Gay Pride Month

If your only experience with gay people is from watching Will and Grace or cheering for the cute gay kid on Glee, you might not want to read this.  I don't want to shatter anyone's fairy tale of how nice, polite and always cheerful we gays are. Because we aren't.

Last Friday the New York legislature passed a law recognizing marriage equality.  It was then signed by Governor Cuomo and takes effect July 24.   This is great news for the people of New York and LGBT people everywhere.   What made this particularly powerful is that it came at the beginning of Pride Weekend in New York, celebrating the 42nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Something like Marriage Equality has the power to unite the LGBT community the way Pride parades and festivities used to do.

That's right, I said used to do.  Don't get me wrong, I don't believe there is anything wrong with having Pride celebrations, but I do think they're a bit hypocritical.  We come together under the colors of the rainbow to stand united for equal rights and common basic decency, but after the parades we go back to our lives of separateness and isolation within our own community.  We go back to being black, white, twinks, gym bunnies, fit, overweight,  bears, cubs, transgender, drag queens, leather daddies, chicken hawks,  hustlers, trolls, and dykes.

Of course each subgroup has it's own community, but as we section off and label each other, we become further and further apart.  Pride is supposed to bring us together. Not just for one day or one month. How about all the time?  We come together when we're fighting for our rights, or fighting for a cure to a deadly disease.  I have to believe it's possible for us to stop judging each other and finding what makes us different, and start looking for the similarities in each of us.

Can we live in a world where the gym bunny can have a conversation with a troll in the produce section of Kroger?  Where we don't look away from each other for fear that eye contact will obligate us to a quickie in the men's room?  Can't we just connect as human beings?

Legislature can give us all the rights we want, but if we can't treat each other kindly and with respect, do we really deserve them?

Postcards from the Desert

I'm going through and making revisions to my novel, Postcards from the Desert, and decided to post a little teaser here. It's part of my promise to fill this space with something more often.  Here's how the novel begins, at least in this revision:

I carefully balanced my feet on the iron railing spanning the length of the Brooklyn Bridge. I held on as I leaned out to get a good look at the East River below and out across the New York Harbor.  It would be about a 120 foot drop.  I wondered if the water would be cold, or if I’d feel anything when I hit.  Would the shock force me to take a breath as I shot below the surface?

            Suicide was nearly impossible from the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walkway.  In order to end up in the East River, one would have to climb over the railing, walk a steel girder over the heavily traveled roadway below, and then climb through a mesh of cables to actually get to the edge in order to jump.  One was more likely to fall into traffic and be hit by commuters heading out of Manhattan in the evening rush hour.   It was too much of a risk and too much trouble for one to off themselves this way.  It was a good thing that wasn’t what I had in mind. 

            I only wanted to swan dive into the East River to see what it felt like.  I was hoping the rush of cool water would shock me out of my midlife blues.  I hoped by coming close to death, I’d appreciate being alive.  I wanted to feel again. Something. Anything but the numbness that had become my constant companion.

            Tourists crowded around me. Some seemed to be watching to see if I was going to jump.  A few pulled out their cell phone cameras and began snapping pictures of what they would later tell their friends was a crazy New Yorker about to take a dive.  One frozen snapshot in the grand scheme of things called my life.   Most of the crowd was completely unaware as they took pictures of the Harbor, with Lady Liberty in the background, or Manhattan as the sun sank low behind the skyline.  Many were locals traveling the bridge as they did several times a week.  They were the most oblivious. 

The lights of the bridge began to glow as twilight took the city.  It was my favorite time of day.  As I gazed into the horizon, I felt my phone vibrate.   I pulled it out of my pocket and stepped back down onto the platform. 

The Other Side of the Rainbow

If you know me, or have read this blog, you know I've been working on my first novel, Postcards from the Desert, for a few years. I finished it earlier this year and am currently going through the revision process. 

While I've been working on Postcards from the Desert, I've also done some freelance writing.  One of the projects began as filler for a local gay newsletter.  I called the column The Other Side of the Rainbow.  It was a Tales of the City type serial reminiscent of Sex and the City.  It's a funny, racy and sometimes shocking look at the gay dating scene. 

At the urging of a few of my readers, I decided to publish some of the stories in a novelette form as an ebook for Kindle or the Nook.  The first of what I suspect will be four novelettes is called The Other Side of the Rainbow- The Beginning.  It's now available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble online.  I'm editing and compiling the second of the series, called The Other Side of the Rainbow- Celibacy and the City, which chronicles the gang's big adventure to Manhattan for Gay Pride festivities.  

The novelettes feature Bradley Ford, an obituary writer for a local Dayton newspaper, who also writes a blog exposing the gay dating scene in the Ohio town. Using his friends, Tony and Steve as guinea pigs, Bradley reveals their experiences while he avoids men and dating as he tends to his own broken heart.  All of that changes when Bradley rediscovers the one who got away. 

The Other Side of the Rainbow- The Beginning is a very quick read at just over 8000 words, but it will leave you wanting more. 

Check it out for the Nook at Barnes and Noble or for Kindle at Amazon.com.   

Bad Blogger...... Very Bad Blogger

Have I mentioned that procrastination is one of  my character defects?  Guess what?  It is.  I can't believe my last post was April 30. Although that only seems like yesterday.  The past month and a half have gone by very quickly.  I've been terribly busy and a lot has been going on.  I know. No excuses.  I could have written something.  The truth is that I wasn't sure what to write.  When I began this blog my number one rule was "no rules."  I'd let myself write about anything..... well, anything except negative feelings.  I try to be positive all the time.  No one wants to hear my tales of woe, but I think I may just have to purge myself for just a moment.  Stop reading here if you're only looking for Mary Sunshine today.

You're still here?  Really? Last chance....... okay, you asked for it.

I've been depressed.  There, I said it.  I don't need to be medicated or hauled back into therapy.  I'm simply having a brief relationship with The Blues.  It's nothing some exercise, sunshine, and time to reflect won't help.

What caused this affair with old Mr. Melancholy?  It started as money worries.  I know no one can relate to that, right?   Lately it seems there is never enough, and I live a pretty low key lifestyle.   I know people who live on far less than I have, including me a few years ago, so I know lack of money is not the end of the world.

Then I found out that a very dear friend has cancer.  If you've read my blog before, you know how I feel about cancer.  It sucks!!!  I have every hope and belief she is going to beat this, so I stay positive.  I just hate that she has to go through it.

So, that's what's been going on with me.  No excuse for not writing, but there it is.  I'm coming to the other side of the Blues.  I'm sure it will be back someday, but I'll beat it then too.  I want to end this entry with a quote I ran across the other day. It seems so perfect for me and our whole society.  As we continue to struggle in wars across the sea, an economy in turmoil, and people who have to choose between feeding themselves or their children this reminds us that will still need something more.

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Am I a Real Writer?

It's been a weird few weeks since I've written anything here. In fact, I haven't written much of anything.  As you know if you've kept up with me, I finished my first novel a couple of months ago. I had two of my favorite people read it and give my their thoughts.  Everything was positive and I was gung ho to make some revisions and send it on to more readers.  In the meantime, something happened that brought it all to a grinding halt.  I lost my confidence.  Suddenly it all seemed so juvenile and I wondered what to do with it.

I've been told that the revisions process can be exciting and isn't as hard as the actual writing of the first draft.  I'm finding the opposite to be true, but there may be a reason for that. The little critic who lives inside of me is also a perfectionist.  When I wrote the first draft I gave myself permission to let it go where the story needed to take me.  Now with the revisions, we find out if I'm a real writer.  This scares me.

I tell myself that anyone can write, but it takes a real writer to make something worthy of publishing.  Do I have what it takes?  I thought so. Now, I'm feeling less sure. I guess the only way to find out is to keep going at it and see what happens.

Arrrggghhh!

Breaking the Rules

On an episode of  The Golden Girls, Rue McClanahan's Blanche sarcastically asks if Betty White's Rose was a wild woman.  Rose replies, "Oh, you bet I am! I eat raw cookie dough. And occasionally, I run through the sprinklers and don't wear a bathing cap. And at Christmas, I've been known to put away more than one eggnog."  In contrast to her dimwitted, good girl image, Rose Nylund liked to break the rules. She was a rebel.


Some people love to live by rules.  They don't speed or roll through a stop sign.  They never wear white after Labor Day and they wouldn't be caught dead eating red wine with fish.  The rest of us like to push the envelope occasionally. 


Certain rules need broken or at least challenged.  I had a friend once, many years ago, who was studying to be an actor.  He took classes in dance, voice, movement, and acting.  He went to a well known theatre school and studied at a private conservatory.  He did everything he could to prepare for a career in theatre.  Everything except audition.  He didn't actually have any theatre experience because he was waiting to learn all the "rules" first.  By the time he learned all the "rules" he was no longer interested in theatre.  To this day, he rarely does any acting.  I think I read that he started a garage band somewhere and works in computer science.


Whatever vocation, or hobby, or fleeting interest we have comes with a set of rules.  The trick is to know which rules you can break and which ones you can't.  Sometimes its more fun if you do it before you know the rules.  


I have two great passions: writing and photography.  Theatre is a close third, but I've learned too many rules so it doesn't hold the same joy for me now. 

In photography, any beginner's manual will tell you to NEVER center your subject in the frame.  It makes for an uninteresting picture.   That may be true on many occasions.  A different angle is sure to make for better composition, but sometimes the best pictures come from breaking the rules.  The photo at right by Steve McCurry, is a famous exception.  Afghan Girl's face is centered, horizontally and vertically, and it's a haunting photograph.  The photographer knew the eyes were the story. Why try to deny that?  Put them front and center.  There are many exceptions to this rule throughout the history of photography.  If no one ever dared break the rules, we'd be without such beautiful photos.


As most of you know, I love to write and writing has its own set of rules.  Show don't tell. Don't end sentences with a preposition. Too many adverbs make for uninteresting reading. Backstory shouldn't be told in chunks. Short stories shouldn't have flashbacks. The list goes on an on.  I have a theory that some writers who can't sell what they write, like to write books telling the rest of us what the rules are and warn us against breaking them.  


What I like to do is throw out the "rule book" and refer to those ideas as suggestions or guidelines.  After all, calling it a rule just makes me want to break it.  Like Rose, I too sometimes like to eat raw cookie dough.  I'm a rebel like that.  And I might even begin a sentence with "and."  That's a no no.


Of course we need to have some rules, but we need to be flexible enough as writers, photographers, actors, artists, singers, etc.. to experiment with bending them or breaking them in the name of creativity.  Its not always going to work, but at least we will have tried.  Having a checklist is good.  Living by the checklist is not.  


If writing is all about following the rules of what's trendy today, we might as well be making widgets on an assembly line.  Not something I aspire to do. 

Too Many Ribbons

I came of age in the early 1980s and just as I began my life as an out gay man, there was a disease rapidly spreading through the gay community.  It started as "the gay cancer" and eventually was named AIDS.  Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  Over the course of the next fifteen years, it killed many of my new friends. 

People ran scared.  Some doctors and nurses refused to treat patients with AIDS, cemeteries refused to bury people with AIDS and  family members refused to touch or love people with AIDS.  It was a horrible time, but we were brought together as a gay community with one enemy in mind: AIDS.  People like Elizabeth Taylor gave us a voice, when we had a president who wouldn't publicly acknowledge the disease. Celebrities like Rock Hudson had to die before we knew it could touch anyone.  

In my personal life, AIDS touched me many times.  I helped take care of two close friends who both died.  I sat by their bedside, gave them sponge-baths, read to them when they could no longer see, and held their hands as they struggled to take final breaths.  I even briefly entertained the idea of assisting one as he wanted to commit suicide because the pain was so great. 

The low point was the week I went to three memorial services in a course of four days. Death was all around us and we never got a reprieve.  Eventually all the infected friends were gone, except for a few who are miraculously still healthy today. Life went on and I thought I was done. 

Fast forward to now.  I'm a man in my mid forties and I have a new enemy.  Cancer.  I have lost too many of my friends now over the past few years to cancer.  Same insidiousness as before, just a different colored ribbon to wear on my lapel.  

Yesterday I found out that an acquaintance, a couple of years younger than me, has been diagnosed with cancer now.  This is after the grandparents, the police sergeant, the acting teacher and mentor, the volunteers, the retired stage hand, the friend's mom, and other friends have already gone.  

How many tears do I have left?  How much scar tissue can the heart take? 

When I'm really positive, I can take all this in and learn lessons from it.  We must live each day to it's fullest and we should never let a day go by without telling the ones we love that we love them and that I'm lucky to have known such wonderful people.

On the days where I'm exhausted and can't seem to get out of bed, I pick up my feet, roll out of bed anyway and keep moving.  It's all I can do to fake it.

Maybe today is the day someone learns how to beat cancer's ass!