Chchchanges (sorry David)

I recently turned 42 and while I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, I've begun to reflect on my life. (Every 5 years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh. yeah, sometimes I think in lyrics.) I've come to a few conclusions; the most disturbing to me is that over the last few years I've become a bit misanthropic. Ok, maybe I've become a flaming misanthrope and I don't think I am happy about that. I also wonder when that happened. I mean I used to enjoy meeting new people and making new friends. Now, I can count on one hand the number of people I enjoy spending time with and even then only on a limited basis. What the fuck happened to me?

For the last week or so I had tried to pinpoint when this change occurred when a cd I had ordered arrived. I popped it into my computer and listened to it while working on my business plan and talking with a friend of my son's. As this piece began Fergie (my son's friend and one of my adopted kids) asked what I was listening to. Up until this point I hadn't really paid any attention to the songs, it was just background music. After she left I replayed the cd from the beginning and paid attention to the spoken word piece she had asked about. I couldn't believe my ears! The cd is an official bootleg by Ani DiFranco that was recorded on April 6^th, 2002 at Carnegie Hall, less than 7 months after the attack on New York. The poem is entitled Self Evident (words to follow).

I have to say I am surprised that she wasn't arrested by this corrupt administration for treason or some shit for this performance, isn't that sad? I am surprised that an artist was not arrested for speaking out. But, I remember being called a traitor by friends & family for espousing many of the same views. I remember saying to my girlfriend in 2000 "If GW Bush is elected we should move to Australia or something and come home after he's gone. That is, if we have a country to come home to." I was joking at the time and even though I was afraid of what our country would turn into I never could've predicted the horror show that was to follow.

As I sat and listened to her words it dawned on me when my hate affair with the human race began, sometime around October, 2001. Around the same time our elected (and non-elected) leaders were linking 9/11 to Iraq. Around the same time our so-called Fourth Estate was busy drawing tenuous links between Saddam and Osama, (even though it was well known that the two men despised each other) claiming they were "in on it together." No one was asking any questions, we were told to question was to be a terrorist, unpatriotic, America haters. If anyone did dare to ask a question of substance they were shouted down, berated, told to move to Iraq, etc.

Religious leaders were saying that we were attacked because God had lifted his protective shield from our country because of the queers, pagans, feminists and secularists. Fuck me running! I am a queer feminist pagan secularist, I am so screwed. I have no protective shield!

Anyway…back then I didn't hear anyone asking the questions I wanted answers to…so I stopped asking. I stopped watching the MSM news and when my old dinosaur of a computer died in early 2004 I opted to not replace it. I went into a self-imposed exile and worked at not connecting with other humans. This is not to say that I stopped meeting people completely or making an occasional new friend, I did. But I no longer developed those relationships into anything deep or meaningful (with a few rare exceptions.)

I finally replaced my computer last April and started blogging shortly thereafter at the urging of my best friend who runs the friggin' cat house, as you can see I haven't done that much. Partially because I had no clue (and still don't) what to write about, even now as I read over what I just wrote I am not sure I will post it. But the main reason is, for me, writing is a way of connecting and I didn't want to connect. I would write to connect to me, to find those places that were damaged and needed healing. I would write to find those places that weren't damaged and in need of healing so I could celebrate them. Sometimes I would just write a random thought, a line from a song that struck me (read most of my blog headers) or a sappy love poem (yeah, it's happened…once). I learned about myself when I wrote, I connected.

I haven't done much writing in the last few years. That will change, whether y'all get to read that remains to be seen.

Thank you, Ani for reminding me how powerful words can be.

 

Self Evident – Ani DiFranco

yes, yes, yes, yes,

us people are just poems

we're 90% metaphor

with a leanness of meaning

approaching hyper-distillation

and once upon a time

we were moonshine

rushing down the throat of a giraffe

yes,

rushing down the long hall

despite what the p.a. announcement says

yes,

rushing down the long hall

down the long stairs

in a building so tall

that it will always be there

it's part of a pair

there on the bow of noah's ark

the most prestigious couple

just kicking back parked

against a perfectly blue sky

on a morning beatific

in its indian summer breeze

on the day that america

fell to its knees

after strutting around for a century

without saying thank you

or please

and the shock was subsonic

and the smoke was deafening

between the setup and the punchline

cuz we were all on time for work that day

we all boarded that plane for to fly

and then while the fires were raging

we all climbed up on the windowsill

and then we all held hands

and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast

and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed

and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar

looked more like war

than anything i've seen so far

so far

so far

so fierce and ingenious

a poetic specter so far gone

that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling

over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on

and i'll tell you what, while we're at it

you can keep the pentagon

you can keep the propaganda

you can keep each and every tv

that's been trying to convince me

to participate

in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution

perpetuate retribution

even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution

is still hanging in the air

and there's ash on our shoes

and there's ash in our hair

and there's a fine silt on every mantle

from hell's kitchen to brooklyn

and the streets are full of stories

sudden twists and near misses

and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters

with tales of narrowly averted disasters

and the whiskey is flowin'

like never before

as all over the country

folks just shake their heads

and pour

so here's a toast to all the folks that live in palestine

afghanistan

iraq

el salvador

here's a toast to all the folks living on the pine ridge reservation

under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors

who daily provide women with a choice

who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city

just to listen a young woman's voice

here's a toast to all those folks on death row right now

awaiting the executioner's guillotine

who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads

to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations

and we are a third world nation

under the thumb of some blue blood royal son

who stole the oval office and that phony election

i mean

it don't take a weatherman

to look around and see the weather

jeb said he'd deliver florida

and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:

#1 george w bush is not president

#2 america is not a true democracy

and #3 the media is not fooling me

cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation

i've got no room for a lie so verbose

i'm looking out over my whole human family

and i'm raising my glass in a toast

here's to our last drink of fossil fuels

may we vow to get off of this sauce

shoo away the swarms of commuter planes

and find that train ticket we lost

cuz once upon a time the line followed the river

and peeked into all the backyards

and the laundry was waving

and the graffiti was teasing us

from brick walls and bridges

and we were rolling over ridges

through valleys

under stars

i dream of touring like duke ellington

in my own railroad car

i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches

in a grand station aglow with grace

and then standing out on the platform

and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle

give the darkness back its soul

give the big oil companies the finger finally

and relearn how to rock and roll

yes,

the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there

so it's time to pick through the streets, clean the streets

clear the air

it's time to get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand

of someone else's desert

put it back in its pants

quit the hypocritical chants of

freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang

in two thousand and one

at ten after nine

on nine one one

which is the number we all called

when that lone phone rang right off the wall

right off our desk and down the long hall

down the long stairs

in a building so tall

that the whole world turned

just to watch it fall

and while we're at it

remember the first time around?

the bomb?

the ryder truck?

the parking garage?

the princess that didn't even feel the pea?

remember joking around in our apartment on avenue d?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design

following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?

it was a joke

at the time

and that was just a few years ago

so let the record show

that the fbi was all over that case

that the plot was obvious and in all of our face

and scoping that scene

religiously

the cia

or is it kgb?

committing countless crimes against humanity

with this kind of eventuality

as its excuse

for abuse after expensive abuse

and they didn't have a clue

look,

another window to see through

way up here

on the 104th floor

look,

another key

another door

10% literal

90% metaphor

3000 some poems disguised as people

on an almost too perfect day

must be more than pawns

in some asshole's passion play

so now it's your job

and it's my job

to make it that way

to make sure they didn't die in vain

sssshhhh

listen

hear the train?

 

 

Bomb the World

To borrow a phrase from one-hit wonderland, things that make you go hmm:

The Pentagon will spend $78 billion (yes, with a B) on military research this year. This month an Ohio Air Force lab requested $7.5 million to build a "gay bomb," not to worry though, it is nonlethal (unless you happen to be a fundamentalist wingnut). This bomb would "encourage enemies to make love, not war. The weapon would use strong aphrodisiacs to make enemy troops so sexually attracted to each other that they'd lose interest in fighting." Let that sink in for a moment……


Ok, are you done laughing? No? I'll give you some more time to get your shit together…..


How 'bout now? All better? Good!

If the military were able to construct such a weapon I think the first 'enemy' it should be used on is King George followed by all the little bushies.

Fuck the Apathetic Bullshittas

To blog or not to blog, that is the question I've been trying to answer lately. You see, I've started at least six posts but I always seem to hit a wall; I consider myself a word whore yet I can't find the right ones to express myself here. Before my computer crashed a few years ago I would sit down at my keyboard and just type, the subject didn't matter. It was cathartic that act of simply allowing my thoughts to exit my brain via my fingertips. I never thought about what I was typing or what people would think about it. The posts I have started have been, for the most part, angry rants and I didn't want this blog to be known as The Angry Dyke.

The fact is, I am angry, no I am pissed the fuck off! The last 3 years (computer-less years) have been blissfully ignorant; I've gotten all my news from the major networks and the occasional cable outlet. With those newscasts I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Anna-Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton except why they were/are breaking news. Both became famous because a shit-load of people saw them naked and evidently that is way more important than a naked detainee handcuffed, lying on a wet floor in Abu Ghraib, with an interrogator shoving things up his ass. No, the American people do not need to see the video of an American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee; we need to see Paris fucking her boyfriend!

The following is a conversation I had with my father after the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib broke:

Dad: I don't get what the big deal is, don't you think they would do worse things to our people if given the chance?

Me: But Dad, we are supposed to be Americans; therefore we should hold ourselves to higher standards.

Dad: Those sand-niggers are chopping off the heads of our people on video and all we did was make them put underwear on their heads and take a few pictures of it!

Me: The Geneva Convention, which we helped to create, prohibits torture of any kind.

Dad: Being forced to wear underwear on their heads is not torture.

Me: Humiliation and degradation are against The Geneva Convention and it doesn't matter what they do, if we stoop to that level we are no better than they are.

I wonder if Dad would have made those same arguments if the network news had truly covered the atrocities committed instead of giving us the watered-down version.

Being back online has made me realize just how apathetic I had become and I'd much rather be perceived as an angry dyke than an apathetic bulshitta.

Tolerance

Michael Franti is my newest obsession. Do yourselves a favor; check out his newest album, Yell Fire!

A child is born, and a mamma's torn
About the life that it's bound to live
A sun and moon and a modest home
Is all they're asking the Lord to give
But politics and big events they never seem to notice the little guy
So make a plan or simply hold a hand but don't ever be a passerby

Tolerance or violence and the whole world goes to war
Is one enough or is one too many
Before we say, "No More"
Could you ever love a pot of gold?
Could you ever love another lonely soul?
And could you ever find a love that was oceans wide?
Could you ever find love in another stranger's eyes?

Give a little
Tolerance, tolerance
We need you more and more
So lend a hand or hold a friend
That's in need of a life support
Draw a picture, share a whisper
Anyway that you can rise above
And when the end is near who is gonna volunteer
To be the last one to die for love?

Tolerance or violence and the whole world goes to war
Is one enough or is one too many
Before we say, "No More"
no more, no more, no more, no more.

Politics, Religion, Corruption…Oh My!

So, Jerry Falwell was buried on Tuesday and all the pundits are talking about how the Religious Right has lost its strong-hold on our political leaders. On a message board that I belong to there is a raging debate on whether queer people should celebrate his passing or not. On political blogs such as The Huffington Post there are posts that celebrate his death as well as posts that call for the LGBT community to forgive Falwell.

I suppose I fall in the middle, I just can't bring myself to celebrate his death but I am far from forgiving him. I like to believe that what separates me from people like him is that I know what it means to be humane while they have lost their humanity. But hey, if people want to dance on his grave I totally get it and wish them well.

What I really don't get are the queer people out there who think that somehow the hateful rhetoric that Falwell (and others of his ilk) spewed has made our fight easier. I agree that people like him helped to galvanize the queer community like nothing else had since Stonewall, however, I believe queers had made a lot of progress between 1969-79 that was virtually halted when Ronald Reagan (no, he is not a god!) was elected and Mr. Falwell played a large part in that. How many of the 980,000 people in North America living with HIV/AIDS in the early 80's died because our President couldn't even utter the word AIDS? Sadly, we'll never know, just as we'll never know how many families could've been saved had the supposed leader of the free-world stood up for them.

On the political side, (as if the above paragraphs aren't political, huh?) 'Spin' is still the in thing in DC and both sides of the aisle are taking it to new heights! Hillary can't seem to answer a straight-forward question; I've not seen bob and weave moves like hers since "The Thrilla in Manila."

It seems that NBC has sent The Haitian from Heroes to make Alberto Gonzales forget that he chose to keep his lips glued to Bush's ass instead of doing the job he was hired to do. The DOJ is supposed to enforce the law and to ensure impartial administration of justice for all Americans, not help the White House figure out ways to circumvent those laws.

I understand that politics and corruption go hand-in-hand; I've known that since I was 8-9 years old and my mother was a volunteer for Frank Rizzo during his campaign for Mayor of Philadelphia. Back then people used to at least feign outrage when politicians were caught breaking the laws they were hired to protect/enforce. Not anymore, these days it seems we are more interested in making sure that Paris Hilton is punished for her crimes than punishing the known liars and thieves that masquerade as our voices in DC. How sad is that?

All I wanted was change for a buck

Earlier today I was reading the message boards at one of my favorite sites, Butch-Femme.com, when I came across a post by the site owner saying that a painting of hers had been removed from an art show being put on by the collective where they (Rhon & her wife) rent space at. The Continental Gin Building is a place where, according to their website, "it is refreshing and inspiring to see fresh, innovative ideas born within the halls of the Continental Gin Building -- ideas that are impacting Deep Ellum, Dallas, and the world beyond." Yet they opted to ban this particular piece stating that is was "not family friendly." So much for impacting the world, eh?

I suppose that would be a legitimate argument (although I believe that every family should see more REAL depictions of cancer survivors) if there were not other nudes displayed at this show.

So why was this piece banned? Was the real reason homophobia? Rhon is queer, an "obvious dyke" (using her own description), is that the reason her work was censored? The people that made this decision assured her that her "lifestyle has nothing to do with it!"

Unfortunately, I can't say since I have no way to know for sure what these people were thinking. I can say with absolute certainty that the "not family friendly" excuse doesn't fly with this old, fat, obvious dyke.

If this piece was banned because the artist is queer than shame on them! Shame on them for underestimating the importance of art such as this piece. Shame on them for negating a very large portion of our society, our mothers, sisters, aunts, and friends who have survived this disease and those who have not.

Whose turn is it anyway?

Since I made my first post 4 days ago I've debated on how I want to use this blog, what opinions do I want to voice and will anyone give a shit? Do I want this to be a blog for light-hearted fluffy bunny crap? Nahh, I am a pretty cynical person and I don't think I like people much. Do I want to use this blog to push my particular political agenda? Well, I do have some strong opinions on what is happening these days so I am likely to put them out there but I don't think I want that to be the prime focus. Do I want to allow the entire world into my little corner? Sure, why not? I am way too old to be bothered by what people think of me or my life. If they find something to connect to then great, if not I am just fine with that also.

So, what did I decide? I chatted with a friend today who told me "just write, you can write", she also said she would deny that if ever asked so let's not tell her I told y'all, ok? It'll be our little secret!

Stay tuned for me "just writing."