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.