So you’re a 53 year old gay man. You remember coming out to yourself in the early 1970s, when the only places you could go to buy a copy of The Advocate or the Washington Blade were seedy adult bookstores. You remember Antia Bryant. You remember when you heard Dan White had shot and killed Harvey Milk. You remember the first time you saw The Quilt. You remember making your first panel for it. You remember all the friends you lost. You remember the first March on Washington. And the Second. And the Third. You remember the day the Warren Court upheld the sodomy laws. You remember Rush Limbaugh bellyaching that Bill Clinton had allowed “human garbage” into his inaugural parade because the Gay Men’s Choral was in it. You remember Sam Nunn posing in a submarine bunk while congress debated Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. You remember the Hawaiian Supreme Court saying we could marry, and then 70 percent of Hawaiians passing a constitutional amendment saying we could not. You remember when Matthew Shepard was murdered. You remember Justice Kennedy’s words, overturning Hardwick v. Bowers…

And one Easter Sunday evening you find yourself writing a Go To Hell letter to that old friend, that once close friend, that once upon a time best friend you loved so very, very dearly, and who just sent you Yet Another EMail insisting that you need to stay discreetly closeted, and respect other folk’s cheapshit prejudices (cheapshit prejudices he’d never tolerate if they were racist ones directed at him) in order to get by in this world…and I should really shut up about my issues and stop being such a self-centered bore…

…what better song to compose that letter to then…

This One….

(This video alas does Not do the song justice…but you can stillDance to it…)

Okay…I have a temper. I admit it. But…swear to God…if some (x) friends of mine are going to keep acting like it’s still the late 70s and the only goddamn thing they know about gay people is what they learned in gym class or when they watched Richard Burton and Rex Harrison act like a couple of faggots in Staircase…well then…(ahem) I’m Not The Fucking One With A Listening Problem!

I never thought of myself as a Disco queen. There’s maybe four or five songs from the period I like at all. Thing is…music won’t make your heartaches go away, but sometimes it lets you dance over them…

We were born…born…Born to be Alive! (Born to be Alive) Yes we were born…born…born… Born to be Alive!