Borrowed Time

My heart attack is 20 years old this month.

I was on a Metroliner from Wilmington Delaware to New York City at the time. It was a Sunday afternoon. I'd been on vacation that week in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where I ate badly, smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish.

In other words, business as usual.

A few minutes after the train pulled out of New Brunswick, I caught sight of the (late) Twin Towers of the World Trade Center some 30 miles off in the distance.

That's when I first felt it. A tightness in my chest. It felt like someone had balled up their fist and was shoving it straight up under my sternum. I didn't know that that's where the heart is actually located. I thought "how odd. it must be indigestion." What did I know about heart attacks? Nothing. I thought you were supposed to feel a shooting pain up your arm (I didn't).

It didn't go away.

I got back to New York and I got home.

It didn't go away. I slept fitfully that night.

It was a hundred degrees in New York that July. My ex and I went out to dinner because it was too hot to cook. We went out that Monday night, the next night (Tuesday) and the night after that (Wednesday). We went to dinner at the Post House (a chop and steak joint) that night. I had the prime rib (large), with a baked potato and lots of butter and broccoli with hollandaise sauce (yeah, I know).

After dinner, we decided to walk over to the Lex line from the west side. We got to Astor Place. I collapsed on the platform.

The doctor said I should've died. He said I'd had a massive coronary. I needed a cigarette and a drink when he said that.

I kept drinking and smoking for years afterward. I didn't care. Even though I was a high-powered Wall Streeter at the time, I was very unhappy and wished, deep-down-inside, that I was dead.

I would eventually lose everything (Wall Street, the ex, etc.) I would get sober in 1998. I would have quadruple-bypass surgery in 2004 and quit smoking at the same time. I would have bilateral endarterectomies in 2005. I would be diagnosed with type II diabetes in 2006 and eventually have a stomach bypass in 2008 to fix the diabetes.

Twenty years ago I had a massive coronary.

Twenty years ago, I realize now, God was very busy saving me from myself. Time and time and time again.

I don't doubt it.

Miracles happen. I am one.

North Complicit in Slavery (Film at 11:00!)

Today's title is actually a headline over on CNN right now.

I wonder to myself "what bright young dingbat just found this out?"

As anyone over the age of reason, who has seen the movie "1776", knows:

"Molasses to Rum to Slaves" was sung by Edward Rutledge from South Carolina and directly refers to the triangulation of north/south/caribbean economics in the 18th century.

But even non-musical types have a general knowledge that the North and the South were heavily divided on the issue and not always along geographical lines (Mr. Dickinson of Pennsylvania being a prime example), and that it took all the genial diplomatic skills of Benjamin Franklin himself to eventually broker a deal on the matter, primarily between John Adams of Massachusetts and his followers and Rutledge and his followers. The Virginians, by the way, were ambivalent on the matter.

Franklin could probably not have foreseen just how much long-term damage that deal would inflict on the country, but then, he was faced with the more daunting (and immediate) problem of creating a United States of America, and not merely preserving it.

We were a work in progress then, and we remain so now.

I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore!

I am finding more and more support amongst my friends (and here in InternetsLand) for bringing up our collective rage at the sorry state of affairs in this country for LGBTs. I watched President O'Bama do his dog-and-pony for the assembled (unelected) "gay leadership" at the White House, excuse me, OUR White House, on Monday afternoon (early enough in the week to bury it before Friday). The words were comfy and warm however the real support, backed up by actions, was nonexistent. You can go find the video yourselves. The Pink Pussycats (my new term for wimpy "go-along, get-along" Log Cabinish, kiss-ass bloggers and "gay leaders") have the video on all their sites.

David Mixner in his blog today, July 1st, 2009 , said this:

“For me to be a free man doesn't mean I have to make everyone in America like me. In fact the Constitution protects an unpopular minority from the tyranny of a majority.”

This is what he called it: Gay Apartheid

This is what it is: Gay Apartheid

Politicians can mouth off, Religiosos can mouth off, The Powers-That-Be can mouth off, but the net-net is... gay apartheid. Separate, and mostly unequal.

Enough.

And here's Keith Olbermann interviewing Dan Savage last night on the subject of DADT.

Wait for the payoff at the end. Keith swears up a blue streak and it's absolutely worth the wait.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Sour Pride

I waited until after the weekend to talk about this here, even though I did mention it over on Facebook.

Have we come a long way since that mythic night in 1969, when the Queens fought back against a routine Vice-Squad raid of a Mafia-run gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village? Yes. Undoubtedly.

Background check of my bona fides:

I'd turned 21 the week before. I was in the Navy and had just reported for duty after a year of boot camp and electronics schools, to the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland. It was weeks before even a hint of the events in New York managed to filter down to where I was. And where I was was alone and lonely inside my own skin, absolutely convinced that I was doomed to a lifetime of secrecy about who, and what, I really was. I remember being thrilled to hear that there had been a "queer uprising" of some sort in New York City. It gave me a teensy bit of hope that maybe the future might be okay for me, after all.

Long story short, I got out of the service and came flying out of the closet, got very involved in gay lib on a grassroots level at the University of Delaware, got burnt by same, swore off gay lib and gay politics -- moved to Seattle -- moved to New York, attended a few early Pride Parades and most importantly... I saw where it was all going.

It was all going to a party.

The early parades were rag-tag events, scheduled mostly by word of mouth in those pre-internet, pre-email days. Mouth and pamphlets and underground newspapers.

They didn't need no stinkin' permits to march. Everybody just "showed up" on Central Park West and started organizing themselves behind banners. There were no "floats" or flatbed trucks full of scantily-clad party boyz and blaring disco music, tossing Mardi Gras beads to the gawkers along Fifth.

The cops didn't interfere because, to be honest, there were about a quarter of a million of us and about 10,000 of them.

But then, and rather quickly, the marches got sold out. To corporate interests and the aforementioned flat-bed trucks loaded with Party-Boyz.

And Pride stopped being political.

Look, I like a party as much as anyone else. But there is a time and a place for it. And Pride Parades are NOT it. NOT yet. When we have achieved our political goals of full, unbridled, equality before the law ... then, and only then ... can we "reward" ourselves with a parade with floats sponsored by Bud Lite and American Express.

Until then, there is work to be done. Political work. Hard work. In your fucking-face work.

Our lives are at stake here. And a once-a-year, blow off some steam, Disco-on-Fifth, is not a fit way to demonstrate against discrimination and in favor of civil rights for LGBT peoples from coast to coast. All it is is just a fucking bone thrown to us by an establishment with a vested interest in keeping us "uppity faggots" in our place.

A minor annoyance to the majority and a battered-wife reliable cashcow to the Democratic Party.

And if that don't piss you off, then just what will it take?

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I seem to have struck a nerve with a few people with my post, both above and over on Facebook. My friend Robin posted something remarkably similar on her website. You can jump directly to her post, here. I've also added her to my list of Daily Reads under "Here's What I Don't Get." Check it out. Eclectic, feminist and po'd at the status quo. Like me!

The.Best.American.Musical.Play... EVER!

I'm a big, ol' musical queen. And I've seen a ton of big, ol' musicals over the years. I was even IN a few of them, in college and community theaters, along the way. I'd always thought I'd seen 'em all, and knew 'em all.

Well, I'm here to tell ya, I didn't know jack-shit.

I saw "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center on Tuesday night, and I'm here to tell you, it is the best American musical play, ever.

It beautifully captures the mood of a robust, vigorous nation at war, a country flexing both it's impressive muscles and it's small-town naivete. Yes, it also has bald-faced capitalism (Billis), bald-faced racism (Lt. Cable and Nellie Forbush), worldy sophistication (de Beque) and altruistic heroism (Cable and de Beque).

This show is loaded. Mostly with America, warts and all, with a smattering of ex-patriate France, just the way we all were in the 40's.

The overture starts, as many B'way overtures do these days, small and tinny, sounding more like it's being played on a synthesizer across the street at Juilliard, until... the music builds and builds to the crescendo in the midst of the "Bali Hai" section when, suddenly, like a giant wave pulling back from the shore, the entire stage floor swiftly retracts upstage to reveal an entire Broadway orchestra, the way B'way orchestras used to be ... BIG. 25 or 30 seats, at least. Only then did I really appreciate the lushness of the Robert Russell Bennett orchestrations and the true value of Rogers' brilliant score.

I'm sorry for waxing ecstatic over it, but I was just blown away by it. The cast is great, not a miscue among them. The sets and costumes are perfect and not overdone.

If you see nothing else on Broadway, this year, or ever, by all means go see "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center.

Contuining in a Musical Vein

Because it's my birthday week I'm not going to let anything detract from my enjoyment of it -- including the shenanigans of all those d-bags in D.C. who are now busy sucking up to a few rich queers in the hopes that the rest of us will fall into line, like good little lgbt boys/girls/others, and back the fuck off and shut the fuck up and kill ourselves, like in the good old days.

And right about now my attitude is that they can all go fuck themselves, the lying sacks of self-serving shit.

On a lighter note, I'm going to see "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center tonight. Here is a clip of Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza singing "Some Enchanted Evening" which is one of my earliest recollections of b&w television. This is from the days when these broadcasts of scenes from Broadway shows and operas were considered so culturally important that they were simulcast on all of the television networks, and paid for by one sponsor, to an estimated audience of over 80,000,000.

I Feel Love....

Today, June 22nd, is my belly-button birthday. I was born in the decade in which we fought and won WWII. I'm a boomer. I am not aging gracefully. My motto remains, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

But if anything, I am a child of the 70's. The disco era. I came out of the closet when I came out of the Navy. And I immediately started hitting places in Philadelphia with names like Oz, Allegro and The Steps, and places in New York like Barefoot Boy and Uncle Charley's.

This was pre-Studio 54.

Then I moved to Seattle. And in those days (by now it was 1976) if you wanted to dance in Seattle you either went to Shelley's Leg or the Boren Street Disco.

I went to both. I made a lot of dance friends. We had a great time. We loved Grace Jones and Sylvester and ABBA. But the Queen of Disco was her Majesty, Donna Sommers.

And for our money, this was the song that defined her and defined the era.

Abusive Relationships

Not that any rich queers read me, but if they did or, if you think that you're rich enough to qualify, I would like to ask any of you who donate to the DNC (Democratic National Committee) to:

1. Immediately cease making donations to the DNC.

2. Cultivate local gay and gay friendly politicians by donating heavily to them, instead.

It is CLEAR to all but the blind that the DNC regards the LGBT communities as nothing more than minor annoyances with major bank accounts.

The DNC has absolutely no intention of giving us what it is that we seek, full and equal rights under the law. Not now. Not then. Not ever. And why should they?

If we got what we wanted, we would have no further use for them and would, possibly, stop donating to them anyway. It is in the best interests of the Democatric National Committee to insure that we remain disgruntled enough to think that we have no choice but to back them, no matter how badly they treat us.

In psychobabble this is called "an abusive relationship." We, my friends, are in an abusive relationship with the Democratic Party. Oh, sure, we get beat up in the back alley by the Republican thugs, but our good friends the Democrats are all over us inside the bars, like a cheap NY hustler, smooching up to us and telling us that they can't live without us, until we get them home with us for an evening of raw, hot sex. THEN they get viscious, beat the crap out of us, take our wallets and leave us for dead.

And, fools that we are, a week later we're out there once again, looking for them in all the bars all over town ... thinking to ourselves that maybe "this time it will be different."

Yeah. Well, take it from an alcoholic who thought that every time he drank it would be different ... it's never different. Until we fight back.

I know abusive relationships. I've had 'em. With guys. With booze. With politicians.

What really works with an abuser is to knock the cocksucker flat on his ass.

It's time for the LGBT communities to knock the DNC flat on its ass.

I used to like this guy....

I'm doing more and more posting over on FaceBook these days ... and less and less here.

But I did want to pass along my growing annoyance and discontent with the current administration. Watch this:



Last week, the Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court IN FAVOR of keeping DOMA ... and in its brief, used the old incest/child-molestation stereotype.

It is clear that this administration has gone from gay friendly to gay hostile... on the assumption that we will always be there for them, like a lover in an abusive relationship.

And trust me, I know exactly what it's like to be in an abusive relationship. I was in one for 15 years, until I got sober.

Maybe it's time for the LGBT communities to get sober and to wake up to the fact that politicians do NOTHING without either a) being bought or b) being publicly humiliated.

I am planning on showing up for the March on Washington in October. I urge every other LGBT person to do the same.

Marches didn't necessarily end the war in Viet Nam ... but they sure made the evening news -- night after night after night.

The Tonys - It Don't Get Any Gayer Than This!

For those of you missed Neil Patrick Harris' big closing number at the Tony's last night...

Well, like he says... it don't get any gayer.

The Weather Forecast

'Cause this is how it looks from NY/NJ these days:

Dear Mister President....

Won't you please start keeping some of your beautifully phrased campaign promises?

Why the Belief in Homosexual Choice Matters

It matters to me because I've never been anything other than homosexual. There were no "incidents" in my childhood. There was no pattern of anything. There was only, from very early age, a yearning, a drive, a need ... for the loving companionship of males, hopefully to culminate in a romantic and sexually fulfilling relationship with one.

I remember being asked, in college at an open-forum Psych class where I was one of the "star-performers" that night, when, exactly, I had "decided to be gay."

I was astonished that anyone would even think that there was some element of choice involved. There was never a moments doubt, from age six on.

Now, many decades later, I know why that question was asked. I also know, now, why it's so important for so many people to believe that I chose.

Because if I didn't, then their whole belief system comes crashing down around their ears. It means that God... their God... doesn't make mistakes, and doesn't make garbage, either.

Worse, if I didn't choose... and they did... then it means that there is a lot of suppressed anger in a lot of people, because they chose badly, and they know it.

Personally speaking, I believe that so many people are angry about this because a.) their God doesn't make mistakes and they know it and b.) they chose wrong, and they know it.

It's enough to piss off the Good Humor man. And Fred Phelps. And Maggie Gallagher.

Memorial Day

I called my dad on Sunday to see how he's doing (not well) and to thank him for his national service during World War II. He was grateful on both counts.

My dad never talks about it, but he was a tail gunner aboard an aviation fuel refueling ship in the South Pacific during the war. It was the kind of ship that Kamikaze's loved to dive-bomb. Dad got a lot of practice shooting Kamikaze's out of the sky.

His dad, my grandfather, was in the Navy in the 1920's. Pop-pop was stationed aboard a battlewagon, the USS Delaware. He was a Boilerman. But his real job was to be the coxswain for the Navy's championship rowing team. He led the Navy team to something like 4 victories. The Navy was heartbroken when Pop-pop bailed out at the end of his second enlistment in 1927.

I was born under a water sign, Cancer. I came from generations of Navy men. It was inevitable, I guess, that I would go to sea.

I never stroked a championship team, nor did I blast Jap Zeros out of the puffy-clouded South Pacific sky. But I did serve my country, honorably, from 1968 to 1972. I was an aviation electronics technician. I spent most of my enlistment ashore, in boot camp, electronics schools and, for a two year stretch, attached to the Flight Test Division of the Naval Air Test Center located in Lexington Park, Maryland.

I love working there. The best and the brightest of both officers and enlisted members of the services were sent to the NATC. Our test pilots all had "the right stuff." Our enlisted personnel were either on their way to becoming officers or else they had turned down commissions due to their feelings about the Viet Nam war.

Eventually, though, the time came for sea duty, and I was sent to Lakehurst, New Jersey, were I was assigned to HC-2, The Fleet Angels, a Sea-Air Rescue Helicopter Squadron. After six months of non-descript duty aboard the base I was re-assigned to a detachment leaving for six months of sea duty aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, CVA-42.

Rosie was a WWII relic. Rather like dad. She wasn't as fast as the newer nukes. She was smaller than most of the newer carriers. But she was feisty. And she was comfy. She had a "lived-in" look and feel that you couldn't find aboard newer ships. If you look real close at the arresting gear, my bunk was under the the #3 arresting wire. You have no idea how loud a 40,000 pound jet aircraft slamming into the deck at 150 miles per hour is, when it's just six inches above your face.

Rosie had character. I like ships with character.

I don't expect anyone to ever thank me for my duty. It was a great time in my life. I met some great guys, got drunk a lot, and learned how to play well with others.

And do you know that, to this day, I still fold my socks and underwear exactly the way I was taught to do it in bootcamp?

Catholic school was good training for the Navy. But the Navy had much cuter guys.

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UPDATE: California Supreme Court Upholds Proposition 8. Existing same-sex marriages to stand.

Tell me again why I should be grateful to this country for all it does for me?

DADT

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It’s about being forced to stay in the closet if you’d like to serve your country.

One dirty little (and undiscussed) secret underlying the policy is our national wish that all queers, lesbos and other disgusting misfits would also stay in the closet… out of sight and out of mind.

But in the military, it’s not merely about pandering to the homophobic panic of redneck teenagers who form the backbone of our fighting forces.

DADT is really about something that never gets discussed, even at the highest levels of power within the forces, because it’s too explosive a subject for even them to handle.

It’s about Sparta.

No, I’m not kidding.

The Spartans deliberately set out to create an army of lovers, the theory being that a soldier would be far more willing to die for his country if he was also to die defending the life of his soul-mate. It was terrific military policy, to create an army that was at the very least bisexual. You can see how well it worked by looking at the battle of Thermopylae – when a measly 300 Spartans (and a thousand or so other Greeks - who never get mentioned) held off the entire Persian Army of Xerxes for quite a long time, comparatively speaking. The Spartans went down… as it were… defending the lifeless body of their King, Leonidas, who, according to all reports, was quite a hunk of Greek manhood.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we had a national security policy enforced by a military composed of millions of happily queer couples?

Can you imagine what it would be like if we had a hunk of burning Greek love as a Commander in Chief?

I can.

Parental Love

I drove down to Dover, Delaware on Saturday to spend some "quality time" with my father and step-mom.

All families are complicated, each in their own unique and often horrifying way. Mine is no exception.

My birth mom and my dad were divorced while I was still gestating in the womb. Throughout my childhood my mother, a bitter young woman with a severe drinking problem, used me as a pawn in her relations with her ex husband, her mother and anyone else who got in her way. I know that, and I forgive her for that. It ruined me in many ways, but there's no going back and undoing it. I am nearly incapable of having trusting intimate relations with sexually desirable people as a direct result of that childhood. When push comes to shove, I can't let anyone in... and more importantly, I can't let myself out.

But still, I try.

Eventually I did meet my shadow family consisting of my dad, my stepmom whom I love dearly and my should-have-been siblings, my sister and our younger brother. Over the years we have gotten closer and more loving.

As my sobriety has ripened, I have learned more and more about the important things in life, such as family and friends.

Dad has started having more and more hospital episodes over the last couple of years. This year my siblings had to fly down to Ft. Myers in Florida to literally rescue the folks and drive them home because dad was physically incapable of doing it.

Mom is no help. She never bothered to get a driver's license and, recently, her memory has started to go. She really needs to be watched at all times now. This will only get worse. In fact, both of them are only going to get worse, and to be honest, it will be in very short order.

After they came home from Florida my sister suggested that each of us go to Dover to spend some quality time with them. I knew what that meant. It meant my sister suspects that the end is near for one or both of them and now would be a good time to show them that they are still loved and that they are still a relevant part of their children's lives. I know, from personal childhood experience, what it means to feel like a fifth wheel in life.

I prayed all week about it. I asked God to take charge of the visit on Saturday and to help me keep my mouth zippered shut, to smile, to be loving and considerate and compassionate, to not have any agendas, and to be of service however I could.

Well, God held up His end of the bargain. I sailed through the day, even though were trying times at the drug store and supermarket. I showered them with affection, verbally and physically, whenever the opportunity arose.

Maybe I am learning about letting people in a little bit. Or even better, maybe I'm learning how to let myself out.

I dunno.

But I do know that I'm going to cry like a baby if... when anything happens to either of them.

W.W.J.D.

From the steamy streets of West Hollyweird comes our photo du jour:


What Would Jesus Drink (on a steamy LA day)? A vente iced latte, of course, before heading off to a hard day of saving souls.

And you can tell it's Hollywood because out there even the Starbuck's have kleig lights in the windows.

Maine Governor Signs Gay Marriage Bill

New England is shaping up very nicely.

And as goes Maine ... so goes the nation.

Asshole of the Week - Rudy Giuliani

Remember this:



Joe Jervis over at Joe.My.God does a much better job eviscerating Giuliani over his latest, shameful, conduct than I ever could.

Rudy Giuliani, "America's Mayor", is a totally disgusting, opportunistic, political pig.

Period.

HR 1913 - The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act

It passed. Thank God. But not before the wingnuts took to the floor of the House to try to kill it -- and like good Holocaust Deniers everywhere, they even attempted to deny that Matthew was a victim of a hate crime. The worst of the worst, though, was Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC). Her speech in the well of the House was astonishing by the depth of it's political demagoguery and utter lack of truth. If this woman is a parent I pity her children. It's bad enough she gets to vote on legislation of national importance. She should, if she had a decent bone in her body, immediately resign her position in the House.

I'm grateful that Keith Olbermann is on the air -- and isn't afraid to take on wingnuts like her. Last night he took on three. For an appetizer he devoured Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), who is just plain batty. Then, for an entree, he chomped into Rupert Murdoch. Finally, for dessert, he lacerated Ms. Foxx (at 2:43).

Keep in mind, the legislation passed in the House. A Senate version has already been introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). The speed at which things are changing in this country can be breathtaking at times -- which makes the wingnuts even wingnuttier than usual.

I thank my Higher Power, whom I call God, for having kept me alive long enough to see a day when things seem to be really changing for me and people like me.

Here's Keith's "Worst Person in the World" from last night (04/29/09).