Civilife

The March On Washington - October 11, 2009

2009-10-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

I was wrong. I said it was a bad idea. Being a dinosaur from the disco era, I thought people would turn it into a party, a PR nightmare with leather pigs in full harness begging for the strap in front of network cameras.

But it was well organized. The crowd was neat and tidy. The rainbow signs were so tasteful, and obviously approved by committee. The speeches were strictly coordinated. No one repeated what anyone else had said, and the points, nicely understated, were made briefly, forcefully, and sometimes quite charmingly. It was also smart to have it in DC instead of Salt Lake. That made it easy for the New York set to make an appearance. All in all, a job well done.

Now I would never stoop to bitchy queeny hatchet jobs, or to criticizing everyt detail, down to Michael Huffington's loud tie. No. Absolutely not. I won't do it.

That said, Applebaum is dreaming if he thinks his coming out was an act of courage. Honey, people knew already. The neatly ironed overalls weren't fooling anyone. Also, Staceyann, dear, we loved the words. But you're a tad strident. Tone it down a few thousand decibels. And Huffington showed the usual republican bad taste. 'An historical?' How pretentious. It's pronounced 'a historical.' 'H' is a consonant. Consonants are preceded by an 'a.' And please. That right wing dodge of pretending to be bisexual is getting so tired. He's probably a screaming bottom begging for the strap. Doesn't he know that conservatives don't care if he slipped it to a woman sometime in the eighties? They're grossed out that he sucks c—k. Still, I do wonder if the two kids he mentioned are Arianna's.

It was a coup to have Julian Bond, the Prez of NAACP. He's such an educated guy. And it's wonderful that they put him in charge instead of a dingbat Southern preacher. What an elegant man he truely is. His telling the crowd they were the best looking he'd ever seen was a good-natured pander. Knowing that queens are vain, he just teased them about it. He also brought a preacher's touch, saying that good things come not to those who wait but those who agitate. Sweet. He recognized that our guy, Bayard Rustin, organized the first march on Washington back in the day. And he didn't just admit that homophobia is coming from black churches. Quoting the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. himself, he called his own community stupid and ignorant on the issue. You could have knocked me down with a feather. If only we could be as honest with our community, and stop making excuses for our self destructiveness and internalized homophobia.

Kate Clinton was there, the fabulous comedian. And the one liners were nonstop. These days, her stuff is good enough to be aphorisms. She's like a modern day Oscar Wild. It's nice to see a lesbian carry on a gay male tradition.

Kate introduced her partner, Urvasi Vaid. I always enjoy it when two smart and kind people have the sex thing going on. They remind me of those other do gooders, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, except Kate probably knows her way around a strap on. Urvashi is my very favorite gay activist in the Universe. For her I would shave my chest and wear stone washed jeans. The girl is phenomenal. She may not speak in pop clichés like other celebrities. But her vision is so fair and clear and precise, it takes your breath right away. She wants the queer agenda to include issues like healthcare and labor rights and the environment. I could not agree more.

There was a guy named Tanner without much to say, but with a deep, forceful man voice. And who wouldn't spare a few minutes for a deep, forceful man voice?

The guy who wrote the Milk screenplay was there, telling us to free ourselves from shame and self doubt. The point is well taken, although he should have called internalized homophobia by its proper name. That places the blame where it belongs, on the bitch homophobes who crushed us as children. It also puts the responsibility on us for healing ourselves. Really though. The message was good, and the screenplay was not too shabby. I cried most of the way through, mostly because I was in town during the entire history. But where does this bare backer get the nerve to tell the world his love is beautiful and true? Like most celebrities, he's probably surrounded by ass kissers and thinks he can say anything without being called out. Even after thirty years, the queer community has not faced up to their sexual irresponsibility.

A guy named Bruce was there. He's the executive who dumped a hundred thou on the march, which he just happened to mention his first three seconds at the mike. Big whoop. He wants us to face down the homophobes at work. He probably has millions and doesn't need to worry about getting fired or loosing his healthcare. It's the same nut job, unrealistic approach that queer activists have been pushing for thirty years.

And speaking of activists, the march organizer Cleve Jones said a few words. After taking a moment to promote his organization, he told the country that we're done waiting and won't compromise another inch. We demand the full package right now. Cleve also took a minute for another swipe at Bill Clinton for DADT. After fifteen years, he still hasn't figured out that the political environment then was a tad unfriendly.

Talk about nut job approaches. Issuing orders to the American people is laughable. It'll roll off the body politic like water off a duck. This is why many gay activists so get on my nerves. They alternate between a self righteous dream world and a victim complex funk. Our political success would actually upset their emotional life, so they give us an endless stream of failed strategy.

News flash. The public are on our side on a few issues. And they would probably like us a lot more if we stopped shooting ourselves in the foots every ten minutes. But they're busy just now. They're worried out the ass about loosing their jobs and mortgages. And they probably don't have thousands to spend on pressuring Washington on gay rights. Politicians, meanwhile, are trying to put through healthcare, and create millions of new jobs. They don't have time to write finely worded laws granting us perfect rights starting the day before yesterday.

So yeah. The march was nicely done. The speeches were inspiring. And hearing Let The Sun Shine In by the cast of Hair totally kicked ass. I cried. But it probably won't do much good. Our enemies aren't going to roll over just because Lady Gaga said a few words. Nobody cares about her pledge not to allow homophobia in her next mind numbingly shallow hit.

Just as before, we'll have to struggle over every issue. Building coalitions over common issues like healthcare probably wouldn't hurt. We also could rethink stupid fights over marriage in rube California, and a thousand dollar a head walk in the park with rainbow flags and lectures. We might glance at the polls and adjust accordingly. Some easy wins on domestic partnership in the States would get the public used to the idea, giving us momentum so that full marraige rights would follow like Rosanne behind a pastry truck.

But any of that would need a mature outlook. And the queer majority are still twenty year olds who've transformed homophobia into their own brands of bigotry. They don't choose freinds with character or leaders with brains. They want freinds with muscles, no matter how heartless and ignorant. They make endless excuses for the bare backers. And their leaders are emotionally challenged dingbats chosen for their looks, or because they're members of various subcultures, or because their parents were in the business, or because they knew Harvey. Please. Until the mainstream grows up, we'll be loosing battles like Rosanne at the Oscars.

The Best Guitarists

2009-10-03T22:02:00.001-07:00

Unconcerned as usual with the queer perspective, Rolling Stone has a list of the top one hundred guitarists. And their picks are not so bad. But really, one hundred guitarists? That’s more than I could do in a week. And exactly what would be the criteria for separating seventy three from seventy four? The list definitely needs work, if not a facial reconstruction with boob job. Here’s a taste:

Rolling Stone

1 Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin
10 Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
11 Kirk Hammett of Metallica
12 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana
13 Gerry Garcia of the Greatful Dead
14 Jeff Beck

First off, do we really need to be told who Duane Allman, Gerry Garcia, Jimmy Page, and Keith Richards are? It’s like explaining chocolate cake to Rosanne. Believe you me, she knows what that is, as the carpet gouges between her TV room and kitchen attest.

And who died and made Jimi Hendrix King? Oh yeah. He did. Sorry about that.

But really, Ry Cooder? And Kurt Cobain? Please. That was an obvious suck up to the slacker generation, who should try something less formulaic. One might also ask where Carlos is. It goes to show. Don’t send a marketing committee with delusions of grandeur to do a queer with unresolved adolescent issues' job. Here then is the proper list.

1 Buddy Guy
2 Carlos Santana
3 Duane Allman
4 Johnny Winter
5 B.B. King
6 Johnny Ramone
7 Robin Trower
8 Eric Clapton
9 Son Seals
10 Jimmy Hendrix
11 Brian May
12 Peter Green
13 Angus Young
14 Steve Hunter
14 Warren Haynes
15 Buck Dharma
16 Steve Howe
17 Eddie Van Halen
18 Dickie Betts

Carlos, Duane, and B.B. need no explanation, except to say that they’ve made the most beautiful tones in all the history of the world of sounds. Hearing a single note from any of the three is enough to know exactly who is playing. And what poor Duane did with a slide guitar was nothing short of poetry mixed with a healthy dose of lazy Springtime lounging under a tree while the leaves flutter and colored birdies dart and sing.

Many readers won’t know who the others are. They represent a taste for blues guitar, as well as for hard, fast rock. Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult was the fastest. On Lou Reed’s album, Rock And Roll Animal, Hunter was the cleanest, meaning that every note was distinct and nothing ran together into a blurry mess like third grade finger painting. Montrose was fast. Ramone was very fast, and just happened to invent an entire genre, for which he never got the credit. If there were any justice in this world, Green Day would have mentioned the Ramones at the Grammys. But they did not. Hendrix also invented a wonderful new form, while Trower took it to another level. And the blues greats need no groveling introductions from this unworthy correspondent.

This is only a start, a stop gap measure, if you will, until middle-aged queer commentary is broadcast from every studio in the land, and popular tastes have been raised at least to the level of a Haight Ashbury bar fly. When that day comes, the music industry will shine like a diamond held between the butt cheeks of Christ Novoselic. And it might be sooner than you think. Media reform may not be a top priority now, but wait until Arnold has done his three hundredth action film in a walker and oxygen tent. The halls of ABC will tremble at the approaching mob demanding that Kennedy be retired from MTV and gay punk be featured nightly on public television.

The Fight for Health Care

2009-08-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

Now is the time. The town hall meeting on health care is tonight. If ever there was a civic duty, this is it. But it could be slightly dodgey. Hired goons from the industry could be there, and who knows how they'll react to the kind of placards I have. So far, I've got these.
------------------------------------------
Welcome to the 20th Century
Single Payer
------------------------------------------
I was sick and you took care
of me. Matt 25:36.
Single Payer
------------------------------------------
Heartless Profiteers, Stop
Bribing The Congress.
Single Payer
------------------------------------------
Single Payer
Industry Goons Back Off.
------------------------------------------
Excuse me, genetic mutations who
enjoy wathing people suffer.
Single Payer is a moral imperative.
------------------------------------------
That last one could get me into trouble. Maybe I'd better lay off. But I'm bringing the rest. And let the chips fall where they may.
After the ball:
This being Seattle, the crowd could not have been more on track. And there were no goons, except for the dingbats in front with slack jaws and very dumb signs.
The Seattle congressman, what's his name, gave a talk. I had wanted him to retire and make room for someone younger and hotter. But there's a lot to be said for age and experience. There's actually a ton to be said for it. What's his face spoke very well indeed. First he explained why we're making progress now. Seems that business and the doctors have come on board. CEOs know they can't compete internationally with the current system, and doctors are getting screwed by insurance companies. The problem is those fu--k---g insurance companies and drug companies are fighting all out. They know this could be the end for them.
Even worse, he says, there's nothing ordinary people can do to help. But I've thought of something. If the fundys could be convinced, they'd be powerful allies. Of course the queer community would lay an egg at the very idea. But this is too important for grudges.
Bringing fundies on board would be a piece of cake, except they don't know jack about scripture. But I'll figure out a way to flood that quote from Matthew all over the place. It might have no effect, because fundies ignore everything decent. Still I'm gonna.

The Gay Agenda

2009-07-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

Contrary to fundamentalist nightmares, the gay agenda is a tired affair. Gay priorities are set by the in-crowd and are hopelessly déclassé. Mainstream queers carry a ton of baggage from having grown up in a homophobic society. And they've called the shots for twenty eight slow years.
The victim complex people steer us into every kind of defeat in order to feel sorry for themselves. There's also the self righteous set for whom nothing is ever good enough and who attack even our best friends as if they were demons from hell come to swipe our last appletini.
The Community don't bother with strategy or prioritizing. In the Self Righteous Ville, political realities always take second place to a good tantrum. They're too busy to look at a poll, except with a man attached. They foamed at the mouth when the Clintons had to back off military rights, ignored the polls showing public selfishness on marriage, and went ballistic when Bill was forced to sign DOMA. They were still foaming when Hillary needed help on healthcare, even though medical care is a hundred times more important for us than gay f--k-ing marriage. Years later, they ignored the polls showing massive support for domestic partnership, which is a huge concession by the the straight world. We should be dancing in the street. instead, they threw away an easy victory and picked a fight for marriage in rube California that we had no chance of winning. Now they're flipping out because Obama has a few things on his plate besides bouquet tossing. He also could be trying to work for the best political environment before moving on our issues.
But none of that matters a smidge. The community has always prefered shooting themselves in the foots, getting frothy over minor issues, and living in a self righteous dream world where politicians are either saints or leather pigs who follow orders in full harness. Any delay on our least issue is a savage betrayal of the Uncompromising Quest Of Perfect Equality and shall be met with an endless blast of outrage. Leaders who dodge and weave and actually get things done, like Obama and the Clintons, are fiends in polyester and golf shoes.
The evidence is conclusive. Mainstream queers are stuffed to the gills with self hatred and internalized homophobia. That's been obvious since the early eighties, when the adults among us begged The Community to rethink the F--k Everything That Moves Strategy. It wasn't, of course, and thousands suffered. We cried, argued, and generally made more noise than Pavarotti's orgasm. All to no effect. The mainstream responded with insults, false accusations, and bizarre rationalizations from low gay culture. They called Larry Kramer every name in the book. I was yelled out of discussion groups from Stanford to UC Berkeley to San Francisco State. And thousands more suffered.
Not one thing has changed. The big gay blogs are chock full of the same nonsense The Community used to avoid taking responsibility for AIDS. A favorite stance is to blame our problems on others: religion, the government, you name it. This crowd still don't see the difference between liberal christianity and fundamentalism. They trash our friends, from Obama to the Clintons, Barney, Elton, and anyone else who can't solve our problems over brunch.
After 30 years of this, it's obvious that internalized homophobia won't be cured by talk alone. The oppression started in childhood. By the time most queens were adults, the bad wiring had been cemented into place. It won't budge, not with pliers, dynamite, a blow torch, and Sigmund Frued with a crow bar and bucket of lube. Nothing we did or said then had the least effect. And now educated queens have stopped even trying to reason with the mainstream.
That doesn't mean I can't have my own gay agenda. It's a queer wish list, if you will, every item of which would delivered by a thirty something valet, buffed and rippling (my favorite adjectives), with Château Le Fleur and a stroll in the park with friends after a late brunch.
First priority: fix the parade, or Pride as it's known today. Seattle Pride in particular is a snooze fest of gigantic proportions. First come the earnest crowd, inluding Second Cousins of Tranny Friendly Part Time Bank Tellers and Computer Techno Queers in slacks and white socks. The horror. Then there's the naked brigade, which is great PR and now at an age when they should really keep it covered. Leather Daddies are also just the image we want in a global broadcast. Finally there's the rally, where the speakers' naiveté is enough to give knowledgeable queers a raging hernia.
The crowds are massive, which would be great except they spill over into the clubs and make tea dance impossible. Try stepping to the beat in the middle of a thousand half drunk, stumbling gym bunnies, buffed and rippling, but also plastered together with sweat, barbeque sauce, vodka, and dry lube. At my age, it's really too sticky.
And there's something famously missing. Disco floats. In the golden age, in SF and NY, the parade was juicy with disco floats. They were so very extremely, covered with crepe and streamers, the latest tune-age pounding from gigmondo speakers, and with go go boys pulsating deliciously.
Now I have to ask. What happened to the disco float? It was the only reason even to show up. The disco float is one our very best inventions, as good as logic, democracy, and Cher all rolled into one. It should not just be brought back with a vengeance. The disco float, in my opinion, is ready to break into hetero culture. How much tastier would the Macy's Parade be with a few disco floats? What could be better PR for the movement? After one glance, the public would sign off on our issues faster than a greased gerbil through Camille Paglia's empty skull.
Come back, come back, my sweet disco float.
But there's no hope for a well done parade, just as my political agenda has a drag queen's chance in Tehran of passing.
Still, if I had my way, we'd go after domestic partnership. Starting in the liberal States, it'd be a quick victory. And full marriage rights at the national level would roll in like Rosanne lubed and naked on a gurney. A frightening image.
That brings us to my real priority: AIDS. In my own private Idaho, the community would crank up the peer group pressure. Leather queens would redirect their aggression into policing everyone. Violators would be severely disciplined on the rack and given a fire hydrant enema, or both. The spokescreep's attacks on workable strategy would be shut down. We'd have monogamy with testing and condoms, serial monogamy with testing and condoms, free love with testing and condoms, positive people volunarily staying away from negative people because of their deep affection for the community, negative people making damn sure they only go with negative people, everyone throwing attitude at people who misbehave, and everyone taking care of AIDS people with grocery shopping, house cleaning, and the paying of the bills. Oh wait. We're already doing that. Bottom line: there would not be a new AIDS case on the scene for the next eighty umpteen years.
Next would be ENDA, a fully inclusive Employment Non Discrimination Act.
Then I'd mobilize to help Obama pass national healthcare. It's important for infected people, and olde folk, and people without jobs. It may fly in the face of queer ageism. But in my fantasies, I always shoot for the stars.
Next I'd ask for beefed up police protection in our communities. We should get something for the dough we've kicked in for public schools and hetero marriage benefits. And it would be good PR by showing we can't go for coffee without a wheel barrow full of mace, whistles, pepper spray, and Arnold in full body armor and a respirator.
Next repeal don't ask don't tell.
Then start rethinking gay culture itself. I'd wave the 'wand' and presto. Queers would value character as much as looks, kindness and respect over cattiness, knowledge over brainless youth, and responsibility and community over a weekend discount on Ecstasy.
What's that you say? It'll never happen? Says you, nelly bitch whore. Now don't bother me. Keannu is at the door with flowers, chardonnay, and a gallon of lube.

F U

2009-05-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

We have technology and industry. We can feed, clothe, and house every soul on the planet. We can offer easy access to birth control. We have the know how to provide clean energy and transport, and to replant the great forests to help reverse global warming.
We have clear orders from scripture to care for the creation and treat the oppressed with fairness and kindness. Though fundamentalists have always ignored the basics, rich people hoard every cent, and the masses do the same, causing untold squalor and misery, decent folk have stood up to them throughout history. If everyone had, there would be no poverty or pollution. Instead, rubes sit on their lazy asses while bullies run amok. Liars, thieves, pharisees and robber barons get away with everything.
This should be heaven on earth. It isn't simply because of all you heartless fu-k--g b-tches. If a fraction of you had taken up your civic duties, it would have been paradise decades ago. You didn't, of course. You still don't. And there's no sign that you cold hearted monsters ever will. So f--k you all.

Coming Out

2009-05-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

'Come out,' the activists say. If everyone comes out, the straight world will see... that everyone is out.
But so what? It doesn't matter who's out because people usually know who is and who isn't. And if the out and proud set are shallow, heartless, and bigotted, they're not the best pr for us anyway.
Instead, how about we all lead responsible lives? Just for kicks, what if we valued character over looks, knowledge over youth, kindness over objectification and dehumanizing sexualization, and our civil responsibilities at least as much as disco. Wouldn't that be slightly better pr?
But I forgot. Responsible living is work. It takes learning and effort and compassion and integrity. And it would mean taking a hard look at the cruelty and ignorance of mainstream gay culture.
But why bother? We're already an oppressed minority. Grade A Certified. Millions despise us. And any criticism of us is by definition unfair. Being a self righteous minority definitely has its up side. We can ignore all criticism, no matter how true. And we can treat one another almost as badly as the bigots have treated us: with looksism, ageism, cruelty, and cattiness. We can turn straight homophobia into our own brand of bigotry.

Gay Cabinet Positions

2008-11-30T20:54:00.000-08:00

Now that a genuine liberal is taking over the Presidency, it's time that queers get something from the deal. I'm not talking marraige rights or fair employment. Please. They are so ten minutes ago.
Gay people have made a good share of contributions in this backwater hole, and we deserve some reward. It’s common knowledge, for example, that queers invented logic, the marbel nude, and brunch. So it’s high time they got credit, and maybe some perks on the side. That doesn’t mean recovering the Table of Elements in silk brocade, or giving the entire government over to lesbian rule. But please. Throw us a bone, preferably with a man attached.
For starters, Elton should be made court composer. Rue Paul or k.d. would be First Lady in perpetuity. At the very least, gay people deserve seats on the President’s cabinet. The following positions are only a start. It will be easy to add seats as issues arise.

The Queer Cabinet (Cherry or Mahogany Only)

Secretary of the Interior Design
Minister of Brunch
Secretary of (Rough) Trade
Special Assistant for the Rethinking of a Blazer with Jeans and Sneakers
Minister of Credit (Where Credit is Due)
Secretary of Commerce (Mall Division)

Reminiscing

2008-10-20T18:07:00.001-07:00

I am so fed up with the public's bad taste. TV is a cross between American Idol, a half naked Survivor, and Lou Throbs Tonight. Please. Those giant muscles look like Arnold on meth. Even worse, Dancing With The Stars is too mechanical and a total disappointment for anyone who's seen the real thing.

I should know. I was there. The seventies disco scene made choreographed moves look like a barn dance for androids. Of course I'm talking about the Trocadero Transfer, the hottest gay disco this side of anywhere. And I saw them all: The City, Mine Shaft, End Up, Ibeam, Stud, Saint, Zenon, and Paradise Garage. (Studio was a tad before my time, although I heard it was tired. And the LA scene is disqualified for having inflicted Saturday Night Fever upon us.)

This was all before the anti disco backlash, which was really homophobia in disguise. It did serious damage and the Universe has never recovered. The circuit scene is a pale comparison, a hard drug pit with hopeless music, mindless techno pop, and spastic air humping.

Disco was so fine. The best places were off the beaten track. And the music never got the credit it deserved. It was beautifully written and performed by the best writers and musicians in the world, a combination of African rhythms, computer syncopation, and sex moaning. Every note was polished to a blinding brilliance by Hollywood technicians with diapers soaked in tarnoff. What could be better?

The dancing, as previously mentioned, made Hollywood look like holly wouldn't. It was tribal, for one thing. And it was originally ours, until John Travolta put his claws all over it. White polyester. Please. The real uniform was jeans and a T-shirt, which usually came off sometime after midnight. Before that, before the clone movement that is, there was a well dressed contingent. But they were seriously dressed, with silk jackets and ties, collarless shirts, decco slacks, you name it. You couldn't find a thread of polyester to save your life. And no one was waving his arms around like Richard Simons on meth. Travolta was animatronic. How he ever got a reputation for dancing is beyond my comprehension. Gay dance was more subdued, and beat driven, and sexy, and graceful, and spontaneous, and real.

The top of the scene was Trocadero, of course. It started with the best DJ ever: Bobby Viteritti. Other people have written enough about him. Let me just say that he was a great artist, a perfect genius of the craft. While others mixed the bass line at the ends of songs like a chore, Viteritti was everywhere, at the start, middle, end, on the bass or acoustic line, up, down, back and forth, and always seamless. And his taste in music. Forget about it. There's no accounting for taste. But his was perfect. He had three other skills, technical skills that could be copied, so I won't say what they were.

I'm not sure if the fan dancers were paid by the club, or if they were fan fanatics who spent hours practicing every day. But they added a ton. They whooshed the air and cooled things down. Think of them as air conditioners made of meat. They recreated the San Francisco winds, non stop and ever changing. And they brought a visual dimension that was hard to beat: weaving, waving, flashing, and circling for hours.

I was told at the time that people were doing drugs, and the favorite was MDA. They said it was a strong type of speed to help them stay up all night. Lately someone told me it was really Ecstasy. Who knew? But no one ODed in those days. The music was too precious to miss by being wasted.

The sound system was top shelf. Big deal. The mirror ball cluster was more distinctive. It gave the space a personality. You knew no one else had it. And if they got it, it would be a unoriginal and tired.

Then there were the live shows. I saw Taka Boom, Chaka Kan's sister. She was great. I also saw Grace Jones in NY, maybe at Paradise Garage, maybe at the place on the Hudson. Who can remember. But she was phenom. Having the top artists do shows in our humble dance clubs made us feel special and vulnerable and loved, a feeling we still don't get from the bitch queen public.

The Troc also started the red, white, and black parties long before the circuit scene. 'Nuff said.

For me, though, it was all about the dance. Not that I was any good. But I hung out with people seriously into the movement. They're mostly gone now, and the best eye candy ever has gone with them. The big dance was The Rock, which was inspired from the earthquakes. It started with a simple foot tap, but progressed into a million moves, perfectly timed to the music, but always changing and always surprising. It was by far the coolest dance before or since. There's no describing the perfect hamony of it.

The scene is gone now. But wonder of wonders, it's on its way back. I'll say no more, lest Hollywood dump another imitation on us, this time starring Vin Deisel as a Brooklyn wrestler who stumbles around the dance floor like Arnold on Ecstasy.

Sonnet 4

2008-01-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

For those queens only interested in red hot bodyflesh, get over it. Or look at Sea Man earlier in the blog. And stop with the incessant whining.
Here's a sonnet about family life. It's about children being parents' immortality, and having a partner who's a freind for life.
I wrote it because I think it's charming when queers say nice things about heteros. I include it here because it has two separate rhyme patterns, which I don't think has been done before in English verse.

Sonnet 4

A son like me in looks as well as thought,
A guarantee my hopes will coast again,
In future places I have never been,
By running races I have never sought.
Our daughter in between the earth and sky,
Where beauty can be seen throughout the years.
A dove that finds a way through passing tears.
Above the reach of time our spirits fly.
A wife like you on whom I can depend.
And always new to me, your gentle sighs
Are no less fair than the light inside your eyes,
Yet no less rare to be a lifelong friend.
I see into my heart the day I found
My dream of you, the autumn colors all around.

Verse 12

2008-01-07T18:14:00.000-08:00

This one's blank verse, from a sequence about highlights of America History. It goes long because it's about the Battle of the Bulge, a topic that deserves some leeway.
Blank verse has the meter and length of a sonnet without the rhyme. 'Nuff said.

Four million soldiers gone, their cities done,
With industry destroyed in falling fire,
The proud Luftwaffe smashed, the Wermacht pressed
From East and West. Now madder, Hitler tried
By pushing through to Antwerp, then to block
A single port. Americans were told
To hold the line. Outnumbered, yet would stay
The steel advance, until a wall was drawn.
When African Americans arrived,
The seven sixty first battalion thought
The master race should have a lesson taught.
Americans from every time and place.
A warrior’s battle. Grim they stood. Their souls
Restored. Three hundred ninety thousand rose.
Grave soldiers forced the Nazis back in loss
Where they’d begun. The Battle of the Bulge
Was won. And everything in war depends
Upon the bravery of men, a stone
Resolve that none shall pass with violence,
Or mock the innocence our world has known.
No craven Nazi ever understood
The freedoms calling in America.

Don't Cross The Bitter Queen

2007-12-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

Straight society has Emily Post, Dear Abby, Judith Martin, and, here in the Northwest, the Uptight Seattleite. The culture is more jammed with manners experts than a West Hollywood gym is tight with spandexed monkey jewels.

So it’s long past time for gay etiquette. Unbeknownst to this rude, crude, and socially unacceptable rubefest, high gay culture is the very apex of civil decorum. But we shouldn't settle for any old snob, advising a better way to dry hump the dinner guests one by one behind the armoire.

The queer Ms. Man(ners) would be more edgy than the norm. The gay sensibility, after all, is more than just polite restraint in the middle of a bulimic’s twelve course dinner party. Besides delivering advice, he would give hetero society the public spanking it so richly deserves. But you can't just turn hets over and whip their behinds to a candy apple red. So a verbal thrashing is the next best thing.

Unfortunately, the average sports fan doesn’t know what's good for him. And precious few will have the sense to write in asking for advice in taste and manners. So letters will have to be manufactured. That shouldn’t be a problem, though. It’s easy to spot the many vulgarities for which hetero culture should beg forgiveness. And this particular Ms. Man(ners) - oh pease smile on me intractable publishing elite - would have no trouble writing letters and answering them in one fell swoop. To wit:

Dear Ms. Man(ners)

I can’t find a barber to save my life. I always turn up at a hair salon where the stylists act like a Madonna video. This is really starting to piss me off. What gives?

Mr. Tough

Dear Mr.,

Gay men often work in the service sector because, unlike the general public, queers usually have a kind streak a mile wide. But our patience is not infinite, and before throwing attitude at the hair technician generously agreeing to handle your mop, think about what life will be like in the rest home, when the gay orderly has to hoist your giant ass onto the can for the umpteenth time. You won’t be so tough when they find you wedged behind the potty with a roll of three ply stuck up your butt.

Dear Ms. Man(ners),

I don’t mind gay people. Just don’t force it on me.

Cool Hand Luke

Dear Luke,

Time out while Miss Man(ners)’s boiling blood of rage falls to a simmer.
First, I totally agree. You should not have to fend off passes from horned out leather queens in the linen section of Bloomingdales. Much as I should not have to witness a hetero lip lock every three seconds on network television. But unless you’re dressed in a harness with cuffs, that shouldn’t be a problem. Try to keep some perspective.

Dear Ms. Man(ners),

My wife is thinking of a vacation in San Francisco. But I’m worried that the alien culture will keep me from having a good time.

Star Trek Rules

Dear Trekker,

Understood. Beautifully painted Victorians, excellent food, vast vistas, and urbane civility can be quite foreign. Normally I would advise staying under the Bridge near the Palace of Fine Arts. If you’re really worried, though, there’s always Miami. I hear the summer temperatures are only a hundred and thirty. Don’t forget the inhaler and medic alert bracelets.

Verse 6

2007-11-20T18:48:00.000-08:00

Ted Judah walked the high Sierra while
The civil war was pleading to be won.
He sold the job to Congress, and a plan
Began with calls for labor and the rules
of industry. Then Chinese workers hailed afar.
In baskets woven by their solid hands,
And hanging over space to plant the fuse,
Then swiftly raised, they dug the sheer cliff road.
In icy caves and tunnels every way,
Through massive peaks they blasted out the stone,
Some inches in a day. They won the race
To Promontory Summit, as they could,
Through finance from Durant, with stolid will,
A golden spike, and Lincoln’s fading sight.

Gay Culture Back in the Closet

2007-11-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

It’s gone too far. The media rush is on to hijack gay culture and serve it up with a roast hog and cheap wine. Every producer in Hollywood is after a slice, and Blue Collar Comedy is backpedaling like there’s no tomorrow.

High gay culture is a fantabulous mixture. It includes our aesthetic sense; a tradition of high living; taste for community; love for drama and the arts; appreciation for antiques and ye very olde things; respect for learning and talent; comic genius, or the phenomenom known as camp; and a fair-minded, generous viewpoint shaped by humor, oppression, dogged persistence, and some very fashionable eye wear.

But queer culture is also a delicate flower, and media hacks sucking up to a mass audience will ruin it faster than Marlon Brando reciting Sonnet Thirty Nine with ben wa balls up his ass. In the wrong hands, aestheticism is a trailer park. Art becomes pop art. Irony is slapstick, drama a Rambo marathon. Dance is Lord of the Dance. Reason goes straight to science, technology, and global warming. And community is a gated suburb with just the right quota of securely mated lesbians of color with no tendency to show up in harness.

This must stop. The flood is raging out of control, and we need to stuff Tom Arnold into a hole in the dyke, figuratively speaking of course. We could start by putting out a large taste of low gay culture, like say, a skag drag singing Over The Rainbow in screw earrings, a beard, and too revealing mini skirt.

But we can’t even talk about the worst of gay culture, much less dump it on others. Self criticism has been made off limits by the pc brigade, and we aren't allowed to discuss even our worst habits, like our objectifying and sexualizing and treating each other like dirt. The pc set call this ‘anti gay’. But they should be called ‘Auntie Gay’ for trying to stop us from being honest with ourselves.

We could offer a scoshe of high gay culture, and maybe use camp to upgrade the old comedy routines. That would be the pr approach, and it could save us from another pogrom, or a Friends marathon. Straight comedy is an idea whose time has definitely come. And gone. From bits about sneezing at the salad bar and the wife’s visa balance, to monologues on driving in traffic, not to mention the girl friend schtick, straight comedy either induces coma or drives you screaming through a cast iron wall. But straights are totally anal, and not in a good way, which is why their humor is overly tight. They might enjoy something a bit more relaxed, and a magnanimous gesture on our part could be strategic.

Camp, after all, is the first, last, and only word in humor. For example, at the salad bar, you should graze like a hog beast escaped from Jenny Craig and her most nut-cracking henchwomen. Filling the gut-bucket with low-cal roughage is the best way to avoid wallowing at the pastry bar like a starving whale hog from Alabama. And while driving in traffic, mind your own business. Never look wild animals directly in the eye or do anything to give the public an excuse for a tent meeting. Dodging self-righteous crusaders would make you late for the retirement home, where you give tender loving care to old people abandoned by their crusading families.

Offloading a smidge of camp, or a Gidge if you will, shouldn't ruin gay culture as we know it. And a small taste might keep the straight world from swallowing it whole, in a manor of speaking. But it’s a risky gambit. Straights have a nasty habit of stealing other people’s inventions. Lord knows they've made a mountain of cash on African American music. And they’ve been trying to absorb camp since forever. Luckily the first run failed.

It was back in ’64 that that scheeming professor, Susan Sontag, scrawled her Notes on Camp. That's usually the first step in turning gay culture over to the unworthy masses. They send in the academics to define something, and in the process redefine it as their own invention.

Ironically, Sontag’s essay was so dry and boring she could have been writing about George Bush’s bachelor party. And people ignored it. Academics are a notoriously humorless lot, and it’s no surprise that one of their most cunning shills would have misunderestimated gay humor. They also lean toward the arrogant. But it must have taken a Swedish clinic full of testosterone injections for an uptight lady professor to tackle a carefree subject like camp. The girl was out of her element from the word go, as the following table illustrates.

A Long Overdue Comparison

SONTAG………………………..CAMP

Straight……………………….Gay

Woman………………………..By and for men

Ambitious……………………...You go girl

No sense of humor……………A pack of drag queens in bright blue wigs
…………………………………screaming with laughter.

Perfect Grammar……………….Wha? Who zat?! Gimmee sum.

The academic establishment……High culture in a low cut dress
………………………………….with side vents and boob tassels

Corny from the word go------A pack of drag queens in brite blue

-------------wigs screaming with laughter
Excruciatingly complex verbal
descriptions with endless…………A phalanx of quite effeminate
variations in tone and…………….males in wigs of shining aquamarine,
contextual subtlety………………..screaming with laughter

Overly serious…………………..Overly sneerious

Widely respected……………….Come over here so I can slap you.

Paranoid………………………...Please to get over thy self,
…………………………………..Mistress of the Mother Boots.

With a performance like that, it should be obvious that cultural criticism should be left to civilized folk. But no. We’re drowning in wannabes telling us what is and what is not the acceptable FoRMaT!?!. I avoid the hack machine whenever possible, but the last example I saw was Joe Queenan’s book, Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon.

First he complains about what’s dumb in video, when every young queer in Doc Martins knows the virtues of stupidity. It's fun. And funny. And it has a butt load of categories in the camp play book: like stupid things that try to be serious but fail and so have a good bit of jazz, and stupid things we like just for their being stupid, etc…

Qeenan has the nerve to tell us what's good and bad in the media. Do tell. Good is what he likes. Bad is what he does not like. And he does not like Geraldo. Or Victor Victoria. No reason. He just does not like them. Is it because they have something to do with minorities? And could he be more obvious? His day job was writing for the TV Guide, but he says only three words about all the moronic trash on television. We are now deep in the Universe of Irony. A writer for TV Guide doing cultural criticism is like Jerry Fallwell giving sensitivity training to Newt Gingrich while gutting a live deer and slapping around a row of ten year olds in a Eurasian sweat shop.

Queen to Knight’s Bishop Sixty Nine

The essence of camp is turning the world on its head. The Universe can be a tad impolite, or savage and brutal and heartless and cruel. Take your pick. With camp, we escape all of that and create a world of our own, a place where laughter echoes like Pavarotti’s orgasm and scorn is flung at Arnold in a pink bikini.

Camp is too precious a jewel to be slapped willy nelly onto the market. As Sontag did to camp, and Queenan does to criticism, so would the masses do to high gay culture. We'll have lost some of our greatest works. And what will have been gained? Zilch. Straight culture is not offering even a lopsided deal, like equal rights in exchange for a decent brunch menu. That would be generous on our part. But no. Het culture takes what it wants, turns it into trash, and offers nothing in return but pro wrestling.

There is one way out. And it isn’t a song by the Allman Brothers in which Dwayne on slide and Dickie on electric trade off leads in a classic performance for the ages. Gay people need to reclaim their culture and build a giant wall of broken china around it, with a barbed wire fence and attack dogs, or Joan Rivers.

First, get Michelangelo’s work out of the claws of the Vatican, the very institution that has treated us like dirt for ten centuries. The Sistine Chapel should be given over to queer management and closed to the general public. To get in, you would need a same sex date to French kiss deeply in front of digital cameras. Straight comedians in drag would be thrown in jail with horny leather queens and their most inventive toys. Film stars would be dressed by bag ladies and coifed by Japanese gardeners. Screenplays would be cobbled together by beer advertisers, which, come to think of it, would not be much of a change. Logic, reason, and rhetoric would all be surgically removed from the Universities with a rusty butter knife and olive fork. Sontag and her ilk would go back to applying leaches to one another. And Queenan would be court jester in perpetuity, complete with funny hat and jingle bell shoes, although how you would tell the difference between him and Brian Williams is beyond my comprehension.

Verse 2

2007-11-19T16:49:00.000-08:00

More sound than a young democracy in Greece,
When civil discourse rose, the future struck
a lasting spark of liberty that would
Ignite a European enlightenment.
Now Paine and Jefferson and Franklin raised
By new ideas with which to guide the State.
Though pale hands took the credit and the pay,
The gift of law was Hiawatha’s rule.
Elected leaders from each local fire
Became the congress of America.
Original folk were known by then to shed
Their leaders, now to be impeachment law.
And when the marshal and civilian roles
were split, another native government was born

Sea Man

2007-10-20T21:33:00.001-07:00

Blue sky, blue sea. Wet breezes
On a white beach, on waves,
And sailing across the flash of blue-green curl.
A tan man rides a silver board,
Rocking forward, upright, crouching, sideways,
Rocking back again upright,
With lean torso, shining limbs,
Fine proportions,
Graceful moves, and elegant balance.
Like seabirds riding an ever changing wind,
The play of muscles lift or slant,
Through wind, sea, body, and board.
Like suns or planets, lovers orbiting slowly,
Or clouds riding updrafts across a jagged sea.
As the globe spins, waves rush in.
Someplace every hour on the
Ocean's endless power, male beauty is dancing.

Everywhere The Evergreens

2007-10-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

In timeless valleys carved by glaciers past,
Grey weather travels from the sea
Condensing into rain. The ever changing mist
Becomes a fair community.

There live in stable numbers, wandering grace,
The herds of elk in worlds of standing cedar.
Their browsings clear the way for open space
Among the hemlock, spruce and fir.

Both high and deep within the canopy,
Inside innumerable needles hide
Bacteria, in friendship with the trees,
That bring a fresh insecticide.

On branches in a lasting partnership
Live lichen steeped with nutrients
From wind and rain. And in the mossy grip,
Lie hidden roots to gather from the rich demesne.

The lichen capture soil on the air,
And seedlings then are grown and tossed
Upon the wind. As acrobats they dare
To live, until with time and fate are lost.

The winds throw mosses down
Upon a busy forest floor,
And fungi well beneath the ground,
With tree roots there who live and share.

As truffles now release the earthy call
To mice and squirrels upon the breeze,
Their quiet dining by the pillared hall
At once replace the fungi in the trees.

Relationships complex, cooperative, many tiered,
Of squirrel and truffle, salmon, moss and lichen,
When preyed upon by owl and bear and puma feared,
New lives in cycles all awaken.

The heavy, emerald, shining stole
Of moss and shrub, vine maple, fern and woody giants lain,
As well the eagle, deer and vole reflect the worth,
The steady never ending drumming of the rain,
Refreshing bole and branch and countless souls.
The heart and breath and spirit of the earth.

Echo Drum

2007-10-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

The Navajos in boot camp showed a greater stamina
From walking miles in the desert sun.
None failed the training, not the riflemen,
Nor yet the twenty nine who wrote the code.
The alphabet became the animals,
And stars together shone upon the ranks.
Now beast and bird and concept blended
Into canon, tank, and shield.
Pure concepts were translated into orders in the field.
On Cape Gloucester, the code would map artillery
Barrages, and throughout the Pacific stage.
When air-born casualties on the Solomons fell
From fifty three to seven percent,
The Japanese began to scream
Across the radio waves, yet all in vain.
Our boys with speed made simple phrases fly
Before the howling foe could spin a dial.
While bodyguards on Guadalcanal
Escorted Navajos mistaken for the enemy,
A worse mistake Macarthur made in taking Peleliu,
A burning waste of steel and many lives.
Then Iwi Jima was to be the future base of bombing raids,
The slow beginning of the unforgiving push
Toward the homeland of Japan.
That brutal struggle, yard by yard with bitter loss,
Until the great flag rose on Suribachi,
And Teddy Draper Jr. spoke it silently
To General Smith’s command.
The photo sped across the globe,
Now slowing into sculpture in the nation’s capitol.
Yet Okinawa was another step across that bloody sea.
Not soon enough the land was won,
And still inevitably in freedom’s long advance.
In every place they served with honor and skill.
Arriving home to no parade,
They had only shown the granite will of any warrior.
Their voices echo silently, their actions march
In future time and space, defending arid, Southwest fields,
And bright-hued monuments that shaped the enduring people.
Between the canyons and above the ancient, American sands,
Still beating loud across the land, high over tropic seas,
The voices in the drums are calling for democracy,
And turning back the Emperor from islands meant for paradise.

Plan for an Early Semi Retirement

2007-10-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

I remember when the idea hit me. It was at brunch, and I was eating a moofin. It was a poppy seed moofin, with butter, and heated in the thermo nuclear device, none of which matters anyway. The idea is what counts.

It was there all the time. So simple yet so devious. The perfect scheme for monetary independence has been dancing before my fat mug all along. A guaranteed money maker par excellence.

What is it, you ask, and how can I get in on the ground floor. Now that may be problematic. Only the bold can seize this opportunity, or someone willing to put both his bank account and sweet virginity on the line. Shall we start with a summer home in Cap Ferat and a cheque for six figures posted to Swiss account 8397XVZ?

It’s also important to let go of past mistakes. Lace jock straps never caught on, and the gay agenda was animal chaw. Politics in general is a waste of time, except for use in flanking that he-bitch at work who's forever backstabbing me.

To make the very long dollar you have to go into business. And I have just the thing. I asked myself. What do the peoples want? What do they needs? What don’t they likes? And how can I make it all the better?

The answer to all these questions and more is one and the same. It’s therapy. But not just any therapy. I’m talking all-purpose, cure-all therapy, the therapy of therapies, if you will, beside which the local psychiatrist is a monkey with a claw hammer. I’m talking EXTREME THERAPY.

The idea is brutally simple yet deliciously perverse, and bound to make me a butt load of cash before you can say ‘the quack doctor has finally gone ‘round the bend’. With a massage table and mail order diploma in something remotely sincere, like a Master’s in Psycho Sexual Engineering, nothing on this green earth can stop me. No matter what your problem may be, EXTREME THERAPY can help, as the following treatment schedule makes clear.

Ailment... EXTREME THERAPY

Back Pain... Patient on stomach while therapist
dry humps muscle spasms away.

Depression... All expense paid luxury cruise on the Mediterranean.
A flutter in Monte. Or dishing retail clerks
and b movie actors.

Obesity... Salsa verde, chips, chicken mole enchiladas,
California tacos, rice and beans. Chocolate moose,
vanilla milkshake, Café latte. And a feather.

Low Self Esteem... Naked cuddling with therapist.

Common Cold... Brandy on the half hour. Porn marathon. Lemon
meringue pie for throat irritation.

Attention Deficit Disorder... Forty eight hour lockdown with Russian novel.

Hysteria... Facial slap. (The only plausible excuse for this. Do
not let opportunity pass.)

Boredom... Three hour ‘nap’ with Keanu.

Homophobia... Fashion tips from Eddie Murphy, cooking class with
bare assed Contessa, Arnold’s Academy of Charm and
Poise. Three month naked lockdown in low security
prison.

History Exposed

2007-09-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Like dancing naked in front of a big screen TV in a sports bar during the Super Bowl, history can be problematic. Gay history is even worse. The past is up for grabs, and not in a good way, because there are more than two sides to every question. And on every side a million people are snapping at each other like Joan Rivers in a bad wig.

Gay history doesn't make much of a showing anyway. The choices are disappointing to say the least: either a snooze fest video of self involved actors in the twenties, or a seven thousand page tome rehashing for the umpteenth time the knickers fetish of closeted noblemen. If I were interested in the emotional difficulties of badly dressed queens, I'd move to Salt Lake and have done with it.

There would be a ton of queer history to celebrate, except that nerd play would interfere with our quest for world domination. It’s nonstop. There are dance parties to get ready for and divas to worship. The sexual envelope has to be pushed every few minutes for anything we might have missed in thirty centuries. Malibu interiors will never be remodeled if everyone is looking through old manuscripts, trying to figure out who was and who wasn’t a thousand years ago. And having to train the hair dresser commandos for secret raids on construction sites puts a total skrew in our leisure plans.

There's also a conspiracy afoot to block us out of history entirely. And plenty are in on it. The trivia buffs are everywhere, like Professor Slackbottom of Pretentious University lecturing on Ben Franklin’s beige cotton bloomers and the War of 1812. Meanwhile, extreme voices on all sides of the political spectrum are howling into every available microphone at the tops of their hysterical voices. Two other groups are especially annoying: the complainers, who bitch constantly and generally make life a living hell for everyone else; and the self satisfied types, who defend the status quo at all costs, even telling the occasional fib to paper over such indelicacies as the inquisition, global warming, and modern art. The in-crowd has been hard at work, lo these many centuries, erasing every hint of queer excellence. It isn’t bad enough that our heroes were locked in the closet when they were alive. The history bullies’ want to make everyone stay there forevermore.

And like Arnold in a leather nightie, history is nobody’s mistress. Which is to say, it’s totally unpredictable. For example, there seems to have been some goings on a while ago on the isle of Lesbos. But wild lez orgies raging from pre history to the advent of Beaver Cleaver have not been fully documented in the scientific literature, despite the fact that a title like Leave It To Beaver is more evidence for girl on girl action than every Sapphic love poem ever written.

It’s also mediumly clear by now that Abraham Lincoln was one very reserved flamer. It's even more obvious if you remember that the closet in his day was a cast iron dungeon sunk into the bowels of earth whence none could escape. Abe was also a national hero, although his policy choices may have been a tad smarfy. After defeating the South, he should have brought them back as a colony. If they liked slavery so much, let them pay tribute for a few hundred years.

Abe was also perhaps the greatest American orator who ever lived. So of course he couldn’t have been queer. And an army of historians have been recruited to make Lincoln into a poster boy for straight sex, preferably doggy style, while erasing every mention of the corset bondage ritual that did so much to keep the Union together.

There is also a remote chance that gay people might possibly have given the world the gift of reason, accidentally of course. Really it's beyond doubt. By way of Greece, Rome, and a very snugly monastery in the 16th century, gay people invented logic, rhetoric, and a charming little system known as democracy. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

If not, there are a few other developments to chat up: like the uncounted books we preserved in the middle ages (for those ingrate librarians who haven't done jack for us in retrun); the poor and sick we've taken care of for many centuries; our unfailing kindness and generosity toward a heartless medieval backwater; the light of civilization we've shone into every breakfast nook and historical cranny; and the Brit who just happened to invent the computer, accidentally of course, then committed suicide rather than be outed; not to mention our fabulous brunch menus.

These are only snippets. A complete list would fill the library at Alexandria, which is probably why they burned it down. Straight people don’t appreciate the spectacular achievements of b listers. So of course we get zero credit, and our massive accomplishments are paid for with an oppression souffle, or twenty seven years of Little House on the Prairie reruns. Take your pick. But I for one am tired of being force fed a diet of hetero speak masquerading as culture. After all we have done for television and the movies, it’s high time that queer achievement made it onto video, if not the silver screen.

And speaking of groups that owe us one, where would the scientific establishment be without logic, or backwoods America without the home restoration queen? The University set would still be applying leaches to one another, which might not be such a bad thing. And rural architecture would have crashed and burned long ago. That's where. And there are plenty of other markers I would love to call in. Sure, the psychologists have finally gone to bat for us. But where are the strident voices of the entymologists? I ask ye.

What I really have in mind, though, is a modest video network dedicated to high gay culture, and with a production budget at least the size of Angelina Jolie’s pampers outlay.

So fine. Keep the history channel. But give us a gay history channel, with dramatizations of our stellar moments starring hot thirty year oldes in period costume. And that’s not the half of it. With digital technology there could be public participation: like voting for the best 18th century window treatment; or an award for the hottest historical figure (a tough call between Socrates and Joe Dallesandro).

But it will not happen. The straight world is too busy taking credit for our accomplishments. And given the lack of general interest, not to mention Slackbottoms ongoing lecture series, hoping for video of gay history is like waiting for Keannu to show up at my door with flowers, wine, and a gallon of lube.

Who cares. Gay people have been through too much to start worrying about what Slackbottom and his glory-hog minions think of us. We have made more than our share of contributions to this rube fest. And we should remember that when the religious right starts with the insults. So long as we can celebrate it, gay history is the here and now, in all its broken glory, a shining city if ever there was one, and a past, present, and future of which we can all be proud.

Crimes of Fashion II

2007-09-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

Go with me on this. We’re not talking about Paris, London, or Manhattan getting out of the business. Fashion design should be done by professionals with taste and talent. And they like their own watering holes.

But the industry is in trouble. Men’s fashion may still be fairly sane, but women’s is so far over the brink you can’t tell a short skirt from a plunging neckline. Look at any fashion show, at the famine stricken models and absurd getups they pour themselves into. They look like Twiggy in a dehydrator. And the clothing. Sweet Mother Mary of the Right to Know. The colors are shocking, like springtime on meth. The styles are a cross between your basic moo moo and visitor from Neptune. Skinny pants? Please. Not on those sumptuous thighs. Not to mention the leather undergarments chaffing delicate breastal tissues. And it's only a matter of time until the power mad designers do the same to men’s fashion. Actually, men’s clothing has already started a freefall, as shown by the silk blazer with jeans and polyester sandals.

Time is running out for the fashion designers to be taken down a notch. And who better to do the job than The Berkeley City Council? If The Council were to grab a niche market, like say, casual wear, the industry might learn some humility, and mini skirts and flip flops would be a thing of the past.

Luckily, The Council has a taste for world domination. They're notorious within the city limits, and their strangling tentacles now encircle the globe. What started as a Berkeley law against smoking in bars has been adopted by the Universe At Large. You can’t smoke anywhere in public these days, not in a bar or a ham factory. And here in Seattle The Council’s crazed minions are out in force trying to regulate the titty bar scene right out of existence.

But the smoking ban was always over the top. On such a delicate issue, The Council might have compromised. They could have allowed smoking in some bars, or had smoking sections. But no. When The Berkeley City Council says jump, even barnacles say how high.

They might have met their match, though, in another group of high handed autocrats. Fashion designers are notorious for not having their decisions questioned. They're totally power hungry and ruthless, constantly making up rules on how to dress, and explaining why crotch-less tuxedos are so very in. But in true autocrat style they never give reasons for their decisions.

For example, the conventional wisdom is no socks with sandals. No one knows why. That’s just the way it is. And don’t you dare say one word about it. The fashionistas have spoken, from Halston to Gucci to Alexi Miss - whatshisname - to that nelly queen on Queer Eye. And everyone is expected to obey.

We're just casual enough in Seattle to allow the sock with sandal look. But the designers are promising a no holds barred struggle, and great will be the carnage. Such a horrifying melee would daunt the ghost of General Patton in a suit of armor packing an Uzi. Is it any wonder that Bruce Willis is hiding out in mommy's apron until it all blows over?

Instead of actual involvement, then, but as a former subject of Berkeley, and as a believer that fashion, like form, should follow function, I’m on the side of the socks, and present the following chart.

Sandals with Socks-----------------------------Sandals Only

Modesty becoming a civil society-----------Nasty toes bared to a-------------------------------------------------------------slobbering world

Color coordinate socks look nice with slacks---Looks ridiculous------------------------------------------------------------------with slacks.

Can be worn year round on the West
Coast; Spring, Summer, and Fall
everywhere else--------------------------------Summer only.

Hygienic---------------------------------------Foot sweat collects dirty filth
-----------------------------------------------and grotesque bacteria.

Cotton socks absorb sweat----------------------Leather next to skin is--------------------------------------------------------------hot, wet, and gooey.

Freedom of movement----------------------------Toes in bondage.

Lesbo-centric----------------------------------Non lesbo-centric.

Non-hierarchical-------------------------------Slavishly subservient to-------------------------------------------------------------the fashion police

It should be stressed here that white socks are out. Sockies want to be color coordinated, either matching the sandals or slacks. But another tragedy is brewing, and the sandal debate is being swept aside. Flip flops are now the rage, from Broadway in Seattle even unto the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Everywhere you look it’s Toes on Parade down 5th Avenue starring Gene Kelly and Audrey Hepburn.

The fashion industry has won this round. And there is a certain logic to the victory. When daytime temperatures are above seventy five, by all means, bear the sweaty foots to the cooling winds of everlasting joy. But on cool days, why must foot nakedness be inflicted on an innocent electorate? In the summer, virtually half the population will be showing hoof, though many have neglected their pedicures. But in the fall, in a cool Amtrak station, please don't inflict your nether digits on me. The man in the next seat has toe nails sharp enough to cut diamonds and long enough to bring down the harvest. Yuck. The rash of boils, calluses, and rashes is an affront to taste and decency. This much toe flesh reminds me of a Roman orgy under Caligula and should be prohibited by law. But don’t hold your breath. Foot lib is hugely popular with the masses. It’s out of the hands even of the fop designers, and only a return of the Salem witch trials can stop it now.

Stuffin' a Muffin

2007-09-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

This morning when I woke from dreaming
I found my coffee cup a steaming.
The wife had fried a side of beef,
With bromo sauce for quick relief.

The deli people asked of me
If I would like to have some Brie.
I said before I’d eat that goo
The wineries of France would spew.

At work they asked me what I want
And took me to a restaurant.
They brought me Salmon in a stack.
I took a bite to be polite.
They thought it was a Shark attack.

When suppertime was here at last,
I thought it best to break my fast
With just a very light repast
Of whole Coyote without the growl
And fricassee of giant fowl.

Then gobbled I a warmed muffin,
Although the gut had started puffin’.
I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t jump
And had to use the stomach pump.
When that was done, I asked real nice
For scotch and apple pie on ice.
The cottage cheese was for my diet.
The wife was good enough to fry it.

BusyDowntownSeattleStreet

2007-09-27T18:54:00.000-07:00

People walking
crowds flocking
hawkers squawking
shoppers gawking
teens talking
grungers mocking
thinkers balking
lovers docking
panhandlers stalking
car doors locking
musicians rocking
nothing shocking.