Tonight I went to see Dan Savage speak at the Union Theater as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series. As has been the case every other time I have heard him speak, he was a very entertaining speaker.

As is the case in his writing, he can be hysterically fun and totally serious, often within the same breath. Generally unafraid to state his opinion, he doesn't hesistate to call people on their bullshit. (That includes himself, as he spoke of how completely his opinion on the Iraq war has changed. At the beginning he was a supporter. Now, he jokes that ITMFA is a way for him to do penance for that.)

Some of the best moments of the night were Savage's interactions with the ASL interpreters on the stage. One interpreter in particular was partiulary animated, and got a couple of good laughs on her own. There is nothing like watching sex advice being depicted in sign language to give an audience a case of the giggles, especially when Dan noticed and repeated a couple of really good phrases.

Having been a Madisonian for a while, he has a very good interaction with the audience. He got a good bit of applause right away when he came out on stage with a pitcher of beer and a giant pretzel from the Stiftskellar, poured his "speaker's glass" of water back into its pitcher and refilled the glass with beer. Hee!

Among the many topics he covered tonight were sex education, gay marriage rights, "straights rights" (ie getting the government out of our bedrooms), being GGG, kinks, and ITMFA.

At one point, about 15 minutes in, he suddenly realized "Oh god, someone brought a kid!" (I believe they had stood up to leave after a round of "motherfucker"s.) He then vocalized the question that the rest of us were thinking, "Who brings a kid to here a Dan Savage lecture? I have a kid of my own, and *I* don't want him to here me talk."

I'm looking forward to his next visit.