All Posts Tagged With: "personal"
Flamboyance in Music City
More thanks to Tom (a.k.a. Tet) for his third guest piece here:
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was originally a piece that was sent to one of my correspondents when he asked me why gays were always being demonstrative and flamboyant whenever you saw them on television.
So, no shit, there I was. My son was in the 101st AirAssault at Fort Campbell Kentucky. I had heard that a gay soldier had been beaten to death in the shower there, so I called him and some friends of mine in Nashville.
My son knew some gay soldiers (both genders) that were in his unit. As a longtime political activist, I wanted to make sure that if someone was killed that it wasn’t hushed up just because he was gay. This went double for the guys in any outfit my boy was in.
So, I met with three soldiers at my friend Barbara’s house and we talked about what was happening and I made suggestions on how they could monitor the investigation that was going on. They were pretty interesting people, by and large. The young lady actually could fall asleep with her eyes open–I had never seen that before.
That weekend was the Gay Pride parade in Nashville. They invited me to go along–they’d be marching, but not in uniform and I could walk along and observe things from the inside.
Now, remember that I was 17 when Easy Rider came out on the drive-in screen. I *knew* what the South was like on a visceral level, and that I’d be taking my life in my hands if I did this.
Of course, I said, “hell, yes.” You never have too much excitement in yer life.
So, we assembled up on one of the ridges there–Nashville is a series of hills around a river. The crowd wasn’t particularly flamboyant, nobody kissing or anything. There were some Bears on motorcycles (damn nice bikes, too) and a float with some remarkable (and one REALLY ugly) drag queens.
So we headed off to the river down all the tourist streets–past the Ryman Auditorium and Music Row to the park there. Nobody noticed. I was floored. Occasionally a tourist would snap a picture, a bored cop would halt traffic for five minutes. No catcalls, no religious fanatics, no bricks, nothing.
Actually, it was sort of an anticlimax.
However, to get to the point that I originally intended to make, there was a minimum of outre crap in the parade. When I looked at the news footage that night (in a thirty-second segment), the reporters had picked 15 seconds of footage of folks that I hadn’t even noticed that were acting up.
I think that the mainstream media likes to keep things stirred up, so they pick the weird stuff to air. After all, 100 normal-acting gay people marching down the street isn’t news, right?
I guess part of mature wisdom is nothing more than having seen so much that you have a good idea what to expect. I expect politicians to be crooked, never give a comment to a newsperson (and they’re very tricky sometimes,) expect TV to be soundbites and leave people the hell alone. For the most part, they return the favor.
~By Tom (a.k.a. Tet)
The Hell-Bound Train
Many thanks to Tom for this, his second guest post. I have long felt that the best and most difficult writing is that which is profoundly personal and honest and bold:
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a departure from most of my posts, meaning that it’s personal and philosophical, rather than political. As some of you might know, I spent most of last summer dying. About a month after they partially fixed my broken heart, Josh and I were talking about the phrase, “I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday” from Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee.” He asked me what I thought of this concept and what day I would choose. The following is the reply that I wrote him.
There was once a fantasy/TV writer named Robert Bloch, who did a good number of the old “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” programs and a ‘Zone or two. He had a story about a guy to whom the Devil gave a pocketwatch. If he ever found a time when he was perfectly happy, all he had to do was to break it and the moment would last forever. Of course, the man never did while he was alive and the Devil claimed his soul. (Our hero got out of it, but that’s another story.)
Several times stand out for me:
I’m 14 years old, and it’s the end of May. School ended at noon, and I am walking home across a landscape peppered with dandelions from which big, fat bumblebees are loading up. A DC-3 drones by overhead, low enough for me to see the radio wire running from the fuselage to the cockpit roof. The creek is running through the timber, the cows have kept the brush down and I stop to realize that I will never be this young on a day this perfect again.
I’m 16 and my girlfriend decided to babysit for the chaperones instead of going to the Prom. The kids are asleep upstairs and she and I have three hours to explore the wonders of sex that we had found when we mutually lost our virginity a month before. We had to quit WAY too soon in fear of her parents coming home. Oh, if I had known what I was doing that night.
A sad one. I’m 18 and my buddy’s older brother is heading out for ‘
I’m 20 and I tried Ecstasy for the first time (an earlier version–longer lasting, same feeling). A female friend of mine says that, since I can’t find my way back home, she’ll put me up in her room at LAR. I lie down in her bed and she appears in a nightgown that must have cost $200. With blue, blue eyes and golden hair, she looked like an angel that belonged atop a Christmas tree. About 25 years later, it occurred to me that she probably wanted to have sex with me. She was too beautiful to do more than kiss, I figure anything else would have shattered her like a crystal goblet.
I’m 21 and at my grandmothers’. I just found out that the War was ending and I didn’t have to worry about staying in school. I decided to quit for a while and do other things after the spring semester. I was going to be free from boredom.
I’m 28 at my brother’s cabin. We’re in the front yard, all totally wasted on blended Canadian whisky and we’re playing Warren Zevon on the stereo with speakers blaring out of the front door. “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” is on the set and everytime the chorus comes up, we all fire AK-47s and pistols into the air.
I’m 30 and in my car, wildly drunk. A friend of mine had just thrown up all over the side of it, and I realize that I’m just like her, so I quit drinking on the spot. Twice during the following summer, I fall off the wagon for a night, but, by and large, I stopped right then.
I’m 39 and playing Advanced Squad Leader in
I’m 42 and I’m at the hospital. My daughter has just had a son. It’s the coldest night in the history of Champaign-Urbana–28 below. My GEO Prizm starts, amazingly enough. Marc is a beautiful baby.
I’m 54 and I wake up from an anesthetic and realize suddenly that I can think again without effort. I’m uncomfortable, but I realize that Marcey and kitten are sitting in the area waiting for me to wake up. I realize that I just might not die right now after all…..
I guess that the moral of all this is that you need to take big bites at the banquet of life. That way, when Death shows up, you can trade recipes over the Chess game.
~By Tom (a.k.a. Tet)
The Case Against Suburbia
Hey Urbanagora readers, my call for guest posts has been answered first by Brandon Ruiz (a.k.a. S&D), my new friend at the law school. He’s a bright young liberal lad from the West Coast, so if you want to know anything about Pelosi’s new policies, just read his post! Your contribution is appreciated, Thanks Brandon:
Well Billy asked that we submit to alleviate him and Brian of some of the work of being creative and thought-provoking on the blog, so I offer my humble services. Now before I get too deep, I’d like to write my initial disclaimer: these are my opinions, not truths, and therefore are neither right nor wrong, but my view of the issue. Feel free to disagree, but if you say I’m “wrong” I’ll have to summarily execute you. That said, let the fun begin. By the way, this is a long one.
There is an issue that has attracted my attention over the past several years that I’ve really been itching to properly lay out in writing so that I can articulate what exactly I mean when I say the following words: “I hate suburbia.” I’d like to lay out a few definitions so that I’m properly understood. When I say “urban areas” I’m talking about downtowns, commercial districts, and the condos, townhouses, apartments, row houses, and houses that are within say 5 miles of the city center. The term “suburb” refers to anything further out. Within the category of “suburb,” there are three broad categories which are not mutually exclusive, but more of a spectrum. There are “inner suburbs” which are older, more integrated suburbs with their own small commercial districts and downtown areas. There are “bedroom suburbs” which tend to be further out than the inner suburbs and where the majority of the people live in the area and commute in to the city to work (generally for quite a long time ~ 1 hour + roundtrip). Finally, there are “exurbs” which are more or less like bedroom suburbs, but with even less of a commercial district and further from the city center.
Suburbs are bad news. They’re environmentally unsustainable, socially isolating and disruptive, extremely expensive, and piss poor land use. As I said above, there are differences in types of suburbs, and I think that the general categories are all of what I just mentioned in increasing degree as one gets farther from the urban center.
The issue of environmental unsustainability is to me self-evident, but because not all of you are me, I’ll explain. Approximately half of all air pollution is produced by personal automobiles. The growth in the use of cars was an outgrowth of the massive expansion in suburban living spaces supported by the
When I talk about social isolation, I mean something like Durkheim’s anomie (personal unrest, alienation, and anxiety that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals – Dictionary.com). The daily routine of millions of Americans goes something like this: Get up at 6 a.m. to get ready for work. Leave the house by 7. Sit in traffic for an hour and arrive at work around 8. Work from 8-5 (if you’re lucky). Leave work. Sit in traffic for another hour. Get home around 6. Eat (it’s now 7). Watch T.V. Sleep. Basically people go from their little box (house) to a littler box on wheels (car) to a big box where they do stuff they don’t like (work) then reverse order. They spend a portion of their weekends sleeping in and recuperating and have two days max to relax. This seems pretty normal in modern society, but it’s really not. Up until about a century ago the majority of the world’s population worked, ate, and lived in the same place. This created strong social bonds and a strong sense of community. With the industrial revolution came rapid changes and people stopped working and living in the same place. With the rise of suburbia, the distances grew. I am here to argue that this separation of work, commercial, and home spheres is at least in part responsible for a marked lack of civic participation by Americans (low voter turnouts, decline in community organizations, etc). When people live, work, eat, play, and shop in one relatively bounded area, they have more investment in it and are more likely to know others and care about their wellbeing. With our modern car culture, people are increasingly isolated in their little boxes because to get anywhere of worth we have to hop in our cars and drive, completely destroying any chance of encountering our neighbors and of really knowing our neighborhoods (how many of you can even name half the people on your block?).
Suburbs are expensive. You might say that they’re cheaper to live in than cities, but much like the cars I also detest, that’s just the sticker price. No one pays the true cost of their home in the suburbs (again the further out from the city the more this is true). They don’t pay because they aren’t taking into account the extra gas it will cost to commute, the societal costs of the extra pollution their cars create, the extra costs of servicing their homes with electricity, gas, water, sewage, and post (urban areas give suburbs a backdoor subsidy on utilities by paying the same rates despite the fact that such services cost a fraction of the price to deliver to urban areas). If all of these externalities were internalized into housing prices, I think suburbs would become quite unattractive. Additionally, the rise of suburbs has led to the depression of the inner-cities which has disproportionately affected minorities. Furthermore, the number of roads necessary to support these commuters and their costs are astronomical (the economic benefit of light rail or mass transit by comparison is approximately double that of highways).
Suburbs are piss poor land use. Yep, I’m a land-use nut. Suburbs are, in my mind, a paradox. People move out of the city to get away from people, get away from congestion, and get a slice of nature. In moving to the suburbs, they crowd up people in the ring of suburbs closer to the city than they are, create more traffic congestion, and cover over the wonderful nature that the last suburban ring enjoyed up until the new ring was built. Point in case for this is my own mother who moved up to the mountains in
So criticism aside, I propose solutions. These are by no means complete. I don’t have all the answers…yet. They are, however, a start. There are two ways to go, as I mentioned earlier, out or in. Personally I like in. Not everyone has to live in
~By Brandon Ruiz (a.k.a. S&D)
New Column: DC
I’m resting comfortably in D.C. for the moment and am having a great time here. My column this week is up here.
PBS Newshour Examines "Generation Next"
The Newshour with Jim Lehrer has a website devoted to what it called “Generation Next” and is planning a documentary with Judy Woodruff for January. It’s all about members of our generation.
Why do I bring it up? Well, mostly because as part of its effort to portray the opinions of today’s youth, they published my column on race. But, you know, there’s, uh, other stuff too.
Another Sign of Russia’s Degeneration
Lally has provided a fascinating perspective on her homeland in this sad, frightening, interesting essay.
Another Sign of Russia’s Degeneration
Lally has provided a fascinating perspective on her homeland in this sad, frightening, interesting essay.
I Rule This Blog With an Iron Fist
A brief exchange in the comments section of the previous post was inspired after I threatened commenters with censorship if they post anything that is “pointless and rude and detract[s] from the intelligent discourse this blog tries to promote.” Billy posted a comment saying he opposes censorship “unless the comments genuinely lack any political or artistic merit.” A G-Talk conversation quickly ensued, which I think led to an interesting discussion about censorship before it was cut short by my having to leave. Here’s an edited-for-length version of it:
Billy: now i slightly attack you
sorry
me: sigh
what merit was there [to Kofi Anon's second comment]?
all he said was that me and the DI are “drivel”
Billy: he’s criticizing the DI
me: but not in any way that has merit
Billy: it should take a lot for us to censor anyone
me: I don’t necessarily think it should, and hear me out on this reasoning
if comments like that, which may admittedly have some tiny shred of merit,
are allowed
I think it discourages people who have more meaningful, intelligent things to say
Billy: the test for censorship in the US is very difficult to meet, and i think we should employ the same on our blog
how does it discourage others?
me: two reasons
1) it makes our blog look dumb
2) if people are lurking around being just plain mean, it will make people not want to offer themselves up for criticism
Billy: it makes us look fascist to tell someone we’re gonna delete their comment simply for criticizing us
our blog has been very civil
this would be different if everyday we were getting sniped
or if he called you a gay slur
me: I explicitly said I welcome criticism so long as it’s meaningful
Billy: that was meaningful
he’s saying that the DI doesn’t fact check anything
me: no, he SAID the DI doesn’t fact check anything
in his first comment
which I wouldn’t have deleted
Billy: his comments are tied together
presumably his reasoning for saying that it’s drivel is because they don’t fact check and because, implicitly, there isn’t good content aside from the wires
me: I don’t think you’ve refuted the fact that these kinds of comments make the blog look dumb
or at least like only dumb people read it
Billy: it was one comment
and it doesn’t make it look dumb, we aren’t saying it
and most of our comments are VERY substantive and very long
which is unique
i think
it’s gonna take a lot to censor someone
in my opinion
me: I agree with that
but I think this meets the standard
Billy: no way
not even close
you really don’t believe strongly in free speech
this is the second instance
The first instance that Billy is referring to here is this dispute about the DI’s reprinting of the Danish cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad. Back to the chat:
me: no, I’m arguing this in the interest of a truly valuable free exchange of ideas
Billy: it’s REALLY hard to make the case that this discourages people from posting
that’s an incredibly vague argument
me: and I don’t think this blog should hold the same standards that the US gov’t does
Billy: exactly, see? you don’t believe in free speech
me: if that were the case, even if somebody did just comment “faggot faggot faggot!” we couldn’t delete it
Billy: that’s not true
even under free speech laws, that can be censored
if it is deemed to have no political or artistic merit
and if that didn’t, then we could delete it
me: there’s no politician or agency in this country that would advocate the prosecution of somebody for saying in any forum “faggot faggot faggot”
Billy: not prosecute
it’s not about that
it’s about whether prior restraint can be levied against someone for publishing or saying that
me: how could somebody say “faggot faggot faggot” and be censored by the gov’t for it
Billy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States
it’s obscenity
which under the law, can be regulated
can larry king start saying all kinds of shit on the air?
there are plenty of restrictions on free speech
libel, obscenity, etc.
me: if he’s on cable he can
Billy: no
he still can’t
me: he can’t engage in slander, I agree with that
Billy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
he will get fined by the FCC
for each swear word he says
me: ok…so then we can delete whatever comments we want that have swears in them?
Billy: no
merit
if it has a swear, it could still have merit
me: I’m pretty sure the FCC fines TV shows that have swears whether the show has merit or not
Billy: the FCC and TV have different standards than someone standing on a street corner
airwaves are different
because they are public
And then I had to leave. I think this is an interesting enough discussion on its own, but let me make a couple more points I would have made had I been able to keep talking.
First, the fact that Billy points out the difference between public and private airwaves is relevant here. As I see it, if Billy is going to argue that the same censorship standards which apply to the government should apply to us, then we should talk about government standards as they apply to internet speech, since this is, after all, the internet. Now, that doesn’t leave us totally defenseless, but it basically means that unless somebody in the comments section (1) engages in libel, (2) posts child pornography, (3) incites violence, or, as of recently, (4) somehow sets up a poker game. As for the “faggot faggot faggot” example cited above, I can’t imagine the government getting away with censoring a website which simply repeated that word over and over again.
Second, let’s assume the standard for public airwaves was adopted for this blog. This is a reasonable standard to adopt, if we accept the analogy that just as the government owns the airwaves and can thus use stricter regulations, Billy and I in a way “own” the comments section and can use the same standards. I still argue this is an absurd way to go, because while it may (may) allow us to censor somebody if he or she started hurling homophobic slurs against me, it still wouldn’t allow us to censor comments that are simply worthless. Under Billy’s approach, if a lonely woman stumbles upon this blog and starts posting links to pictures of her cats, we would be helpless to stop it. Certainly the government would not be allowed to censor a television show on the public airwaves with similar content.
Furthermore, the word verification system our comments section has in place is an example of censorship we already have in place. But again, if this blog were bound by the first amendment, we would have to submit to ceaseless advertisements by spammers.
Ultimately, this (along with the Muhammad cartoons debate) is a reflection of the different ways in which Billy and I approach censorship when it is not a government agency doing the censoring. I have no problem adopting a stricter standard on this blog if it means the content and civility of comments will be improved and maintained. I still believe Billy and I should err on the side of not censoring our readership, but adopting the standards of the US government is, to me, absurd.
But, as always, I welcome criticism of this approach.
A Touching Email
The Daily Illini just forwarded me this email that was sent to them about my column about HIV testing. I thought it was pretty moving.
Dear Mr. Pierce,
Thank you for the very personal story about your HIV test. It is very important that people see and know names of people who are experiencing testing. I truly hope your results are negative. My first test was extremely frightening. I was ill and no one knew why. Fortunately, it was colitis. I have never tested positive.
I graduated from college (not the U of I) in 1984. I quickly moved to Washington, DC. I hoped to have a great gay life. When I got there, HIV/AIDS became real to me very quickly. I have known and worked with so many people who have died during this pandemic. My past is full of young men who were killed by the disease. I know some who have somehow managed to live on through their disease. I can believe that there will some day be another option.
I hope the organization that administered your test also gave you clear, specific statements about how to maintain a healthy life-style, no matter what the outcome of the test is. It is so important for gay men to understand the risks they take every time they have sex. We hear how the number of intravenous drug users and women who are HIV positive is increasing. But it is still, in this country, overwhelmingly a disease of gay men.
Condoms and conscious decisions have hopefully saved my life. I hope they do the same for you.
Warm regards,
[name withheld]
Why My Sex Life Is Important to Hear About
My column this past week in the DI about my experience with anonymous HIV testing received more response than any column I’ve written, and it’s heartening that most of it has been positive. Some of it, however, was negative, due to the fact that some readers didn’t find this discussion of my sex life appropriate:
It all seemed a little silly to me. The only reason I was there was because my new boyfriend wanted me to go just to make sure; there was little reason to think I might actually have contracted HIV. I told the woman as much, and yet the questions kept coming. “When’s the last time you had anal sex?” (Answer: three and a half months ago – happy birthday to me!) “When’s the last time you had vaginal sex?” (Answer: ew, never.) “When’s the last time you had oral sex?” (Answer: that morning, which was more than a little embarrassing to be telling this woman.)
A fellow columnist, Brenda Kay Zylstra, wrote this column that defended my right to say what I said while also accusing me of going too far and revealing too much:
I completely understand and sympathize with those readers out there who were surprised, shocked and even a little offended at Brian’s candid sharing. I do not want to hear about the sexual escapades of others, and I believe there are certain things that you just do not talk about – at least not to the entire University. I was further scandalized by the fact that I actually know Brian, and to me he’s not just some guy who writes columns in the paper.
Justin Stanley, a junior in ACES, wrote this letter to the editor that was a little bit more impassioned:
As a heterosexual male, were I to write an article about HIV and candidly talk about my sex life I would be seen as a chauvinistic and unprofessional lout. If any heterosexual female would have done the same, names such as slut and whore would have been thrown at her. However, Brian Pierce seems to think he can do just that. Anyone who would dare disagree with his methods would most assuredly have a spear of tolerance jabbed into their side.Furthermore, he uses unprofessional techniques that throw an extremely facetious light on what should be a very serious matter. According to the CDC, anyone who has been possibly exposed should get tested for HIV every six months. Brian Pierce makes it seem as if a person should only get tested for this potentially deadly virus if someone asks. In only the second week of school, Pierce has set a precedent for making light of very serious issues and being brazenly unprofessional.
I wrote the following email to Mr. Stanley and got no reply, but am publishing it here in response to all those who have argued my discussion of my personal sex life served no purpose and crossed some uncrossable line:
Justin,Hi! I read your letter to the editor in yesterday’s DI about my column on getting HIV-testing. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts. I’ve been a columnist for almost half a year, and this column by far received the greatest number of responses from readers, mostly positive, but, as in the case with yours, sometimes negative. Even when the response is negative, however, I am encouraged that I am, at the very least, provoking thought among my readership.
I would like to respond to your assertions, though. First, you argue that if a heterosexual man or woman were to reveal details about his or her sexual life, they would be labeled a “chauvinistic and unprofessional lout” or a “slut and whore,” respectively. This is a reasonable point, and one which could conceivably be true, but I really don’t think it is. As a junior, I’m sure you are aware that this campus holds an event every year known as Sex Out Loud, in which all sorts of groups–straight, gay, bisexual, male, female, whatever–come together to engage in an open and frank discussion of sex. You may not like the idea of Sex Out Loud, but the fact remains that heterosexual men and women are encouraged to engage in the exact kind of behavior you argue would result in accusations of misogyny or promiscuity. As far as these details appearing in a college newspaper, please keep in mind that it is just that: a COLLEGE newspaper. Much of my audience has sex and doesn’t mind reading that somebody else out there has sex too.
You also say that I “throw an extremely facetious light on what should be a very serious matter” and that my column was “brazenly unprofessional.” I can see this side of the argument, but let me explain why I felt it was important to (1) reveal details about my sex life, and (2) strike, at times, a humorous tone. I had two main goals in writing this column. The first was to honestly portray what it’s like to go in for an anonymous HIV testing, including both the procedures one goes through and the emotions one feels. The second was to make others who might need testing feel more comfortable going in to McKinley to do so. I think the best way to do that is to treat it with nothing but complete honesty but also with a sense of humor. Many students on campus are going to feel incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of talking to a complete stranger about the last time they engaged in anal, vaginal, and oral sex–I certainly was uncomfortable with it. When I reveal my answers to those questions in my column, my hope is that some students out there will recognize that if I can tell thousands of readers that I had oral sex that morning and anal sex on my birthday three and a half months ago, it isn’t a big deal for them to go into McKinley and tell the employees there in confidence the same kind of embarrassing details.
Ultimately, I don’t believe I treated the issue with a lack of respect for the seriousness of it (I talk about the death toll that this terrible disease has inflicted on the world), merely with a lighthearted attitude that will hopefully make other students more comfortable going through the experience themselves, while still understanding it is an unpleasant experience.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this approach.
Brian Pierce