Really?! REALLY?! The Opening Night of "Harry Potter" and the Texas Raid on GLBTQ Bars (Episode 14)

its the amaziness of harry potter as being the only movie ive ever stood in line for.  plus i love the feeling of saying, "i saw it at midnight, before you!" lol you just, you just need to read the books.  because the movies are like 1/3 of the fun. 

 im from texas.  im moving out asap.

and i think the box is marketing genius.  cheesy yes, but i mean, snuggy anyone??

I like Harry Potter and I'm really excited about the movie, but I would rather wait until daylight to see it. The books are a lot better by the way.

"You don't need half a police squad and ninja masks." That's a myspace quote waiting to happen. 

What the hell is up with Texas?! 

The jewelry site is slightly hilarious and hey, if they didn't take it back or don't want it, what the hell right? =p

I'm a Harry Potter fan. Read all the books & seen all the movies. I'm not that big of a fan that I would stand in a long ass line for hours at midnight. I want to see the movie but not that bad. As Michelle said, it will be in theatres for long while.

On the whole mail jewelry thing. Im 50/50 on it.  Kind of a cool idea and the box is awesome sounding. I wouldn't go that extreme on getting rid of my partners gifts like that. I would probably just give it back to them if I didn't want it any more.

I am definitely a Harry Potter nerd.  You really have to read the books to understand.  I always tell people to read until the end of the fourth book, and if you're not hooked, then stop.  I have never met a person who's read the first three books and not become a fan.  I think for a lot of people my age (I'm 20), the story carries a lot of nostalgia with it.  I was 10 when the first book came out, so I've grown up with the books. As I got older and started dealing with more serious issues, so did Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  For my 12th birthday party, my friends and I went to see the first movie.  My dad then read the books and got hooked, and every movie since he and I have gone and seen the midnight showing together.

That's why it annoys me when people always think Harry Potter is for little kids.  If a kid is 10 years old, then they probably couldn't even speak, let alone read, when the first book was released!

There's also so many intricate allusions and messages in the books, that as you get older and become more worldly, you begin to realize all the beautiful details that JK Rowling has put into the books as you've been reading them all along. If you want to look at the books from a literay/academic point of view, it's actually a pretty fascinating series.

The movies don't even compare to the books, btw.  The books are SOOO much better!

Anyways, enough of my nerd rant.  Someone needs to save Texas from itself.  Why in the world were they wearing ninja masks?!?!?  What is the point of that, exactly?

I totally thought you were going to talk about the gay couple who were arrested by the LDS church in Salt Lake City, btw!

Oh, and the OutofYourLife thing is weird.  Not sure how it helps anyone except the company.

Harry Potter:  Ah, rabid fandom.  There's something immensely satisfying about being able to say, "I stood in line for X days, X hours and saw it FIRST!!"  People base entire blogs on these experiences.

Gay bar raids in Texas:  I haven't heard the whole story so can't comment.

OutofYourLife.com: Definitely cheesy.  However...I can see why someone might want to do this, especially in the aftermath of an engagement or marriage breakup.  Emotions are raw and you just want to get every single memory of that person out of your sight already.  

Interesting that they only use masculine pronouns on their website. I guess they assume that men don't get jewelry from their girlfriends, or that women might break up with each other, too. Of course, I'm sure they wouldn't say no to buying a gay man's or a lesbian's jewelry, they're just not going to advertise it.

But apparently dogs are somehow in their demographic? I don't know, those commercials made no sense.

Why would you send your jewelry away to some anonymous third-party website and then wait for your check to arrive? That seems like a waste of time and resources when you could sell it yourself at a local jeweler.

there's so much talk about Harry Potter on here that AE might as well post the whole movie on here or do a full recap on the movie. at my university in catholic religious literture studies, they're going to be studing around the harry potter book because of the religious references rowling makes in the book. last year the class done narnia, the year before that, they done lord of the rings. but im not in that class.

well...every city/town goes through trials such as the raid in dallas texas. maybe i should read more on the story so i wont say anything else.

I am proud to say that I AM a Harry Potter fan but of the books and not the movies. While I will watch the movies I NEVER liked them simply because they are so different from the books...they add things and leave out important things because they can't possibly fit it all into a single hour and a half movie therefore I choose not to like them. I've been a fan of Harry Potter since I was in 6th grade when my teacher bought the book not knowing what it was and read it to us after lunch everyday to get us to wind down from recess. Mind you this was BEFORE Harry Potter was even a huge phenominon. This was before the movies were even announced which is when the Harry Potter craze started. I loved the books but not once did I EVER stand in line at a bookstore or movie theater to get the book or see the movie at midnight. I watch the movies a couple weeks after it comes out so I don't have to deal with the crowds and when the books came out I preordered them so that Amazon.com would mail them to me and I'd get them the day they came out. I know so many people who went to the midnight shows and then after parties and such but honestly it's not for me. I really dont' think I even want to see the movie this time because the other 5 were so disappointing to me.

 I'm not even going to get into the Texas issue because it would be too politically based and I don't feel like causing a debate here. But what it boils down to is people like our former President.

 And I have mixed emotions about the jewlery thing. I had a band that I wore when I was with my ex fiance and even after we broke up I still wore it for awhile...then I took it off for awhile then I put it back on because I knew I still loved her and SHE left me...it's not like I had a choice. But the first time I saw her face to face after we broke up which was more than a year later might I add I took it off my finger for the last time and gave it back to her...It had my name and her's engraved on it and I knew I didn't want it anymore...I knew it was over. I think something like that website might be convenient for someone with lots of jewlery but for someone like me with only a single ring it's kinda a waste...they would pay more for shipping it than the ring was actually worth to me.

Well I love Harry Potter,and i was at the midnight showing.I don't have a good reason on why I went other then becuase its harry potter.If you read the books then you would be standing in line for the 7th movie dressed like a wizard too.But i didn't dress up..that's a bit too much for me.

http://perezhilton.com/2009-07-17-bar-commission-apologizes-for-texas-raid

Oh and I finally get to see Harry Potter tonight woohoo!!!

It's safe to say I'm a big harry potter fan. To understand the craze, you'd certainly have to read the book. You get hooked on it the moment you read the first chapter. It's not like twilight, where the vocab is really mediocre. At all. Harry Potter is a brilliant book.

In 2007, I happened to be in London, and that was where the premiere was being held. My friends and I stood there for hours in the pouring rain, pushing and shoving with other people, getting into arguments with the security for trying to get past the bars.. all this just to see the actors coming out. Not to mention, they took the time to take pictures with some people, maybe even engage in a small chat. I guess it's the feeling of telling yourself: I was at the HP premiere and got to see the actors, or "I was among the first people in the world to get the book" or such and such. When you look back, you have no regrets, and when it means THAT much to you, it makes you smile to realize that you could express your love for such an amazing piece of art, and show your support. It's similar to a concert: You camp outside the arena just to be among the closest to the catwalk. I know the concert doesn't last for days, or even months (as does HP movie), but it's that same feeling I suppose.You can never have enough love for HP. Quite funnily, when the 7th book came out, my sister and I refused to read it (like she didn't want to finish it first, and neither did I)since it was the last book, so it lied around unread for quite some time, until I couldn't take the suspense anymore :P HP is a whole different world. 

I know I wouldn't be dressed in a costume, because that's just not who I am. And I know I wouldn't push and shove to watch it in Morocco, since we get it dubbed in French, and that practically sucks out half of its essence. However, I did go to the movies the next morning, only to find out that it get through on the release date (as it was supposed to). Anywho. 

This was such an amzing episode Michelle ;) Hope you have fun in pride!

Michelle, you get a Really?! REALLY?! moment from me.  One of my best friends has gone to every HP premiere since she was 6 (all of them).  I wanted to go to the midnight showing with her but I wasn't feeling well.  Like most other cases the books are better than the movies but the movies are still awesome!  And of course Emma Watson is hot. 

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"Great.  Not only do I feel creepy but now I look like I'm 1,000 and that I've been smoking meth all my life." -Sara Quin

  I'm not the BIGGEST Harry Potter nerd, but I've read the books and seen the movies and I do love them a lot.  I think out of the 6 movies, I went to 2 midnight showings...one of which being this most recent one.  I live in a smaller town so even when a huge movie comes out, the lines aren't MILES long, but it's still pretty freaking insane.

 It's just kinda fun to be with an entire theatre full of people who are pretty much all (unless they've been dragged along) enthusiastic about the story and the characters. It felt like a really massive slumber party, and again an advantage to living in small town...nobody was LITERALLY elbowing.  I actually had planned on going the next day in the morning while everybody else was working but it was really a lot of fun to go and watch it with an entire theatre full of excitement about the same movie. 

You are to Harry Potter as I am to Twilight.  I've never read them so when I saw the movie I was like "oh that's neat..." but I'm not as passionate as those who have read the books are.  So I give you a break for not totally understanding! 

www.myspace.com/emmahuntermusic

to be honest, I've always heard  anti-gay hateful things coming from southerners so i wasn't even surprised about the bar raids. i think a lot of the people are still racist. i still see confederate flags around here in the north so...

I'm not a fan of HP so i don't get why anyone would want to see the movies or read the books at all. never read any of them and I've seen the first movie about 10 times cuz it was played on tv and in school and that's it. same with twilight, i guess im not a fan of fantasy.

and the website? it seems way smarter to just walk into a jewelry store or pawn shop and get your moneys worth than mail your jewelry to a cheese covered website and just HOPE you get any money back at all. I've heard more people are just getting scammed from those.  good vid as always.

I went to see the movie (not at midnight, they don't do that where I live) but on the first day and yes, stood in line. Reading the books when I was about 7 means I am a 100% book fan. The fun of the movies is the feel of a party of like minded people. Like...Potter Pride.

Oh Texas. 

 -All spelling miskates were intentional-

HP: Half Blood Prince

I just come from the theater and yes they left out a ton of good stuff from the book, but all, in all I LIKED IT! I thought it was actually really good.

The only movie that people should be dressing up as characters from and going to see at midnight is the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I saw Harry Potter on Wednesday, because if I don't see movies I want to see right away I will download them and then kick myself for it. I waited until daytime, because I didn't want to be around screaming teens. I'm a movie buff though, and I see most movies at least opening weekend if I'm interested. 

Texas has not made it to 2009... We should have given it to Mexico years ago.

And... are they giving people a sufficient amount of money? I mean you can pawn or go on ebay. It seems more like a scam than a cheesy idea, but this is the first I've heard of it. 

I also go to more than one Pride, but that is in part because where I live, the Pride last about 2 hours and is therefore pathetic! So I also go to one or two more!

As to Harry Potter, I am a HUGE fan of the books, I have read them all at lest 6 times (the first few at lest 20) and I qued up for the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th books, however, I am not a big fan of the films, I feel that they are a horrible missh-mash of the books, missing out linking bits, so that the main parts happen, but your not always sure how....so I am not that excited about them, however, the quing up for the books was fun, the atmosphere was fantastic and it also meant that I had a head start on reading and therefore finishing, and therefore KNOWING what happened before all of my friends, helped by the fact that I am a really fast reader! But I am not very excited about the films.....althuogh pleased that 'Deathly Hallows' will be in two parts, maybe able to do slightly more justice to the books......although I'm not holding my breath!

As for Texas, how can they get away with this? Is Texas really that homophobic? Am I just being really niieve about this? Surely they can't hold this up as a ligitimate use of their time and that it is helping to uphold the law? The ninja masks remind me of the KKK, although that may be slightly extream?

And lastly the box jewelry thingy, fairly original idea, however one I wouldn't even consider, if I was tempted to sell my exs gifts, I wouldn't to it via a falsly cheery box! I would either give it back to them or do it myself. Although I don't know if I would even get rid of it, the only thing like that I got out of my last relationship I kept, I liked it, and when I got it I was happy, why should I get rid of it just cos we broke up? :)

Suzzie, yes, Texas is that homophobic. Texas can easily get away with this.

I went to the Harry Potter midnight showing. The lines weren't that bad. We got into the theatre at 11:30. We arrived at 11:15. Personally, I enjoy midnight showings as a whole, not so much in the sense that I enjoy Harry Potter. I've read the books. I've seen the movies. About 10 percent of my motivation was because it was Harry Potter, but 90 percent involved the fact that I live in podunk, Texas and midnight showings are fun. Yes, fun. About six of my friends and I don't get out of work until 9 which gives us enough time to eat, shower, change, and go to the theatre. We hang out and talk about our day while we wait for the movie. We don't dress up. We don't scream. We may not even like the movie, but to me, it's just the experience. We plan on doing the same thing for G.I. Joe and a few other movies. Promise I'm not crazy. For my friends and I, it really is fun.

Being born and raise in Texas as an Asian lesbian, I often find myself having to apologize for where I come from. I'm sorry. Texas is filled with closeminded really really dumb people who get so bored out of their minds from the un-fun-ness of Texas that they go a little crazy with their prejudices. The ninja masks? Yeah, definitely, I have to say... Really? C'mon, guys. Seriously. I feel the same astonishment if not more after hearing this. It's positively ridiculous.

Now, OutofYourLife.com is a pretty entertaining thought. Yeah, I want to get rid of my box of crap and miscellaneous trinkets of epic failure from my last relationship, but if I had to sell it, I'd probably pawn it like a normal human being. The site is more than funny, more than hilarious. Hey, business is business and if it works, it works. If it helps people thinking that sending away one big box of crap will help them move on, then I guess we should let them think just that. Let the deluded be deluded.

General moral of story: Live and let live.

I admit I went to the midnight premiere. lol. But I soon found that by about 9 I was thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?' . There could be several reasons for seeing the movie at the premiere.  People go to see harry potter at the midnight premiere out of excitement just like people went to the midnight premiere of Transformers 2 to watch megan fox's boobs for an hour or so. It's not so different from people waiting in line till midnight for the harry potter books. The other reason could be, and this is probably why I went, is those who read the books, loved the story so much and dreaded the wait for the next book So much that when the time came for the books and or movie to come out, they just wanted to find out what happens next. Seriously the itch is that bad.

I can definitely see where you're coming from though, I for for the life of me can't get into the Star wars series. It's really just boring and I really can't see how people would go see the movie multiple times in theaters.

That really is the main reason, although I assure you that if you keep watching, you'll see that it was worth it. Let's just say that harry potter turns out to be an really really really gay-friendly book. Hopefully they won't cut it out of the movie. If they do it'll just be a reflection on the writers and producers. Although I don't see how they can without ruining the story.

I am proud to say that I LOVE standing in line for movies.  Spiderman, Pirates, Harry Potter, Twilight. It's all because I can say I saw the midnight showing and people think. "Woah..you must be a hardcore fan" and I usually am. :) 

Texas all I have to say to you is ...Shame on you and your anti-gay ninja antics! 

If you think the jewelry box is funny you should check out Ms.Taken.com  It's a keychain that has a fake engagement ring inside and whenever a guy is creeping on you you slip it on flash the ring and he leaves you alone.     It's genius actually, and the website has "Puked in My Mouth" playing which is Hilarious.  Check it out...

http://mstaken.com/ 

I am proud to say that I LOVE standing in line for movies.  Spiderman, Pirates, Harry Potter, Twilight. It's all because I can say I saw the midnight showing and people think. "Woah..you must be a hardcore fan" and I usually am. :) 

Texas all I have to say to you is ...Shame on you and your anti-gay ninja antics! 

If you think the jewelry box is funny you should check out Ms.Taken.com  It's a keychain that has a fake engagement ring inside and whenever a guy is creeping on you you slip it on flash the ring and he leaves you alone.     It's genius actually, and the website has "Puked in My Mouth" playing which is Hilarious.  Check it out...

http://mstaken.com/ 

personally, i don't feel that i should have to defend my actions or my fangirl status. :)

i actually was going to miss the midnight premier for the first time since the movies came out (because of a silly spanish test), but decided to suck it up and go, because i'd regret it if i hadn't. that may sound extremely silly, but i can tell you that after going to see it a second time with some friends a few days later, it was a completely different experience. at the premier everyone was so high on the anticipation (esp after it was moved from november to july) and there was a really great atmosphere that can only come about when 1000 crazed fans are stuck in a room together. at the regular viewing it was just a few different groups of people that were curious to see what the movie was about.

i'm a literature studies major in college and i've read many, many books that were better than anything in the harry potter series, but (after over a decade) the emotional attachment to these books is something that i don't have with anything else. and now that i've completely made myself look like a dork, i'm going to stop.

haha. What debates? 

I've lost track of how many Harry Potter movies they have now. I've never read a book annnd my favorite part of that series is that the old wizard is apparently gay.

As far as the gay bar incident, my mouth said enough last week.. I'm just gonna shut it down this time

I am not a Harry Potter fan.  I've never read one of the books or seen one of the films.  It just doesn't float my boat.  I do recognise that the whole thing is a significant piece of work though.  As we've seen here, peeps are passionate.  I don't personally understand the queue up at midnight thing.  I am passionate about numerous wonderful things in life, but don't feel the need to do that.  But hey ho, different strokes. 

I think we enjoy michelle's vlog because we like her and her opinions and personality.  If not, we wouldn't watch right?  We may disagree sometimes, but no RR moment for Michelle!!!

The Texas raids.  Michelle, one of your catch phrases sums it up - "It's 2009 PEOPLE!!!"

I'm not an HP fangirl, but I get lining up for a movie opening night and also the whole gleeful nuttiness that surrounds a fandom in general.  That's probably because I tend to go crazy over fandoms myself though, so I get that mentality and can appreciate it.  I was absolutely nuts about The X-Files as a teenager and the only reason I wasn't there opening night for its first movie was because I had tickets to Lilith Fair.  But you'd better believe I was there first thing the next morning and the line wrapped around the theatre.  I believe there were a few people dressed in trench coats too, haha.

I have to admit though that while I totally understand going all out for an event like the HP movie, I don't totally get the HP hype.  Don't get me wrong, I've liked the movies (although I missed a few of them) and I don't have anything against the series or its fans so I mean no offense.  But when people go on about the books it always leaves me scratching my head a little like "but they're Young Adult books, right?"  Maybe that's because I associate them with my little brother reading them as a kid though (I'm 27 now and he's 18), or maybe I'm just a book snob.  Heh.  Who knows.   

That being said, I've seen several people on here mention how they grew up with the books so it's a nostalgic thing for them as well.  So, to the HP fans, I have a question for you:  Is the nostalgia-factor a big part of the love for the books for you, or are there any HP fans here around my age who only read them as adults?  Do you feel the books would appeal to someone in their later 20s and older as much as, say, a 20 year old who grew up on them? 

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EMILY:  You were on the phone.
RICHARD:  Long distance.
LORELAI:  God?
RICHARD:  London.
LORELAI:  God lives in London?
RICHARD:  My mother lives in London.
LORELAI:  Your mother is God?

*Is one of the people who REALLY wanted to go see the midnight showing of Harry Potter* See, it's more than just seeing a moving, really. It's like going out to do something obsurd with lots of friends. Plus, a lot of these people *us* have been going out to see the midnight showing of every movie since Sorcerers Stone. Also, there's sort of this feeling that "you're only a REAL fan if you see the midnight showing."

Taking one step back gives you a chance to try a new way to get where you want.

While Public Intoxication arrests are not uncommon in Texas regardless of the type of establishment, the methods used recently at the Rainbow were not.  Check out the latest from Blade.

http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=26948