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This essay is excerpted from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery.”

On January 20, 2004, I took a seat in the gallery of the House of Representatives to hear President Bush deliver his State of the Union address. The seat came courtesy of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Ten months earlier, Bush had made the decision to invade Iraq after his administration’s historic campaign of lies convinced the American people that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. We would not extricate ourselves from that costly conflict for another seventeen years. Much of his speech that night was a further attempt to sell to the nation the justification for his war. “Had we failed to act, the dictator’s weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day,” Bush said. He characterized the Patriot Act, which had unleashed a new magnitude of spying on American citizens, as “one of those essential tools” in the war on terror.

“Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery” by Gavin Newsom

(Penguin Press)

The rest of his speech was standard fare, ho-hum really, until he reached a section near the end about American values and the need for us to “work together to counter the negative influences of the culture and to send the right messages to our children.” He said he was troubled by activist judges in activist states who were threatening to undo the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by his predecessor, President Bill Clinton. We had to “defend the sanctity of marriage” as the union of one man and one woman, he said. If need be, he would seek a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

As I was leaving the chamber, a middle-aged couple next to me was talking about how pleased they were that their president was finally confronting the “homosexual agenda.” The word homosexual came out of their mouths bent by contempt. I was supposed to head downstairs for a reception with Congresswoman Pelosi and a delegation of California Democrats, but I needed a breath of fresh air. Outside the Capitol, I kept walking and muttering to myself. “These are my people Bush is attacking. My constituents. My staff. My closest advisers.” In the cold and dark of Washington, I called one of my aides back in San Francisco and pledged that I was “going to do something about it” as soon as I returned home.

The law in our state was no different from the law in every other state. Same-sex unions could not be recognized by the local assessor-recorder’s office. They were illegal. As I explained to aides my willingness to now defy that law, I held up a copy of the California Constitution. In Article I, the first section promises that “all people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights.” Among these rights are pursuing and obtaining “safety, happiness and privacy.” It was not until Section 7.5 that these rights were then abridged: “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This not only contradicted the first section but was discriminatory on its face.

My top staff didn’t disagree with my reading, but almost to a person they were opposed to my taking on the issue. Steve Kawa, my chief of staff, a gay Bostonian whose accent cut through all nonsense, pulled me aside and spoke from his heart. His father had renounced him for being gay, and he wanted nothing more than to live in an America where homophobia was no longer the norm. But swinging open the doors to the city clerk’s office and inviting gay men and lesbian women to the marriage altar was political suicide, he argued. We were new to office, for one thing. And polls showed that less than one third of Californians supported gay marriage.

The “go it slow” admonition was the mother’s milk of Democratic politics. In the endless battle for the hearts and minds of moderates, it seemed the only feasible way for a Democrat to get elected and govern. But this was San Francisco, and we were talking about equal protection under the law for a class of people whose ostracism by family, friends, and community had brought them to San Francisco in the first place. If not here, where? Eric Jaye, one of my campaign consultants, could see my quandary. I was caught between my conscience and the sound political advice of the people closest to me. We had several late-night conversations on the phone. “What the f— are you doing here? Why did we work so hard to win if you can’t do something bold?” he asked. “This is a short life, Gavin. Your time as a politician to get things done is just a blip.”

I thought back to my model for the wine store. The entire purpose was to turn the staid on its head and create a new reality. I called Joyce Newstat, my policy director, who was also gay. “We need to do this,” I told her. She could hear in my voice that I had made up my mind. “OK, but we can’t afford to take a wrong step,” she said. “Gays and lesbians have a history of being blindsided, and you don’t want to become part of that narrative. Give me a week or two to reach out to the community.” Joyce sat down with Kate Kendell, the brilliant executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, based in San Francisco. “Who is this guy?” Kendell wondered. “He can’t just come waltzing in here and upset the delicate balance we’ve taken years to achieve.” Joyce told her I couldn’t be talked out of it, that it had become internalized after I had gone to Washington and heard the words of bigotry ring out in the Capitol. “Well, OK. But if he’s going to do it, he has to do it right,” Kendell said. She directed her attorneys at the center to work with our team on fashioning a plan.

I then went to Mabel Teng, my former colleague on the board of supervisors who was now the assessor-recorder of San Francisco. I asked her what complications would be presented to her official duties if we allowed same-sex marriages at city hall. Mabel, who began her career in politics as an activist with Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, did not surprise me with her reply. “It would be no problem at all, Mayor.” The marriage of a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, would require hardly any change to the paperwork. Rather than “man and wife,” they would show up in her computer as “Applicant One” and “Applicant Two.”

Alarmed by my plans, my father and Uncle Brennan and their close friend Joe Cotchett — each one steeped in law and politics but only Joe standing six foot four and a former Special Forces paratrooper —attempted a last-minute intervention. They lured me to the Balboa Cafe for dinner and wine. They weren’t the kind to beat around the bush. Did I realize that I was about to torpedo my political career?

Joe got right in my face. “Why are you doing this, Gavin?”

“I’ll tell you why I’m doing this,” I said defiantly. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

I could not have given him a more simple and true answer, and it seemed to hit Joe, who had built his career out of representing the underdog, right in the gut.

“OK,” he said in a different voice. “Then let’s do it.”

With that, my father and uncle went quiet. Not another word was said about it. I left there that night thinking that even my Newsom kin, the ones who had my best interests at heart, could get it wrong from time to time. While I was open to skepticism and second-guessing, indeed I welcomed such a process, in the end I had to trust my own gut. On the matter of civil rights for all Californians, there was no turning back. As for big Joe Cotchett, he ended up joining the ranks of lawyers fighting for the legal right to same-sex marriage.

From “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery” by Gavin Newsom, published by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2026 by Gavin Newsom.

Bed rest can go pound sand: Ray J gave his all on stage on Friday night, it seems, with fan videos showing his eyes appearing to bleed as he worked the crowd.

The singer also doffed the top of his orange jumpsuit to reveal some sort of medical port or device inserted on the upper left side of his chest.

The “Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood” star, who is singer-actor Brandy’s brother, was performing in Shreveport, La.

In the first clip, red liquid — which many assumed was blood — ran down one of the R&B singer’s cheeks like tears as he handed out long-stemmed red roses to people in the audience. Another clip showed him singing into a mic while climbing down from the stage after shedding the top part of his jumpsuit.

“Hey, y’all, we perfectly fine. Ain’t nobody sick. Look at me, I’m fine,” he says in a later clip, which takes place off stage. The 45-year-old appears to be annoyed, saying that people have been laughing at him because he’s sick.

“He loves the camera. He loves the attention,” Tommy Nard II of Nard Multimedia Group, who was behind the scenes that night, told Shreveport news station KTAL separately. “It’s all theatrical … I seen him literally put on the fake blood and go out there.”

A concertgoer told KTAL that it was “very concerning to see blood, what appeared to be blood, coming from his eyes.”

Ray J told TMZ in late January that he was under doctor’s orders to stay on bed rest and avoid drugs and alcohol. He said he was on eight medications related to his heart, which he said had been damaged because of his excessive drug and alcohol use.

“I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall,” he said in a video livestream in late January.

Doctors told Ray J — real name William Ray Norwood Jr. — that he should prepare for the chance that he might need a pacemaker or defibrillator soon, the singer told the celebrity site. He expected to get an update when he went back in two weeks for a checkup.

Two weeks was up over the weekend.

Ray J told followers in a video posted Jan. 25 that he wanted to “thank everyone for praying for me.”

“I was in the hospital,” he said. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right.” In a video, he said the right side of his heart was “like, black. It’s like done.”

Ray J said elsewhere that his heart was beating at 60%. The number likely refers to his heart’s ejection fraction, which measures the volume of blood coming out of the heart’s left ventricle or being drawn into the right ventricle when the heart beats. Right-sided heart failure is far less common, according to WebMD.

A representative for Ray J did not respond immediately Tuesday to The Times’ request for comment.

However, in an Instagram story posted Monday, Ray J put up this quote: “‘If you want to know who your real friends & family are, lose your job, get sick, or go through hard times. You’ll see clearly.”

Support for James Van Der Beek’s family continues to pour in. The GoFundMe created to support them following the “Dawson’s Creek” star’s death approached $2.3 million in donations Friday morning.

Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw are among the celebrity donors who have contributed to the fundraiser organized by the late actor’s friends. The couple’s donation is listed as $25,000. Those familiar with Van Der Beek’s breakout role on the millennial teen drama know that Spielberg is Dawson Leery’s favorite director.

Originally airing from 1998 to 2003, “Dawson’s Creek” was a seminal teen drama that followed four friends growing up in a small coastal town as they navigated their dreams, relationships and various coming-of-age milestones. Van Der Beek’s Dawson was an aspiring filmmaker whose dreams were bigger than his small hometown. Along with friends Joey (Katie Holmes), Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Jen (Michelle Williams), Dawson grappled with very relatable teen dilemmas including heartbreak, betrayal and bad decisions.

The fundraiser, which had more than 44,000 donors as of Friday morning, was organized to help support Van Der Beek’s wife and children, who “are facing an uncertain future” due to the financial strain of the late actor’s medical costs. The late actor died following a battle with colorectal cancer. Funds will be used to “help cover essential living expenses, pay bills, and support the children’s education,” the organizers wrote.

Van Der Beek revealed in 2012 that he had been paid “almost nothing” for his work on “Dawson’s Creek” and had not received any residuals from the hit show.

“There was no residual money,” he told “Today.” “I was 20. It was a bad contract. I saw almost nothing from that.”

Before his death, Van Der Beek auctioned off personal memorabilia and sold collectibles to help pay for his cancer treatments. In September, his “Dawson’s Creek” co-stars helped organize and stage a reunion fundraiser to support Van Der Beek and his family — a reunion the actor had to miss because of a virus. “Black Bird” actor Paul Walter Hauser had also been raising funds through Cameo videos and auctions to help the late actor prior to his death.

Besides Spielberg, celebrity donors to Van Der Beek’s GoFundMe also reportedly include Zoe Saldaña, Jon M. Chu, Derek Hough, Busy Philipps, Jenna Dewan and others.

Van Der Beek’s “Dawson’s Creek” colleagues have also been among the many who have shared tributes to the late actor.

“Several times today, from my heart, I’ve tried to form the words to express the beautiful brilliance of James and what his presence has meant to my life,” “Dawson’s” creator Kevin Williamson wrote Thursday in a post shared on Instagram. “But I am truly at a loss for words. I will have to trust that one day those words will come… But today, all I can think about is Kimberly and the entire Van Der Beek family.”

Holmes, meanwhile, shared a handwritten note addressed to Van Der Beek on Instagram Wednesday. She was the first of “Dawson’s Creek’s” surviving core quartet to publicly acknowledge Van Der Beek’s death.

“Thank you,” Holmes wrote in her note, which was addressed to Van Der Beek. “To share a space with your imagination is sacred — breathing the same air in the land of make believe and trusting that each others’ hearts are safe in their expression.”

In her remembrance, Holmes highlighted their shared “laughter, conversations about life, James Taylor songs” and their “adventures of a unique youth.” She also highlighted Van Der Beek’s “Bravery. Compassion. Selflessness [and] Strength.”

“I mourn this loss with a heart holding the reality of his absence and deep gratitude for his imprint on it,” wrote Holmes, who also sent love to Van Der Beek’s wife and children in her message.

Other members of the extended “Dawson’s Creek” family, including actors Chad Michael Murray, Kerr Smith and Sasha Alexander, have also been among those offering condolences and paying tribute to Van Der Beek and his family online.

“James Van Der Beek was one in a billion and he will be forever missed and i don’t know what else to say,” wrote Busy Philipps in her Instagram tribute. “He was my friend and i loved him and i’m so grateful for our friendship all these years.”

Ray J is under doctor’s orders to stay on bed rest, take all his prescribed medications and avoid drinking alcohol or smoking because of his damaged heart.

The R&B singer, who revealed this week that his heart is pumping at far below capacity because of damage from his heavy use of alcohol and other substances, shared those directives with TMZ in an interview published Thursday. Doctors told him he likely has only months to live, with the former “Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood” star predicting that he would die by 2027.

Doctors told Ray J — real name William Ray Norwood Jr. — that he should prepare for the chance that he might need a pacemaker or defibrillator soon, the singer told the celebrity site. He expects to get an update when he goes back in two weeks for a check-up.

The brother of actor-singer Brandy said that if he manages to survive his current health crisis, he expects to emerge a “stronger and a better person.”

Ray J told followers in a video posted Sunday that he wanted to “thank everyone for praying for me.”

“I was in the hospital,” he said. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right.”

He said elsewhere that his heart was beating at 60%. The number likely refers to Ray J’s heart’s ejection fraction, which measures the volume of blood coming out of the heart’s left ventricle or being drawn into the right ventricle when the heart beats. Right-sided heart failure is far less common, according to WebMD.

The man who was with Kim Kardashian in her career-launching sex tape said in other video livestreams that the right side of his heart was “black. It’s like done.”

“I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall,” he said. Now, he told TMZ, he’s been taking eight different drugs, including Lipitor, Jardiance and Entresto, and physicians’ warnings for him to avoid smoking and drinking are a challenge.

Doctors have told him he has only months to live, Ray J said in his recent livestreams, and he believes he won’t last past this calendar year.

He is 45.

Ray J says his days are numbered — and the number he’s citing is 2027.

“Just almost died!! I’m alive because of your prayers and support!!” the singer wrote in an Instagram caption posted Sunday.

“I wanna thank everyone for praying for me. I was in the hospital,” he said in the accompanying video. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right, so thank you for all your prayers.”

It was a different story in another livestream, however, captured in clips on the @Livebitez Instagram page.

“2027 is definitely a wrap for me,” the 45-year-old, real name William Ray Norwood Jr., said in one video posted Tuesday, making a “cut off” motion across his neck.

“No, don’t say that, brother,” a friend says off camera.

“That’s what the doctor says,” Ray J replied meekly, then seemingly grew frustrated as his friend talked loudly over him and insisted he was going to live long enough to see his children’s children.

In the next clip, the singer says, “It don’t matter if my days are counted. But guess what — my baby mama gonna be straight. My kids are gonna be straight. If they want to spend all the money they can spend it, but I did my part here.”

Then he looks up and tells his friend, “I shouldn’t have went this hard, bro. I shouldn’t have went hard. And then, when it’s all done, burn me, don’t bury me.”

In clips assembled on the next Livebitez post, Ray J admits heavy alcohol and drug use and says that messed up his heart “on the right side, here, it’s like, black. It’s like done.” He said he might go to Haiti to “do some voodoo” because he thinks “they got the cure.”

He also said he thought he was “bigger” and “had more weight” to put up against the onslaught of substances. “I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall.”

Cut to the next clip where he says he thought he “could handle all the drugs, but I couldn’t. … And it curbed my time here.”

In a final collection of clips, Ray J mentions the criminal protective order put in place by the court after a run-in with the law in November. .

Ray J was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of making criminal threats, an LAPD spokesman told The Times in late November. The singer allegedly pointed a gun at ex-wife Princess Love during a heated argument that happened during a livestream at Thanksgiving.

Because of the protective order related to that incident, he isn’t allowed to see her or their kids, Melody, 7, and Epik, who turned 6 last month. He said in court documents reviewed by Page Six that he pointed the gun at her to keep her from driving the kids away from his house after a drunken family holiday.

In the final batch of clips, he says his parents were picking him up “tomorrow” for a doctor appointment. He mentions that sister Brandy had paid his bills “for the rest of the year. That’s crazy.”

Despite the singer-actor picking up his tab, Ray J says his kids have “at least $10 million” in their trust fund account.

The R&B singer was hospitalized in early January in Las Vegas, sidelined by heart pain and pneumonia, according to TMZ. Four years ago, he battled pneumonia as well.

Hey, Greenland — feeling a little low after President Trump’s ongoing attempts to buy or otherwise acquire the land under your feet? Neil Young can fix that framework!

Just keep “Rockin’ in the Free World.” For free. Forever.

The 80-year-old “hippie at heart” on Tuesday granted “our friends in Greenland” a year of free access to his music catalog, hoping that its contents “ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.”

(Of course, all U.S. administrations, even Trump’s, are effectively temporary, given the whole “elections every four years” thing. That should ease some stress right there.)

“It is my sincere wish for you to be able to enjoy all of my music in your beautiful Greenland home, in its highest quality,” Young wrote on his blog. “This is an offer of Peace and Love. All the music i have made during the last 62 years is yours to hear.” It’s unclear whether he’s giving away the middle-tier “Rust” subscription, which is just a penny under $45 a year, or the top-notch “Patron” subscription, which adds unspecified extras and a promise of priority treatment for $99.99 annually. The basic level subscription, at $24.99 a year, doesn’t provide the “highest quality” sound or the “music films” his message promises.

Greenlanders who take him up on his offer can renew for free annually as long as they stay put on the island. Young’s team will need cellphone numbers with the Greenland country code: 299.

Young said he hoped other “organizations” would follow in his footsteps.

He does have a “Heart of Gold,” after all.