Tarhearted.

QUEEN ON THE STREETS, MAN IN THE SHEETS.

I spent my twenty-first  birthday with one of my besties, Mallery Avidon (who's now a super famous playwright.) Or, I guess, the day before my 21st birthday. I was a sophomore at Cornish College of the Arts and most of my friends weren't locals like Mallery and me and were out of town for the holidays. San Francisco or wherever. Some in Los Angeles or Portland. Mallery and I smoked some pot (I assume) and saw Not Another Teen Movie at Westlake Center. We went to a bar in Pioneer Square (I think) and I had Goldschlager for the first time. ("You mean it has real gold flakes in it?") Mallery was house sitting for some rich people in Queen Anne who had a hot tub, so we took a cab there- but it was really just a big bath tub. We got in anyway.

What I remember most though is that I got to go to a gay bar for the first time that night. At midnight- my actual birthday. It was Neighbors in Seattle, and it was Rock Lobster- their new wave, 80's-only night. This was before the aughts had really started, music was in a lull (not starting for another year or two with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes, White Stripes etc.) so I was really into new wave. Because what else was there? All my older friends at school had been talking about Rock Lobster forever and I was dying to go. The bouncer made me wait until exactly midnight.

I remember checking my bag thinking, "This. This is the big city life. This is glamor." Later I visited Neighbors after living in New York for a few years and I was struck by how much it was like a barn dance it was. I guess once you've done blow in the backroom of The Cock, nothing ever seems quite so "urban" again. Anyway, Mallery quickly ditched me and so I skulked around with a rum and coke (do all 21-year-olds drink rum and cokes?) waiting for I don't know what to happen.

I ended up dancing with a cute but nerdy guy in his thirties. He eventually asked if I wanted to take off and I thought, "This is it! I'm actually gonna have a one night stand... like an adult!" It turned out he was a Canadian businessman of some sort and we had to take a cab all the way to his hotel in Bellevue. We had to tip toe to his room too because he had coworkers in the adjoining rooms on either side.

Once we were inside his room he was all business. He whipped off his clothes and was all, "Are you clean?"

I thought, "I'm only 21. Of course I am. Just what kind of girl do you take me for?" But I just said yeah. I don't remember the sex or if we actually had it. It could have just been naked groping and making out. We were very, very drunk. Or I was, anyway. I do remember him asking me if I worked out and telling him that, no, I didn't.

"You better start or you'll lose this body when you're 30."

The next morning- December 21st, 2001- he put me in a cab back to the city, but not before giving me his business card. His name was Rob Wood. I don't know how I didn't catch that. On the back of the card he'd written, "Happy birthday! USA is #1!" I think I still have it somewhere.

In the cab on the way back to the city I reached into my pocket to get my chapstick and discovered forty dollars. Rob Wood slipped forty dollars into my jeans. At twenty-one, I was already a cheap old whore. I put some sunglasses on, drank a bottle of water to stave off my hangover and thought to myself, " Fuck, dude. I am an adult."

That was ten years ago today. Fuck, dude.

 

KREAYSHAWN AND BASIC BITCHES.

Should we talk about Kreayshawn? Yes, let's. God knows everybody else is. I've seen this video on Gawker and Jezebel and more, so I'm pretty late to the game. But whatever. This is a personal blog. I write on my own schedule.

Kreayshawn just got a fancy record contract with Columbia, so good on her. Watch this video and come back.

 

First thing's first. Here are the things I like about Kreayshawn:

1. She's from Oakland. If you haven't noticed from my obsession with Hunx & his Punx, Shannon and the Clams and Nobunny, I'm totally enamored of Oakland and its scene.

2. Her mom is in a surf punk band, The Trashwomen. That gives her some music cred, as far as I'm concerned.

3. This is really shallow, but I love her look and overall sense of fashion. And I love her friend with the glasses.

4. The song, for it's simplicity, is pretty fucking catchy.

 

Here are some reservations I have.

1. At first glance I really like the anti materialism, anti conformity messaging.

Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada
The basic bitches wear that shit, so I don't even bother

But, then, Kreayshawn contradicts herself and spits out the most common sorts of wealth flashing:

Young, rich and flashy I be where the cash be

So which is it, Kreayshawn? As my A.P. English teacher, Mrs. Ferguson, would say: "Stay on thesis."

2. This is a bit more complicated, and as a white man I may not be the best person to be writing about this, but when I see a white hipster surround herself with people of color in a rap music video, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Is she being ironic? Or is this who Kreayshawn genuinely is? Is this where she comes from? I don't know whether this is co-opting or the real deal, and it makes me feel uneasy. Am I alone in this? Maybe I am, since I haven't seen anybody else write about it.

The first time I saw a picture of Ke$ha, I felt similarly. I'd heard the song "Tik Tok" all over the place, and when I saw that the singer was actually a white girl from L.A. it gave me pause. That said, I don't know Kreayshawn or Ke$ha's personal histories and can't know what's in their hearts. I went to predominantly Black and Latino public schools in some of the cities I lived in, so I know first hand that there are white kids growing up amongst people of color exclusively. But I also know from living in Seattle and then Williamsburg that white hipsters will sometimes embrace parts of hip hop in a way that's semi ironic and pretty gross. Are these artists racist for co-opting what could be considered a "black" sound, or am I racist for thinking a sound is "black" or "white"? Are we ALL racists? I honestly don't know.

 

 

TATTOOS I WANT.

 

TWO THINGS.

1. This footage of the subway 25 years ago is fascinating to me. A lot of people I know, especially native New Yorkers,  talk about how the city is so much nicer than it used to be. I don't know... I've always wanted to live in the grittier, tougher New York. The New York of After Hours. The New York of C.H.U.D. sans the cannibals in the seweres, I guess. It seemed like it was a lot more fun. I was hoping that when the economy crashed and everybody was as poor as I am the city might slide back, but no such luck. Another thing: where the hell did the K train go? A friend and I were just talking about the letters that were unused by MTA and wondered why: H, I, K, O, P, T, U, X, Y. I guess we can cross K off that list?

 

2. When I was in college I was obsessed with the band Gravy Train!!!! If you don't know them, they are (were?) a queercore electro band from Oakland, California who sang and rapped their way through hilarious and filthy songs like "You Made Me Gay" and "Cotton Mouth BJ". Now one of the gay boys from Gravy Train!!!!, Hunx, has a side project in Hunx and His Punx. This album combines so many things that I love, you don't even know. It's inspired by girl groups of the early sixties set through the lens of contemporary gay dudes.

It. Is. Awesome. This will definitely be the only thing I listen to for the next six months.

Here is the video for You Don't Like Rock N' Roll, which could have been my theme song when I was single and dating years ago. I once dumped a dude on the spot because he'd never heard of R.E.M. I'm not even an R.E.M. fan per se, but come on. That's 101 shit.

 

WHY I'M SWEDISH NOW.

I'm super depressed about the election results. Republicans won big, which means corporate America, Jesus Inc. and the institution of stupidity won big too. But America lost. I don't have the heart to even think about the implications of this election to gay rights, the separation of church and state, women's rights, income disparity....

Can't I be Scandanavian? I'm trying not to give up hope, but Americans keep proving they are the most violent, stupid, hateful, backwards nation in the West. To quote Diane Lane in one of my favorite films, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains:

"Suckers! SUCKERS!"

 

LOVE THE SINNER, HATE THE SIN. CHRISTIANS AND ANTI GAY BULLYING.

One of the most frustrating things about being in the gay rights movement is religious people that honestly beleive they harbor no ill will towards LGBT people, even while denying them civil rights. You know, the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" schtick that every gay person knows is absolute bullshit.

I understand that religious folk might not feel like they hate gay people, but when you marginalize people, remove their civil rights, mobilize against their quality of life, you are committing an act of hate. No matter what your intentions are, good or bad, you are committing hate against another person. No matter what your religion says to the contrary.

Dan Savage just knocked it out of the park in response to a Christian who wrote into his column, Savage Love in The Stranger (my hometown paper!)

The Christian writes:

I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.

Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.

L.R.

 

Dan Savage responds:

 

 

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.

A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?

Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.

And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.

 

HELLO, MOM.

PROP 8 SUCKS.

I don't know how all of this will end up, but as a gay man getting married in another state because it isn't legal in my own I say to Judge Walker: WORK.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for standing up for basic fairness. 

FLAG.

Courtesy of the geniuses at Married to the Sea.

SHIRLEY, YOU JEST.

Something has been bugging me about this whole Shirley Sherrod story and I share this only because I'm afraid I'm crazy or missing something.

When it came to light that Breitbart's footage was probably doctored to make Sherrod look bad all of the media took a collective sigh and started back pedaling. Sherrod went from "reverse racist" to maligned victim of racism in 24 hours. "See, that footage was doctored! Her statements were taken out of context!"

Okay, so onto my question. Am I the only person who didn't think anything she said was inflammatory at all, even in Breitbart's edited video? I mean, all she did was share a personal anecdote about her own struggle with bias and how she got over it. This is a Southern black woman whose father was killed by the KKK and who, against systemic racism and sexism, found her way into a successful career despite the odds against her. I guess my question is essentially this: even if Shirley DID have some wariness toward white people, some sort mistrust or even anger, um... so what? I can't begin to imagine the shit she's been through in her life. She's more than earned a little wariness, a little anger. Have we become so PC that we have to pretend black and white people are on equal footing in this country and that Shirley's (alleged) prejudice is exactly the same as a white person's prejudice? 

As a somewhat effeminate gay man I sometimes feel really uncomfortable around straight dudes. It's not because I'm some sort of hater of heteros. IT'S BECAUSE STRAIGHT DUDES HAVE FUCKED WITH ME MY ENTIRE LIFE.

It's not prejudice, it's survival.