Harvey Who?

I'm coming into Manhattan this Friday to see "Gypsy" with Patti Lupone at a special holiday matinee. It's required in order to keep up my standing in the gay union (One Jules Styne musical PLUS a Gay Diva = 1,000 BONUS QUEER POINTS).

After copping my ticket (great seat, too. Aisle seat, 5th row Mezz -- the ideal seat for any musical, especially at the St. James Theater) I realized that I was going to be in town "for the evening" and that I could either a) see another show (big $) OR b) see the movie "Milk" which opens tomorrow in "selected cities" (translation = "cities with humongous gay and/or ultra-liberal populations, many of whom are either in show biz or they know people who are), namely Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.



Being the sort of guy I am (on a budget), I decided to see "Milk." Then I decided to invite some other gay people I know who are also in recovery. I called my friend "M" first and blurted out my plan. "Oh", he said, "I'd LOVE to go." Well, that was easy. Then he added, "Who was Milk?"

WHO WAS MILK???!!!! I was horrified. Appalled. Scandalized. Don't they teach these kids ANYTHING these days? They don't know where Zimbabwe is and they never heard of Harvey Milk. Tsk. Tsk.

Granted, "M" was exactly 1 year old when Harvey and George Moscone were assassinated, thus, sadly, launching Dianne Feinstein's political career on the national stage with her tearful announcement on nationwide TV of the deaths of the Mayor and city Supervisor. He was unaware, too, of Dan White and the ridiculous "Twinkie Defense." Or the fact that White, after a few years in prison, was set free, only to off himself a short time later.

I jettisoned plans to invite anyone else and determined that "M" was going to be my gay good deed of the month. I was going to educate this lad, whether he wanted it or not.

Seriously, though, we shouldn't be too surprised that Prop 8 passed in California, given the lousy job my generation has done of keeping the gay lib flame alive AND of passing along gay history to the next generation of gay, lesbian and transgendered youth.

But it was so easy to give up. The "Uncle Moms" among us made it easy to surrender, with their soothing talk of "making nice with the straights" and "it'll come... in time.... just give it time." It was about assuaging the feelings of straight people ... and denying and subjugating our own. It was about making straight people "comfortable" with having us around.

BULLFRIGGINSHIT. We should've been out there marching and demonstrating and making straight people VERY uncomfortable all along. But then AIDS came along and some of us actually bought into the RRR (radical religulous right - or Rockin' Ronnie Reagan)'s assertions that we were being "punished" for our previously hedonistic lifestyle, when, in fact, AIDS had been around for a hundred years, was primarily transmitted via heterosexual intercourse in Africa and was no more "our fault" than the sun, the moon or the stars. That, coupled with the Uncle Mom's pleadings to "play nice" proved to be too much for the handful of radicals who remained.

By the time the 80's were over, the few radical faeries left got involved in either ACT-UP or Queer Nation, both of which groups eventually succumbed to political infighting and subsequent fracturing.

Maybe it's radical time again. I feel emboldened, even at the ripe old age of 60, to once again take to the streets (this time without the aid of "marshals" and "permits" and "police escorts") to make the point that:

I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!

Screw the establishment.

Oh, and marriage is just the tip of my iceberg. Full, unfettered, equal protection and rights under the law, is what I want. And when do I want it? 1972.

I think Harvey would've approved.


p.s. I got tickets to see the revival of "West Side Story" this coming March, too. I'm in Show-Queen Heaven right now.

I Knew There'd Be Trouble...

... the first time I addressed a community college law enforcement psych class in Delaware, sometime in 1973. The question was asked of me:

"WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO BE GAY?"

Excuse me? "Decide?" Decide what? To admit it? Recently. Decide that I knew? Oh, it was the First Grade (when I knew I wanted to be naked and alone with our school bus driver ... I just didn't know why I wanted that. At least, not yet.)

Decide? What a ridiculous question. As though anyone in their right mind, circa 1972, would suddenly and magically "decide" to be gay. I might as well decide to have tuberculosis or leprosy, or "decide" to piss off most people by being something they were afraid of ... or, more to the point, were afraid that they might catch it... or even worse, afraid that they already "had it."

But over the years, as I've mentioned here before, I came to realize, painfully slowly, that the reason most people conclude that there was a decision to be made was, because, well... ahem, how do I put this delicately? Oh, right, I can't. They conclude that I decided BECAUSE THEY HAD DECIDED TO NOT BE GAY, that's why.

Look. You can argue Kinsey's statistics forever. Shave a percentage point here, pad another one there. But the inescapable, fundamental reality he discovered is this:

Human sexuality is, for over 90% of the population, fluid. In other words, the vast majority of people either swing, or they're easily capable of it.

Only a teensy percentage of the human race has their sexuality written in stone. Oh, lucky me. Oh, lucky them.

I can't even think straight (and never have.) There are some who can't even think gay.

But lots and lots of people can think gay, but choose not to. And lots and lots of other people can think straight, but choose not to. Then there are schmucks like me, in the remaining 4% or so on the gay side, who've never been fascinated by breasts, have never wondered what a woman's sexual package looks like, have never imagined being alone and naked with one of them.

And there's another 4% or so, all the way over there somewhere, who are my mirror image, and have never given a moments thought to the joys of same-sex attraction.

That just leaves 92% of the human race, perverts all, who have no standards whatsoever and who would sleep with just about anything that walked in the door. You know who I'm talking about. YOU, you freak!

====================================================
p.s. visit this website to determine which kind of Blogger YOU are!

http://www.typealyzer.com

Here's mine:

The analysis indicates that the author of http://joyzeeboy.blogspot.com is of the type:
I. ESTJ - The Guardians

The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they've made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.

The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.

===================================
Yeah, that's me. Pig-headed and loyal.

Addiction

The Big Three automakers are begging Congress for $25b to "help them out" of the current crisis.

That's junkie talk for "we're gonna keep on doing what we did and you'll keep on getting what you got" in return for it.

In short, there's no impetus in the handout for them to actually change anything about the way they act, react, think or do business.

The junkie analogy is apt. I know a thing or three about addiction, being a recovering drunk myself. I certainly know enough to not give cash to people or institutions like me. The minute your back is turned, they or I will be right up to our old tricks again. That is absolutely true of the auto makers.

They have not learned much since the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. How do I know that? Easy. SUVs. Period. But the Japanese learned plenty. And that's when the Japs started selling lots of cars here. Oh, Detroit paid some modest lip service to it -- by modestly improving mileage and lowering emissions year after year -- but not without a lot of whining and foot-dragging in the process.

And now the junkies from Motown are standing there, arms outstretched, pleading national security and love of the Fatherland and bullshit like that.

And you know what I say? Go ahead. Give 'em the money. And then nationalize their asses "in the name of national security and love of the Fatherland."

Gay Lib - 4.0

[Both posters copyright Austin Cline]

The internets is atwitter with news that Gay Lib has been re-born, re-furbished, re-packaged and is hot-to-trot. It turns out that a whole generation (which one is it, Gen AA? Gen BBB?) has just "discovered" that you can take to the streets to register your dissatisfaction with things in general, including the status quo.

Well, whoop-di-friggin-do.

We boomers managed to organize anti-war demonstrations with 500,000 people using little more than telephones (anybody remember them?) and things called "Underground Newspapers" such as The Village Voice, The Great Speckled Bird and my favorite in Washington, DC, The Quicksilver Times. Granted, it took somewhat longer than 72 hours to throw these things together, given the lack of the internet, PDA's, iPhones, Crackberries and the other assorted electronic effluvia of modern life.

By my real point today is that everyone's ire seems to be pointed at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Said organization apparently ordered it's members to cough up tons of money they didn't have in order to BACK passage of Preparation H8 in California.

So, many of my young compatriots have focused all of their anger, bile and ire on... LDS.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of organized religions which I personally think are just money making machines for the folks who run 'em. And they use the concept of "sin" to keep their membership in line ... and to try to keep the rest of us in line, too.

But, as my friend Jake on his blog, Nofo, says (and I'm totally paraphrasing him here), their "mythology doesn't trump my reality" or words to that effect. I couldn't agree more. This country has, for too long and way too often, allowed people's fervent beliefs in fables and fantasies to dictate public policy.

We have, over the centuries, used such fervently held beliefs to rationalize the heinous institution of slavery. We used such beliefs to try, time and time again to "regulate" sin, such as we did with Prohibition. But the truth is that we are a nation of adulterous, drunken, philandering, lying, cheating, backstabbing Puritans. We sin without remorse except for the remorse of being caught at it. And then we cry and wail and blame it on the fact that we were molested as youngsters or we blame it on the booze, or the pharmaceuticals we've been taking.

And now, I'm ashamed to say, my fellow gays blame OUR failure to bash down Prep H8 on a church whose major sin seems to have been that they were better organized than we were. God love the folks at HRC, GLAAD and a handful of other groups. They tried.

However....

someone in the late 70's said that the Gay Rights Movement was doomed to failure because we were such a disparate group, lacking a single, unique and public "marker" indicating who and what we are. It's too easy for many of us to "pass". And many of us opt for "passing" rather than electing to do the really heavy lifting involved in being professionaly queer.

I'm sincerely glad to see the youngsters starting to exercise some political muscle. I hope they don't give up the way a lot of us did way back when. I also hope they'll remember this:

The Fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars.... but in ourselves.

Oh, and some advice for the Professional Kristians out there, too. There is nothing fragile about you. You hold all the cards and you know it. So quit playing the f*cking victim here.

Gay people ARE the victims and you ARE the bashers.

And, on a lighter note....

Blechh. I'm fed up with the elections, PropH8 and who accidentally voted for what because they never thought that it would actually "affect" anybody.... It's time to move forward into the holidays!

And since it promises to be a Pretty Crappy Christmas, economy-wise (thereby forcing everyone to actually look for reasons to be grateful to spend time with their families) I decided to go in search of my absolutely favoritest holiday treat, the Drifters singing their Doo-Wop version of "White Christmas" with Santa and the animated reindeer.

Only I found this instead. I don't know who actually had the lamps made and then took the time to program and sync the lights to the music and then to drag out the videocam to capture the whole thing on video tape... but whoever they are, they are either from a) Queens or b) New Jersey and in either case, they have entirely too much time on their hands, so I instantly fell in love with it.

Do hang on until Rudolph finally chimes in... it's absolutely worth it. Enjoy.

More Weird Bigots

Betcha never thought a show queen would be against gay rights, didja? Well, check out these two stories regarding one Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento, CA.

It turns out that Scotty-kins gave $1,000 to the PRO H8 side in the recent election. I guess he's a nice Mormon boy or something -- although that does beg the question, what the f*ck is he doing in show biz if he's not one of the Osmonds?

It reminds me of a story that circulated around the time when Bill Clinton was floating the idea of repealing the ban on gays in the military and lots of folks, in and out of uniform, got their knickers in a twist over it. One interviewer asked an Air Force colonel about it and the response was, (seriously), "if he does that I'll resign my commission and go to work for a civilian airline."

Clearly this colonel hadn't done much civilian flying if he thought he was going to avoid GAY people by working for United because recreational travel is a great way to avoid that nasty queer element. And so is Musical Theater!!!!!

Anyway, check out these two stories regarding Mr. Show Biz. And be sure to check out the embedded "tool" in the 1st article which you can use to look up which of your neighbors gave money to the cause.... either ours ... or theirs.

Start here:

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/never-ever-cross-show-queen.html

then go here:

http://guydads.blogspot.com/2008/11/california-musical-theatre-artistic.html

Nothing to see here...

Rather than reading my usual blather today, go read this instead.

Jake and his DP (domestic partner) are awesome.

Gay is the New Black!

It's official. After losing Proposition after Proposition regarding marriage, civil unions and rights in general to a populace which clearly likes it's hot, steamy, same-sex on same-sex sex strictly on the DL .... and wants it kept that way, I can confidently state that Gay is the New Black.

Why?

Because it's no longer cool to hate Black. And why is that important?

Because we are a nation that always champions underdogs. Particularly those who have to suffer and claw and bite and crawl their way out from underneath to achieve full equality with the blow-hard asshole rich Plutocrats who think they own this Country.

And now that African-Americans have (finally) captured the White House (which I wholeheartedly support, believe me), it's time for America to find a new group which is personally responsible for all the misery in the nation. In short, it's time to create a new class of underdogs we can all be fearful of, and fret about, and hope and pray to God they never come to power and who need to be kept in their place, at the back of the bus and at the end of the line, at the business-end of a firehose or at the muzzle of a Police dog.

And that would be us fags.

Hooray. Our time has finally come.

Thanks a bunch California, Florida and Arizona for every little crumb you throw us.

Assholes.

[On the other hand, today's NYTimes has a soothing editorial for jangled LGBT nerves. You can read it here.]

===========================================
More stuff

I read over at Joe.My.God that some hard-core Christianist Groups are trolling the internets today, looking for "evidence" that some gay bloggers (such as Joe) are "inciting" their LGBT readers to violence against peace (and queer) loving pro Prop 8 types .... in order to sic the cops on us.

So forget what I said about getting together and roving the streets late at night and beating up lone, innocent, heterosexual boys.

Offer 'em blowjobs, instead! That'll REALLY piss off the Fundies!!!!

A New Beginning

We may have lost on Prop. 8 in California (although Gloria Allred is already stirring up lawsuits on the matter), but we captured the Federal Government.

Today's front page of the New York Times about sums it up:



[Click on Front Page to Embiggen]

Thank God.

Goodbye, George. Don't let the door hit you in the ass...

on your way out.



Tomorrow America goes to the polls and, no matter what happens, by the end of the day, or days, or the week, we will in all likelihood have a brand-spanking-new President elect.

And that lame assed douchebag who has lurked in the White House for nearly 8 years while his cronies ravaged the Constitution, New Orleans and the Economy, will finally have to face the fact that the party is OVER and in just a few weeks he'll be leaving town... for good.

This was the national debt on the day he took office:

$5.7 T (that's "T" as in "Trillion")

today its:

$10.5 T (yes, "T" as in "Trillion." Are you learning-impaired or something?)

(here's the fun website the Treasury runs where you can check this out for yourselves: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np


One man. 8 Years. Nearly 5 Trillion Smackeroos. Wouldn't you like to know where it went? I would. War, mostly. War in Afghanistan. War in Iraq. War in general. "Look, Daddy, I can WIN the war you lost!!!" "Look, Daddy, I'm as good as Jeb!!!" "Please love me, daddy."

I know I'll find myself on Wednesday morning thinking, "Oh, Jeebus, are you STILL in the White House? When the hell are you moving out?" It's gonna be a long couple of months until late January when Barack Obama is sworn in as our next President, Chief Magistrate and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.

An aside to the idiots out there. If you are a civilian the President is NOT "your Commander-in-Chief" or "my Commander-in-Chief." He is merely THE Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. No need to salute him. We do not live in a military dictatorship (yet). And unlike the Queen of England, he does not Troop the Colours in front of his Army every year.

You can almost feel New York on the verge of exhaling a collective sigh of relief now that our long national nightmare is nearly over.

Thank God.

POPCORN!

I went to the movies yesterday afternoon. Originally I'd intended to see the Angelina Jolie thing, "Changeling" but I wimped out at the last minute because, you see, well... ahem, Kevin Smith has a new movie out.

Kevin Smith is a movie director and local (JoyZee) boy. He lives over in Red Bank, near the shore, and has a video store there. He shot his breakthrough indie, "Clerks" over there. And "Clerks II" and (my personal favorite) "Dogma." And others. I feel that it's important to support your local artist(s), so I plunked my money down at the AMC Googoolplex in Hamilton yesterday afternoon and bought a ticket to see "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." It stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. The supporting cast consists mostly of the usual characters from Smith's rep company. Even Jason Mewes, who usually plays the foulmouthed horndog "Jay" of Jay and Silent Bob (Smith) plays a totally different type of character in this one (except he's still horny) ... and does a "full-monty" near the end that's well worth the price of admission.

I recommend it IF you're a die-hard Smith fan. Otherwise you'll be put off by the never-ceasing stream of obscenities and boob-shots.

Maybe I'll see Angelina today.

But here's the real news. I stopped by the concession stand (which I've avoided since my surgery in August) and, gasp, bought:



I didn't go ape-shit. I bought a small bag. And no sodas (carbonation is forbidden for now and all eternity) -- I got a bottled water instead.

I enjoyed that small bag of popcorn more than I've enjoyed anything else since my dietary habits were forced to change. Popcorn was the one thing I've been craving the most. There is nothing more satisfying to me than scrunching down in a theater seat and enjoying a movie with a nice bag of popcorn.

Life (and movies) is good. Are good? Oh, screw it. I'm a happy puppy today.