Oy! What A Year We Had ...

Lots on my mind as we wind down another year …

I keep thinking about Leelah Alcorn, the transgender girl who killed herself because her parents told her she was wrong, and a sin, and an abomination … and that since God doesn’t make mistakes, she must have been mentally ill to think she as transgender.

Too bad they couldn’t have thought, “God doesn’t makes mistakes so She sent us a transgender child to open our eyes and the eyes of the world.” Maybe then Leelah wouldn’t have walked in front of that truck.

I think about all those LGBTQ kids who felt they could no longer go on this year because of being bullied by friend, fellow students, teachers and their own parents. Think of what any of those kids might have accomplished if we all just learned to accept people for who they are, and not what we think they should be.

My sister died this year … I remember one of the last times I talked with her, about a month or so before she passed. She didn’t seem to know who I was, didn’t even ask about Carlos — which she always did — and just talked about what was on the TV screen she was watching. I realized then that the sister I’d loved my whole life was leaving me. I realized then that things would never be the same.

I still called and still talked and made sure that, even if she didn’t quite understand, the last words she heard from me were, “I love you.”

I also realized then that when she did go, on February 15, she was in a much better place, and didn’t hurt, and had her hair, and was laughing with my Mom. It’s not a God thing, it’s a universe thing.

I’m a happily married man, to another happily married man. 

When I met Carlos I never thought this was a possibility … even after Massachusetts and Iowa … even after California. Then the tide started turning and we started talking about it; we both wanted to be married, we both wanted to have a husband. We wanted that. And then to have my Dad ask to be there, well, that was the icing on the wedding cake, with the added cherry of having marriage equality come to South Carolina … South FREAKING Carolina … after we got back from Washington.

Amazeballs.

We used to shop at Kroger until we learned that Kroger has a ‘Meh’ attitude about Open Carry in their stores; I’d always said that if the day came when I had to ask someone to move their assault weapon so I could get a loaf of bread, it was time to shop elsewhere.

So we did; we went back to Publix — where we shopped when we lived in Miami — and now Publix is in the news. But for a good reason: starting tomorrow, Publix stores will offer full benefits packages to their employees’ same-sex spouses.

Guns. Equality. I choose equality.

Of course, when you factor in that kid who shot his mother with her own gun in a Wal-Mart, Kroger should be prepared for that to happen in one of their stores.

Lotsa coming out parties this year, too, and lots of Coming Out Toaster Ovens and copies of The Gay Agenda—a one page pamphlet, actually, featuring one word: “equability”—being sent out from HOMO HQ.

Michael Martin took his boyfriend to prom and came out at the same time. Daniel Franzese, who played the  'almost to gay to function' in Mean Girls is now openly gay; as is Derrick Gordon, a sophomore starter for the University of Massachusetts men's basketball team; Ty Herndon and Billy Gilman, two country music stars … yes, country music … decided to live their lives as gay men out and proud. 

Nate Alfson, a high school, baseball and volleyball coach for a Catholic high school came out as gay and kept his job!

Chip Sarafin, an offensive lineman for the Arizona State football, came out, as did John Fennell, who represented Canada in the luge at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. 

British singer Sam Smith came out with the release of his debut album, In the Lonely Hour, saying the album “is about a guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn’t love me back.” Tyler Glenn, the lead singer of Neon Trees and a Mormon, also came out; Mitch Eby, a Junior and defensive end for the Chapman University Football team, too.

Federico Díaz, Uruguayan actor and telenovela heartthrob, is now openly gay, along with high school swimming star, Jack Thorne, and Pete Cahall, principal of Washington DC’s Wilson High School who chose the school’s annual Pride Day event to finally tell his students that he is gay. Adam Joseph, Philadelphia meteorologist for 6ABC, announced the birth of his first child, publicly, acknowledged his partner of five years, Karl, and came out as gay.

Brad Thorson, a former college football player and former player for the Arizona Cardinals and Neal Baer, the executive producer and showrunner for CBS' 'Under the Dome' are out and proud; and after years of speculation, rumor, questions, guesses, dreams, Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe came out as gay.

Kristian Nairn, an actor from Game of Thrones, came out, and so did Democratic Arizona State Senator Steve Gallardo, after listening to the arguments for that Arizona anti-LGBT, so-called religious freedom bill;  Matt Kaplon, student and baseball player for Drew University, came out to his team and the world last weekend after being inspired by the coming out story of NCAA basketball player Derek Schell; Brazilian diver, and Olympic hopeful, Ian Matos came out as gay, saying he was inspired by fellow diver Tom Daley’s coming out.

Djuan Trent, Miss Kentucky 2010, came out as lesbian on the heels of that federal judge ruling that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Marcus Juhlin, a Swedish football player, is gay; so is actress Ellen Page and retired Premier League footballer Thomas Hitzlsperger.

Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, a U.S. snowboarder who missed the cut for Team USA, has come out as lesbian, and Michael Sam said he was gay, making him the first openly gay professional football player in this country.

We’ll be restocking the shelves with kitchen appliances and pamphlets as soon as possibly, because after last year we made need even more!

Politics. 

You cannot keep Obama down; even after that ridiculous 2104 mid-term election fiasco, he is not gonna  sit idly by and let the Republicans run roughshod over this country and try to turn back the clocks to the 1950s, when The Gays were in closets, and women couldn’t chose and racism was fun.

Gossip. I do so loves me some gossip. Paltrow? Loathe you, but you keep me in stitches with your shenanigans. 

Lohan actually made her stage debut and, while the reviews weren’t great, she wasn’t a major screw up … onstage. Off-stage she’s still Party Hardy Lohan. 

And Justin Bieber … I’ve made fun of your size … I’ve called you a talentless hack and a spoiled brat … I giggled when you wet yourself after getting arrested …, I found you obnoxious and ridiculous and just plain sad … That’s all.

Police shootings. And most of the victims are Black. Please try to tell me there isn’t a double standard when Michael Brown, a Black man, gets gunned down in the streets for allegedly stealing some cigars and Eric Garner, a Black man, gets choked to death for selling loose cigarettes, but Julia Shield, a White woman, strapped on armor and drove around a Chattanooga neighborhood shooting at people and police, and was just arrested. 

Explain to me the difference between John Crawford III, a Black man, holding a BB gun in a Wal-Mart and is shot to death by police, but two white men who go into a Wal-Mart, take BB guns off the shelves, load them and then start shooting are simply arrested.

There should be no difference, yet because there seems to be one, we have a lot to talk about in 2015.

It’s been a year of ups and downs, and highs and lows, but, for me, the ups and the highs outweigh the rest. I’m still here, still loved and in love, still Dad to some weird wild wacky pets. Still living in Small-town South Carolina. Okay … that might be a down.

I kid.

Tomorrow, we are off to the Round-The-Way-Gays, Neal and David’s, New Years Day, Newlyweds — three couples in our little group got married last year — and Not-So-Newly-Born Party. It’ll start 2015 just right!

Give. Thanks.

I first posted this back in Ott-Eight,  and decided to edit it a bit and repost it today, to kind of remind me of where I was then, what I thought then, and what I wanted out of life; the more things change the more they stay the same.

Not to brag, but I've been told that I am an extremely polite person. I was raised on Please and Thank You, Yes Ma'am, No Sir, and I still act that way today.

True story: I was selected for jury duty back when we lived in Miami and when they were questioning us in the courtroom, it was my turn to stand. Well, it was a narrow aisle, so I put my hands behind my back, and as the judge and the lawyers began to ask their questions, I always answered Yes sir, No Sir.

The judge stopped for a second and smiled. "Are you in the military?" he asked.

"No, sir" I said. "I was raised by a military man and a Southern woman."

True story: A few years before that, while living in California, I was in a grocery store buying a birthday cake for a co-worker. I asked if I may please order a cake. May I please have a name iced onto it? I pleased and thank you'd my way through the ordering process and finally the girl left to go in the back and finish my order. But then, just before disappearing to that back room, she turned around and said to me, "I think you are the most polite person I've ever waited on."

I smiled and said, "Could you just shut up and ice my damn cake!"

When all else fails slip into sarcasm. That's my motto. But I digress.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, probably because there are no gifts involved, except for the gift of time; time spent with loved ones and friends; the gift of thanks. This is a day of thanks for Americans; a truly American holiday, like 4th of July, but one we celebrate not with picnics and beer, firecrackers and sparklers, but with a meal we share with loved ones, friends and family.

I have so much to be thankful for this year.

Yes, the usual family and friends and health and happiness, blah blah blah, everyone says that. But I am also thankful that we are an America on the verge of a new day, when we are all, even those of us under the LGBT balloon, considered more equal than we have been in the past.

Fourteen years ago, Carlos and I couldn’t be legally married anywhere in this country, and here we are now, married, legally, in South Carolina and 34 other states and the District of Columbia. I never saw that coming, but I am so thankful for that.

I am thankful for the years I had with my sister — and missing her every single day — because of the things she taught me, and continues to teach me. I am thankful that I could see her, and feel her, alongside my Mom as Carlos and I stood in a courtroom and said, “I do.” I could feel all that love, and for that I am always thankful.

I am grateful to her four daughters, all of whom she raised so well that when Carlos and I told them we were getting married, they all responded, “Now he really is our Uncle.”

I am thankful for my Dad. He didn’t ask for a gay son, but he got one; he didn’t know what to do with a gay son, but he did the best he could. And, when the time came to marry Carlos, and we decided to go west to Washington to do it, it made my Dad’s day. I think he was more excited than we were, more proud that we were doing it. I wish every gay person could have a Dad like mine, who sees that change is good, and sees that not everyone is the same — even in your own family — but who loves you all just the same.

I am thankful for cold mornings and blue skies.

I am thankful for small dogs and cats because, well, I'm bigger than them and I will always beat them. Just channeling Joan Crawford and Christina at the pool.

I am thankful for......Carlos. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about how lucky I am to have him; even the days when he makes me insane …. More insane? … I realize I’d rather be driven nuts by him than not to have him at all. I am thankful for the smirk he gives me; I am thankful for the look of horror on his face when I bust out in a showtune; I am just plain thankful. I don’t know where I’d be, or who I’d be, if I hadn’t met him all those years ago.

I am thankful to my Mom, especially today. Thanksgiving was always her holiday; cooking for her family was my mother’s greatest joy and a great gift to all of us. I am thankful that I can keep that tradition alive, and can see my Mom in that.

I am thankful for leaves changing color and drifting to the ground on a breeze.

I am thankful for music and pets and soft blankets and breathing and speaking, and having a voice when I speak.

I am thankful for thinking being feeling loving living.

For Life.

And all it encompasses.

To Life.

Thanks.

Happy Birthday Jeri

Life is strange; I’ll start there.

My mother passed away from lung cancer on February 17, 2007, and this past February 15, 2014, my sister passed away from the same disease. I somehow knew my sister, who had been in failing health, would go right around the same time as when my mother passed. I took a psychology course in college called “Death and Dying” and was amazed at how many terminally ill people wait until an anniversary, or birthday, or significant day has passed, or has come around again, before they, too, pass on.

It should also be noted that on February 14, 2009, my Aunt Pam also died from lung cancer, so February is not a happy month in my family, but I digress ….

My mother’s 77th birthday was last week, on the 27th, and naturally, though she isn’t here, I spent a great deal of time thinking about her because we’d celebrated that day for so long and just because the person is no longer here doesn’t mean the day doesn’t matter.

All of that leads me to today, which is my sister’s birthday, and the first one to pass since she died. I am reminded that my sister died a couple of days before the anniversary of my mom’s passing, and that their birthdays are also just a few days apart. It seems fitting, and still unbearably sad.

Still, I 'll think of good times, happy times, big sister stories. Today is about my big sister, older than me by just fifteen months. That’s not a lot of time, really, and even though we were a couple of grades apart in school, we were very close in age, but that’s about it. We were very different people; very different, even though I learned a lot from her, about myself, about my life, about life, and today, on what is, and will always be her birthday, I’m remembering all she taught me.

My big sister; my very first best friend; I loved her from the moment I was born, and I imagine she'd say she loved me from that second, too, even if I was 'the new baby.'

My big sister; we were very different. She was gregarious and out-going and had tons of friends and was always doing something. I was shy, almost petrifyingly so — my mom used to joke that I didn't start talking until I was eighteen — and I had just a handful of friends.

My big sister; she could be as stubborn as a mule, and had quite the temper, while I always tried to please, and be the nice one, and not draw attention to myself. We were as different as night and day, and as thick as thieves.

My sister has cancer, had cancer. Now she doesn't, now she's safe and free and doesn't hurt and has her hair, and might be sitting with my mother right now, talking things over, and reminiscing some. That makes me feel a little better. My big sister and I have like minds on death: there is no fear of it, though there is also no anticipation for it. There is just this sense that death is part of our journey and, naturally, a necessary step.

My big sister; she taught me all sorts of things, even though she wasn’t all that much older. But she gave me life lessons, some which took, and others which took a while.

This story is about a basketball game, and a pair of high school mascots. Our school team was the Cougars and there were a pair of Cougars who stood on the sidelines during football and basketball season, riling up the crowds, playing with the cheerleaders and generally just having fun.

One night, one of the mascots couldn't make the game, and she asked my sister to take her place. The other girl also begged off, and, well, my sister asked me. I said, 'No.’

As a young closeted gay kid, I did not draw attention to myself; I stayed in the shadows as much as I could, but when my sister asks, well, sometimes it feels like an order. And so I thought about it; I thought it might be fun to not be me for a while. So, I relented.

The costumes were big, furry, heavy, and hot, but I kept my cougar head on all night so no one knew it was me. Still, it gave me the chance to act in public like I wanted to act, and not like I thought I should. I learned that it was okay to be different, to march to a different drummer, to act the fool, to have fun for fun’s sake. To not care what people thought about you.

Again, it was a lesson that took a while to stick; there were other lessons that needed to be learned first, like accepting myself, coming out, and allowing others to accept me, too, but for those couple of hours on a Friday night in November, 19fumphity-fumphy, I was my one true self … under a fur covered head, yes, but my one true self.  I learned from my sister that it was okay to be yourself, because she knew who that fool in the cougar costume was, but she still loved him, no matter how he acted.

I've been thinking about more of those times since today should have been cake and cards and phone calls, but is now, mostly silent.

I’ve been thinking about all of the lessons my sister taught me ... and this is another one:

My sister joined the Air Force many moons ago and began moving around the world — Spain and Germany — and back again; Delaware, and I think New Mexico was in there, too. But soon enough she came back to California where the family lived and we got to see one another more often.

She was a mountain girl, living in a small town in the foothills outside Sacramento, while I lived smack dab in the middle of our Capitol City. We were quite different; she enjoyed gardening, I enjoyed nice dinners with good wine; she was garage sale, I was Macy's. She was married, I was gay.

Different. But this story isn't about that. This story is about the day she taught me what I think is the greatest lesson a person could learn: how to say I love you. See, I was good at writing those words on a card, or signing them at the bottom of a letter, but I wasn't too keen on saying them out loud for whatever reason. 

But, one day, many years ago, she called to chat — my sister loves to chat on the phone and I loathe it ... yet another difference — and we talked about all kinds of things, from what we were doing to what the world was doing. At the end of the chat, as we were saying our goodbyes, she said, All right then, I love you.

I said, Thanks. And I hung up.

Thanks? That was my response to my sister saying I love you? I mean, I guess I meant Thank you for loving me but that isn't really the correct response either, is it? So, as I tend to do, I sat there after that phone call and wondered why it was so hard for me to say those words, and I realized that I come, came, from a family that didn't really ever 'say' the words. We showed our love; we knew we were loved; I guess we all just felt we didn't have to 'say' it. 

Also, I thought, subconsciously, that I didn't deserve to be loved because I was the 'different' one; the gay son. I mean, my parents knew I was gay, and they were fine with it; they loved me. But I’ve always wondered if they ever hoped that I wasn't gay; what parent wants a gay kid? No matter how much you love them, as a parent, you realize their lives would be easier if they weren't gay. So, I felt loved, but at the same time, unworthy of being loved because I wasn't the 'son' that had been expected.

My sister, however, thankfully, thought differently. Just saying I love you so easily and simply, without force, made me realize that I was worth it.  And I thank her for that. See, after that conversation, and after my introspection, I listened to what she was saying: we all knew we were loved but she wanted us to hear it. And that made a huge difference.

I didn’t change overnight and turn into one of those people that say I love you at the drop of a hat; it took time. And, I think the first time I said it back to her I probably choked on the words a little bit, as though they were somehow foreign to me, but it got easier and more natural.

And, I think it helped push away some of the Old Bob who might have been fearful of love and being loved. I think, having my sister teach me that lesson made it all the easier for me to tell Carlos I loved him, and to hear him say it back to me, and to keep telling him and telling him and telling him.

It wasn't that my sister loved me, I always knew that, and I always will know that, it's that she made me realize I was worth it, and I could say it, and hear it and mean it and be it. That's just one of the lessons my sister taught me.

My sister, my big sister. My hero. So while today hurts, for so many reasons, I want to think back on the laughs. The time we had a party at the house while my mother and father took our little brother to an A’s game in Oakland, and how my parents never caught on; at least until we told them, years later, after the statute of limitations was up.

I want to think of my sister who was a wonderful mother, to four wonderful girls; she instilled in each of them her independence, her sense of self, her sense of worth, her joy, her love.

I want to think of my sister with her husband, Tom. It took her a while to find him, but when she did it was the best thing she ever did. No one made my sister as happy and loved and comfortable and peaceful and filled with life, as Tom.

So, I'm gonna sit for a while and think about the last time we were all together and stood still long enough for a picture. I'm going to laugh and smile, and feel loved, and feel love ...

For my sister.

Random Musings

Out in Indiana, anti-equality GOP Governor Mike Pence — who might make a run at the White House in 2016 — issued a memo ordering state agencies not to recognize the hundreds of same-sex marriages that took place in the brief period when marriage equality was legal and before a stay was ordered.

Asshat. And I cannot wait for what he’ll say, or how he’ll spin it, when the courts order equality to stand. How quickly might he change his tune in his bid at the presidency?

Flip-flopping asshatted tool.

Speaking of marriage ….

Last weekend I updated my Facebook status to tell friends and family that Carlos and I would be getting married this October:

Well, after fourteen looooooooong years together, Carlos and I have decided that, in the words of the immortal Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, "Enough is enough is enough is enough is enough is enough ... it's enough" and we will be getting married this October. Who would ever saw that coming, eh?

And we received some lovely wishes from friends and family all over the globe, but there was one message that was, well, unexpected and eerie.

I noticed that I had a couple of personal messages and checked them out. One was from a friend just wanting to chat, but the other was just a smiley face ,,, from my sister.

Now, to be clear, the simple smiley face was sent by my sister as a sign-off to a chat we’d had back in December, two months before she passed away; and I had seen it back then, but how wonderfully eerie and sweet that, for whatever reason, it was once again listed as a new message right after I announced that Carlos and I were gettin' hitched?

My big sister is still looking out for me …

Oh geez, won’t this woman ever go away?

It seems that after The View fired Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd, the Mama Grizzly Bore™ weighed in the topic suggesting that she would be a good addition to the program.

Asked by a reporter — possibly from the lame-stream media she says she loathes — if she had any interest in doing a "political talk show," MGB™ replied, "I hear everyone recently got canned from 'The View,' maybe a show like that needs a punch of reality and a voice of reason from America's heartland to knock some humble sense into their scripts. You know, someone willing to go rogue."

By rogue she means, put the final nail in the coffin of a show that should have died years ago.

I am a goofball. I like to make jokes all the time, about anything and everything; sometimes cute little jokes and sometimes the most offensive things imaginable just to get a reaction out of people.

Carlos, on the other, while he has a fabulous sense of humor, isn’t so keen on being a goofball and the other night I tried to break him out of that shell.

See, there’s a commercial for Tropicana orange juice where you hear Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor sing “Good Mornin’” from  Singing in the Rain  and I always, always, sing along with it, adding some jazz hands for effect.

The other night I asked Carlos to sing it with me and he refused. I begged, pleaded, cajoled, threatened and he still said ‘No.’

I accused him of being uptight, and he uttered, in a somewhat high-pitched voice tinged with an English accent:

“I am not upt-i-i-i-i-ght.”

I said, “Who are you supposed to be? Dame Judy Dench?”

He said, “Maybe.”

I said, “Sounds more like Dame Judy Clench.”

PS I’m still waiting for him to sing to me.

Last week Pope Frankie met with six victims of pedophile priests; his first such meeting since becoming The Head Cheese last year. He said that Catholic bishops "will be held accountable" for failing to protect children from sexual abuse, but made no move as to how this would work, leading many, including myself, to think this was just a media moment and means nothing in the long run.

Sure, I’m cynical about the Catholic Church protecting children from priests who rape them, but that’s because they haven’t shown any action at all in that area. It’s all lip service, though I am hoping Pope Frankie proves me wrong.

Madonna was called to jury duty this week in New York and appeared an hour late — some say she was told to show up late to avoid the crowds and the sensation that a fading pop singer who fails to act her age, might receive.

Madge, who had been excused in May thanks to a doctor’s note :::coughcough::: plastic surgeon :::coughcough:::  was surrounded by her security team as she entered the clerk’s office and not the regular jury assembly room. She was immediately excused because there were ‘ample jurors’ and she was also bypassed because her presence was causing a commotion.

Watch licking her armpits again? Calling her son the N-word? Posting a dozen or some Photoshopped pictures to Instagram? Because that would be Madge on jury duty; it would be all about her.

So, I watched some of the World Cup these past weeks, though without the fervor of most in the world, and many in this country; I do, however like, all the man-on-man groping and kissing and tugging down of the shorts, making the games seem almost soft-core porn.

Speaking of which …

I often caught ESPN’s panel of experts talking about the games and the winners and losers and there, right in the middle, was one gorgeous man, whom I assumed, because of his coloring was Latino—and you all know how I feel about the Hispanic Mens.

Michael Ballack was his name, and he was a former soccer player from Germany. Yes, he looks Hispanic but he’s German.

And oh so delicious.

Enough with the actual games, give me more recaps.

Julie Bindel — don’t worry, I never heard of her either — wrote a book called  Straight Expectations in which she argues that sexual orientation is a choice.

Well, except for her, I guess, because she said this …

“All I know is I’ve never been convinced by a scientific argument, or seen any evidence that is compelling that there is something innate about our sexuality. What I’m suggesting is, there are people who could go one way or the other and happily choose to be lesbian or gay.”

And then she said this about her choosing to be gay …

“Because I needed to leave home – there was nothing there for me in Darlington – and pursue my feminist possibilities, that meant starting a new life and all that was open to me. I fell in with a crowd [in Leeds] who spoke about lesbianism as part of women’s liberation. I never chose to be attracted to women.”

Huh. So she says I chose to be gay because there is no proof that it could be any other way and then says she didn’t choose it at all.

Siddown asshat.

District Court Judge C. Scott Crabtree on Wednesday ruled that Colorado’s 2006 voter-approved ban violates the state and federal constitutions. He immediately put his ruling on hold pending an appeal.

Welcome to equality Colorado.

The march goes on …

This one makes me laugh … because, well, dumb.

Liberal Democratic Russian Parliament Member Roman Khudyakov has asked Russia’s Central Bank to change the 100 ruble note because, according to him, it “clearly” shows Apollo’s genitals and that runs afoul of Russia’s ban on exposing children to The Gays.

Khudyakov  complained that “intimate parts of the body” were visible on the banknote, which he says should have an “18+” rating under the anti-gay law.

I thought this was the height of stupidity, thinking that a statue on a piece of money would make the children gay but then I learned that in 2011 the real statue of Apollo, at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, was also censored when the exposed genitals were covered by a fig leaf.

Khudyakov doesn’t seem to think that Apollo’s microscopic penis on the currency might encourage lesbians to go straight.

Seriously.