Malesoul 29

Pride

It's Gay Pride weekend in San Francisco. Down the street are thousands of shouting, dancing revellers and the music and the speechmaking is pretty loud. I had to move my car a mile away today before I could find parking.

I am sure it is my age, but there is a lot of the public expression of gay culture that no longer appeals to me. Some of it never did, but it at least did not bother me and I would even stand up for it. I am less inclined to do so now. It is a younger man's world in many ways. Fine with me. And so much of it plays with gender-bending in a way that puts me off.

But I wrote to friend today:

I will forever be grateful to have been born

at a time where I could learn, at a deep level,

that my passion for other men is not a crime

or an illness, but a gift. And I owe that to

so many people who have formed and fought

for the gay community. I did my share, too.

I am watching William Friedkin's very dark 1980 film, "Cruising". A view of the gay male leather and S/M scene in New York in the 1970s. Post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS. Sex and bloody murder and Al Pacino. Dionysos and Hades.

If I hear one more rant about gay marriage, I will start drinking heavy liquor.

The man who has become my magnetic north is far away this weekend. Last year, he was here for this weekend and we were together, doing what this is all about.

He just called me from Istanbul, across the street from Hagia Sophia. Joked that he could still read the Latin graffiti I carved into the door in 1973. Meant more to me than the speeches down the street.

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Neither politics, sex or religion

American swimmer Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel, in 1926. My grandfather was a newsman who covered it. Here he is, with her. Reminds me of my youngest brother. (Him, not her!)

Nyah nyah

"LGBT" people are extremely sensitive to such cosmic crimes as stereotyping. When it comes to themselves.

But if you watch LGBT media or read LGBT writing, you will see that it is perfectly ok, even bold and transgressive and edgy...ooooh.... to treat Christian religion and Christians with a snide, cartoonish attitude and often grossly inaccurate portrayals. But LGBTs are victims of intolerance and bigotry...so that relieves them of any obligation to treat fairly people who differ from them.
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Paradise misplaced

I am sitting here blobbering at a stupid romantic movie. It's called Big Eden and I have watched it probably a half a dozen times before.

It's about romance between men, in a totally implausible little town in Montana where the whole sweet and quirky community conspires to bring them together. It's the way you wish the world could be sometimes. Not called Eden for nothing.

It's deeply sentimental and full of the traditional themes and tropes of romances. The guys in it are characters in a fictional romance, but they're not gay cartoons, and they are guys, guys in love.

And I sit here smiling and crying and being totally undignified.

Speaking of undignified, I am watching it on the LOGO channel, an LGBT TV channel on cable. Most of whose fare is, to this old dog, seriously offputting. Certainly not aimed at my age demographic. But then I never was a fan of nightmare drag queens and nelly teeners. For all its softheartedness, Big Eden is about humans with hearts and as its centerpiece, men with hearts.

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Beautiful cultural diversity, continued

In Nelson Mandela's wonderful country, with its groovily progressive constitution, violent crime is out of control, rape is epidemic and foreigners, other Africans, are routinely abused or killed.


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Left me cold

I have liked seeing the Donald Strachey gay detective films. Got a new one, Ice Blues, downloaded on a "torrent" program. I like Chad Allen, the lead. And I have liked the connection between him and his partner. But not so much this time.

The movie is slow moving, too long. The freezing cold of an Albany winter is one of the themes, and yet we see foliage and such which would not be around during those months. But what irked me most is the character of Timmy, the boyfriend. In the other films, he is played "sorta fey". In this one he is a dickless sissy, playing a clingy pseudo-wife. And you know how much I love that.

The low point is a scene where Don, the PI, is locked in mortal struggle with a bad guy who has a knife to his throat. Timmy shows up and finds a revolver and points it shakily at the assailant, commanding him to stop. The thug laughs at him and continues to fight. Timmy just trembles and cannot pull the trigger. Don kills the guy himself. When Timmy apologizes for being unable to kill --hardly sufficient atonement; dying of shame might approach it-- Don tells him that's why he loves him. WTF?

The Alpha-Beta dynamic in male-male relationships is pretty strong, but this particular story makes Timmy an Omega, a gutless girl. And in fact, one of the young girls in the porno harem shows more balls than he does. I hate this stuff.

This and that and this

It's getting closer to the summer solstice and the days are longer. It's past 7 in the evening and the sun is still shining on the trees I can see out my backyard window. Good for the soul.

Men often have a preference for different regions of the anatomy. I am an admirer of a good pair of shoulders. I work on mine and have done better than I thought. Was standing near a man in the gym today whose frame I admire and I thought it would be nice to be built like him. When I looked in the mirror and saw both of us together, I realized we were not that different in the shoulder department. I liked that. Although I am over 6 feet tall, weigh 200 lbs and am in pretty good shape, I sometimes forget that, and the "skinny-marink" I grew up being still inhabits my body.

There are different flavors of tiredness. I am tired after working out, but it feels good. I am tired in the muscles I work out, usually 48 hours later, and this is achy and unpleasant. I am tired to the point of wanting to fall right off to sleep; that is sweet. And I am tired from being too tired; that is not.

Interesting how the component parts of our "real self" get decided. Does it include our neuroses, our immaturities and our maladaptive attitudes, beliefs and behaviors? When I was a teenager, I slumped, dragged my feet and mumbled. My father would have none of it. Consequently, I stand up straight, walk like a man (though I pronate markedly) and speak clearly. What's my real self?

A gay man who colors his hair, has his teeth fixed and gets gel injections in his ass is simply considered to be improving himself, even if it is a little vain. If someone criticizes him because he moves and sounds like a teenage girl, THAT is defended as his real self and the one who criticizes is a homophobe.

What are homosexual men for? Why does nature keep making us? If you reject the notion that we are an ongoing mistake, like a hair lip or deafness, what purpose do we serve?

On a bad day, it seems to me that many of us are merely ornamental, decorative, a kind of accessory to a certain kind of civilization. In the words of Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias, "What sets us apart from the lower animals is our ability to accessorize."

Although I am sitting in northern California, a part of me is floating on the other side of the globe, where it is morning along the Silk Road and a soul I care about is getting ready to board a train.

I'm watching Bogart play Marlowe with Lauren Bacall in the 1946 Big Sleep. Reminds me of one of my favorite films, Neil Simon's 1976 Murder by Death. Wiki describes it: "The plot combines a convoluted, highly improbable murder-mystery arc with plenty of farce, slapstick, witty banter, and self-referential humour." No wonder I like it.

Doogie

I like Neil Patrick Harris.

Boyish charm, but definitely a man.
And talented. He can sing and dance
and has a gift for comedy. Has
class and can laugh at himself.

A while ago he announced himself
"a contented gay man". Been with his
partner David for five years.
Describes himself as "a jester, not an
advocate", and strives to be "an example
of normalcy."

Victims

An article on the front page of one of the SF papers that you get free out of a box. A female to male transgender, "with original plumbing" who likes to recite poetry nude in gay bars and who works as a hooker. S/he "struggles with societal norms." During one session, an HIV+ male client penetrates his/her vagina without latex; s/he does not protest. Then asserts that it was rape. I am unimpressed and unmoved.

As part of a discussion thread on casual sex and gay men, a man "of African descent" who styles himself "misterprofessor69", disgorges himself of a lot of grandiose and highblown pomo jargon, misused and misspelled, in order to secure himself the coveted victim spot so he can feel superior. I remain unmoved by his plight, if irritated by his vocabulary and syntax.

Have I lost my compassion, or do I not waste it on people who feed on it?

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