Second of a series of bar reviews.
The Web
Location: 40 E.58th, (Btwn Park & Madison Avenues)
Speciality: Young Asian men
Door Charge: $5.00
Bar Prices: Average
Clientele Ethnicity: 50% Asian, 50% White
Average Age: Asians: early 20's, Whites: early 50's.
Review: Down a narrow flight of stairs off E.58th Street, The Web is a two-floor dance club devoted to young Asian men and their admirers, typically older white men. There's a balcony ringing a sub-basement dance floor where the disco lights include inner-lit red paper lanterns, to further the overall Asian decor theme.
I wouldn't characterize The Web as a hustler bar so much as perhaps a Sugar Daddy bar, a faint distinction, perhaps. The white men prowled the upper level and the edge of the dance floor and leered at the seemingly barely post-pubescent go-go boys, while the Asian men gathered in small knots presumably reviewing their stalkers.
The bar staff was extremely friendly to us and the music selection and sound system was pretty decent, prompting Aaron to take to the dance floor by himself. As for me, I found myself extremely hungry during our visit to The Web, due to the overwhelming aroma of melted butter belching out from their active popcorn machine. I'm sure there's a bad, bad joke somewhere here about craving seafood while at an Asian bar...but I'm not gonna make it.
Overall, I thought The Web was OK. There seemed to be a strong crowd of regulars who were having a great time and general vibe wasn't as big a predator vs. prey scene, as I had expected.
Chance of returning: Moderate.
BlogActive.com
Mike Rogers over at blogACTIVE has just laid a motherfucking BOMBSHELL on the blogosphere, threatening to out a Republican Senator if he does not vote against the Alito confirmation today. The outing will take place sometime before the mid-term elections in November, in order to do the most damage, I presume.
.... you will decide if your political position is worth more than doing what is right for others like you. For others like you, Mr. Senator, who engage in oral sex with other men. (Although, Mr. Senator, most of us don't do in the bathrooms of Union Station!) Your fake marriage, by the way, will NOT protect you from the truth being told on this blog.How does this blog decide who to report on? It's simple. We report on hypocrites. In this case, hypocrites who vote against the gay and lesbian community while engaging in gay sex themselves*. When you cast that vote, Mr. Senator, represent your own...it's the least you could do.
Dear Jebus: Please let it be Rick Santorum. Please let it be Rick Santorum. Please let it be Rick Santorum. Or Trent Lott. Here's the list of U.S. Senators whose terms expire in 2007.
To quote Flounder from Animal House: "Oh boy, is this GREAT!" I am positively shivering with antici......
UPDATE: Alito confirmed.
.... you will decide if your political position is worth more than doing what is right for others like you. For others like you, Mr. Senator, who engage in oral sex with other men. (Although, Mr. Senator, most of us don't do in the bathrooms of Union Station!) Your fake marriage, by the way, will NOT protect you from the truth being told on this blog.How does this blog decide who to report on? It's simple. We report on hypocrites. In this case, hypocrites who vote against the gay and lesbian community while engaging in gay sex themselves*. When you cast that vote, Mr. Senator, represent your own...it's the least you could do.
Dear Jebus: Please let it be Rick Santorum. Please let it be Rick Santorum. Please let it be Rick Santorum. Or Trent Lott. Here's the list of U.S. Senators whose terms expire in 2007.
To quote Flounder from Animal House: "Oh boy, is this GREAT!" I am positively shivering with antici......
UPDATE: Alito confirmed.
Beacon Court
I snapped this on Saturday night while we were bar-hopping on the Upper East Side. It's called Beacon Court and I'm told it's owned by Bloomberg. Anyone know the details about this place? Eddie and I marveled at it during daylight hours last year when it was being constructed, but at night, this place just wows. I think it's making me eat my words from last week when I mentioned not liking glass office buildings. Click the photo for a ginormous version.
I Will Hold You Ten Times
I wrote the following journal entry ten years ago about my friend Daniel, after taking care of him for a week. We were taking turns looking after him, about 8 of us, each taking one week at a time. I think of 1996 as the last of the really bad plague years. Protease inhibitors came out that spring and almost everybody in my world began to revive.* I wish that I had come across this reminder last month.
I Will Hold You Ten Times
1. I will hold you, Daniel
2. The lesions don't bother me. I will hold you.
3. I will pretend nothing is wrong when you want me to pretend and when you want me to hold you, I will hold you.
4. I will make plans with you to go to your favorite places that we both know you can longer go and I will sit with you and look at your pictures of these places and I will hold you.
5. I will ride with you on the train to your doctor's office and when you get sick in the station, I will hold you.
6. I will see the Post-It notes you put all over the house reminding yourself to do everyday things like "Turn off stove" and "Lock front door", and I'll pretend the disease isn't robbing your mind and when you tell me something for the third time in ten minutes, I won't let you know, I will hold you.
7. I will go to Safeway with you because you need to get out into the world, and when the diarrhea overwhelms you and you shit your pants in the middle of the store, I will call us a cab and in the cab, I will hold you.
8. I will make you mix-tapes of our favorite songs from last summer, just like you asked me to, and when the memories make you sad instead of happy and you throw the tapes in the trash, I won't get angry, I will hold you.
9. I will sit up all night with you, because the fevers and night sweats won't let you sleep, and in the morning I'll change your drenched sheets and help your out of the shower and when you weep from the sight of your withered body in the mirror on the bathroom door, I will hold you.
10. I will hold you, Daniel.
(* But not Daniel.)
I Will Hold You Ten Times
1. I will hold you, Daniel
2. The lesions don't bother me. I will hold you.
3. I will pretend nothing is wrong when you want me to pretend and when you want me to hold you, I will hold you.
4. I will make plans with you to go to your favorite places that we both know you can longer go and I will sit with you and look at your pictures of these places and I will hold you.
5. I will ride with you on the train to your doctor's office and when you get sick in the station, I will hold you.
6. I will see the Post-It notes you put all over the house reminding yourself to do everyday things like "Turn off stove" and "Lock front door", and I'll pretend the disease isn't robbing your mind and when you tell me something for the third time in ten minutes, I won't let you know, I will hold you.
7. I will go to Safeway with you because you need to get out into the world, and when the diarrhea overwhelms you and you shit your pants in the middle of the store, I will call us a cab and in the cab, I will hold you.
8. I will make you mix-tapes of our favorite songs from last summer, just like you asked me to, and when the memories make you sad instead of happy and you throw the tapes in the trash, I won't get angry, I will hold you.
9. I will sit up all night with you, because the fevers and night sweats won't let you sleep, and in the morning I'll change your drenched sheets and help your out of the shower and when you weep from the sight of your withered body in the mirror on the bathroom door, I will hold you.
10. I will hold you, Daniel.
(* But not Daniel.)
The Townhouse
There are about 100 gay bars in Manhattan, most of which I've never visited. On Saturday night, Farmboy T, Aaron and I set out to explore some of the "specialty" gay bars in town. This week I'll be posting short reviews of those places, starting with The Townhouse.
The Townhouse
Location: Upper East Side, 236 E.58th (Btwn 2nd & 3rd Avenues)
Specialty: Older wealthy men
Door charge: none
Bar prices: average
Clientele Ethnicity: 100% white
Average Age: mid to high 60's
Review: The Townhouse is located in....a townhouse. The lower level houses a video bar where the patrons mostly ignored what was on the screen. The main floor features an elegant front room with low volume dance music, restrooms, and a large piano lounge where the singer/player belts out comfortably familiar showtunes for the sing-a-long customers who gather in a semi-circle around the piano. Customers are occasionally given the microphone to perform on their own. While we were there: Send In The Clowns, Don't Rain On My Parade, Memories, What I Did For Love.
The Townhouse is an odd, odd place. I'm really not sure how to feel about it. The posh decor (thick carpeting, crown molding, elegant seating) feels like the lobby bar of a luxury hotel. Conversations are loud and animated and for a moment that threw me off, until I realized that The Townhouse music volume is low enough that one can actually hear conversations. The customers were all dressed very nicely, most of them had on jackets. Farmboy T described the place as feeling like a "bubbly wake".
Although the Townhouse is well known as a hustler bar, I didn't see very many rentboys working a room that was undoubtably full of millionaires. Even their own website advertises the place as "a gay bar that appreciates older gentlemen of exquisite taste along with those who admire their wallets". (Emphasis mine. Oh, and I changed "them" to "their wallets".)
Most of the customers were in their late 50's, 60's and 70's, and there at least a few seated on the banquette near the piano who seemed to be in their early 100's. Seriously, I don't think they could have walked in under their own power. But more power to 'em. I hope I'm feeling like hanging with a bunch of homos when I'm an old geezer. I just don't want to do it in a place that looks like a funeral parlor.
Chance of returning: Slim to moderate.
Tomorrow: The Web
The Townhouse
Location: Upper East Side, 236 E.58th (Btwn 2nd & 3rd Avenues)
Specialty: Older wealthy men
Door charge: none
Bar prices: average
Clientele Ethnicity: 100% white
Average Age: mid to high 60's
Review: The Townhouse is located in....a townhouse. The lower level houses a video bar where the patrons mostly ignored what was on the screen. The main floor features an elegant front room with low volume dance music, restrooms, and a large piano lounge where the singer/player belts out comfortably familiar showtunes for the sing-a-long customers who gather in a semi-circle around the piano. Customers are occasionally given the microphone to perform on their own. While we were there: Send In The Clowns, Don't Rain On My Parade, Memories, What I Did For Love.
The Townhouse is an odd, odd place. I'm really not sure how to feel about it. The posh decor (thick carpeting, crown molding, elegant seating) feels like the lobby bar of a luxury hotel. Conversations are loud and animated and for a moment that threw me off, until I realized that The Townhouse music volume is low enough that one can actually hear conversations. The customers were all dressed very nicely, most of them had on jackets. Farmboy T described the place as feeling like a "bubbly wake".
Although the Townhouse is well known as a hustler bar, I didn't see very many rentboys working a room that was undoubtably full of millionaires. Even their own website advertises the place as "a gay bar that appreciates older gentlemen of exquisite taste along with those who admire their wallets". (Emphasis mine. Oh, and I changed "them" to "their wallets".)
Most of the customers were in their late 50's, 60's and 70's, and there at least a few seated on the banquette near the piano who seemed to be in their early 100's. Seriously, I don't think they could have walked in under their own power. But more power to 'em. I hope I'm feeling like hanging with a bunch of homos when I'm an old geezer. I just don't want to do it in a place that looks like a funeral parlor.
Chance of returning: Slim to moderate.
Tomorrow: The Web
Sissy Shopping
Clerk: Welcome to Sissy Boutique. May I help you?Joe: Yes, I'm looking for something middle-aged, preferably short?
Clerk: (Frowning) Middle-aged? There's not a lot of call for that around here. Maybe... I have something in the back. Want me to go look?
Joe: Do you mind? That would be great.
Clerk: (Nodding) I'll be right back. (Disappears into back...)
Joe: (Calling) Anything back there? Maybe something hairy? Cuban, if you got it.
Clerk: (Emerging from back, shaking head) I'm sorry but there's really nothing back there in your age range. We pretty much stock the younger sissies here. You know, twinks, baby fags, circuit boys. (Brightens) Oh! Maybe you can find something over at Nellie & Nancy? They sometimes have, um, older items in stock.
Joe: The last time I got something THERE, I had to do a return. It came with too much baggage.
Clerk: Well, the older stuff usually DOES.
Rats!
In New York City, if you cross the labor unions in any way, they will come and inflate this 15-foot high rat in front of your location. I took this picture last year when the busboys and kitchen workers of Grand Central's Oyster Bar were on strike.Today I arrived at work to find the same rat in front of my office building. Apparently somebody is doing some office remodeling without unionized construction workers. I'm not sure where I stand on the labor unions issue in general, but I do know that everybody in my office thinks the rat is kind of cute. Maybe the unions should find another tool of intimidation?
Marcia From Orlando
This is Marcia from Orlando, who is visiting NYC this week. Marcia, an "obsessed" JMG reader, is a dear friend of the fabulous Terrence, whose office sent me photo approval today, as this picture was taken on his glamourous deck. That's one of Terrence's famous apple martinis in front of me. I love this picture because Marcia is so cute and I don't look so fat. After this, readers' photos will be sans moi, enough's enough, right? Also, Terrence fans take note, there will be a new episode next week, featuring a pussy contortionist and a dwarf. No kidding.
For Ogden Nash
How quick we are to hit reply
When emailed by mean persons
Instead of setting karma straight
Our shitty vibe just worsens
When emailed by mean persons
Instead of setting karma straight
Our shitty vibe just worsens
Hey Tiger
Jim Lovegrove is an occasional NYC Eagle patron, a fellow blogger, a JMG reader and Frappr member, AND his band Hey Tiger is one of the five finalists in NYC radio station 95.5 WPLJ's contest to win the opening slot for an upcoming Bon Jovi show. Click on the contest link, listen to Hey Tiger's entry, "I Don't Mind", and if you dig the tune, show the kid some love by voting for his band.
P.S. - Pogonophiles like these guys should definitely check out Jim's latest Blogger pic. Oh, yes.
P.S. - Pogonophiles like these guys should definitely check out Jim's latest Blogger pic. Oh, yes.
500 Fifth Avenue
Yesterday morning I snapped this pic of 500 Fifth Avenue, my third favorite office building in New York City behind the Chrysler and the Empire State. This 60-story beauty always has seemed like a giant Lego pistol to me. Unlike many others, I've never been a fan Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building and the vast sea of featureless glass boxes that followed. (Hello, WTC.) I like minimalism, just not for buildings. Check out some great NYC buildings here. As for 500 Fifth Avenue, it's worth noting that it was designed by the same architects and completed in the same year as the Empire State.
Totally Obviously
November 2005, The Roxy
The Roxy. The place I've sworn I would never return to, after the famous Dance Floor Dissing Incident that took place on Puerto Rican Day 2003. I'm only here because my friend DJ Jerry Bonham is opening for slightly-more-famous DJ Paul Van Dyk.
I arrive at the Roxy with my buddy NYC Eagle DJ Mark Cicero. At the door, we undergo the most invasive personal body search I've ever experienced. What the fuck are these kids bringing into the Roxy these days, hand grenades? Homeland Security ain't got nothing over the Roxy door staff. Oh, wait. We're on the list! A different line? Another search? Awesome! At least at the VIP entrance we get handed a free CD (which I immediately lose).
The crowd is young. Very young. And high. Very high. Paul Van Dyk has brought in a huge audience of straight kids. Mixed in are the oddball raver fags here and there. And of course, as in any Manhattan nightclub, we have a healthy representation of Japanese club kids, always keen to be seen. But overall, the crowd is muy bridge-and-tunnel, as my friend Allen would say, looking down his nose. Allen is from Kansas City, Missouri.
Jerry's set is amazing, inspired, as always. I've been in love with Jerry's artistry ever since we first began shouting back and forth to each other through the chain link fence around the DJ booth at SF's Powerhouse. Jerry is my absolute favorite DJ in the world and coming from a relentless DJ hound like myself, that's saying something. Jerry motions for Mark and I to watch him from the wings of the stage and we stand up there until a truck-sized security man grabs my arm, making me scream a little bit. Yes, yes. We will get down from here.
The promoters tell Jerry to cut his set short because a recent crackdown on nightclubs is forcing The Roxy to close by 4am tonight and they need to get the headliner onstage early. Paul Van Dyk climbs onto the platform, a make-shift DJ booth constructed over the edge of the dancefloor. There's a firestorm of cellphone camera flashes and a jumbo-jet worthy decibel level of screaming when the crowd spots Van Dyk. Jerry puts his records away while Van Dyk hooks up his two Powerbooks.
Jerry invites us back to the regular DJ booth which is being used as a VIP area for this show. I peer down at the crowd over the edge of the booth and wonder if I look as tiny as Peter Rauhofer always seemed to be, when I'd look up at him in this spot. We chat and soak up the free booze (Grey Goose and Red Bull for me) and look at Paul Van Dyk's back while he cues up MP3 files on his Powerbooks. I'm not sure that this is actually DJ'ing but I guess I can't argue with 2000 screaming fans.
I'm quite happy to spend the entire night up in the DJ booth, cuz hey, free booze, but the other guys want to wander around amongst die Kinder. I spend a few minutes getting elbowed at the bar and start wondering what might be going on up at The Eagle, but decide to stay as long Mark and Jerry want to.
I get in line for the men's room. The line is about 30 guys long but moves with a brisk efficiency I'm unaccustomed to, compared to the Roxy's gay nights. As I reach the door of the restroom I come upon a raucous scene. The bathroom is boiling hot, the mirrors are partially steamed up. There's a line of seven guys along the wall to match the seven guys standing in front of them at the urinals. Everybody is dancing, even the guys that are pissing. Everybody is shirtless except me. Everybody is under 25 except me.
Then they see me, these happy dancing carefree young men, and the visual effect is not-unlike when a high-school Vice Principal sticks his head inside the door of an classroom that is missing its teacher. Full stop on the happy. Hands in the pockets. A couple of quick departures. I feel like The Thing That Came From 10,000 B.C.
I'd leave, but I really do have to piss. One brazen lad, pupils as big as saucers, walks past me in a fog of Special K-bravery and taps my chest. "Dude, you are like so totally obviously a cop, it's like...totally....um, obvious."
Coat-check.
Taxi.
Eagle.
Fin.
.
The Roxy. The place I've sworn I would never return to, after the famous Dance Floor Dissing Incident that took place on Puerto Rican Day 2003. I'm only here because my friend DJ Jerry Bonham is opening for slightly-more-famous DJ Paul Van Dyk.
I arrive at the Roxy with my buddy NYC Eagle DJ Mark Cicero. At the door, we undergo the most invasive personal body search I've ever experienced. What the fuck are these kids bringing into the Roxy these days, hand grenades? Homeland Security ain't got nothing over the Roxy door staff. Oh, wait. We're on the list! A different line? Another search? Awesome! At least at the VIP entrance we get handed a free CD (which I immediately lose).
The crowd is young. Very young. And high. Very high. Paul Van Dyk has brought in a huge audience of straight kids. Mixed in are the oddball raver fags here and there. And of course, as in any Manhattan nightclub, we have a healthy representation of Japanese club kids, always keen to be seen. But overall, the crowd is muy bridge-and-tunnel, as my friend Allen would say, looking down his nose. Allen is from Kansas City, Missouri.
Jerry's set is amazing, inspired, as always. I've been in love with Jerry's artistry ever since we first began shouting back and forth to each other through the chain link fence around the DJ booth at SF's Powerhouse. Jerry is my absolute favorite DJ in the world and coming from a relentless DJ hound like myself, that's saying something. Jerry motions for Mark and I to watch him from the wings of the stage and we stand up there until a truck-sized security man grabs my arm, making me scream a little bit. Yes, yes. We will get down from here.
The promoters tell Jerry to cut his set short because a recent crackdown on nightclubs is forcing The Roxy to close by 4am tonight and they need to get the headliner onstage early. Paul Van Dyk climbs onto the platform, a make-shift DJ booth constructed over the edge of the dancefloor. There's a firestorm of cellphone camera flashes and a jumbo-jet worthy decibel level of screaming when the crowd spots Van Dyk. Jerry puts his records away while Van Dyk hooks up his two Powerbooks.
Jerry invites us back to the regular DJ booth which is being used as a VIP area for this show. I peer down at the crowd over the edge of the booth and wonder if I look as tiny as Peter Rauhofer always seemed to be, when I'd look up at him in this spot. We chat and soak up the free booze (Grey Goose and Red Bull for me) and look at Paul Van Dyk's back while he cues up MP3 files on his Powerbooks. I'm not sure that this is actually DJ'ing but I guess I can't argue with 2000 screaming fans.
I'm quite happy to spend the entire night up in the DJ booth, cuz hey, free booze, but the other guys want to wander around amongst die Kinder. I spend a few minutes getting elbowed at the bar and start wondering what might be going on up at The Eagle, but decide to stay as long Mark and Jerry want to.
I get in line for the men's room. The line is about 30 guys long but moves with a brisk efficiency I'm unaccustomed to, compared to the Roxy's gay nights. As I reach the door of the restroom I come upon a raucous scene. The bathroom is boiling hot, the mirrors are partially steamed up. There's a line of seven guys along the wall to match the seven guys standing in front of them at the urinals. Everybody is dancing, even the guys that are pissing. Everybody is shirtless except me. Everybody is under 25 except me.
Then they see me, these happy dancing carefree young men, and the visual effect is not-unlike when a high-school Vice Principal sticks his head inside the door of an classroom that is missing its teacher. Full stop on the happy. Hands in the pockets. A couple of quick departures. I feel like The Thing That Came From 10,000 B.C.
I'd leave, but I really do have to piss. One brazen lad, pupils as big as saucers, walks past me in a fog of Special K-bravery and taps my chest. "Dude, you are like so totally obviously a cop, it's like...totally....um, obvious."
Coat-check.
Taxi.
Eagle.
Fin.
.
The Religious Right Ten Commandments
1-Thou shalt exalt wealth and power before me.
2-Thou shalt make unto thee graven political images to bash Democrats with
3-Thou shalt not take the name of George W. Bush in vain
4-Remember the holy Sabbath day is great for pitching GOP policies and talking points
5-Honor the Republican Party and the conservative movement above thy mother and father
6-Thou shalt not kill unless it is a death row prisoner
7-Thou shalt not commit adultery unless you are a GOP legislator or a conservative defender of 'family values'
8-Thou shalt not steal unless it is an election or you’re working for a company that supports GOP candidates
9-Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor unless you work for Fox News or are a right wing talk show host
10-Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor’s unless it is their oil reserves or other valuable natural resources
The Black Church Summit
One of the things that really pisses me off is the Jurassic attitudes of my people when it comes to gender issues. It's mind boggling to me that a child who is a frequent visitor of the court system or is on drugs gets much unconditional love in the family and the Black church. Let that same child be gay or transgender and that unconditional love and understanding becomes non-existent.
I was heartened to see the Black Church Summit that was recently held in Atlanta January 20-21. Its stated goal is working to reverse the hateful rhetoric coming from African-American church pulpits. More than 200 ministers took part in this NBJC (National Black Justice Coalition) sponsored event at First Iconium Baptist Church with the keynote speeches given by Rev. Al Sharpton and Bishop Yvette Flunder. Several Black conservative pastors were invited such as Rev. Bernice King and Bishop Eddie Long among others but they refused to attend. (Guess they didn't want to jeopardize their faith-based hush money.)
This conversation took place because conservative Republicans are using the gay marriage issue to manipulate Black ministers and create a wedge issue designed to gain minority votes. The GOP increased its share from 8% to 12 percent in the 2004 election despite pursuing policies that have clearly NOT benefitted Black Americans.
"These anti-marriage proponents are pandering to the Black church for their own agenda. It is imperative that religious leaders realize and recognize the
contributions of the LGBT community and the impact marriage discrimination will have on African-American children and families," said Sylvia Rhue, religious affairs and constituency development director for NBJC, said in an interview.
"We have sat back and allowed the right wing to shape the political agenda," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "Now it is important that the Black church break the backs of those who are trying to use homosexuality as a political weapon."
Sharpton also criticized some Black churches for their role in the 2004 election, explaining that right wing outsiders "came in and invaded the Black church with homophobia." He argued that religious right was not really concerned about same-sex marriage but more concerned about having the "same president" in office.
"They couldn't come to Black churches to talk about the war, about health care, about poverty. So they did what they always do and reached for the bigotry against gay and lesbian people."
Calling the 2004 election tactics an "insult to our intelligence," Sharpton said the religious right "should not be allowed to play this game" in the future. "If we had not been fooled, maybe some of the states that went red would not have gone red."
"It's time for our church to have a nonpunitive discourse on human sexuality," Bishop Flunder said in her remarks. "It's time for Black folk to get together and have a conversation so we can eliminate the opportunity for others to defile and separate us."
Amen. Now let's see if they will follow through on that.
John Waters At Sundance
Speaking of happy, the following morning at the annual queer brunch, John Waters proclaimed himself over the moon about Heath Ledger and Philip Seymour Hoffman being front-runners for best actor. "We're going to have the queer Oscars this year," Waters said. "But I'm still waiting for a gay actor to be nominated for playing a gay man. - SFGate.com
Subway Art:Lichtenstein
This original Roy Lichtenstein futuristic take on train travel, Times Square Mural, logically sits in the main concourse underneath Times Square, in what might be the largest open space anywhere in the New York City subway system. The work is 6 feet high and 53 feet long, which must be why I didn't get the whole thing into the frame. Times Square Mural was commissioned by the MTA and was presented to the city as a gift from the artist. It's perhaps my favorite piece of subway art.
Joe.My.Shadkhen.
In further tales of the JMG interstate Frappr romance that you may recall having blossomed between two of my readers, this just in:
Hey Joe! Xxxxx and I hung out over the MLK holiday weekend. This time he came up to see me. We're still very much in the physical phase of this relationship, this is only the third weekend we've gotten together so we spent a lot of it fucking around, although I took him sightseeing and we saw Brokeback Mountain so we have cried in front of each other already, which is major, right? Just keeping you posted!
And that's the last time I mention those two until there's a wedding (and I better be invited). In other news, I heard (thirdhand) that two of my NYC readers recently hooked up too, after one recognized the other from his Frappr pic on JMG. Just because I don't go to Escualita doesn't mean you are safe. I hear everything, people.
Our last Frappr-related development is that we now have our first naked picture on the JMG Frappr map. I can only say that this is something that I strongly, strongly dis....um...hey? Where'd everybody go? Hello...lo....lo....lo? Echo.....echo....echo.
Hey Joe! Xxxxx and I hung out over the MLK holiday weekend. This time he came up to see me. We're still very much in the physical phase of this relationship, this is only the third weekend we've gotten together so we spent a lot of it fucking around, although I took him sightseeing and we saw Brokeback Mountain so we have cried in front of each other already, which is major, right? Just keeping you posted!
And that's the last time I mention those two until there's a wedding (and I better be invited). In other news, I heard (thirdhand) that two of my NYC readers recently hooked up too, after one recognized the other from his Frappr pic on JMG. Just because I don't go to Escualita doesn't mean you are safe. I hear everything, people.
Our last Frappr-related development is that we now have our first naked picture on the JMG Frappr map. I can only say that this is something that I strongly, strongly dis....um...hey? Where'd everybody go? Hello...lo....lo....lo? Echo.....echo....echo.
How to Talk to a Conservative...If You Must
1- Don't use words with more than three syllables.
2-Remember that they are used to getting their talking points from Rush Limbaugh or other conservative media, so don't assume they can think for themselves
3-Remember they think that George W. Bush ACTUALLY won two elections, so bear in mind that conservatives are slightly delusional
4-If they start ranting, offer them Oxycontinin. If it's Ann Coulter, offer her estrogen.
5-Remember that conservatives are insecure because they've been handed everything on a silver platter from Mumsy and Dadsy, so they have no clue how Real Americans live
6-If you talk about religion with them remember that they worship a God that hates anyone that's not a heterosexual white male who votes GOP and condones cheating, greed, lying, gaybaiting, racism, xenophobia and sexism
7-If you're talking to a wife of a conservative, make sure that you steer clear of any water puddles or aren't standing next to her during a thunderstorm
8-Remember that conservatives don't have a grasp of reading fundamentals or proper sentence construction since many of them are low C or D students who got over...you know...like George W. Bush
9-Be on the look out for them to pull out 9-11 as a crutch to buttress their weak ass arguments every time they are intellectually overmatched or confronted with overwhelming evidence they are wrong.
10-Remember that a conservative will NEVER tell the truth, so don't expect them to be honest about anything or acknowledge that they are wrong.
Lost In Mistranslation
This weekend I took a couple of pictures of George Segal's sculture Gay Liberation, which is located in the West Village's Sheridan Square, directly across from the Stonewall Inn.At the time of the sculture's commissioning, no gay or lesbian artist was willing to come forward and accept the assignment, which backers had hoped would be completed in time for the 1979 ten year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The gay artists were afraid of ruining their careers. Heterosexual George Segal was finally chosen, much to the annoyance of gay activists, despite the very public search for a gay sculptor.
A second casting of these sculptures is on the grounds of Stanford University in California, where they have been repeatedly vandalized. New York's casting was originally installed in Madison, Wisconsin and was not moved to its present (and intended) location until 1992.
I happened to be visiting New York City that year and a friend took me by to view the installation. As we stood there looking at the male couple of the two pieces, my friend mistakenly told me that according to the artist, the man on the right was being consoled by his friend after telling him that he had AIDS. This misinformation almost moved me into hysterical tears. It was nearly ten years before I learned that the AIDS metaphor was a myth, ten years spent deliberately avoiding that statue so that I didn't have to see the man's slumped shoulders, the dejection of his hands shoved into his pockets, the tender touch of his younger healthier friend.
Even today, knowing the truth, I see a sadness in both pieces. There a sort of weltschmerz present , as if all parties are just resigned to defeat, with only each other in the world into which fate has so cruelly cast them. It's interesting that a monument to gay liberation would have such a solemn tone, considering the riotous, celebratory nature of gay pride events in general. But it certainly does capture the era. It still hurts me to look at these sculptures, but now it's a different kind of hurt.
Fucked
Overheard at The Eagle, New York City
Two men are appraising one of the bartenders......
Man 1: Fuck! He is such a hot fuck! Did I tell you what a hot fuck he is?
Man 2: Yeah, but I thought you guys didn't actually fuck?
Man 1: Well, we fucked but we didn't fuck fuck.
Man 2: (shakes head) That's too fuckin' bad.
Man 1: (thoughtfully) But I can still say we fucked, right?
Man 2: (nodding) Oh, fuck yeah!
.
Two men are appraising one of the bartenders......
Man 1: Fuck! He is such a hot fuck! Did I tell you what a hot fuck he is?
Man 2: Yeah, but I thought you guys didn't actually fuck?
Man 1: Well, we fucked but we didn't fuck fuck.
Man 2: (shakes head) That's too fuckin' bad.
Man 1: (thoughtfully) But I can still say we fucked, right?
Man 2: (nodding) Oh, fuck yeah!
.
This Weekend? Me?
Oh, not much. Dropped in at the Dugout and hung out with a lot of silly hairy drunk bloggers. Then a quick drop in to check on the sexy men at the Eagle, where I watched one of the above linked guys join a former Mr. Eagle + friend in a shirtless 3-way tongue orgy right under the florescent light over the pool table. Then home to finish watching this DVD. And you?
2006 Bloggies
The final and most prestigious bloggers' awards have released the finalists' names for 2006. (Click graphic to enlarge.) I'm tickled to be on the list along with my usual awards nemesis, gay news and gossip site Towleroad. Other co-nominees are gay news and gossip site Queerty and gay news and politics site Good As You. I read all of these guys every day and I encourage you to visit their sites as they comb the internet daily to find stories relevant to gay culture.My final co-nominee is my personal favorite, Ernie Hsuing's Little.Yellow.Different. Ernie delivers often hilarious, sometimes poignant, but always beautifully rendered recountings of his life as a geek, a homo, an Asian-American, and as the brother of a mentally-ill sister. To my mind, Little.Yellow.Different is what blogging is all about.
As a reader said here on JMG recently, placing diarists in the same category with these commercial news sites, with all their advertising and product placements, is a bit of the old apples to oranges condundrum, but it is what it is. Voting in all categories is here. Apologies, but I don't know how to make a link that will take you directly down the page to the LGBT portion. This is the last of the blogging awards for the year and therefore my last post on the subject, praise Jebus.
One Year Ago
Saturday the high in Central Park was 63 degrees, an all time record. One year ago Saturday, we had a blizzard, leaving the cars on my street in this condition. The weather just gets stranger and stranger.
Sniffles
October 2005, 47th floor, midtown Manhattan
I'm at an industry conference, surrounded by colleagues and competitors. There's a woman speaking on a platform, leading the discussion and taking questions from the audience. Every time somebody in the audience speaks, we all turn and size that person up, assessing the necessity or stupidity of the question, and, when called for, making smug comments to each other under our breath.
As far as I can tell, there's only one other gay man besides me, in a room of perhaps 75 attendees, which is somewhat unusual for this industry. The other gay man is young-ish, perhaps mid-20's, and seems to have a terrible cold, because he keeps sniffling. At one point, he excuses himself to "go get a tissue". He's gone a long time and when he returns, the sniffling resumes.
After another twenty minutes of Q & A, punctuated by the young man's continuing runny nose, the moderator decides to act. Clearly annoyed, she strides over to the dais, reaches into her purse and tosses the young man a small package of tissues, saying "Here, try these. I hope you're taking something for that cold!"
The young man says, "Yeah, I did a couple of Sudafed, thanks."
And there it is. The room breaks into titters. Can open, worms everywhere. You don't do Sudafed....you take Sudafed. The young man does not return after the lunch break and we all wonder whether it's due to embarrassment or his boss.
Or maybe he just needs to see about doing something.
.
I'm at an industry conference, surrounded by colleagues and competitors. There's a woman speaking on a platform, leading the discussion and taking questions from the audience. Every time somebody in the audience speaks, we all turn and size that person up, assessing the necessity or stupidity of the question, and, when called for, making smug comments to each other under our breath.
As far as I can tell, there's only one other gay man besides me, in a room of perhaps 75 attendees, which is somewhat unusual for this industry. The other gay man is young-ish, perhaps mid-20's, and seems to have a terrible cold, because he keeps sniffling. At one point, he excuses himself to "go get a tissue". He's gone a long time and when he returns, the sniffling resumes.
After another twenty minutes of Q & A, punctuated by the young man's continuing runny nose, the moderator decides to act. Clearly annoyed, she strides over to the dais, reaches into her purse and tosses the young man a small package of tissues, saying "Here, try these. I hope you're taking something for that cold!"
The young man says, "Yeah, I did a couple of Sudafed, thanks."
And there it is. The room breaks into titters. Can open, worms everywhere. You don't do Sudafed....you take Sudafed. The young man does not return after the lunch break and we all wonder whether it's due to embarrassment or his boss.
Or maybe he just needs to see about doing something.
.
From Across The Gay Generation Gap
Gentle readers, I get so much lovely email from you all that sometimes I am a bit slow in responding, for which I apologize. Not all of the emails are nice, of course, but most of them are. And occasionally, I get an email that I wish had gone into the comments rather than only to me, because the message is so compelling. So forgive me the indulgence of publishing the letter below, which I do with the author's permission, and for which I thank him again.
Joe-
I would post in your comments, but I don't want to post anonymously, and I hate having an e-mail with my first and last name on the 'net. I'm high maintenance - I'm comfortable with that.
You have, perhaps unwittingly, addressed the great gay generation gap in many of your stories, and I wanted to both point it out and congratulate it.
As a 16 year old in small town Virginia in the mid 90s, I became involved in a youth-group-slash-peer-advocacy group attached to an AIDS services agency. The clinic had been forced by vandalism and harassment to move several times, and was then in a house in a down-at-the-heels residential neighborhood.
While I made important peer friendships there, I also experienced something many people my age never knew. I volunteered in the afternoons a couple times a week after school, driving clients to doctor's appointments and the grocery store or sitting and talking in the center's greeting room as I folded brochures or dusted the furniture. I met many gay men who had left active lives in Washington, DC or New York City to come home to die in Va. This was just before protease inhibitors and cocktail therapies made long-term survival a real option. As I came out of the closet, finished high school, and went off to enjoy my scholarship at an expensive liberal arts college, I also watched our clients, my friends, get sick and die.
As I have moved through my twenties (faster than I would have liked,of course), I realize how rare my experience is among my peers. Having come into contact with the gay community very early (I started coming out at 14, in 1992) in a small town where AIDS remedies were not on the cutting edge, I am one of a few men my age to have witnessed and felt the vicious loss and terror that AIDS causes. In fact, neither my partner and nor the vast majority of my friends has known anyone with AIDS. Thus, they don't understand why, for example, "Angels in America" brought me to near-hysterics or why the idea of "AIDS burnout" pisses me off so much.
You know, I'm sure, that gay men are incredibly age-conscious. Young men don't interact socially with older men (at least not in any meaningful way, for the most part), and thus, our community narrative gets lost. So many men in the generation before mine are dead, and so few tell the stories to me and my friends that the increase in numbers of new cases seems scarily and frustratingly inevitable.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for putting your stories in a medium accessed by so many young people. Obviously, it has touched a nerve. Thanks for your writing.
Joe-
I would post in your comments, but I don't want to post anonymously, and I hate having an e-mail with my first and last name on the 'net. I'm high maintenance - I'm comfortable with that.
You have, perhaps unwittingly, addressed the great gay generation gap in many of your stories, and I wanted to both point it out and congratulate it.
As a 16 year old in small town Virginia in the mid 90s, I became involved in a youth-group-slash-peer-advocacy group attached to an AIDS services agency. The clinic had been forced by vandalism and harassment to move several times, and was then in a house in a down-at-the-heels residential neighborhood.
While I made important peer friendships there, I also experienced something many people my age never knew. I volunteered in the afternoons a couple times a week after school, driving clients to doctor's appointments and the grocery store or sitting and talking in the center's greeting room as I folded brochures or dusted the furniture. I met many gay men who had left active lives in Washington, DC or New York City to come home to die in Va. This was just before protease inhibitors and cocktail therapies made long-term survival a real option. As I came out of the closet, finished high school, and went off to enjoy my scholarship at an expensive liberal arts college, I also watched our clients, my friends, get sick and die.
As I have moved through my twenties (faster than I would have liked,of course), I realize how rare my experience is among my peers. Having come into contact with the gay community very early (I started coming out at 14, in 1992) in a small town where AIDS remedies were not on the cutting edge, I am one of a few men my age to have witnessed and felt the vicious loss and terror that AIDS causes. In fact, neither my partner and nor the vast majority of my friends has known anyone with AIDS. Thus, they don't understand why, for example, "Angels in America" brought me to near-hysterics or why the idea of "AIDS burnout" pisses me off so much.
You know, I'm sure, that gay men are incredibly age-conscious. Young men don't interact socially with older men (at least not in any meaningful way, for the most part), and thus, our community narrative gets lost. So many men in the generation before mine are dead, and so few tell the stories to me and my friends that the increase in numbers of new cases seems scarily and frustratingly inevitable.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for putting your stories in a medium accessed by so many young people. Obviously, it has touched a nerve. Thanks for your writing.
JMG Newbies Guide
If you're flying with Joe.My.God for the first time today, we'd like to welcome you aboard. Please note that JMG is a no-frills carrier and you will not be getting the following items:
- Advertising
- Product placement
- Celebrity gossip
- Photos of naked strangers lifted from porn sites
- Photos of naked celebrities lifted from news sites
- Recaps of reality show plots
- Screencaps of personal emails or IM threads
File Under: I Love My People
The Mischievous Boys. Here. Here. Here.
UPDATE: I accidently came across the above when a Madonna-obsessive friend sent me here. Since then, I've learned that The Mischievious Boys are a bit of a fledging internet juggernaut. They have a website, a group blog, a fan club, a Yahoo discussion group, an apparel sponsor, and a brand new video: here.
I'm not sure what exactly, if anything, it says about pop culture when a group of shirtless gay boys can gain a little internet notoriety by posting videos of themselves lipsyncing to the dance versions of hit singles by female vocalists, but I do know this: I don't hate it. And that makes me feel surprisingly good, because an old curdmudgeon like me normally would.
When I played a couple Mischievious Boys clips for my female coworkers, they all squealed in delight and immediately began picking out their favorite group members. Funny thing, I had to admit that I had one too. Somebody call the Dirty Old Man police.
UPDATE: I accidently came across the above when a Madonna-obsessive friend sent me here. Since then, I've learned that The Mischievious Boys are a bit of a fledging internet juggernaut. They have a website, a group blog, a fan club, a Yahoo discussion group, an apparel sponsor, and a brand new video: here.
I'm not sure what exactly, if anything, it says about pop culture when a group of shirtless gay boys can gain a little internet notoriety by posting videos of themselves lipsyncing to the dance versions of hit singles by female vocalists, but I do know this: I don't hate it. And that makes me feel surprisingly good, because an old curdmudgeon like me normally would.
When I played a couple Mischievious Boys clips for my female coworkers, they all squealed in delight and immediately began picking out their favorite group members. Funny thing, I had to admit that I had one too. Somebody call the Dirty Old Man police.
Alexandra Billings
Accomplished transgendered actress and former Advocate cover subject Alexandra Billings was auditioned several times for the Transamerica role eventually awarded to Felicity Huffman. Check out Billings' often amusing, yet ultimately poignant blow-by-blow of the Golden Globes Awards here, as she watches the born-female Huffman win the Best Actress award for playing a transgendered woman.
I've seen Transamerica, and like the rest of the world I was impressed by Huffman's performance. But not to get all Fakeback Mountain on you again, I still yearn for the day when a major Hollywood movie about the LGBT world actually can be carried by LGBT actors. Could Transamerica have been that picture? We'll never know.
.
I've seen Transamerica, and like the rest of the world I was impressed by Huffman's performance. But not to get all Fakeback Mountain on you again, I still yearn for the day when a major Hollywood movie about the LGBT world actually can be carried by LGBT actors. Could Transamerica have been that picture? We'll never know.
.
New Favorite Word: Angertwink
Angertwink (noun):
A young urban gay male who goes through his life very angry because:
1) The rest of the gay world does not recognize his incredible hotness.
2) The rest of the gay world is not incredibly hot, like he is.
Identifying characteristics: Angertwinks can often be spotted wearing fauxhawks, popped collars, and expressions of disgust.
Angertwink was coined by my friend Dagon, on his blog At The Mountains Of Madness. (Example: here). After a few beers last night, I told him that he had to get this word into UrbanDictionary.com or Wikipedia or something,
Dagon is moving back to Texas today, trading Manhattan for Austin. I hope the angertwinks are nice to him there.
A young urban gay male who goes through his life very angry because:
1) The rest of the gay world does not recognize his incredible hotness.
2) The rest of the gay world is not incredibly hot, like he is.
Identifying characteristics: Angertwinks can often be spotted wearing fauxhawks, popped collars, and expressions of disgust.
Angertwink was coined by my friend Dagon, on his blog At The Mountains Of Madness. (Example: here). After a few beers last night, I told him that he had to get this word into UrbanDictionary.com or Wikipedia or something,
Dagon is moving back to Texas today, trading Manhattan for Austin. I hope the angertwinks are nice to him there.
Boyfriends, With An S
Fort Lauderdale, December 2005
Ken is my ex. He is THE ex. He was my first live-in boyfriend and my longest roommate. Is it only gay men who can stay good enough friends after the break up, so that you can keep living with each other? Ken and I lived with each other about 13 years, until I left Fort Lauderdale to go live with someone else in San Francisco. And I stay with Ken when I return to visit Fort Lauderdale.
There's a Mexican restaurant in Wilton Manors called Acapulco Linda. It just isn't a trip to Fort Lauderdale if I don't eat at Acapulco Linda. Plastic chairs, map of Florida paper placemats, Telemundo on the fuzzy TV, and huge portions of arros con pollo. It's a very comfy place. Even if you've never been there, it feels like you have. During my last visit, Ken decided that "all of us" should get together for a meal there.
I said, "Excellent. Who's 'all of us'?"
"You, me, Sam...." Sam is another of Ken's exes, circa late '90s. "And Jim and Mark. I want you guys to meet my new boyfriends."
Yes, that was boyfriendS. With an "S". Ken is several months into his first three-way relationship. Properly known by polyamorists as a triad. Amusingly known by many gay men as a "thruple". Twice the sex, but six times the emotional baggage, as the joke goes.
Thruples seemed to burst into my consciousness sometime in the late 90's as I began to encounter them more and more often in San Francisco. My earliest memory of the issue comes from the time when a scruffy looking bodybuilder told me earnestly, "You are a very hot guy and we could have sex and all that, but I'm really into dating couples. I'm really looking to be in a triad."
I walked away thinking, "WhatEVER, dude. Who said anything about dating?"
From that moment, my thruple antenna were up. I started running into them all the time. At first, the entire phenomenon seemed very Joy Luck Club-y to me. "Wife Number Two,(sob)...has NO honor!" But it also seemed very familiar. There was something in my past...something that made me feel like I'd encountered the thruple situation before.
Then one day I was sorting through some old paperbacks. Tom Clancy, into the trash. Stephen King, keep. Jackie Collins, um...trash. Gordon Merrick, definitely keep. You all know the drill. And then I came across an old sci-fi novel by Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves. I had read The Gods Themselves a half-dozen times in high school. That's when it dawned on me why the thrupling issue had seemed so oddly familiar.
In the novel, a scientist makes contact with a world in a parallel universe. That world is populated by a species which needs all three genders to mate simultaneously in order to procreate. Each of the three genders has a specific relationship role and are named accordingly. Parental. Rational. Emotional. I decided that the next time I met a thruple, I'd tell them about The Gods Themselves.
And so it came to be that I was standing near the Christmas tree, in the home of a porn video mogul, holding three porn stars in rapt attention as I explained the premise of the novel.
Porn Star 1: Oh. My. God! I am totally the Emotional!
Porn Star 2: You so totally are! And I'm definitely the Rational.
Porn Star 3: (nodding) Yeah, I can see me as the Parental. But that's because of who I am, NOT because I'm the oldest one, you bitches!"
Porn Stars 1 & 2: (in unison) Of course not!
Interestingly, almost every single time I've told this story to a triad, perhaps a dozen occasions in all, all three guys have instantly decided, without discussion or argument, which of the three genders they represented. It just seems to be plainly obvious to each of them, who each of them are. It's been a fascinating experiment. My ex, Ken, for those interested, considers himself to be the Rational. And even though I don't really know Jim and Mark very well yet, I think he's probably right.
The last time I went to San Francisco, I ran into Rick and Allen, two-thirds of a triad that I used to see at the bars. Naturally, I asked about the missing guy. Rick shook his head, "Oh, we had to break up with David. It just wasn't working out. I mean, how could it? Two Emotionals? Honey, even Allen wasn't Rational enough to handle THAT!"
And here all this time you've been thinking the top and bottom thing is hard to figure out.
.
Ken is my ex. He is THE ex. He was my first live-in boyfriend and my longest roommate. Is it only gay men who can stay good enough friends after the break up, so that you can keep living with each other? Ken and I lived with each other about 13 years, until I left Fort Lauderdale to go live with someone else in San Francisco. And I stay with Ken when I return to visit Fort Lauderdale.
There's a Mexican restaurant in Wilton Manors called Acapulco Linda. It just isn't a trip to Fort Lauderdale if I don't eat at Acapulco Linda. Plastic chairs, map of Florida paper placemats, Telemundo on the fuzzy TV, and huge portions of arros con pollo. It's a very comfy place. Even if you've never been there, it feels like you have. During my last visit, Ken decided that "all of us" should get together for a meal there.
I said, "Excellent. Who's 'all of us'?"
"You, me, Sam...." Sam is another of Ken's exes, circa late '90s. "And Jim and Mark. I want you guys to meet my new boyfriends."
Yes, that was boyfriendS. With an "S". Ken is several months into his first three-way relationship. Properly known by polyamorists as a triad. Amusingly known by many gay men as a "thruple". Twice the sex, but six times the emotional baggage, as the joke goes.
Thruples seemed to burst into my consciousness sometime in the late 90's as I began to encounter them more and more often in San Francisco. My earliest memory of the issue comes from the time when a scruffy looking bodybuilder told me earnestly, "You are a very hot guy and we could have sex and all that, but I'm really into dating couples. I'm really looking to be in a triad."
I walked away thinking, "WhatEVER, dude. Who said anything about dating?"
From that moment, my thruple antenna were up. I started running into them all the time. At first, the entire phenomenon seemed very Joy Luck Club-y to me. "Wife Number Two,(sob)...has NO honor!" But it also seemed very familiar. There was something in my past...something that made me feel like I'd encountered the thruple situation before.
Then one day I was sorting through some old paperbacks. Tom Clancy, into the trash. Stephen King, keep. Jackie Collins, um...trash. Gordon Merrick, definitely keep. You all know the drill. And then I came across an old sci-fi novel by Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves. I had read The Gods Themselves a half-dozen times in high school. That's when it dawned on me why the thrupling issue had seemed so oddly familiar.
In the novel, a scientist makes contact with a world in a parallel universe. That world is populated by a species which needs all three genders to mate simultaneously in order to procreate. Each of the three genders has a specific relationship role and are named accordingly. Parental. Rational. Emotional. I decided that the next time I met a thruple, I'd tell them about The Gods Themselves.
And so it came to be that I was standing near the Christmas tree, in the home of a porn video mogul, holding three porn stars in rapt attention as I explained the premise of the novel.
Porn Star 1: Oh. My. God! I am totally the Emotional!
Porn Star 2: You so totally are! And I'm definitely the Rational.
Porn Star 3: (nodding) Yeah, I can see me as the Parental. But that's because of who I am, NOT because I'm the oldest one, you bitches!"
Porn Stars 1 & 2: (in unison) Of course not!
Interestingly, almost every single time I've told this story to a triad, perhaps a dozen occasions in all, all three guys have instantly decided, without discussion or argument, which of the three genders they represented. It just seems to be plainly obvious to each of them, who each of them are. It's been a fascinating experiment. My ex, Ken, for those interested, considers himself to be the Rational. And even though I don't really know Jim and Mark very well yet, I think he's probably right.
The last time I went to San Francisco, I ran into Rick and Allen, two-thirds of a triad that I used to see at the bars. Naturally, I asked about the missing guy. Rick shook his head, "Oh, we had to break up with David. It just wasn't working out. I mean, how could it? Two Emotionals? Honey, even Allen wasn't Rational enough to handle THAT!"
And here all this time you've been thinking the top and bottom thing is hard to figure out.
.
Runner And Crier
An epilogue to Guilty.....
The day after I posted Guilty, I got an email from a reader in North Miami.
"Joe, I just read yesterday's post and I was wondering if the man in your story could be the guy that is staying with my neighbor. He's driving a big truck and he's been going up to Ramrod a lot. He also pretty much fits the description from your story."
I wrote back and asked this reader if he could get the name of the fellow staying with his neighbor. A couple of emails later, and I had the name.
Ouch. The name was very well known to me. It was someone that I'd gotten rather close to in California, but had lost contact with when I moved to NYC and hadn't seen or heard from in almost five years. He and I had taken a couple of road trips up to the Russian River, and had shared hotel rooms at least three times. He came to my going away party, when I left SF.
I asked the North Miami reader to please leave my phone number with the guy, whom I'm calling "M" for this story. I asked him to tell M that I'd be grateful if he could call me, any time, day or night.
That day, no call. The next day, no call. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, the phone rang.
"Hey Joe, it's M."
"Hi M, thanks very much for calling me back. I appreciate it. I just wanted to apologize to you."
"Because of the Ramrod?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"I'm sorry."
"Which part are you apologizing for? For not recognizing me? Or for ignoring me after you did?"
I swallowed hard. "Well, M...to be very honest, I never did recognize you." Then I explained about the email from the reader.
"You wrote a STORY on the INTERNET about how freakish I look?"
"Well, no...I wrote a story about running into somebody who looked like he'd been pretty sick....and about how ashamed I was for the way I handled it."
"Joe, I know I look sick. My own cousin walked right past me at Safeway."
Then M explained that he'd been undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, one of the nastiest AIDS complications out there. I doubt there's a middle-aged gay man in this country who hasn't lost at least a couple of friends to NHL. M told me that the cancer had recurred twice in under four years. Presently, he's staying with friends in North Miami in between getting some experimental treatment at a Miami cancer clinic.
I apologized to M again for not recognizing him, but I received no absolution. I told him that I'd be down in Florida again in March, and that I'd love it if he'd let me take him to dinner, but he declined. Then I offered to give him this blog address and allow him to write a guest post addressing my behavior. He didn't even want the URL.
"No, Joe. Not interested. You'll have to find some other way to unguilt yourself."
"OK. I understand."
"Before you hang up, Joe, let me say something. Ever since I've been getting the chemo and I lost all the weight, I've been running into people like you. About half of them just hold on to me and cry and cry.....the other half just run away. I never figured you to be one of the runners."
He was wrong. I had done both.
.
The day after I posted Guilty, I got an email from a reader in North Miami.
"Joe, I just read yesterday's post and I was wondering if the man in your story could be the guy that is staying with my neighbor. He's driving a big truck and he's been going up to Ramrod a lot. He also pretty much fits the description from your story."
I wrote back and asked this reader if he could get the name of the fellow staying with his neighbor. A couple of emails later, and I had the name.
Ouch. The name was very well known to me. It was someone that I'd gotten rather close to in California, but had lost contact with when I moved to NYC and hadn't seen or heard from in almost five years. He and I had taken a couple of road trips up to the Russian River, and had shared hotel rooms at least three times. He came to my going away party, when I left SF.
I asked the North Miami reader to please leave my phone number with the guy, whom I'm calling "M" for this story. I asked him to tell M that I'd be grateful if he could call me, any time, day or night.
That day, no call. The next day, no call. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, the phone rang.
"Hey Joe, it's M."
"Hi M, thanks very much for calling me back. I appreciate it. I just wanted to apologize to you."
"Because of the Ramrod?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"I'm sorry."
"Which part are you apologizing for? For not recognizing me? Or for ignoring me after you did?"
I swallowed hard. "Well, M...to be very honest, I never did recognize you." Then I explained about the email from the reader.
"You wrote a STORY on the INTERNET about how freakish I look?"
"Well, no...I wrote a story about running into somebody who looked like he'd been pretty sick....and about how ashamed I was for the way I handled it."
"Joe, I know I look sick. My own cousin walked right past me at Safeway."
Then M explained that he'd been undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, one of the nastiest AIDS complications out there. I doubt there's a middle-aged gay man in this country who hasn't lost at least a couple of friends to NHL. M told me that the cancer had recurred twice in under four years. Presently, he's staying with friends in North Miami in between getting some experimental treatment at a Miami cancer clinic.
I apologized to M again for not recognizing him, but I received no absolution. I told him that I'd be down in Florida again in March, and that I'd love it if he'd let me take him to dinner, but he declined. Then I offered to give him this blog address and allow him to write a guest post addressing my behavior. He didn't even want the URL.
"No, Joe. Not interested. You'll have to find some other way to unguilt yourself."
"OK. I understand."
"Before you hang up, Joe, let me say something. Ever since I've been getting the chemo and I lost all the weight, I've been running into people like you. About half of them just hold on to me and cry and cry.....the other half just run away. I never figured you to be one of the runners."
He was wrong. I had done both.
.
Who's Yer (blog) Daddy?
In the beginning, there was Vasco's And Now, Jose'? and it was good. And then Vasco begat Joe.My.God. and it was....strange. And then Joe.My.God. begat CircleInASquare and The Mark Of Kane, and they were good. And then....oh, fuck it. I hate biblical references, don't you? The point of this post, and there actually is one, is to ask this: Who inspired you to blog? What does your blog family tree look like? Who made you and who did you make?
I can only (sniff).... hope... (sniffle, dab eyes).... that Vasco is as proud of me, as I am of my own blogchildren, SuperDaddy and Hamster Boy. If I had a car, I'd have to get me one of those old lady-style bumper stickers: Let Me Tell You About My Blogchildren!
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Disco Delivery
I'm way overdue for one of my own disco-imbued posts, but in the meantime why don't you stop by Disco Delivery, a brand new disco/mp3 blog? The guy knows his disco and even with only 3 posts up so far, I have a feeling I'm gonna be dropping by his place a lot.
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Paging Susan Lucci...
The annual slate of blogging awards is almost over. So far, I've come in 2nd place to Towleroad in Gawker Media's URBS Awards at Gridskipper, and I've tied for third for Best Popular Gay Blog Of 2005 over at Best Gay Blogs, coming in behind Towleroad (Again! Curse you Red Baron!), Pink Is The New Blog, and Proceed At Your Own Risk. (Note to self: start posting pictures of hunky shirtless Brazilians and washed up pop stars, ASAP!)Now comes the word that I'm nominated for Best LGBT Blog in the Best of Blogs Awards, along with two gentlemen from my very own blogroll: the thoughtful GayProf at Center Of Gravitas, and the hilarious Lee of Glitter For Brains. I'm not entirely clear on the BoB's procedures, there's actually some subjective judging in this one, but I encourage you to check out their list of nominees. There's some tasty new (to me) stuff on the LGBT list alone.
So what's this all mean? Anything at all?
URBS/Best Gay Blogs=People's Choice?
BoB's=Golden Globes?
Does that make the looming 2006 Bloggies = Oscars?
Don't worry gentle readers, all this silliness will be over soon.
Click on this button to vote on your favorites. You have scroll down a bit to get to the LGBT category, but I think that's intentional so that you look at all the blogs in the other categories.
Music Under New York
Among the many things that impress me about New York's subway system is its Music Under New York program, which provides commuters with something other than the usual fare of bad buskers and pissy panhandlers. I've been lucky enough to run into this trio a number of times..
20 Things NOT To Say to an African-American Transwoman
TransGriot Note: These are some of the various comments over the years from various sources that I've had the displeasure of hearing. It was past time to post some responses to them.1. How much?
Asking that question will get you either slapped, read like a cheap novel or beat down if the transwoman you insult with that query is one of the many who DON'T make their living this way.
2. Do you play basketball?
Any African-American transwoman 5' 8" or taller will hear this question ad nauseum thanks to the WNBA. Then again, if peeps are asking that question that's a sure sign you're passing.
3. The N-word
That will straight up get you severely cussed out or your butt kicked.
4. What's up 'Miss Monica'?
I absolutely HATE getting called that. First of all it's a term mothers used
condescendingly for unruly teenagers or precocious little girls. In the Black gay community Miss Anything is not a complimentary term.
When you address me as such in public the term is unmistakably a gay thang. It not only calls my femininity into question when I'm addressed that way, by doing so you may have just outed me and exposed me to more ignorance or worse.
You can call me Monica or Ms. Roberts, NOT Miss Monica.
5. The word `shemale'
Do not EVER in life call me a shemale. That is second only to calling me the N-word. It is a derogatory term created by one of the transgender community's biggest enemies, radical feminist Janice Raymond. It was later appropriated by the adult film industry.
For reasons that escape me some transwomen use that term to describe themselves. I'm not one of them.
6. You LOOK like a real woman.
You swallow estrogen for a few years, do electrolysis or laser, have some facial reconstruction, some SRS and see how feminine you look. Definitely won't be like Billy Blanks or Ah-nold.
7. You'll never be a REAL woman because you can't have children.
I have several genetic women friends who possess a uterus but can't have children. Does that make them men? I think not. When menopause kicks in for you will it be okay for me to call you a man since you will no longer have the ability to bear children?
8. Do you do shows?
I love watching them, but just because some female illusionists are my friends and share my ethnic background, don't assume that I'm also an illusionist.
9. Do you know (insert name of favorite female illusionist here)?
I repeat, just because some female illusionists are my friends and share my ethnic background, don't automatically assume that I know every one of them in Louisville or elsewhere in the country.
10. Who do you sleep with?
That's my personal business what gender I prefer to have in my bedroom. Just be thankful it ain't your partner.
11. I think of you as a real woman.
Hello? I didn't spend several years in therapy, endure 400 plus hours of electrolysis, change my name and identity documents to be called a dude. Could it be that you think of me as a woman because I look, speak, think and act like one?
12. I can't stand transsexuals because they don't take womanhood seriously.
Please. I've run into sistahs that have let their appearance go to hell, rarely wear makeup if at all, put their hair in braids like Allen Iverson, wear baggy shorts down to their behinds, wear saggin' pants and cuss like gangsta rappers. So when are they gonna start taking womanhood seriously?
13. What you're doing is against God's will because He don't make
mistakes.
You're right. God doesn't make mistakes. Biology does. That's why God gave surgeons the skills and talents to repair cleft palates, do open heart surgeries, fix noses and change a penis into a vagina. They have a little work to do on the other end of the spectrum.
14. All you Black trannies wanna do is party and be escorts.
All White trannies wanna do is desperately hold on to White Male Privilege and pretend we African-American ones don't exist.
15. I like you, but I can't risk being seen with you.
If you like me enough to wanna get in bed with me, then you like me enough to take me on a real date to dinner, concerts, museums and the ballgame. Some of those activities require leaving the house during daylight hours. If you have issues about being considered as less than a man for dating a transwoman, then don't step to me or any other transwoman.
16. How big is it?
Some pre-op/non-op transwomen are extremely sensitive about that topic. You wouldn't want her asking you five seconds after she met you how big yours is, so don't go there with her. You may be embarrassed by the answer you get to that question.
17. You're the first transwoman I've met.
We're 3% of the population, so you've probably met one of my sistahs. You just didn't know it or for various reasons she didn't tell you.
18. You're a transwoman because you're ashamed of being a Black man.
If I WERE a Black man I'd be just as proud of being Black as I am now. The problem is that I'm a Black WOMAN who was born in a Black male body and I dealt with it. Some of you just didn't like the solution I came up with.
19. You're a transwoman because you're gay and don't want to face society as a gay man.
What part of gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same are you failing to realize?
20. All you transsexuals are just men in drag.
Stop drinking that two-liter sized bottle of Hateraid and chill. Don't be mad because some of my sistahs look better in a dress and heels than some of you do.
Shirley Q. Liquor-Minstrel Show For the New Millenium
From a TransGriot Column I wrote in May 2005
Copyright 2005, THE LETTER
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Let me create a little scenario for you. What if an African-American GLBT person covered himself in white makeup, a la the Wayans Brothers recent White Chicks movie? Let’s say that this person toured GLBT nightclubs across the country as a character called Buford T. Moonshine and used every negative stereotype of Kentuckians or Caucasian people. Finally that person created a promotional website that posted those insulting stereotypes online and sold merchandise emblazoned with those images. How would you feel about that?
Well, you just got a chance to walk in the African-American GLBT/SGL community’s pumps. Many of us are angry with Charles Knipp, the white gay man who portrays Shirley Q. Liquor, a ‘black woman who’s a welfare recipient with 19 chirren’. I’m about to explain why.
Knipp’s show has been criticized and protested by a wide array of groups within the gay community since 2002, including NGLTF, The Audre Lord Project and the New York Black Gay Network. The latter two groups spearheaded a recent protest that canceled a Martin Luther King Day performance scheduled for a New York City nightclub.
In 2002 The National Association of Black and White Men Together said, "We find the Shirley Q. Liquor performance objectionable on three fronts. First, this performance resurrects distorted racist caricatures common to the blackface performances that became popular in 19th-century American vaudeville. Second, the Shirley Q. Liquor character is constructed on a negative and degrading image of women. Third, the character is based on the classist stereotype that people who need public assistance are fundamentally lazy. On all three counts, this act offends current sensibilities of what is appropriate."
It’s interesting (but not surprising) to note HRC’s silence on this issue. NGLTF contacted CafeShops.com and asked them to remove the Shirley Q Liquor merchandise from their website, but it’s still there. They did get rid of the offensive caption that stated ‘Welcome to my boutique of ignunce. Please do not shoplift while you is up in here!"
RuPaul has resolutely defended him since 2002. At a recent Southern Decadence he stated, "Critics who think that Shirley Q. Liquor is offensive are idiots. Listen, I’ve been discriminated against by everybody in the world: gay people, black people, whatever. I know discrimination, I know racism, I know it very intimately. She’s not racist, and if she were, she wouldn’t be on my new CD." RuPaul’s been complaining about the lack of GLBT support for it, but I don’t think he’s considered the fact that it may be the controversial company he’s keeping these days.
This goes much deeper than simply protesting a drag show. Blackface has been used to demean, lampoon, and ridicule the images of African-Americans since the 1830’s in order to reinforce white supremacy. A cottage industry of ‘darkie’ products from household goods, jokes and theatrical pieces such as ‘Birth of A Nation’ arose to support that image. Those images still carry a lot of pain for African-American people.
Shirley Q Liquor makes it harder for the GLBT civil rights movement to gain traction in the Black community. Some African-Americans are already upset about the comparisons to the 1960’s Civil Rights movement and some of that backlash fed into the gay marriage debate. Their impression is that the ‘rich white males of the GLBT movement’ have no understanding, sensitivity or concern for the historical and current obstacles faced by African-Americans.
I know that’s not true, but it’s difficult to argue to the contrary when Shirley Q Liquor’s on stage and Knipp’s GLBT southern white male fan base is hysterically laughing at his antics.
Join the GOP? No Thank You
TransGriot Note: I wrote this as a rebuttal to an African-American Republican
As a life long African-American Democrat I was amused by Felicia Benamon’s GOP talking point filled essay that completely misses the mark on why 90% of African-Americans are committed members of the Democratic Party.
I have to wonder what alternate universe Ms. Benamon lives in when she states that the GOP is a party of inclusion. Yes, it surely is. It includes rich white men, poor white men, gay white men, bigoted white men, conservative white men, fundamentalist Christian white men...Well, you get the picture. The only Black people I see flocking to the GOP are ministers who are rushing to get their faith based hush money so they can build bigger church sanctuaries, opportunistic party-switching sellouts like J. Kenneth Blackwell and radical out of touch people like Clarence Thomas and Janice Rogers Brown.
I’m reminded of the quote of a longtime Democratic county chair from Oklahoma, the late Julius Caesar Watts, Sr. (the father of former GOP Rep JC Watts)
"Black people voting for Republicans is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."
The GOP hasn't done jack to earn my vote and won't even compete for it. They spend more time and money trying to suppress my vote instead of making the fundamental policy changes that it will take to get me to support its candidates.
Far from ignoring our community, the Democratic Party embraces it. African-Americans are involved in every level of the party from the grassroots to the DNC. In addition an African-American named Ronald H. Brown ran my party from 1989-1993 before he became commerce secretary under President Clinton. By the way, under Ron Brown’s leadership the Democratic Party captured the White House and majorities in the House and Senate. So when is an African-American gonna run your party?
I’m tired of bait-and-switch GOP election tactics in which they say one thing and do the radically opposite once they are elected. They write Orwellian legislation that does the exact opposite of what its lofty titles promise. The Patriot Act curtails civil liberties. Leave No Child Behind attacks public education and underfunds it. The Help America Vote Act adds more ways to disenfranchise Americans from their precious right to vote. They coddle corporate America at the expense of working class America.If Republicans (and conservatives by extension) value working people and wants to help you achieve your dreams, then why has the GOP consistently voted against and killed raises in the minimum wage? Why have they made it HARDER for people to sue when a corporation’s shoddy products or discriminatory practices ruin lives in the name of 'tort reform'? Why have they cut taxes for the wealthy, which increases the tax burden on the working class? Why have they made it harder for people to form and join unions? Seems that the only values the GOP appreciates is rising stock prices that put money in their pockets at the expense of working class people.
Felicia, since you went there on Affirmative Action, let me state that it is unrealistic to assume that 40 years of this policy (which by the way started under the Nixon administration) magically wiped out the debilitating effects of 246 years of slavery and another 100 years of Jim Crow segregation. While merit is a wonderful concept and a goal we should all strive for, the reality is that white people control the HR departments of many corporations and some of them disproportionately hire people that look like them without considering whether that person is qualified or not. They also had a 400 year head start in terms of accumulating the wealth that they enjoy today at the expense of the suffering of our ancestors.
Felicia, the thing that binds us is our shared values as Americans. They are not the private property of the GOP. Democrats love our flag, revere our Constitution and our country just as much as you conservatives. Then again you conservatives respect for the Constitution is debatable. It's more like contempt for it.
I have a problem with the GOP definition of values. Disenfranchising gay people because you don’t like them is not an American value. Selfishness is not an American value. Suppressing dissent is not an American value. As African-Americans who have fought our own long and bitter struggle just to get OUR constitutional rights respected, we shouldn’t be standing shoulder to shoulder with the same bigots that opposed us in the 60’s (and still do) when we were the ones marching in the streets
So GW Bush increased his share of the African-American vote from 8% to 12%. You can be very proud of the fact that you bamboozled, frightened, supressed votes and used hatred of gay people to get that 4% increase. Congratulations.
The only thing that has been dragging our country into a pit as you put it is the mean spirited way that conservatives have imposed their views on the country. You don’t want dialogue; you want a monologue a la FOX News.
As far as you hating the term African-American, I love it. It reminds others and myself that I am an American of African descent and I'm proud of my African roots. You can’t put that in small letters to marginalize me as you do if I call myself Black. If Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans, Latinos and Asians can celebrate their cultural heritage, then why can’t we? Or are you black GOP conservatives ashamed of your African ancestry?
I am reminded of a 1978 comment from Adlai Stevenson Jr. concerning the GOP:
‘I have been tempted to make a proposal to our Republican friends that if they stop telling lies about us, we would stop telling the truth about them.’
To quote the word of your late hero Ronald Reagan, "there you go again" in terms of pushing the fiction that the Bush administration is the most diverse in history.
The most diverse administration in US history was the previous one run by William Jefferson Clinton. Brother Bill appointed more African-Americans to his cabinet than Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Daddy Bush, and GW combined. The previous record holder was another Democratic president, James Earl Carter. By the way Felicia, a president APPOINTS people to his cabinet and his administration, not elects them. So, you mean to tell me that Alexis Herman, Rodney Slater, Hazel O’Leary, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Dr. David Satcher, Togo West, Eric Holder and Jesse Brown didn’t work hard to get their positions? Or is hard work only the province of negro conservatives?
So where are these emerging black conservatives? Oh yeah, they’re standing in line at GOP headquarters receiving their cash handouts to run for public office (Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele) or getting paid $250K to shill on national TV for Bush administration policies like Armstrong Williams.
Just as you made the decision to support the GOP, I’m a thoughtful person who’s analyzed both sides and made the conscious decision to support the Democratic Party. It just so happens that 90% of African-Americans reached the same conclusion about which party to support.
I am a Democrat because I had quality people like Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland representing me in Congress when I was growing up in Houston. It was Democrats at the local, county, state and federal levels who looked out for the issues I deeply care about such as the environment, civil rights, education and creating a fair society. It was my Democratic state legislator Ron Wilson who fought for my right to vote in the 1984 presidential election when a white GOP poll watcher tried to deny it to me in my home precinct and Dems who consistently fought for it.All I ever see from conservatives is consistent opposition to those policies that I know help build a prosperous African-American middle class. I see from many conservative blacks who are GOP members selfish materialism, mind-numbing rhetoric devoid of logic, arrogance, denial of their heritage, and support of racist policies that seek to eliminate or roll back everything that our people have worked hard to implement.
Join the GOP? No thank you
January 2006 TransGriot Column
Monica Is Baaack!
Copyright 2006, THE LETTER
Happy New Year dear readers! I wish you much success and happiness.
I’m celebrating my second year writing TransGriot and for those of you I’ve bumped into as I’ve been out and about in the community, thank you for letting me know how much you enjoy reading my column. I love writing TransGriot and its nice to know my efforts are appreciated.
Basically I’ve been on hiatus from THE LETTER taking care of personal issues and recharging the creative batteries. I was part of a team that helped put together a successful African-American transgender convention that took place at the Galt House in September. I coordinated the programming for the event and taught three seminars.
One of them was on African-American transgender representations in the media. Another one I taught was on the cultural differences between the white and African-American trans communities and how they impact us working together. The final seminar I taught was on African-American transgender history. It was a great honor to meet African-American Stonewall veteran Miss Major, who gave us a firsthand account on what happened at Stonewall that night. We were thrilled to have Mandy Carter as a keynote speaker for TSTBC 2005. It was a lot of fun seeing old friends and meeting other African-American transpeople from various parts of the country. Those of us who attended TSTBC share a vision of erasing the negative perceptions of African-American transpeople. We’re determined to make it happen in our lifetimes.
In November I took part in the Transgender Day of Remembrance observance at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. It was the fourth year I’ve been involved in the TDOR in some capacity either as a featured speaker, teaching a seminar, or taking part in the candle lighting ceremony. I enjoy the time I get to spend with Mary Sue Barnett, The Women’s Center and the students, faculty and other great people associated with the LPTS that put it together. I have been asked by the National Black Justice Coalition to write occasional articles for their newsletter on transgender issues, which I accepted. I needed to make sure their publication deadline didn’t conflict with my new TransGriot deadline.
Finally, I needed some time to work on my novels. I enjoy writing fiction as some of you who read my August column discovered. I’m tweaking them and working on some short stories for various writing contests I plan to enter in 2006. I’m debating whether I have the time in my busy schedule to start a blog.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about New Year’s is the symbolism. It’s a time to reflect on what happened to us either positively or negatively in the preceding twelve months and not just resolve to do things better, but follow through and commit yourself to making those things happen.
When I started the Transsistahs-Transbrothas list on January 1, 2004 I started posting my personal resolutions for the upcoming year on the list. That way I have a record of how well I did in living up to them.
This is what I posted to TSTB on January 1, 2005:
I resolve to continue my efforts to meet, cultivate friendships with and network with other T-sistahs, do my part to ensure that we have a successful September convention, mentor our young T-sistahs that ask for help and advice, seek them out when I need it, and become a published author by the end of 2005.
Well, I’ve fulfilled every one of those save one, getting one of my novels in print. I'm STILL working on that ;)
Guilty
Ever since I got back from Fort Lauderdale, I’ve been trying to figure out if I should write this story. I don’t know if writing about it will bother me more than not writing about it.
I’ve been told that AIDS is the prevailing theme of Joe.My.God. There’s sort of a “this guy talks about his dead friends a lot” perception, which I think is probably fair. While I’ve talked about AIDS in only about 10% of my now 300+ posts, I think that it is a major theme here. And I don’t think that’s weird, necessarily. AIDS is and will have been a defining theme in the lives of just about any gay man in this country, but for the ones that are middle-aged right now, AIDS is the defining theme. We’re the guys with the dead roommates and dead best friends and dead husbands.
And still, I hesitate to revisit this topic so frequently, but something happened to me in Fort Lauderdale that I want to talk about.
One weeknight I went to the Ramrod with Robert, my roommate from back in San Francisco. It was one of those nights between Christmas and New Year’s, one of those Fort Lauderdale winter nights that make it seems like everybody in the world has money, good looks and nothing planned for the next day. I adore those nights. Every bar and restaurant is packed and even the locals dare not stay home, for fear of missing something.
The Ramrod was a zoo. A riot. A panic. Music – ringingly loud. Atmosphere – chokingly smoky. Crowd – sexingly sexy. Every two steps we ran into somebody we knew. From New York. From San Francisco. From London. We’d hardly made it halfway across the room when a man grabbed me by the elbow.
“Joe! Oh, how fantastic! I had heard you were in town!” he said, beaming.
I stepped back a little bit to get a better look, maybe to take the light out of my face, I’m not sure. That’s when I saw that this man, this guy who was so deliriously happy to see me, was clearly very ill. His clothes seemed hugely oversized and hung loosely on his frame. His face was gaunt, drawn, ashen looking - even in that lighting.
He was wearing what my old college roommate and I used to call a "trip to Disney World" hat, a reference to the Make-A-Wish kids who appeared regularly on Orlando TV wearing giant baseball hats to cover up their balded-by-chemo heads. For years, my roommate and I would try on baseball caps at stores and ask each other, "How does this one look? Am I going to Disney World?" If the answer was "yes", we looked for a different hat.
I looked at this man, who was literally jiggling with the happiness of seeing me...and I had no idea who he was. Instantly, I knew that his illness had transfigured his appearance so dramatically that he was now unrecognizable to me. It was a sick and familiar realization. I stuck my hand out and with false joviality I said, "Hey! Yes! I'm here! It's wonderful to see you!"
The man laughed and slapped my hand down. "Oh, honey! What's with the handshake?" Then he pulled me close and hugged me. He hugged me long and strong. He hugged me the way you should hug an old friend you haven't seen in a long time. It seemed like the most genuinely loving hug that I'd known in a very long time.
I pulled back from the hug and didn't know what else to say. After a moment, I feebly began making some of the usual noises. Some "Wow, this place is packed", some "I'm going to be here until such and such time", and I think I said something about the weather. The man nodded and I saw his smile fade slightly, as he began to suspect that I didn't realize who he was. Panicked, I made a quick escape, lamely blurting out, "Oh, there's so-and-so! I must go say hello." As I retreated, I cast a quick glance back over my shoulder. The man was standing there watching my back, and in a matter of seconds I saw his expression slide from puzzlement to hurt and then to a sort of sad resignation.
I felt like a complete shit. I pulled Robert to the end of the bar, out of sight. "Fuck. I have no idea who that is!"
Robert, ever the pragmatist, said, "Well, he's got to know his appearance has changed. Maybe you should find out who told him you were in town, you can figure out who he is that way."
And so I spent the next hour, peering from the far end of the room, hoping to see the man speak to somebody that I did recognize. The man sat on some beer crates that were stacked along the far wall by the pool table. He watched the guys playing pool and he watched the guys head in and out of the door that lead to the patio. A couple of times he came up to the bar and ordered a beer, then retreated to his place on the beer crates. Nobody spoke to him at the bar except the bartender. Nobody spoke to him by the pool table at all. He sat there and he drank his beer and he looked around and not one person in that crowded bar spoke to him.
The longer I watched him, the more lonely he seemed and the guiltier I felt. I felt guilty for not recognizing him and I felt guiltier for avoiding him, this man who clearly loved me. The guilt began to boil up and became a loud noise in my ears, drowning out the music. It became a sour taste in my mouth, overcoming the smoke. Finally.....I fled the bar.
In a parking lot two blocks away, behind the wheel of my rented car, I sat and wondered what to do with the remainder of the night. I needed something dramatic, something to completely pull me out of the last couple of hours. Then I spotted that man, my friend, across the street. He was moving slowly, gingerly, down the sidewalk. He moved with the cautious deliberate gait of a senior citizen, despite being in his 40's. He moved like someone who knew that a simple fall would not be very simple. He seemed so fragile. He seemed like the wind from a passing vehicle might just blow him right over.
I watched him climb into a big truck, a Ford F-150 or something like that. I tried to imagine seeing him as a robust man, swinging effortlessly into the cab, but no memories were dislodged. He put the truck in reverse and carefully moved onto the road. I watched him pull away, this man, my friend, this man whose ribs had made themselves known to my fingers as I moved them across his back during his impassioned embrace.
And then I put my head down on the steering wheel and I cried my eyes out.
UPDATE: It looks like I'll have some sort of epilogue to this story, come Monday. Stay tuned.
.
I’ve been told that AIDS is the prevailing theme of Joe.My.God. There’s sort of a “this guy talks about his dead friends a lot” perception, which I think is probably fair. While I’ve talked about AIDS in only about 10% of my now 300+ posts, I think that it is a major theme here. And I don’t think that’s weird, necessarily. AIDS is and will have been a defining theme in the lives of just about any gay man in this country, but for the ones that are middle-aged right now, AIDS is the defining theme. We’re the guys with the dead roommates and dead best friends and dead husbands.
And still, I hesitate to revisit this topic so frequently, but something happened to me in Fort Lauderdale that I want to talk about.
One weeknight I went to the Ramrod with Robert, my roommate from back in San Francisco. It was one of those nights between Christmas and New Year’s, one of those Fort Lauderdale winter nights that make it seems like everybody in the world has money, good looks and nothing planned for the next day. I adore those nights. Every bar and restaurant is packed and even the locals dare not stay home, for fear of missing something.
The Ramrod was a zoo. A riot. A panic. Music – ringingly loud. Atmosphere – chokingly smoky. Crowd – sexingly sexy. Every two steps we ran into somebody we knew. From New York. From San Francisco. From London. We’d hardly made it halfway across the room when a man grabbed me by the elbow.
“Joe! Oh, how fantastic! I had heard you were in town!” he said, beaming.
I stepped back a little bit to get a better look, maybe to take the light out of my face, I’m not sure. That’s when I saw that this man, this guy who was so deliriously happy to see me, was clearly very ill. His clothes seemed hugely oversized and hung loosely on his frame. His face was gaunt, drawn, ashen looking - even in that lighting.
He was wearing what my old college roommate and I used to call a "trip to Disney World" hat, a reference to the Make-A-Wish kids who appeared regularly on Orlando TV wearing giant baseball hats to cover up their balded-by-chemo heads. For years, my roommate and I would try on baseball caps at stores and ask each other, "How does this one look? Am I going to Disney World?" If the answer was "yes", we looked for a different hat.
I looked at this man, who was literally jiggling with the happiness of seeing me...and I had no idea who he was. Instantly, I knew that his illness had transfigured his appearance so dramatically that he was now unrecognizable to me. It was a sick and familiar realization. I stuck my hand out and with false joviality I said, "Hey! Yes! I'm here! It's wonderful to see you!"
The man laughed and slapped my hand down. "Oh, honey! What's with the handshake?" Then he pulled me close and hugged me. He hugged me long and strong. He hugged me the way you should hug an old friend you haven't seen in a long time. It seemed like the most genuinely loving hug that I'd known in a very long time.
I pulled back from the hug and didn't know what else to say. After a moment, I feebly began making some of the usual noises. Some "Wow, this place is packed", some "I'm going to be here until such and such time", and I think I said something about the weather. The man nodded and I saw his smile fade slightly, as he began to suspect that I didn't realize who he was. Panicked, I made a quick escape, lamely blurting out, "Oh, there's so-and-so! I must go say hello." As I retreated, I cast a quick glance back over my shoulder. The man was standing there watching my back, and in a matter of seconds I saw his expression slide from puzzlement to hurt and then to a sort of sad resignation.
I felt like a complete shit. I pulled Robert to the end of the bar, out of sight. "Fuck. I have no idea who that is!"
Robert, ever the pragmatist, said, "Well, he's got to know his appearance has changed. Maybe you should find out who told him you were in town, you can figure out who he is that way."
And so I spent the next hour, peering from the far end of the room, hoping to see the man speak to somebody that I did recognize. The man sat on some beer crates that were stacked along the far wall by the pool table. He watched the guys playing pool and he watched the guys head in and out of the door that lead to the patio. A couple of times he came up to the bar and ordered a beer, then retreated to his place on the beer crates. Nobody spoke to him at the bar except the bartender. Nobody spoke to him by the pool table at all. He sat there and he drank his beer and he looked around and not one person in that crowded bar spoke to him.
The longer I watched him, the more lonely he seemed and the guiltier I felt. I felt guilty for not recognizing him and I felt guiltier for avoiding him, this man who clearly loved me. The guilt began to boil up and became a loud noise in my ears, drowning out the music. It became a sour taste in my mouth, overcoming the smoke. Finally.....I fled the bar.
In a parking lot two blocks away, behind the wheel of my rented car, I sat and wondered what to do with the remainder of the night. I needed something dramatic, something to completely pull me out of the last couple of hours. Then I spotted that man, my friend, across the street. He was moving slowly, gingerly, down the sidewalk. He moved with the cautious deliberate gait of a senior citizen, despite being in his 40's. He moved like someone who knew that a simple fall would not be very simple. He seemed so fragile. He seemed like the wind from a passing vehicle might just blow him right over.
I watched him climb into a big truck, a Ford F-150 or something like that. I tried to imagine seeing him as a robust man, swinging effortlessly into the cab, but no memories were dislodged. He put the truck in reverse and carefully moved onto the road. I watched him pull away, this man, my friend, this man whose ribs had made themselves known to my fingers as I moved them across his back during his impassioned embrace.
And then I put my head down on the steering wheel and I cried my eyes out.
UPDATE: It looks like I'll have some sort of epilogue to this story, come Monday. Stay tuned.
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Paris Jesse
This handsome man is Jesse, visiting New York City from Paris. We're on a traffic island in the middle of Times Square, where he called out my blog name. Oh, those blue eyes! We had a nice chat for a few minutes, then I followed him back to his hotel and fucked his lights out. (Um..OK...that didn't happen.) Je rigole, Jesse! But look, at least my beard is growing back. Sigh.
Hugh Macleod
A couple of years ago, I was amused by Hugh Macleod's cartoons, which he drew on the backs of business cards. (Hilarious browsing: here. ) Lately, I've been amused by Macleod's marketing blog, GapingVoid.com. Check it out..
The Blurry People
On a Monday morning in New York City, it feels like half the town is moving faster than light. I call them the Blurry People. Their energy is both intoxicating and unnerving.
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Phenomenal Transwoman
TransGriot Note:In addition to my op-ed writing and novels that I'm working on, I like to write short stories and poetry. Here's a rewrite of a Maya Angelou poem called 'Phenomenal Woman'. I've always liked it and came up with transgender themed verses for it.
An MKR Poem
I am what I am,
I am what you see,
But I traveled another road to femininity
Forged by trials in a male body
My female spirit yearning to break free
Some sistahs say that this can’t be
Because I can’t create life inside of me
There’s more to being a woman you see
Than just having a baby
I’ve become a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal Transwoman
That’s me
Keep on playa hating me while you can
Or my existence you plot to ban
I still left the club with your man
And he didn’t care if my birth name was Dan
He saw the curve of my hips,
And the smile on my lips
And my personality makes his heart turn flips
I’m what he wants, ain’t that a trip?
I’ve become a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal Transwoman
That’s me
Sistah, I don’t wanna fight with you
Black womanhood to me is precious, boo
I spent night after sleepless night
Praying to God to make things right
Hoping that He would answer my prayer
To shed this cursed male body layer
Went to sleep believing that the next day
My body would be shaped in a feminine way
I’ve become a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal Transwoman
That’s me
Christine and Justina, they blazed the trail
That led to attainment of our Holy Grail
Hormones, electrolysis and SRS
Allow us to look our very best
Molded the outer body shell to be
Like the inside and now my spirit’s free
This ain’t no ‘Imitation of Life’
It’s freed me from anguish, turmoil and strife.
I’ve become a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal Transwoman
That’s me
This is a precious gift I’ve been allowed to gain
Steeped in millions of years of sweat, tears and pain
We should be higher specimens of womanhood
Using our lives to promote the greater good
Black women are the vanguard of our race
Our spirituality molds our cultural base
It’s the challenge I strive to meet every day
Because I’m deliriously happy to say
I am a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal Transwoman
That’s me.
Say It Loud: Black, Transgender and Proud
TransGriot Note: An article I wrote for a local publication, the African-American Journal. Got the runaround on it, so I submitted it to IFGE who just published it.There are a lot of words you can use to describe me. Daughter,aunt, friend, woman, sister, native Texan, Houstonian, African-American, deejay, Christian, transplanted Louisvillian, transplanted Kentuckian, activist, writer, sports fan, columnist, Kentucky Colonel, American.
Another one that would be accurate to use in my case is transgender.
Since much of the media attention that transgender people have garnered since 1953 is heavily slanted toward white transgender people, many African-Americans aren't familiar with or have preconceived notions about us. So let me take a moment to drop some science on you. There are also female to male transgender people but I'm going to focus on the male to female aspect of it
Transgender people are persons whose gender identity, that deeply held internal sense of being male or female, doesn't correspond with the body they were born with. One thing I want to stress is that gender identity and sexual orientation are two entirely separate and distinct issues. Being transgender doesn't necessarily mean that you are also gay. Current medical research has determined that one in every 250 births is a transgender person or about 3% of the population. Of the 34,772,381 people in the United States that are or identify as African-American, that translates to about 1 million of them being transgendered. Ongoing worldwide medical research into why it happens has been leaning to a biological cause for it
To become the Phenomenal Transwoman you see today, I had to adhere to the Standards of Care protocol devised by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, or HBIGDA. It's the medical association that devoted to research, understanding and treatment of gender identity disorders. I did counseling in the Houston area with a therapist trained in gender identity issues,endured several years of electrolysis to remove facial hair, changed identity documents and started hormone replacement by taking estrogen and several testosterone blockers. I was also required to live in the new gender role for a year before I would be allowed to have the gender reassignment surgery.
So as you can see, the journey to make my body match its gender role is not an easy one or a joke. I've been transitioned for 11 years and I still to this day deal with issues that crop up from time to time. Unfortunately a lot of the issues that affect me come from my own community. I love my people, our history and culture but we can sometimes be more narrow-minded, contrary and intolerant than many right wing fundamentalists. It's bad enough when African-American transpeople are disrespected by society at large. But it really hurts when the drama comes from people that share your cultural heritage. But as Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, `All my skinfolk ain't my kinfolk.'
So what is it like to be transgendered? The best way I can describe it is if you grew up female, imagine that you had all the same feelings, hopes, desires and dreams you always had growing up but you had your brother's (or some other male relative) body. Then try navigating puberty in that body knowing that something's different about you, but you can't quite put your finger on it. While you're trying to sort that dilemma out, you're being ostracized, picked on,and bullied. Then it finally gets revealed to you that you're on the wrong side of the gender fence and start making the moves to correct that situation.
I'm blessed that I came through the journey as a well-rounded spiritual person proud of who I am, what I have accomplished, what I'm going to accomplish and the person that I have evolved to become. I'm extremely happy and content with my life. I may be six-two without my heels, but that does not give you carte blanche to refer to me as `he'. I look at and think about life, love and the world around me through a feminine prism. Unfortunately thanks to anti-transgender violence many of my sisters don't get that chance and fall by the wayside.Others are emotionally wounded by the anti-transgender vitriol that comes from people in our community, their families and increasingly the pulpits of our churches
There are a lot of talented African-American transgender people like myself who are poised and ready to contribute our education and talents to uplift our race. Many of them reside in the Louisville metro area. The question I put forth to my fellow African-Americans is will you allow us the opportunity to do so?
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