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10.31.05 Happy Halloween!!! (Stay out of traffic tonight.) # 10.28.05 NPR sagely points to the Harriet Miers withdrawal as an event worthy of a word (think "borked"). But we already have mired. # 10.25.05 A few months ago, I signed up for the Merriam-Webster Word Of The Day email. I got the idea from tyler, and I thought it might be a good way to expand my vocabulary. But they keep choosing words like sleuth (today's WOTD) and I'm feeling gypped. My mind is totally unexpanded by that. Where are the great polysyllabic words that are going to earn me adoration and respect from my peers and superiors? # 10.21.05 Mathew Staver, attorney for the conservative Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, said the different treatment was justified by the state's interest in protecting children and families. He also said the court does not have the right to rewrite the statute. I feel like dan right now. # Have you heard about HRC's new ad campaign, Tom, the Token Gay Friend? The campaign includes three on-air spots that are funny and pretty clever (if not a little clunky) encouraging gays to "start the dialogue" with straight friends and family members. It's a well conceived campaign. But it got me thinking, not so much about starting the dialogue with straight folks, but with the question of dialogue within our own community. I was talking to Fernando (who is involved with social marketing of related issues) about this stuff the other day. He was talking about the current fetish of the queer social responsibility folks: the crystal meth/HIV link. Which is a big problem right now, and a good thing for the gay community to fight, because of all the things we need to help our cause, reckless, addictive, destructive drugs are not one of them. But the topic that the Tom campaign grazes, and neatly avoids, is the larger issue of cause. And, I think, the cause of our failed dialogues has a lot to do with the cause of our crystal problem. The gay community is fighting against meth, but right now we're fighting the drug, and the drug is only a symptom of the problem. The gay community is and has for a long time been largely ignorant to the mental health issues that drive so many people to use and abuse these drugs. Meth is only the most current example. A drug that makes you feel (not look, it's important to note) young, attractive, energetic and powerful? Of course it's alluring in the gay community. But if we fight and beat crystal, something else will come up in it's place. The reason that the Tom character can't muster the strength to get past his friend's discomfort is the same reason that gay men, in such large numbers, are drawn to toxic party drugs like crystal. We're a beaten up people. We're a community that is still, quietly and in dark corners, gay-bashing itself. Depression, low self-esteem, body image, racism, age-ism, class-ism; we've got a problem and it's with ourselves. And the longer we ignore it, the longer we allow gay men to feel un-accepted and unconnected within our own community, like outsiders to society as well as to each other, the longer we will battle these problems and everything they bring with them. Society will not accept us and love us; not in one magic turn like we seem to expect. We will continue, for along time, to be slighted, ignored, distrusted or hated. And sometimes, like the awkward moments of the HRC commercial, even our friends who love us will fail to support us. So we need to support ourselves. One of the ways we've failed at that is in our dealings with HIV. With our trepidation. An excellent article in the New Yorker a few months back detailed the crystal/HIV connection, specifically in San Francisco, and the efforts being made to combat it. And one of the things mentioned there (and this is something Fernando has run into as well) is the hesitancy to confront the image of HIV, usually under the guise of respect for HIV+ people. In a lot of ways, we have gotten so wrapped up in making sure that our friends and loved ones who are positive don't get hurt, that we've stopped making the message effective against it's spread. When someone like Fernando gets an earful over a campaign that promotes disclosure among the HIV+ community, we have a bigger problem than respect. It's been so important for so long to remove the stigma from HIV, and to help positive people maintain lives that are as close to normal as possible, that we've started a kind of silent worship. It's not ok to confront HIV head on anymore; it's not ok because it might make HIV+ people feel bad. Or rather, because it might make the negative gay community feel bad. And so we reassure ourselves, almost as if to reassure them, that our positive friends and loved ones are living longer, are living healthier, are living more normally, are going to be ok. And in a lot of ways, that's good. Because it's largely true. But what we've stopped talking about is the fact that our positive friends are still sick. They're still under attack from a deadly virus. They are ok today, and maybe they're ok tomorrow, and God willing, they're ok years from now. But HIV is not ok. And it's possible for us treat the positive community with love and with respect, while still attacking the virus that's trying to kill them, and the spread of that virus within the larger community. It's ok for us to attack HIV. Doing so does not mean that we're attacking those who it has infected. And I think, by and large, this hesitancy all stems from the self-esteem question. We're too afraid, we're too worried about being wrong or being disliked to actually stand up and say the things we need to say. We want so badly to be ok. And we want our friends to be ok. Not just in terms of health, but in terms of love, and acceptance, and success. But we can succeed by lifting each other up, and by having the courage to say the things to each other that we need to say. And by not being so sensitive about those things being said. We can do so much if we start talking to the roots of our problems, instead of fighting a never ending fight against the demons they are raising. Because they'll only keep coming. When we knock down crystal meth, there will only be another drug to replace it. When we finally succeed in convincing ourselves that our HIV+ friends are totally totally ok, we'll create a generation that grows up not just relieved of the stigma surrounding HIV, but without understanding the reality of it. Before we can convince the world that it's ok to be gay, that's it's ok to be positive, that we are all ok, we need to make the honest effort to convince ourselves. And then we'll see our problems solving themselves. # I'm not a photographer (would love to know what jessie thinks here) but from the demos available on the Apple website, it looks like the recently announced Aperture program could be a really really useful tool for professional photographers, or those with professional aspirations. It looks like the pre-Photoshop application, the program that's running on the workstation behind you at a photoshoot or waiting for you to come home from an event or location. I think they're right to call it a workflow application. Some thoughts:
# 10.20.05 Thanks to Evan's quick thinking, I got a chance to see Calexico play last night on their tour with Iron & Wine. If you haven't heard, the two have gotten together to record an EP, and it's simply beautiful. I've posted a track for you to hear, in case you're unfamiliar. Last night's show was at the Warfield, which is one of my least favorite venues, and our tickets (advance buy, made when the show was planned for the Filmore) were general admission for the floor. I was exhausted (ask me about this week, please) and tired of standing on my feet. But the music — amazing! Calexico always has a great presence, even if their music is at times a little more eclectic than I'd prefer. And they're great musicians, in talent and spirit, so getting to see them collaborate with other great musicians is always an enjoyable experience. Iron & Wine was also excellent, although I've never really been in love with his/their music. Their set was beautiful if not a little sleepy, and the combined set with both bands on the state was a huge, sonic quilt. To see that many people, playing that many instruments, reaching that many harmonies and weaving that many textures — if you have the chance to see them on this tour, do it. # 10.08.05 I'm visiting my sister this weekend, down in Southern California for work and some quality, and very much needed, brother-sister bonding time. It's been a rough couple of months for both of us, and just having the chance to hang out, unhurried and uninterrupted, feels reparative. Tonight, both a little worn out, we ended up watching a handful of episodes of weeds on-demand. Now, there's probably no more than 5 people in the world who don't love Mary-Louise Parker, but I had still written this show off. Plus, I don't have Showtime, nor do any of my friends living in the immediate vicinity. (I know mark has been talking this one up, but I wasn't giving in.) Anyway, the show's great, very funny and still mildly touching; it's good TV, not on the HBO-Sopranos-SixFeetUnder-Great-TV kinda way, but good in the way a good network show used to be (think Northern Exposure, Picket Fences, that sort of thing). # 10.03.05 Completely invalidating the many, many hours that I've lost pouring through microfiche, The New Yorker has just released a DVD set that collects every word (and cartoon and ad, even) of every issue that they have ever published to date. For $100, which seems pretty fucking reasonable, given the sheer volume of content you're buying. # « September 2005 | archive index | November 2005 » built with movabletype |
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