Posts Tagged ‘LGBT’

Rebel Waltz

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Well I am in a much better mood, still angry with the Obama team though, and with him, himself. Today he commented on the Rick Warren pick for the invocation and one particular ting that Obama said stuck I my craw.

He mentioned that we can disagree without being disagreeable. That’s all well and good.

For me to disagree is like this, “I support same sex marriage” someone else, “I do not support same sex marriage”. To me that is how people disagree as an example.

Disagreeable could be seen as “I support same sex marriage” someone else, “I think same sex marriage is just like bestiality, child rape and incest between a brother and a sister”.

This is the reasoning that Barack Obama uses to explain why he picked Rick Warren to say the invocation for his inauguration.

Where is this atmosphere that Obama speaks of that he would like to create? What type of atmosphere could exist between a group of people that love each other and want the SAME RIGHTS THAT HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES GET, and a group that says that we are going to molest their children, we can’t be trusted to teach in schools, we spread disease (thanks Dad) and we are all going to hell.

One group advocates love and equality and another condemns and shames. What type of atmosphere will exist in such a vacuum?

It really is a sickening feeling that someone who actively courted the gay vote and dollars thinks it’s all right for Rick Warren to grace his inauguration. An inauguration that I worked towards, millions of people worked towards and donated money to. And then to hear from some ‘allies’ saying we’re making too much of a big deal out of it.

Obama’s people are claiming to be all inclusive. If that’s so, can we expect to see representatives from the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation, maybe even some Black Israelites, and the Army of God up on the stage with Obama and Warren?

No we know that’s not what’s going to happen, because when you boil it down, it’s perfectly all right to treat LGBT like shit.

C’mon, it’s true. Everyone hates LGBT people, it’s the one thing christians, jews and muslims can all agree on. And atheists are hated too. I am doubly cursed!

The right wank is gloating over this of course, claiming liberals (read gays) are so intolerant of different views. I know it’s not the case, we just resent having our relationships compared to child rapists.

I ran into Casey Chasm on the bus this evening and he suggested that the whole Rick Warren fiasco is a distraction from the fact that the economy is getting worse than was originally imagined.

That may be true and it also maybe much like a Monty Python sketch where a door to door salesman is trying to get a couple interested in a home made TV show.

When the couple’s attention span is on the wane, a mollusk is tossed out described as a filthy, disgusting pansy which gets the couple riled up enough to curse and stomp on said mollusk.

So the economy is in the toilet and people are tired of hearing about it…hey, look! A homosexual! How disgusting is that? Something everyone can rally around and hate with all of their hearts and the justification of their religion to feel like that.

Much like religion was used all those years ago when it was against the law for Barack Obama’s parents to marry.

Obama’s people are saying that it’s a balance since Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery is going to deliver the benediction at the inauguration.

Dr Lowery has long been a supporter of civil rights for ALL people whereas Rick Warren, aka Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt actively works to take civil rights away from certain people.

That is the face that the Obama administration wants to present. A balanced face like Bell’s palsy. Yeah, I am still pissed off.

The day wasn’t all about being fired up though. I heard from Maurice Menares and that was a good laugh. He’s in Oregon married with a kid. He’s doing well and working for Adidas.

He suggested looking him up if I find myself on the west coast. I mentioned Arcata and a sketchy plan of perhaps going out there for my nephew’s graduation next year. A side trip to Oregon, is it possible? It all remains to be seen.

I had to run an errand to Chinatown this afternoon and I finagled that into a detour to Farfetched where I picked up a present or two for Bill and some cards for the nieces and nephews.

There was also a plan to hook up with Pedro but he backed out due to the incoming snowstorm which is expected to leave a foot of snow in Otisville making his return home that much more difficult.

I was also supposed to go visit the Mastro’s where Ann Boyles is supposed to make an appearance like Mary on a half shell but I haven’t heard anything about that. So it’s all up in the air, but at least I am home and happy.

I would be happier if Bill were here driving me up the wall, but we do have a plan to take part in a demonstration on Saturday night for Marriage Equality. That could very well turn into an anti Rick Warren/No Thanks Obama rally.

It doesn’t look like Obama is going to do a thing about it and Rick Warren has congratulated Obama for taking a stand AGAINST the people that voted him into office. A stand against the LGBT community, women, and science.

After eight fucking years of having the religious right shoved down our throats, Obama’s people decide to open the show with a nutjob with left over, reheated bull fucking shit not that different than James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the shit sleaze they had to say.

Remember, according to Falwell and Robertson, 9/11 was a reckoning for LGBT people and women having the right to choose. Meet their devil spawn, Rick ‘Purpose Drivel Strife’ Warren.

Hell hath no fury like an LGBT community/women/scientific community scorned.

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Spirits Having Flown

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Here we are. In a room full of strangers. Standing in the dark, where your eyes couldn’t see me.

Well that’s me. That guy in the dark. Do you know what song that’s from?
Do ya? I ain’t saying.

Last night I watched O & RM again. Recorded Heroes, which meant I missed the last couple of minutes and have no idea how it ended. In a fit of pique I erased it. Happened the previous two weeks. Disappointment. I lived though.

Then I watched some Billy Joel footage from the late 70’s as a penance of sorts. Penance for what, I couldn’t tell you. It is Tuesday though, that much I do know.

Good news from my sister Annemarie regarding her husband’s health. The rheumatologist doesn’t think he has an autoimmune disease. They were afraid it was lupus and I know how bad lupus can be. So that’s a relief.

Good to get some good news for a change. Mostly everything I heard was bad news lately.

Woke up late this morning. I didn’t sweat it though. I was in the office by 8:30 somehow. Still on last weeks New Yorker which is a good one.

Haven’t heard from Harpy regarding this week’s issue. He’s been calling me up telling me how good the issue he is reading is. So I guess I will have to find out for myself.

The stalker phoned a few times again today. What will it take to drive her away? I just checked my messages. She called three times since I left the office this afternoon. Consecutive minutes, from 4:43 to 4:45. Each time in what may be Korean, which I don’t speak at all.

I am feeling better today, more so than last night. Last night, just doldrums of a sort. Feeling blue, feeling lonely.

This arrangement of Bill staying with his mother has been a strain. Can’t really say if Bill’s noticed how I’ve been feeling. It’s doubtful since he hardly ever sees me. Maybe five minutes a day lately.

It’s all a sacrifice I suppose for his mother’s own good. I can bite the bullet, I have to. It’s just that I wish he were here. And I’m sure he wishes the same. Bill has to do what Bill has to do. Plain and simple.

Tomorrow is Wednesday and I am taking a day off from work. Tomorrow is also International Human Rights Day, which this year has A Day Without Gay tied to it.

A Day Without Gay takes it’s lead from A Day Without Immigrants from a few years ago, when a lot of recent immigrants did not go to work to prove the point that these recent immigrants do a lot of work that gets overlooked and not accounted for, while the immigrants got scorn and abuse.

Tomorrow LGBT people are to do the same. I first heard of it via Harpy’s girlfriend’s Facebook profile and it seemed like a good idea. Plus I had some vacation days to use before the year’s end. I immediately put in for a vacation day when I heard.

Apparently I was supposed to call up and say I wouldn’t be going in since I was gay. But me being me, I didn’t follow the rules. Still I will be absent and not spending any money, which meant I had some food shopping to do tonight. It should be interesting to see how it turns out.

There is some sadness to report tonight. Over the weekend, Saturday night/Sunday morning two Ecuadorian brothers were leaving a bar and headed home.

They were a bit drunk and walking arm in arm when a truck pulls up and four big guys come out and start bashing their heads in with an aluminum baseball bat shouting about fucking spics and fucking faggots.

The assailants got away of course, hiding in Bushwick. The two brothers were brought to the hospital, where one of them reportedly died this afternoon. The two brothers were not gay, just perceived to be gay.

It sickens me when I read about Huckabee saying gay people haven’t had dogs turned on them like black people did during the civil rights struggles in the 1960’s.

It sickens me when right wing religious leaders take out a full page advertisement in last Friday’s New York Times complaining about how put upon and abused Christians have been since the passage of Prop h8.

It definitely sickens me, hearing their silence when these two brothers are assaulted and possibly killed, when Matthew Shepherd is murdered in Wyoming, when transgendered teenagers are slaughtered in their homes in Colorado and elsewhere, when other LGBT are assaulted or killed.

Oh yes, those poor put upon christians, life is just so hard for them.

How can their put their biblically approved hatred into practice when people are starting to call them on it?

Jesus must be so proud of these douche bag motherfuckers, the assailants and those in the fucking pulpits condoning such vile, heinous actions through their words of hatred and loathing.

11:10PM- The brother who is on life support is still barely alive. They are waiting for the parents to arrive and decide whether or not to take their son off life support.

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Posted in Cool Cold Reality | 4 Comments »

Mystery Dance

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Just got back from Manhattan. Just wandered around, stopped by Farfetched saw Lois and Harpy. It’s funny, usually when I go there it’s often Harpy by himself. Today Lois was there and I love Lois but it was like there was no cutting up while Lois was running the show. Lois, I guess plays the more mature role, the schoolmarm. Susan I suppose would be the hip teacher and Harpy plays the role of Karen Valentine, the substitute or rather, the student teacher. It was a nice chat with the two of them, Lois asking about various people in my life, who happen to be going through tough times of their own.

After that I wandered over to Whiskers, the holistic pet store and visited with Kathe, my former next door neighbor in Weehawken, also Chaz’ estranged wife. It was great to see Kathe, it had been a number of months. She was glad to see me as well. But it being a nice Saturday afternoon everybody seemed to be shopping for holistic items, lambs lung and other disgusting items that dogs like. Too hectic to hang out so I said good bye, agreeing to meet for a drink sometime one day when she’s not working.

Before I went into the city I watched Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. I saw it when it came out in the theaters and I liked it but didn’t get most of it, one of the first instances where there was so much going on, on the screen that I couldn’t figure out or even remember different parts of it. The first Lord of the Rings movie was the same. So much going on, but seeing it years later on video made me ask where was I when I first saw this in a theater?

Cloverfield was the latest movie, though I think it would be better to watch it on a TV since it was filmed on a digital camera. Watching it on a big screen was a little too much. That bothered Pedro when I told him about the movie after I finally saw it, weeks after he saw it and months after I originally hyped it up. He really wanted my opinion and all I could say was I’d rather wait for the DVD. It would be better to watching it on his giant flat screen TV in Otisville.

Tonight is the infamous Black Party at Roseland in midtown. It’s a 36 hour bacchanal,and for me occasionally tempting. But I always remind myself that it is nothing but club music and I generally dislike club music. That would be hell for me, though when in the act, I’d rather hear something I don’t know. But me and club music? Forget it.

One blog that I read had an article about the Black Party, the blogger had gone a few times already and posts something about it every year. This year while hyping it, he followed that entry with one about HIV infections being up 48%. Now there’s a reason NOT to go.

Potential anonymous sex with a thousand men? Hmmm… and even if you don’t get HIV there are a few other STD’s that you might catch. Not to mention the headache of club music. I don’t know what it is, but I am out of step with most of the human race and definitely out of step with most of gay men. I don’t dress like them, I don’t listen to the same music, I don’t go to the same bars. Just about the only thing I have in common with them is a predilection for play mates of the same sex. And it’s always safe, by the way.

It’s always been like that. From the early 80′s when I was attending meetings for the Gay Activists Alliance of North New Jersey or GAANNJ, even though I tried, I just couldn’t connect with my fellow gay men on a social level. True, I was young and impetuous and they were in their 30′s and 40′s but there was nothing at all that could form a bond. I never really talked to anyone, they didn’t talk to me. I would sit in the back and listen to whatever was going on, close to the exit.

It was there that I first heard of AIDS, in 1982 when it was called GRID, or gay cancer. But no one asked my name and I didn’t ask for theirs. I am usually the invisible man at gay bars, that is when I actually go. I’m often ignored by bartenders. It generally provides me with a reason never to go back to that particular bar again, only I rarely go to bars these days. Maybe once or twice a year.

McSwells was a cool bar, listed in the Gay Yellow Pages back then as a gay/straight bar and it was. Most of the guys there were gay, and there was some cliquishness but overall it was a friendly spot. Never had any hook ups there, by the end of the night we were all more interested in getting party supplies to the after party. I started out going to McSwells for the music, and while it was the main reason, at some point I was spending more time socializing in the front room rather than the back room where the music was.

Still I am a gay man and the LGBT are my people. I will march with them or cheer them on and stand with them should the need or outrage arise. I am also part of the generation of LGBT people that have buried quite a few friends.

And here is my gayest look for Jay Leno
my-gayest-look-002a.jpg
cut n’ paste

http://www.mygayestlook.com/

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Posted in the day after yesterday | 2 Comments »

Words

Friday, March 28th, 2008

I wrote this last night after I posted.

I was just reading a blog that mentioned a young gay entrepreneur in Manchester, England. This young man was able to secure a business grant at the age of 18 to run and maintain a website designed to break down walls and remove labels on race, sexuality for young people. He mentioned that his sexuality caused him major problems, being brought up to think that being gay was wrong and horrible. That struck a chord in me, and a righteous chord at that. I too, like many others, grew up in a house with a loving family. Some people don’t, I know. But included in that loving atmosphere, however dented, was an very strong anti gay vibe.

Queer jokes, gay bashing (verbally) went on. Racial jokes were made as well. I too was brought up by my family and my Catholic schooling taught that being gay was the absolute worst thing a person could be. So imagine finding out on your own, that you are what you were told was disgusting and immoral. Imagine finding that out at 14. No one to talk to about. Run to the encyclopedia, run to the dictionary and reading that you’re abnormal, a deviant. A lot, not all, but a lot of heterosexual people ask, ‘why make it a big deal about being gay?’

Because it will show that things we were told about ourselves when we were growing up was wrong. Sometimes murderously wrong, sometimes suicidally wrong. Education could be the solution to this epidemic of ignorance, but then you have certain sections of this country dead set against any positive portrayals of gay life. Or it goes so far as to not mention gay people at all. In a society that’s ever changing, it’s not changing fast enough. And it’s not just this country, it’s the whole world.

About 15 years ago when I was working at Skyline Studios, there was this young man, Roget Romain who had a deal to do some downtime production work. He worked with some up and coming artists in hip hop. It was a cool studio and a lot of times I would hang out after I was through working. One night I was with Roget and my friend Miriam who was working as an engineer. We were getting jazzy. I was as I am now, open about my sexuality, but not in your face about it. The three of us, hanging out, listing to dub.

Roget wanted to ask me a question about being gay. I was open to it and gave him a green light. First off, the main question, ‘When did I decide to be gay?’ I think it was the first time I was actually asked that, and I had no set answer. Me, being me did say this, ‘When did you decide to be straight?’ He was taken aback. ‘I didn’t decide to be straight. It just happened. It’s how I am.’ I had to ask, ‘What makes you think it wasn’t the same for me?’ I think most questions about gay people, can usually be answered by changing the gender of one of the subjects.

Roget then moved into sexuality. ‘How can a guy take it up the ass? How can a dude suck a cock?’ I asked him ‘Do all the women that he’s been with, do they all like to suck cock? Do they take it through the back door?’ ‘No, some do, some don’t.’ ‘Well there you have it. Not all gay guys like to do this, some do, some don’t.’ It was fun to just hang out with an open minded young man, maybe I planted a seed in his brain. Cracked open his door of perception just a bit I like to think. There is no shame in being gay, lesbian bisexual or transgendered. Some people see it as a frivolous lifestyle choice.

There are many good and great things about being LGBT, but there are some battles that come along with it. Some kids when they come out to their families, they are out on the street. Abandoned by parents who’s child they loved one day unconditionally, now repulsed and shamed by something that was out of anyone’s control. They would prefer to live the life of a lie. In the closet. Get married, have kids, and fuck around on the side.

About 12 years ago I answered an ad in the Village Voice, met an older guy at a bar in the Village. We didn’t click sexually but had a good chat over a few pints. He was married, hadn’t had sex with his wife since 1980, has three kids, all grown more or less. He was gay. For some reason I was filled with righteousness that night, telling him that he’s getting up there in years, living a lie. Do you want to go out the same way? You’re doing more harm than good to yourself by living this way, a shamed existence, shamed by yourself.

We parted ways, and I gave him a kiss as he was about to get on his way to Penn Station. He was surprised and probably the first time he was ever kissed by another man in public, on a street corner. I gave him my number and asked him to keep in touch. He called a few days later. He told his wife, she was filing for divorce. Two of his kids were fine with it, one had a problem. But he was glad he did it.

He felt free.

I’m just so tired that people need to be told this. I know the five of you that read this irregularly are somewhat enlightened but I just wanted to get this off my chest. Preaching to the choir, perhaps. But I guess it has to be told, over and over, one way or another. And while you may be enlightened, the majority of the five of you aren’t LGBT (at least as far as I know) and you wouldn’t really know, you couldn’t walk in our cha cha heels. Like I wouldn’t know how it is to be anything or anyone else, other than knowing how it is to be me.

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Everyday

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Thursday today, all day. Nothing but Thursday. I wonder where Harpy is? No phone call, no comments. I wonder if he’s still alive. I’m sure if he wasn’t someone would have told me. In any event I hope he’s alive. Not going to compliment him, since he doesn’t take compliments well. So, he’s a dumb ass then. Last night, Lawn Hor d’oeuvre, both Criminal Investigation as well as the original. Both very good, though I’d give intensity points to Criminal Investigation. Lesbian psycho blackmailer/killer. Can’t say that they have LGBT killers or crooks all the time, they don’t. Not always victims either, I guess that makes Lawn Hor d’oeuvre, a true New York show. LGBT are everywhere.

Chatted with Juan last night online. He’s alive. Craziness in Trenton but it’s not my story so I ain’t gonna write about it. I’d recommend going to his blog to read it, but he probably isn’t going to write about it as well. Blogging is for losers I believe he said a while ago. I know he’s wrong, but he has youth and impetuousness on his side so I’ll give him that inch.

Bill is back at work, and barely keeping his head above the emotional waters. I sympathize and tried to be supportive, telling him he just has to get through this week. He was crashing from a lack of food, so I recommended getting a couple of bananas. They help stave off depression and they do give you energy and they’re good for you. He wisely took my advice and noticed a difference. It was bitter cold outside today, a bit windy but sunny. I enjoyed it surprisingly. Kept a lot of people off the streets and out of my way as I strolled through midtown at various times today.

Office was busy, most everyone in, including clients. Hard to believe I haven’t worked a full week in two weeks. I guess next week will be the first since then. I hope I can make it. Now I have a nagging feeling I jinxed it. Oh me and these superstitious ways. Looking forward to Lost tonight. Bill has a tentative plan to see Medea up in Harlem this weekend. I think that might be too much for him. It might be bes for him to just chill out and do nothing, and maybe avoid Greek tragedies about a woman who murders her children.

I’d rather chill out in Hoboken, though it is St Patrick’s Day in Hoboken, making it a major destination for newly legal drinkers. At 3:00 in the afternoon the bars should be packed after the parade, and on Sunday morning there will be a mess throughout town. At least it’s no surprise. More than likely they’ll have green bagels too, or maybe they’ll wait until March 17 which is the actual St. Patrick’s Day. They just celebrate it the first Saturday in March so there wouldn’t be any competition with New York. I’ve had a few experiences in Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day and I’ll write about them some other time. Maybe March 17. I do know if I want Guinness on Saturday, I had better get it tomorrow.

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