Highly-emotional trip I had. I've been reading about Fire Island since my late teens. And I realized, when I finally made my pilgrimage there this summer, that I'd never truly allowed myself to think about "what it will be like when I finally visit it"; I'd never allowed myself to think that one day I'd get there. Well, I made it. For once, I'm struggling to find the words to describe it. Ethan Mordden was right - it's magical.
There are many stories about my trip to tell, and even more to share only between the closest of friends. For now, a glimpse of what I was seeing and feeling.
Drag queens have always been an integral part of the bohemian Cherry Grove bar & club scene, but frowned upon and practically forbidden in the more affluent and conservative Fire Island Pines of the 70s. According to legend, in 1976 a Cherry Grove man in drag (Teri Warren) was denied service at the Botel, a Pines restaurant & bar owned by John B. Whyte.
Upon hearing about this blatant discrimination against one of her sisters, the newly crowned Homecoming Queen of the Arts Project Cherry Grove, PANZI (Thom Hansen) took it upon herself to lead a small group of 9 brave Cherry Grove girls in a water taxi into the Pines harbor one hot afternoon for what they expected to be a confrontational welcoming by the Pines men.
On the contrary, the Pines men were so surprised and entertained by this “Drag Queen Invasion” in the middle of the day that they welcomed them all to drinks at the Blue Whale bar for what now is a yearly celebration and tradition.
Well, folks, it was one for the ages. This may have been the most joyous Pride celebration that New York City has experienced in a great many years. The reason, of course, was the vote days earlier on legalizing Marriage Equality in New York State. The "tone" of Pride was utterly hinging on the outcome of that vote; would we have a fight in our hearts or a cause to celebrate? Well, of course, we won. I marched in the parade with PFLAG NYC, and a number of friends who were all experiencing there very first Pride. It was absolutely thrilling. The love in the air, the bond of Family and Community - there are no words to describe the overwhelming joy of the celebration.
When violence breaks out at a sporting event, the cameras rush in to capture all the action. When a tit broke out at the Superbowl years ago, the FCC got their muthafuckin' FINE on.
There were riots last night in Vancouver, because the canucks lost a fucking hockey game. riots. cars set on fire and exploded. because team lost a HOCKEY GAME.
and yet...people freak out about Gay Pride? "Oh..the stereotypes of pride..there's gonna be A DRAG QUEEN! ...there's gonna be GUYS IN SPEEDOS!...or BOOBS! or BARE BUMS!"
yeah. know what there's not gonna be? carbombings and rioting. those are 'straight male stereotypes' that are actually harmful that we're, blessedly, free from.
again, the anger and morality of "sex issues" and not "violence" ones. every city that hosts the Superbowl sees a spike in not just drug and sex trafficking, but specifically CHILD sex trafficking.
it's all-too-common for violence and vandalism to erupt after a sports team loses a "big game"; i used to live in the UK - the 'soccer hooligans' thing is legit.
it's a more than common occurrence, to the point that it's almost expected and more police are deployed to areas where the games are being held in ADVANCE.
if gay pride events had the histories of violence that many big sports games have then i'd understand a backlack against them. as is, people seem less concerned about violent reactions to sport losses and more concerned with dudes showing their bums.
and bums, like sexy jewish penises, pose no actual threat of harm to society.
Now, the reality is that straight men have a more violent image than gay men do and yet gay men are the ones demonized by society.
Oh, my childhood love for Phoebe Cates, which I've never outgrown. From the skin-baring tawdriness of "Paradise" (if you're gonna rip off a film, why rip off a film as lousy as "The Blue Lagoon"?), and "Private School", to the 80s classics that are Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins. The typical 80s-curios that are Lace and Lace II ("Incidentally, which one of you bitches is my mother?"), Date With An Angel, and then her all-too-fleeting but actually wonderful work in the 1990s. Drop Dead Fred? It's a cult film my generation has embraced. Princess Caraboo? One of the sweetest of the 90s-era of lavishly-mounted period romps. And then "The Anniversary Party", where her ecstasy-fueled breakdown about motherhood stops the show.
Yeah. That's right. I'm channelling my inner Ellen Ripley. I kinda love it, actually. Sure beats having to, you know, do my hair. Look at me, I'm a daddy now!
First, thanks to my good friend Sally for that title! ;-)
Second, I actually loved the film. Cannot wait to see it again a few more times. It stands as a singular experience, the most Malick-y film ever made. This is Malick's skill as a director - his choice to share an experience and tell a story without the expected trappings of conventional narrative, structure, exposition and linear storytelling. In a way, it's sort of like a mega-budget feature-length "thesis project" of a film. Those experimental short films where the filmmaker "tells a story" in a non-traditional way. Well, he's the long-ass version. I hear similar criticisms from people about films like this, or films by David Lynch - "it didn't make any sense, I didn't know what it was trying to say."
Uh...ok. I can list a couple hundred films that "made sense" and that were clear in "what they were trying to say" that still totally and utterly sucked donkey balls and were failures. It's abstract art, folks!
It's an emotional story, told through the memories of a child and a grander sense of life on Earth that keeps reminding the viewer that all this complexity and the questions of life were and are the ongoing evolutionary process of single-cell organisms.
The use of music in the film is as flawless as always. The photography absolutely stunning in its clarity and composition. The performances so real and unforced that it just feels as if an invisible camera just happened to catch the action.
The heartbreaking simplicity of small insightful moments; a gesture of love when one young boy puts his hand on the shoulder of another, who lost his home and received burn scars from a house fire. The guilt and intense shame of adolescent hormones rushing through a young man's mind. The need to destroy and exert power over others coupled with a clashing message of love and understanding and empathy.
There are moments in this film that will haunt me forever. For those who just didn't like it...well...I made this video for you.
EX-Gay? No. Just one more in a long line of young men whose families are so bigoted and closed of heart that they convince themselves of lies and untruths (thus breaking God's Ninth Commandment) in order to win back the love of their families. It happens all too often, and it needs to stop.
After a day of reading scripts on the Highline park in NYC I had a spring in my step, a song in my heart, and a stupid (and painful) tanline that makes me look like an asshole.
Oh, well.
Note to Self - you're Scottish. The sun doesn't like you.
Perhaps I shall have more thoughts as news and information and gravity and "the next step" and all that jazz set in. For now, I'm feeling this.
Love, Little Kiwi
I'm not really *happy* about his death. I'm definitely relieved, but it's not as if his death suddenly means that the world is a safer place, and that those who believe what he believed no longer believe it. I hope American Conservatives don't give in to their typical bloodlust and demand to see the photo(s) of his dead body. I hope that in this moment, Americans show some class and take a moral highground - an enemy is vanquished, and the time is now to start remembering how to proactively change world culture toward understanding, not vengeance nor gloating or neanderthal-level machismo.
We do not need to see the photo(s). Those demanding that we do are sick lowlifes in this country, who should be ashamed of themselves. America, find your grace.
My Dad wrote this as part of the PFLAG newsletter back home in Toronto. Thought I'd share it with y'all. Love.
The first Pride Parade that I attended, not as a participant but as a bystander, was in San Francisco, while on vacation, in 1978. This was shared with my future wife, Irene, and well before our marriage and children. Who knew it was a portent of things to come. Fast forward more than 30 years and I am now a member of the Board of Directors of PFLAG Toronto and its Treasurer. Why? Our son is a gay man. I watched him grow up alongside his sister, and both of these wonderful children filled me with love and pride – from toddlerhood to adulthood. When our son came out the dismay to us was not that he was gay but the realization that throughout his youth he had worked at acting straight and tried to fit in, while suffering the taunts of schoolmates who picked on him. He missed out on fully enjoying his early teen years and we could not go back and “fix” it for him. Sadly this is a story often heard at PFLAG of youngsters being bullied, ostracized and marginalized because they are, or are perceived to be, ‘different’. Through our children and my PFLAG Toronto involvement I have met so many people who accept each other for being exactly who they are. It has truly opened up my life, and made me a better person. I am a Chartered Accountant by training, and have held a number of senior positions in large North American companies; Chief Financial Officer for Woolworth Canada and Club Monaco –Polo Ralph Lauren, to name a few. Today, I am happy to be known as a proud PFLAG Dad. I am currently a part time professor of Finance at Seneca College. I proudly wear the rainbow bracelet when I am teaching and have found that occasionally students will ask why and what it means. This starts a dialogue that invariably ends with the student indicating that they have friends or acquaintances who are gay and they either talk about the difficulties they face or they ask about them. Often they thank me for speaking openly and personally about a topic they have not explored before. They say they will think about sexual orientation with more positive feelings. It illustrates that we can educate the world, one person at a time. I am proud to be a part of PFLAG Toronto, helping to support the LGBTQ community and all families.
Male-male anal sex is the focus topic of anti-gay bigots. Not lesbian sex. We all know why. Men who have sex with men are "traitors" to their gender, and women who have sex with women don't count because women are "just sexual objects", to them.
So they obsess with gay male anal sex. It's fanatical. I'd love to hear, one day, the logical rationale wherein heterosexual oral sex is holy and it only becomes a sin when two people of the same gender do it....
The senselessness that is the knee-jerk reaction that 'stereotypes' are inherently negative and harmful.
I grew up in a world where I learned, very early on, that there were certain types of gay men that were mocked, belittled, insulted and denigrated. I also learned very early on that not only was it a *cough* "gay stereotype" to love Barbra Streisand, but the gays who loved her were deserving of derision.
Like an idiot, I accepted that knowledge without challenging it.
Oh, but then all that changed....
I suppose the question I have now, when people say things like "Why do gay guys like _______?" is actually to reply with "Why doesn't everyone like _______?"
That's what I always find so puzzling - we're asked why "gay guys" like something, and yet for the life of me I cannot wonder why non-gay people don't love it just as much. Likely, they do. They just don't talk about it cuz, you know, people might think they're gay.
