Episode III: What Did…I Do?

Zap!

Ow!

Oh, come on! Stop it, pixie Valerie Perrine! I’m getting married. Can’t we do this later?!?!?

She smacked me hard across the face.

Whap!!!

Get it together, she scolded.

I was suddenly über-conscious of the fact that I was standing before friends and family, witnesses. I wondered, are they witnessing this?

Frantically searching the room I found only gentle smiles, soft tears, long-time couples holding hands, welcoming us into the fold. But not a concerned face to be found. Nothing.

I checked back in with my very-soon-to-be husband. Using his eyes again as anchor, safe, and compass, I regained my balance, placed myself in context, took a deep breath. A wedding. My wedding. Guests. Nausea. Breath. He, too, registered nothing of my experience. Shaking my head vigorously, I Etch-a-Sketched away the bad dream and questioned the intelligence of getting stoned and falling into a Village People [continue reading...]

January 26, 2015
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Episode II: Do You, Magnus…

I have found asylum in your eyes. They swirl like warm cigar smoke and when the world is too much I curl up in their curls. I wonder if you see me differently through each pattern. If I change as you change. I wonder. I know you have unanswered questions about me too, for it’s our mysteries as much if not more than our compatibilities that accounts for our electricity.  And it is our electricity that has led us here, to trade I for we. Officially. Legally. Eternally.

I love you. That’s all I know. I love you. I want you by my side as my unknowns become known. And I want to stand by you as you experience the same thing. That’s it. It’s so simple. That is the entire scope of my dream: that we should discover this life together.

I found this recently, crumpled in the back [continue reading...]

January 19, 2015
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Episode I: Another Coming Out

I don’t remember it all that well.
It’s hazy.
Comes in waves, like heat off a desert highway.
It doesn’t feel real. Or like it happened to me.
These are the lies I tell. The lies that have assumed the shape of truth. I’ve tried telling the truth, but have been greeted with skepticism. A furrowed brow. A tilted head. A voice that pitches up or eyes that narrow slightly. All tells of doubt. Doubt of the veracity of my story. A refusal to take my word for it and a need to dig further. For years I feared the digging. Feared what it would mean for me ~ for those implicated ~ for my LGBT brothers and sisters. So I lied. 
What are you talking about??? Such conspiracy theories. About me?!?? Please!
But I don’t want to lie anymore. Can’t hide. I came out of one closet only to find myself in another. But a [continue reading...]

January 10, 2015
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The War Against (Jewish) Christmas

There’s a war going on alright. And it is, in fact, a war against tradition ~ a Christmas tradition. But it’s not a war that Fox News is going to cover.  I’m speaking, of course, of the war on Jewish Christmas.

Everyone knows that Christmas is the day Jews make a pilgrimage to the best Chinese food restaurants. (Yes, the best. Greasy Kung Pao? We’re never coming back. My people don’t play when it comes to Chinese food.) Once we’ve consumed 14,000 calories (most of that in the Shrimp Fried Rice ~ don’t judge ~ keeping kosher “in the house” is another fine tradition), we make our way to the movies. It’s a day Jews spend together that dates back thousands of years. Or maybe just 20 or 30. And maybe it’s really just an American Jewish [continue reading...]

December 24, 2014
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Before We Come Out, We Must First Go In

Considering the picture above, it’s a wonder how I was ever successfully in the closet. But, with the exception of the kids at school who called me a faggot, I think I was. Coming out, something I did slowly over the span of a few years, freed me, as it frees everyone who does it.

But the fact that we have a closet to come out of, the fact that a closet still exists, is a big, giant flashing sign that for all of our breathtaking gains, we have a lot more work to do.

The very idea of coming out implies that there was a going in. It’s a moment that for many of us occurs before conscious awareness, before understanding, before we even have words for it. And it demonstrates that we, as gay kids, have received the message that to stay safe, we must lie ~ that what we [continue reading...]

October 11, 2014
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When a Wedding Aisle Becomes a Line in the Sand

I have written before about how Rick and I have gotten married quite a few times, the first time being on June 24, 2000.  What I haven’t written about were the family members who conscientiously objected to our wedding. Bigotry and ignorance, given the sheen of legitimacy by calling them religion, prevented my mother’s first cousin’s wife from sharing in our joy that day. She felt that she could not witness our union – that she could not celebrate with us. Her husband, my mother’s first cousin, stood with his wife. They did not attend our wedding. They did not RSVP the invitation. They sent us neither a gift nor even a note of congratulations. Nothing…(Click to read the full post on VillageQ.)

August 30, 2014
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Brendan Eich & Mozilla ~ We’re Right

In the past week, the gay blogosphere has exploded with the news of Brendan Eich’s resignation as CEO of Mozilla, supposedly due to a 2008 donation to Prop 8.  Andrew Sullivan lit the fuse when he posted The Hounding Of A Heretic on his blog, a scathing review of the evil gay fanatics that forced the departure:

Will [Eich] now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we [continue reading...]

April 7, 2014
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Grammy Round Up…

Last night’s Grammys made me long to be offended. Crassness. Wardrobe malfunctions. Juvenile pomposity. Obvious drug use. Desperate stunts to cover a lack of talent. None of it was on display. Making me realize that desperate stunts to cover a lack of talent is better than no cover at all. Where was the fuck you rebellion, the swagger, the jaw-dropping arrogance, the self-importance? Where was Miley’s repurposing of a foam finger? Nowhere to be found. We had to settle for Pharrell’s Smokey the Bear hat. Meh. It was like watching a meeting of the American Temperance Society. So serious and grown up. At 41, married and living in the suburbs I didn’t even feel old or out of touch. Motown, we have a problem.

A proposition: Why don’t we take the infantile tantrums and staggering arrogance out of the government and put them back where God intended them, in the music [continue reading...]

January 27, 2014
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Juan Pablo Admits Publicly That He Suffers From Gay Derangement Syndrome, or GDS

Ok, he didn’t admit it so much as reveal his symptoms by opening his big, fat diseased mouth.

Juan Pablo, “star” of ABC’s The Bachelor, was recently asked whether he thought a dating reality show featuring a gay or bisexual bachelor was a good idea.

“No…I respect [gay people]…” (You know there’s a but coming, right?) “…but…” (Uh-oh.) “…honestly, I don’t think it’s a good example for kids.”  (As I pointed out in an earlier post, one of most common symptoms of  GDS is the stripping of words from their meaning.  JP respects gay people, he just doesn’t want children exposed to our filthy lives.)  “Now there is fathers having kids and all that, and it is hard for me to understand…” (I feel that a lot of things are hard for JP [continue reading...]

January 20, 2014
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