Friday, December 31, 2010
Freaks!
Freaks from Billy Blaze on Vimeo.
FREAKS
Tod Browning (1932)
American horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by MGM, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnies. The film was based on Tod Robbins' short story "Spurs". Browning had been a member of a traveling circus in his early years, and much of the film was drawn from his personal experiences. In the film, the physically deformed "freaks" are inherently trusting and honorable people, while the real monsters are two of the "normal" members of the circus who conspire to murder one of the performers.
The central story is of a self-serving trapeze artist named Cleopatra, who seduces and eventually marries Hans, a sideshow midget, after learning of his large inheritance. At their wedding reception the other "freaks" resolve that they will accept her in spite of being a "normal" outsider, and hold an initiation ceremony which frightens Cleopatra, who accidentally reveals that she has been having an affair with Hercules, the strong man. Shortly thereafter, Hans is taken ill and Cleopatra begins slipping poison into his medicine to kill him so she can run away with Hercules. One of the circus performers overhears Cleopatra talking about the murder plot and tells the others. In the film's climax, the freaks attack Cleopatra and Hercules with guns, knives, and various sharp-edged weapons, hideously mutilating them during a bad storm. The film concludes with a revelation of Cleopatra's fate: she herself has been turned into a freak, reduced to performing in a sideshow as the squawking "human duck". The flesh of her hands has been melted and deformed to look like duck feet and her lower half has been permanently tarred and feathered.
Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned for 30 years. In the early 1960s it was rediscovered as a counterculture cult film, and throughout the 1970s and 1980s the film was regularly shown at midnight movie screenings at several movie theaters in the United States. In 1994, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Gay American Saint
With the legislative repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, thankfully future generations of 
gays in the military will not find themselves living in fear of outings and expulsion from careers that many of them truly love. Likewise, the military will not be foolishly loosing great talent and expertise solely to satisfy the religion-based bigotry of a segment of society that daily proves itself to be anything but Christian in the true sense of the Gospel message.
It's important, however to remember that the religion-based bigotry against gays existed long before the passage of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and goes back many, many decades. In the mid-1970's Leonard Matlovich, recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, received much publicity when he was forced from the military. His tombstone bears the epitaph "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one." But there were notable gays before Matlovich who likewise lost their military careers.
Thanks to a post by straight ally Bob Felton at Civil Commotion, I was reminded of another such past high profile gay in the military. This man received a Congressional Gold Medal, the Legion of Merit and National Order of Vietnam, yet was forced to resign from the Navy because of his sexual orientation. The man's name?
gays in the military will not find themselves living in fear of outings and expulsion from careers that many of them truly love. Likewise, the military will not be foolishly loosing great talent and expertise solely to satisfy the religion-based bigotry of a segment of society that daily proves itself to be anything but Christian in the true sense of the Gospel message.It's important, however to remember that the religion-based bigotry against gays existed long before the passage of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and goes back many, many decades. In the mid-1970's Leonard Matlovich, recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, received much publicity when he was forced from the military. His tombstone bears the epitaph "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one." But there were notable gays before Matlovich who likewise lost their military careers.
Thanks to a post by straight ally Bob Felton at Civil Commotion, I was reminded of another such past high profile gay in the military. This man received a Congressional Gold Medal, the Legion of Merit and National Order of Vietnam, yet was forced to resign from the Navy because of his sexual orientation. The man's name?
Dr. Thomas Anthony Dooley (pictured above left in center), a man some Catholics even wanted canonized after his untimely early death at age 34 because of his world renown humanitarian efforts. Ironically, though forced to leave the military, he was given a military funeral with a U.S. Navy Honor Guard. Here's some highlights from Dooley's life and career:
[I]n 1944 [he] enlisted in the United States Navy's corpsman program, serving in a naval hospital in New York . . . In 1953 . . . he reenlisted in the Navy. He completed his residency at Camp Pendleton, California and then at Yokosuka, Japan. In 1954 he was assigned to the USS Montague which was traveling to Vietnam to evacuate refugees.Dooley's life was an example of what real Christians are about (more information can be found here)- unlike today's professional hate merchants such as Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, James Dobson and others of their ilk. Just think what could be accomplished if the funds spent to stigmatize gays and deprive us of legal equality were applied in a manner such as what Dooley did with his short life.
While Dooley was working in refugee camps in Haiphong, some have alleged that he came to the attention of Lieutenant Colonel Edward G. Lansdale, head of the CIA detail in Saigon. According to these allegations, Dooley was chosen as a symbol of Vietnamese-American cooperation, and was encouraged to write about his experiences in the refugee camps. Some other unsubstantiated reports indicate that he collected intelligence for the CIA. In 1956 his book Deliver Us from Evil was released, establishing Dooley as a strong humanitarian. While on a promotional tour for the book, Dooley was investigated for participating in homosexual activities and was forced to resign from the Navy in March 1956.
After leaving the Navy, Dooley went to Laos to establish medical clinics and hospitals under the sponsorship of the International Rescue Committee. Dooley founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals at Nam Tha, Muong Sing, and Ban Houei Sa. During this same time period he wrote two books, The Edge of Tomorrow and The Night They Burned the Mountain about his experience in Laos.
In 1959 Dooley returned to the United States for cancer treatment; he died in 1961 from malignant melanoma. Following his death John F. Kennedy cited Dooley's example when he launched the Peace Corps. He was also awarded a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously. There have been efforts following his death to have him canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Fun kid-friendly holiday mixes. Download and play!
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Daffodil
Don’t you know, sweetheart,
less is more?
Giving yourself away
so quickly
with your eager trumpet,
April’s rentboy
in your flock of clones,
unreasonably cheerful, cellulose,
as yellow as a crow’s foot—please.
I don’t get you.
Maybe it’s me,
always loving what I can’t have,
the bulb refusing itself,
perennial challenge.
I’ve never learned
how to handle kindness
from strangers.
It’s uncomfortable, uncalled-for.
I’d rather have mulch
than three blithe sepals from you.
I’m into piss and vinegar,
brazen disregard,
the minimum-wage indifference
of bark, prickly pear.
Flirtation’s tension:
I dare, don’t dare.
But what would you know
about restraint,
binge-drinking
your way through spring,
botany’s twink bucked
by lycorine, lethal self-esteem?
You who come and go
with the seasons,
bridge and tunnel.
You’re all milk and no cow—
intimacy for beginners.
The blonde-eyed boy stumbling home.
If I were you, I’d pipe down.
Believe me,
I’ve bloomed like you before.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Block
Thing is, there’s no single cure for the Block (this is what serious writers call it; cf. the Clap, the Syph, the Herp).
And the reason there’s no single cure is that there’s no single type of Block. The Block can be daylong, or weeklong; it can last for years (Truman Capote) or decades (Ralph Ellison, Henry Roth). I can’t think of any other writers just now.
Hold on—let me top myself off.
You might take comfort from the fact that while writing can’t be forced, time spent not writing can be put to good use. Try acquiring other skills, like rolling cigarettes or reading. Learn to differentiate between scotch and bourbon. Learn the differences among corn whiskey, rye whiskey, and wheat whiskey. Learn what, if anything, separates whisky from whiskey.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
The Golem - Black Francis
The Golem - Black Francis from Black Francis on Vimeo.
Black Francis To Release The Golem Rock Album + DVD
Original Score To The Golem : How He Came Into The World
Out November 16th Exclusively On Black Francis Web Store
THE GOLEM: HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD
An original score by BLACK FRANCIS
Often regarded as the height of German expressionism, the silent, black and white film "The Golem" (also known in it's German form, "Der Golem") was the last of a series of three films by director Paul Wegener and was released in 1920.
Set in the 16th century, "The Golem: How He Came Into The World" tells the story of the persecution of the Jews of Prague. The towns Rabbi (Rabbi Loew), foreseeing these events, constructs a giant 'Golem' out of clay in order to protect his people. Mayhem ensues when the creature rebels and begins to destroy the ghetto. The highly expressionistic imagery seen in the film was captured by legendary cinematographer Karl Freund, who went on to do the classic "Metropolis" in 1927.
Groundbreaking as it was, the film sat 'silent' for nearly 88 years until the San Francisco International Film Festival requested Black Francis score the film and perform it live for their annual film festival in April, 2008. Despite the sold out show at San Francisco's Castro Theatre (with a line stretching around the block) the score has never been performed live since. However, BF recorded the resulting double album in a matter of days in SF at Hyde Street Studios, with help from longtime collaborator/producer Eric Drew Feldman. The album features Black Francis on vocals/guitar, Duane Jarvis on lead guitar (who has since passed away), EDF on keys, Joseph Pope on bass, Jason Carter on drums and Ralph Carney on horns.
In early 2010 the double album, along with the recordings of the live performance in 2008 and the DVD was compiled into a special, limited edition booklet. Only 500 copies were released and sold exclusively through the Black Francis web store.
However, November 16th, 2010 will see the release of The Golem 'rock album': a stunning one-hour 'rock opera' derived from the original 2-disc album. To accompany the album, the DVD with complete score (both housed in simple & elegant, eco-friendly packaging) will also be available exclusively through the Black Francis web store and Amazon.com.
For Press Inquiries Please Contact Kip@TellAllYourFriendsPR.com
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Thursday, October 07, 2010
National Coming Out Day
Monday is National Coming Out Day. Who was the very first person you came out to? How'd they handle the news? What about your parents? And since they say coming out is a never-ending process, who was the mostrecent person you came out to?
Sunday, October 03, 2010
"My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is" by Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford - c.1585
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
That world affords or grows by kind.
Though much I want which most men have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed each gazing eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall.
For why my mind doth serve for all.
I see how plenty suffers oft,
How hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those that are aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all;
They get with toil, they keep with fear.
Such cares my mind could never bear.
Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look what I lack my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
I laugh not at another’s loss;
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain.
I fear no foe, nor fawning friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will,
Their treasure is their only trust;
And cloaked craft their store of skill.
But all the pleasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.
My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offense.
Thus do I live, thus will I die.
Would all did so as well as I!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
This must be the place.
BYUN from thismustbetheplace on Vimeo.
Produced and directed by Ben Wu and David Usui,
of Lost & Found Films (www.lostfoundfilms.com).
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
There's no place like home. It's where we live, work and dream. It's our sanctuary and our refuge. We can love them or hate them. It can be just for the night or for the rest of our lives. But whoever we may be, we all have a place we call home.
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is a series of short films that explore the idea of home; what makes them, how they represent us, why we need them.
We're always on the lookout for dwellings of all sorts. If you've come across any curious or eccentric homes, feel free to send them along.
www.thismustbetheplace.tv
mail@thismustbetheplace.tv
Saturday, September 25, 2010
undead
Late at night, when it is cool outside and the streets are quiet, I go running. Sometimes I get a late start and I am out running very late indeed.
My path takes me by a cemetery. And very often, around 11 or midnight, I see a single taxi parked in front of the gate. The lights and engine are on, and the driver is sitting inside. It is hard to tell, but I think he is asleep, or resting.
It is very quiet late at night, and my thoughts tend to drift as I run, and as often as not they drift to whose taxi it is, and what brings him out the cemetery each night at midnight. If he goes alone, why does he go? And if he is waiting for someone, for whom is he waiting?
Maybe he is on the night shift, and waits for a call somewhere he expects not to be disturbed. But why wait in front of the cemetery?
Maybe he is homeless, and parks his taxi in an unvisited, out-of-the-way place so he can get some sleep. But then why would he leave his lights on?
Maybe he is the getaway car for a thriving industry of grave robbers. But if there's a thriving industry of grave robbers, how come the medical school makes everyone crowd around the same old corpse because of a constant cadaver shortage?
Maybe he's one of those ghost hunters, and the back of his taxi is filled with magnetic field detectors and stuff and he's just sitting there, watching the readings and ready to jump out with a video camera on a moment's notice. But why would he always stay in the car?
Maybe his passenger is a broken-hearted widow or widower, who comes each night to the grave of their beloved. Maybe he has read Poe's Annabel Lee too many times, and so all the night tide he lays down by her side, his darling his darling his life and his bride in her tomb by the side of the sea. But we're a bit far away from the ocean.
Maybe he's waiting for the zombie uprising, when the dead rise from their graves and shamble towards the bright warm neighborhoods of the living, and figures he can make a few extra bucks carrying the ones who are too cool to shamble. But why would he expect zombies to have money on them?
The mystery deepens.
My path takes me by a cemetery. And very often, around 11 or midnight, I see a single taxi parked in front of the gate. The lights and engine are on, and the driver is sitting inside. It is hard to tell, but I think he is asleep, or resting.
It is very quiet late at night, and my thoughts tend to drift as I run, and as often as not they drift to whose taxi it is, and what brings him out the cemetery each night at midnight. If he goes alone, why does he go? And if he is waiting for someone, for whom is he waiting?
Maybe he is on the night shift, and waits for a call somewhere he expects not to be disturbed. But why wait in front of the cemetery?
Maybe he is homeless, and parks his taxi in an unvisited, out-of-the-way place so he can get some sleep. But then why would he leave his lights on?
Maybe he is the getaway car for a thriving industry of grave robbers. But if there's a thriving industry of grave robbers, how come the medical school makes everyone crowd around the same old corpse because of a constant cadaver shortage?
Maybe he's one of those ghost hunters, and the back of his taxi is filled with magnetic field detectors and stuff and he's just sitting there, watching the readings and ready to jump out with a video camera on a moment's notice. But why would he always stay in the car?
Maybe his passenger is a broken-hearted widow or widower, who comes each night to the grave of their beloved. Maybe he has read Poe's Annabel Lee too many times, and so all the night tide he lays down by her side, his darling his darling his life and his bride in her tomb by the side of the sea. But we're a bit far away from the ocean.
Maybe he's waiting for the zombie uprising, when the dead rise from their graves and shamble towards the bright warm neighborhoods of the living, and figures he can make a few extra bucks carrying the ones who are too cool to shamble. But why would he expect zombies to have money on them?
The mystery deepens.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Hunter-Gatherer : Père Lachaise
Hunter-Gatherer : Père Lachaise from Eoghan Kidney on Vimeo.
Actor: Kieran Crowley
Shoot assistant: Magdelena Turnier
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
![Why you shouldn't buy a Mac (how accurate is it?) [PIC]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tAo8IbFyTpa1S-hZgeHMa6_Td6AQP8OH2zv2hRFDTsIapnaeHDj9L_v3mDahX1CaVJaskI-bzxfWQmNavglnQ=s0-d)
Tuvalu
Tuvalu is the name of an island which Anton dreams of escaping to -- a dream which seems unlikely to come true given that he works as the maintenance man at the dilapidated and largely deserted pool owned by his father. Located in the middle of nowhere the pool has been going out of business for years but Anton goes to elaborate measures to convince his blind father that the pool is still popular and frequented. When Antons entrepreneur brother Gregor hatches a scheme to have the pool razed and sold off as real estate Anton must enlist the help of the few regulars who support the pool. Banding together the group attempts to save the pool from a health inspection that will put it out of business while Anton tries to win the love of his longtime friend Eva.
Imdb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162023/
Forbidden Zone
Oingo Boingo fans and midnight movie mavens will love this bizarre black-and-white feature packed with music, madness, and members of the Elfman clan. The story revolves around the Hercules family, who live in a house that just happens to hide a secret entrance to the Sixth Dimension in the basement. When daughter Frenchy (Marie-Pascale Elfman) skips school one afternoon, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the forbidden door, and winds up a prisoner in this alternate world. King Fausto (Herve Villechaize), the diminutive leader of the Sixth Dimension, is enamored with the beautiful young Frenchy and keeps her in the same cell as his favorite concubines, despite the disapproval of Queen Doris (Susan Tyrrell). Frenchy's brother, Flash (Phil Gordon), follows her into the Forbidden Zone with Gramps (Hyman Diamond) in tow, intending to save her, but they too are captured and must call school chum Squeezit (Toshiro Baloney, aka Matthew Bright) for help. Squeezit tries to assist, but ends up captured and decapitated by Satan (Danny Elfman), though this development doesn't keep his disembodied noggin from flying about and informing King Fausto that the Queen is planning to dispose of his beloved Frenchy. The appearance of the King's first wife and the kidnapping of his topless daughter further confuse matters, but everything is wrapped up neatly with an elaborate song and dance number at the conclusion.
Imdb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080752/
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
I am
I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
…My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
…They rise and vanish in oblivion's host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live, like vapours tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
…Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
…But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And even the dearest, that I love the best,
Are strange... nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes, where man hath never trod
…A place where woman never smiled or wept;
There to abide with my creator, None;
…And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
QUEERS READ THIS
A leaflet distributed at pride march in NY
Published anonymously by Queers
June, 1990
How can I tell you. How can I convince you, brother, sister that your life is in danger: That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary.
There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence. It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words. You should by all rights be dead. Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky or a fighter.
Published anonymously by Queers
June, 1990
How can I tell you. How can I convince you, brother, sister that your life is in danger: That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary.
There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence. It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words. You should by all rights be dead. Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky or a fighter.
Straight people have a privilege that allows them to do whatever they please and fuck without fear. But not only do they live a life free of fear; they flaunt their freedom in my face. Their images are on my TV, in the magazine I bought, in the restaurant I want to eat in, and on the street where I live. I want there to be a moratorium on straight marriage, on babies, on public displays of affection among the opposite sex and media images that promote heterosexuality. Until I can enjoy the same freedom of movement and sexuality, as straights, their privilege must stop and it must be given over to me and my queer sisters and brothers. Straight people will not do this voluntarily and so they must be forced into it. Straights must be frightened into it. Terrorized into it. Fear is the most powerful motivation. No one will give us what we deserve. Rights are not given they are taken, by force if necessary. It is easier to fight when you know who your enemy is. Straight people are your enemy. They are your enemy when they don't acknowledge your invisibility and continue to live in and contribute to a culture that kills you. Every day one of us is taken by the enemy. Whether it's an AIDS death due to homophobic government inaction or a lesbian bashing in an all-night diner (in a supposedly lesbian neighborhood).
AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE
Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are. It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred. (We have been carefully taught to hate ourselves.) And now of course it means fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth. Being queer means leading a different sort of life. It's not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It's not about executive directors, privilege and elitism. It's about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it's about gender-fuck and secrets, what's beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it's about the night. Being queer is "grass roots" because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, every heart and ass and dick is a world of pleasure waiting to be explored. Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility. We are an army because we have to be. We are an army because we are so powerful. (We have so much to fight for; we are the most precious of endangered species.) And we are an army of lovers because it is we who know what love is. Desire and lust, too. We invented them.
We come out of the closet, face the rejection of society, face firing squads, just to love each other! Every time we fuck, we win. We must fight for ourselves (no one else is going to do it) and if in that process we bring greater freedom to the world at large then great. (We've given so much to that world: democracy, all the arts, the concepts of love, philosophy and the soul, to name just a few gifts from our ancient Greek Dykes, Fags.) Let's make every space a Lesbian and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexual geography. A city of yearning and then total satisfaction.
A city and a country where we can be safe and free and more. We must look at our lives and see what's best in them, see what is queer and what is straight and let that straight chaff fall away! Remember there is so, so little time. And I want to be a lover of each and every one of you. Next year, we march naked.
ANGER
"The strong sisters told the brothers that there were two important things to remember about the coming revolutions, the first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second,
is that we will win."
I'm angry. I'm angry for being condemned to death by strangers saying, "You deserve to die" and "AIDS is the cure." Fury erupts when a Republican woman wearing thousands of dollars of garments and jewelry minces by the police lines shaking her head, chuckling and wagging her finger at us like we are recalcitrant children making absurd demands and throwing temper tantrum when they aren't met. Angry while Joseph agonizes over $8,000 a over for AZT which might keep him alive a little longer and which makes him sicker than the disease he is diagnosed with. Angry as I listen to a man tell me that after changing his will five times he's running out of people to leave things to. All of his best
friends are dead. Angry when stand in a sea of quilt panels, or go to a candlelight march or attend yet another memorial service. I will not march silently with a fucking candle
and I want to take that goddamned quilt and wrap myself in it and furiously rend it and my hair and curse every god religion ever created. I refuse to accept a creation that
cuts people down in the third decade of their life.
It is cruel and vile and meaningless and everything I have in me rails against the absurdity and I raise my face to the clouds and a ragged laugh that sounds more demonic than joyous erupts from my throat and tears stream down my face and if this disease doesn't kill me, I may just die of frustration. My feet pound the streets and Peter's hands are chained to a pharmaceutical company's reception desk while the receptionist looks on in horror and Eric's body lies rotting in a Brooklyn cemetery and I'll never hear his flute resounding off the walls of the meeting house again.
And I see the old people in Tompkins Square Park huddled in their long wool coats in June to keep out the cold they perceive is there and to cling to whatever little life has
left to offer them. I'm reminded of the people who strip and stand before a mirror each night before they go to bed and search their bodies for any mark that might not have been there yesterday. A mark that this scourge has visited them.
And I'm angry when the newspapers call us "victims" and sound alarms that "it" might soon spread to the "general population." And I want to scream "Who the fuck am I?" And I want to scream at New York Hospital with its yellow plastic bags marked "isolation linen", "ropa infecciosa" and its orderlies in latex gloves and surgical masks skirting the
bed as if its occupant will suddenly leap out and douse them with blood and semen giving them too the plague.
And I'm angry at straight people who sit smugly wrapped in their self-protective coat of monogamy and heterosexuality confident that this disease has nothing to do with them because "it" only happens to "them." And the teenage boys who upon spotting my Silence=Death button begin chanting "Faggot's gonna die" and I wonder, who taught them this? Enveloped in fury and fear, I remain silent while my button mocks me every step of the way. And the anger I felt when a television program on the quilt gives profiles of the dead and the list begins with a baby, a teenage girl who got a blood transfusion, an elderly baptist minister and his wife and when they finally show a gay man, he's described as someone who knowingly infected teenage male prostitutes with the virus. What else can you expect from a faggot?
I'm angry.
QUEER ARTISTS
Since time began, the world has been inspired by the work of queer artists. In exchange, there has been suffering, there has been pain, there has been violence. Throughout history, society has struck a bargain with its queer citizens: they may pursue creative careers, if they do it discreetly. Through the arts queers are productive, lucrative, entertaining and even uplifting. These are the clear-cut and useful by-products of what is otherwise considered antisocial behavior. In cultured circles, queers may quietly coexist with an otherwise disapproving power elite.
At the forefront of the most recent campaign to bash queer artists is Jesse Helms, arbiter of all that is decent, moral, christian and amerikan. For Helms, queer art is quite simply a threat to the world. In his imaginings, heterosexual culture is too fragile to bear up to the admission of human or sexual diversity. Quite simply, the structure of power in the Judeo-Christian world has made procreation its cornerstone. Families having children assures consumers for the nation's products and a work force to produce them, as well as a built-in family system to care for its ill, reducing the expense of public healthcare
systems.
ALL NON-PROCREATIVE BEHAVIOR IS CONSIDERED A THREAT, from homosexuality to birth control to abortion as an option. It is not enough, according to the religious right, to consistently advertise procreation and heterosexuality... it is also necessary to destroy any alternatives. It is not art Helms is after... IT IS OUR LIVES! Art is the last
safe place for lesbians and gay men to thrive. Helms knows this, and has developed a program to purge queers from the one arena they have been permitted to contribute to our shared culture.
Helms is advocating a world free from diversity or dissent. It is easy to imagine why that might feel more comfortable to those in charge of such a world. It is also easy to envision an amerikan landscape flattened by such power. Helms should just ask for what he is hinting at: State sponsored art, art of totalitarianism, art that speaks only in christian terms, art which supports the goals of those in power, art that matches the sofas in the Oval Office. Ask for what you want, Jesse, so that men and women of conscience can mobilize against it, as we do against the human rights violations of other countries, and fight to free our own country's dissidents.
IF YOU'RE QUEER,
Queers are under siege.
Queers are being attacked on all fronts and I'm afraid it's ok with us.
In 1969, there were 50 "Queer Bashings" in the month of May alone. Violent attacks, 3,720 men, women and children died of AIDS in the same month, caused by a more violent attack --- government inaction, rooted in society's growing homophobia. This is institutionalized violence, perhaps more dangerous to the existence of queers because the attackers are faceless. We allow these attacks by our own continued lack of action against them. AIDS has affected the straight world and now they're blaming us for AIDS and using it as a way to justify their violence against us. They don't want us anymore. They will beat us, rape us and kill us before they will continue to live with us. What will it take for this not to be ok? Feel some rage. If rage doesn't empower you, try fear. If that doesn't work, try panic.
SHOUT IT!
Be proud. Do whatever you need to do to tear yourself away from your customary state of acceptance. Be free. Shout.
In 1969, Queers fought back. In 1990, Queers say ok. Next year, will we be here?
I HATE...
I hate Jesse Helms. I hate Jesse Helms so much I'd rejoice if he dropped down dead. If someone killed him I'd consider it his own fault.
I hate Ronald Reagan, too, because he mass-murdered my people for eight years. But to be honest, I hate him even more for eulogizing Ryan White without first admitting his guilt, without begging forgiveness for Ryan's death and for the deaths of tens of thousands of other PWA's --- most of them queer. I hate him for making a mockery of our grief.
I hate the fucking Pope, and I hate John fucking Cardinal fucking O'Connor, and I hate the whole fucking Catholic Church. The same goes for the Military, and especially for Amerika's Law Enforcement Officials --- the cops --- state sanctioned sadists who brutalize street transvestites, prostitutes and queer prisoners. I also hate the medical and mental health establishments, particularly the psychiatrist who conviced me not to have sex with men for three years until we (meaning he) could make me bisexual
rather than queer. I also hate the education profession, for its share in driving thousands of queer teens to suicide every year. I hate the "respectable" art world; and the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media, especially The New York Times. In fact, I hate every sector of the straight establishment in this country --- the worst of whom
actively want all queers dead, the best of whom never stick their necks out to keep us alive.
I hate straight people who think they have anything intelligent to say about "outing." I hate straight people who think stories about themselves are "universal" but stories about us are only about homosexuality. I hate straight recording artists who make their careers off of queer people, then attack us, then act hurt when we get angry and then deny having wronged us rather than apologize for it. I hate straight people who say, "I don't see why you feel the need to wear those buttons and t-shirts. I don't go around telling the whole world I'm straight."
I hate that in twelve years of public education I was never taught about queer people. I hate that I grew up thinking I was the only queer in the world, and I hate even more that most queer kids still grow up the same way. I hate that I was tormented by other kids for being a faggot, but more that I was taught to feel ashamed for being the object of their cruelty, taught to feel it was my fault. I hate that the Supreme Court of this country says it's okay to criminalize me because of how I make love. I hate that so many straight people are so concerned about my goddamned sex life. I hate that so many twisted straight people become parents, while I have to fight like hell to be allowed to be a father. I hate straights.
WHERE ARE YOU SISTERS?
I wear my pink triangle everywhere. I do not lower my voice in public when talking about lesbian love or sex. I always tell people I'm a lesbian. I don't wait to be asked about my "boyfriend." I don't say it's "no one's business."
I don't do this for straight people. Most of them don't know what the pink triangle even means. Most of them couldn't care less that my girlfriend and I are totally in love or having a fight on the street. Most of them don't notice us no matter what we do. I do what I do to reach other lesbians. I do what I do because I don't want lesbians to assume I'm a straight girl. I am out all the time, everywhere, because I WANT TO REACH YOU. Maybe you'll notice me, maybe we'll start talking, maybe we'll exchange numbers, maybe we'll become friends. Maybe we won't say a word but our eyes will meet and I will imagine you naked, sweating, openmouthed, your back arched as I am
fucking you. And we'll be happy to know we aren't the only ones in the world. We'll be happy because we found each other, without saying a word, maybe just for a moment. But no.
You won't wear a pink triangle on that linen lapel. You won't meet my eyes if I flirt with you on the street. You avoid me on the job because I'm "too" out. You chastise me in bars because I'm "too political." You ignore me in public because I bring "too much" attention to "my" lesbianism. But then you want me to be your lover, you want me to be your friend, you want me to love you, support, you, fight for "OUR" right to exist.
WHERE ARE YOU?
You talk, talk, talk about invisibility and then retreat to your homes to nest with your lovers or carouse in a bar with pals and stumble home in a cab or sit silently and politely by while your family, your boss, your neighbors, your public servants distort and disfigure us, deride us and punish us. Then home again and you feel like screaming. Then you pad your anger with a relationship or a career or a party with other dykes like you and still you wonder why we can't find each other, why you feel lonely, angry, alienated.
GET UP, WAKE UP SISTERS!!
Your life is in your hands.
When I risk it all to be out, I risk it for both of us. When I risk it all and it works (which it often does if you would try it), I benefit and so do you. When it doesn't work, I suffer and you do not.
But girl you can't wait for other dykes to make the world safe for you. STOP waiting for a better more lesbian future! The revolution could be here if we started it.
Where are you sisters? I'm trying to find you, I'm trying to find you. How come I only see you on Gay Pride Day?
We're OUT, Where the fuck are YOU?
WHEN ANYONE ASSAULTS YOU FOR BEING QUEER, IT IS QUEER BASHING. RIGHT?
A crowd of 50 people exit a gay bar as it closes. Across the street, some straight boys are shouting "Faggots" and throwing beer bottles at the gathering, which outnumbers
them by 10 to 1. Three queers make a move to respond, getting no support from the group. Why did a group this size allow themselves to be sitting ducks?
Tompkins Square Park, Labor Day. At an annual outdoor concert/drag show, a group of gay men were harassed by teens carrying sticks. In the midst of thousands of gay men and lesbians, these straight boys beat two gay men to the ground, then stood around triumphantly laughing amongst themselves. The emcee was alerted and warned the crowd from the stage, "You girls be careful. When you dress up it drives the boys crazy," as if it were a practical joke inspired by what the victims were wearing rather than a
pointed attack on anyone and everyone at that event.
What would it have taken for that crowd to stand up to its attackers?
After James Zappalorti, an openly gay man, was murdered in cold blood on Staten Island this winter, a single demonstration was held in protest. Only one hundred people came.
When Yuseuf Hawkins, a black youth, was shot to death for being on "white turf" in Bensonhurst, African Americans marched through that neighborhood in large numbers again and again. A black person was killed BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK, and people of color throughout the city recognized it and acted on it. The bullet that hit Hawkins was meant for a black man, ANY black man. Do most gays and lesbians think that the knife that punctured Zappalorti's heart was meant only for him?
The straight world has us so convinced that we are helpless and deserving victims of the violence against us, that queers are immobilized when faced with a threat. BE OUTRAGED! These attacks must not be tolerated. DO SOMETHING. Recognize that any act of aggression against any member of our community is an attack on every member of the community. The more we allow homophobes to inflict violence, terror and fear on our lives, the more frequently and ferociously we will be the object of their hatred. Your immeasurably valuable, because unless you start believing that, it can easily be taken from you. If you know how to gently and efficiently immobilize your attacker, then by all means, do it. If you lack those skills, then think about gouging out his fucking eyes, slamming his nose back into his brain, slashing his throat with a broken bottle --- do whatever you can, whatever you have to, to save your life!
reeuQ yhW
Queer!
Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious. That's okay, we like that. But some gay girls and boys don't. They think they're more normal than strange. And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent
suffering. Queer. It's forcibly bittersweet and quaint at best --- weakening and painful at worst. Couldn't we just use "gay" instead? It's a much brighter word and isn't it synonymous with "happy?" When will you militants grow up and get over the novelty of being different?
WHY QUEER
Well, yes, "gay" is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. It's a way of telling ourselves we don't have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the straight world. We use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer.
Queer, unlike GAY, doesn't mean MALE.
And when spoken to other gays and lesbians it's a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget (temporarily) our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy. Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe's hands and use against him.
NO SEX POLICE
For anyone to say that coming out is not part of the revolution is missing the point. Positive sexual images and what they manifest saves lives because they affirm those
lives and make it possible for people to attempt to live as self-loving instead of self-loathing. As the famous "Black is beautiful" slogan changed many lives, so does "Read my lips" affirm queerness in the face of hatred and invisibility as displayed in a recent governmental study of suicides that states at least one third of all teen suicides are Queer kids. This is further exemplified by the rise in HIV transmission among those under 21.
We are most hated as queers for our sexualness, that is, our physical contact with the same sex. Our sexuality and sexual expression are what makes us most susceptible to physical violence. Our difference, our otherness, our uniqueness can either paralyze us or politicize us.
Hopefully, the majority of us will not let it kill us.
QUEER SPACE
Why in the world do we let heteros into queer clubs? Who gives a fuck if they like us because we "really know how to party?" WE HAVE TO IN ORDER TO BLOW OFF THE STEAM THEY MAKE US FEEL ALL THE TIME! They make out wherever they please,
and take up too much room on the dance floor doing ostentatious couples dances. They wear their heterosexuality like a "Keep Out" sign, or like a deed of ownership.
Why the fuck do we tolerate them when they invade our space like it's their right? Why do we let them shove heterosexuality --- a weapon their world wields against us --- right in our faces in the few public spots where we can be sexy with each other and not fear attack?
It's time to stop letting the straight people make all the rules. Let's start by posting this sign outside every queer club and bar:
RULES OF CONDUCT FOR STRAIGHT PEOPLE
1. Keep your display of affection (kissing, handholding, embracing) to a minimum. Your sexuality is unwanted and offensive to many here.
2. If you must slow dance, be as inconspicuous as possible.
3. Do not gawk or stare at lesbians or gay men, especially bull dykes or drag
queens. We are not your entertainment.
4. If you cannot comfortably deal with someone of the same sex making a pass
at you, get out.
5. Do not flaunt your heterosexuality. Be Discreet. Risk being mistaken for a lezzie or a homo.
6. If you feel these rules are unfair, go fight homophobia in
straight clubs, or:
7. Go Fuck Yourself.
I HATE STRAIGHTS
I have friends. Some of them are straight.
Year after year, I see my straight friends. I want to see them, to see how they are doing, to add newness to our long and complicated histories, to experience some continuity. Year after year I continue to realize that the facts of my life are irrelevant to them and that I am only half listened to, that I am an appendage to the doings of a greater world, a world of power and privilege, of the laws of installation, a world of exclusion. "That's not true," argue my straight friends. There is the one certainty in the politics of power: those left out of it beg for inclusion, while the insiders claim that they already are.
Men do it to women, whites do it to blacks, and everyone does it to queers. The main dividing line, both conscious and unconscious, is procreation... and that magic word --- Family. Frequently, the ones we are born into disown us when they find out who we really are, and to make matters worse, we are prevented from having our own. We are
punished, insulted, cut off, and treated like seditionaries in terms of child rearing, both damned if we try and damned if we abstain. It's as if the propagation of the species is such a fragile directive that without enforcing it as if it were an agenda, humankind would melt back into the primeval ooze.
I hate having to convice straight people that lesbians and gays live in a war zone, that we're surrounded by bomb blasts only we seem to hear, that our bodies and souls are
heaped high, dead from fright or bashed or raped, dying of grief or disease, stripped of our personhood.
I hate straight people who can't listen to queer anger without saying "hey, all straight people aren't like that. I'm straight too, you know," as if their egos don't get enough stroking or protection in this arrogant, heterosexist world. Why must we take care of them, in the midst of our just anger brought on by their fucked up society?! Why add
the reassurance of "Of course, I don't mean you. You don't act that way." Let them figure out for themselves whether they deserve to be included in our anger.
But of course that would mean listening to our anger, which they almost never do. They deflect it, by saying "I'm not like that" or "Now look who's generalizing" or "You'll catch more flies with honey... " or "If you focus on the negative you just give out more power" or "you're not the only one in the world who's suffering." They say "Don't yell at me, I'm on your side" or "I think you're overreacting" or "BOY, YOU'RE BITTER."
They've taught us that good queers don't get mad.
They've taught us so well that we not only hide our anger from them, we hide it from each other. WE EVEN HIDE IT FROM OURSELVES. We hide it with substance abuse and suicide and overarhcieving in the hope of proving our worth. They bash
us and stab us and shoot us and bomb us in ever increasing numbers and still we freak out when angry queers carry banners or signs that say BASH BACK. For the last decade
they let us die in droves and still we thank President Bush for planting a fucking tree, applaud him for likening PWAs to car accident victims who refuse to wear seatbelts. LET
YOURSELF BE ANGRY. Let yourself be angry that the price of our visibility is the constant threat of violence, anti-queer violence to which practically every segment of this
society contributes. Let yourself feel angry that THERE IS NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE WE ARE SAFE, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack, the self-hatred, the suicide --- of the closet. The next time some straight person comes down on you for being angry, tell them that until things change, you don't need any more evidence that the world turns at your expense. You don't need to see only
hetero couple grocery shopping on your TV... You don't want any more baby pictures shoved in your face until you can have or keep your own. No more weddings, showers,
anniversaries, please, unless they are our own brothers and sisters celebrating. And tell them not to dismiss you by saying "You have rights," "You have privileges," "You're overreacting," or "You have a victim's mentality." Tell them "GO AWAY FROM ME, until YOU can change." Go away and try on a world without the brave, strong queers that are its backbone, that are its guts and brains and souls. Go tell them go away until they have spent a month walking hand in hand in public with someone of the same sex. After they survive that, then you'll hear what they have to say about queer anger.
Otherwise, tell them to shut up and listen.
AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE
Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are. It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred. (We have been carefully taught to hate ourselves.) And now of course it means fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth. Being queer means leading a different sort of life. It's not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It's not about executive directors, privilege and elitism. It's about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it's about gender-fuck and secrets, what's beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it's about the night. Being queer is "grass roots" because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, every heart and ass and dick is a world of pleasure waiting to be explored. Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility. We are an army because we have to be. We are an army because we are so powerful. (We have so much to fight for; we are the most precious of endangered species.) And we are an army of lovers because it is we who know what love is. Desire and lust, too. We invented them.
We come out of the closet, face the rejection of society, face firing squads, just to love each other! Every time we fuck, we win. We must fight for ourselves (no one else is going to do it) and if in that process we bring greater freedom to the world at large then great. (We've given so much to that world: democracy, all the arts, the concepts of love, philosophy and the soul, to name just a few gifts from our ancient Greek Dykes, Fags.) Let's make every space a Lesbian and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexual geography. A city of yearning and then total satisfaction.
A city and a country where we can be safe and free and more. We must look at our lives and see what's best in them, see what is queer and what is straight and let that straight chaff fall away! Remember there is so, so little time. And I want to be a lover of each and every one of you. Next year, we march naked.
ANGER
"The strong sisters told the brothers that there were two important things to remember about the coming revolutions, the first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second,
is that we will win."
I'm angry. I'm angry for being condemned to death by strangers saying, "You deserve to die" and "AIDS is the cure." Fury erupts when a Republican woman wearing thousands of dollars of garments and jewelry minces by the police lines shaking her head, chuckling and wagging her finger at us like we are recalcitrant children making absurd demands and throwing temper tantrum when they aren't met. Angry while Joseph agonizes over $8,000 a over for AZT which might keep him alive a little longer and which makes him sicker than the disease he is diagnosed with. Angry as I listen to a man tell me that after changing his will five times he's running out of people to leave things to. All of his best
friends are dead. Angry when stand in a sea of quilt panels, or go to a candlelight march or attend yet another memorial service. I will not march silently with a fucking candle
and I want to take that goddamned quilt and wrap myself in it and furiously rend it and my hair and curse every god religion ever created. I refuse to accept a creation that
cuts people down in the third decade of their life.
It is cruel and vile and meaningless and everything I have in me rails against the absurdity and I raise my face to the clouds and a ragged laugh that sounds more demonic than joyous erupts from my throat and tears stream down my face and if this disease doesn't kill me, I may just die of frustration. My feet pound the streets and Peter's hands are chained to a pharmaceutical company's reception desk while the receptionist looks on in horror and Eric's body lies rotting in a Brooklyn cemetery and I'll never hear his flute resounding off the walls of the meeting house again.
And I see the old people in Tompkins Square Park huddled in their long wool coats in June to keep out the cold they perceive is there and to cling to whatever little life has
left to offer them. I'm reminded of the people who strip and stand before a mirror each night before they go to bed and search their bodies for any mark that might not have been there yesterday. A mark that this scourge has visited them.
And I'm angry when the newspapers call us "victims" and sound alarms that "it" might soon spread to the "general population." And I want to scream "Who the fuck am I?" And I want to scream at New York Hospital with its yellow plastic bags marked "isolation linen", "ropa infecciosa" and its orderlies in latex gloves and surgical masks skirting the
bed as if its occupant will suddenly leap out and douse them with blood and semen giving them too the plague.
And I'm angry at straight people who sit smugly wrapped in their self-protective coat of monogamy and heterosexuality confident that this disease has nothing to do with them because "it" only happens to "them." And the teenage boys who upon spotting my Silence=Death button begin chanting "Faggot's gonna die" and I wonder, who taught them this? Enveloped in fury and fear, I remain silent while my button mocks me every step of the way. And the anger I felt when a television program on the quilt gives profiles of the dead and the list begins with a baby, a teenage girl who got a blood transfusion, an elderly baptist minister and his wife and when they finally show a gay man, he's described as someone who knowingly infected teenage male prostitutes with the virus. What else can you expect from a faggot?
I'm angry.
QUEER ARTISTS
Since time began, the world has been inspired by the work of queer artists. In exchange, there has been suffering, there has been pain, there has been violence. Throughout history, society has struck a bargain with its queer citizens: they may pursue creative careers, if they do it discreetly. Through the arts queers are productive, lucrative, entertaining and even uplifting. These are the clear-cut and useful by-products of what is otherwise considered antisocial behavior. In cultured circles, queers may quietly coexist with an otherwise disapproving power elite.
At the forefront of the most recent campaign to bash queer artists is Jesse Helms, arbiter of all that is decent, moral, christian and amerikan. For Helms, queer art is quite simply a threat to the world. In his imaginings, heterosexual culture is too fragile to bear up to the admission of human or sexual diversity. Quite simply, the structure of power in the Judeo-Christian world has made procreation its cornerstone. Families having children assures consumers for the nation's products and a work force to produce them, as well as a built-in family system to care for its ill, reducing the expense of public healthcare
systems.
ALL NON-PROCREATIVE BEHAVIOR IS CONSIDERED A THREAT, from homosexuality to birth control to abortion as an option. It is not enough, according to the religious right, to consistently advertise procreation and heterosexuality... it is also necessary to destroy any alternatives. It is not art Helms is after... IT IS OUR LIVES! Art is the last
safe place for lesbians and gay men to thrive. Helms knows this, and has developed a program to purge queers from the one arena they have been permitted to contribute to our shared culture.
Helms is advocating a world free from diversity or dissent. It is easy to imagine why that might feel more comfortable to those in charge of such a world. It is also easy to envision an amerikan landscape flattened by such power. Helms should just ask for what he is hinting at: State sponsored art, art of totalitarianism, art that speaks only in christian terms, art which supports the goals of those in power, art that matches the sofas in the Oval Office. Ask for what you want, Jesse, so that men and women of conscience can mobilize against it, as we do against the human rights violations of other countries, and fight to free our own country's dissidents.
IF YOU'RE QUEER,
Queers are under siege.
Queers are being attacked on all fronts and I'm afraid it's ok with us.
In 1969, there were 50 "Queer Bashings" in the month of May alone. Violent attacks, 3,720 men, women and children died of AIDS in the same month, caused by a more violent attack --- government inaction, rooted in society's growing homophobia. This is institutionalized violence, perhaps more dangerous to the existence of queers because the attackers are faceless. We allow these attacks by our own continued lack of action against them. AIDS has affected the straight world and now they're blaming us for AIDS and using it as a way to justify their violence against us. They don't want us anymore. They will beat us, rape us and kill us before they will continue to live with us. What will it take for this not to be ok? Feel some rage. If rage doesn't empower you, try fear. If that doesn't work, try panic.
SHOUT IT!
Be proud. Do whatever you need to do to tear yourself away from your customary state of acceptance. Be free. Shout.
In 1969, Queers fought back. In 1990, Queers say ok. Next year, will we be here?
I HATE...
I hate Jesse Helms. I hate Jesse Helms so much I'd rejoice if he dropped down dead. If someone killed him I'd consider it his own fault.
I hate Ronald Reagan, too, because he mass-murdered my people for eight years. But to be honest, I hate him even more for eulogizing Ryan White without first admitting his guilt, without begging forgiveness for Ryan's death and for the deaths of tens of thousands of other PWA's --- most of them queer. I hate him for making a mockery of our grief.
I hate the fucking Pope, and I hate John fucking Cardinal fucking O'Connor, and I hate the whole fucking Catholic Church. The same goes for the Military, and especially for Amerika's Law Enforcement Officials --- the cops --- state sanctioned sadists who brutalize street transvestites, prostitutes and queer prisoners. I also hate the medical and mental health establishments, particularly the psychiatrist who conviced me not to have sex with men for three years until we (meaning he) could make me bisexual
rather than queer. I also hate the education profession, for its share in driving thousands of queer teens to suicide every year. I hate the "respectable" art world; and the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media, especially The New York Times. In fact, I hate every sector of the straight establishment in this country --- the worst of whom
actively want all queers dead, the best of whom never stick their necks out to keep us alive.
I hate straight people who think they have anything intelligent to say about "outing." I hate straight people who think stories about themselves are "universal" but stories about us are only about homosexuality. I hate straight recording artists who make their careers off of queer people, then attack us, then act hurt when we get angry and then deny having wronged us rather than apologize for it. I hate straight people who say, "I don't see why you feel the need to wear those buttons and t-shirts. I don't go around telling the whole world I'm straight."
I hate that in twelve years of public education I was never taught about queer people. I hate that I grew up thinking I was the only queer in the world, and I hate even more that most queer kids still grow up the same way. I hate that I was tormented by other kids for being a faggot, but more that I was taught to feel ashamed for being the object of their cruelty, taught to feel it was my fault. I hate that the Supreme Court of this country says it's okay to criminalize me because of how I make love. I hate that so many straight people are so concerned about my goddamned sex life. I hate that so many twisted straight people become parents, while I have to fight like hell to be allowed to be a father. I hate straights.
WHERE ARE YOU SISTERS?
I wear my pink triangle everywhere. I do not lower my voice in public when talking about lesbian love or sex. I always tell people I'm a lesbian. I don't wait to be asked about my "boyfriend." I don't say it's "no one's business."
I don't do this for straight people. Most of them don't know what the pink triangle even means. Most of them couldn't care less that my girlfriend and I are totally in love or having a fight on the street. Most of them don't notice us no matter what we do. I do what I do to reach other lesbians. I do what I do because I don't want lesbians to assume I'm a straight girl. I am out all the time, everywhere, because I WANT TO REACH YOU. Maybe you'll notice me, maybe we'll start talking, maybe we'll exchange numbers, maybe we'll become friends. Maybe we won't say a word but our eyes will meet and I will imagine you naked, sweating, openmouthed, your back arched as I am
fucking you. And we'll be happy to know we aren't the only ones in the world. We'll be happy because we found each other, without saying a word, maybe just for a moment. But no.
You won't wear a pink triangle on that linen lapel. You won't meet my eyes if I flirt with you on the street. You avoid me on the job because I'm "too" out. You chastise me in bars because I'm "too political." You ignore me in public because I bring "too much" attention to "my" lesbianism. But then you want me to be your lover, you want me to be your friend, you want me to love you, support, you, fight for "OUR" right to exist.
WHERE ARE YOU?
You talk, talk, talk about invisibility and then retreat to your homes to nest with your lovers or carouse in a bar with pals and stumble home in a cab or sit silently and politely by while your family, your boss, your neighbors, your public servants distort and disfigure us, deride us and punish us. Then home again and you feel like screaming. Then you pad your anger with a relationship or a career or a party with other dykes like you and still you wonder why we can't find each other, why you feel lonely, angry, alienated.
GET UP, WAKE UP SISTERS!!
Your life is in your hands.
When I risk it all to be out, I risk it for both of us. When I risk it all and it works (which it often does if you would try it), I benefit and so do you. When it doesn't work, I suffer and you do not.
But girl you can't wait for other dykes to make the world safe for you. STOP waiting for a better more lesbian future! The revolution could be here if we started it.
Where are you sisters? I'm trying to find you, I'm trying to find you. How come I only see you on Gay Pride Day?
We're OUT, Where the fuck are YOU?
WHEN ANYONE ASSAULTS YOU FOR BEING QUEER, IT IS QUEER BASHING. RIGHT?
A crowd of 50 people exit a gay bar as it closes. Across the street, some straight boys are shouting "Faggots" and throwing beer bottles at the gathering, which outnumbers
them by 10 to 1. Three queers make a move to respond, getting no support from the group. Why did a group this size allow themselves to be sitting ducks?
Tompkins Square Park, Labor Day. At an annual outdoor concert/drag show, a group of gay men were harassed by teens carrying sticks. In the midst of thousands of gay men and lesbians, these straight boys beat two gay men to the ground, then stood around triumphantly laughing amongst themselves. The emcee was alerted and warned the crowd from the stage, "You girls be careful. When you dress up it drives the boys crazy," as if it were a practical joke inspired by what the victims were wearing rather than a
pointed attack on anyone and everyone at that event.
What would it have taken for that crowd to stand up to its attackers?
After James Zappalorti, an openly gay man, was murdered in cold blood on Staten Island this winter, a single demonstration was held in protest. Only one hundred people came.
When Yuseuf Hawkins, a black youth, was shot to death for being on "white turf" in Bensonhurst, African Americans marched through that neighborhood in large numbers again and again. A black person was killed BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK, and people of color throughout the city recognized it and acted on it. The bullet that hit Hawkins was meant for a black man, ANY black man. Do most gays and lesbians think that the knife that punctured Zappalorti's heart was meant only for him?
The straight world has us so convinced that we are helpless and deserving victims of the violence against us, that queers are immobilized when faced with a threat. BE OUTRAGED! These attacks must not be tolerated. DO SOMETHING. Recognize that any act of aggression against any member of our community is an attack on every member of the community. The more we allow homophobes to inflict violence, terror and fear on our lives, the more frequently and ferociously we will be the object of their hatred. Your immeasurably valuable, because unless you start believing that, it can easily be taken from you. If you know how to gently and efficiently immobilize your attacker, then by all means, do it. If you lack those skills, then think about gouging out his fucking eyes, slamming his nose back into his brain, slashing his throat with a broken bottle --- do whatever you can, whatever you have to, to save your life!
reeuQ yhW
Queer!
Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious. That's okay, we like that. But some gay girls and boys don't. They think they're more normal than strange. And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent
suffering. Queer. It's forcibly bittersweet and quaint at best --- weakening and painful at worst. Couldn't we just use "gay" instead? It's a much brighter word and isn't it synonymous with "happy?" When will you militants grow up and get over the novelty of being different?
WHY QUEER
Well, yes, "gay" is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. It's a way of telling ourselves we don't have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the straight world. We use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer.
Queer, unlike GAY, doesn't mean MALE.
And when spoken to other gays and lesbians it's a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget (temporarily) our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy. Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe's hands and use against him.
NO SEX POLICE
For anyone to say that coming out is not part of the revolution is missing the point. Positive sexual images and what they manifest saves lives because they affirm those
lives and make it possible for people to attempt to live as self-loving instead of self-loathing. As the famous "Black is beautiful" slogan changed many lives, so does "Read my lips" affirm queerness in the face of hatred and invisibility as displayed in a recent governmental study of suicides that states at least one third of all teen suicides are Queer kids. This is further exemplified by the rise in HIV transmission among those under 21.
We are most hated as queers for our sexualness, that is, our physical contact with the same sex. Our sexuality and sexual expression are what makes us most susceptible to physical violence. Our difference, our otherness, our uniqueness can either paralyze us or politicize us.
Hopefully, the majority of us will not let it kill us.
QUEER SPACE
Why in the world do we let heteros into queer clubs? Who gives a fuck if they like us because we "really know how to party?" WE HAVE TO IN ORDER TO BLOW OFF THE STEAM THEY MAKE US FEEL ALL THE TIME! They make out wherever they please,
and take up too much room on the dance floor doing ostentatious couples dances. They wear their heterosexuality like a "Keep Out" sign, or like a deed of ownership.
Why the fuck do we tolerate them when they invade our space like it's their right? Why do we let them shove heterosexuality --- a weapon their world wields against us --- right in our faces in the few public spots where we can be sexy with each other and not fear attack?
It's time to stop letting the straight people make all the rules. Let's start by posting this sign outside every queer club and bar:
RULES OF CONDUCT FOR STRAIGHT PEOPLE
1. Keep your display of affection (kissing, handholding, embracing) to a minimum. Your sexuality is unwanted and offensive to many here.
2. If you must slow dance, be as inconspicuous as possible.
3. Do not gawk or stare at lesbians or gay men, especially bull dykes or drag
queens. We are not your entertainment.
4. If you cannot comfortably deal with someone of the same sex making a pass
at you, get out.
5. Do not flaunt your heterosexuality. Be Discreet. Risk being mistaken for a lezzie or a homo.
6. If you feel these rules are unfair, go fight homophobia in
straight clubs, or:
7. Go Fuck Yourself.
I HATE STRAIGHTS
I have friends. Some of them are straight.
Year after year, I see my straight friends. I want to see them, to see how they are doing, to add newness to our long and complicated histories, to experience some continuity. Year after year I continue to realize that the facts of my life are irrelevant to them and that I am only half listened to, that I am an appendage to the doings of a greater world, a world of power and privilege, of the laws of installation, a world of exclusion. "That's not true," argue my straight friends. There is the one certainty in the politics of power: those left out of it beg for inclusion, while the insiders claim that they already are.
Men do it to women, whites do it to blacks, and everyone does it to queers. The main dividing line, both conscious and unconscious, is procreation... and that magic word --- Family. Frequently, the ones we are born into disown us when they find out who we really are, and to make matters worse, we are prevented from having our own. We are
punished, insulted, cut off, and treated like seditionaries in terms of child rearing, both damned if we try and damned if we abstain. It's as if the propagation of the species is such a fragile directive that without enforcing it as if it were an agenda, humankind would melt back into the primeval ooze.
I hate having to convice straight people that lesbians and gays live in a war zone, that we're surrounded by bomb blasts only we seem to hear, that our bodies and souls are
heaped high, dead from fright or bashed or raped, dying of grief or disease, stripped of our personhood.
I hate straight people who can't listen to queer anger without saying "hey, all straight people aren't like that. I'm straight too, you know," as if their egos don't get enough stroking or protection in this arrogant, heterosexist world. Why must we take care of them, in the midst of our just anger brought on by their fucked up society?! Why add
the reassurance of "Of course, I don't mean you. You don't act that way." Let them figure out for themselves whether they deserve to be included in our anger.
But of course that would mean listening to our anger, which they almost never do. They deflect it, by saying "I'm not like that" or "Now look who's generalizing" or "You'll catch more flies with honey... " or "If you focus on the negative you just give out more power" or "you're not the only one in the world who's suffering." They say "Don't yell at me, I'm on your side" or "I think you're overreacting" or "BOY, YOU'RE BITTER."
They've taught us that good queers don't get mad.
They've taught us so well that we not only hide our anger from them, we hide it from each other. WE EVEN HIDE IT FROM OURSELVES. We hide it with substance abuse and suicide and overarhcieving in the hope of proving our worth. They bash
us and stab us and shoot us and bomb us in ever increasing numbers and still we freak out when angry queers carry banners or signs that say BASH BACK. For the last decade
they let us die in droves and still we thank President Bush for planting a fucking tree, applaud him for likening PWAs to car accident victims who refuse to wear seatbelts. LET
YOURSELF BE ANGRY. Let yourself be angry that the price of our visibility is the constant threat of violence, anti-queer violence to which practically every segment of this
society contributes. Let yourself feel angry that THERE IS NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE WE ARE SAFE, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack, the self-hatred, the suicide --- of the closet. The next time some straight person comes down on you for being angry, tell them that until things change, you don't need any more evidence that the world turns at your expense. You don't need to see only
hetero couple grocery shopping on your TV... You don't want any more baby pictures shoved in your face until you can have or keep your own. No more weddings, showers,
anniversaries, please, unless they are our own brothers and sisters celebrating. And tell them not to dismiss you by saying "You have rights," "You have privileges," "You're overreacting," or "You have a victim's mentality." Tell them "GO AWAY FROM ME, until YOU can change." Go away and try on a world without the brave, strong queers that are its backbone, that are its guts and brains and souls. Go tell them go away until they have spent a month walking hand in hand in public with someone of the same sex. After they survive that, then you'll hear what they have to say about queer anger.
Otherwise, tell them to shut up and listen.
Matt Alber "End of the World"
I don’t want to ride this roller coaster
I think I want to get off
But they buckled me down
Like it’s the end of the world
If you don’t want to have this conversation
Then you better get out
Cause we’re climbing to our death
At least that’s what they want you to think
Just in case we jump the track
I have a confession to make
It’s something like a cork screw
I don’t wanna fall, I don’t wanna fly
I don’t wanna be dangled over
The edge of a dying romance
But I don’t wanna stop
I don’t wanna lie
I don’t wanna believe it’s over
I just wanna stay with you tonight
I didn’t mean to scream out quite so loudly
When we screeched to a halt
I’m just never prepared
For the end of the ride
Maybe we should get on something simpler
Like a giant balloon
But I’ve got two tickets left, and so do you
Instead of giving them away to some stranger
Let’s make them count, come on
Let’s get back in line again and ride the big one
Don’t you want to fall, don’t you want to fly
Don’t you want to be dangled over
The edge of this aching romance
If it’s gonna end, then I wanna know
That we squeezed out every moment
But if there’s nothing left can you tell me why
That it is you’re holding onto me
Like it’s the end of the world
I think I want to get off
But they buckled me down
Like it’s the end of the world
If you don’t want to have this conversation
Then you better get out
Cause we’re climbing to our death
At least that’s what they want you to think
Just in case we jump the track
I have a confession to make
It’s something like a cork screw
I don’t wanna fall, I don’t wanna fly
I don’t wanna be dangled over
The edge of a dying romance
But I don’t wanna stop
I don’t wanna lie
I don’t wanna believe it’s over
I just wanna stay with you tonight
I didn’t mean to scream out quite so loudly
When we screeched to a halt
I’m just never prepared
For the end of the ride
Maybe we should get on something simpler
Like a giant balloon
But I’ve got two tickets left, and so do you
Instead of giving them away to some stranger
Let’s make them count, come on
Let’s get back in line again and ride the big one
Don’t you want to fall, don’t you want to fly
Don’t you want to be dangled over
The edge of this aching romance
If it’s gonna end, then I wanna know
That we squeezed out every moment
But if there’s nothing left can you tell me why
That it is you’re holding onto me
Like it’s the end of the world
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Bertrand Russell
"'The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.'"
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Friday, July 02, 2010
Laurie Anderson-Homeland
‘Homeland,’ long awaited in recorded form, has evolved over more than two years of touring as Anderson developed the songs in front of concertgoers around the world, from downtown clubs in Manhattan to an amphitheatre in Athens, Greece. In Artforum, Anderson summarized the songs as ‘one-third politics, one-third pure music, and one-third strange dreams.’ The work was shaped more by humanity than by technology; Anderson built an intimate rapport with her audience during a show that featured a shifting set-list of new material and relied on words and music far more than visual and theatrical effects. That intimacy is just as palpable in the songs that evolved to make up her new album.. The Guardian said ”Homeland’ represents some of the most purely beautiful music she has ever made.’ In the States, Daily Variety declared, ‘The music that accompanies the vignettes and songs is some of the loveliest that Anderson has ever written …Like the narratives it accompanies, the sound’s grave but not without wit; measured and dispassionate, but not without heart.’
Track List:
01 Transitory Life
02 My Right Eye
03 Thinking Of You
04 Strange Perfumes
05 Only An Expert
06 Falling
07 Another Day In America
08 Bodies In Motion
09 Dark Time In The Revolution
10 The Lake
11 The Beginning Of Memory
12 Flow
Release Name: Laurie_Anderson-Homeland-2010-FRAY
Genre: New Age
Label: Nonesuch
Quality: 161 kbps avg
Size: 77.28MB
Rls Date: 2010-07-01
Store Date: 2010-06-21
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
BUILDING CODE VIOLATIONS FOR THE LOVE SHACK.
- - - -
TYPE OF ABODE:
Gathering place for social club.
INITIAL OBSERVATIONS:
• Only marker to indicate the location of the building is a sign at least 10 miles away. The sign was not installed by the county, and is not in the county-mandated colors for road signage (should be green and white, is actually hot pink and cardboard).
• Building is set farther back from the rode than necessary, and only accessible via a long driveway, which appears to be permanently blocked by a large Chrysler. Car will have to be towed before further action is taken.
EXTERNAL VIOLATIONS:
• Surrounding field is unkempt.
• Overly aggressive signage (i.e. "STAY AWAY, FOOLS") .
• Excessive oxidation of tin roof.
• Several condom wrappers and used condoms were spotted behind premises.
INTERNAL VIOLATIONS:
• Particulate matter (likely glitter, possibly ground glass) covers entryway, hallway, et cetera.
• No posted sign indicating maximum occupancy.
• Occupancy by more persons than mandated by fire code given the size of the building.
• Inadequate ventilation.
• Pervasive smell (best described as a heavy musk, or funk) throughout premises.
CONSTRUCTION VIOLATIONS:
• Entire shack appears to be inadequately reinforced and will shimmy given intense jumping or dancing.
NOTES ON INSPECTION:
• The front door is excessively thick, which has a tendency to muffle outside speech. Inspector had to knock several times and state name and occupation in an increasingly louder voice before he was allowed entry.
• Many of the occupants were noticeably perspiring due to lack of ventilation or air conditioner, and had subsequently removed most of the their clothing.
• The only electrical outlet that could have been used for an air conditioner was instead given over to a jukebox, in possible violation of code FS-5.20: No Commercial Ventures on Public Property.
SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION:
Building's owners have been notified of violations on three successive instances. As given by Infraction Code B-52, under the Section of Law CT-1989, building is to be slated for immediate demolition.
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