Tag Archives: My Dinner with Andre

Here at the Western World

Right now, watching the news. A John Fried in North Bergen has been fighting for four years against the 12 story buildings they are planning on raising alongside the Hudson River.

It will effectively block his view of the river and Manhattan. I don’t have any pity for him.

When he moved there did he actually think he was going to have the view for ever from his townhouse condo? No vista protections, they’ve lost in court and they’re going to appeal. Living in such a crowded area such as this, it is bound to happen sooner or later.

Plus these condos are just so nondescript they can only be described as ugly.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet day. Lot’s of people off of work wandering around Washington Street. It’s President’s Day. Banks are closed, no mail delivery.

I did have tentative plans to go visit Harpy but he never called. It’s a similar tale to the one that Harpy tells, of hearing from Susan who wants to get together and then doesn’t call when the scheduled day arrives. I didn’t mind.

I stopped by to see Stine and Alexander but they weren’t around. Yesterday I bought a bucket of chalk. I only wanted one piece so I left the rest outside their door on the third floor.

My friend Chris, who lives around the block had posted on her Facebook page that she misses her secret valentine. A neighbor who recently passed away would always write a Valentine’s Day message for her.

I decided to make a few hearts in chalk on her front steps and on the sidewalk in front of her building yesterday. This morning she thanked on her page, whomever it was that made all the hearts for Valentine’s Day.

I clicked that I liked her post and she asked if it was me so I had to own up for it. It was nice to do and I’m glad she appreciated it.

Last night Bill and I settled in to watch the second DVD of Zack & Miri Make a Porno. Lot’s of extras and deleted scenes. Bill of course loved it and now would like to work for Kevin Smith.

And Kevin Smith was on the news today after getting booted from a Southwest Airline flight because the pilot felt Kevin Smith was overweight and thus, a danger for the flight. It was repeated ad infinitum on most of the news reports today.

I started watching My Dinner with Andre earlier today but decided to make dinner for myself. What I did catch was fascinating and plan to watch it from the beginning later on tonight after Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann will probably have something to say about Kevin Smith no doubt.

The odds are in my favor. Another snowstorm is headed this way supposedly. 4 to 5 inches are expected. Nothing yet though.

Tomorrow I have another beauty school scheduled. This time on Bergenline Avenue in West New York. It was rescheduled after last weeks snowstorm, so I guess what happens tonight will effect tomorrow.

But isn’t that always the case?

Revolution #9

It’s fucking Wednesday. And an ugly Wednesday. Weather wise it was OK, but politically it was just a really bad hangover.

Jon Corzine lost the governorship of New Jersey to Chris Christie, noted Bush ‘pioneer’. Chris Christie said he would reject Obama’s stimulus package, reject any public works projects. He’s also against a woman’s right to choose and if the New Jersey legislature passed a same sex marriage bill, he would veto it.

But that seems neither her nor there since Maggie Gallagher and her flying monkeys would swoop down and incite lies about how gay people were trying to indoctrinate children. The only indoctrination would be if a child asks if 2 men or 2 women can get married. If little Tommy or Betsy say they want to marry little Jimmy or Kathy it would be OK. And to Gallagher’s ilk, that is wrong.

It all basically boils down to the fact that they want to keep homosexuality a sin. Even if you do not believe in their god, they want to force their religious beliefs down your throat. And by witnessing the shit that happened in Maine yesterday, people will swallow it, hook line and sinker.

I am disgusted with religion and the catholic church can fall into a pit. All religion can resign themselves to their personal hells. I have no use for them.

The bullshit of ‘Oh it’s in the bible so it must be true’ is patently ridiculous. A crap book written and edited over and over again by people worshiping an iron age sky god has no relevance in the 21st century.

My life is not a sin. Bill’s life is not a sin. I try to be a good person. I help people who need help when I see it. Bill has remarked a few times that I am more christian than most christians by the things that I do. I don’t blow my horn about the things that I do. I just do them and I am on my way.

For the past 25 years or so I have been fighting. I have been marching. I have stood with ACT-UP fighting the government’s inaction on AIDS research in the 1980’s. I have held the hand of one of my best friends as they lay dying in a hospital room. I have changed his diaper since the hospital staff refused to while in the hallway the nurses clucked and basically said that he had brought it upon himself.

I have buried a few friends since then. I marched on Washington a few times and marched in the New York City streets protesting the murders of Matthew Shepard beaten nearly to death and left to die in Wyoming, murdered because he was gay and James Byrd dragged to his death behind a truck in Texas, decapitated when the truck went over a culvert, murdered because he was black.

Why?

Why do I have to fight for the same rights that my straight friends and family members take for granted. Why can they kiss their loved one whenever and wherever they want but I have to take a cursory look around before I do the same to kiss Bill?

In the past year alone, in New York City Jose Sucuzhanay was beaten to death by attackers who thought he was gay. He wasn’t.

Jack Price who is gay was beaten over the weekend that I marched on Washington last month. He was only just recently released from the hospital a week or so ago.

And these were only the gay bashings that have been reported.

Because of this alleged shame that is forced upon gay people, most beatings generally go unreported.

I am tired of fighting. I am greatly disappointed in President Obama, who will court the gay vote and collect the gay dollars, has gone on record as being against same sex marriage, saying that it should be left up to states.

I wonder if he would have felt the same if his parents had to deal with interracial marriage on a state by state basis? And his attorney general Eric Holder who also had a chance to say something about the referendum in Maine but opted out, saying he didn’t know enough about it. The current administration has also gone on record urging the Defense of Marriage Act to stand.

Today I watched some of The Price of the Ticket, the James Baldwin documentary and found 2 quotes that I posted on Facebook and posting here.

“The flag that we pledge allegiance to, does not pledge allegiance to us.”

And

‘You’ve always told me, it takes time. It’s taken my father’s time. It’s taken my mother’s time. My uncles time, my brothers and sisters time. My nieces and my nephews time. How much time do you want for your ‘progress’?’

It’s statements like this that enables me, or perhaps forces me to equate the battle for equal rights for LGBT people and the civil rights battles in the 1950’s and 60’s.

James Byrd Jr.

James Byrd Jr.

Matthew Shepard

Matthew Shepard

Jose Sucuzhanay

Jose Sucuzhanay

Jack Price

Jack Price