I think that's the date which should be kept. I don't know if this page got the info from the same place, but according to it, he's 43. Also, I did some research and came upon another site (and this is from 2004!)-- again, I don't know if they're lying or not, but it says what it says. To be honest, I don't know if he was lying, joking, or joking about lying, but I don't think what he said in his latest podcast should matter. I agree with Buck Mulligan: let's use our common sense. And according to the page history, it was changed several times by several people, so his apparent joke wasn't all that clear to everyone. QuadrivialMind (talk) 21:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the Seattle Weekly source is a bit better than the imdb one, so I'll add it so it has both. If the anonymous/new editors keep changing the date back to '73, perhaps we can consider semi-protection. -Seidenstud (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Great! What a nice thing it is to come to a consensus like a bunch of adults. Buck Mulligan (talk) 23:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Strange, eh? Unfortunately, such behavior seems to be the exception lately around Wikipedia.... -Seidenstud (talk) 08:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, it seems somebody changed it yet again (this is besides the anon edits that Seidenstud fixed), but this time, it was apparently corrected by that person too. We don't even know how many more people are going to be listening to the podcast in the future and coming here to 'correct' the birthdate. Are we going to have to protect this page or something? QuadrivialMind (talk) 21:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's very good that that editor self-reverted when he saw the error of his ways.... As for semi-protection, I don't think the problem is bad enough just yet. Maybe in the future, but for now, I don't think the severity here matches the criteria in WP:Rough guide to semi-protection. -Seidenstud (talk) 23:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that semi-protection seems a bit extreme. If people were writing libelous stuff about Savage on the page, then certainly protection would be called for, but as it is we seem to be doing a pretty good job of reverting his birthday to the correct date ever couple of days or so. I'm sure that eventually this will all die down and people will lose interest and go back to vandalizing the Barack Obama page. Buck Mulligan (talk) 01:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I was lost, but now I am found. Kill the fatted calf. Call the family 'round. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 02:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Welcome into the fold, Michael :) Anyway, I put a few comments into the article beseeching people to refrain from changing the birthdate. Let's see if this reduces the frequency. Next step: firmer language. Muahahaha. -Seidenstud (talk) 04:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Let's see what happens, I guess we can still edit every day or two for the time being. I also think it will die down eventually, sooner rather than later. Specially with those fancy comments ;) QuadrivialMind (talk) 06:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)