Holidays in America, even those that originate elsewhere, fall under three basic categories: eat-meat holidays, devour-candy holidays, and quaff-liquor holidays. We will call the last category—which includes New Year’s Eve, Cinco De Mayo, and St. Patrick’s Day—the “alcoholidays.” Most Americans associate these wonderful times primarily with drunkenness.
Other holidays may be associated with drinking, too. But the drinking is secondary. For instance, Independence Day is a drink-liquor-and-eat-hot-dogs holiday; Valentine’s Day is a drink-liquor-and-cry-into-your-pillow holiday. Memorial and Labor Days are foremost about working, dying, and barbequing.
(emphasis mine…) Yes…okay… In that case I’d have to say Valentine’s Day Is one of the Alcoholidays. It certainly is for me. So…can we move on to something a little less stressful and more cheerful? Like…oh…Income Tax Day? I filed Single again this year too…but that’s okay. If I had a same sex spouse I’d still have to file as single…
In addition to the classic drunks and meth heads and junkies, Intervention’s addicts include such wild cards as gambleholics and anorexic/bulimics. This breadth of subject matter allows the show to capture an unusually rich and varied collection of real-life human behavior, most of it fueled by hideous desperation, and the majority of it shockingly fascinating. (I wasn’t kidding about the most fucked-up shit you’ve ever seen—Hollywood stars earn Oscars for acting like Intervention subjects.) Still, it’s all drawn from real-life, and thus messier and uglier and more mundane than anything from Hollywood, and it’s as documentary footage that the show finds its greatest value. Watching Intervention’s subjects chug mouthwash and have meth-based math freakouts (“I have to find the formula for evil!”) and store vomit in plastic bags in their closets has truly expanded my understanding of the human condition.
That does it. I am going to kill my TV and go to Disneyworld…
Because They All Played Their Part In It, That’s Why…
Via Talking Points Memo… We’re on the brink of the worse recession in decades, if not since the great depression, and none of the presidential candidates are talking about how we got here. Not the republicans, for obvious reason, but also not the democrats. And even more disgustingly, not the news media. They seem strikingly…uncurious…about what caused the financial crisis the United States has blithly plunged the rest of the world into. Oh…the candidates are busy making the usual promises to help mortgage holders (read:voters) weather the storm. But what they’re not talking about, for pretty damn obvious reasons, is what they’ll do to correct the problem that made it possible in the first place. And that’s because, as this commenter on TPM points out, they’re all part of that problem…
I am appalled, though not surprised, at the complete silence by the candidates on the last few days’ events on Wall Street and the world’s stock, bond and currency markets. This has far more effect on all of our futures than racist comments by the oxygen deprived brains of some old political or spiritual leaders. I know why Clinton and McCain are not talking about it: too many of their biggest supporters had too much to do with what happened, and benefited from the deregulation of the past twenty years for which both (and their allies) had a great deal of responsibility. (Remember that Hillary stood by while her colleague Chick Schumer killed the bill to tax hedge fund managers, who ear scores of millions every year, at income, rather than capital gains, rates.) What about Obama? Is he not up to the task of educating people about what the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act did to the markets many Americans poured their retirement and college savings into? Does he know that the Federal Reserve is about to bail out bankers, investors, and outright thieves who helped drive down the dollar, and brought the credit markets to a near standstill? Does he understand the problem? I wouldn’t know.
Seventy years ago Franklin Roosevelt was able to explain this country’s and the world’s financial crises to a far less educated, and less accessible, American public. That today’s candidates are unwiling, or unable to do so, is alarming. Maybe if the media first tried to understand the problems, then asked the proper questions until answers were forthcoming or it was clear the candidates are afraid to ask them, political coverage would be more than the extreme sports coverage it has turned into.
Jonathan Rauch has a good column up concerning tomorrow’s supreme court hearing on Washington D.C.’s inane gun ban. Rauch is one of the few conservatives, and the only gay conservative I can still trust to be making his arguments in good faith. And I can actually read him with the expectation that I’ll find myself agreeing with him, at least to some degree, more often then not. Sometimes, like in this column I’m in complete agreement with him.
White. At Least Mostly. I Think. Mostly English, Some German, Some Irish, Possibly Some Native American…
That’s me. Basically a white guy. The English is on both sides of my family tree. The Irish and German are on one, and may possibly be on both sides of the family tree, but more distantly. For a while I thought there was some Scot in there too, but that as it turns out was down another branch of the family tree that I’m not descended from. I’m still trying to verify the Native American part, which would be on dad’s side. If it’s as the family says it is, then I’m 1/8th Native American, a fact I find hard to believe considering the white boy face that stares back at me in the mirror. But some people have told me it’s plausible even so. There’s a blood test out there that may confirm it, but it’s about four-hundred bucks.
I’m thinking about all this as I view the site: Stuff White People Like. Here’s a typical entry…
One thing prized by white people is making the most of situations. They like to maximize opportunities for all that they are worth. It applies to jobs, vacations, investments, books, education, and perhaps most importantly, warm days.
After a prolonged cold snap, white people are very excited at the first hint of a warm day. It is their opportunity to go back outside, to enjoy nature and thrive.
In order to get the most possible enjoyment out of these days, white people turn to one of their most trusted allies: shorts.
It is a known fact that white people believe that they can bring spring early by wearing a pair of shorts on any day that is above seasonal temperatures. This myth runs so deep that they will often wear shorts the following day when temperatures drop, at which point they will refuse to recognize that it is cold.
When you encounter a cold white person in shorts it’s best to say “I can’t wait until it’s warm enough to go windsurfing.” They will likely give you a high five.
It is their opportunity to go back outside, to enjoy nature and thrive… Right…as though there are no white people in Vail and Aspen every year taking obsessive delight in all that powdery white crystallized dihydrogen oxide stuff that precipitates out of the very air we breath when the temperatures drop below freezing and sane people are lounging by the fireplace with a nice drink. But wait…as it turns out #31 is Snowboarding.
I can see the joke here, and some of these are brutally funny. But just picture English and German humor side-by-side, and French cooking and American cooking side-by-side, and American attitudes toward sex verses Scandinavian, verses English, verses German, verses Russian, verses French and so on and so on and eventually you begin to realize there is no such thing as White People.
…which may also lead you to realize that there is no such thing as black people or yellow or red people either, but only different shades of skin that really don’t say anything at all about the person within. Which may be this person’s point after all. But on the other hand, he (or she, I’ve no idea…) seems to be aiming most of this at a particular target, which makes me wonder if they’re trying to make a point abut racism, or just venting at a group of white people they really don’t like. The butt of the jokes here are mostly urban upper middle class white yuppies and gen-x’ers, and even that target is missed as often as it’s hit.
And so on… Where’s the white redneck stuff? Where’s the white blue collar stuff. Where’s the white Office droid stuff? And none of this resembles anything I see in white Bal’mer Hon. What…no beehive hair… no plastic yard Virgin Marys… no Formstone… no Old Bay… no screen door painting??? Oh…wait…
I’ve had this blissful smile on my face ever since Friday afternoon. Certain friends of mine know exactly why, but I’ll only go into it in a general way here; party because I have to respect someone else’s privacy, but also because this touches on the story I’m telling in my cartoon series, A Coming Out Story, and I don’t want to give away too much of what happens. And…I seem to be still in the process of writing the ending anyway…
But I just have to share because I feel so good, and after posting some of those dire blogs recently I thought some of you should know that its not all Nacht und Nebel with me…
The summer of 1972, after I graduated, I went back to Woodward High School to see my English teacher, and show her a film that I’d worked on that summer with some friends. The script for it had been my last English assignment, and I thought she’d like to see the finished film. When I walked into her classroom I saw a certain someone walking out the door, and realized to my surprise that he was taking summer school.
He was class of ’73 and there was just no way he was taking English during the summer because he’d failed it during the year. He was such an academic overachiever. So I just assumed he was taking some advanced course to build up grade points for college. It didn’t dawn on me then that he was taking summer school so he could graduate early. And even had I known that, I wouldn’t have guessed what was coming. We chatted briefly and then he smiled at me and said, "It was real." Then he walked out the classroom door. It seemed odd, but I figured I’d see him again later. There was the rest of that summer still ahead of us. A few weeks later the family had moved away and their house was empty. I never heard his voice again for thirty-five years.
I found him again a couple years ago, and we’ve chatted now and then, semi-regularly, by phone and postal mail, and our chats have been friendly and sometimes we stray off onto many different topics along the way and it’s always been fun talking to him again after all these years. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I heard something in his voice I hadn’t heard since we were both kids in high school. I’d left him voice mail asking, very tentatively, if he was the guy who posted those angry notes on my blog some weeks ago, while I was down in Key West. I won’t go into the reasons why I thought it might have been him now, but my thinking was that if it wasn’t him he’d just laugh it off. No. What I got was concern that I’d thought he was angry at me.
There is a moment of discovery in all friendships, including even those which redevelop after many years of absence, when you see there really is something there, that affection is real after all and you’re not just projecting your own feelings onto someone else because you wish it was. The rest of the conversation was about this and that. It was private and I’m not going into it, but it wasn’t very deep; just the kind of casual talk friends have among themselves. But the tone of caring never left his voice.
At least, as far as photo galleries are concerned nowadays. Check out this link to a "Currently Hanging" post over at SLOG. It’s of a rather nice black and white photographic print now hanging at the McLeod Residence gallery in Seattle. Here’s the caption:
Walter Grio’s Waiting (2008), framed digital print on Kodak quality paper, 16 by 20 inches
…on Kodak quality paper. They’re talking about inkjet printer paper there. The same stuff I run through my Epson R1800 when I want to make a nice print for somebody. They don’t have to be silver prints anymore to be gallery quality. That’s how far the technology has come.
My dream of home ownership had always included space for a full function darkroom. I’d have needed space for both a "dry" and "wet" side, the dry side having enough space for a nice Beseler enlarger setup and the wet side would have had to have had space enough for a darkroom sink I could put 16 x 20 paper processing trays in plus the washing equipment. I figured it would have to be the size of a small bedroom. When I bought my little Baltimore rowhouse half its basement was already finished as a knotty pine den with a bar and I fretted about whether or not I wanted to demolish that and put the darkroom in it’s place. Thing was, I also wanted space to put in an art room, plus an office/computer room space.
Well…the front bedroom became my office and the basement den became the art room and as it turns out, all I need for a darkroom is just the little bathroom in the back of the basement which I can make light proof enough to use for loading my film tanks. I develop my film at the bar and when the negatives are dry I run them through my Nikon film scanner and into Bagheera, the art room G5 Mac and I don’t need a paper darkroom anymore which is great. I can’t make 16 x 20 prints here at Casa del Garrett, but the Epson will handle paper up to 13 inches wide and at some point, when I can find it in the budget, I intend to replace it with something like the Epson 3800 that actually will do 16 inch wide paper.
And then I can make gallery quality prints right here at home, and I don’t need that big darkroom anymore. And I don’t have to mix up gallons and gallons of chemicals and then clean it all up after I’m done and waste one sheet of paper after another to pinpoint exactly the right mix of paper contrast, exposure and development. Not only is the digital darkroom cleaner, it is more, far, far more, productive. I get it right once on the computer, either in Aperture or Photoshop, and it’s right every time I send it to the printer. And I’m here to tell you that touching out dust specks is a heck of a lot easier in Photoshop then with a brush and dye on one print after another. Oh…and dodging and burning? I do it once in the computer and get the identical results for every print I make from then on.
I still like working with black and white photographic film, and color slide film and I’ll probably never stop taking my film cameras with me places I go. But I am so glad I don’t have to deal with having a paper darkroom anymore.
Heroes Of The Culture War…(collect the entire series!)
They way the religious right stands up to our modern decadent secular morally relativistic culture to uphold the values of truth and decency is just…just…breathtaking. Sorta like the way catching a whiff of an open sewer is breathtaking…
I have a whole freak’n stable full of Culture War Heroes for you today. First, from Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters comes the usual suspects Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber, and Laurie Higgins who doesn’t want the the little snowflakes at Deerfield High School in Michigan to read the play Angels In America. Laurie, bless her heart, is responding to Superintendent of Schools, George Fornero’s fact sheet about the controversy anti-gay hatemongers have been stirring up in his schools over the play. Specifically, accusations that the play is obscene, that it is homosexual pornography, that children as young as 14 years of age would be reading it, that parents were never informed that their kids would be reading it, and that students are being required to read it against their parent’s wishes. Point by point, Fornero dispatches each of these. Higgens, responds thusly:
Students studying the play are second semester seniors in Advanced Placement English.(Translation: “We save the most offensive tripe for the most intelligent.”)
In other words, why no actually, only the oldest students in the school would be reading the play…not the 14 year olds. You can see how the rest of this is going to go can’t you…
This play has been taught to similar classes in other high schools.(Translation: “Everyone else is doing it, and we’re lemmings and conformists who cannot think for ourselves.”)
The College Board oversees all Advanced Placement testing; the class syllabus, including all readings was approved through the Board’s audit process.(Translation: “Of all the readings offered through the College Board, we’re including the most offensive.”)
Parents received information about Angels in America that specifically addressed the mature content and potential for offense. (Translation: “We’re using the inaccurate euphemism ‘mature’ for the more accurate term “obscene.”
…and so on and so on. But pay attention, really pay attention, to all the ducking she’s doing there. Fornero directly contradicts one party line after another there and Higgens responds not with facts to counter any of that, but venom. Facts don’t matter, when you’re on a mission from God…
Parents were asked to make an informed decision about the text their child would read. Two viable choices were presented: Angels in America and Albert Camus’ The Plague. They were also given the option of having their students read both texts. Letter to parents requested that they provide permission for their student to read the selected text(s). (Reality: Many parents have neither the time nor interest in reading the entirety of Angels in America; This teacher is much beloved by students, and teens are rebellious, therefore, even parents who don’t want their children to read Angels may feel the force of social pressure, compelling them to allow their children to read the provocative, controversial text.
In other words…why yes, as a matter of fact, parents were notified.
According to Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Waller, the reading and discussion of the material is not a violation of the obscenity laws, or any other laws, of the State of Illinois.(Reality: The fact that it may not technically violate obscenity laws does not mean it is not obscene.
The play is not obscene. It is not homosexual pornography. It is not required reading. Only the most gifted second semester seniors would be reading it. And parents were notified. But never mind…we’ll just keep saying that the school required 14 year old students to read obscene homosexual pornography without parental notification.
Vis:
Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois, recently assigned the pornographic book “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” to students as young as 14 as a required reading. –Mike Adams, Town Hall.
And…by the way…LaBarbra’s anti-gay web site is titled, Americans For Truth.
Atrios called them zombie lies, in that no matter how many times you shoot at them they just keep going and going. Thing is, your gay and lesbian neighbors have been seeing this behavior for a lot longer then when the Bush administration came to town. In fact, I don’t think anyone could possibly have been less surprised by the behavior of the republicans since they took over the government then the gay community. It’s not that facts don’t matter to them, it’s that Eric Hoffer was right when he said that propaganda doesn’t fool people, so much as allow them to fool themselves.
And speaking of TRUTH…
Recall that after Oklahoma representative Sally Kern’s anti-gay bile fest was made public, she immediately began claiming that she was getting death threats in her email…
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is looking into death threats against a state lawmaker who told a political group that the gay agenda poses a bigger threat to the U.S. than terrorism and "is just destroying this nation," an OSBI spokeswoman said Tuesday.
…
OSBI agents met with Kern, of Oklahoma City, at the state Capitol Monday afternoon after she received thousands of e-mails and telephone calls from people reacting to her comments to a group of Republicans about gays and their lifestyle.
"I’m not gay-bashing. But according to God’s word that is not the right kind of lifestyle," Kern said in the recorded comments.
"Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than a few decades," she said. "It is not a lifestyle that is good for this nation."
Kern said a few of the e-mails she received supported her comments but that most condemned them and some contained death threats and obscenities.
"I hear what you said and you should be killed…," said one e-mail.
Well of course when a government official starts receiving death threats it’s a matter for the police. But the problem with that is then the damn police will be wanting to see…you know…the Evidence…
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is sorting through nearly 7,000 e-mails that were sent to a state lawmaker after she said homosexuality is a bigger threat to the United States than terrorism.
Comments by Rep. Sally Kern, recorded several weeks ago but placed on the Internet site YouTube only late last week, have caused a national outcry, resulting in more than 500,000 hits on the Web site.
A fellow lawmaker contacted the OSBI on Monday and suggested that agents go through the e-mails, some of which might be threatening, OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.
Kern said Monday that she had not received death threats. On Tuesday, she said, "It’s changed," but she did not elaborate.
Brown said Tuesday, "There are a lot of e-mails to the representative that say, ‘You ought to die,’ rather than, ‘I am going to kill you.’
"I wouldn’t characterize them as death threats," she said.
No society that embraced homosexuality ever lasted longer then a couple of decades. Homosexuality is a bigger threat to America then terrorism. Homosexuals are going after two year olds in our schools. Homosexuality is a cancer on our nation that will destroy it. I’m getting emailed death threats. No…wait…don’t look at my goddamned inbox!!! …hey…I didn’t really mean death threats as such…
And via Box Turtle Bulletin…we find that Focus On The Family is Still pushing the death threats story, and just never you mind that there weren’t any…
Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern reportedly has received up to 7,000 e-mails and hundreds of phone calls — including death threats — since speaking out about homosexuality at a Republican event in January.
"According to God’s word, that is not the right kind of lifestyle," she told the group.
…But lying through your teeth is when it’s for God.
Truth. Morality. Values. The Bible. Jesus. Aren’t we so blessed to have people such as these fighting for them…
Eliot Spitzer loves him some whores! How did it ever happen? What drove him to risk his career and marriage? And what does it say about the rest of us? These are the big questions taken up by the Today Show, and look who they got to answer them! Dr. Laura Schlessinger, that’s who?
VIEIRA: Do you think women play any role in this, Dr. Laura?
SCHLESSINGER: It’s interesting. what you said about what men need — men do need validation. When they come into the world they’re born of a woman. Getting the validation from mommy is the beginning of needing it from a woman. When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like our hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. These days, women don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need.
VIEIRA: Are you saying women should feel guilty, like they somehow drove the man to cheat?
SCHLESSINGER: You know what, the cheating was his decision to repair what’s damaged, and to feed himself where he’s starving. But, yes, I hold women accountable for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.
You know…I’ll bet that’s what a lot of prostitutes tell themselves when they see that ring on a customer’s finger. I’ve no idea what is going on in that household right now, but it’s a safe bet that Spitzer’s wife is feeling all kinds of hurt right now. And here comes Mrs. Morality and Virtue to pile on heaps of self righteous scorn on…not Spitzer for cheating on his wife, but on his wife for not sexually satisfying him enough.
You really have to wonder what gutter people like Schlessinger have crawled out of. And…how big a sucker you have to be to listen to them yap, yap, yapping about morality. And…why the fuck is our news media giving slimeballs like her a forum to kick heartbroken people. I know…I know… It attracts viewers and that’s money in the bank…
Well in lieu of the kid actually coming forward, it’s not much more then rumor. But it wouldn’t surprise me. Alan Keyes. Phyllis Schlafly. Pete Knight. Charles Socarides. And this commenter brings up something I hadn’t considered, but should have in light of what my travels among Ex-Gay survivors have taught me…
I see in this foolish woman much anger and resentment. Her beliefs are challenged within herself, because if she stands by them then she must accept her part in her son being a homosexual. She isn’t strong enough to do that. Instead, she has created a paranoid delusion that there is some vast conspiracy of gays infiltrating schools and governments to turn others gay and force their lifestyles on everyone. Her subconscious has created this great gay evil so she doesn’t have to blame herself…
Now that I look at it, I can see there’s probably a lot of that going on here. The reason they’ve become warriors against the gay menace, is that if there is no gay menace, then all they have left to explain why their kids are gay is what the pulpit thumpers have been pounding into them…that its poor parenting that makes a kid gay…that they’re the ones to blame…their children are going to hell because of them…
Geeze… I could almost feel sorry for her now. Can I? Nope. Still can’t…
From turning down the Beatles to stomping Napster – the most ill-advised, foolhardy and downright idiotic decisions ever made by The Man.
I particularly liked this one, because I lived through it, and it was when I began to hate the record companies…
#19 The industry kills the single—and begins its own slow demise
In the early ’80s, the music industry began to phase out vinyl singles in favor of cassettes and later, CDs. Then, since it costs the same to manufacture a CD single as a full album, they ditched the format almost altogether. But they forgot that singles were how fans got into the music-buying habit before they had enough money to spend on albums. The end result? Kids who expect music for free. “Greed to force consumers to buy an album [resulted] in the loss of an entire generation of record consumers,” says Billboard charts expert Joel Whitburn. “People who could only afford to buy their favorite hit of the week were told it wasn’t available as a single. Instead, they stopped going to record shops and turned their attention to illegally downloading songs.” Unintended consequence The Eagles still top the album charts.
This was such a brain dead marketing decision that when I saw them start doing it I didn’t believe it. Suddenly the singles racks started getting smaller and smaller and you never saw anything new in them. Worse, now if you wanted a single you had to buy it on cassette, which wouldn’t have been so bad except the quality of pre-recorded cassettes was dismal. And I saw all this happening and thought, Oh no…they Can’t be serious… But…they were.
Imagine the soda companies deciding to get rid of all their vending machines and making you buy a six pack every time you wanted a Coke or Pepsi. Now further imagine that instead of six packs of Coca-Cola, say, they made you buy a six pack of five drinks you didn’t really like all that much, just to get the Coke you really wanted. You think their sales would go up? No…they’d go straight into the gutter. And there they’d stay, because an entire generation of kids would grow up drinking something else besides soda, and when they got older and got jobs and could afford the six packs, they still wouldn’t buy them, even if the soda companies started offering them as singles again.
When I was a kid I lived on a small allowance, and then a series of minimum wage jobs. This was back when the minimum wage was like $1.75. Yes…I flipped burgers. Lots of them. I also delivered tons of those advertising fliers that you hate finding on your door knob when you get home from work. And I bought lots of singles. Buying the 45 rpm version of a song I really liked was a no-brainer, even if I had very little money that week.
I still have them too…
That’s two "Disc-Go" carrying cases full of 45s, and some nice Beatles tunes there on the kitchen table that, alas, you can’t legally get online. The one I’ve got in my hand is Revolution (that’s my camera’s electronic shutter release in the other hand). The pre-Apple, Capital Records one is Eleanor Rigby, which I actually bought for the A side tune Yellow Submarine. Eleanor seems to get more play these days for some reason. Actually, my all time favorite cover of that song is the one Ray Charles did, and I can’t get a digital copy of that one either, though I was able to find a YouTube post of Ray singing it in concert and it’s very close.
Happily, most of my favorite old 45s are out there for me on iTunes or Amazon. It was discovering that I could get nice clean digital copies of many of my scratched up old favorites that got me into the market for digital music to start with. Prior to that I’d just been ripping from my existing CD collection. The night I discovered I could buy new copies of my old 45s I think I blew like about 40 bucks on iTunes. They make it so easy. If I could legally get digital copies of these Beatles tunes they’d all be on my iPod right now. Supposedly that’s going to happen soon.
The record companies should be kissing Steve Jobs’ ass. I have bought more music in the past year then I’ve bought in the previous decade and two things they’ve tried hard to kill are responsible for that: digital music downloads and Satellite Radio. Now, via a friend, I’ve discovered the Internet Radio service Pandora and it is just amazing. On Pandora I can specify an artist or a song I really like and the web site will serve me up a steady stream of music that is like that. I could listen for hours. I have several Pandora channels set up already for my favorite swing music, rock, light jazz, New Age and classical. And if I hear something I like, there’s a ready link I can click to get it from either iTunes or Amazon. I always check Amazon first because their downloads are all DRM free MP3s.
If the record companies don’t manage to kill Internet Radio, I’ll have another stream of music I can enjoy to listen too, and hear something new, or something old, that I might want to suddenly buy. And as long as I can easily buy the single online for under a buck, I probably will. Like, right then and there. Immediately. Do they really want to stop me from doing that? Apparently…
There must be something better then going home at the end of the day and trying to kill my mind to keep this constant heartache at bay.
The other day I ventured out to a bar on Hampden’s "The Avenue" and sat down at the bar, just not to be home alone for once. I had several drinks, chatted amicably with some of the others there, and then walked, a tad tipsy, home, feeling comfortably numb. The next day a friend actually congratulated me on going to a bar by myself. Don’t be too thrilled, I replied, I’m drinking more. Which is just why I didn’t want to become a barfly in my middle age. The next morning I woke up with a middle of the week hangover, something I won’t say I’ve never experienced before, but then it was in the comfort of my own little bar in the basement, which came with the house. I’d never have put one in of my own accord. I was raised in a Baptist household, see…
So I don’t want to do that again. At least not until my regular Happy Hour gang meets again this Friday. So I’m hitting on my humidor more. Which of course, taxes my body in its own slowly lethal way. But at least it numbs the heartache somewhat and the next morning I don’t feel it, other then perhaps a little more tiredness in the veins. I wonder what it’s doing to my heart. The physical one that is.
There must be something better. Tonight I saw something I have in common, at least remotely, with the ex-gay survivors, something I see over and over again in their words: you always get told that if you’re still gay, then you aren’t trying hard enough not to be. And as it turns out, the lonely get the same painful, hurtful message, often from well meaning friends and family. It’s always your own damn fault. Stop whining and work harder at it. And when change never comes, you just feel more guilty, more worthless. There is something wrong with you. It’s your own fault.
So here I am tapping my keyboard, as a way of therapy. Somewhere out there, the guy who left me those messages last December may read this and feel justified once more. Maybe he’ll want to twist the knife in again. Wonder if they basically feel the way I do, frankly my dear, we just don’t give a damn. If it’s who I think it is who wrote that, then he knows exactly how to make it hurt in a way I’ll never get over. Maybe he was being nicer to me then I realized at first.
My productivity is going down into the toilet at work. My little Baltimore rowhouse is a mess. I need to sit down and do my monthly bills and budget. I need to work on some of the exercises in that Advanced Java Web Services textbook. I have repairs to make on the front porch. My drafting table has been sitting idle for so long. It takes so much energy to push back constantly at the heartache and some days I just don’t have anything left. And it’s been that way with me for decades now. Decades. Lonernomore1, you should be impressed with how long I’ve managed to hold it all in and not spill my guts out to everyone.
Again its a pathetic method for sympathy. Have a great life, and yet once again you will be alone because that is what you choose…
No…it isn’t what I choose idiot, any more then I choose to be a gay man, although I’m perfectly content with that. If I choose this solitude then it stands to reason I would be content with it now wouldn’t I? I have a nice little house, a job I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams I’d ever have, that earns me a very comfortable living, I’m in reasonably good health, although if I keep on smoking and drinking that might well change. I have a nice car. I have good friends. Just no arms to come home to. I would give it all up if I could have that. I’d wash dishes forever to have that. But you can’t make bargains with fate. Fate doesn’t care.
There must be something better. I just can’t seem to find it. If it won’t find me then I’m done for. The reason you accept being gay is that it’s the only way to finally make a whole person out of yourself because it’s what you are, and true love, if you’re ever going to find it, is with another of your own sex. You accept being gay, in order to find that love. The catch of course is, that doesn’t mean you will.
The people who know me all tell me that I’d make a very worthy lover. Fate doesn’t seem to much care about that either though.
How difficult is it not to hire four thousand dollar prostitutes?
I know a lot of people who manage to make it through their daily lives without even hiring a two thousand dollar prostitute.
(Raises hand…)
Four thousand dollars. Four thousand dollars. Four thousand dollars. Man…you’re telling me people who make the kind of money that can routinely buy a four thousand dollar fuck can’t find themselves a lover?
Once in my life…once…I laid down with someone I wasn’t actually in love with. I was in my twenties and at one of my first Pride Day fairs, and let myself get picked up by a somewhat cute-ish looking guy who turned out to be a complete airhead. But I was lonely and I wanted to get picked up so I let him do it and it taught me a lesson because when we got back to his place nothing happened. It took me years to figure out why because he was actually physically my type, but see my birthday post to a certain someone below because the answer’s there. Sex with someone you are deeply, madly in love with just blows away everything else, and I was spoiled very early in life to it and I’ve wanted nothing less ever since.
For four-thousand dollars I suppose she’s pretty goddamned hot but you know what…she doesn’t love you. And…you don’t love her. And there you are, with this big fat spectacular super-sized bank account that can get you her and you’re settling for second best. Second. Best. At any price, it’s still second best and you’re an idiot. A big fat rich idiot. You could buy attention with that money. You could travel the world. You could find The One. You have the means to make the feast of life happen for you. And there you are, still scarfing down fast food. And getting fat and lazy. And ignorant. Jackass.
And doubly so if you’re married and still buying it on the side. Idiot.
If I had that kind of money I would travel the world until I found him. But I don’t. I have just enough to live a pretty comfortable middle class life. I suppose that could get me a three, if not a four figure lay from time to time if I really wanted it. But I don’t. I don’t see the sense of that and haven’t ever since I looked into a certain someone’s eyes back in 1971 and after that day money could never buy what I need and I would give up everything I have now and wash dishes for the rest of my life to have my soulmate.
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