Invert(e)

Goin' Up the Country

I wish I'd been there.

Last weekend was the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, NY. I celebrated by downloading and listening to the brand-new 6 CD repackaging of the event, "40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm." When Woodstock took place, I was a scrawny 13-year-old (I tell a lie - I was never scrawny), but I remember being transfixed by the footage I saw on TV. I begged my folks to let me go, but they just laughed at me. If I'd have been two years older, I'd have run away from home to be there.

Even at 13, I had a sense that this was to be a monumental event; one that would stay with my generation for the rest of its life. And 40 years later, it's still being remembered, repackaged and resold to us in whatever new format the technology has to offer. It's the subject of movies, numerous books and even anniversary concerts (none of which, incidentally, can hold a candle in the rain to the original).

And why not? 

First of all, there's the music - Santana's fiery "Soul Sacrifice," Janis Joplin's amazing set of earth mama blooze, finger-shredding jams by Mountain and Johnny Winter, deep soul from Sly and the Family Stone, epileptic vocalizing by Joe Cocker and maniac morning music from the killer live band of all time, Jefferson Airplane. 6 CDs? It could have been 30 and there still wouldn't have been enough.

"Fresh meat in 205!"

The Habana Inn in Oklahoma City is, simply put, a sex motel.

You heard me. A sex motel. It's a remodeled Ramada Inn just off I-44 - 164 rooms, two swimming pools, two clubs, a restaurant, a piano bar and a "unique gift shop" that sells condoms and a wide variety of lube. It's the heart of the OKC gay district (about two square blocks), and if you've never visited before, you owe yourself a night or two.

Oh sure, there other gay resorts - some even clothing optional - but I've never experienced anything like the Habana Inn. It's the place for straight and bi-curious men from all over OKC and the surrounding towns to come and get a little something they can't get at home. And do they come. Rooms are cheap, but it costs nothing to drive up, park and tread those well-worn walkways looking into 164 windows of possibilities. If you're ready for action, just leave your curtains open, crack your door and wait. Someone will be along shortly. When you've finished with that course and find yourself hungry again, open the drapes and begin trolling for the next guy.

Two Sides of Pride

I am a misanthrope.

This comes as no big surprise to anyone who knows me well. People, in general, simply piss me off. And large crowds of them piss me off exponentially. So why was I at Denver Pride yesterday, in the midst of a crowd large enough to pass for an emerging nation? Habit, I suppose. I always go to the parade despite my misgivings about assimilation and the increasingly corporate nature of the event.

At times, straight-run businesses and corporations seem to have overrun Pride - especially at the Festival in City Park at the end of the parade route - using our celebration as a tool for gathering that elusive and, in my case, mythical gay dollar. And I won't even go into my rant about the mixed message our GLBT Center sends when they spend big bucks all through the year on substance abuse programs for the queer population yet gladly accept sponsor dollars from Coors and Stoli for the beer and vodka tents.

That would be missing the point.

Kansas City Fucking Company

One of the unfortunate aspects of getting older than no one warned me about is the loss of my icons. Death is, of course, inevitable no matter how successful you are, but lately it's as if someone has taken a chisel to my past and chipped away pieces until all I have left is a core of - at best - unreliable memory. Did things actually happen the way I remember them or do I just remember them the way I wanted them to happen? Either way, the memories are there and every time I recognize a name in the obituaries, they come flooding back.

Like Jack Wrangler.

He was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, chiseled hunk of burnin' love - propelling many a session of self-love to a sticky conclusion for me. But this was the mid-70's, and porn wasn't as portable as it is today. Home videos were at least five years away and computers hadn't even entered into the national consciousness as anything other than confusing business machines. There were adult bookstores, to be sure - some with video arcades where you could drop a quarter in the slot and see 2 minutes of a 7 minute 16 mm film loop. Grainy and fuzzy, but porn nonetheless.

Nyuck, nyuck ... YUCK!

Hello again - sorry for being away from the blog for so long, but the ninety degree learning curve of my new job and the demands of finishing up a short story have kept me from posting. But like last night's onion-smothered enchiladas, I have returned.

Two recent events have conspired to drag me back to the blogosphere - the arrival of Volume Five of The Three Stooges Collection, the re-mastered chronological release of all 190 Three Stooges shorts, as well as the recent announcement that the Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary) will be shooting a Three Stooges movie starring Benicio Del Toro as Moe, Sean Penn as Larry and Jim Carrey as Curley.

I'll get back to that once my stomach settles.

Waaaay back when I was a little queerlet, the highlight of my day was right after school. Not only was the horrid school day over with, but there was the Poopdeck Paul show on channel 2 (WJBK in Detroit), hosted by Poopdeck Paul, a faux sailor/TV host. The Popeye cartoons he ran were only okay, but I thought the Three Stooges were the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

Balance

February 21st was the last of this round.

It always starts on October 16th, the day I met my late partner, Jamz. That date marks a period of rollercoaster dips for me including his birthday, the day he fell ill and, finally, the date of his death. Most of the time I'm pretty good - depending on what else is happening in my life - and after seven years of this cycle, you'd think I'd be getting used to it. But each year is different and requires new coping strategies.

 Right after Jim died, I went to the gravesite at least once a week. I brought flowers. I sat on the ground next to him. I talked to him. I cried. That went on for three or four years. Then, I got to a point where I couldn't go anymore. I realized it was prolonging my grief rather than helping me resolve it. I stopped going, even on anniversaries where I wanted to. After all, I reasoned, Jim rarely visited his mother's grave. That assuaged my guilt enough.

A Wobbly Dismount

First of all, thanks to everyone who either commented or e-mailed me to commiserate on my recent job loss or wish me luck in finding a new one. You must be a powerful lot because I had a new job in less than a week.

What am I doing? Well, I'm working as an administrative assistant at a dialysis clinic in a long-term health care facility. Quite a switch from staff writer to health care administration, but just like any port in a storm, any job during a recession will work. And I got it through my friend, John - proving beyond any doubt that it's not qualifications that gets you jobs, it's who you know and how good your timing is. The paycheck is similar and the hours are actually better. I'm not getting paid for writing, but at least I'm getting paid. You can't argue with cash. Not only that, but I'm still doing freelance work for Out Front Colorado, so on the whole, I managed to escape this whole episode relatively unscathed. 

Last week, however, was a long hard slag. You know how that first week at a new job is - getting used to a new schedule and a new routine, finding a new route to work, meeting new people, fucking up new tasks, no full paycheck until you work a whole pay period, new bosses, new pecadilloes. I hate being the new kid on the block, too. At least I knew how to write - I know nothing about dialysis.

Hit with a 2x4

No, I wasn't gay-bashed - though that might have been preferable.

I was laid off yesterday.

Yeah, I know - along with 100,000 other people. But I don't have to worry about their households. It's one thing to get fired and know it's because you've done a lousy job, but I was great at my job. Both the managing editor and the editor-in-chief love my work - and they still want me to have a voice in the paper, doing freelancing and blogging for them. I'll be paid freelancer's wages, but I won't have the security of a steady job. And even though I know my situation's not unique, that's not a comfort.

I just applied for unemployment yesterday in the hopes I'll be able to get by with that and the freelancing money until they hire me back. The editor-in-chief swears this is only temporary and that he's going to hire me back when the page count goes back up, but he can't tell me when that will be. No one can. Our page count has gone from 60 to 48 to 30 in less than six months, and who knows if that's bottomed out or not? The Rocky Mountain News is shutting its doors, and even Westword (our Village Voice) says their arts section is only going to be every other issue for the forseeable future.

"I Do!" is out and on Amazon

It's our labor of love, about love and for love! "I Do! An Anthology in Support of Marriage Equality" is out from MLR Press.

I think of it as our labor of love because none of us are getting paid for the stories or for our intense efforts in getting the book published, publicized and in front of the public. The effort was spearheaded by Alex Beecroft who continued with the project in spite of (or in tribute to) the death of her mother, and she was ably supported by so many others who also appear in this anthology.

Me? Oh, I'm in here as well with a labor of love of my own - a story called "Templeton's in Love," which I've already written about on this blog. The whole anthology is about love, in fact, with offerings from such terrific authors as Fiona Glass ("Salad Days": A fennel bulb causes havoc between two lovers in this 'kitchen-sink' style romp.), Storm Grant ("Lust in Translation": A dedicated cop rescues a stoned-out hooker leading to sex, drugs, and a blinding reaction. It's a hard road from false arrest to true love.) and  Erastes ("The Snow Queen": Everything wonderful happens when it snows. Josh loves the winter. He wishes his heart were ice after Sam died, but when he meets Sean he feels it threatened by an unexpected warmth.)

Balls a Rollin'

When was the last time you went bowling?

I thought so.

During one of our weekly get-togethers, the subject of bowling came up - in some scornful reference to midwestern Wal-Mart shoppers, no doubt. My housemate Ryk (a fellow midwesterner) looked at me over the pub mix and said, "I haven't been bowling for years!" Neither had I. And the die was cast. Keith, John, Ryk and I resolved to hit the lanes the following weekend.

Being from Detroit, my first job at 16 was, of course, working for FoMoCo on the line at the River Rouge plant plugging wires in alternators, an occupation that firmly cemented my desire to do something - anything - else for a living. When you worked for Ford, you were two things: a Teamster and a bowler. So union dues were deducted from my check, and I took my place on our league team. I'd been bowling with my parents, so I knew the game, but I actually got pretty good at it. My average was a solid 190. Respectable, but not showy.

The Lonesome Death of William Zantzinger

Some songs are with you forever. From the first moment you hear them, you recognize something. They speak to you insistently and intimately, in a language only you really understand, if understanding can be said to have a place in a connection so personal. And no matter where or when you hear them, they always take you back to the exact day and time you first met.

Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" is one (of many) of those songs for me. For those who don't know it, it's on Dylan's 1964 album The Times they Are A-Changin' (side 2, track 4) and tells the story of 24-year-old William Zantzinger, who assaulted and killed 51-year-old black barmaid Hattie Carroll in a fit of drunken rage at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore. His trial was moved to Hagerstown, where he was convicted of assault and manslaughter, receiving a six month sentence. Volumes have been written about the song by critics who have covered it far better than I could.

New Year's Void

There is always an unsettling aspect to the first day of the year for me. I know it's just an arbitrary spot on the calendar, but it feels rather like a blank page. As writers, we all have a different relationship with that entity. Some of us look on it as an opportunity. A challenge. A clear space in which we can practice magic, moving parts of our essence into its vacancy until we've constructed a reality separate from our own.

Others, including myself, look at it with dull dread. It's a space that I know has to - and will be - filled, but I have a tough time hanging that reality out into the void. It's not that I'm lazy. Well, maybe a little ... It's more that I don't have the self-confidence to think that what I have to offer is really worthwhile to anyone except me. Intellectually, I know that's crap. I've written stuff that's made people cry and laugh and think, and enough of them have told me that so I understand it's the truth. Emotionally, however, I always wonder if what I do is good enough to warrant attention.

Which brings us to the New Year's Void.

Home (stretch) for the Holidays

Congratulations.

If you made it this far, you're almost there. If you haven't killled those family members to whom you're still speaking, if you haven't been stranded (or worse) by some freakishly mutant weather pattern caused by the global warming our government insists isn't happening, if you can't look at anything sugar-glazed, frosted or iced without feeling a little bit nauseous, then you just might make it through the holiday season. But in the words of Han Solo, "don't get cocky, kid."

There's still New Year's to go. And that's the worst one of all. Not only are you expected to review what you have or haven't accomplished last year - a depressing enough accounting in and of itself - but you're also expected to resolve to do more in the year ahead. And you're expected to make these contracts with yourself while in the throes of a drunken celebration with friends who are doing the exact same thing as you are - resulting in an annual one-upmanship of inebriated promises.