I could spend all day unpacking this Obama statement, but I’ll try to stick to my usual terse self.
Part of the reason that we have had a faith outreach in our campaigns is precisely because I don’t think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate, even though we may disagree with them.
Aside from the adoption of right wing frames, this kind of statement is incredibly insulting to both the LGBT community who are apparently "hermetically sealed from the faith community" and to the "faith community" which is apparently defined as nothing more than a bunch of anti-gay bigots. Not to mention the Democratic Party, which apparently includes no actual religious people.
Obama gets smaller and smaller every day doesn’t he? Of course, this statement wasn’t directed at the gay community, but at the so-called ‘faith’ based voters. You know…the ones who keep insisting that the United States is a Christian Nation. No. It’s a nation where everyone, Christians included, have freedom of worship. And that’s precisely because the government isn’t supposed to take sides in matters of faith. Which is just what the religious right wants it to. So the only freedom of worship Americans will have, is the freedom to be a right wing Christian.
I guess Obama thinks he can woo enough of these away from the republican ranks that it won’t matter how many gay voters he slaps. He did it there again, speaking to the religious right, in the terms it understands. If we’re talking about people of faith, as opposed to the people who wear the label "People Of FAITH" on their sleeves along with "I’M A GODLY PERSON BOW DOWN BEFORE ME YOU HELLBOUND HEATHEN YOU", then of course a good many, if not most gay people are also people of faith. Never mind how often and how loudly the religious right bellyaches that homosexuals are anti-Christian. When I was working the Weekly Community Events board at the Gay and Lesbian Information Bureau BBS (GLIB), about half of all the notices, and there were tons of notices, were for gay accepting, gay friendly, religious worship services. Every, and I want to emphasize that, Every denomination was represented. There were Catholics. There were Baptists. There were Quakers. There were various Mennonite sects. There were Mormons. There were Unitarians. There were notices from various gay friendly Synagogues. In addition to a host of non-Judeo-Christian faith services listed. Don’t tell me that gay people are not a living part of that all embracing rainbow colored body that compasses people of faith.
And don’t tell me that Obama doesn’t know this. When he adopts a right wing frame for the issue of religious faith in America, he knows exactly what he’s doing. And I don’t believe for a second that his taking on an ex-gay gospel singer was an accident either. My hunch is Obama thought he could dog whistle to black homophobic conservatives. It didn’t work and now he has to take a stand and he’s Still dog whistling to them.
[Update…] from the New York Times report on the concert…
COLUMBIA, S.C. — At Barack Obama’s gospel concert here last night, more than 2,000 black evangelicals were singing, waving their hands and cramming the aisles _ most enthusiastically when Donnie McClurkin, the superstar black gospel singer, decried the criticism he has generated because of his views that homosexuality is a choice.
…
He approached the subject gingerly at first. Then, just when the concert had seemed to reach its pitch and about to end, Mr. McClurkin returned to it with a full-blown plea: “Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have suffered the same feelings,” he cried.
“God delivered me from homosexuality,” he added. He then told the audience to believe the Bible over the blogs: “God is the only way.” The crowd sang and clapped along in full support.
And the gay white minister Obama invited to the concert after the controversy errupted…? Ah…yes…
The Obama campaign had appeared to be caught off guard by the reaction to inviting Mr. McClurkin in the first place, and it may have been surprised tonight by the degree to which the singer focused on himself. The other speakers and singers had avoided referencing the controversy. Even an openly gay minister whom Mr. Obama had invited after the fact to try to appease his gay and lesbian critics spoke so early that few people heard him.
CNN said the white gay preacher, Rev. Andy Sidden, gave a short prayer at the beginning of the concert when the auditorium was less then half full, and then he left. I wonder if his prayers were answered.
Elections Must Be Coming Up…I See The Republicans Are Dusting Off Their Gay Menace Fliers
Via Pam’s House Blend… What does a vulnerable republican politician do when a gay challenger threatens to unseat him…? Why…make him look like he’s a predatory homosexual child molester of course…
In the neighboring state to the north, the District 39 race in Virginia is getting ugly, thanks to Republican State Senator James J. "Jay" O’Brien Jr. In a desperate bid to pander to the wingnut vote, he decided that sending out a flyer that says, among other things, that his Democratic opponent
"George Barker wants to take time away from core academic subjects like math, science, and reading to teach children to accept the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lifestyle (GLBT)."
It’s no surprise that this flyer (PDF) was paid for by the Republican Party of Virginia.
What would have surprised me is if the republicans hadn’t stooped to it. This is the party that simply cannot win elections without the bigot vote.
It’s clear that the right wing is ratcheting up the homo-hate as Barker has received the endorsement of the Washington Post.
Republican Sen. James J. "Jay" O’Brien Jr. is an affable incumbent, but his scant command of policy and legislative issues has failed to impress. His Democratic rival, George L. Barker, a health-care planner, would make a far more able, detail-oriented and effective senator in this district straddling the Fairfax-Prince William line.
Barker also has strong support from educators (I’m sure O’Brien feels they are part of the Homosexual Agenda anyway).
More from the heinous mailer — he certainly telegraphs his priorities:
George Barker went on to say that he would vote for legislation that would teach Virginia students about the "GLBT" lifestyle during school hours — regardless of their family’s own beliefs. Barker also said he would "guarantee" his support for "GLBT" clubs in public schools.
…George Barker worked very hard in terms of opposing the marriage amendment, and be strongly in favor of gay rights, be [sic] he shouldn’t impose his values on elementary school children.
A question for O’Brien – I suppose that kids in your state don’t need to know about tolerance and families that are different, you know — like that of little Samuel Cheney, a resident of Virginia and son of loyal Republican Mary Cheney.
Here’s what the republican party is sending to voters in Virginia, to make sure they get the message that the homo running against their boy wants to molest their children…
They’re not calling the gay candidate a child molester outright, but look at the imagery in that flier and tell me that they’re not fear mongering a gay man and child sexual abuse there, right there, with that close up image of the back of that small boy and that shirt collar pulled down the back of his neck, right up in the reader’s face.
It’s despicable. But that’s how republicans win elections these days. From the gutter. Problem is, that’s also how they govern. The party that thinks the only way it can win elections is fear mongering, also seems to think it can eavesdrop on Americans at will, without all that rule of law stuff getting in the way. The party that thinks the only way it can win elections is to appeal to the lowest prejudices within us, also seems to think that it can govern just fine thank-you, in complete secrecy and without any accountability. The party that thinks the only way it can win elections is to call gay men child molesters, seems to think George Bush unilaterally drag the country into whatever war he likes, and shovel your kids into it. You get the government you vote for. You vote your fears, you get a government that makes sure you have lots to be afraid of.
I got my first alert from the Mercedes this morning. Yes…I’ve been driving it to work, even though I can just walk it. Put it down to new car love. In the state I’m in, I’d drive it to the mailbox on the corner to post a letter.
Anyway…I was wondering how the driver alert system worked. The speedometer has a central digital display and can show the driver all kinds of information about the car, and you can drill through a bunch of menus to tell it what you want it to display while you’re driving. Right now I just have it set to show me the regular and trip odometers, but it can show me everything from the direction I’m traveling and the name of the street I’m on to how many mile’s per gallon I’m getting. Supposedly, that’s where all the car’s various system alerts appear too.
It was cold this morning here in Baltimore, and I let the car warm up while I squeegeed the dew off the windows. I’d tossed my jacket in the back seat but didn’t properly close the door. When I finished with the windows I tossed the squeegee back in the trunk and got in the car. As soon as I started driving down the road a "ding" like that sound in an airliner when the Fasten Your Seat Belts sign comes on, came out of all twelve speakers of the stereo system and the entire central display in my speedometer lit up red. There was an overhead view of the car drawn in the middle of it, with the back driver’s side door open. I think there may have been a warning too across the bottom that a door had been left ajar, but I didn’t read it because the sight of the graphic was enough. I pulled right back over and got out and shut the door.
Nice. It got my attention but it didn’t slap me in the face doing it. Some cars are just plain rude about that sort of thing, and some are so polite about it you never even notice the little red warning light on the display until way after its too late. The Mercedes will tell me things like when a light has burned out, or my tire pressure is low, or when and what routine mantainance I need to have done, so I was wondering how much of a nag it might get to being. But this is good.
So I was driving my car here and there, and as I sometimes do, I took a few detours down old familiar roads, into old familiar neighborhoods. I was looking for shades I just knew would be there: A few kids happily enjoying each other’s company. I would find them hanging out on a corner, or down a driveway, or walking around the neighborhood streets, chatting idly, laughing, getting ripped, living on small budget, but loving life. One of them would be a slight young gay guy with my face, probably bearing a smile, or at least a grin. Happy. Content in their company. Completely oblivious to the disaster somewhere over the horizon, that began on election day 2000, in the state of Florida. I’m torn between wanting to grab him by the shoulders and scream a warning in his face, or just let him go and be happy while he can.
I need a door. Something I can walk though every now and then when I need it, and it takes me somewhere else. Back to a place before George Bush and Karl Rove and
…and the Federal Marriage Amendment and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and gay teens being dragged into ex-gay therapy and the sight of so many Americans willing, eager even, to live in a totalitarian state so long as it promises to keep them safe from every bogymen the republican noise machine waves in their faces. When I was still certain that somewhere, someday, I would find the love of my life. When I still believed I could find him without having to immerse myself in the urban gay scene. When I could still trust most of my straight friends. When we could all just hang out together, get ripped, go for a walk around the neighborhood together laughing, chatting, and getting more ripped, and I didn’t have to wonder what they’d do if they had to choose between me, and politicians who promise them tax cuts, while vowing to keep gay Americans second class citizens. Some bright, happy time please, before the day that I found out what I was to them, was the "some", in "some of my best friends are…"
It wasn’t real. I know that. But there was a time when I thought it was. And I was happy then. It was a a false security in their company, but I’m 54 years old now, and it gets harder and harder as time goes on, to just kick back, let down and toss your hair and enjoy yourself like you don’t have a care in the world with friends you’ve known since grade school. I can’t even remember most of those moments now without knowing what I know now…that it wasn’t what I thought it was.
I wish I could go back and forget that I know what was coming…for just a while. Christ Almighty I would so much love to have that door to walk through…just every now and then. Kahlua just isn’t doing it.
The delight of blogging is when you find someone smart, really smart, whose mind just likes to roam here and there. Saw this today on Brad DeLong’s blog…
Abraham Lincoln at the 1859 Wisconsin State Fair:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/fair.htm: A few men own capital; and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital, hire, or buy, another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class — neither work for others, nor have others working for them. Even in all our slave States, except South Carolina, a majority of the whole people of all colors, are neither slaves nor masters. In these Free States, a large majority are neither hirers or hired. Men, with their families — wives, sons and daughters — work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hirelings or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, labor with their own hands, and also buy slaves or hire freemen to labor for them; but this is only a mixed, and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. Again, as has already been said, the opponents of the "mud-sill" theory insist that there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. There is demonstration for saying this. Many independent men, in this assembly, doubtless a few years ago were hired laborers. And their case is almost if not quite the general rule.
The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor — the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all — gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. If any continue through life in the condition of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular misfortune. I have said this much about the elements of labor generally, as introductory to the consideration of a new phase which that element is in process of assuming. The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated — quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small per centage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive. From these premises the problem springs, "How can labor and education be the most satisfactory combined?"
By the "mud-sill" theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be — all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all. Those same heads are regarded as explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp places, as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A Yankee who could invent strong handed man without a head would receive the everlasting gratitude of the "mud-sill" advocates.
But Free Labor says "no!" Free Labor argues that, as the Author of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and hands should cooperate as friends; and that that particular head, should direct and control that particular pair of hands. As each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mouth — that each head is the natural guardian, director, and protector of the hands and mouth inseparably connected with it; and that being so, every head should be cultivated, and improved, by whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge. In one word Free Labor insists on universal education…
Thus the first republican president makes a slam-dunk case for universal education. Stand this man beside the entire republican lineup of presidential hopefuls and you see how far the republican party has declined. But most of that decline has come about since their moses, Ronald Reagan. They’d ride Lincoln out of the party on a rail if he was running today. Re-read that second to last paragraph and tell me that’s not precisely the attitude and policy of the republican party today.
It probably wouldn’t take Lincoln very long to determine the root cause of the republican decline either. Again, from DeLong’s blog…
Paul Krugman – Op-Ed Columnist – New York Times Blog: So, people ask why, in The Conscience of a Liberal, I downplay the role of issues other than race in swinging the political balance in favor of the GOP. The answer, basically, is the math: once you take the great southern switch into account, there isn’t much left to explain.
In some correspondence with Larry Bartels, whose “What’s the matter with “What’s the matter with Kansas?”" is must reading for anyone trying to understand modern American political, economy, the issue of how the Democrats lost white males came up. Larry points out that you really need to separate out the South. Here’s what he had to say:
Unless you have a peculiar nostalgia for the racially coercive Democratic monopoly of the Jim Crow era, it makes sense to focus on the rest of the country. There, the Democratic share of the two-party presidential vote among white men was 40% in 1952 and 39% in 2004.
White men didn’t turn against the Democrats; Southern white men turned against the Democrats. End of story.
That pretty much hits it on the head. There is no abandonment of the democratic party by white males now and never was, except in the south, and Lyndon Johnson saw that coming the day he signed the voting rights act. When you look at the history of nearly all the right wing moral crusaders, from Jerry Falwell on, it becomes even more clear. They’re nearly all southerners, and nearly all of them started out as passionate segregationists. It was loosing their school’s tax except status over racial discrimination, that drove the religious right into politics. They only picked up on the abortion issue and the homosexual menace when they saw that those issues motivated the rubes and drove wedges into the democrat’s grassroots. But it wasn’t about those issues. It was never about those issues. It was always about race.
Lincoln would probably understand right away what has happened to his party, if not why it happened. And he’d probably weep for it, and for America.
So I took a drive in my new car last weekend, up to Stroudsburg PA, to visit an old grade school friend. It was beautiful weather for it, particularly Sunday morning and afternoon. The skies were clear and blue and the trees in the eastern Pennsylvania mountains had their autumn colors on. I went to watch my friend Glenn, who does sound for the Sherman Theater, manage a 34 band show. Afterward, he invited me up to a mountain resort lodge Sunday, where he does Chef duty, to see his kitchen operation and have lunch. So I not only got fed well, I got an opportunity to take the Mercedes down some lovely, winding mountain backroads, just as the leaves were turning
The car showed me that it was everything I’d hoped for in a touring sedan. The road’s rough patches were smoothed out nicely, and yet it never once lost that solid Mercedes road feel. As I was still in the break-in period I didn’t push the car too much up the grades or around the bends, but it behaved nicely and with a sense that there was plenty of power and cornering ability I’d yet to tap. The driver’s seating was firm and comfortable and I drove back to Baltimore from the lodge for four and a half hours straight without feeling any fatigue. I always had a good sense of the road around me, and traffic, as I drove. The sideview mirrors on this car are huge compared to the Honda I just had, especially in the vertical axis and adjusted properly there were no blind spots to worry about. I always felt that I had a complete grasp of the highway conditions around me. The car hides nothing from you, and yet it smooths everything out and you feel relaxed and alert as you drive. Every control you might want is handy, every gage and display readable at a quick glance, and the car responds easy and certain to your every touch of the steering wheel and pedal; yet you always have a sure, solid feel for the road. Best drive I’ve ever owned, hands down.
A few times I had to accelerate quickly to get past some rude drivers. I didn’t stomp down on the accelerator, but instead manually down shifted by tapping the shift lever sideways. The car down shifted very smoothly, and without any appreciable motor roar, and though I was still trying to keep the revs down during the break-in period, the car gave me all the power I needed to handle those situations. The v-6 was smooth and amazingly quiet the whole time. In part probably because it practically lives in its own little compartment within the hood compartment. Acceleration just happened. I’ve heard complaints about the new 7 speed transmission down shifting too aggressively but I never encountered that. Probably because I was trying to keep my revs down. But I’ll likely rely more on the shifter for that sort of control when I need it then the accelerator. I’ve driven sticks for so long it’s almost second nature. Not having a clutch is what I’m having to adapt to.
The stereo kept me good company all the time, the Sirius satellite signal never dropping out along the mountain roads. I had the CD changer full and my iPod attached to the connector in the glove compartment. The 450 watt Harmon-Kardon stereo system sounds really, really nice. I never appreciated how a high end stereo might actually be worthwhile inside an automobile. But in a car as quiet inside as the Mercedes, it’s actually worth having.
About the iPod adapter: Connecting an iPod to a high end car stereo like the Harmon-Kardon, you really know that it’s not a high end playback device. The difference between it and the CD player, and for that matter the Sirius signal, sometimes becomes painfully clear when listening to a song that sounded just fine in the ear buds, only to have the Harmon-Kardon mercilessly expose its every audio flaw. I have some songs on the iPod that I’d ripped long ago with a low end PC mp3 converter and I could instantly tell which ones those were listening to them played through on the car stereo. What surprised me was how variable the sound quality on the stuff I’d bought from iTunes was. Some of it matched the quality of the Sirius signal easily. Some of it sounded dull and flat. There were variations in sound level that forced me to turn up the volume on the Harmon-Kardon and then I heard how noisy the iPod’s circuitry was.
The Nav system gave me a good sense of the backroads I was traveling along, neatly augmenting the directions to the Lodge, and then later back to the Interstate, that my friend Glenn gave me. I have never had a problem finding my way from one end of this country to the other using paper road maps, and until I saw the Nav system on a friend’s Acura in operation, I’d always figured them to be for folks who couldn’t find their way to their own front door without help. But seeing the Acura’s Nav system, it occurred to me that it could be helpful to have a roadmap display on the dash, showing me exactly where I am, so I’m not always having to pull off the highway and check my road atlas if I get a bit bewildered. What I discovered last weekend is that a Nav system really helps when you’re driving through a knot of highway interchanges that you’re unfamiliar with. And on long drives down the highway, it gives you plenty of warning when your next turn or exit is coming up, or when the highway is splitting off up ahead, and you need to be in the left or right lane. That’s really handy.
On the way back home from Stroudsburg, the Nav system guided me easily through the highway knots around Harrisburg. I barely had to pay attention to the highway signs. I just watched the traffic around me, which was moderately heavy, and listened to my invisible co-pilot’s directions. It was really nice having it there.
The only irritating downside to the Nav system I found, is that if you decide to pull off the highway for gas or snacks it quickly turns into a nag, frantically telling you to turn around, Now, and get back on course. It thinks you’ve made a wrong turn and it’s trying to be helpful and get you back on track again. But it’s really annoying when all you want to do is get gas and take a bladder break. I learned to quickly flip through the Nav menu to the Cancel Route Guidance menu selection. There should be a Nav system guide pause button somewhere on the steering wheel. Of course, I could probably cancel the Nav system guidance with a voice command, but I’m still struggling with the voice command system because…
…There are way too many voice commands to easily remember. What’s good about a well designed menu system is that you don’t have to remember everything, just the top level stuff. Then you drill down to what you want. The Voice Command system doesn’t work that way, and I’m still trying to figure out how it Does work. For instance, when I’m in the Nav system, I can say "Radio" and the radio will come on, but I’m always forgetting how to get the satellite music system on. Is the command "Sirius", or "Satellite" or "Satellite Radio"…??? Sitting here writing this without the manuals to look at, I’m still forgetting it. I’m sure in time I’ll have it all down pat, but for now it’s very annoying to always be giving a voice command that the Command system doesn’t understand, and then trying another one and another one and then just giving up and going through the video screen menus with the joystick instead.
Luckily, with the console joystick, navigating through the on-screen menus is a snap. But what’s useful about the voice command system is that you can theoretically use it without having to take your eyes off the road in a situation where you don’t want to do that. So at some point I need to get better at using the voice commands. There’s an "individualization" system setup menu item that I’ll probably have to go through sometime. It’s supposed to allow you to teach the voice command recognition system your own voice. Maybe that’ll improve things.
But the drive’s the thing…much more then the bells and whistles. And the Mercedes drives like a dream come true. It’s no high powered sports car, and it’s no lithe little Lotus or Porche, but I’m a four door sedan kinda guy and it’s everything I ever wanted in a road trip car. The passenger cabin is plenty roomy enough for me and some friends, and its decadently comfortable. It’s got a big enough trunk, and it feels and handles great on the highway and the backroads. And it’s loaded with all those passenger safety features Mercedes-Benz is famous for. Every little detail of comfort and style in the car, also seems to have been designed with a safety feature in mind. The wood trim inside the cabin is backed with aluminum so in an accident it won’t splinter. The Active Body Control System will pre-tension the seatbelts if it detects an emergency maneuver. The car came with a spare set of windshield wiper blades and a first-aid kit. I’ll know more about the reliability factor as I go along, but initial reports on the new C300 class seem to be very good. I could only wish it got better gas mileage and drank regular instead of premium. But I knew what I was in for there when I bought a luxury car and I’ll just pay the extra cost. I don’t have to drive to work every day, so the road trips really aren’t all that bad on my budget.
On the dusty top floor of a former squat in East Berlin the collection is growing with each passing week. At first glance it looks as if someone had assembled the remnants of a flea market. A bicycle hangs from the wall, while rings, teddy bears, socks, fluffy pink handcuffs and various ornaments are on display.
But the junk, unwanted though it may be, is far from being meaningless detritus. Each of the objects, many of them rather humdrum, were once full of meaning for someone. They are the leftovers of love affairs that didn’t work out.
…
"We developed the idea of the ‘Museum of Broken Relationships’ where we can put the objects, get rid of them and not stay connected with that energy, but keep them and preserve them from oblivion," co-founder Vistica told Reuters.
And the exhibition is supposed to act as a kind of therapy, so that instead of destroying objects they can be removed to the museum to "convalesce" and participate in a "collective emotional history."
Perhaps the show has snowballed because it reveals just how universal the theme of lost love can be. "The more personal it is, I think, the more successful it is," Vistica told Reuters. "The response of the people really proves that. They recognized it as something sincere."
The cathartic effect is evident in some of the explanations that accompany the displays (see box above). A prosthetic limb from a war veteran who fell in love with his social worker is described as having "endured longer than our love: It was made of better material." A pen is on display which was once used to write "romantic crap he didn’t deserve."…
I have some things I could contribute. A roll of 35mm film that belongs to my first high school crush. A ticket stub to see the fuelers race at Capital Raceway. An LP phono cartridge alignment tool. A golden clip-on earring. But probably the saddest one of all is the stuffed bear I bought, about a week before the guy I bought it for told me he was seeing someone else. Poor little guy has sat on one of my bookcases ever since, waiting for the arms that were supposed to hold him, and only having me. Problem is, I don’t want to get off of any of these artifacts. I tend to collect my own history as I go along. It’s why I’ve been able to unearth tons of stuff from my high school years out of my storage bins…much to the delight of my fellow reunion committee members. No, I have nothing to donate to such a museum. But I’d probably go visit the collection if it ever came my way. Sometimes knowing you’re not alone helps.
You’d think that the managers of a gay bar would understand that the climate of violence toward gay people can make their establishments seem to gay bashers, as a waterhole to a leopard…somewhere they know their prey will be. You’d think that they’d keep the safety of their customers (you know…the folks who pay their bills) in mind. You’d think that, at minimum, when a gay man is bashed right at their doorstep, that they’d give the man shelter inside and not have their bouncers throw him back out to the wolves. You’d think…
Two guys stood in front of us hugging. The usual New York traffic passed without dismay until the white Mercedes C-class appeared. The tall bald guy leaned out of the window yelling and screaming obscenities that no one would be proud of—the usual clichés spit towards gay men. It seemed like an incident that could easily be brushed off until he got out of the car. He came toward us, still yelling. He was angry, as if we had personally offended his entire being.
All I saw was a tall muscular man coming toward my friend and these other unsuspecting guys in the path of what seemed to be a disaster. He continued to yell, the couple broke their hug.
My instinct told me that I was the most beefy of all of the guys standing in the breezeway—a silly notion seeming I only stand 5 foot 6. He came within inches. I tried to ward him off by telling him that no one is trying to mess with him. I pleaded for him just to go away. He spit in my face and I knew that I was no match for him. I immediately ran toward the bouncers of the gay club. I got behind the huge door man. The guy was quickly in pursuit behind me, fired up. Out of nowhere a punch landed on the right side of my face. It was the basher’s friend from the passenger seat. I swung, at which point the basher kicked me in the stomach. The bouncers quickly yelled at me to get in the club.
I tried to keep my composure, but ended up in the bathroom stall, crying, ashamed that I wasn’t able to protect myself, my friend or my fellow gay brothers. And then the worst happened…
To my dismay, one of the bouncers found me and told me I had to leave. Leave, I said. I’ve been gay bashed by a stranger. I was protecting my friends and in turn was socked and kicked in the stomach. He stayed firm to his orders. As I walked up the stairs of Splash Bar NYC, I saw one of the managers. I pleaded with him not to kick me out because I was afraid the guy and his friend were still out there. His response: "I don’t know anything about that!"
Before I knew it I was outside and I started to tremble at the sight of a white Mercedes parked down the street. And then a hand grabbed my back and pushed me toward a cab. "Get in, I’m taking you home," my friend said. I hurried inside trying not to cry before the driver pulled off.
As I write this I don’t know what hurts worse: My stomach or my eye or the fact that a gay bar kicked me out and refused to help me. I’ve spent the past five years trying to empower gay men, hoping with all my heart that we can one day roam the streets without being afraid, and here I sit at my computer, hurting physically and psychologically. If we can’t protect ourselves who will? In five years I’ve managed to post nothing but positive comments about any establishment or gay product. During this time my mindset was that there is enough negativity out there for me not to join in and down other gays. Yet I sit here wondering why I even bother when a gay bar (albeit a tragic one called Splash Bar NYC) threw me out to the wolves.
Dig it. A gay basher vomits a string of obscenities at a couple he sees hugging…a thing opposite sex couples do in public every fucking day…and when doing that doesn’t fulfill him enough he and his passenger jump out of their car and one of them proceed to beat the crap out of the a gay guy who tried to protect the couple from being attacked. The gay guy takes refuge in the Splash Bar, only to be almost immediately thrown out back out the door. Luckily for him the attackers were gone by then.
The Splash Bar website has an "Under Construction" page up. No word yet on whether or not their conscience is still under construction too, or when it might be completed. But they have a MySpace profile Here. This reminds me of the contemptible indifference the bathouses gave to the safety of their customers during the initial AIDS outbreak in the early 1980s. But more then that, the history of the institution of the gay bar is more one of preying on the gay community, rather then catering to it, and that’s something we all need to keep in mind as we choose which businesses to patronize, where to spend our hard earned 23 percent less income then the average heterosexual makes.
Back before Stonewall, before the modern gay rights movement, most gay bars were run by organized crime gangs who payed off the local police in order to stay open and serve alcohol in a day when most states and cities had laws forbidding bars from serving known homosexuals. Back when any same sex dancing on the premises could get a bar closed down and it’s patrons arrested, the only gay watering holes that could stay open for very long were the ones run by mobsters who knew which hands to grease and when. Those bars basically treated their gay customers like dogshit, because they knew there were no other places where we could gather, other then back alleys. They served watered down bathtub booze and charged premium prices for it. The bars were pest holes, but they were all we had, and their owners couldn’t have cared less about the people who spent their money there. They didn’t have to. We had nowhere else to go.
Times have changed. I’m sure many gay establishments now are operated by people who feel a close connection to the community, and want us all to prosper and have the good life and enjoy ourselves together. Chasing the Almighty Dollar doesn’t necessarily mean treating your customers like rubes. In fact, that’s always a short sighted path to nowhere. Just ask Detroit. We have come a long way from the days of the seedy mob run bar. But it’s worth remembering that the people who serve us drinks, don’t necessarily give a rat’s ass about us, about our safety, about our basic human dignity. Some of them just want our money. If they could pluck dollar bills off our cold dead gay bashed bodies they would, and spend it the next day on their own cheap thrills without a twinge of remorse or care. You don’t throw someone who’s just been gay bashed back out the door to face his attackers again if you have a single solitary shred of conscience in you. However, if you’re afraid that giving refuge to a gay bashing victim inside your establishment might spoil the atmosphere you’ve so carefully worked to create, and maybe make people spend less money, or even worse, go somewhere else where they might feel safer, then out the door he goes like yesterday’s trash, and your conscience before it.
[Update…] From the comments to Ramone’s blog post…
I am so sorry about the bashing aspect of your story, but the only thing that I wanted to add is that SBNY has a tendency to REMOVE any drama from the bar at first glance. They did it to my partner who slipped on the steps and cut his had on a glass. The wrapped his hand up and told us to get in a cab. In retrospect – they never gave us an apology nor and sympathy or compassion, they just wanted us out. SBNY is lacking compassion and the days where is used to be a good ole neighborhood bar are gone. Now they just want gay dollars for shitty small watered down drinks, and they have no sense of community.
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Gay men, but not lesbians, face discrimination at work, earning up to 23 percent less than married men in some jobs, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Whittemore School of Business and Economics spent two years analyzing labor and wage data from 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples collected by a 2004 U.S. census.
They found that gay men working in management and blue-collar jobs make less money than straight men due to discrimination by their employers
"It was surprising to see how consistent it was that gay men tended to be more discriminated against in traditionally heterosexual male dominated professions — blue collar, labor, and management too," researcher Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics at UNH, told Reuters.
The study found that gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman.
They looked at the top 10 occupations that gay men and lesbians tend to be in and found this discrimination showed up most clearly in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building and grounds cleaning, maintenance, and construction.
The only thing that surprises me about this are the figures for lesbian households, because when I was doing volunteer work for a gay community service group, the lesbian households pretty consistently made less money then anyone else. At the time I always put the higher income levels of gay male couples verses lesbian couples down to the combined income of two males verses two females. Female wage equality back then was worse then it is now, but they’re still not making equal money overall with their male counterparts.
But that gay men are pretty relentlessly discriminated against in the workplace surprises me not one iota. I lived that myself for most of my life, and particularly at the critical time in my life when I was just starting to make my way in the workforce. I was ushered out of job after job when my sexual orientation became known to my managers. Mind you…I was never loud about it. But I also refused to actively closet myself either. I mostly just kept quiet about my love life and just tried to get by. But what you have to realize about that is that heterosexuals, particularly heterosexual males, are always bringing up their love lives at work…whether it’s family matters, this and that about the wife or children, or the weekend they just spent with their girlfriends.
I used to smirk whenever some homophobic bigot would go on a rant about teh gays keeping their sex lives out of the workplace because that kind of thing is inappropriate there anyway and if teh gays just kept quiet about all that that they’d get along just fine, because my experience is that usually by the end of the first day at a new job I knew exactly what heterosexuals were married, how many kids they had, and which ones that weren’t married had a girlfriend and which were single and looking, because they just talked about their personal lives as a matter of course. Everyone does. So you notice when somebody isn’t. The single guy who never talks about who he’s dating, sticks out like a sore thumb and it doesn’t take long before the gay rumors about him start flying. Then it’s either you close the closet door on yourself and lie through your teeth about some imaginary girlfriend, or you admit it or just don’t respond to the rumors and either way you’re labellings yourself as gay right there because almost no heterosexual male is going to just let people wonder if he’s gay or not.
So it’s either hide in the closet or let them know one way or another. And then comes the consequences. For me, it was never being able to hold down a job for longer then a year. I eventually gave up trying to find a staff position anywhere, and just began working various jobs on a freelance basis. I struggled for years, just to be able to pay rent on a room in someone else’s house and take the bus to and from work.
Now I’m working for an employer that takes diversity in the work force very, very seriously and I am finally able to live a nice, middle class life. I’m good at what I do. I give 100 percent to The Institute every day I work here. I earn my paycheck. I have a nice little Baltimore rowhouse now. I just bought the car of my dreams. I am not fabulously well off by any means but I’m living comfortably in a nice house, in a nice city neighborhood within walking distance of work. I’m able to help out with things in my community, support other folks who need it now. Life is good. All I ever needed was a chance. But for so long, so very very long, I couldn’t have that chance. Because I am gay. And that’s why we need laws protecting us from discrimination.
They won’t work perfectly of course…bigots will always find a way to weasel around them. But they’ll make a big difference in our lives. And that means prejudice in America wastes a little less of America’s human capital. What you have to understand about bigots is that for all the patriotic posturing they really don’t give a good goddamn about their country. They would rather live in an America that was poorer economically and more vulnerable strategically, then live in an America that was prosperous and secure, if that means they have to get off the backs of the people they hate.
The name "syphilis" was coined by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro in his epic noted poem, written in Latin, entitled Syphilis sive morbus gallicus (Latin for "Syphilis or The French Disease") in 1530. The protagonist of the poem is a shepherd named Syphilus (perhaps a variant spelling of Sipylus, a character in Ovid’s Metamorphoses). Syphilus is presented as the first man to contract the disease, sent by the god Apollo as punishment for the defiance that Syphilus and his followers had showed him. By the addition of the suffix -is to the root of Syphilus, Fracastoro derived a new name for the disease, which he also used in his medical text De Contagionibus ("On Contagious Diseases").
Until that time, as Fracastoro notes, syphilis had been called the "French disease" in Italy and Germany, and the "Italian disease" in France. In addition, the Dutch called it the "Spanish disease," the Russians called it the "Polish disease," the Turks called it the "Christian disease" or "Frank disease" (frengi) and the Tahitians called it the "British disease." It was called "Great pox" in the 16th century to distinguish it from smallpox. In its early stages, the Great pox produced a rash similar to smallpox (also known as variola). However, the name is misleading, as smallpox was a far more deadly disease. The terms "lues" and "Cupid’s Disease" have also been used to refer to syphilis. In Scotland, Syphilis was referred to as the Grandgore. Because of the outbreak in the French army, it was first called morbus gallicus, or the French disease. It was also called The Black Lion.
The French Disease. The Spanish Disease. The Italian Disease. The British Disease. The Polish Disease. The Christian Disease. Sound familiar? Try this: AIDS is The Gay Disease. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard that one by now. "The poor homosexuals", said Pat Buchannan back in 1983, "they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution." "Homosexuals", said Pat Robertson on his 700 Club, "want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."
Disease is always caused by the people we hate. It always wears their face.
So as you probably know by now (because I’ve been bending everyone’s ear about it ever since October 12), I bought a brand new Mercedes-Benz. But no…you don’t just buy a car when you buy a Mercedes…you buy into a…culture. Sort of like another product line I’ve bought into recently…
So I drove my new car to Strudsburg PA, last weekend, to visit an old grade school friend. In the process my car turned over its first thousand miles and I was obliged to bring it into the dealership for its complementary 1k checkup. I did that this morning, and swear to god I’ve never been treated nicer by a car dealership in my life. The waiting room was a nicely furnished lounge with free pastries and soft drinks, a widescreen HDTV to watch, and an Enterprise rental car office right in the lounge, in case the service department told you they’d have to keep the car for a while (I expect that if the car was still in warranty Mercedes would just give you a loaner car…they did me, no questions asked, when I traded my Accord in, but my new Mercedes wasn’t ready for delivery just yet…). There was also a nice little Mercedes boutique shop, where you could shop Mercedes-Benz paraphernalia to your heart’s content while waiting for your car. There were the usual assortment of Mercedes-Benz approved car care products. Polo shirts, jackets, caps, wallets, wrist watches, key fobs, umbrellas, posters…you name it.
I bought a sharp looking little spun aluminum travel mug to go with the car. It had the Mercedes three pointed star logo. It was a lovely shape that seemed to go well with the look of the car I’d just bought. I saw it and I had to have it. I expect I’ll be experiencing that feeling a lot in the coming months, regarding Mercedes merchandise.
The guy behind the parts counter window handed my new Mercedes-Benz travel mug to me in a little box, that reminded me of something else I’d purchased not that long ago…
Oh yes…that. The cult of Apple. The cult of Mercedes-Benz. Perhaps this was how initiates to the cults of the old gods once felt. But was there merchandise they could buy…?
The Mercedes C Class, verses the Chinese made Geely Merrie 300. Check out the cute little hood ornament on the Geely. Ah…but pity the poor billionaire who spent his hard earned money on a Rolls Royce…
When he Could have bought the Chinese Hongqi HQD and saved so much. More auto knock-offs Here. Say…I don’t see a knockoff Spirit of Ecstasy standing on the Hongqi’s grill. Maybe some talented Chinese artisan could make one for it. Something like this maybe…
In the mid-1980s, I was on one local BBS system that had a gay Fidonet echomail board. Called Gaylink, it had participating BBS systems on it all over the world. Back in those days, I had an uncle who was a HAM radio operator, and was trying to interest me in taking up the hobby. He kept trying to tell me about all the people all over the world he was able to communicate with via shortwave radio, and I kept trying to tell him about all the people all over the world I was communicating with via FidoNet.
Gaylink was mostly a social forum. We chatted about this and that…a little politics, a little dishing. It never really got very serious. Then one day a message from a BSS in the Netherlands appeared. It was short and to the point:
I’m 14 years old. I think I might be gay but I’m not sure. How did you know about yourself? What was it like?
And from literally all over the world this kid got coming-out-to-self stories. Some of them were painful to read. Some were hopeful. Some were amazingly nonchalant. There were folks whose parents disowned them. There were others whose parents completely accepted them. Some people struggled for years with it. Others seemed to have always known and accepted it. There was romance. There was heartbreak. I sat down and for the first time ever, really thought about my own experience coming to terms with my sexual orientation, and wrote it down for this kid, and the whole world to see. I could sense that something…wonderful…was happening.
It went on for two weeks. We never heard a peep from the kid throughout that entire time. And the stories, from all over the world, from people in all walks of life, just kept coming and coming. We all began talking to each other, seeing common threads in our lives that we all had, which set us apart from the heterosexual majority. Seeing those things that made each of us unique and at the same time those things we all seemed to share, no matter where we lived, no matter what culture we were raised in. Then the kid spoke up one last time:
Thank you. You’ve all given me a lot to think about.
That was it. We never heard another word from him. Maybe we gave him what he needed to accept himself. Maybe he was just confused about his own awakening sexuality, and what it meant to be homosexual. At that age, who knows? Maybe he wasn’t what he represented himself to be. But as I watched that event unfold I realized that apart from this one Dutch teenager, there had to also be hundreds of others, all over the world, generation upon generation, watching that conversation, hungry for those same answers to that kid’s question. And I saw then what this new technology could do for us as a people. We no longer had to see ourselves through heterosexual eyes.
When I came out to myself in 1971, nearly everything I knew about homosexuals and homosexuality, I’d learned from heterosexuals. In those days, before the Internet, before the World Wide Web, before Blogs and MySpace and Facebook, what you knew depended in large measure on what the popular media wanted to tell you. Before cable TV, there were only three TV networks. You had your local newspaper. You had your local radio stations. You had whatever books and magazines the local stores were selling. And that was it basically. I had to struggle, in a way most of you reading this now probably never had to, to dig up anything factual, anything at all, about homosexuality. The image the popular media put forward of homosexuals was relentlessly negative. We were perverts. We were psychotic deviants. We were dangerous, deranged sexual predators. We raped children and then murdered them. We skulked the shadows looking for unwitting victims. Even we didn’t enjoy the sex we were having. We were mentally ill, psychotic, perverted, sexual compulsives, unable to keep ourselves from engaging in horrible, vile, deviant sex acts that repulsed even us. There is a film, The Detective, about a homosexual murder: watch the murderer’s tortured confession at the end to see what sick monsters the popular media viewed us as being back then.
Now, it seemed in the blink of an eye, all of that had been swept away. Maybe not from the eyes of our heterosexual neighbors, but critically, finally, from our own. We no longer had to see ourselves through heterosexual eyes. You have to appreciate how revolutionary that was back then.
Vince Cervantes, an ex-gay survivor and one of the this year’s Soulforce Equality Riders (and an attender of this summer’s Ex-Gay Survivor Conference), has been sharing his experiences on his blog and through video. In the following two videos he goes into detail about the reasons he pursued a variety of ex-gay therapies and ministries. He really captures the mindset, the motivations and the conflicts that many us experienced when we lived ex-gay lives.
Now we can tell our stories via Internet TV. While the corporate news media is still telling itself its comfortable lies about us, we can tell our own stories, in our own words, to each other, no matter where we live, no matter what our circumstances are. And to anyone who wants to hear it from us, as opposed to heterosexuals talking to each other. You want to know why the gay rights struggle has made so much progress, so quickly, this is why. It isn’t the decline of civilization. It isn’t falling moral standards. It isn’t rampant godlessness. Once upon a time the only image we had of ourselves was the mask heterosexuals made from their own sexual guilt and paranoia to make us wear. Once upon a time they could make us hate ourselves. If you understand nothing else about the gay rights struggle, understand this: those days are over.
They were waning as it was, thanks to the changes brought about after world war II. Jet air travel. Interstate highways. Greater mobility. We could migrate to where it was safer for us to live. There was already a critical mass developing in the major urban centers of America and the western world, to push for change. Where we could live together in relative peace, we could see ourselves as we were, not as the scarecrows of other people’s sexual fears and self loathings. But then the personal computer came along, and computer networks with them, and suddenly no matter where you lived, no matter how isolated you thought you were, you could reach out in an instant, in a heartbeat, and connect to a community of other gay people. All over the country. All over the world. And what we saw when we did that, were not monsters, but people. The first person you come out to is yourself. The first eyes you open to the truth are yours. Your own story is a part of that truth. Every time you share it with another, you defeat hate.
Good Initial Reports On The C300 – Cars I’ve Owned
So far, everything I’m seeing on the reliability of the new C class is good. This owner’s review on the Mercedes Benz Club of America C-class forum was especially heartening, since the man seems to have done the kind of long distance road trip loop I love doing…
We left Vancouver WA…went first to San Francisco for a week…then Las Vegas, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then Monument Valley, Albuquerque, picked up the old Route 66 road through Kingman AZ, to San Diego…back to SF, then Sacramento…then home on 9/24.
Stats: 4750 miles covered [the car now has exactly 5000 miles on it], 26-28 mpg at freeway speeds, temps ranged from 40-115F, altitudes to 9000 feet.
Roads: Everything from Interstates with 75 mph limits [and actual speeds of 85], to back roads with pitted surfaces and extreme twists for miles at a time. Really smooth pavement was rare; back roads in AZ and NM were sometimes very rough. These observations are important to the next point…
The Car: Absolutely fantastic. The best part about the new car is the ride / handling compromise – very absorbent ride over every kind of surface, but handling that is noticeably better in every way over the W203. Another improvement is the larger trunk…we got everything we needed inside, and it is more useable than the previous generation in this respect. Great seats [nothing new here], very quiet, and the quickest car we’ve ever owned – passing is easy, and speed changes are mostly a matter of just thinking about it. AC was really tested during the SW part of the trip – we saw 115F in Vegas, and never less than 95F for nearly two weeks. Coolant temps never budged over 90C, the cabin was always cooled instantly after a hot sun soak, and so far the car has used no oil at all. And it’s tight – no noises inside, no squeaks or annoyances.
Issues: None. That’s right, everything works. Our car was built in Bremen in June, and carries a serial number in the 17xxx range. I knew we were running a risk – so far, so good.
Other misc observations:
-Didn’t think I’d care about the satellite radio, but now we’re hooked.
-The cruise control has a feature that I’ve never encountered on an MB before – if you speed up temporarily using the pedal, when you ease off, it doesn’t just coast back to the set speed [like every other car we’ve ever owned], but will actually apply the brakes gently to resume the old speed. Disconcerting at first, just something to get used to.
-The grade logic in the transmission is superb – whether going up hill or down, it was always doing the right thing – no hunting, and providing just the right gear to minimize brake use on down slopes. Very impressive.
Summary: The BEST CAR EVER in our household, and I’ve owned 54 cars total since 1962. DB has its act together again.
("W203" is a Mercedes chassis ID. Apparently Mercedes folk like to identify the cars by chassis number over model designation. I reckon that’s because Mercedes will make these not-so-minor changes in a model designation from time to time. The new c300 is chassis W204.)
This is the kind of driving I intend to do with this car myself, and a few of his observations match with mine so far:
The 7 speed transmission always seems to be right on the mark, regardless of the road grade. I’ve read complaints about it downshifting too much, but I’ll just bet those are coming from folks who have theirs set on the "Sport" program and not "Comfort" The "Sport" shifting program should be more aggressive. I’m still in the break-in period, and Mercedes says to only use "Comfort" for now, but "Comfort" is fine. The shifts are so smoothly done I have to watch the tach to know they’re even happening, and they happen at exactly the right moments. I’ve not felt the car straining to accelerate even once, and the downshifts are barely felt if at all. Acceleration just happens.
Road handling is way beyond any car I’ve ever owned. The ride is smooth, and yet you never loose the feel of the road, or what the car is doing. I’m not in a position to be pushing it yet, but it seems to take corners really nicely. I’ve driven it down a few windy Maryland Piedmont backroads and never once have I lost that solid Mercedes sedan feel in a corner or turn, no matter how much the road is undulating. It is a pure joy to drive. But then…it was made for the Autobahn after all…
I encountered the same cruse control behavior he did, when I accidentally turned it on while trying to signal a lane change. That’s all too easy on a Mercedes because the cruse control lives on a stick on the steering wheel close to the turn signal stick. They’re easy to confuse at first. I didn’t realize I had the cruse control on until I started down a hill and felt the car start breaking a tad to maintain speed.
And I know about how wonderful Satellite Radio is while long distance driving. For local driving it probably wouldn’t make much difference to most drivers. But when you’re crossing large swaths of countryside, its nice, really nice, to have a constant signal on a station you like. Plus, unlike Clearcut Clearchannel damaged broadcast radio, satellite radio has a variety of music that’s always there. You like bluegrass? There is a bluegrass channel. You like Techno-Trance? There’s that too. Classical? Yup…several different flavors of it. And so forth. Plus…Sirius has a gay channel. You’ve no idea how wonderful it is to have a gay channel to listen to, while you’re deep in red state territory, and the only thing on the broadcast dial is hate, hate, and more hate.
I’m taking a trip to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania Saturday to visit an old friend. I’ll get a chance to let the Nav system direct me somewhere and give the car its first little road trip weekend. I’m halfway through the first thousand mile break-in period, and by the time I get back the car should be ready for its complementary thousand mile check-up.
A little history…
My first car was a blue 1973 Ford Pinto. It had no name in my mind, other then just Pinto because the model name seemed just right for that car. It was small, it was cute, and I loved driving it. I was fresh out of high school and working various fresh out of high school kid jobs. At $1997.48, the Pinto was barely affordable. At the time, one of my uncles owned a Mercedes diesel sedan and it was a marvel. Solid in a way none of the U.S. made cars of the 1970s could even come close to being, and yet agile on the road. It boasted safety features the U.S. automakers kept insisting would kill their business if they had to put them on their own products. I was a little teenage geek: where the other guys were all about Corvettes and GTOs, I was about my uncle’s Mercedes-Benz. Everything about that car made sense to me. But the pricetag for even the least expensive ones was well beyond what a teenage stock boy could afford. So I just dreamed…
I ran the the Pinto for 135 thousand miles and took fanatical care of the engine to get it there. But after ten years of driving it, everything but the engine was starting to come apart. By 1983 it was ready for the junk yard. A friend offered me his mom’s old 1974 Chrysler Imperial for 500 bucks and I snapped it up because in 1983 a 500 dollar car was about all I could afford. It had a 400 cubic inch V8 and was so damn huge the dash had two ashtrays in it. It could hold four in the front and four in the back bench seats easily, and maybe another six in the trunk. It also had a big ass hole in the floor under the driver’s seat that I could look down at and see the asphalt going by. I named it The Blue Whale.
A reckless driver in a little Ford Capri hit me head on while I was waiting to turn at an intersection, and while I was grateful that I had that massive car around me when it happened, that was the end of The Blue Whale. I was into hard times then, and could not afford to replace it. I did public transportation to and from whatever work I could find for another four years or so.
Then in 1991 I got some work as a software developer. The only problem was the job was in Baltimore and I was in Rockville. The agency I contracted through rented me a car for a couple of weeks until I got my first paycheck. From a friend of a friend I bought a huge white 1974 Ford LTD panel wagon, another $500 junker. It had 240 thousand miles on it, having been owned by a lady who drove it all over West Virginia for her gumball business. I named it The Great White because Moby Dick just seemed obvious. It had another big ass V8 engine with a collapsed lifter in it somewhere that rattled loudly. The fabric on the inside roof was hanging down partially blocking my view out the back window, and eventually I just pulled it all off. Thereafter the layer of foam between it and the roof started flaking off and I’d have a hair full of it by the time I got to work. For about two years The Great White got me to Baltimore and back from the basement room I was renting in Wheaton.
Then in 1993, more confident that I could keep earning a living doing what I was now doing, I moved to Baltimore, into my first apartment ever (I was 38 years old). I was feeling so confident in my income as a software developer that I bought my first new car since 1973: a little green Geo Prism. I named it Aya. Aya was a champ, took me to California three times and carried me over two-hundred thousand miles and never once left me stranded anywhere.
By 2005 I was ready to step up a tad, and decided to go for a slightly bigger car, and more bells and whistles. I bought a black 2005 Honda Accord sedan with all the trimmings and named it Beauty, because it was so damn beautiful. Beauty carried me to California twice, and was, before now, the best highway car I’d ever owned. I could drive that car for hours on end and never feel tired. Just last July I put over eight thousand miles on it, driving first to Memphis, then to Topeka, then to Portland, then to Oceano California, and back through the southwest to Baltimore.
I fully intended when I bought Beauty, to own it as long as I’ve owned every other new car I’ve ever bought, which is to say until it had absolutely no trade-in value whatsoever. But a friend of mine bought himself a very lovely Acura TL, and it got me to asking myself if I was ever going to get around to going for the car I always wanted or not.
All these years I would occasionally peek into a Mercedes dealership and steal a look at the cars…particularly the low end sedans that were at least theoretically affordable. Someday. Maybe. I would get a brochure and take it home and spend hours looking at it. Two weeks ago, my Honda paid off, I peeked into a Mercedes dealership again, sat down in one of the new c300s, and thought…I’m 54 years old now…Am I ever going to do this…?
You don’t want to be going right back into debt again over a new car so soon after you’ve paid the one you already have off.
I’m 54 years old now…Am I ever going to do this…?
Your car only has 47 thousand miles on it. Buying a new one now would be a total waste of money.
I’m 54 years old now…Am I ever going to do this…?
You could get ten more years out of the car you have. Easy.
But by then I might be too old to enjoy driving a Mercedes. I’m 54. In ten years I’ll be 64. And then the argument will be, can I afford to be borrowing money on a luxury car when I’m that close to retiring.
You don’t need it. Put it away for retirement. Put it into the house. You just don’t need a new car.
I’m 54 years old now…Am I ever going to do this…?
I stressed over it for two weeks. Then I did it. I’ve named it Traveler. One ‘l’…so as not to be confused with Lee’s horse. I am no admirer of Mr. Lee and his Lost Cause. The name just came to me as I was sitting in it and thinking about all the places we would go. In German its Reisender.
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