Monthly Archives: June 2010

I’m Affected

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Notes from today. On the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) then a transfer in Jamaica to Far Rockaway. A woman sits across from me eating an ice cream cone with a spoon.

Last night before heading out to watch the fireworks, I watched True Blood. Bill phoned midway through causing me to miss some plot points. No worries I think, I will just catch the west coast broadcast later on.

And I do. And Bill calls once again at almost the exact same part of the show. So I will have to catch it some other time, perhaps when Annemarie is within the vicinity.

I got a phone call before True Blood from Rand. He and Lisa & Lois and Fred were going to have a cocktail and then go see the fireworks. I tell Rand my plan. Watch True Blood, go drop off a birthday card to Bill’s office and a note to my cousin Joe at the Post Office, and then watch the fireworks on Pier A.

Rand gently mocks me, for wanting to ‘watch my shows’.

As I headed over to the Post Office, sans iPod, I overhear a male couple returning from the Gay Pride parade talking about me, saying ‘Yeah, he is.’ I smile.

Train kept a rollin’ en route to Jamaica.

The fireworks were nice, would have been nicer if Bill was around, but he was driving a bus back to Wallington. Rand & Lisa and Lois & Fred watched the fireworks from Stevens Point. Difficulty sleeping last night.

Awake at 2:15 after going to bed at 12:15. Got up when Bill came home. Of course he’s out cold, minutes after his head hits the pillow. I think I finally feel asleep around 2:30. Luckily I didn’t have to wake up early.

While waiting to buy tickets for the LIRR, I get a phone call from Calvin. He had forgotten I was out on Long Island to take a certification test to sell cigars and tobacco related products in New York State. He arranged the whole thing for today a few weeks ago.

Thanks to train schedules and Bill’s planning (I love him for that) I am an hour early. I sit in the shade of a first story garage underneath an office building and smoke a cigar. I go inside the air conditioned building and sit and wait in a class room that also serves as a conference room for a lawyer that shares the office space.

The class is supposed to start at 2:00. At 2:10 I am the only one there. 10 minutes later 2 guys come in, gas jockeys, one of them wearing a BP polo shirt.

We watch a videotape of Linda McKenna teaching a room full of actors how to ask for ID when someone who looks under the age of 25 tries to buy tobacco. What to say, what not to say, how to handle the situation when a teenager needs his nicotine fix and has the potential to get cranky.

I remember buying smokes for my parents, Marlboro for mom, Kent for dad with no questions asked at Gallo’s drugstore. But there were no laws then regarding the sale of tobacco to minors then.

The class itself was directed by Ralph, an amiable older bloke with a passable toupee on his head. It was over in 90 minutes. Ralph pointed out the contradictions from the VHS tape and the Power Point presentation.

Immigrations cards are/are not valid forms of ID.

At the Lawrence trains station waiting for the train back to Jamaica to transfer to a train to Penn Station.

At 4:30 the town siren goes off.

At 4:44 the train arrives and I am once again leaving Long Island, heading towards Manhattan.

It’s Bill’s birthday tomorrow!

I’m Lucky

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Happy Gay Pride day to my people and my friends & family who are gay friendly. I didn’t make it to the Gay Pride march in Manhattan. Too hot and I’m on my feet all day at work.

The last thing I wanted to do was stand around some more on a day off. It was 95º Fahrenheit today. And Bill was driving to Atlantic City and I wouldn’t want to go without him. I suppose that’s the consequence of not having many gay friends around here.

I know Andy, Chaz’ friend is there, but he’s probably with his boyfriend and I wouldn’t want to be the third wheel, plus they’re going to the dance afterward, and I wouldn’t want to do that.

And it’s HOT.

I sat by the river this afternoon sans guitar and read the New Yorker and finished off Uncut. I gazed across the Hudson River and saw what I guessed to be revelers after the parade and sorting it out, on where to go next.

That was me and Bill on some previous parades. I couldn’t help but think of the Pride festivities that I had attended. I remember walking through the parade on my way to buy records at St. Mark’s Sounds and buying a pink triangle button with a peace sign in the pink. Lost it as time passed, but still I remember it.

Back then even though I was gay, I didn’t have much to do with the scene as it were mainly since the scene didn’t have anything to do with me.

I remember one night before Gay Pride day being at the Dugout on Christopher Street and seeing Billie being slapped by Joey, Jet’s obnoxious last boyfriend. It was the last we saw of Joey, that’s for sure. No great loss.

Another year, or maybe the same year, walking after the parade through the West Village with Billie and Gracie, another DC friend. We walked up some street and saw some revelers on a fire escape wearing Patsy Cline masks.

For some reason I was compelled to yell out ‘Free Patsy Cline’ which Billie and Gracie also yelled with me and we laughed as we strolled up the streets.

Another year, going with Julio & Patrick Morrissey. As soon as we got there Morrissey was off somewhere else. It didn’t matter since Julio and I were both tripping. Another time, where I went solo and sat by the pier smoking joints with a bunch of nice lesbians while the menfolk were quite standoffish and catty.

There was the time when Bill and I volunteered to herd the parade people from start to finish. We picked the religious groups. No one else wanted to work with them and I soon found out why.

Bill was a member of the congregation at Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) and he wound up with them during the parade. I was with a whiny bunch, different denominations.

The Radical Faeries ahead of the reformed Jews who were ahead of the Catholic groups. The Catholics were whining about their place in line. I couldn’t get them to move fast enough, too many gaps in the parade which slowed the already long parade.

I abandoned my post by the time we passed 37th Street and Fifth Avenue.

I caught up with Bill at 23rd Street and was basically a wreck. One of the congregants of MCC slapped a ‘God Made Me Queer’ sticker on my shirt and I barked at him to leave me the fuck alone.

I don’t know what was more offensive, the God mention or the use of the word Queer, which some gay guys like to use. But not me. He sped away frightened by my overheated temper and Bill told me the young man’s mother passed away a few weeks before.

I didn’t know that of course.

Another time Bill and I marched with the church he goes to now. A nice group, no stickers involved. Just handing out balloons throughout the parade route. It’s a lot of marching, a lot of stopping and starting all in the hot sun.

Friends have said they had seen me & Bill in the parade and shouted and yelled but in the din we couldn’t hear them.

There was also the time in 2003 when Bill and I exchanged some vows of some kind in Grand Army Plaza by the Plaza hotel. Kate Pierson from the B-52s serenaded Bill and myself as well as the other same sex couples who got some what hitched.

Sarah Fortner made a lovely painting from the event which was witnessed by Rand & Lisa and Julio & Stine. So I do have good memories of the parade and today was about revisiting those memories.

HAPPY PRIDE TO YOU AND YOURS!

I’m going to watch True Blood and then watch the fireworks from Pier A after I drop Bill’s birthday card at the post office.



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