I found this video on MaddowFans.com and it’s pretty damn funny. I’ll post it here knowing there’s been a gap in my presence. I’ve been a bit too pissed off to write about anything having to do with Australia since my experience at the airport last week. Perhaps there will be more on that later. Maybe from here. Maybe from the States.
In the meantime, get your smile on:
Well, it’s still pretty warm, but the sideways rain and enormous gusts of wind have been the case for the last couple of days. Weather warnings and what not prevail. Oh well. We’re still seeing fireworks tonight.
For tonight we’re going to Tropical Fruits, Lismore’s version of a gay New Year’s Eve party. Have a gander at the flyer:
People were camping yesterday. It was raining.
In other news, Australia creamed India in four days. It didn’t take the five. There were some excuses on the Indian side, of course: A lack of preparation caused by a washed-out match earlier in their stay meant they couldn’t acclimatize themselves. Pshah.
It turns out this test stuff comes in a series. Australia’s up 1-0. Next test is this week in Sydney. I have a hankering to see if I can hit a cricket bowl with a cricket bat. I asked Meredith if there were cricket cages. She said yes. Stay tuned.
Clio Cresswell is a mathematician who works at the University of Sydney. And she’s hilarious, as her theory of the 12-bonk rule promotes, will prove. And just her overall approach to love and dating. I wish math (or “maths” as the Aussies refer to it as) were this interesting growing up.
Listen to “Science of Sexuality,” a show about all things sexuality — for all animals — broadcast on Australia Talks on ABC Radio National.
Also according to one of the panelists, there is, indeed, a gay gene.
So young Lance Bass of the unfortunately popular boy band *Nsync (gotta get that asterisk right) has come out of the closet. And he wants everyone to know that his relationship is a stable one.
Of course gay celebrities in unstable relationships, or without relationships, would be a less sincere representation of their lives. Take, for instance, Ellen Degeneres. When she decided to have that coming out episode of hers, she went on a press tour to promote it. One of the shows that featured her was 20/20. And Barbara Walters, ever the concerned journalist, asked Diane Sawyer after the interview ended about the future of the show.
With her face mushed together, highlighting her lines of ignorance, she wondered what Ellen could possibly have been thinking.
“What is she going to do now? I mean, they can’t have her date on the show.”
Oh, no?
I’m happy that Lance is happy. I’m happy he’s out. All kidding aside, his move is a statement for not hiding. For actually being happy. He’s paved the way for other celebrities to come out. We’re waiting.
But there’s another thing. He might just be allowed to live the way he wants without having to convince fans and everyone else that he has no shame. And the blogosphere and various media outlets I imagine will grow tired of talking about it. I have.
There is more lurking about the subways these days than bag-searching cops looking for terrorists. What is that? Pen-wielding taggers who have no respect for the importance of punctuation.
I was following my back-up plan on the morning commute one day last week, which has me transferring at Union Square to the 6 when I’m pressed for time. As I walked alongside the tracks, or, rather, the cliff that leads to the tracks, I was struck by a confusing statement that could have been cleared up if only a semi-colon or comma had been used. Written on a ceramic brick pillar in blue felt-tip pen, the statement read: “Lesbians are taking over niggas better watchout”
Here it is in all its illiteracy. Unfortunately, by the time I could get back there and take the picture, some letters had been rubbed off.
There are many problems with this, and I’d like to address a few here. First I will argue that “watchout” is not an acceptable version of the intransitive verb construction. It appears in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, but I don’t care. Put a space in there. Moving on.
Now are the lesbians “taking over niggas” or are the lesbians “taking over” and so “niggas better watchout”? Let’s take a closer look. When I read it, I first took it to be the former. That “lesbians are taking over niggas.” But that doesn’t make sense; a simple semi-colon between the words “over” and “niggas” would have cleared it up, and I’m sure that’s what the writer intended.
Some sort of punctuation at the end would have been nice, as well. The writer is culturally illiterate; this much we know. His cover is further blown, then, because, going with this structure, we are to believe that lesbians will rule over “niggas.” But is this political rule or sexual rule? Both? I doubt this confusion is what the writer intended, which is another argument for a semi-colon. The other way makes more sense to me, and it more clearly establishes the writer as the homophobic coward that he is, rather than the paranoid one that the other construction implies.
Imagine for a minute that there is some sort of punctuation (at this point anything will do). What we have then is what the writer actually meant to express, which is that “niggas better watch out” because “lesbians are taking over.” But what are lesbians taking over? Are they simply taking over everything, including but not limited to the economic and political structures in the U.S. or are they engaged in a global takeover; clothing styles; radio stations; theatre; New York? I doubt the writer meant any of these given the lack of intelligence he has. So it’s probably pretty safe to assume that he meant that lesbians are taking over women.
But again, here we find ourselves in a bit of a bind. Is this “women” in general or black women, specifically? I won’t make an assumption about this point and will therefore explore both possibilities. First of all, this implies that a) there are no black lesbians and b) black women are the property of black men and therefore need to be protected from the army of lesbian marauders poised for a “takeover.”
But then what is meant by “black” if, in fact, this is what the writer meant but failed to get across? Does it refer to those who live in the U.S. and count U.S. slaves as their ancestors? Or does it also include other people who consider themselves “black”: women from Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean, etc.? All of these questions make me think about this writer.
Perhaps his girlfriend dumped him for a woman. It’s happened. Often, “straight” women will find themselves intrigued by other women and will often do a little dabbling. I’ve unfortunately crossed the path of a few. (But this isn’t about me, is it?)
This raises an interesting issue, though: It’s acceptable for two “feminine-appearing” women to be together. To stroke one another on the dance floor. It’s acceptable for them to step out on their men for a time to see what it’s like on the other side. Because if she “looks like a woman” then it’s hot, according to some men, and these same men believe that the act is solely for their benefit. We know this.
What’s happening here, then, is that these “lesbians” to which the writer refers are marked as such. They are visibly lesbians, such as myself, whose most identifiable traits are recognizable as masculine. And, therefore, I think it’s safe to conclude that butches are the ones this writer fears. The ones who provoked this vitriolic vandalism.
But lesbians are women, which is another problem the writer failed to address. He has with this comment erased the sexual agency women have, thus rendering them helpless against would-be predators. Lesbian predators, that is. His fear is predicated on the fact that lesbians are sexual beings who will “take over” sexually, i.e. step in and overtake unsuspecting damsels on their way to power. But if he meant that lesbians are taking over, then one can’t ignore the fact that this means they’ll be taking over themselves, because, well, lesbians are women.
From this, one can assume that the writer believes “hot” ones are okay, and most definitely are women. Further, he believes that “hot” ones, in addition to being “acceptable” versions of “woman,” are not truly lesbians, because they’re acceptable versions of “woman.” But the other ones, the butches the writer seems to be talking about, are not “real women” and are therefore those lesbians to which he refers who have no physical or emotional need for men. This is one sentiment circulating through the small brains of the particularly culturally retarded.
Now, if we are to take butches as this man’s target, it might good to briefly look into what he could be reacting to. If we are to believe that he does not think butches are “real women,” then we are forced to ask, then, what are they? Smart people know the answer to this, but this man is not of that ilk and therefore we should consider his alternative mode of thought.
If they’re not real women, which, again is what I believe he must think, then they must be woefully inadequate versions of men. This notion pervades much of the homophobic rhetoric that exists not only in this man’s world, but also, sadly, in the gay world. So it would seem that he is actually copping to his inability to deal with his in(fear)iority complex concerning his masculinity. Butches are, in fact, women whose gender expression is masculine. But they are not trying to be men, nor do they walk around trying to co-opt a male identity.
This is lost on the writer who most likely believes that butches are trying to be men, and part of that includes an attempt to “take over” “their women.” But it doesn’t end here. I hate to beat a dead race horse, but not all of us are white. Black masculinity. Those of us in this category carry by virtue of our skin color another bag whose weight rests on the fear of the black and Latino male.
I think we can safely assume that this writer was sounding a warning to black men everywhere that they should protect their women — black and otherwise, let’s just say — from preying lesbians (read, butch) bent on taking over something. I still can’t be sure if it’s the world or simply the women he is afraid of losing control over. The “better watchout” aspect of his warning does imply that he does believe he has control over something.
What exactly, a black man in the United States has control over, though, is beyond me. The writer’s target, I argue, is the butch of color. Our existence threatens his masculinity, the very thing for which he relies on for a place in this world.
My former roommate, Cornelia, is about to head back to Germany for the summer. So last night she had a going-away situation to officially mark her departure.
The dinner party was a quaint affair in a loft about ten minutes from where I live. I didn’t do the dinner-party aspect of it, though, because I got home when it started and I felt I needed some unwinding time. So I took it. When I got there, the people had just finished rifling through whatever it was they had eaten, the remnants of which were some blue chips in a big bowl. And a tasty tasty pitcher of mojitos (a dangerous summer-type drink, to be sure).
Sitting around the table were mostly Cornelia’s co-workers from ABC Carpet. All were older than I, some of them by much, and they weren’t American. Turkey and Russia were represented as far as I could tell, and there were a couple of others who kept their conversations confined to the space between them. All of the conversations were like that, in fact, so I decided to enter the one between Debbie, one of the few in attendance I knew, and Irena, one of the Russians.
I approached them by greeting Debbie who will soon be studying philosophy at Northwestern and who I hadn’t seen in a while. After the cheek kisses, she began to introduce me to Irena, but she had redirected her attention across the table. At this point I took a mojito sip to wait for her attention to return. And then…. “Hey,” she said to the man with the G-Shock watch sitting across the table, “do you know who he looks like.”
She was pointing at me. Now, I’m pretty sure I would have ignored it in other situations, amused at the 1,543rd gender mis-identification I had been the subject of. Maybe it was the shot of tequila I had when I got home or it could have been the mood I was in — the one being where I am not totally concerned with protecting anything on the inside, therefore not caring much about what people will think of me.
“She,” I corrected her matter-of-factly, void, however, of any offended tone.
“What’s that,” she asked, hoping she had not made the mistake she now knew she had.
“She.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. It happens all the time. I wrote my thesis about it.”
“Your what?”
“My thesis.” She was about to say “what” again, as she leaned in a bit toward me, but changed her mind and decided to look to Debbie for some help.
“Her what?”
“[Debbie's Russian translation of 'thesis,' which sounded much more like a description of a dissertation, but I let it go.]“
There was some recognition from Irena, but I wasn’t convinced.
“It’s just a big paper. It happens all the time. People think I’m a guy.”
“You know why they do, don’t you,” Irena said, as if she had the grand answer and was about to fix all of the problems that she perceived I had.
“Because I look like a guy?”
“Well, yes,” she said, but there was more.
And she ran her hand up and down through the space between us as though she were describing my outfit. I knew what was coming. “And because you try to–”
“I don’t try.” Stopped her short. “I just do. If I dressed like her,” I said, pointing to Debbie who was wearing a white skirt that rested just below her knee and a black tank top, “I would look like a drag queen.” She laughed.
“And your voice. Your voice–”
“Yeah. Deep. Freak of nature, I guess. And check out the size of my feet.” She laughed. I smiled. And so it began. Soon after, I was sitting down next to Debbie and talking to Irena about gender and sexuality. How it’s taboo in Russia. How, men especially, are ridiculed and can be arrested. “It’s not like that here.”
“Yes it is,” I said. “It’s easier now, though. I’ll give you that.”
By this time, she had engaged her Russian compatriot, Nutella (swear to god) who wore too much make-up but who I liked, to help her explain the state of gay Russia. “Yeah, I heard about this,” I said. “My therapist is over there now talking about me to a bunch of Russian therapists about how to deal with Russian gays coming out.” (Ok, she’s not talking just about me, but it sounded better at the time.)
“You have therapist? Why you have therapist?”
“Are you crazy? Everybody needs therapy. Especially if the therapist looks like mine.”
“No, no, no. Do you know, the therapists I sell the rugs to are crazy. One said she couldn’t buy this rug because it had boxes on it. And she said she would end up counting the boxes over and over again. See? Crazy. You don’t need therapist, you talk to family and friends.”
This went on for a little while, but by now, the entire table was listening. “The gay people think will sleep with just anybody, this guy this guy this guy,” she said.
“What about the straight people who ho?” I was feeling on a roll, cuz I was about to have her tell me the difference. But she looked confused, so Debbie had to translate. And then came ‘adomineva.’ “It’s about adomineva.”
I nodded. “Ok.” I waited to hear more about dominance in patriarchal Russia, which contributed to the bigotry we were talking about.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Yeah,” emphatically. “Adomineva.” Then a pause and more confusion from Irena. “Adomineva?”
“No! No! Adomineva, adomineva,” she said, slapping my forearm. Hard. Now I was baffled, lost in a translated mess far from anything resembling a point. I looked at Debbie for a line.
“Adam and Eve, Eva,” Debbie came back with under her breath. Ah. Got it.
“Katya [she called me], listen to me. Domineva — you know how everything begin with Adam, and then he took from his hip–”
“His rib,” Debbie and I corrected her in unison.
“Yes, yes, rib.” I wanted to tell her I learned about this when I was four but didn’t stop her. She continued, going to the men who go to work and the women who stay home. Ok, why are we talking about this again? I let her go on. Ten minutes later, after trying to interrupt a few times by assuring her Russia didn’t corner the patriarchy market, I realized she was lost in her own translation. Apparently Debbie’s Russian is worse than Irena’s English. With the conversation exhausted, my point lost, and my mojito tapped, I sat back in my chair.
Irena then started reading palms, or, rather, the fatty outside of the hand that forms with a firm fist. Apparently everyone’s having babies. “Read mine,” I said, shoving my fist at her, “but don’t you tell me I’m havin’ kids, cuz that’s not gonna happen.”
“How you know it doesn’t happen?”
“I do. Just look at my hand.”
“I see you will have kid, one, but it won’t be yours from the beginning.” Well isn’t that convenient?
“Irena, what about wealth and girls. What do I have to look forward by way of love and money?” She looked for a second or two and then someone butted in from four feet away –
“Can you tell if it will be a girl or boy?” For fuck’s sake. Give me my fist back. Irena would later tell me that I would be very happy and I asked her where she saw that. She said she didn’t see it on my hand but could just tell. All right, sister. So that was last night. Tonight was a much more interesting party situation in Williamsburg after hitting Gingers’ Brooklyn pride festivities.
I was there for about twenty-three minutes then Paige, Sonia and Sara and I took off. And I have to say, no matter how drunk I am, which I wasn’t very, I will always take pleasure in a detailed conversation about grammar and punctuation. I guess it gets bad when you end up diagramming a sentence on the back of a Heinekin label to help somebody identify the subject of a sentence. It was quite pleasurable, fielding questions that have stumped people for years about commas, semicolons and possession. Big dork, I am.
I happened to catch some of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on CBS last night. (I recorded it, actually.) It brought back fond memories of getting lost in the fantasy that is Santa Claus and all that crap. But I was more interested in the things I noticed from my 31-year-old lenses versus what I most certainly missed as a five year old.
The first thing was the homoerotic relationship between Cornelius, the nerdy, overlooked elf who wanted to be a dentist, and Rudolph. Yes it’s a stretch, but still, there was something there. Unfortunately for Corenlius (I think that’s his name), he failed to have much contact with the narrator snowman who was clearly a homo. The second and last thing I cared to notice was the heartwarming love that the chick reindeer had for Rudolph. They had just met, not even able to go on their first walking date, before Rudolph took off because he didn’t fit in. And she was sad and went to his mother to help find him. She never forgot about him. Very sweet.
I got my iPod back the other day. They gave me a new one. I found out that, because I had something inscribed on the back, it was sent to Taiwan to have it re-engraved. So if you’re thinking about buying an iPod, don’t get it engraved. Just wanted to check in so I can deny what’s really going on.
I have been without my iPod since Thursday. About three months ago, I was at a bar. At some point, I had to go to the bathroom. And I did. And so did my iPod. I dropped it right in the toilet. (The water was clear.)
For a split second, one which felt actually like an eternity, I stared at it, considering all the while what was happening. The water was going into every orifice of the unit. It was getting in between the case and the unit. Surely I need to go in after it. And I did, a split second after it splashed in. After drying it off furiously and checking to see that it still worked, I realized the gravity of what had just happened. My buzz helped alleviate the impact. And I was fine. Just like my iPod would be … a couple of days later. Now, three months later, it’s with Apple at its Elk Grove, Calif., facility, which happens to be one freeway exit away from where I used to work.
It started losing battery power after only playing for a little while. This, combined with the mysterious lines that appeared in horizontal and vertical formations on the face, meant it was time to repair the poor thing. But that’s not all. In addition to its physical ailments, I realized I started harboring negative feelings for it. Read More
The only plan I had for the evening was to hang out with Kirsten. Dinner at Mexicana Mama in the West Village and drinks somewhere after that. But that would change, unbeknownst to me of course, when she called and said she’d be a half hour late. Such changes of plans don’t bother me. I figured I’d be able to take my time navigating through the Village, with map in tow (I hate that).
The Village streets don’t adhere to logic, and I inevitably lose track of which direction I’m heading once I reach 7th Ave. After walking a bit, I realized I had about 45 minutes to kill. About that time, I happened upon a small park situation.
It’s not a park in the “normal” sense of the word, but it’s a park, nonetheless, carved out as it is in a space on the corner of 7th Avenue South, West 4th, Christopher Street, and probably a couple of others that I failed to notice. (As I mentioned, this area lacks logic.) The park is lined with benches and trees, and there are four sculptures that are both frightening and soothing. I say frightening, because they’re a little too animated; it was also dark, and Halloween is next week, and, well, that’s that. I say soothing, because the four sculptures are actually two same-sex couples. The men are standing; the women are sitting.
This was the view I had, but I didn’t take this picture. She did.
Sitting in parks like this, with time to kill and much flowing, as always, through my head, is one of my favorite things to do. There’s something about the passing of time that fascinates me. Making an effort to do so without getting caught up in having to be somewhere makes it that much sweeter. And this is what I was doing.
I whipped out a clove, turned my music up, and watched the people. There was a group of about four men sitting on the other side engaged in some kind of energetic conversation. Each appeared to have been in different stages of homelessness, but neither this, nor the chilling weather, prevented them from enjoying this time lapse. Across from them and four benches to my left was another man sitting by himself. Probably doing the same thing I was, I thought to myself.
Directly across from me, and sitting quite close to the benched sculpture, was a woman on the phone. A few minutes later, two men walked through in very good moods and sat next to her. It was shaping up to be a happy little Christopher St. party. A few minutes into a little Otis Redding trying a little tenderness, a man sauntered through. “Sauntered” is an understatement. I recognized him immediately. Read More
I got my computer back on Friday, and had to begin the grueling task of putting all of my stuff back on it. Too bad I can’t quite locate my disks. This includes my iPod software, which wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the Apple folks had to test my little white friend and so were forced to erase its contents. This means I have no music. And my inability to find the disk means I can’t put it on my computer. And, well, it sucks.
And then the weekend started. Gay pride. The two days when gays everywhere don their rainbow flags and best walking shoes to express their pride and joy at being gay. Where they celebrate with one another as one big happy family. And then it’s over. And gays everywhere go back to hating on one another, refusing to maintain any sort of contact with friends they met unless there’s a function, looking down on those “unfashionably dressed, macho women (thanks “L Word” exec. producer for that comment),” and just about every other form of inner disdain. Yeah, it’s great to be gay. But I participated anyway.
My gay weekend began innocently enough Saturday evening. I was slow to leave my house, being engrossed in “Queer As Folk” as I was. But I left and was a little late in meeting the people I was supposed to meet. So instead, I joined the Dyke March a little late after an interesting jaunt down East 34th St.
I first stopped into Dr. Jays, a huge clothing store with clothes I love for not much money. I bought a new shirt, because I wasn’t happy with the one I had on. All the while, I felt some rage developing within me. I’m not sure what it was based on. It could have been the schizophrenic homeless looking man who sat next to me on the train. It could have been the cute dyke couple sitting across from me on the same train with their little wedding rings on. Ahhh. Love. Read More
