Theories and Realities

QAF Reunion! at LA Pride!

2025-06-07T03:43:35Z

https://deadline.com/2025/06/queer-as-folk-cast-reunion-pride-live-hollywood-1236425526/

Proof of Life!

2025-04-14T16:21:00Z

The end of the school year approaches here at Syracuse
and I wanted to check in.

It's been a tough year, to say the least. Dave is in
a nursing home. Three years after his stroke it became
obvious that he wasn't getting better and I could no
longer take care of him. Believe me, the paperwork for
Medicaid and everything else involved is overwhelming.
Chugging along alone is also not fun – Dave and I have
been married for over 40 years and this is not how I
saw things turning out, but they never do, do they?

Chloe is still doing well, but she's a quiet old lady
now – but so am I!

It looks like Miss Alyssa might be getting engaged
soon! She and the Dude are going to Spain in May
and my sister thinks that's when the engagement will
become official. Hard to believe! I'm sure you all
remember her as the little girl hanging out with
me and Nana over those long summers when I was
writing "Queer Theories" and all those other crazy
stories. Hard to believe the energy I had then!

So that's the update. The stories are all still up
if anyone is interested. I was thinking of starting
a new short fic just before Dave got sick, but then
I just didn't have the time. But maybe one day...

Just a quick update!

2024-08-28T21:05:35Z

A new school year and, yes, I'm still teaching!

Mr. Dave is going in for another surgery on his kidneys -- he had
the first on August 5. He's got kidney stones galore and they only
got half of them the first time. I was way too familiar with hospitals
before this, but I'm really sick of it at this point.

The other thing is that I've been diagnosed with cancer. Actually,
this happened last December and I've been in chem treatment since then.
It's actually not too awful -- it's a blood cancer and it's currently
under control, but not really curable. But I'm not having any side
effects other than tiredness, but I already had that!

Miss Alyssa is out of college and is the manager of a vegan restaurant!
Perfect for my little (not so much!) hippie. And my lawyer sister is
in my wheelhouse -- she's teaching a college course in Civil Litigation.
Now we are both professors! Nana would be so proud.

And Miss Chloe is right here next to me. She's now my Therapy Siamese!

High Time for Ron!

2024-05-29T06:54:36Z

If you are a Tony Goldwyn fan (and who isn't?) you are in luck recently.

Not only is Tony on "Law & Order" every week as the new D.A., but he's
been making the rounds of all the talk shows discussing the new movie
he directed, "Ezra," starring Robert De Niro. I mean, it's just like
an episode from one of my fics: Ron on "Kimmel," Ron on "The View"!
Ron directing De Niro! And he's looking pretty darn good, too, for a
guy who is 64.

I wonder where Mr. Kinney is lurking?

Gale in London!

2024-02-23T15:01:42Z

Gale in London with Rebecca Gang for the premiere of "Hadestown" in the West End!

Doesn't he look great???

20 Years!

2023-12-19T21:59:26Z

Yes, that's how long I've been on LiveJournal!

I've been through a lot of ups and downs, but, as Sondheim wrote:

I'm still here!

Cheers --

Gael

My Fic Pages

2023-05-24T05:39:09Z

Hey Guys!

Just a heads up to ask that if you have read
my fics over the years and especially used my
fic pages and the Gaedhal Index created and
hosted by the Incomparable Alix, please check
the bottom of the page. If you want to contribute
to the upkeep of the page there's a Ko-Fi link to click
there. It would show Alix that her work is appreciated.

http://fortruthis.net/gaedhal/

Thanks,

Gael

Thanks to anyone who donates to keep my webpages up
and running! You guys are great!

Yes, I'm still here!

2023-04-02T21:06:09Z

And no, I haven't gone away. I've just been very quiet.

Dave had a stroke last April, so it's been almost a full
year that I have basically been a full-time caregiver, plus
teaching and doing all the other stuff that you have to do
to live, especially since we've lost Dave's income.

At the beginning of January he was back in the hospital with
sepsis and then in a rehab facility for over a month. So it's
been stressful.

I feel like Justin in "Coup de Foudre"!

Anyway, about a year ago I started to outline a new story, the
first since "Coup" but then Life got in the way. Maybe one
day in the Future – if anyone is still left in the fandom.

I've been checking LJ about once a week just to keep up and
I'm also on Facebook if you want to Friend me there.

So that's all for now.

Gael

That QAF Reboot

2022-09-25T07:52:56Z

Remember that reboot of QAF that was oh so politically correct
that they wanted nothing to do with Our Boys?

Well, it's canceled.

One short season and out.

Any thoughts?

Gale at the 2022 Tribeca Festival, June 12, 2022

2022-06-14T06:35:09Z

New Project with Gale as Producer

2022-06-07T08:12:17Z

Gale and Rebecca, the new Power Couple?

Geena Davis and Adam Lambert Join Andrew Durham’s ‘Fairyland’ Adaptation

https://collider.com/fairyland-cast-geena-davis-adam-lambert-american-zoetrope/?fbclid=IwAR0IksAd_o4gSi7Hjd0aEwAoL9b_oIeNFuZ7ugWnMiqxaVv8Cbd16IX2gsM

Dave at Home

2022-05-29T04:35:05Z

This is Dave's first day at home.

He looks rather stunned, but not as stunned as me!

But he's sitting up! I never really saw him do that by himself in the
hospital, but I came back into the room and he was sitting like this!

Then our neighbor across the street, Blossom, who is Dave's driveway
buddy (they always talk in the driveway), said that she was going to
bring over a Jamaican meal – and she did!

Jerk chicken, red beans and rice, and fried bananas! I think I was more
happy to see food that I didn't have to cook than Dave was to eat it.
(And I ate plenty, too!)

So, things roll along. It's only the beginning of the summer; it's going
to be a long haul.

Mr. Dave

2022-05-20T05:38:46Z

It seems that the laid plans, etc., never really work out.

I was planning to begin posting a new story to go through
the summer. It would be the first since I ended "Coup de
Foudre" back in the ancient pre-Pandemic days. But now it
looks like that won't happen.

Three weeks ago Dave had a major stroke. He's currently
in the hospital in the rehab unit. He's lost much of his
function on his right side and there's no real expectation
that he'll get it all back.

Needless to say, I was just finishing up the semester when
this all happened. Now classes are over and my head is still
spinning. I'm not that great myself – my knee replacement
and chronic sciatica make it hard to lift and carry things
and impossible to lug around a 200 lbs. man. So they are
booting him from the hospital in a week (thanks, Excellus!),
but the reality is that he has to come home sometime and
beyond that is a blank.

Whether I'll have the time or the will to work on a story
once this happens is unknown.

So many things are unknown.

I thought you'd all want to know what's going on. This is
what's going on.

Gael

Throwing Something Out There...

2022-04-17T03:39:26Z

When I finished posting "Coup de Foudre" way back in the Ancient Times
before the Pandemic, I said that it was my farewell to fanfiction. I
was tired, I had some health problems, and the weight of the Pandemic
that came after just was too much for me even to think about writing,
let alone anything else.

But...

It's possible that once class ends I will start to post... something.
I have an idea. It's new – not a continuation of any of my stories.
Well... not exactly. But our main cast of characters will be in place.

I know a lot of people have moved on, but for me LJ is still the best
place to post and get comments. I understand that AO3 is a nice place
and I have a number of my stories up over there. But there's no give
and take. No commentary. No sense of community. I know that community
may no longer be here, but some of you are still here and I feel safe
and sound here, so...

"Dream a Little Dream of Me." Coming...

Coming Up for Air

2022-03-18T04:15:38Z

Well, it's been an exhausting winter.

Besides continuing all the Pandemic protocols in class – with plenty
of pushback from the students, who are totally done with it! – I've been
feeling crummy. Is there anyone who hasn't been feeling crummy?

And then Mr. Dave's brother died. He hasn't been in good health for a
long time and then his wife, Alice, died in August and he just went
down hill fast. So his death wasn't really a surprise, but it was still
a shock.

The funeral was one of those things right out of a family dramedy by
Tracy Letts. Besides Skip's children, who include a special needs
son who has never lived anywhere but home, and a brother and sister
who do NOT get along, there was Skip's son that he had in Vietnam
who found him via Ancestry DNA testing! AND the Vietnamese mom, who
has lived in Texas with her American husband since the fall of Saigon,
was there! With the husband and their son!

Did I mention the drama?

Anyway, I'm exhausted.

Mr. Dave (the guy with the hair) with his niece and nephews. Far left is Kirk,
the Vietnamese son who looks exactly like his father and who no one can figure
out where the Vietnamese part went!

Dave with Kirk's Mom, Nga.

It's always something...

2021-10-14T05:49:40Z

So the semester was going pretty smoothly, which should have been
my first warning. And although I was still having trouble with my
back, I was dealing with it.

Then on Friday I took a hard spill. In, believe it or not, a barn.

I got up and shook it off. Things seemed to be okay... until the
next day when I started to feel a sharp stabbing in my side whenever
I bent over or turned.

Anyone wanna guess? Yup, cracked and/or bruised ribs. I'm waiting
for the results of the x-rays, but other than rest and lots of
Ibuprofen and/or Tylenol there isn't anything for it except to
wait for it to heal.

Oy.

I missed class on Monday, but I plugged on and taught today.
Luckily, if I stand upright it's not too bad, but sitting and
moving around, I was gritting my teeth. Thankfully, all my
classes are in the same building, so I don't have to truck all
over campus. And thank God for Mr. Otis who invented the elevator!

End of Summer

2021-08-12T04:19:42Z

I've been lying low, waiting to see what happens this fall before
I have to go back to class.

Still no idea what that is.

But here's Alyssa. She has no problem diving into Florida at the
height of the surge.

Oh, to be young and fearless. Or not.

I call this Zsa Zsa of Key West.

Brian and Justin in Lockdown?

2021-05-31T21:35:11Z

Out of curiosity, which Brian and Justin would you like to see in Lockdown?

"Queer Theories" Brian and Justin?

"Coup de Foudre" Brian and Justin?

"Outsiders" Brian and Justin?

"Enchanted Cottage" Brian and Justin?

"Angel Stream" Brian and Justin?

How would they be dealing with the challenges of the past year?

Put-In-Bay!

2021-05-23T04:29:57Z

Just in case you're feeling nostalgic for "Queer Theories," this
is my cousin's boat up at Put-In-Bay. First cruise of the season!

Doesn't it seem like the Boys would be there about now?

Another Semester Done – But Hardly Normal!

2021-05-22T02:51:24Z

Only grading final projects is left before we leave the third semester
of the Pandemic behind.

I'm fried. My students are fried. Even Chloe is fried. Only Mr. Dave
remains his usual serene self.

Above is my WRT 422 class. Creative Nonfiction/Memoir. They were aces,
as my old man might have said. This class really bonded and at the end
of this hellish school year they said they were sorry to leave our safe
little cocoon.

So I took their picture. It's not a great picture, but I wanted to
remember them.

Trevor. Alexandra. Pearse. Grace. David. Toyin. Wilson.

And summer awaits...

The 19th Anniversary of "Queer Theories"

2021-04-16T05:22:45Z

So "Queer Theories" is 19 years old.

Gulp!

Here are the links to all my stories, including my
fan page and all the links on Alix's site. These
include "Queer Theories" and all the side stories,
like "Nowhere Man," "Coup de Foundre," "The Angel
Stream," and "The Enchanted Cottage," as well as
all the alternate Streams and Currents, including
"Medium Security," "Bell, Book and Candle," and
"Wayfarers."

http://www.fortruthis.net/gaelmcgear/Gaedhalficpage.html

http://fortruthis.net/gaedhal/

Here is the link to the first chapter of "Bell, Book & Candle":

https://gaedhal.livejournal.com/323637.html

Chapter 1

Many years ago in a far away country of the Old World there lived Three Weird Sisters: Gwynyth, Morgan, and Victoria (who was always called Queenie because she detested the name Victoria). These sisters belonged to an ancient family, the Holroyds, noted for growing herbs, advising the locals on their love lives, and turning their enemies into toads. Actually, the last thing was only a rumor -- witches, which were what the Holroyds were, can't really turn their enemies into toads. However, they can make them think they are toads, which is just as effective.

The Holroyds had lived in their little Village of Greenwich-on-the-Green for many generations, meeting up with other witches at the Four Corners of the Year to celebrate and dance naked under the stars. Sometimes one of the family would venture to the Great City and Beyond, a few even going over the Sea. But everywhere they went there was trouble. Most places didn't care for witches, for although people liked their herbs and ointments and love potions, they believed that thing about being turned into toads, which often made for uncomfortable situations for the Holroyds and other witch families. Getting burned at the stake or thrown into the local pond weighed down by rocks is tiresome after a while. The Old World was not a tolerant place and the New World, especially locations like Salem in the Colony of Massachusetts, didn't seem much better.

But then came the Great War and in its wake the Three Holroyd Sisters felt a change blowing through the world. They heard of places where their kind could gather and live -- discreetly, of course -- without being threatened with either the stake or the pond. And so they took a ship and sailed across the Sea to another Village called Greenwich, which was in the middle of another Great City in the Former Colony of New York. And the sisters thrived there for a number of years.

But came the day when Gwynyth and Morgan tired of the Village and the City. They were still country witches at heart, after all. And the two bought a small farm outside that other village of Salem in the Former Colony of Massachusetts and grew herbs that they supplied to their kindred all over the New World. Queenie stayed in Greenwich Village and enjoyed herself -- it was the Roaring Twenties and Queenie had a recipe for bathtub gin that could knock over a bull moose in rut, so she prospered very well, eventually buying a building all her own and renting out apartments in it.

And it came that Gwynyth had two daughters, Jennifer and June, while Morgan had a daughter and a son, Gillian and Nicholas. All three girls were beautiful, but Gillian was especially so, with ash blonde hair and lavender eyes. She also had great Power, far surpassing that of her mother, her brother, her cousins, and her aunts. It was rumored that her father had been a powerful sorcerer who had cast spells for the Government, turning the tide of the Great War, and, later, of the Great Depression, but no one was really sure -- fathers in witch families are nebulous things, not easily pinned down. But when the time came, Gillian went off to Wellesley and studied Anthropology, graduating at the top of her class and then traveling around the world -- Mexico, Haiti, the Belgian Congo, French Polynesia -- studying the Ancient Practices. When she came back she didn't return to the farm outside of Salem, but to Greenwich Village, where she opened up a shop in Queenie's building that dealt in tribal artifacts, which proved extremely successful. Her brother Nicky, having flunked out of Yale for making the Dean of Men think he was a toad, soon joined her there. And Gillian, Nicky, and Queenie lived quite contentedly.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Gwynyth's older daughter June had settled into the family herb-growing business quite happily, but the younger daughter, Jennifer, was not so content. She hated the farm, she hated Salem, and she hated Greenwich Village. She hated being different. She hated the way people looked away or gave the sign against the Evil Eye when her family passed, yet visited them in the dark of night to buy potions and ointments and charms.

Jennifer wanted the kind of normal life she saw at the picture show -- houses with white picket fences on quiet streets, mothers and fathers and their children eating dinner together and going to church on Sunday. No cauldrons bubbling in the backyard. No drying herbs hanging from the rafters. No cats prowling along the roof, yowling at the full moon. No dancing naked in the woods. Nothing un-ordinary.

And so Jennifer did something very scandalous. Something that horrified the Holroyds and all of the other witch families from Salem to Greenwich Village. Jennifer "renounced." She denied her Powers, her family, and her witch-nature. She ran away to Boston, got a job as a file clerk in an office, and married the son of the boss. An outsider.

Craig Taylor was a man who only vaguely understood that his new bride came from a very strange clan. But they were from England or Wales or some such backward, un-American place, so that explained it. And Jennifer Holroyd Taylor, although incapable of actually falling in love with her husband -- witches can't fall in love, or blush, or cry, among other things -- was as happy as she could be in her lovely house with the white picket fence on a quiet street in another Village called Greenwich, this one in the former Colony of Connecticut.

Happy, that is, until her beautiful little blond son, Justin, reached puberty.

That's when all hell broke loose.

New Gale Gig

2021-03-26T04:07:10Z

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/andie-macdowell-patrick-gibson-set-for-addiction-drama-good-girl-jane

The Hollywood Reporter
Andie MacDowell, Patrick Gibson Set for Addiction Drama 'Good Girl Jane'
9:23 AM PDT 3/25/2021 by Mia Galuppo

Newcomer Rain Spencer leads the cast for the film from Sarah Elizabeth Mintz and Astute Films.
Andie MacDowell and The OA star Patrick Gibson are set to star in Good Girl Jane, which wrapped filming in Los Angeles this week following a 2020 production shutdown due to the pandemic.
Newcomer Rain Spencer leads the cast as a lonely young girl that falls hard for a charming drug dealer and becomes entangled in his meth ring run by Los Angeles teens.
Sarah Elizabeth Mintz makes her feature debut on the Astute Films project. Odessa A’Zion (Grand Army), Jules Lorenzo (Betty), Olan Prenatt (Mid90s), Diego Chiat, Eloisa Huggins and Gale Harold round out the cast with musical artists Yeek and Shakewell.
Astute Films’ Dominique Telson, Fred Bernstein and Simone Williams produced the film, along with Lauren Pratt. Rick Jackson acts as executive producer.
“Drug abuse and depression are afflictions stigmatized by society due to misconception, fear and shame,” said Mintz. “As a person who has struggled through these experiences, and grown stronger despite them, I am committed to telling a story which sheds light on the overwhelming reality of our 'sadness epidemic.'"
“Good Girl Jane speaks not only to this generation but to generations to come — and their families,” said Telson. “We have seen many films about drug addiction, but Sarah Mintz has given us unique insight into the alienation, loneliness, sex, drugs and communal bonds that permeate the culture. It is a riveting ride packed with the kind of realism and truth that audiences will embrace,” added Bernstein.
The Golden Globe-nominated MacDowell, whose recent film credits include firefighter drama Only the Brave and Netflix’s The Last Laugh, is repped by Gersh. Gibson, repped by ICM Partners, has film credits that include The Darkest Minds and Tolkien.
Spencer is repped by Osbrink. Mintz is repped by Exile Entertainment.

One year ago...

2021-03-08T00:37:01Z

One year ago, Saturday, March 7, Dave and I were at the Scotch & Sirloin
for a belated birthday dinner. His brother and sister-in-law, his nephew,
and his niece and her boyfriend were also there. The place was packed
on a Saturday night.

The next day I went to calling hours for a beloved colleague; it was
also packed with mourners. Packed.

Three days later the university shut down. The state shut down, The
country shut down.

One year ago this was unimaginable. But everything turned on a dime.
Everything changed.

Now I've had both doses of the vaccine. I'm teaching in the classroom,
but the room is distanced and we all have masks.

A year ago who knew about masks?

Now I have an assortment in different colors and styles.

I told my students that one day they'd open a drawer and see their
old masks and think, "Can you believe it?"

That day is coming.

Stay safe.

Filmmakers First Fund -- Gale

2021-01-07T06:08:18Z

https://www.screendaily.com/news/filmmakers-first-fund-unveils-first-round-of-awards-exclusive/5155974.article

Just Checking In

2020-10-11T06:36:24Z

Taking a pause from grading.

We're coming up to Week 8 and it's getting dicey...

Thought you'd like to see a new picture of Alyssa.

I know. I can't believe it, either. It doesn't seem that long ago
that we were spending the summer at the Condo with Nana.