There we were, debating with friends over dinner which circle of hell as detailed by Dante we are currently on. Some say it is only the first: Limbo. Others, we were among them, argued we're at the fourth: Greed. Still others claimed we are already at the seventh circle: Violence.
We think we have it right. Not content with one stolen SCOTUS seat, the GOP had to grab up another one. So much of what Trump & Co. are doing comes down to greed. Unmitigated. But the case can also be made for the seventh circle. We thought that as we watched Trump mock sexual assault victim Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, getting the crowd to cheer him dismissing a 15-year-old girl's attempted rape. That was violence. Or was it the fifth circle: Wrath?
We've spent way too much time watching CSPAN of late, but we're grateful for this network devoted solely to the actions of our government in real time. The transparency, sans punditry and commentary, has been welcome, even as the events themselves drove us back to Dante.
Sen. Ben Sasse (NE-R) gave a tearful rendition of two friends revealing their experiences of sexual assault to him the night the FBI "investigation" ended. But during the hearings on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, Sasse referred to women and LGBT protestors as "hysterics" and "deranged," like it was Salem, 1692. Selective concern for women from an evangelical whose wife homeschools the couple's three children because you never know what ungodliness might be taught in a public school in Nebraska.
But it was Republican Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn (TX-R) on Thursday night, after the GOP read the FBI report, whom we found profoundly unsettling. Standing on the floor of the Senate defending Kavanaugh, Cornyn declared, "We remember that Atticus Finch was a lawyer who did not believe that a mere accusation was synonymous with guilt. He represented an unpopular person who many people presumed was guilty of a heinous crime because of his race, and his race alone. We could learn from Atticus Finch now, during this time when there has been such a vicious and unrelenting attack on the integrity and good name of this nominee."
Yikes. The party that has demonized men of color for generations as rapists (never forget that Trump's announcement of his candidacy for president was a monologue of racism and xenophobia in which he (mis)characterized all Mexicans as rapists and Muslims as terrorists) is now claiming that Atticus Finch would, were he an actual person and not a fictional character in small-town Alabama in 1960, be representing Brett Kavanaugh. There we were, yelling at the TV, "Oh no, you didn't!" If we hadn't seen it with our own eyes, we would not have believed it.
There were interstitial horrors from CNN: president pro tem of the Senate Orrin Hatch yelling at sexual assault victims outside the Senate to "grow up," and Lindsey Graham telling other young women victims outside the Senate chamber to "call a cop." We were reminded of the Wesen on "Grimm." One minute they seem like regular humans, then they shape-shift into monsters.
While we loved the premiere of "SNL," "Weekend Update" with Colin Jost and Michael Che was fabulous, Kate McKinnon managed a perfect Lindsey Graham and RBG, and Matt Damon's Kavanaugh in the cold open was genius, the real thing has been anything but funny. Do we really have two more years of this? Or 30, if one counts the Trump SCOTUS?
Not politics
The non-political side of TV is still a golden age, and the fall season has something new to offer every day. There are so many enjoyable, thought-provoking, beautifully rendered things to watch that we have to keep that stack of books glaring at us from the bedside table as a reminder not to forget reading.
There's never enough LGBT programming — we are still yearning for the return of "Pose," like Penelope for Ulysses — but "American Horror Story: Apocalypse" is providing a very gay season with some intense leather sex and lots of Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates. Can we add that Gabourey Sidibe looks spectacular, that we love Frances Conroy's hair in "Apocalypse" so much, that Billy Porter and B.D. Wong are tremendous in their gayness, and when is Evan Peters going to get an Emmy?
To be fair, every day on TV we can watch gay men telling us what to eat, what to wear and how to decorate, watch Ellen interview celebs, politicians and just plain folks, see stellar drag with the best drag queen in history, and watch the Real Housewives of wherever for requisite bitch-slapping. So the gay is there. We just want more, so much more.
Speaking of gay men and decorating, those "Queer Eye" alums Carson Kressley and Thom Filicia are back on Bravo! The dynamic design duo have a new series, "Get a Room with Carson and Thom." You'll want to get a room with them.
It is the month of our gay holiday, so you should be watching all the Halloween prep shows, like the Food Network's "Halloween Wars," "Halloween Baking Championship," "Haunted Gingerbread Showdown," "Trisha's Halloween Spooktacular," "Halloween Cake-Off" and "Chopped." Watching Martha Stewart do Halloween (she asserts it's her fave holiday) is always excellent, even if it's destined to make you feel like a failure. But we did learn that you can make glow-in-the-dark food with tonic water and gelatin. So if you want to do a brain centerpiece for your zombie theme, that's a trick.
The Travel channel has "Scariest Night of My Life," "Most Terrifying Places in America" and "Ghost Adventures: Graveyard of the Pacific" to get you psyched. Still more frightening is 24/7 news and being able to watch the descent into hell, live, every day, then the re-cap every night. At least we have Robin Roberts to start our day queer on "GMA," and three queer prime-time anchors in Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon. CSPAN has shown us the heroes, among them Kamala Harris, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar.
But the villains have also been unmasked. The return of "The Walking Dead" could not be more terrifying. As our therapist told us: Take breaks. She ordered us to watch non-news TV and listen to black women. So after Cornyn desecrated the memory of Atticus Finch, we fled into the arms of the premiere of "Will & Grace," reliably hilarious and ineffably gay. Joining the cast is "Friends" alum David Schwimmer as the West Side Curmudgeon, who may become Grace's love interest. We'd had such doubts about this reboot working, but the second season is better than the first. Like visiting old friends: fun, comfortable, unpretentious. Love it.
We followed "W&G" with a dive into "Murphy Brown." Raucously political and virulently anti-Trump: what more could we ask for? There was a cameo (Photoshopped, yet the verisimilitude was striking) of a press briefing with Sarah Huckabee Sanders where Murphy says all the things we want someone to say to her about lying in every briefing. She tries to get the rest of the reporters to walk out — including her son, Avery, who's at his first briefing — but it doesn't happen.
Some of our fave lines from "Murphy Brown" were delivered by Candice Bergen, who's just as good as she was during the first Bush administration. Murphy, chastised for wearing pajama pants and slippers on set of her early morning broadcast, gives a #MeToo throwaway, saying, "Consider yourself lucky. I hear in the last few years of his show, Charlie Rose didn't even wear pants." Whoa.
On trying to get breakfast at their fave hangout, now run by Tyne Daly, Murphy quips, "LeBron would have an easier time getting into Mar-a-Lago." Miles fantasizes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who reminds him of his strict former Hebrew teacher.
Then we moved on to "How to Get Away with Murder," with a fully gay storyline. Ah, so revivifying. The fifth season of "HTGAWM" has the same flashback, non-linear storyline as the previous seasons, both irritating and a really good hook. Annalise Keating's (Viola Davis) students are still pretty, hot and in her thrall. The show has replaced the dead Wes (Alfred Enoch) with Gabriel (Rome Flynn), so one gorgeous young black man with another. We didn't lose any characters of color; in fact, we gained three new ones. Connor (Jack Falahee) and Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) are still planning their wedding, but are allowed to have sex (unlike so many neutered gay male couples) because the showrunner, Peter Nowalk, is gay.
Annalise has been hired by the firm Tegan Price (Amirah Vann) works for, and Tegan is still one of the most fabulous black lesbians on the tube. (Tune into "Insecure" and "9-1-1" for some others.) We would love to see the bisexual Annalise have an affair with Tegan.
The Oct. 4 storyline was edgy. A black Muslim Rohingya immigrant from Myanmar was charged with the murder of her white wife. The dead wife's adult son was the chief witness, claiming his mother intended to end the relationship and was killed over a green card. We won't give any spoilers (that's all revealed in the first five), because it was such a compelling and utterly surprising story and we want you to watch. Plus, so many gorgeous shirtless men. It's gonna be a great season.
We followed "HTGAWM" with "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," because Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) is our spirit animal. In the two-part season premiere "SVU" took on school shootings. Next up: kids in cages. Still topical, still "ripped from the headlines" 20 years in.
Other gay returns we are grateful for include the fifth season of "Empire," now that Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) is back home with the fam. Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Luscious (Terrence Howard) are trying to pull things together, but it's revealed that they are "old and broke" (not sure that we're ready to call late 40s old, but.) As always, somebody's dead as the season opened, but we don't know who. It better not be Cookie.
Speaking of dead in the opener, three thrillers are dropping this week and next. "The Man in the High Castle" returns to Amazon for Season 3, and the new Netflix original series "The Haunting of Hill House," based on the very queer 1959 novel by the great Shirley Jackson, debuts Oct. 12.
"Westworld"'s Jeffrey Wright stars in Netflix original "Hold the Dark," with Alexander Skarsgard and Riley Keough in this new thriller from "Green Room" writer-director Jeremy Saulnier. "Hold the Dark" is set in the Alaskan wilderness and is frankly terrifying.
Finally, RuPaul has had enough. He wants you to vote. As Vulture reported, the doyenne of drag was in an interview with New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, who is bisexual, at DragConNYC. The two talked politics, Kavanaugh, LGBT and the looming midterms.
Blow said we get complacent when our side is in power, then we get angry when they aren't. But, he explained, if we didn't get complacent, we might not lose power. Blow told the crowd at New York's Javits Center, "You can't just participate when you're pissed off. You have to participate because you believe that you want a future where you don't have to go through these cycles of anger and depression every decade."
"It's very sad," RuPaul said. "It's our job to somehow make voting sexy for young people. I don't know what else to do really. Attach it to Grindr? We're open to suggestions." Res ipsa loquitur.
So for advice from the divas, the lure of CSPAN, pre-Halloween haunts and the blessing of gay comedic reprieves, you know you really must stay tuned.
Republican Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn (TX-R) on ABC-TV. Photo: ABC-TV