Considered wearing my pink triangle button to work today because I know exactly what lay ahead for people like me. Instead I put on my Tomorrowland pin because fuck the bastards.
If you want to live in a cesspool go right ahead, but I won’t live there with you. This country, and this good earth, is big enough, and richer enough in human spirit that I don’t have to.
Back from another much needed Walt Disney World vacation. Guess which Mickey pin you can’t find at Walt Disney World anymore…
And no, they’re not gone because I bought every one…although it may look like that here. After the Pulse shootings they were everywhere around Walt Disney World. They had a giant sized one near the entrance to the pin trader’s hutch in Disney Springs last July, but you couldn’t find any of the pins. I figured they were just out of stock. But no, they’re not selling them anymore.
Granted, this isn’t the gay rights movement rainbow. That’s a different set of colors. I knew that when I first set eyes on one of these. It’s called the Peace Rainbow. But it’s close enough that many of us just started wearing it, particularly around Gay Days. Nobody expected Disney, in it’s nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean, relationship with its LGBT guests to actually produce a rainbow flag Mickey. But it was close enough that if you wore one, everyone pretty much knew what it meant. I wore mine back in July, after Pulse, and got a lot of sympathetic comments from the cast members.
This time around I mostly wore my Tomorrowland pin (and got some friendly comments about that too). But on my last day I wore a rainbow Mickey and as I was being checked into Epcot the security lady who went through my camera bag said “I like your pin…I have one at home”. This is how we wave to each other.
So…the reason I have so many of these is I would go to Walt Disney World and forget my rainbow Mickey and just buy a new one while I was there. They were that ubiquitous. Now that they’re not selling them anymore (I asked, and was told I might be able to find one on eBay…(sigh)) I might have some collectibles now. I’m guessing the reason is ever since Pulse and the sudden explosions of rainbow Mickey’s all over the parks the jig was up and now Disney can’t sell them anymore because…well…
And it’s not even the LGBT rainbow. Be nice if they actually did produce an actual rainbow flag Mickey. They make them for other nations and ethnic groups after all. But you can just hear people bellyaching about Disney bringing sex into a Family Friendly theme park, sexualizing Mickey, a children’s cartoon character forever ruined, if they did. That relentless dehumanization of gay people is another topic, for another day. It’s the reason why you can see images of Disney lovers everywhere in the parks, in all the shops and character meets…and they’re all exclusively opposite sex pairs. Opposite sex coupling is love. Aren’t they so adorable?
A rainbow Mickey couldn’t be about all the colors of love. Because homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.
Posted to the NBC News website…which says something about how far we’ve come…
More than 100 features and short films are being shown at NewFest: New York’s LGBT Film Festival this year, and the slate includes the largest offering of international films in the festival’s history.
“More filmmakers around the world are interested in telling LGBTQ stories, and they’re doing them better than ever,” NewFest Executive Director Robert Kushner told NBC OUT.
NBC OUT…wow. Back when I was a gay teenager I would never have expected to read those words on a network TV publication.
18 countries are represented in the film fest. The article singles out 11 films to watch. This one…immediately caught my attention…
Would you risk it all for a second shot at love? That’s what “Esteros” explores. In the film, MatÃas and Jerónimo reunite more than a decade after their attraction first became apparent as teenagers. When family judgment got in the way, MatÃas was forced to move to Brazil. And while MatÃas has now returned to their hometown in Argentina, he’s brought his girlfriend along with him and complicated matters further. The men’s chemistry, however, remains. But whereas Jerónimo is a confident and out gay man, MatÃas has barely allowed himself to question his sexuality…
Yeah…there are elements to this story obviously that punch me right in the gut. But on the other hand it helps more than I can say: It means I am not alone in having this sort of experience. It’s real easy these days to be both delighted at how far we’ve come, and bitter that the point of all of it shot right past me…and so many others of my generation. This film looks like it speaks to that. I’ll be looking for it on the DVD circuit.
When Life Gives You Lemons, Get You Some Salt And Tequila And Laugh In Its Face
Feeling at tad abused by Mercedes-Benz USA today. I’ll probably bitch about it later. No…I will almost certainly bitch about it later.
In the meantime…
“Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
“Oh, we use only the finest juicy chunks of fresh Cornish Ram’s bladder, emptied, steamed, flavoured with sesame seeds, whipped into a fondue, and garnished with lark’s vomit.”
You Knew What Trump Was, Because There Was A Little Of Him Inside Of You
Jim Burroway, of Box Turtle Bulletin, posted his reaction on Facebook to something that’s bugged me long before the current Trump dump…
That. All those criticisms of Trump from his former supporters that start out as a husband and a father… blah blah blah. In one sense I can see how horrified the one who has a daughter of their own might suddenly feel hearing Trump’s casual off-handed just talking among the boys leering predatory attitude toward women. On the other it’s pretty hard to understand how anyone could have been that oblivious. I’m a gay man. I have no children of my own, no daughter. I had no girlfriend. I will have no wife. I don’t need any of these, and neither did you, to see Donald Trump for what he was and be disgusted. But be honest; are you really shocked or is this something more like the feeling of a guilty conscience tapping you on the shoulder? Donald Trump’s character is a whole cloth of ego and contempt, greed and malice. If you didn’t notice, it’s because you were excusing it. Perhaps because you recognized some of it in yourself.
Maybe it was the racism. So uncouth where yours is genteel, and perhaps just ashamed of itself enough to make you think yourself the better man but not enough to make you actually try to see yourself in a black man’s face. Perhaps it was his xenophobia. So blatant where yours is more diplomatic. Your own grandparents were immigrants after all, but they were from a more civilized country. Perhaps it was his sexism. So vulgar compared to your mannerly chauvinism. Real men treat the weaker sex with respect. Whatever it was, you made excuses for Trump, because you made them for yourself. But that does not make you the better man. It is making you little by little, step by step, more like him.
Now suddenly it hits home. But you need to understand this: When he was talking about the black man, the brown man, the muslem, the gay man, the Other, he was talking about your wife. When he was inciting violence at his rallies, he was inciting it against your daughter. The predator does not play favorites. We are all loot. When you gave him your support despite everything you could plainly see about the man within, you gave him permission to grope your wife and daughter. If he finds them attractive.
Take a good hard look at what you will become if you don’t stop making excuses. Because the day is coming when you will be making those excuses for what a government run by Trumps will do to you, your family, and everything you ever held dear. And you will help them do it. And you will say afterwards that you didn’t know, still making excuses that nobody believes because how could you not. Never doubt it, there is where you are headed. Turn away. Now. While you can still be shocked by what he does.
It’s Not The House Is Made Of Glass, It’s That It’s Your House
Random Facebook associations…
Two different friends posted Mennonite and Gay related news stories that showed up in my feed next to each other. No comment other than the serendipity of it, and perhaps a nod back to that saying from back in the day, that We Are Everywhere and to strike at your gay neighbor is also to strike at someone in your own house as well. That first stone you cast might end up hitting your own child.
Original posters blacked out for their privacy…not that I think any of them would mind…but well…
Link to first article, Here. Link to second article, Here.
So every now and then I dig back into my photo archives from the high school days, looking for reference material for A Coming Out Story. It’s the little things, like how the doorways were and the tile on the walls next to the floors. How those old metal desks looked, and the desk/chairs for students. How the window frames looked. Stuff like that. And as I go through the photos looking for reference material, I also see stuff that I think would be fun to share on our high school Facebook page. So periodically that page gets a photo dump from me.
And then the real fun starts, when my classmates start chiming in about who’s in the shots, and various memories start happening. And what really strikes me almost every time is hearing about who was dating, or had a crush on who, because I was such an oblivious little nerd back then. And I read things and my jaw drops, but in a fun way.
Part of the story I’m telling in ACOS is how unaware I was of what was happening to my peers, hormone wise, because I was so unaware of what was going on with me. In episodes 17, 18 and 19 I tried to describe why that was, how the awful sex ed class I had in junior high filled my head with so much ignorant junk about gay people that I became convinced that I couldn’t possibly be that, even as I was crushing massively on a classmate.
Just a little while ago one of my classmates posted a comment on one of my photos about how she got butterflies whenever she saw one of the guys in that shot. That would happen to me too, whenever I caught sight of the object of my affections. But thanks to that sex ed class, and the relentless stream of abuse hurled at gay people in the popular culture, I could never really see that for what it was. I know that’s probably hard to believe, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing my story.
So I spent most of my teen years absolutely hating the whole idea of dating and everything to do with high school romance. And whenever the topic came up I did what I learned so well how to do in Vacation Bible School…I tuned it out and disappeared into my own private thoughts about something, anything, else. Now at least I get to finally see what was going on with my classmates back then, even if it’s 45 years after the fact. It’s kinda fun in a way, to almost feel like I’m walking those halls once again with them, but this time not quite so completely oblivious.
Eventually, almost at the last minute of my school days, I woke up to it. This December 15th would make it 45 years since that moment when I finally had to admit to myself what I was feeling. And luckily it didn’t destroy me like it did so many other gay guys of my generation. Because I was in love and it felt like the most wonderful thing in the world. It was stunning. It was magical. And I knew right then and there that everything my gym teachers had said about gays in that sex ed class was bullsh*t.
There’s a well known line in Brokeback Mountain, where Jack Twist tells Ennis Del Mar I wish I knew how to quit you! It’s kinda sad actually that this one line is all most folks know because that entire scene is a good read, if painful for some of us gay guys of a certain age. But poor Jack just needed to use a little imagination on the problem. Quitting someone is easy. You just find the right button and you push it and then he quits you. Problem solved.
This came across my Facebook news feed yesterday…
Heck…I did it in five: Did you really get jealous?
Yeah he did. Or something like it. It was a pattern with him by then. I’d come visit and he’d get all cranky if I was paying more attention to the other guests than to him. Once I told him I would leave him alone that visit because he’d said previously that he was too busy to chat anyway. So I left him alone that visit, but decided at the last minute to at least go say a quick goodbye. We would always say goodbye. He’d tell me to have a safe trip home. But that time when he saw me standing in the doorway he gave me a cold stare…twice. When I asked later what he was angry about he claimed he never saw me standing there. But someone else was reading those emails by then and that was the other problem that had developed. So who knows who he was actually talking to. It was becoming suffocating. But I am no Jack Twist.
That day it was a co-worker who was going to take the big American road trip when his tour of duty was over, so I spent a bunch of time showing him my road trip photos and giving him tips on places to visit. Next thing I know a certain someone is getting all irritated and angry faced and finally he ducks out without even saying goodbye like he always does and even his co-worker is mystified by his behavior.
And I had enough.
Lessee…which button…there are So Many to choose from…ah…that’s the one… So I spoke of things I wasn’t allowed to, but here on my blog which he always said he never reads, and he read it right away like I figured he would and he got even more cranky like I knew he would and we finally had the break up fight we should have had back in high school because it just wasn’t a good fit. I won’t be controlled like that and he still wants to have his cake and eat it too.
In a manner of speaking.
But no. Get yourself out of your own fixes. Nobody rides for free.
Nobody rides for free.
Nobody rides for free.
Auf Wiedersomething…
Sorry if this spoils A Coming Out Story for some of you folks still hanging in there waiting for updates. But I am still determined to carry it through to the end, because there’s something there that needs to be told about how us gay kids were treated back then, and how for some of us it will always be a time before Stonewall. And I promise to keep the sense of humor and perspective that I started it with. I began that cartoon story years before I found him again, and it was basically a story I was telling myself to help me make sense of what had happened back then and how it became a part of me and made me what I am now. Nothing about any of that really has changed other than I know how it ends now and I didn’t when I started it. So stay tuned, there is a new episode and mini story arc coming soon.
If Facebook is good for nothing else, it keeps your memories from being gaslighted pretty damn well…
Funny how so many of my gay male rites of passage revolve around a certain someone. I didn’t say at the time who it was that called me that, but it didn’t occur to me at the time to wonder why he would occasionally lapse into gay guy talk so easily around me.
This graph I saw just now on Facebook says it all. Mostly.
Why I blog.
I don’t get interrupted in the middle of answering a question or explaining something.
I don’t get told to make it brief. I can make it as long or as short as I feel it needs to be.
I can think about what I want to say, write it out, and then tweak it until I’m satisfied with it.
I can put it out there and not have to worry about what people actually understand; because some will and some won’t but either way I got it out there and I’m happy with it. (This also applies to my artwork and photography)
People who think I’m over verbose or don’t like what I have to say don’t have to read my blog. Unlike how Facebook and Twitter decide what you will see in your newsfeed or tweet stream, you actually have to go visit my website to read my blog. It’s an active not a passive activity. So if my words are not to your liking then you can completely ignore my blog and be welcome. There are cats and Willy Wonka memes out there you probably haven’t seen yet.
It gives me a record of my life and thoughts I can look back on to better understand where I’ve been and where I am now.
Another reason I blog: It’s taken me decades to claw my way out of the shell I left Jr. High School in due to bullying, plus that closet those of us who were growing up gay in the late 60s and early 70s inevitably shut ourselves into. And while I’m still not the free and cheerful kid I once was I’m better at just being Me now than I’ve been since I was a teenager. But some days when it feels like I’m being shoved back into that cocoon again for various professional and personal reasons, I know I can always turn to my blog, and my artwork, and get it out one way or another. This is how some of us, who’ve never found our significant other, computer nerds mostly I reckon, cope with trying to be understood.
I’ve said here before, this is a life blog. That’s something blogs just were before they became a media for political expression. Nowadays there are probably as many blogs out there as reasons people blog. Facebook, Twitter and other social media have cut into what was for a while a vibrant blog culture based around blogrolls and readers, but for those of us who have a need to get it out there in our own voices blogging is still an ongoing thing. Just recently a writer I follow, Jim Wright, had a post he put up on Facebook taken off after some unknown jackasses complained about it. The post in question was a heartfelt and angry reflection on the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, so you can see why it might not have been to everyone’s liking. But Wright is a thoroughly decent man, a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and he knows how to make himself clear even to nitwits. Eventually Facebook put it back up and apologized, but you could always read it on his personal website,Stonekettle Station. This is why it’s a good thing blogs are still out here.
“In support of an inclusive work environment, as well as exemplary customer service, the Social Security Administration recently announced a diversity and inclusion training on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community to our employees…The training includes a brief session on tips for increasing cultural awareness in a diverse and inclusive environment.”
Un…
For Hall, that premise was too sinful. The 42-year-old, who identifies as Christian, said he does not believe God would have wanted him to watch the video.
Deux…
Signing a statement he had watched such a video, moreover, was equal to endorsing “an abomination,” he told WCIA.
Trois…
“I’m not going to certify sin.”
Quatre…
He told WCIA during an interview that the video was propaganda…
Sully is, in theory, based on Sullenberger’s 2009 memoir Highest Duty (co-authored with Jeffrey Zaslow). “Until I read the script, I didn’t know the investigative board was trying to paint the picture that he had done the wrong thing. They were kind of railroading him,” says Eastwood in one promotional trailer. It’s not surprising Eastwood was ignorant of any railroading by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), since it’s a narrative absent from Highest Duty, or anything actually said or written by the NTSB.
Go read the whole thing to see the takedown of the movie’s central lie. This movie laughs in your face and lies to you. There’s just no other way to put it. Its central fact, that the National Traffic Safety Board tried to railroad pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles, is a lie. A damnable lie.
But a lie you could see coming in the first trailer released for it. This is Talks To An Empty Chair Eastwood telling the audience in the Fox News cocoon everything they want to hear about how evil the federal government is. In the process he’s turned people who lived these events into stick figures in an antigovernment morality play, meant not to tell the story of an American hero but to encourage Americans to fear and mistrust their own government. Eastwood spits in the faces good people who work diligently every day to make travel safer for all of us. Because in the libertarian mindset, a government that can require corporations to care about anything other than profit, such as customer safety, can only be evil.
It’s a damnable lie, easily seen for what it is with even a cursory fact checking of the sources. But Eastwood knows his audience. They don’t want facts, they want their bigotries validated. Even if it means that someday the aircraft they’re on crashes and burns because CEO compensation mattered more than their lives, and lawsuit settlements were seen to be less costly than fixing a potential life threatening problem.
Facebook likes to throw these little “See Your Memories” things onto your news page. They can be fun…like all those memories of past road trips…or they can be achingly bad…like the bleeding painful posts I left when Claudia got run over. This one came up a few days ago…
A certain someone who works there, whose nickname I will not speak (Hi!), had urged me to come down after I told him I wasn’t much interested in theme parks. We were having one of our hour+ long phone conversations. I was all about the road trip I told him. Just the year previously I’d written in a blog post “My favorite form of vacation is to just throw my maps and my cameras and my luggage in the car and just drive. I love taking long cross-country road trips.” “Come on man,” he said, “it’s your heritage. Baseball, Apple Pie and Mickey Mouse. What’s wrong with you?”
So it was that 7 years ago I checked in to Walt Disney World for the very first time. I wanted to see him again after all those years, but I was also very intensely curious about this second of the great Walt Disney theme parks Walt Disney created, or at least envisioned before cigarettes killed him: what eventually came to be was not the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow that he’d imagined.
Even so, it is huge…absolutely huge. I was feeling overwhelmed the moment I drove through those Mickey Mouse gates. But I’d done my research, and bought tickets with the park hopper option so I could wander around like I knew I was going to want to. Several years later while at a private Gay Days party at Typhoon Lagoon I discovered how much fun the water parks are. I’ve had the deluxe annual pass ever since. Then three years ago I rented someone’s DVC points and stayed at Boardwalk and before that vacation was even over I’d joined DVC.
And so it was, and so it is. I’m old enough to remember watching Wonderful World of Color when Walt Disney was still alive, and the moment I walked into Epcot it all came back to me, and I’ve been returning every year since. For a while back in March (Hi Thomas!) I figured my stays there were at an end. But A Certain Someone was right after all…it is my heritage. And more than that…it’s my reminder of that future I looked toward back when I was a kid. I’d forgotten how much of that was crafted by Walt Disney. I’d forgotten how much of a Disney kid I really was. He had one foot in Main Street USA and the other in Tomorrowland. People forget that about him. In a time when one of our two major parties turns itself into the party of white supremacy, threaten the foundations of the republic, and a Donald Trump can be in reach of sitting in the oval office with the nuclear button close by, I really need that reminder of the human status.
I have a job now helping to build that future. And Reckon I will probably keep making the trip to Walt’s World for as long as I can.
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