Ballad of a Ladyman: November 2008

ACCEPTED!!!

I GOT ACCEPTED INTO THE COSMETOLOGY PROGRAM AT THE AVEDA INSTITUTE!!!!!!!

I meet with the Director of Admissions on Tuesday to work out a financial plan and, from there, pick my start date!!!

No Guilt

I was talking to my pal Ron on IM about musical guilty pleasures and I said "I generally feel no guilt about any music because if it brings me some kind of joy or pleasure or catharsis or whatever, then it's good to me." When I was younger, about college age, I discovered punk rock/indie/underground music and spent some time being very concerned with the credibility of my music collection. The beloved Bananarama albums and 12" remix vinyl got pushed to the side in favor of Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear, the Voice of the Beehive, Mary's Danish and Shakespear's Sister CDs got shelved behind Superchunk, Unrest and Versus discs while I made sure that my record collection reflected the fact that I was Punk/Indie Since Birth and had never trifled with such pop confections or uncool song choices.

Thankfully, that period of time was short-lived and soon my many musical loves, cool or uncool, merged together in one collection and Keren, Sarah and Siobhan sat proudly alongside Kathleen Hanna and hundreds of others spanning the many genres of music I love. From then on I've really had a hard time mustering any guilt for any music I've enjoyed, whether it's been fleeting or long term. I went through a period in the late 90s where I really enjoyed the second Sheryl Crow album and played it as much as I played my beloved first Team Dresch album. I got sick of it eventually but I still sing along with songs from it if I hear them out in the world. Two weeks ago I couldn't get enough of these four Mariah Carey tracks I always enjoyed when I heard them on the radio so I found them on Limewire, downloaded them and played the fuck out of them for about 7 days straight. Do I think these are some of the best songs written in the world? No. Do I think they're loaded with substance and depth and rich meaning? Also, no. But are they well-crafted pop songs that bring me some kind of enjoyment for a moment or two? Yes, indeed.

Music is my most favorite form of art, bar none. It's a populist art form that anyone can access and enjoy. It's both incredibly personal and totally public in the same moment. A song can have intense, almost sacred meaning to someone as they play it alone in their room and then can explode with cathartic revelry when it's experienced in a live venue full of eager, excited fans. In the same way, a goofy, manufactured pop song can make you dance around like a maniac and have a lot of fun all on your own or with a group of people, sweating and singing and loving every sugary minute of it. And this can all be done guilt-free. Guilt is one of the most pointless emotions in existence, especially when it comes to music. If you're guilty about music you love or pretend you don't to everyone but yourself then you care too damn much about what people think and about your "cred" in some elitist music scene. Sure, I might not have a lot of respect for someone who loves the hell out of some Alan Jackson 9/11 song but if they love it then they love it and there's nothing I can do about it. That's the beauty of music: no one is going to love every song ever written and what may be someone's most treasured tune may make someone else wish they were earless. But, no matter what, you should never feel guilty for loving the music you love. You should just play it as loud as you want and let it work its magic on you.

"Situation" Video Debuts on LOGO this Sunday!

[I copied this from our Myspace bulletin because I am lazy. Ex-Boyfriends' video for "Situation" is FINALLY making it onto LOGO!]

It's time to set your DVR on "stunning" or chug a cup of coffee so you can stay up late this Sunday to see the debut of our video for "Situation" on LOGO's NewNowNext program! Now you have the chance to see all the wet, muddy, bondage-y goodness on an actual TV screen as opposed to in a squishy little YouTube video player. Here's the schedule for that Sunday so you make sure to watch/record at the right time.

We're super excited, naturally, and await this video debut as a vehicle to propel us from virtually unknown to slightly less unknown. Hooray!

xoxo EXBF

The Labels Don't Lie

Not so much of a fail, really.

see more pwn and owned pictures

"Life's not the French Riviera!"

They just don't make TV theme songs like this anymore. And it's a damned shame that they don't!

Indeed

more lol celebs!

Wow, wow, wow!!

Hilarious comedienne and all-around awesome individual Wanda Sykes just came out as a lesbian within the last 24 hours!

"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life," Sykes told a crowd at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas on Saturday.

"Everybody that knows me personally they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives," she said.

Sykes, who is known for her feisty and blunt style, said the passage of California's Proposition 8 made her feel like she was "attacked."

"Now, I gotta get in their face," she said. "I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay."

Sykes' appearance at the Las Vegas rally surprised organizers. She was in town performing at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. "

My aunt recently said, in reference to my Dad's passing and some personal revelations that have happened as a result, that you always have to look for "the gift" in all situations. And while that phrase may seem a bit hokey or cliche, I definitely agree with her. So maybe while all of this shitstorm around Prop 8 is happening we're seeing some positive results like this. I mean, this is seriously huge! I can't think of another out, black woman who is so well known in the entertainment industry.

Okay, I actually love this.

Fully laughed out loud and everythang.

more lol celebs!

Keepsakes

I recently traveled to Maine to join my family in memorializing my Dad and spreading some of his ashes in one of his favorite spots on the planet. My Uncle and Aunt put together a great scrapbook for me full of photos of and clippings about my Dad. Click all photos to see larger versions.

I'd never seen my Dad as a kid or a young man. His face was always very tanned and weathered as a result of his decades of working outdoors as an iron worker. I think I just imagined him being born that way - a little baby with deep lines and tanned skin!

Such a little ham, totally playing all cute to the camera!

I think he looks so much like a 50s movie star in these photos. I love the style of old photos so much, even the somewhat cheesy colorizing that makes everyone look like they have makeup on.

My Dad really loved his time in the Marines. This is a photo of him in his dress uniform with some of his Marine pins. I am working on a memorial tattoo concept that will incorporate the iconography of the pin.

My own in-progress albums of photos I have of him. My favorites are the ones of us together when I was very young. I don't really remember those times but seeing them brings me a lot of joy. Almost every one of them involves him playing with me and my toys and it brings to mind the joyful, playful side my Dad always had despite some of his darker, more difficult moods.

I have already looked at these photos dozens of times, multiple times a day. It's nowhere near a substitute for having him here but they definitely are a bit of a salve on the wound of loss.

No on H8, Yes on Racism

I've been reading more and more blog posts lately by white gay people who are so pissed off at the black voters who voted in favor of Prop 8. Bitching about how they "threw us under the bus" (such a tired, overused phrase, please retire it) and how we all voted for Barack Obama so where's our electoral reach-around as thanks for helping them out and getting their man into the White House? I see so many white gays drawing some thick, bold line paralleling being gay whites to being black in this country and I can't believe people are STILL trotting out that particular argument. It's like I've been catapulted back to the campus queer group at Sarah Lawrence College where, when queer students of color complained that the group put so much focus on the issues of queer white people and made it really unwelcoming towards queer people of color they were told "If you don't feel welcome, that's your problem. We're not excluding you." As if simply laying out a "Welcome" mat was all it took to eradicate the complex issues creating this divide in the first place. Only this isn't just a campus , this is that cultural/political crash writ large - an excuse for white gays to demand that their agenda once again be the sole focus and any untidy "others" can just hush up and tow the party line.

I really hate it when I am made to feel embarrassed by or ashamed of "my people".

Jasmyne Cannick has written a fantastic op-ed piece in the L.A. Times addressing the issues of the black community, specifically the black gay and lesbian community, and Proposition 8. Her piece echoes so many of the things I heard when I was in the campus queer group back at college and I have kept hearing ever since: there is more to the lives of black gay and lesbian people than their sexuality. They experience other forms of prejudice in the world and have other issues they are simultaneously faced with that have little to nothing to do with their sexualities. They are not divorced from the heterosexual black community around them and are not capable of dividing themselves up based on identity traits and ignoring certain things to champion a singularly gay issue. As I said to someone replying to a post in a friend's Livejournal about the parallel between the goals of the gay civil rights movement and the goals of the black civil rights movement:

"I guess I fail to see, in some ways, how the gay civil rights movement and the black civil rights movements are working for the same goals. I think it's one thing to talk about the interconnectedness of oppression and how things like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. do not exist as entirely separate entities. But I don't know if I see a direct parallel between the two movements. Part of the problem lies in the fact that sexuality cuts through so many things - race, class, gender, nationality, body, ability, etc. It's such an incredibly difficult issue to organize around and, more often than not, the leading voices of the movement assume a focus on the part of all community members - regardless of other aspects of their being outside of sexuality - on these very gay-centric issues. This is not to say that, on the flip-side, all black people agree on and deal with the same issues. But there is a lot more commonality of experience and unity in terms of what problems face many people in that community. So I think it's really difficult and rather disingenuous for white gay people to keep drawing such direct parallels between the two communities/movements.

This is not to say that their can't be coalition building, community outreach and an attempt at education on both sides. But it seems like the response from the white gay community has been much more about hostility and blaming than it has been about dialog."

Here is a pretty great video from Jasmyne Cannick's site that is far more eloquent than me and my rambling:

On a more simple note, blaming one group and lashing out with racist epithets at rallies is hateful, shameful and appalling. You want black people to see the right for gays to marry as important as their struggle for civil rights and then you turn around and shower them with hate speech when they don't all agree with you? How fucked is that? I mean, look, I am no Larry LoveTheWorld by any means, but it seems like for all the "NO ON H8" stuff I am seeing from blog to shining blog, it's almost always followed by noxious spewing of hatred against pro-8 racial groups or pro-8 religious groups. Are we all so immature that we don't get how hating doesn't fucking end hate??

In the end, I am a white gay man, so I am as much a part of the community whether I have problems with it or not. So I hope that I can help to be a voice of reason and try to create a dialog among my peers to talk some of them down from their racist high horses. Because, in the end, I think the issues coming up post-Prop 8 around racism and the tension between white gays and the black community - gay or otherwise, are kind of a lot more important than just the issue of gay marriage. And if that makes me a bad fag, well, so be it. It would hardly be the first time.

P.S. Adding a link to this fantastic LJ post by slit on the subject.

I feel so lucky

To be able to witness this historic moment.

Let's hope it's onward and upward from here.

And that Prop 8 doesn't fucking pass.

I so wish my Dad was here to see this!