Rhymes With Bitch

The Wee Hours

I have terrible sleep sequences so on my off days from work I stay up and tap my fingers until I have to take a Tylenol to ease the throb.  On those moments I usually either have soft music pumping out of my Bose speakers or I'm listening and half-watching something on late-night TV. Tonight it was the appropriate-for the season Berserk!---that 1967 ultra-bad movie Joan Crawford made close to the end of her career.  I love Crawford and I think she was one of the most beautiful actresses of the Golden Era, but seeing her go through the motions in a movie not worthy of her acting power is like seeing your favorite strongman under-perform because he probably had reached burnout and was done.  At least this time she wasn't in danger proper but gracefully commanding entertainment for shock's sake---a female Jerry Springer, ringmaster to the beasts onstage, and very well aware of it.  She's got the younger, needy hunk trying to get into her line of view and thus making her a cougar... but most interesting is what seems to be an unintended reenactment of her strained relationship with daughter Christina.  I couldn't help but notice a correlation of every daughter Crawford had had onscreen: from Mildred Pierce to Strait-Jacket to Berserk! they were always terrible, psychopathic, and deeply involved in a love-hate quandary with the enemy-Mother, blurting out their hate in every climactic sequence while Crawford looked on, wide-eyed, in pure horror.  Of course, thanks to Christina's uber-famous book we've seen a very different perspective of what Crawford wanted to convey onscreen.  She was no June Cleaver.

Ringtones

Lately I've been getting bored of my iPhone ringtone.  I have it at "traditional phone ring" so it sounds like a rotary from the 1970s, which is very entertaining when listened to in a subtext reeking of irony.  I think I'm going to change it to "Wisconsin nympho" and see if that'll bring a reaction to anyone who might be within 6 feet of me.

The Little Train that Could: It Gets Better Project

Thank you, Dan Savage, for making Obama step down from his pedestal and speak.  It shows what a heartfelt, human campaign can do.  You've gone mainstream.

Promises, Promises: A Two-Faced Obama

It's a terrible day when I have to actually quote Sarah Palin and ask, in that weird Alaskan twang, "How's that hopey-changey thing goin' fer ya?"

I remember when Obama surfaced into the public and political arena.  I didn't know or care who he was; I was intensely focused on Hillary and was hoping---praying---for the day she'd be elected President of the United States.  I knew that even though she'd find a country that had been run straight into the ground by the previous imperialist administration, she'd persevere and solve a good many of the issues affecting the nation.  No, we wouldn't suddenly move into nirvana... but we'd certainly dig ourselves from the mess we'd sunk into, all the way up to our eyeballs.


Suddenly Oprah, a woman with an enormous power of conviction, decided against her sex to vote via race.  Now, before I get pelted, let's say this: had this been a Hispanic president I would be front and center screaming at him.  Everyone who knows me knows how I strike out at my own people when they commit some of the most stupendous of mistakes.  My issue was, I didn't know who Barack Obama was and suddenly Oprah was there, championing this unknown into the line of victory.  And he promised, and he promised, and wow---did he promise!


In two years he has accomplished... well... not much.  His administration is crumbling beneath his feet.  He claimed that he'd take us out of the recession and allegedly we are... yet do we feel it?  Do we venture out and spend like there's no tomorrow?  Can people who were ready to retire say they can, seeing how shaky things are? I've seen people lose it all and have to suddenly start from zero when they were not three years ago comfortable, ready to sift into a life of ease and tranquility. On the topic of gay rights he, even when seeing how incendiary it was as we have continued to lobby for the same perks as everyone else, has maintained a stance so evasive it now looks adversarial... yet he smiles through his teeth and promises.  Mexico, a third world country, decreed same-sex marriages a fact in every one of its provinces.  I haven't heard the country suddenly collapse and go to a civil war.  And this is a country with values as traditional as ours, rooted in heavy-duty machismo.


Where is Obama in all this?  Not doing much, other than smiling and attempting to infiltrate himself into reality TV, talk shows, and tell the world he doesn't know who Snooki is (even though he does).


It took a woman with gigantic ovaries to bring a boil to near explosion.  US District Judge Virginia Philips ordered that this travesty of DADT be stopped.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, but now.  Pronto. Make up your minds, people, I'm going right through the Obama administration and standing for what is right.


What did Obama do?  Issue a stay against Judge Philips' ruling using the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  The Ninth Court ruled on Obama's Department of Justice's request.  I cannot imagine being a gay employee, working in that department, having to see the horror of this disaster of national proportions.


Obama has the blood and the suffering of horrified Americans on his hands. Every last teen who commits suicide, every last disgraced soldier starting with Lt. Dan Choi and ending with any kid who in the future cannot serve openly.  He has sowed the hatred of many people who have seen his back turn on them.  You do not ever pick a fragile person up... only to drop them and see them splatter to smithereens.  He and all those like him have blood on their hands.

If Obama wanted the infamy of being the first president to actually deny a Human Rights issue... he certainly got it. He must be so proud. He wrested the presidency from an actual, living, breathing, perfectly capable person and now sits there, impotent, smug, chiding people that DADT will end on his watch. Insulting their intelligence.

Of course it will. And I'll shit eggs come morn.

It'll end, all right... no thanks to him---and THAT will make this issue even greater.

A quote from The New Civil Rights Movement:

Justin Elzie, the first Marine to be discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” told The New Civil Rights Movement, “It is sad that President Obama has gone above and beyond to reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell after it was declared unconstitutional and dead for 8 days.  As of today Obama has the unique distinction of being the only President to reinstate an unconstitutional law against LGBT Servicemembers after the military with a groundbreaking development officially started accepting them at recruiting stations.  While it is abundantly clear that Obama is not a strong supporter of our equality, that will not dampen the spirit of the many LGBT servicemembers, veterans or activists working on this issue.  This movement is bigger than one man, organization or institution.  We will win in the end; that I guarantee you.”

Secretary of State Clinton Says "Tomorrow Gets Better."

Thank you, Hillary---for doing what Our President hasn't done.  For addressing a crisis of a national magnitude.  For putting yourself in our shoes.  For simply, reaching out.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  People will look up to you and say, "A true politician has spoken!"

Alexandra Billings on The Trevor Project

One of the most moving video messages I've seen since they started coming out.  It spoke to me at a deep, deep core... and I've been out since 1986.  Alexandra Billings' quote: "If you believe in a deity that doesn't make mistakes... then how can there be possibly anything wrong with you?" is priceless.  This was how I was taught when growing up Catholic, and my old bedroom in my mother's house still has a cute little painting of a cherub and the quote: "I know I'm perfect because God doesn't make mistakes."  This is the heart of all that is transpiring---we are who we are, made in our own image, and there is no reason why we should feel as though there is no hope.  To anyone reading, things will get better.  No matter how bad they seem now, there's always a light just around the corner.

Politicians Say the Darnedest Things--then Apologize

In the last couple of weeks I've witnessed some of the filthiest things coming out of the mouths of politicians--so filthy, I thought I was possibly watching something straight out of Rotten.com.  I know October is Halloween month, but must the horror be hammered this far down my eyes and ears?  Carl Paladino recently decided to verbalize his intolerance and absolute ignorance for gays and lesbians and didn't stop there; he went on interviews, repeating the same rhetoric over and over like a broken record no one wanted or needed to hear.  Not to be outdone, Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett made her now infamous contortionist act where she stuck her foot in her mouth, and we as a country saw it exit right out her ass after she stated that homosexuality is a "choice."  Surprised?  Me neither.

Since then, both idiots have "apologized".  Which means diddly-squat for me; I continue to say this over and over again; people aren't born to be stupid.  Christine O'Donnell surely was at one point in her life someone nice, friendly, playful, lovely to be around with.  I'm sure Ann Coulter was vaguely tolerable before she decided her black cocktail dress was going to stick on her 'til 2012 rolled over and wiped us out.  At one point even Glenn Beck was a carefree individual.  Hell, I'll even go as far as saying Shirley Phelps herself had to have something remotely resembling a human being before she was gang-raped into believing the dreck she now spews over the funerals of dead gay soldiers (oh, wait---it doesn't matter if they are gay or not: God Hates Us All.  Right.).

When did stupid become the new smart?  Where do these people get educated?  I was mainly schooled by Europeans, but that doesn't mean much---even while my father was of the old guard and my mother was a strictly repressed woman I knew someway or other I had to be me.  I could not become another ex-gay and try to make it as a married "straight" man only to then have sordid affairs with equally repressed gay men.  I learned to speak my mind but inform myself thoroughly before doing so.  And mind you; I don't think I'm all that smart.  I can sometimes be as dumb as a box of blondes.  However... I would have thought that by now people would be smarter than a moron and truly see what was right in front of them as opposed of spewing out the garbage I now have to see, criticize, and write about day after day in my blog (although it does make for happy skewering).

The problem with people like Paladino or Jarrett is that people listen to them and make their opinions based on the stupendously insensate thoughts they themselves believe.  You cannot tell me that they don't in some way ascribe to their verbalized thoughts.  I firmly believe Jarrett believes being gay is a choice.  I am convinced Paladino is sickened by what he sees in every Gay Pride Parade.  And I am convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Our "President" has his own little bag of tricks that does not involve "the gays", which is why while he continues to spew that DADT will end on his watch, he actually appeals the laws that sustain it.  I really hope none of his brood become queers.  Oh, who am I kidding---that's exactly what's going to happen.

My one question to Valerie Jarrett: did all the gay teens who have killed themselves have a choice when an entire world of the likes of you descended on them and told them they were sick, degenerate, and overall evil?  Being gay isn't a choice.  That hair-do you use, on the other hand... is, and quite a bad one.  As is the "choice" most blind Americans made when voting for the wrong guy in lieu of a magnificently competent Woman who's been relegated to serve as Secretary of State.

PS -- it doesn't stop here: See the new guy to jump the bandwagon on "being gay is a choice."

Ken Buck: being gay "a choice," birth an "influence" like "alcoholism"

Bread is Life

And yummy, too.

On Turning the Big Four-Oh

The only thing I lament is not having more Facebook contacts... and being a sociopath able to manipulate the masses into getting me this lovely scarf from Loro Piana, available at Bergdorf-Goodman at the modest price of... $795.00.  As a token for our deep, cherished friendship, because I am worth it--that plus the perfectly located town-home with the splendid Central Park views.  Now and every October 13th.

Yes, I believe at a buck a person I'd have made it, cash.  No need to whip out the credit card and blow it to smithereens.

After all--a scarf like this will never cheat on you.  A scarf like this will never give you crabs.  Hell, you can even steam-clean it just to ensure you're not getting it with those pesky bed-bugs.  And you can wear it for three out of the four seasons and it makes for quite an accessory to the already heavily muscled package.  The perfect partner, faithful, well...  'til the next fashion accessory dethrones this thing off my 19 inch neck.

Let The Right One In - Review

When it comes to horror movies I love 'em.  Love-love-love them with a passion only exceeded by this season's collection of menswear at Bergdorf's that is surprisingly affordable.  [Must be the economy.]  I've been watching horror since I was 7 years old and reading it since I discovered Stephen King's masterpiece "The Shining" on my mom's armoire at age 9.  So in that respect I've become quite a connoisseur of horror films.  I know what works, what doesn't.  And I'm usually dead-on the money.

The moment I saw the promo for a movie called Let Me In I realized it was an American remake of a previous movie I'd had in my Netflix queue forever--a Swedish film called Let the Right One In.  I remember that the reviews were positively glowing, but I kept it in the back burner to pay more attention to all the Oscar films I hadn't up to now seen.  Upon entering October my attention focused on horror films old and new.  Following the release of Let Me In I decided that I wanted to finally get to see the original.

Reader, I know that Swedish films are slow.  I get it.  I've seen enough Bergman films to know that even a 90 minute quickie will be a test in endurance only surpassed by a visit to the dentist to get a tooth extracted sans novocaine.  I know.  I also know that some of the best horror movies have a slow build up with bits and pieces of the impending horror shown almost off camera.  Then the scenery gets darker, murkier, scarier... and then you have the point of crisis---the moment where characters will reach that threshold and either turn back (and risk death) or face the unimaginable (and still face death).  It's called suspense.  Approaching the thing around the corner.  Impending, overwhelming dread.  Followed by the blood and the guts and sheer insanity.

Hitchcock always knew you had to give the audience a payoff--something to relate to, especially when Our Hero/Heroine was in dire straits.  In Psycho we follow poor Arbogast ascend the stairs and we barely breathe as the door to Mother's door creaks open.  In The Birds, Melanie waits in the school's playground as crows slowly amass behind her while the children sing.  Something is bound to happen.  Something bad.  Something terrible.

I wish I could say that this is the case with this movie that is less about the vampire mythos and the terror of survival than what it truly is--a convoluted mess of Swedish proportions.  Pacing is nowhere to be seen.  Character development is flimsy at best--they exist for the purpose of filling space and no purpose.  Scenes go on without any true meaning.  A storyline involving the anti-hero--the oft-bullied Oskar--that should have had that payoff I was expecting gets a second-hand, casual treatment.  Even the horror of eventual transformation from a supporting character who gets bitten by the hungry vampire Oskar as befriended gets the heave-ho.  There's really nothing to watch but starkness, and that alone can't sustain a movie.

Closer to the Surface: Repealing DADT

U.S. District Judge Virginia Philips, a woman with cojones larger than any politician today including those of our very own (somewhat ineffectual) president, slammed the gavel down and ordered that DADT be stopped, immediately.  I thought the whole thing was a cruel joke when I first saw the news come in on my phone, but newpaper after newspaper brought a domino effect of this event.  We all know how the issue has been bounced back and forth without any solid result, and how recently Republicans shamefully filibustered even the issue, severing even the possibility of a discussion.  Now this injunction accelerates the repeal of DADT even more and brings the entire cause of allowing gay men and woman to openly serve in the military without any fear of repercussion ever closer to the surface.

The sole question now remains: Where does Our President stand now?

We shall see.

National Coming Out Day 2010

It's National Coming Out Day... I would just like to (shyly) say I am proud to be my own fabulous self and super-proud to be a manlover. You know, the kind that forgoes the delicate flesh of the female and embraces the aggressive push and pull of the alpha-male.  The kind that sees a lovely rosebud 'twixt those creamy legs and tells its owner, "Please, darling, a little more powder, and a little more modesty. That's the key to everlasting love." The kind of man who is proud to be a fudgepacker. A cocksucker. A dickhumper. A muscle-lovin', cosmo-swillin', theatre-goin', art-lovin', diva worshippin', fashion-obsessed faggot. In short, a G-A-Y who is married to the greatest city in the world, even if it's riddled with bed-bugs. I am truly blessed by amazing furniture, lovely friends, an eye-popping wardrobe, fantastic books... oh, and before I forget--fa-a-a-amily who accept me for who I am as a person and I thank all of those incredible people who are sharing this journey of life with me, and making me look even better! [Not that this was difficult to achieve.] Big love to all of you! You know who you are! And ladies, don't forget: in the end, that muffin simply must be kept shiny! No one wants seagulls collecting near, wondering if salmon might make their appearance... or fishermen taking a de-e-e-e-ep whiff, thinking wistfully for the old days: "Perhaps Lysol was the answer after all."

Bridge of Tragedy and Awareness

[Thanks to I Should be Laughing for this haunting image. Please, download and re-post.  Spread the message.]

Facebook Trolls

I should know better: trolls, for better of worse, are here to stay.  Even though I belong to several different gay-dating sites and have been surprisingly lucky, meeting quality over personality rejects, I've also noted that Facebook has slowly become a harbinger for people on the prowl.  You know who I'm talking about.  Guys looking to friend you solely because of the picture you've got on your profile.  [And mind you; mine isn't anything out of the ordinary: just me in a tank and shorts.]

I see the invite, and think, "What are the chances that this dude has seen me post here or there and thought, 'This guy sounds like someone intelligent. I like his writing style. I think I'll send him an invite and an intro.'" Of course, more than likely the answer is a resounding "Zero", but hey. I had to throw that one out there, into space, and see what response I got.

Someone asked me for stats.  Obviously, I thought, well perhaps he wants to know what ethnic group I belong in, what political party I'm partial to, what economic class I fancy myself to be in, or even what type of restaurant I tend to go to during Friday nights now that I'm not working the late-night shifts.  Of course, the more cynical part of me yelled into my tympanum: Dude! He wants to know stats. Ya know? The old trio of chest/bis/waist size."

Ah.  It was all clear to me now.  Of course, my mind was sober, and the Franzia was slowly losing its grip on me.  Now I was in the stranglehold of Mr World-Weary, and boy was he weary.  Seen it all, done it all, and he-e-e-e-e-ere we go again.

So I decided to tell Mr Inquirer, "Oh, shucks, I haven't measured myself in a loooooong time."  Of course, one look at my photos show me to be quite built.  Assuming one has fully functioning eyes, and access to my pictures.  However, he insisted.  "Well at least tell me how tall are you" was his message.  I replied, because I was in a delightful mood, "Uh, I'm over 5 ft tall, but under 6."  He didn't reply back.

You don't suppose I might have scared him away, huh?  Oh, who cares.

Lazy Sunday with John Mayer

A lazy Sunday.  Nothing to do but sort through things within my mind and continue to type, type, type.  One of these days my hands are going to quietly detach themselves from my wrists and fasten themselves to my Sony Vaio keyboard and all I'll hear is tippity-taptaptaptaptap like some crazy Ambient sound lulling me to sleep... and therefore barring me from pleasuring myself.

Speaking of pleasure, I've diverted so far from the mechanical sounds of Synth and delved into the deep south with John Mayer.  I could care less if his cock is a white supremacist--the dude makes music.  And for four months this song has been plastered into my ears like the warm wax they produce:



I love its story.  I love how Mayer sings to the camera with a look of guilt, and it's clear why: he's stolen the girl who was about to get married to his friend.  The cuckold, instead of hurling at Mayer in the dark bar where he sits, offers him the "good luck" gesture, and as he leaves, Taylor Swift, never seen but a wispy dream of a voice, sings "can't stop loving you" as Mayer reads her note.  This is a movie waiting to be told.  Set in the South, of course.  And I'll be the person to write it.  After all... that's what I do.

That's Gay

Apparently the meaning of the word 'gay' has begun a marked change into something less desirable.  When I grew up back in the 80s, even though the being called gay wasn't all that great, it identified you with another social class.  I didn't like it, but I preferred that instead of "faggot" or one I really hated: "homo".  [Again, thank you, jocks of CEB, for branding me.  I owe you so little.]  But I digress: now all I hear the younger kids saying is, "That's gay" and Katy Perry, even though I like her music, has an entire song devoted on a lousy boyfriend who's such a mess she sings, "You're so gay and you don't even like men."

Could it be possible to reclaim that word? Not that it's gone to pot, but I'm just throwing the question out there. Because, after all, I'm gay and damn proud of it. And I'm not too happy with it being associated with failures.

The A-List: Where are the Men?

Just when you thought things couldn't possibly get worse for us gays with September being a particularly gruesome month for LGBT youth and Benjamin Carver's heinous gay-bashing at Stonewall Inn, this happens.  This.  I thought it was some kind of put-on, a bad montage or even a parody of the worst of the worst of reality shows, but when this appeared, in full 'faux-drama', I almost had a heart-attack.  And I'm nearing that age, you know.  When such cardiac events occur?  Yeah.

So what is this, you ask? Well, it's a travesty called "The A-List", and its reeking in irony.  You see, in my world, that term is referred for actors, performers, entertainers, talk show hosts (Oprah... although she's beyond A now), even writers and artists of a certain status.  Hell, even newscasters of the likes of Anderson Cooper deserve to be considered A-List.

But there's another kind of A-List flourishing around the NYC circles (and I suspect, major cities of the US).  The A-gay is a gay person who has success writ large over his or her name and has the works to prove it.  Anderson Cooper is one of them.  So is Suze Orman.  Ellen [Degeneres].  Rosie O'Donnell.  Tom Ford.  David Geffen.  Marc Jacobs.

Last I saw, neither of the gay men in this train wreck were in that elite circle; neither of them were even remotely known before this show was fist-fucked into LOGO TV.  And while I'm sure Mike Ruiz is "one of the top celebrity photographers in demand today", the self-absorbed smugness that because he goes to the top parties, he is A-List was more than enough for me.  The rest? None of them registered a notch under shrill to me.  I've never cared much for over-the-top elitist queens who've slept their way with Rich Dick and climbed the ladder to some perceived position of privilege.  And anyway, as a writer, I have to take good care of my eyes.  They're not used to these sort of horrors.  If only they'd have retained the original title.  It's so appropriate.

"Kept."

Deep Thoughts by Christine O'Donnell

Christine O'Donnell is most definitely NOT a witch. What she is, is a woman who will spend an un-Godly amount of campaign money in, well... unpolitical activities, because that, dear reader, is what a conscientious Republican (with an almost delirious attachment to God and all that is good) does. After all---He is the one guiding her ... to most certain victory. And she reminds you, she is YOU.

Unless you're a witch. Or engage in spanking the monkey that fails to evolve. Then she's most definitely NOT you. Praise the Lord.

 

Vote Republican November, 2010!

I absolutely believe with every fiber of my plastic heart Made in Hong Kong by underpaid factory workers that the only way I can sleep at night is if I let the likes of the (spectacularly undereducated) Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, and the ultra-conservative right rule this country with a religious fervor not seen since Hitler.  I don't want to know anything anymore---science is bad, and faith is the Only truth there is---other than the Government is my Ruling Father, left and right, above and below, in front and behind me.  That I can be assured that those who are privileged will continue to reap the rewards of their entitlement, and those who are in the minorities will for once and for all be pushed back down to the levels only reserved for subhumans.  And after all, isn't that why we had trickle down in the first place? So that we, those who live in the foothills, could fight and grasp like the un-evolving, unsavory, beastly simians for every tiny crumb that rolled towards us?  Long live Republicans and their strong, infallible strength and commitment to Imperialism, extreme Nationalism, and the segregation of their fellow, less fortunate Americans!

Kathy Griffin's Message on Gay/Teen Suicides

When celebrities who care speak out.  I tend to laugh 'til my pee is dripping down my leg whenever Kathy Griffin inasmuch as says one word, but this time I'm profoundly moved by her words in this video, released today.

Wrapped Around Her Finger

I was pretty sure I'd been gypped and my hazy day called Monday didn't let me see it right there and then.  You're not going to tell me that a hummus wrap purchased at the downtown deli is going to cost me over 12 fucking dollars.  Hell to the fucking no.  If in order to eat healthy I'm going to have to exchange my liver for a mouthful of protein, it had better be man-seed, and the man attached better be drowning in lean beef and glistening bronze, ready to serve.  This, on the other hand, wasn't, and every chew brought me to a notch just below simmering as Re-Re belted "Respect".

Just to see if the dubiously legal alien who stood behind the cashier wasn't taking me for her pet project and snickering because she'd laid her fat ass thumb on the scale I went to ask her the crucial question, "What does a hummus wrap cost, exactly?"  I was expecting the worst.  I was expecting her to look confused and flustered while on the inside, she was enjoying seeing me distraught.  I could swear she was twinkling with glee on the inside as she muttered in perfect British English just out of audible range, "Yes, yes!  You fool!  I did it!  I laid my pleasantly plump thumb on the scales in order to rip you off because you're a bloody imbecile.  Yes, it cost 9 dollars, but my thumb took it a little extra.  What are you to do about it?  You little bugger you.  I ought to spit in your eye for having the nerve to ask me."

But no, when I asked her with all the elegance a gentleman can pretend he has without laughing and asked her for, she responded: "Ah, ah... yes, yes, you no receive pepper, you need have receipt with pepper, yes, yes, mmm...."

"Right, but this is not food from the buffet; this is a sandwich that hardly can justify the 12 dollars I was charged.  How do you explain this?

"Uh... Uh... Ay---no se, me has to get to work, senor."

"So then---?"

"Uh, yes, yes... I get you next time, I get you next time... don warry."

Yeah, you better, bitch, I thought, and sulked back to my seat to end my meal.  Yeah, she sure got me today!  Who'd have thought, a demure Mexican girl adding a part of her to make sure I gave her a little extra some-some as a tip.

Monkey on my Back

The Infamous Cecilia Chang.

I lift weights.  Heavy weights.  So it's bound to happen: the knots in the back, especially after working that huge bodypart out.

And that's a problem.  Because one doesn't sleep standing up, doesn't one?  Or on one's stomach?  And sideways won't just cut it.

And I just bought a new AeroBed.  I love it... but bubble or no bubble, the knots are there, gnarly.  Angry.

Throbbing like Ambient Noise.

Does anyone know an Asian lady with nifty hands whom I could enslave into giving me the proper back massage while retaining her Visa in a place only I know?  Since enslaving seems to be so common lately and certain deans are getting happy with it I thought I'd use my backaches as a reason to go Karen Walker on an unsuspecting Miss Swan.  Oh, don't worry.  I'll feed her.

If I remember.

Some Abstract for the Head

Earlier tonight two friends and I took a stroll to the MoMA to check out the collection on Abstract Expressionism.  It wasn't anything I hadn't seen before---this is my favorite genre, and I'd been to San Francisco's MoMA in 2003 where most of the paintings hung.

I made sure I had my head in the right spot.  After all, this is one very cerebro-visual experience.  Through some of the works exhibited there I felt a familiarity with the Ambient music genre, itself isolating and formless.  Think of it as a moody head-trip where there is no context, no subtext, just text.  I swam amongst the deep colors of Mark Rothko, discussed odd, semi-connected thoughts with Franz Kline's Japanese ideograms, and felt the chaos of DeKooning and Pollock.  And 7 minutes later I came back to the surface and the three of us left to Chevy's for some very satisfying faux-Mexican.

Artists shown, in order, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline (2), Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning.

From Gay Suicides to My Story

I don't know if it was there, all along.  Someone told me that teens have been committing suicide for years now due to the extreme harassment they experienced, be it from the home, the school, the outside world, or a combination of all three.  Of course, kids weren't coming out that young then as they are now, and any suicide that I recall from a teen usually came without any perceivable warning, and usually it was mourned for, making its way into the local news, and then forgotten.

We're living in much different times now.  There is news all over the place---not just the telly but the Internet.  News travels at the speed of yesterday: YouTube videos gone viral in minutes, forum chatter, Twitter, Facebook, and a score of bloggers make their voices known and with it, the unfortunate events that they depict or announce.  Tyler Clementi's chilling status update "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry" and the discovery of his body floating on the Hudson River days later grabbed Americans by the neck and forced them to see, up close and personal, what the effects of bullying and a destruction of someone's privacy can lead to.

I've been in a state of sustained horror mixed with concern and anger over his and a series of suicides that have taken the lives of 5 gay teens at last counting.  Something terrible is happening to gay youth, and who knows how many are still festering in silence, seeing the walls close in, unable to realize that it's all an illusion, that it will get better.  At least when I was a kid suicides were rarely heard of; you just dealt with it and moved on: now it's become a growing epidemic that points at the horror of what parents teach their children.  If it's intolerance, and derogatory words such as "faggot", "queer", and "homo" are used---usually with violence, then you have the birth of a bully, and the perpetuation of hate.

This has hit me especially hard because it brought back every painful memory I thought was dormant from my growing years.  You don't need a weapon to kill someone, and you don't need fists to hurt someone if you really want to do it.  Culture shock---moving from the United States to the more intolerant country that is Dominican Republic and enrolling in a private school that seemed to stand for a sense of entitlement and superiority over others---it was usually called the rich kids' school and everyone who went there tended to have the yacht to go boating with, the golf clubs to go golfing, and took summer trips to far-away countries like Iran or Australia or Germany.  Of course, it was preferred you live in "El Barrio de los Gringos" (translation: The American Neighborhood, a title filled with irony).  If you did, you were in, if not, you better be either the son/daughter of a rich family; otherwise, good luck.

El Barrio de los Gringos and Where the Bullies Came From

Looking back I always loved its streets because they somehow reminded me of the equally similar avenues and roads and lanes you could find in any affluent American township.  Thirty years later I realize that all "El Barrio" was, was little more than a glorified planned neighborhood complete with controlled housing, similar architecture, and curving, elegant streets lined with lovely lawns and wide sidewalks.  It even had its own Country Club, Golf Club, and neighborhood bar called "The Boite".  It was its own micro-city; it still is.

The thing was, when it was established in 1971 by Falconbridge, a Canadian mining company, the ensuing community that became with it was created to copy the template of a planned community for its employees.  Like all things, it started innocently, but there became a sense of entitlement to its later Dominican citizens who "moved on up" and brought a WASP-ish attitude, itself out of place in a Latin-American country still deep in the 3rd world.  I believe some of the schoolmates and bullies I met came from this nascent environment.  They had It, and anyone who didn't deserved to be stomped out of visibility.  Or perhaps because I was the real thing: American, and they were not.  Or perhaps because I was out and they were in.  Perhaps I had something else---something that propelled my fellow schoolmates to lunge themselves at me like African bees on bright red.  I don't know to this day.  Who can tell.  When my parents enrolled me in the CEB---Centro Educacional de Bonao---they were looking for the best education for their children.  Not to see their oldest son targeted by the sons of the engineers of Falconbridge who had made him a scapegoat.

I wish I could tell you my experience was the same that most kids experience.  I wish I could say that it lasted only a year, maybe two.  I really wish I could say that.  I wish I could say I had only one bully.  Or two.  No---mine was systematic, daily, by entire groups of students, all who were in the Spanish program of this school (I studied in the English side), and it lasted from 1979 - 1988.  I feared them all, intensely.  There never was a day where I wouldn't be taunted in one way or another.  Phys Ed was my hell because there I was game for anyone who saw me as the clumsy man to rip into, smash a ball into, scream at, trip, lose his books and make him pay a fee---the books were found later---, rip his new sneakers from his locker, and on and on.  Even after school as I attempted to study at the library.

Some girls---the more athletic ones---eagerly chipped in on the name calling, the bossing me around, the release of comments that snowballed out of prorportion---one even said at Phys Ed "You're a loser and you should die" because I made the soccer team lose.  Again.  That I will never understand, the why.  Why girls also went after me.  It was bad enough that the school jocks---the ones winning awards in track and field and soccer and representing the school while I sulked in the shadows---were letting me feel the full score of their hate, calling me "fag" (maricon), a "homo-sapiens" (their slur term for homosexual), and sometimes exposing their genitals to see if I reacted.  Now the aggressive, Type-A girls were chiming in, bringing me down at every turn, making sure I'd felt my status as a pariah.

Through out this, I tried to keep busy, reading books to escape, hoping that one day I would leave Dominican Republic and come back to the USA.  I sometimes went to the river to take a lone dive, to leave the hell that was Bonao.  However, every day was a stress test.  I was taking tranquilizers to keep myself from cracking at school, and even when I was quietly minding my own business the offending jocks had a way to finding me and starting some kind of situation.  My grades suffered terribly: I went from being a grade-A student and a promise to barely passing.  I hated my life. I hated that my schoolmates were so hostile to me, passively or openly, as if I had leper. I hated that every day I felt more and more miserable, and the prospects of moving back to the US were dim (and getting dimmer). I knew no one could understand--not even my therapist--what I was going through. My parents were equally intolerant of me being gay, and were pressuring me to get a girlfriend.  And by age 12, I'd decided to kill myself.

It didn't happen.  Luckily my father found me holding the knife in my hand, slapped me across the face, got a gun, screamed at me that if I was so anxious to die he'd pull the trigger on me.  My mother intervened, took me back in.  No one spoke for a long time.  It was clear there was a problem at hand.

The Intervention and a Suspension

I don't remember quite well what exactly happened, but I do know that it had to do with a pretty ugly series of events escalating within Phys Ed where the Class of 87 was suspended due to my complaints to then superintendent Sister Yolande E Roy.  I recall one of the more violent jocks (who shall remain nameless, as he should be because he is nameless) deliberately struck me in the face during volleyball and I bled profusely.  I think I'd lost a turn or something, but as usual, I was and still am clueless with sports.  Because of that, he decided to really vent out that day and do it on me.  I hated him.  I hated how he'd chosen me out of everyone else to throw whatever anger was happening in his life and loudly and rather proudly chase me around CEB grounds and it didn't even faze him my father was a society figure.  Whatever it was, he felt compelled to seek me out.  And this was the result.  A gash in my upper lip, a botched attempt to see what it was that ticked him in Ms Roy's office as he sulked and made excuses, my revelation that the guys (and several girls) of the Class of 87 were pulling me every which way, and their inevitable suspension from CEB.

I recall the fury coming from Ms Roy's tiny, pinched face... and her voice filled with power, as she lectured all of us.  I admired her, for she helped me.  She believed in me.  She always told me to walk tall, face up, chin out.  She kept reminding me, "Ivanhoe.  You are special.  You have something different about you.  You don't know what it is, but I can see it."  And here she was, suspending the guilty with the innocent, because my complaints and my parents' complaints had piled up over the years and she was Making It Stop.  Period.

The last  year in High School was the only time I caught a breather... most of the hate was gone, but some persisted in my own class as some of the guys were at one point participants of my frequent humiliations and I remained aloof to them.  I recall my graduation.  It couldn't happen soon enough.  I was so determined to leave and be me I barely took a picture on my graduation.  I could care less.  I was about to be free.

Graduation night at CEB.  I'm on the extreme right, not very happy-looking, but ready to leave this group.  I only remain close friends with the girl in the center and the second girl to the right whose names I choose not to disclose for privacy reasons.

I hope that if someone is out there and he's in High School or starting college, I want you to know that there is hope.  The moment I left CEB---June of 1988---I vowed never to look back.  I promised myself that of my graduating class I would become Someone.  But above all, I swore myself that I would be Myself.

I haven't let myself down.  And I never will.

 Me today, 22 years later

Case 39 - A Demonic Hot Mess

Never go see a movie based solely on its poster.  Case 39 has one of those completely misleading posters, showing Renee Zellwegger and Jodelle Ferland huddled together in pitch-black darkness, hiding from what seems to be an unseen presence.  After I saw it I wondered if it was from the critics with razor-sharp fingers who hadn't seen this in advance.

So let's see what I can make of it: the movie starts with some creepy parents moving in on a frail-looking girl (Ferland).  They have some pretty unsavory plans for her.  Luckily for the girl, Zellwegger (playing a child welfare officer) moves in on the scene, rescues the girl from becoming a female rotisserie, and has the parents committed to a mental facility.  What a happy ending.  Spring has sprung!

Or has it?  Not in Vancouver, where this was filmed.  Not in Zellwegger's home---once the girl lands in there she does the same kind of about-face that Anne Baxter did in All About Eve once Eve reveals she's not the star-struck ingenue in that famous bathroom confessional.  Only this girl amps it up a notch: she's the other Eve---Lilith.  You know, right?  The darker female demon?  Uh-huh.  And when she doesn't get her way...she turns tricks.

Predictably, people start dying left and right.  What a shock.  And Zellwegger... oh, why do I bother.  Recounting this one is like recounting every other movie where there's a bad seed or son of Satan dictating orders.  I might as well watch a gay porn movie directed by Chi Chi Larue.  They have more suspense and surprises.

At least this one had the conceit of not starting like a horror movie but a white version of Precious, had Gabourey Sidibe fit into an oven.  It's not terrible, just not that scary.  Bradley Cooper (pre-Hangover fame, this was filmed 4 years ago) has an encounter with the fly-variants of Amityville.  There's a blatant reference to The Haunting with pounding noises and a door that bends inwards and some Omen moments.  Eh, it's a painless mess.  Horror is dead.  No one's home.

Ellen Degeneres' Impassioned Video on Tyler Clementi, et Al

Something Terrible is Happening to Gay Youth

Tyler Clementi

Was it ever that common as it is now? I recall suffering in silence during the 70s and 80s in school, but I don't recall suicides over the matter.  After I left my school---Centro Educacional de Bonao, an American/Canadian private school in the city of Bonao, Dominican Republic---I vowed never to look back.  I put my pain in a little compartment and moved on.

Then came the suicides, not just of gay youth, but of kids in general.  Phoebe Prince, a girl tormented by her peers until she hung herself.  Billy Lucas.  Seth Walsh. Tyler Clementi.  Asher Brown.  And now, Raymond Chase.  The last five involving gay kids, three of the suicides happening in less than a week.  What is going on here?  Have kids become so completely callow, so absolutely without remorse that they can push those who they deem "weak" or "different" right over the edge?

Late-Nite Fantasies

I live alone and it's a dark and windy night.  So I decided that before I get on my rampaging tirades against 50 Cent's acute sensitivity for gay folk, the homophobic Assistant AG who has a self-hating hard-on for Chris Armstrong, and the slew of gay suicides that peppered September and culminated in the double deaths of Tyler Clementi and Asher Brown, I'd pause for a second and entertain myself visually with the stuff that make men dream.

Douche of the Day, Every Day

This is why one must never throw stuff on the Net.  It stays there, forever.  Deleting didn't quite help, now, didn't it?