Music that made me -The Temper Trap “Sweet Disposition”

Chris has gotten me interested in this band and I can’t stop listening to their music. I plan on going out to get a real job so I can buy their album.

Ahh who am I kidding. To TPB!

If the FBI is reading this, I am totally kidding. Please don’t brown bag me.

The song is fun, light hearted and the singer has a great voice and impressive range. Two years ago I would have shunned this music because the lead singer is one of those Indonesian folks, but I have slowly learned that even gross people have feelings and I should try and respect their dumb cultures.  I was never a huge fan of “indie” music before I met Chris, but he has introduced me to some pretty cool bands. I consider that to be a fair and equal trade, as I introduced him to anal sex.

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All I want for Christmas is a naked midget.

There, I said it. We all have things we are ashamed to admit in public, well now I am guilt free. It could be the fact that it’s 6 am, that I am hungry or that I took a weird hairy pill I found under the fridge, but whatever the case may be, I felt like being honest.

Don’t you look at me like that.

Chris keeps asking me what I really want for Christmas and there it is. I want to open up a big old box, wrapped with a bow, only to find an elf inside. I am pretty sure he could pull this off, because I read somewhere that midgets don’t use as much air as us, so the box would be fine with one perfectly placed breathing hole.

I expect this for Christmas, let it be known.

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Music that made me – Rufus Wainwright “Hallelujah”

I was a fan of Rufus Wainwright the moment I first heard this song. I happened to be watching Shrek, which I had seen many times, but I had managed to miss this somehow. I am aware that Rufus did not write this song and I like many of the different compositions of it. If it were not for the rest of his music, I may have convinced myself that it was purely this song I enjoyed and that I cared little for the singer. However, his vast collection of music is both haunting and memorable. One of my all time favorite songs sung by Rufus (other than this one) is ‘Evil Angel’, which you can listen to here.

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Upgrades, Comments and Swine Flu, hurrah!!

OK, So I admit I have been gone for nearly a week and you all probably fisted yourselves out of furious anger (try saying that 3 times fast). However, fret no more my chubby funsters, I am back!

Although I did not contract that sexy ass swine flu that everyone has been passing around, I did happen to run directly into a cold that knocked me on my perfectly shaped globes. It could have been because of that weird meatless taco I found under the dog tag creator at Pet’s Mart, but I regret nothing. In fact, because I assumed that all of the hair and mold covering it was a sign of it’s long over due expiration, I made special note NOT to touch it, but to simply lick around the edges of its soft and creamy congealing ….. oh god it was sooooo good.

Now that I have returned, I am going to be kicking it into even higher gear, so if you happen to be one of (assuredly many) Facebookers who are tired of my blog posts, I only have this to say.

That taco was so good.

Or, alternatively, keep this in mind. People enjoy your inane postings as much as you enjoy mine. No one likes or appreciates anyone and that’s just life. Suck it up nerds!

In the meantime check out our new commenting system. You no longer have to register with WordPress (hurrah!!) and can now sign in and leave a comment from any of many social networking sites. So I expect to see some of you lazy mumblers commenting on here a little more, lest I be forced to message you with images of my face during day two of the taco induced sickness. I look bad enough as it is when I am healthy, but sick? Well, imagine my face with Rick Moranis’ rear plastered to it…

You’re gross.

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Fred Phelps take a vacation, we got this one covered.

This is an old piece I had written for QBliss Magazine, written long before prop 8 or the massive resurgence of political activism in the gay community that it caused. As I read this piece I see the amount of arrogance and preachy ego that fall within its pages. My views on many things have changed, some slightly, some dramatically since this piece was written, but some things remain the same. I realize now the growth I have made as a person and I no longer fight with such tenacity to demand change in situations out of my control.  I have come to accept that differences exist for many a reason, while still feeling free to call out the many misconceptions and inequalities our community offers the world. We all know that I am no fan of the sterotypes that our community perpetuates, but I have found more successful ways of discussing this topic over the years.

Well, here goes nothing.

The Essay

I stand, waist deep in my own flaws, yet still question the validity of those around me. How are we to build a promising future, when the foundation of the present is eroding beneath us? It’s very possible my eyes are tinted in colors visible only to me, but I can’t change the world as I see it, only question its intentions.

As a young gay man, I can no longer idly watch such a potentially influential community of people circle the drain. I use the term community with a degree of cynicism, as its something I don’t feel we have fully earned.

As a boy, I spent much of my time escaping reality, jumping from one fantasy to the next. My mother told me I had an imagination that knew no limits – I was convinced it was A.D.D. I had always known I was different from the other kids and I was oddly accepting of that, it was a distinction that I wore with pride. At age five I came home from school and told my mom that I liked boys. I didn’t fully understand what that meant or just how immensely it would affect my life, but I knew it to be true. 12 years later I informed the high school world that I was gay by climbing atop a cafeteria lunch table, giving in to verbal diarrhea. There isn’t a single day that goes by, in which I don’t look back and wonder why everything got so hard.

Fresh out of High school, with a fledgling streak of depression that was quickly devouring my sanity; I stepped into the gay world. I had heard whispers of supportive families of gay men and women, groups of passionate individuals whom felt that our only hope of survival was to rely on each other. After all, no one else seemed to really care about us. Images of powerful, intelligent and proud men flickered in my head. I was convinced that the majority of us would have been so tired of being second class citizens, that we would openly accept one another under the banner of our shared discriminations. My head slowly emerged from the blinding lights of the world I was leaving behind, and this time I didn’t plan on being alone.

What unfolded before me was no paradise of intellectual minds, no wonderland of strong ideas or supportive expressions. The world flipped itself upside down and within a few short weeks I had begun to quickly watch my utopian ideals sink in the horizon.

I sat in this theatre for months and watched nothing but badly written dramas composed by some of the most self loathing authors I had never heard of. I often wondered to myself why it was that I had been so wrong about this “family”, this community of people. Eight years later the show is still running strong and I am so tired of the stage. To this day I have yet to fully understand the gravity of the situation, but I can clearly see the cancer that is eating away at our common goals.

Many of us in the gay community feel like we have been ignored, silenced and shut out for too long. This tearing of communicable fibers is responsible for so much of the self loathing, anger and overall feeling of frustration that plagues so many of us. What more could be expected? I don’t think any of us has ever been lucky enough to have been spared the sting of homophobia or a well placed hate crime. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t see the consequences of ignorance, religious intolerance or just plain old fashioned hatred.

It would be easily argued that many of us are furious at the current state of things. Gay issues aside, the world is on fire and we are all citizens of that flame. Yet for all our heralds of righteousness, our own camp is quickly becoming a hotbed of hypocrisy. Our inability to properly maintain our own collective dignity is the most destructive force rallying against our cause. There is no need to cry “homophobia”, for the enemy is within.

I know many of you will hiss and moan at the words dying to leave my lips. I acknowledge the ease of turning a blind eye to my own flaws, only to point out those of others. As a community we have become so ingrained with the idea that the enemy is outside ourselves that we no longer have the ability to take responsibility for our own actions. It’s so much easier to blame the cheating boyfriend than it is to accept that our own complacency has given birth to a world where sex is easily given away as a passing “hello”. Our dignity as a people is one of the few things we still control and its worth so much. So how is it that it sells for so little anymore?

When did we all become so obsessed with competing with each other? When did having a designer’s name branded on your ass elevate you to a higher level of being? When did selling out and being brainwashed by the media become so popular?

The world around us is constantly changing, its charges creating chaos and turmoil at every glance. No young gay man or woman should ever be forced to come to terms with such a tremendous concept, like sexuality, in an environment of such disregard. How many times are we going to watch as that gay teenager commits suicide to escape the world around him, before we give him a better world to hope for? How many of us will sit by and watch as he slowly descends into a culture rampant with drug abuse, sexual violence and moral ambiguity? I don’t expect many of us to cut up our “gay cards” in silent protest of the current situation. However, your more than entitled to mine, I won’t accept this anymore.

We should be fighting for our equality, demanding more of those in power, demanding more of ourselves. Yet so many of us can’t be bothered with such trivial matters when it’s far easier to sit back and complain about the world, than it is to actively change it. Who has time to build a better community, when gay.com can offer me a quick hand job and silent nod to my own hedonism? When did we sell our souls to excess and decide that self respect and morality was sub par to a great tan and a six-pack? How many of us have to be slaughtered by indifference before we collectively unite and actually accomplish something?

When Middle America lays witness to a gay pride parade, what thoughts go on in their heads? Here you have a large group of people dressed in a complex array of ridiculous costumes. Grown men walking around nude in the streets and proudly allowing strangers to come up and fondle them. Men and women dressed in S&M outfits whipping each other and imitating oral, vaginal and anal sex.  I couldn’t begin to count the number of people whom I’ve witnessed, flat out, having sex with one another in the alleys and sidewalks of the parade route itself. How are we ever going to garner the respect and understanding of the outside world, when we go out of our way to scare them off? How dare you try and pass off your one sided view of sexual liberation as the universal poster boy for homosexuality. My sexuality does not define me, nor does it perpetuate my actions. It is my actions that define my character, and I politely ask that the world be given a chance to see who the rest of us are.

How in the world are we ever to expect an outsider to take that bold leap and attempt to see things in our shoes, when we are doing everything possible to highlight or glaring differences?

I am confident that if Martin Luther king had used this particular avenue to express his desire for racial equality, the outcome would have been dramatically different. Gay or Straight, people are sexual beings and there is nothing wrong with fully exploring your own sexuality. However, if Dr King had explicitly focused his energy on his personal sexual habits in an attempt to bridge the racial gap, his profound words would have been lost in the crowd. There is a time and place for everything, and sexual liberation can be an amazing thing. Yet there is nothing to be proud of when we are throwing parades in honor of public nudity, pop culture idolatry and the extinguishing of any self respect we still have. There are a lot of positive things can come from gay pride parades and gay themed events, but if sex and alcohol are the main focus of any conquest, the mission has already failed.

It’s gotten so bad that outside companies have begun to assume that the only way to sell to a gay audience is to inundate us with naked men and blatantly boast about how much sex we’ll get if we employ their services. A current Travelocity ad depicts a statue of Poseidon with gay men passing by it and the fountain sprays up a gush of water from its crotch, as if it was climaxing. Lack of creativity aside, this is how we are being marketed. As if we were nothing more than a pair of disembodied testicles looking for our next fuck. There are so many of us whom feel ostracized by modern “gay culture” and that feeling of shame by association pushes us from those we should be connecting with.

Gay men come in all shapes, sizes, colors and points of view. We do not all have lisps, walk with a swish to our hips or gain the respect of our peers with a biting sense of fashion, as most the media would have you believe. A recent article in The Advocate expressed a writer’s opinion that if a gay man did not act feminine and flamboyant, he was essentially denying who he was on the inside. That in some way, because he didn’t conform to the time honored stereotype, he was living a lie. It astounded me that such a well respected magazine would even allow such a glaring misconception to be printed.

Many of us long for monogamy, a loving relationship and dream of kids and a home to one day call our own. We are frustrated with the comical archetypes that are constantly portrayed of gay men and women, in our own media. How many badly written gay movies have to sit on Blockbuster’s shelves before gay directors understand that a gay drama doesn’t have to center around casual sex and cheesy clichés?

We have the potential to be so beautiful and so powerful, not just as gay men and women, but human beings.  I hope for a time when young gay men can come out of the closet and pass into an environment of welcoming, where their peers are never forced into a world of alcohol abuse, in an attempt to escape their own unhappiness.

We all have something that demands more of us, and it’s time we answered the call. Many have fallen so that we could stand here today and live on in their memories. Don’t let their sacrifice be for not. It is in truth that the words of the deceased are past on to the living. Do not silence the dead, for they are the only ones that have truly seen the world.

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A herald – An old speech I wrote for my ego.

I found this while rummaging through some old essays and poetic babble this afternoon. I wrote this peace for myself, to give myself hope that one day people would not struggle against the very nature of freedom and acceptance. I had convinced myself that far into the future I would find myself standing amongst a crowd of people and I would have nothing to say. I wanted to be prepared.

On this day, a day like any other, a great testament will change its nature towards the path of history. No longer will the half hearted gods of hypocritical men rain down injustice in a tempest of ignorance and over indulgence. No more will men and women, boys and girls of all colors and creeds lay cowered in the corners while unbridled violence rocks the institutions of their security. I stand before you, a man, a son and a brother, but in all these masks I wear, I refuse to done the colors of victimization. Just as you too have faced adversity and pushed aside the shackles of bigotry, we must come together and summon a great force on which the winds of righteousness will prevail. Although we stand united without the aids of gods or doctrines, our voices will echo with the purity of thought and absence of fear.

I await the day when the laws of mankind are tempered with reason and not the blood soaked hands of necropolitan deities, a time in which common sense dictates the inalienable rights of all men, not that of dogma. So battered is my pride, that my words tempt to drip with venom, yet above my fury I all too well understand the value of a dignity most high, a dignity all of you share with me today.

No longer will blood shed in the name of scripture; no longer will tears be colored in the hue of absent holiness. In the great storms of our lives we will weather their relentless attacks, knowing full well that one day our dedication will be fruitful and our victories many. Throw off oppression, cast down the shadowy figures and puppets that walk amongst us, for no man among you is above your calling. No man among you can call you his slave and no man among you shall be heard calling master.

I hold, with my hands fully extended, the hope that one day men and women can love freely, no matter the pious doctrines and backwards religions of the minorities. I see in my eyes the vision that one day the words, “we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal”, will shine like a beacon for all to see and with this singular and constant light, all indignities throughout the course of human history will be for not.

The power to change the world is in your hands, it is in your children’s hands and the hands of future generations. With this knowledge nothing can stop you, neither man, nor machine nor antiquated gods. I cry to you, rise up! Rise up and rebel! Let the world hear our anger and let that cry echo in a new era. Let no man push asunder and leave no stone unturned in the journey for freedom and equality. Let it be known to the masses incensed around the globe, that if god won’t bring about a revelation, our whispers will tremble the earth and ignite a revolution.

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Music that made me – “Karma Police” by Radiohead

 

This song gave me the chills the first time I heard it and it has ceased in its tirades against, whatever emotional semblance, I still have. Simply put, its lyrics and acoustic sounds are haunting and remind me of a life I never lived and a time that never existed. Sure, that sounds all hippy dippy and aloof, but it is the truth. I used to jog every night with an old Sony Walkman and this song was always on repeat during those nightly runs. The pauses and subtle aggression used to crawl under my skin and fuel the anger I had as an emerging teenager, a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality and the world around him. This song made me want to kill myself, but in the sexiest way possible.

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Where the wild things are dining set or My talented boyfriend #2

So, Chris and I went to Color me Mine this weekend with our friend Allison and we sat down to paint the night away. I am not a great painter and I am even worse when it comes to drawing. Needless to say, I was not expecting anything great from myself. Allison and I had both told each other we had no artistic skills and so we were getting our mental states ready for the shit we were about to produce. Chris, on the other, is the most amazing artist I know and if I were not in love with him, I would probably kill him. I hear that if you kill an artist, you can eat their brains and gain their powers and skills. I will let you know how that goes.

As the night progressed I couldnt get the cheap brushes to paint a straight line, the colors were not holding to the plate and the straight edge puff paint tools came shooting our like diarhea. I was reaching a point of such frustration that I was about to throw my 11 dollar plate against the wall. However, being that I dislike public displays of anger, I just made a lot of jokjes about my shitty plate and cried on the inside. After washing the entire plate clean after 2 hours of painting, I had just decided to paint Meatwad from ATHF and be done with it. The images are below…

There is great shame in me at the moment. Great, crappy, non artistic shame.

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