Black History Year Announced: Millions Rejoice

February closes out now and so to does another year of Black History Month and Black History Month controversies.  I went to wikipedia to look up Black History Month and found this sad little entry which informed me that this international period of black history observance used to just be a week long.

Which got me thinking, why couldn’t we make this Black History Year? Indefinitely.

Here’s a fairly popular video where race expert Morgan Freeman discusses the race situation with Mike “I’m Jewish” Wallace.

“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?”

He’s right, absolutely right, why relegate his history to a month when we can spread it out as a year-long event.  I always hear about how Black History Month isn’t really needed because black history is American history, and so it should be taught alongside American history.  How do we do that? Well my idea of Black History Year solves that problem.

Think of it:  The first two weeks of every month dedicated to black history, or conversely every Wednesday of the month is a day of black reflection.  If we’re talking about a year-long history course then we can make hump days into black history days where we teach what was happening in the black experience at that point in time.  Are we teaching the Civil War? Is it Wednesday? How were black people coping?

Let’s not stop at Black History Year.  People are right to be concerned on the negligent way we treat other races within the narrative of American history (that of slack jawed onlookers).  What about Latino History Year on every other Monday, Native American History Year on every other Tuesdays, White Woman History Year every other Thursdays.

The days of the week in every instance of every year would be full of educational opportunities.  Surely every single person who has ever complained about Black History Month will rejoice at the possibilities of Black History Year.  Finally the black experience will truly be American History and not just relegated to a month.

Addendum: Another note on the Morgan Freeman video, specifically concerning the last bit where he says “we should stop talking about [race]” in order to solve racism. I think Mr. Freeman has been misconstrued as referring to the royal “we” as a nation, when he meant to refer to, specifically, himself and Mike Wallace.

 

Tags: black history month, black reflection, history days, morgan freeman, native american history, race expert

I always thought it was pronounced Whitney HOWstoun

Whitney Houston died in case you didn’t know.

I didn’t even know her funeral would be televised but there I was clutching my used shower towel on the way out of my door looking at her gospel themed funeral on TV with a bunch of opportunists  clamoring for the brief flash of lens.

And Whitney was buried, and let me emphasize that, Whitney the woman was buried, the human corporeal being, and I guess there is where comedians and frat boys are right when they rant that people sad for Whitney aren’t actually sad for the human corporeal being because we didn’t really know…it.

I didn’t know the bang of bones, fine, I admit it, and I’m writing this past the hype of her death to avoid that stigma. And I’m doing it partially because the people who showed up to Whitney’s funeral pissed me off because  one woman on camera was holding a Michael Jackson poster. That’s like showing up to my funeral and showing up with a picture of a guy who was slightly cooler than me (Sean Connery?)

But I also want to honestly confess that the week before Whitney’s death I had been listening to her latest album, her comeback album entitled “I Look To You” as uploaded to spotify.  Her voice was deep, guttural, but also kind of wise, and I recognized one song on it titled “Million Dollar Bill.”

“Gee, that’s the song that’s played in the background of lots of gay bars I’ve been to having inane conversations with Fly G and a bunch of assorted maniacs. I didn’t know that was Whitney…”

 Then I listened to more.  Wow there’s that one song I jammed to “How Will I Know,” I LOVE that song. Then there’s “Saving All My Love For You,” my aunt played this song nonstop when I grew up.

“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” was on repeat for about 25 plays that day.

Then she was dead, but she’d been dead for a while right? Just another life lost to drugs and drink and, really, indifference. 

Here’s to you Whitney. You made a difference. Not a lot of people can claim that can they?

Oh and a bonus, the first song I remember blaring from the speakers from a gay club, back from when such a thing mattered to me, was the Thunderpuss remix of “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”

 

Powerful stuff for someone just getting used to their body.

Cynthia Nixon “MY left handedness was a choice”

Cynthia Nixon shocked the world, and by the world I mean some bloggers and a few of my facebook friends, when she said she made the choice of being left handed.  Left handed people shouted back and said she was being ridiculous because, to the best of their knowledge, they were born left handed and any attempt at writing with their right hand made them feel pretty stupid.

Cynthia Nixon rethought it and said that, yes, she was born amBIdextrous, but she hated that label because everyone regards amBIdextrous people to be scummy showoffs.

She’s partially right. AmBIdextrous people are right next to “reality show stars” in the spectrum of people we trust, and it’s sad because they’re people just like everyone else and they’re as trustful as your left handed and right handed neighbors.

Though I’m sad that little amBIdextrous children will listen to Cynthia Nixon and think they have to hide their amBIdexterity because everyone just uses their right or left hand.  Little kid, you are ambidextrous, and it’s time ambidextrous people everyone be out and proud.  When you date a left handed person, don’t pretend to be left handed, because writing with your right hand is also a big part of you.

AmBIdextrous people need to come out because there are some very confused and angry people people who are in right handed marriages who believe, very strongly, that left handedness was a choice. Imagine how their minds will be blown when they find out about you guys.

And right handed and left handed people, we need to accept the ambidextrous people very quickly because the people who write with their feet are coming up right after them.

 

 

Best paragraphs in my novel

I’ve done it! I’ve officially written the best paragraphs in my novel (so far).  Here they are with absolutely no context:

  Dust motes danced in front of Bryce as he stepped into the light.  Four center shelves filled with books towered above him, and the walls extended outwards and around in a sphere as they were abundantly full of manuscripts from top to bottom. He looked at the floor and found discarded pages, drawings, and books with no covers.  As he approached Seto’s desk he stopped and looked at a shelf, and languishing on it were loose pages, ripped binding, and more remnants of a time since passed.
  What seemed–at first–to be a library full of records, was now nothing more than a graveyard of pages.  No books had covers, and all the stories had burned beginnings and no endings.

Pro bono editors welcome.

No Cursing

Image found here

I developed two new years resolutions after the main event happened.  The resolutions snuck up on me throughout the beginning of January and I kept them because I figured they weren’t such bad ideas.

One is fairly traditional: Finish a novel.  We’ve got 14,000 words down and 80,000 to go and I’ve found the whole business of building a novel to be surprisingly do-able as I’m a windbag.

The second one is a bit more non-traditional and has offended a few sensibilities: I am not going to curse this year.

I think my generation was raised in a very prudish world of network television FCC guidelines, and the oppressive nature of these censors had a direct effect on how we communicate online.  While you couldn’t say certain words on TV, we found we could say all of the most horrible rude words on the Internet, and everyone went for it with amazing gusto.

When I started blogging I went for it too.  I had C-words, and N-words, and F-words, and in some cases I melded two or three curse words together to make new and crazier curse words.

Tags: curse words, howard stern, new years resolutions, patron saints

Mayan Apocalypse

I’ve become a happier person since the last update.

That’s a hard thing to convey without breaking out complicated plots that end up with people holding hands or a video of the It’s a Small World ride in Disneyland.

Oh what the hell.

Btw reading It’s a Small World described as the world’s happiest cruise makes me think of the world’s saddest cruise: It’s A Huge Improbable and Scary World where every rider is meant to think of the world as a huge uncaring place where your friend and family’s love isn’t real.

It’s A Huge Improbable and Scary World isn’t a big money-maker.

Anyway, this space is still mine and I’ve still thought about it for a great deal.  And now that I’m off of my Skyrim addiction I will start updating it again.  One of the bigger deals so far is that I’m writing a novel, fiction even, because making things up has been a strong suit of mine ever since I faked an illness at 13 to get out of mandatory Tae Kwon Do classes.

After I’m done I may tackle non-fiction; which wikipedia defines as: “the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact. This presentation may be accurate or not—that is, it can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question—however, it is generally assumed that authors of such accounts believe them to be truthful at the time of their composition”

Which sounds an awful lot like lying to me, but what do I know?

Tea Party Republicans vs Juggalos

I used to think Republicans were just assholes, but not until recently have I started to think of them as evolutionary dead ends.  

Their debates have included cheering for people dying and audience members booing a soldier because he was gay.  Weren’t these the same people who tried to guilt the entire country to “support our troops” no matter what?  Didn’t they have Sarah Palin parrot about “death squads” to prevent universal healthcare from happening?

Do they actually stand for anything?  

Here’s a thought experiment, tell me why it is wrong to commit genocide.  Here’s my answer: no matter who you choose to wipe out, you’ll be wiping out something of value, something worth saving, be it culture, values, kinship, art; a group of people, no matter how odious they appear to be, will be worth saving.

Tea Party Republicans are not worth saving. They have no culture, no art, no values to speak of, and they stand for nothing. They are husks of humanity, there’s nothing inside them and nothing of value to them.  Juggalos are worth saving over Republicans.  Here’s a juggalo in case you don’t know: 

 

They’re some of the worst people in the world: Mysogynists, racists, freeloading, and dirty as all hell, but if a house full of Juggalos was burning next to a house full of Tea Party people it would be no contest, I’m saving the Juggalos because they have some sort of value system that’s identifiable on a very base level.

 

Bert and Ernie being gay is as American as apple pie

Everyone knows that Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street are a gay couple.

Bert and Ernie being gay is as American as apple pie and baseball.  Maybe we didn’t know they were gay when we were kids, but a few years later we caught them on Family Guy  and saw them being gay in a musical, and it clicked all of a sudden.  Of course they were gay, and of course Liberace wasn’t waiting for the right one, and of course Freddie Mercury was in a band called Queen and made everyone sing gay songs. 

A bunch of internet absurdists signed a petition asking them to be married (note the creepy headline use of “Group” What group? GLAAD? The NCAA? Neo Nazis!?) . Sesame’s response was tasteful, but pop culture watchdogs were overwhelmingly negative.

Bert Ernie: Just Friends
5 Reasons why Bert and Ernie shouldn’t get married

Tags: oyvey

Get the fuck out of London

It’s bitter cynicism and hopelessness that causes a population to turn violent on their surroundings.  

The LA riots and the London riots aren’t about one political message because there isn’t any.  Asking a rioter why they riot is like asking a lion why they kill.  I think a population is shaped by their surroundings to be a violent and cruel animal that values nothing except for material goods looted from a store window.  If they are raised with no respect, no values, injustice by locals, and no education then they operate on a base level of lawlessness. 

And don’t think I’m defending the rioter, in fact, I’m warning the innocent people of London that their best recourse might be to run.  When a riot like this occurs then it is poison; even when the police stop the riot, the sentiment remains.  This riot is worse than a political upheavel that can be quelled, it is a cold and bitter thing, it is the fin on the man-eating shark.  

I ran from Los Angeles because I don’t think that city was interested in solutions. Friends in London, In the coming months pay attention to the response to this riot by your local government officials and by the police.  The riots shouldn’t have happened, they should have prevented a climate like this from swelling, but they did, will they fix things now? Will they be interested in reform? Will there be outreach? Education? 

If everything returns to business as usual then get the fuck out of there.

 

1 Year Anniversary

There’s a saying that a 1 year anniversary is 5 in gay years.  I realize now that this saying survives because of single people.  Yesterday the bf and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary and I speak with authority when I say that it didn’t feel like a year much less 5 gay ones.

Speaking with authority is a practice I want to get into more often as I get older, so in that spirit I’d like to offer up a bit of life experience regarding love.  

There was a moment where I realized that Ant and I could function on a level beyond what I can by myself, and it’s when we made Thanksgiving dinner together.  Previously I doubted I could ever make that meal, but with a few phone calls and some know-how, we prepared a meal that we both gobbled up.  The impossible task was accomplished and we were not only boyfriend and boyfriend but a team. This is when I realized that I needed this in my life.

The other bit of info is about butterflies in your stomach, which people claim go away with time. I suspect that’s inaccurate.  The butterflies in your stomach don’t go away, but you go about your day less mindful of them, similar to how one isn’t consciously aware that one is breathing.  I say this because when I see him waking up in the morning I am aware of those butterflies and I remember that I’m breathing.

Happy Anniversary Ant!