Gunther - Christmas Song (uncensored)

The true meaning of Xmas, Swedish heart-throb Gunther with his porn star sunglasses and mullet, partying with busty blonds and naked xmas elves.

Fickle Lover Sleep

What fickle lover sleep;
For when he comes to bed unbid,
He deigns that I do take his comforts
All too easily and for granted.

Yet when I most seduce, beseach
Beg for his light blessed touch
He deems me all too needy,
Leaving me tossing on the couch.

A Whispering Key

I finally grew tired
Of Jingly keys,
How many does one
Really need?

Car, the front door
Office and desk;
Others perhaps
Could live in a box.

Storage shed,
Chain on the mower
All labeled now
With neat round tags.

But when it was
All said and sorted,
One dull one remained
Haunting, whispering.

Perhaps feeding
A friends cat?
Perhaps from love
That faded away.

It once had power
To open a door,
Now the door
Is lost.

Repo Man: the Genetic Opera - Review

Okay I like quirky stylish movies as much as anyone else, but found the style over substance of Repo Man diverting but… This had got to be the most self-indulgent, “fuck you” movies ever made. Repo Man is quite visually stunning, a bit of goth rock opera drenched in blood, drugs, and lots and lots of beating, pulsating body parts and steaming intestines. In fact the plot is fairly traditional, family betrayal, innocence vs. evil, lies and cover-ups, diverging and converging plotlines. It’s probably one of the darkest movies you’ll ever see (I mean literally) the whole movie is dingy shadows and back alleys, sordid nightclubs and darkened secret rooms.

There is some plot, kind of, most of the main characters have been trapped in this spiral of revenge and betrayal, very operatic, out of it all came a child though, Shilo, and now that she’s pretty much all grown up and everything about to come full circle. There are incidentally some redeeming themes a send up of consumerism, vanity, and the price we’re willing to pay for looking good. Paris Hilton has a part as the King/CEO’s daughter, a drug and plastic surgery addict. Actually Paris is fairly harmless in the part, her vapid self-centeredness, and shallowness a nice bit of type casting.

The company (Genco) has come to power after the world faces an epidemic of organ failures (never really explained) and Genco is more than happy to provide new ones at a price, but fall behind on a payment and the Repo Man is liable to track you down and hack out your defaulted organs. But not stopping at replacement organs, Genco has created a world where people can get plastic surgery at the drop of a hat, new addictive and expensive drugs allow you to slip on a new face, as easily as putting on makeup.

I kept wondering though how did they get this cast? Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag, Paul Sorvino as the corrupt King/CEO, did these people really know what they were signing up for? One blessing for Sarah Brightman is that under her heavy makeup and trippy contact lenses you don’t even recognize her. Paul Sorvino doesn’t get off so easy, he’s definitely playing a typical mobster and indulging his flair for opera – I hope he got a good paycheck. Having such a good cast though for this film just gives it a sense of being even more a vanity production than it probably is, but it makes you wonder.

The person who carries the move though is Anthony Head, who most would remember from Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Rupert Giles the Watcher/Librarian. He’s the title character and father of Shilo, he used to be friends with the King/CEO who was about to get married until his wife met his friend then she dumped him for the new guy. There’s another wedding, but it soon goes tragic when the ex slips some poison into the brides medicine so that the new husband/ex friend believes he’s killed her. He has to slice open his wife, sacrificing her life to save the baby. The King/CEO then guilt trips him into working as his Repo Man. So the Repo Man lives this double life killing people and ripping out innards by night and being an overprotective smothering father by day. He seems torn, but gets off on it all a bit too much. To top it all off there’s blind Mag, ex-best friend of the bride, who was given new eyes by Genco, who now owns her soul. She never knew about Shilo, and feels bad since she was supposed to look after her and be her god mother. When Blind Mag decides to retire, the CEO/King decides to execute the fine print and call out his Repo Man to take back the eyes. Blind Mag rips them out herself on stage during the nightly “Genetic Opera” and is still killed.

I won’t give away the ending here -- but it’s unsatisfying.

This movie owes a LOT to Rocky Horror picture show, the sense of sexually charged high style, the bawdy rock music driving the action. Even though it’s supposed to be dealing with events that affect the globe, it feels claustrophobic (it was a play first). Even the final climatic scenes in the Genetic Opera are borrowed heavily from the final theater scenes in Rocky. This movie really wants to be this generations Rocky Horror. But the problem with cult movies is that they’re not made, but just happen. But to delve too much into the movie is to give it substance that isn’t really there.

The real star of this movie is death, blood and guts. People are often casually dispatched just to give the actors some blood and guts to role around in. There’s a fondness for sticky gooey organs, and removing them while people are still alive. It’s so desensitizing though and so over the top you soon get used to it. When you get to the final daughter/father scene at the end, you almost don’t even realize they’re covered in blood and guts in a sea of gore. As an attempt at some sort of street cred, it uses several graphic novel devices, especially in flashbacks to tell back stories. It’s almost as if they’re trying to convince you that it was actually based on something. There was a play first, and perhaps the obvious artifice of the stage gave it some balance, but the movie is unrelenting in being gritty and real – but totally unbelievable.

There is some talent behind the camera, the Director is Darren Bousman from the Saw series, but where this sort of thing works as hyperrealism, it gets a bit much as musical goth dinner theater.

Overall though worth seeing just as a cultural event, and the yuck factor, a big bonus though too is getting to see Paris Hilton embarrass herself as a singer on stage, when her face falls off in the middle of her song.

Actually this musical number by Sarah Brightman is a highlight:



Here’s a feel for the whole movie:



... and yes that is Joan Jet, she does a cameo on one of the numbers.

Cultural Icons and Phone Sex

It was one of those evenings,
Socialites with lap dogs,
All red wine and crackers.
A noted cultural icon,
Against a museum timeline.
A modern clear plexi podium
Professional lighting and sound
It was ultimate intown urban chic.
Cameras recording for prosperity
The usual suspects on the scene.
Then book signings and niceties.
A new signed book for my
“When I can get to” it pile.
But I was Achilles dipped in
A river of cultured civility
And now my heel itches.
Once in my car I was tempted.
Bookstore or bathhouse?
Needing some antidote,
Some sleaziness some sin,
To balance it all out.
All this refinement and culture
Too rich, needing something
To dirty my palate.
I settled for phone sex,
Felt much better. All in all;
It had been a very good evening.

Good Sex

I was all set for rough sex
Sweaty bodies and poppers
“Yeah baby” and “Yes Sir.”
Then you flashed that smile,
Those sparks lit your eyes, and
Suddenly I was all school boy,
All caresses and wet kisses,
Sex became suddenly
All about your face
Watching your reactions
Getting you to smile again.
Swimming into each others eyes
A long slow summer swim
In warm deep waters.

I-95, Kenly NC

A new poem from my "Goldleaf" series, growing up in the tobacco belt in NC.

+++++

I-95 Kenly, NC

Even as a boy without a license
Barely seeing over the dashboard,
I knew my mother never understood
How to properly use the interstate.

She’d pull down the long ramp,
Then obeying some invisible sign,
Come to a full dead stop, look both ways
Then pull out when the coast was clear.

Maybe I could tell it was all wrong
By her agitation and anxiety,
Or maybe the tell was in horns blowing,
Or the Screeching tires behind us.

The interstate was new back then,
We’d gone from rural dirt roads
To gooey asphalt, pavement and concrete;
To these highways known only by numbers.

My Mom was intimidated by the speeds
The sheer size and scope of it all,
The feeling these roads somehow belonged
Only to vacationers and rough truck drivers.

I remember getting my hands on a map:
DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, to New York;
Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, to New Orleans;
Nashville, Memphis all the way to L.A.

While other boys traced fingers over
Daddy’s forbidden busty centerfolds
I traced my escape route, having faith in the
String of unseen cities like rosary beads.

When I could drive, despite mother’s cautions
I accelerated to merge, itchy for speed
Threw myself onto the interstate, cause
These things, these things can take you places.

Hope Lost and Found

You may have noticed that for someone so political my blog has been quiet since the election of Barack Obama. It's something I've had to really wrap my head around and work through.

Here's why...


+++


President Elect Obama –

It’s been some time now since the election, soon November will have come and gone. I’m a writer and poet from Atlanta Georgia, so had often written about everything working up to the election. I’m very much a son of the South and have often written on race relations and growing up in a conservative, rural, southern Baptist family in North Carolina. A family where casual racism and bigotry were so ingrained in our history and upbringing as to be invisible in plain sight. No one saw or realized its impact, realized the lessening of humanity it inflicted on both sides.

In past months, I’d written a lot on hope and change. I wrote about standing in line for early voting for hours to make sure my vote counted, how everyone in line regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation had bonded in this hopefulness of a new day in the United States. I still pray now that that day is upon us.

However, after the election, I found that I could not bring myself to write about this hope, this new day. For with the news of your win, also came the news of the passing of Proposition Eight in California and the passage of other anti-gay laws across the country. So while election day delivered so poignantly on your promise of hope and change it also delivered a cold hard slap in the face to members of the LGBT community. In California a persecuted group won the civil right to marry, then had it taken away. They celebrated the wins, the vows, celebrated with family and friends, only to have their happiness come crashing down around them.

I’m sure you’ve seen the protests around the country, the anger, the commitment, the renewed resolve of our community. Forgive us if in your moment of glory and celebration, of needing to concentrate on so many dire crises and issues that plague our country, forgive us if you have a large constituency that is really, really pissed off. For some of us the honeymoon from this election was much too short lived, we were somehow left outside of the big reception.

Many in the LGBT community would like to blame the African-American community for voting in large numbers against our civil rights. We thought we would have more sympathy. It is more disappointment than anger that we feel, a disappointment that there is such a lack of understanding. I like to write letters to the editors here at our local Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and years ago when the great Hosea Williams had made some unfortunate off-handed casual comments about the gay rights movement, I wrote a letter to the AJC basically saying that he just “didn’t get it”. To his credit he actually called me at work the day after my letter appeared, called me at my office, I was as shocked as anyone when the president of our company who had just happened to have answered the phone handed it to me and said that “Hosea Williams wants to talk to you”. I think his intention was to call me to the carpet, he went right into his stock speech on his years in the service of civil rights, and how he’d worked tirelessly for civil rights, and done this and that. That some of his best friends were gay, but there was also a measure of condemnation. I think to him I was some privileged young white boy with a good job that had dared to question his credentials. I finally stopped him and had to ask him a simple question. “Mr. Williams, do you know where I’m having to talk to you from? I’ve had to pull the phone into our supply closet, I’m having to talk to you in whispers, my boss is going to ask me just what Hosea Williams was calling me for – and I’m going to have to lie to his face, so I don’t face losing my job.” That seemed to make an impression, and we actually had a serious and meaningful conversation after that, I’ll always remember that phone call.

There are differences between our communities. Blacks literally wear their minority status on their sleeves, there’s no way to hide from it, no way to escape it. LGBT people are often an invisible minority it’s easy for us to blend in, to disappear, to dance around the details – aren’t we lucky. That’s something we have to struggle with and work on within our own community. But though our minority statuses are based largely (but not totally) on how we look vs. who we love, we still share many of the same stigmas, the same discrimination, the same violence, the same dehumanization by the majority. Senator Obama, you’ve shared so much about your family and upbringing, what positive reinforcements you received, what encouragements, God bless you and your family. Now I ask you to imagine that you weren’t so lucky, that you were born white, in a “typical” American household. That there was always that tone and hint of disdain whenever your family talked about the black family down the street. That at school, it was much less subtle, friends beating up black kids, calling them names. You may have even thrown a punch just to show you were one of the guys. That you saw the stereotypes and prejudices even on TV and in the movies with no filters or explanations. Then imagine that you’d always felt different, always apart. Imagine that one day you’re careless and fall and scrape your knee to find a darker pigment underneath, that you were showering and found the white rubbing off. You’d be ashamed, wear long sleeves, because all you’ve ever been taught is that being black was wrong and shameful. Welcome Senator Obama to every gay and lesbian teen’s nightmare. We are taught by our own families to hate ourselves, and turned away for who we are. We are despised second class citizens even among our own families and communities. Thank god we have been able to form our own families in exile, our own communities for support, our own loves and commitments – This Senator Obama is why marriage is so important to us.

In thinking about why it’s taken so long for me to write about this past election. I finally realized after the Proposition 8 protests and vigils here in Atlanta, I had become afraid to hope. Hope is a wonderful, marvelous thing, but can be a sharp double-edged sword. It’s like love, when we give it freely and get burned we get gun shy, we become afraid to hope. So forgive us as you take on the daunting duties of the Presidency, if one of your key support groups seems a little reserved, a little less than forthcoming, with it’s dreams and hopes shining not so bright. You see we’ve been neglected, we’ve been ignored, and we had even gotten used to that. But then California laid this dazzling jewel of a dream in the palms of our hands and we held it all too briefly before it was snatched away. We have lived with dreams deferred and dreams denied so long we’re used to it. But we had dared to hope, dared to dream of change, held it in our hands and gotten slapped across the face. Nothing wounds so deep the heart as a soaring moment of fragile hope snuffed out as easy as a candle, where once there was light, now only darkness.

Senator Obama, we still hold hope in our hearts, if maybe a little closer more cautiously than before. We still hope that whatever slight ember is left will be awakened and blaze anew. That this jewel of marriage and commitment we so desire will be placed in our hand and shine even more brightly and sweetly for the struggle. That is a promise.

Cleo Creech
Atlanta, GA

All This Waiting in Line

It’s been a while since I’ve been here in the main Fulton County Government Center, the only thing left of the infamous Taj Mahal palm trees are a few wrought iron tree grates still sprinkled around the floor. Now the only landscaping is a few big bamboos and grouping of decidedly everyday looking houseplants. That's all water under the birdge though, today this building is seeing another bit of history, it’s full of prospective voters.

The line starts well outside, goes into the building and then wraps once around inside, then around the edge in a second loop. I have no ideal where the line ends up, for all I know there’s hours more line that I just can't see. Everyone asks “how longs the wait?’ it’s a common topic. The latest estimate anyone has heard is 2-2.5 hours. Occasionally someone that’s voted will stop at a certain spot on their way out and look around to announce something like “I spent two and a half hours from right here.”

No one is really complaining though, we’ve all chosen to be here. Everyone seems upbeat, even chatty. There’s a feeling of waiting for a purpose. Everyone is using their cell phones a lot, just to let their friends and families know they’ve been in line now and will be for hours. Though it’s not so much to complaint as a brag. A volunteer tells us we’re lucky, that we’re in one of the fastest moving voting centers in the county. Since we’re in the main downtown Fulton County Government Center, I guess they’re just more set up for this sort of thing, have more volunteers and staff to work with.

There’s an easy camaraderie that builds among my immediate neighbors, a friendliness you don’t usually associate with waiting in long lines. People introduce themselves, smile a lot, there’s comments floated around like “it’s a long wait – but worth it. The girl right in front of me is particularly bubbly, her name’s Melinda. Her excitement is contagious. There is this palpable sense in this long, long line - this one line, in one polling station, in one county, in one state – a sense that still a vote counts. That it’s worth standing in line for hours to make sure you get to vote early. There’s this feeling that on the day of the general election, there’s just too much uncertainty about crushing turnouts, overwhelmed poll workers – and if you miss voting on election day, then – the moment’s passed.

There’s often easy laughter from groups of friends that are voting together. It’s a diverse crowd, a middle aged white lady reading from a big book with lots of small print, she looks to be a school teacher. There seems to be an awful lot of young African-American women, often traveling in packs. It seems if you were a young single guy you should be lining up for early voting every day just to talk up the ladies. I hear some of the young women talking about midterms and the woman right behind me has a text book she’s studying, so I guess they’re mostly students. Up a bit there’s a gay couple, behind a few people a nice young professional couple, there’s even a one-armed woman that’s texting furiously with her one good hand. There’s a couple of different guys wearing their ipods and listening to music. There’s even a guy who seems a bit down on his luck, I can’t help notice though that he keeps reading out of this little brochure. It’s some sort of study guide for a trade test or certification. There’s sample questions about scaffolding and what’s the proper ladder for different situations. Maybe he’s trying to get a job in construction. I'm hopding maybe he’s just gotten one. Then there’s me the middle-aged intown poet/writer thrown into the mix. I end up spending hours with these people, so you get to pick up on little things, get to know them a bit.

I’m reminded that for decades you often heard the refrain around election time about the sheer laziness of the American voter, how we took democracy for granted, were more than willing to let others vote. Why should we? Our one vote – what difference does it make? It all feels so different now, I look around and I’m not exaggerating to say I get a bit choked up. This is an historic election if for no other reason than the record setting engagement by the American voter. This is no small accomplishment. There’s a palpable sense that all these people are working, putting in their hours, whatever it takes to place their vote. The long wait even validates them, allows them to show just how important they hold this right. Over and over again you hear this same refrain “hours still to wait – but it’s worth it.”

The election staff and volunteers are beautiful to watch, I’ve seen these very same people in past elections, haggard, tired. These people today are positively glowing, walking around with such a sense of purposefulness, of energy. They too feel the history in the room.

The election staff periodically makes rounds to ask people to turn off their cell phones, they apparently interfere with the machines. Some people will just hide them for a bit, then pull them back out to keep bragging to people about how long the line is they’re sitting in. There’s also a regular round by staff, reminding people that if they’re voting here in the Fulton County Government Center, that they do need to make sure that they’re actually registered in Fulton County. Occasionally if someone’s not sure a volunteer takes them aside to check. I get the impression that this comes up a lot, when they make the announcements, it always feels that they’ve just had to turn someone away. Earlier a lady had left when she learned she still wouldn’t be able to still register, that the registration deadline had passed. She shuffled away dejected, we all felt her pain -- she’d missed it, this chance to participate in a bit of history.

Just as our group winds it way out of the atrium and into a side hallway we can see through the glass wall of the council chamber below, and our goal, the voting machines. I recognize the room immediately though I’ve only seen it on late night public access programs. Even from here, within sight, there’s still a long wait, it’s democracy as a theme park ride, long winding paths, and then a tight maze of twists at the end. They have people winding through the seats of the auditorium, back and forth. There’s still a wait, but we’re all just happy that we can at least sit down soon. It’s a bit like musical chairs, almost as soon as you sit down, the line moves and you have to get up and shuffle down, but row by row we’re getting closer. For a while we get to sit a bit longer, seems the system has gone down, they announce that IT has been called, and they’re back up before too long. Then even here, you hear the same theme again and again, “3 hours but it’s worth it.”

Finally at the end there’s a flurry of paper processing, getting your voting card for the machine and then you find yourself standing shoulder to shoulder with your fellow voters. It seems symbolic that the machines are set up where the county commissioners usually sit to vote and do county business. So finally with touch screen up, you get to make all those decisions, this person, that person, anyone but him, more money for this, less for that, who are all these people running for judges? In 10-15 mins it’s over. As I was voting though Melinda passed behind me, and gently touched my shoulder, whispering “nice to meet you, have a good evening.” Over the past 3 hours we’d managed to bond. Me, Melinda, the school teacher, the chatty college students. We’d formed this band of committed voters supporting each other, holding places in line for parking meter refills and bathroom breaks. I realized though that we’d never really once discussed politics, or talked about who we were going to vote for. It wasn’t about that though, it was about the voting, getting out there, doing what it takes, being heard.

The last lady takes your voting machine card and hands out the little Peach “I Voted” stickers. Never had those little paper stickers felt like such a badge of honor.

vlad and friend boris presents 'Song for Sarah' for mrs. Palin

Great Palin Spoof from these Russian dudes.

Rachel Getting Married

I was interesting in seeing just what the Anne Hathaway buzz was about, after The Princess Diaries you could imagine her getting stuck in the Disney Family movie genre, but I have to admit there was some inkling of a darker side every since that phone call scene in Brokeback Mountain, where the whole thing is shown with just her lower face closeup , talking on the phone, working that cigarette. It’s probably helped her street cred too that her real life beau went from being a prince charming to serving time – so much for happily-ever-after.

This movie could have very easily been soo movie-of-the-week, but it struck a nice modern balance. Major cudos to Jonathon Demi, he should get recognition for the handling of such delicate waters. Also, Debra Winger is phenomenal, I actually didn’t recognize her in the first couple of scenes, but she is superb in what can only be called a tour-de-force of suppressed emotion, denial, and WASP coldness. Even the cinemaphotography walks a fine line between being gritty home movie footage, but not so much so it's obnoxious or in the way.

This movie makes you fill in a lot of blanks, but in a good way, it doesn’t insult you with the standard obligatory scenes and neatly defined conflicts and resolutions. The family history unfolds over the movie, the tragedy of the family and what went into it. The father’s divorce, the mother’s distance, the role of music, laughter, and family, there’s all these story lines that are developed and brought together reinforcing the movie in nice subtle ways.

For instance at the end of the movie (spoiler alert) I’m totally convinced Debra Winger was herself either a drug addict or alcoholic, that she has this twisted belief about the role of children, and not so great as a mom – though there’s really no concrete proof, no neat confrontation, no begging for forgiveness or personal revelations. So much of this all happens in Anne Hathaway’s head, you can see her putting the pieces together, wanting to find answers, but realizing that there’s seldom nice tight little solutions to big problems. She wants to come to some resolution with her mom, but you realize it's probably just never going to happen. You see Kym finally ask her Mom, just why did she allow a known out-of-control actively using, constantly high drug addict to be babysitter for her young brother? The step mom has one of the best lines in the movie, during one of the numerous family conferences with hastily closed doors, she tells Kym basically everyone is responsible for how they perceive the world, how they choose to see things, and in the end responsible for their own happiness.

One thing I was very struck by though in this movie, is it’s depiction of America. Also, the contrast of the old American Dream vs. hopefully the new and hopeful one. You can put together what this family’s life was like before the son died. The professional distant Mom, the perfect New England Home, the rules and regulations, the denial of unhappiness, and drug abuse. It was the American Dream as unreachable ideal, as a hollow meaningless shell. Then look at what happens to the father after the divorce. It's telling that he ends up raising the children. His life is music, he surrounds himself by talented musicians and celebration, he remarries a loving accepting emotionally available black woman. The wedding itself is this sort of utopian multi-cultural version of America. A mixed marriage with two very different families, a celebration of cultures (of all sorts), music, and lifestyles. There's something very hopeful about a white female doctor and her talented black musican husband cutting into bright blue hindu elephant god wedding cake (with the whole cast ceremoniously taking part).

A large part of Kym’s conflict is this transition, from emotional denial and shut-down to embracing one’s emotions and learning to live within this big messy world. For a big part of the movie you can see her future as a toss-up, she could go either way. The main conflict isn’t whether she confronts her mom, or patches things up with her sister, it’s how she handles her own past and history, and decides to move forward.

Having Lunch with and Almost Getting to Meet Mark Doty

Now that AQLF is over and done, I can get some writing done. I have ton’s of new books to read and lots of inspiration. It’s interesting though that through the whole festival the biggest slice of life event that stuck with me was something that happened after an event.


Getting to Have Lunch with and Almost Meeting Mark Doty

It didn’t start well, I was late getting out of the office and traffic sucked. Emory Unversity is currently undergoing what seems a complete rebuilding of itself and it took a while to find parking and wind my way through the construction sites. In an effort not to be too terribly late, I walked so quickly up the hill towards the quad my shin splints kicked in painfully, and I had to stop at the top of the hill, legs throbbing in revolt, and huffing and puffing, feeling my age. Once I found the student center, there were no signs pointing to the event, and I wandered around trying to find the room number by process of elimination but every hall that looked promising ended in a dead-end just a number or two off what I needed it to. Finally I found it.

The talk/lecture/workshop went well. It even resulted in a new piece I’d like to work up about the big chest freezer my parents kept in our back utility room. This was the big freezer chest that each fall my parents would mysteriously fill with meat in the middle of the night. They’d wait until I’d gone to sleep, so as not to have to explain that all those steaks, ribs, and hamburger, were all that were left of Buttercup, or Betsy or whatever my pet cow had been that year. They never did explain how little Betsy didn’t really go to live with “all the other cows” in a nice big pasture (except if you take it metaphorically). Instead she’d gone to the butcher and gotten a nail gun through the head and ended up being snuck into our ice chest at 2 a.m. a few days later. It’s a story all about the treachery of parents and the loss of childhood innocence -- But… that’s another story, for another time.

The workshop was well attended, standing room only. There were earnest students, fellow writers, faculty and administrators, and an assortment of other various and sundry characters (myself included). One shared that they’d suddenly realized how all the apartments they’d every lived in had never felt like home, one broke down in tears as he'd been reminded of his father. I tried not to be judgmental, but it was hard. Reminding myself just how much I and others can be so cruely judgmental, I chose to keep the whole Betsy being nail gunned and snuck into the freezer in the middle of the night... well I decided to keep that to myself. Fearing I might get those sad sympathetic eyes for someone who’s parents were obviously sadistic tyrants and had no concern for the deep scars they were inflicting on their sensitive son and the years of therapy they were driving him into. Though in the end it wasn’t so much that, as just the fear that talk of having a pet cow named buttercup on a tobacco farm, would just make me sound like such a damn redneck.

I thought I had to leave right after the event, I pardoned myself, so I could check back at the office, half expecting to be needed to go back. I was not all that keen on the big after event lunch though, not wanting to seem too desperate or too much like a hanger-onner. When I didn’t have to go back to the office though, it struck me – “why not go?”. I knew a good number of the people and would like to know some of the festival guests better, I’d actually been invited, so technically wasn't barging. I’d been at several events so far and had at least briefly met everyone but Mark Doty, and I figured we’d might get a chance to speak, but que sera, sera.

We made this long trek through the Emory campus, student center to the grassy quad over to the Emory Village area and Everybody’s pizza. I was put off a bit though, I always am by Emory. It reminds me so much of Wake Forest, another southern private school. The one I attended until the whole coming out, fight with the mom and step-dad, running away from home, being disinherited, having to leave school thing kicked in. I’m just reminded at Emory of that old Pre-Med, Organic Chemisty Major, taking Honors English student I used to be. Not that I’m complaining, but it just makes me confront all those alternative universes. The one here was the what if I had stayed at Wake, changed my major from Organic Chemistry to English, then I could have actually become one of these writers that teaches at one of these schools and attended all these festivals, but again que sera sera (thank you Doris For the mental soundtrack)

The walk was awkward, as are most walks with a group of friends, acquaintances, but mostly strangers can be. As we went along the group got stretched out, forcing you to choose a sub group. I tried miserably to carry on a conversation with Daphne Gottlieb, but it never got much past the “how do you like Atlanta? must be a big change from San Francisco” crap. Plus, I couldn’t stop staring at her breasts, I just couldn’t help it. Even as a gay man, I have to admire women who’s breasts seem to defy gravity. I couldn’t see a bra, but there had to have been some great feat of engineering at work there. Add the peek-a-boo tattoos, the plunging neckline, the cleavage it’s all pretty intimidating. I started feeling like a real sexist pig, though honest I wasn’t staring in any sort of lurid way, more just in admiration, like you’d stare at the great pyramids.

We finally made it to the restaurant “The big poets” all sort of clumped down at the end of the long table, all professorial and oblivious to the rest of us at the other end (coordinators, administrators, lesser poets). If it had actually been two tables, they’d have been at the “adult” table. The chosen few around Doty though did include though a young boy from Tennessee who was following Mark Doty around a bit like a puppy. He had admitted to us earlier how he’d come here just to meet Mark and found it hard to even talk in his presence, being so in awe of his poetic greatness. It was sweet. I was reminded how I really don’t work that hard to meet any of my heros and role models anymore. They always disappoint, never matching up to what you’ve inflated them to be in your mind, so it’s often just best to let them exist in this nebulous cloud of sublime godliness and enlightenment, than to find out that they’re for the most just mere mortals with a book award or two. This kid was not there yet though. He’d obviously read Mark’s works and somewhere along the lines felt it spoke to him (and I mean directly and only to him) that somehow they were soulmates, there was some inner connection, etc., etc. – like I said – Sweet.

I’m reminded in some biographies of Charles Bukowski, how after a few of his books had become successful that it wasn’t uncommon to find young girls camping out on the front porch. Girls who’d often driven across the country, all because they knew they’d found their soulmate, someone who truly understood them. He apparently found it amusing, and a great way to score some prime ass – now he was a real pig.

The lunch lasted a long time and the conversation was great, there were some really interesting people there, even at the child’s table. Someone even picked up the tab for everyone (always a plus). Then we were all on our own heading back to our respective vehicles.

I had one last chance to meet Mark Doty as we were leaving, but let it pass. Not that I was planning on being rude or anything, it just happened that way. I’d always remember it though, that lunch I had with Mark Doty and almost got to meet him.

Another Gay Saint - Vatican Goes Against Final Wishes

John Henry Newman http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10794a.htm. One of those gay heroes from our past. Men of quiet dignity that live their lives honestly and with conviction, doing good deeds and great things. Playing the cards they were dealt and making an example of their lives.

The vatican though a bit uneasy about making a saint from someone who's dying wish was to be buried with his lifelong friend and "roommate".

The last line is actually borrowed from their shared tomb. It's as if they are whispering to us from the past.


John Loves Ambrose

I hope at least you carved it on a tree,
That god would not begrudge some bark
For love to proclaim it’s name,
Though lips and deeds could not.

I hope at least fingers touched,
That closeness counted;
There had to have been a kiss
If only briefly on a cheek.

What blessed Seraphim it was
To bring you heaven’s dreams, of flesh,
Of consummation, of love’s embrace
That light of day would never know.

It would only be in death’s keep
That your bodies would share a bed,
For god to decide what lover’s fate
Waited beyond the gate.

Though here on common earth
Those who call themselves his servants
Would seek to rip inconvenient love
From it’s final resting place.

But who can argue with God’s hand
When his love rules even dead flesh
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
Two lovers together as one forever.

---

Out of shadows and phantasms into the Truth.

Gayploitation Movies - Where's the Gay Spike Lee?

Got to the Midtown Art Cinema and had to decide, hmmmm, a) "Blindness" some of my favorite actors working with a great director, in a engaging and challenging piece of social/science fiction that asks important questions about human nature; or b) "Another Gay Sequel - Gays Gone Wild" four gay chums go to spring break in Key West enter a contest to see who can fuck the most, and along the way find love, lust, and giant pubic crabs.

I told myself that i would refuse to go see "Gays Gone Wild" that it was another one of these Mindless Gayploitaiton romps created purely to separate me from my $10 bucks and take advantage of the fact that gays will pretty much go see any "gay" movie that comes out - we're that starved for acceptance and seeing our lives portrayed on the big (or small) screen.

It was pure drivel, poorly acted by your typical WeHo eye candy, full of stereotypes, relying way too much on cheap gags, projectile vomit, and tasteless cheap humor - I haven't laughed so much in ages.

At the end of the day there really is something about seeing your "people" depicted up on the big screen. People/situations you can identify with, being able to sit in a theater with queens yelling at the screen in sort of a big communal group hug.

Don't even try to find any deep meanings; if you had to look for any life lessons here, it would have to be a) a committed monogamous relationships is great - unless the pizza boy is really, really hot, b) mean people suck, some suck really really well, c) if you can't find true love, you just haven't been playing it kinky enough, and d) when it all comes down to it, it's friends and family that count (just don't sleep with your dad, or try to jerk you buddies off when they have monster crabs).

Perez Hilton "stars" in a rather annoying way by continuously popping up at odd moments. The product placements get rather tired but I suppose necessary. Ru Paul and Scott Thompson I guess now are standard stock actors for any real gay movie.

But it all begs the question, where's the gay Spike Lee, the gay Tyler Perry? To drive that point home this weekend, Tyler Perry had his big studio opening party in Atlanta recently. Anyone in the black movie community that was anyone showed up, and why shouldn't they. Tyler Perry has been giving neglected black actor's and actresses some good roles, plus he's just been able to give them some steady work.

Where is the Gay studio? Not that there's not gay talent out there. Maybe that's the problem it's all "out there" but under wraps. I'm hopeful for the Harvey Milk story coming out soon by Gus Van Sant, but it reminds me, that much like "Brokeback Mountain" for a gay movie to be taken serious, it has to now be cast with serious straight actors, that somehow gay actors in a gay movie suddenly becomes not so serious.

Why not Ian McKellan and Jack Harkness in a story about May/December relationships. Neil Patrick Harris as a widowed gay single dad?

"Breakfast with Scot" can't get here fast enough!

The Core Contradiction of Today's Republicans

I've always had a soft spot for Republicans, and not just the preppy athletic ones with the polo shirts and topsiders. The old fashioned kind -- the live-and-let-live, why fix what's not broken, fiscally responsible, common sense kind. What happened?

Since the Gingrich "Contract with Armerica" era, I've often wondered just why Republicans ran for office anymore. Their new promise to America was basically "Vote for me and I'll go to DC and do absolutely nothing, spend no money, make no laws. I'll make sure that Government becomes a dried up, husk of it's former self, with no real strength or power." And that seems to be what people wanted.

My biggest problem with that though was the presumption that government itself was inherently evil, corrupt, bloated. It certainly leans that way without needed controls, but Republicans basically gave up on the fight. They ceeded that government was an untameable, uncontrolleable, mythical beast that at best could only be caged, banished to a dark dungeon where it could do no harm. The best tactic of all was just to starve it to death, cut off it's food supply.

The argument was framed in terms of big government, little government, when all along the real question should be good government vs. bad government, responsible government vs. irrisponsible, responsive vs. aloof. Republicans successfully linked these concepts of big government being inheriently evil and the smallest possible government obviously the best option. If you took their thinking to it's logical conclusion the best U.S.A. would have no taxes, no government, only a mega-military/industrial complex providing meager jobs to a population having to pay for it's own unregulated healthcare, schools, roads, everything. Staunch Republicans would call that heaven on Earth - most would call it anarchy.

So now we have bridges and infrasstructure crumbling, an unregulated free market system out of conrol, a healthcare system designed by the heathcare lobbyist spiraling out of control, banks lining up for bailouts, starts starting to que up for help, the auto industry starting to make their case - do we see the problem yet?

The Gospel of the Free Market Economy

I've been really struck by the zealotry involved with the free market economy talk as of late. Especially with the economic woes. It really does start sounding like a cult. These Republican's that rode in the on Reagan revolution, have abandoned all reason and logic and just keep chanting the mantra "free markets are good, free markets with correct themselves, the free market will save us."

They chant this as the temples of greed, trickle down economics, and deregulation crumble around them. It's almost as if they've so bought into this cult, this religion, now that it's seen for what it is, they just can't face it. Where's the kool-aid?

It's Darwinian ecnomics at it's best. This belief that only the strongest, smartest, most well funded, shall survive - deserve to survive. This is jungle economics.

The thing that makes man great though is his ability to create societies, to create a society where certain values and beliefs override the baser tendencies in man. Freedom trumps tyranny, compassion is held above callousness, fairness and justice is preferred over schoolyard bullying, harrassment, and rule of the mob.

Georgia's Queer History - Pasaquan

Pasaquan the colorful built environment by one of Georgia's earliest and certainly most colorful queer characters has been designed as a National Historic Site. The place is just magical, and the story of Eddie Martin or Saint EOM is one that has to be turned into a movie one day. It's just such a great story. A fourteen year old boy driven from his poor sharecroppers home in South Georgia for being "different" ends up in New York City in the midst of the Counter Cultural scene. A street hustler, turning tricks and telling fortunes, creating this extravagant persona. Constantly soaking in the art of the NY museums and cultural institutions.

When he comes back to South Georgia (The voices told him to) he started the Pasaquan compound built from common building materials but inspired by a kaleidoscope of culture blended into a mishmash of utopian fantasy.

I used to go down there quite a bit years ago, back when you could just wander around and still peak in the windows. There have been efforts to restore it and get it reopened, hopefully the new historic designation will help. A nice bit of Georgia history well deserving of preservation.

This is also a very important bit of queer history that we should all appreciate. The queer experience of building one's own world and colorful environment (including costumes) as a way of dealing with a harsh sometimes cruel world.

The High did a show on him years ago, there's a coffee table book and a film as well (the video below may be part of it - not sure).

I love in the video the local businessman referring to St. EOM as "not the marrying kind."

HISTORY OF A SIGN

This is a beautiful Mexican short that came out of the Cannes Film Festival this year. I found it on Eric Himan's blog. You should check out his website www.erichiman.com he's an out gay rocker, that's putting out some great music.
Here's the short.

Is it okay not to believe in heaven?

Just generally musing on religion, etc. Feeling very existentialist these days. I keep coming back to one of my main problems with orangized religion, with this whole ideal of heaven. That there is this great reward that makes all the suffering and righteous living worth the trouble. Shouldn't righteous living (and I mean living compassionately, lovingly, aware) be it's own reward? In some religions the most holy figures are the ones that on the cusp of enlightenment, at the very gates of paradise, refuse to go in and, decide instead to help others become enlightened. Why is it with Christianity getting in the pearly gates seems to be the be all/end all?



The Problem with Heaven

Ultimate carrot and stick
Either golden gates,
Or fire and brimstone.
Either paradise
Or the fiery pit.

We hold the seeds of
The divine within us
Why then wait
Until after death
To bloom?

We hold within us
Compassion, Love
Everything to
Make a paradise
On earth.

Why then so stingy
Holding blessings
So close
Is that not
Sin?

Palin - What Republican Really Think

I have to admit to something that's probably not exactly PC, one of my favorite bloggers is Andrew Sullivan Conversative Gay Boy. He does have great content and I always read his stuff. He does harken back to the "old school" conservatives which are all rolling in their graves today with where the Republican party has been led by the religous right wing and their cronies.

Following some of his links to various stories I ran across a pair of Republicans after having just tried to spin the Palin VP choice as best they can, don't realize their Microphones are still on after the segment - take a listen to what even the Republican Analyst are saying when they're not spinning for the camera.

Michel Gondry Tribute

In one of those "A-Ha" moments, I ran across much of Michel Gondry's work on U-tube. Have you ever found an unexpected common thread that tied up some of your favorite things? Without realizing the connection, turns out I've been a big fan of Michel Gondry and his work for years. What's amazing as well is that they were some of my favorite things from such dramatically different creative arenas. I was amazed to find that this one man tied them all together.

First one of my favorite movies, it was an engaging and challenging movie, and a visual and creative stunner (plus it didn't help that it starred sexy Gael García Bernal. Plus for extra pop culture kick it also starred Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of the lengendary French crooner Serge Gainsbourg.



Some of my favorite commercials and videos have also come from Michel Gondry, the list is too long to post, but this Smirnof ad is pretty representational. I've always loved this sort of surreal, fast cut, morphing approach. He's done work for Levi's, HP, and several European companies.



And how's this for a pop culture overdose, a piece by Michel Gondry, featuring Bjork playing a piano that drives a 70s spin art machine (I LOVED Spin Art!).



Then to top it all off, I find that he did my all-time favorite music video. It's a bit a classic from the Chemical Brothers. That at first glance just seems to be a camera pointed out a train window, then you realize that the light poles and various buildings are whizzing in time to the music. They apparently took hundreds of hours of footage from this train, then went through and picked the best ones, then did some major video editing to make this seamless video. Everytime you watch it you realize that almost every little thing in the video picks up some musical motif in the music.



Well enjoy!

A Very Atlanta Moment - Zesto's at Little Five Points

My new cell phone will have a camera, this little throw away slice of life piece really needs to be illustrated with the empty wrappers from a Zesto's foot long basket.



Clear Night at Zesto’s

Scarfing a foot long
At the window counter,
I spy high in the clear night
A slightly crescent moon
Smiling down on little 5 points.
It's all Cheshire cat grin,
Perhaps coveting my
Basket of tater tots
Or just amused at the
Chocolate Nut Brown Crown
Running down my chin.

Entropy

Entropy is an interesting scientific concept.

Here's an excerpt from www.entropylaw.com.

"the world is inherently active, and that whenever an energy distribution is out of equilibrium a potential or thermodynamic "force" (the gradient of a potential) exists that the world acts spontaneously to dissipate or minimize."

Or if you took this to a metaphysical level basically the world is set up to minimize or dissipate any state of high energy or potential. The universe likes things averaged out, it doesn't like a lot of waves, preferring smooth calm waters.


Entropicarious

The universe always
Walks downhill,
Being lazy,
Winding down,
In decline, decay.

Entropy seeking,
The dead calm,
Peace and quiet,
The easy path,
Of least resistance.

But to be human
Is to fight the fall
Aspire to higher states
Reverse the equations
Spit in fates eye.

To deny we are marbles
God drops into a
Rube Goldberg cosmos
Slaves of gravity
Until death.

Holding Poetry too Close

There's that romantic notion of poets and artists consumed with passion, producing masterpieces in some sort of crazed delirium of creative energy. Oddly enough though I keep finding myself, as much as I believe totally in the power of creativity and human interaction... I keep finding myself not turning to it, somehow doubting it. However, we wouldn't be poets, playwrights, painters, directors, if we didn't somehow at our core believe that we can make a differnce -- and not only that, but taht other people and their work, if we are open to it, can make a differene in our lives.


Crisis of Faith

Like all things held tight,
Passions close to heart,
Like priests in wartime
That lose their religion.
We can lose our poet’s heart
To tightness of grip, fists
That squeeze the blood out
Right between our fingers.

Is Creative Energy Finite? or a Bottomless Well?

I've been crazy busy lately with our company's move and some major projects at work. Then there's ongoing renovations at the old crack house I live in, and never enough time or energy it seems.

I'm guilty of trying to compartimentalize everything, and keep work, home, personal life, poetry, creativity in nice neat little manageable areas of my life. I also fall in the trap of thinking I'm constantly low, always starving for this sort of mythical mana of personal creative energy. Thinking that for some reason I only have enough to just focus on work, or just writing, or just personal life, etc.

However, it seems that the more I go down that path the less energy there is, the unhappier I am, the more unfufilled I am.

So there's this constant effort to remind myself that creativity and life energy is one of those rare items that the more you use the more you have.


Conservation of Energy

Divvied up, horded
In some inner fortress,
Behind locked doors,
Under heavy guard.
Energy razored out in neat
Cocaine lines,
On giant mirrors --
I dare not look into.

So precious as to be
Rendered useless,
So often counted
The edges worn.
One stack for work,
One to feed the meters,
A small dusty cache
For dreams delayed.

What once seemed so
Boundless in my youth,
Now seeming so finite
Demanding stingy parcels.
Denying the truth of
The creative universe
The one true
Perpetual Motion Machine.