Slow Dive

Well in case you didn’t know, the Yankees won last night. The World Series. Bill was thrilled. I was online, wearing headphones. Even if it were the Mets or another team I would likely be at the computer wearing headphones.

Bill watched the game in the bedroom while he was putting away his laundry, I watched the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. I offered him the chance to watch the game on the big TV and I sat and listened to music.

I didn’t do much of anything today, except argue with christianists online. That can get so tedious, mainly because their lack of spell check. Now I’m listening to the Minutemen, one of the best bands I ever saw at McSwells. Posted a few videos on YouTube which should get the curiosity of a few people and perhaps annoy other people.

So for lack of something substantial to write, I’ll write about what I listened to last night. I started off with Be Brave by Section 25. I first heard the song when I was hanging out with a character named Dave Bell.

It stayed with me long after hanging out with Dave Bell and in fact a few years later I asked Mojo Magazine, “what song went ‘Oh Happiness, You always made me laugh/Oh happiness…’” An issue or so later I found my answer, and wound up buying it from iTunes. I love it when Mojo publishes my letters. So far they’ve done it 3 times.

It seemed to be a good fit, to follow Section 25 with Tomorrow Never Knows from the Beatles. It’s quite possible that Tomorrow Never Knows is my favorite Beatles song. It’s a good marker that shows the divide of the 1960’s, being the last song on Revolver. The next songs from the Beatles after that was Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane.

Still I’ll take Tomorrow Never Knows. From there I went to Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvana, another band that played McSwells and were nowhere near as good as the Minutemen. My specific memory of that is coming home to Weehawken with William after visiting Connie down the shore in 1991.

It must have been in the waning months of the year. The song blew me away, I hadn’t heard anything quite like it at the time. It’s still quite an amazing song. Too bad it became an albatross for Kurt Cobain, but them’s the breaks.

Black Mirror by Arcade Fire was next up. It was a decent fit after Nirvana. I don’t think I played it since I saw them at Radio City with my brother Frank. Can’t really get into them anymore. That’s how it is for me. Something bad happens while I listen to a song and I can never really enjoy the song, or in this case, the band, anymore.

Don’t get me started about Elton John’s Blue Moves. I haven’t played that since 1976.

Then I went to the live version of Talking Heads The Great Curve. Don’t know why, but it was a lot of fun to bop my head and tap my feet while listening to it with Bill watching the game a few feet behind me. I also think it’s a good thing that Talking Heads will never reunite again.

I sort of broke my avoidance of Prince and played Glam Slam which out of all the songs that I played for myself, was the weakest. I was choosing by album titles and not artist names. But you know, John said ‘enough’ and it was over quickly.

Slow Dive by Siouxsie and the Banshees was a great 1980’s track. I saw the Banshees a few times back in the day, though I can’t say I was a rabid Banshees fan. Budgie was a great drummer though and the late John McGeoch was tops in the guitar department, though he doesn’t play on Slow Dive I think.

Can’t You Hear Me Knocking by the Rolling Stones was cued up next and being a 7 minute song, I stretched my legs, had some juice and had a pee. TMI?

Well that was about it for last night. A not very interesting night but the music was alright I think.

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