Due to basketball player, Tim Hardway’s recent confession that he hates gay people, there have been some eXtraterrestial responses. Star Trek’s mission has always been to deliver a message of justice and peace to all alien peoples, and Zulu is out front and out of the closet with this message now. Here’s his message of love and harmony to all sports fans regarding tiny Tim.
Everybody has been following the hypocrisy of Ted Haggard and his wretched followers, but few have actually been putting this scandal in any sort of real perspective. Let us ask ourselves, would Ted Haggard have married a woman and had children if he had been allowed the prospect of being a respected part of the community as a person in a same sex marriage? Would Mike have turned Ted in as being a married homosexual then? There is a huge community of closeted gay men in marriages to straight women out there now, and religous hypocrisy is a great part of the reason for that. The fundamentalists say they oppose homosexuality, but actually, they just drive it underground. Who really suffers most? It is the children of these often, sordid, deceitful, and superficial matches.
We need to stop bashing openly gay men and women. They deserve the same rights and privileges that heterosexual men and women receive. Respect them for having the courage to confront a hostile world with openess and honesty. But what about those of the homosexual community that try to play it both ways? They often resort to deceit and hurt those who become intimate and close to them. They are encouraged by the heterosexual others in their liives, to be deceitful to both themselves and to their significant others in relationships. Usually the motivation is their own conservative religious beliefs, and also because of the negative encouragement and pressures of their shamed, heterosexual, religious relatives who often try to hide reality away.
I have known and been friends with several gay married men in my lifetime. And I have seen the destructiveness to themselves and others, as they have tried to play it straight. Gay men want family, even as they desire sex with the same sex. Allowing legal same sex marriage is one way for mainstream society to say to homosexuals that it is possible for all to have families that love them, and that they should be accepted by their biological families as well. It might help put an end to shunning some of our society who have been made most vulnerable to abuse.
Strikingly, nobody has much mentioned the family of Ted Haggard. How much did the wife know of his sexuality? And how much did the children know? The paper had pictures of the fundamentalist congregation carting into their church box after box of tissue papers to cry with. How preposterous and superficial these crippled people are. It is the children that need these tissues, if there is something much to cry about? The congregation should simply go to Hell, and start to put a stop all their self-absorbed shame. The real shame they have is actually to have their religous hypocrisy now so exposed to view. But they seem determined to continue on as before and we should have little compassion for such.
Those who need the most counselling are the children of Ted Haggard. In a way, they have been emotionally abused by his pretense and dishonesty. Here is a great site to help them, and other children of gay homosexuals, examine and understand some of what has happened to them through the actions of their mothers and dads. Though it is written primarily for married homosexuals and their spouses, certainly this is also a much better resource for the children involved in these matrimonies than all the Dr. Dobsons and like clones will be providing.
My siblings and I frequently talk about our “activist” upbringing. We grew up with parents who walked their talk. Our mom hung out with the radical nuns protesting around Rocky Flats. And I can’t remember a single Thanksgiving where we didn’t have a couple of homeless men sitting at our dinner table. Our parents introduced them by name and we were expected to be gracious and make interesting conversation.
Then there was Robin, a retarded young man who was obsessed with a pair of moccasins that we had in our front closet. My mom made a rule that the front door be always open so that Robin could come in for his moccasins any time he wanted. As a mother, I question the wisdom of this now but, at the time, we just accepted that at any time Robin might walk in and open our front closet. It wasn’t anything we worried about….just another one of mom’s people.
At the 1975 fall of Saigon, Divine Redeemer, our home church with hundreds of families, decided to sponsor a family fleeing Communist oppression. They asked that someone step forward to host a family of 8 people for several months. Guess who stepped forward? Much to our horror, my mom and dad did. We had 6 of our own children, aged 6 to 15, living in a small house and suddenly we had 16 people living under the same roof. They didn’t speak a word of English. We certainly didn’t speak Vietnamese. Our mom and their dad were able to communicate in broken French.
We reminisce about how our mom used to read little kid books to them, VERY LOUDLY, as though she could make them understand English if only she shouted. They used to stare at us and we back at them while she did this…all of us trying hard not to laugh.
Because my dad had been a part of the war in Viet Nam and a number of families we knew had been widowed during that war, we lost friends because of the choice we made to support this family. I didn’t understand this at all at the time. It’s taken many years for me to understand that to stand for something, anything, is to risk the wrath of those who don’t agree.
As kids, we remember it as crazy fun. We made Chef Boyardee pizzas and they chopped off the heads of weird little fish and made carrots look like flowers. We were all about the same age, they dressed weird, we dressed weird….we laughed and figured out how to communicate even without words. They showed us martial arts. We taught them to hula hoop. We laughed our asses off day after day.
Once, the 10-year-old girl, incredibly beautiful, her name was Ngoc (pronounced Nop), and I sat on the swing in the front yard. She placed her hand in front of my face, put up her index finger and said “Mot.” “Mo,” I said, knowing that she was counting. “Hai.” “Hi.” “Bah. Bon. Nam. Sau.” After she taught me to count to ten she grabbed my hand and rushed me into the living room where 15-20 people sat, always at the ready, listening to the Vietnamese singing American anthems, which was both lovely and hilarious since they didn’t really understand the words. “Ma cunry tis a vee. Swe lan a liverty.” Ngoc got everyone’s attention and suddenly 20 people were staring at me, a 14-year-old, not exactly at the age where I wanted a lot of scrutiny, and she said, encouragingly, “Mot.” I felt like throwing up but I understood that the stakes were high so with red cheeks I recited what I just learned. When I finished a loud roar went up….I swear there were even a few tears from the Vietnamese parents.
This family went on to become a success story. Ultimately, the boys, Phat, Dat and Loi, became Tony and Billy and Joey. They went to DU, studied engineering. Mom and Dad opened a successful restaurant on Federal Boulevard in Denver. The girls married Vietnamese men and carried on Vietnamese tradition on their new soil. Oddly, my two brothers married Asian women, one Vietnamese, one Thai.
This family had another baby after they came to the United States. They wanted to choose an American name to honor the country that had given them a second chance. They chose Helen. My mother’s name.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two decades “wasting” my time doing things that may or may not ever register on anyone’s radar. One of my inspirations has been Margaret Mead who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” That’s what my family taught me….what I’d like to teach my own.
Want to buy something online? On a lark, found it on Ebay, need to buy it right away, without checking your closet for the one you have already? Here’s a little browser plugin that might break the instant gratification spell and give you a moment’s reprise to reflect and say oh, no no no.
It’s a browser plugin called the Wait-a-Bit Bug.
Here’s how it works. Once you initiate a purchase with your browser, the Wait-a-Bit Bug kicks in and asks for a validation number. This number will have been provided by your spouse. The rules of this inter-relationship cooperative effort will be that the number come from some object in the home, a serial number perhaps, or an expiration date. The plugin will provide the matching information already provided by your spouse: a description of where the number can be found. The partner wanting to make the purchase will now have to track down the item and type in the requested number. This task should provide the needed wait period in which to reconsider the appropriate quality of the purchase.
If you do complete the purchase, your partner is notified at the first opportunity that another item and identifying number must be selected. In this way, partner notification is enforced, and the purchase can be evaluated from differing perspectives, ensuring that one person at least will not be impartial and or indifferent.
If the buying behavior proves too compulsive to be affected by the wait period, the level of difficulty can be adjusted by selecting household items requiring searches of greater complexity. This strategy can incorporate the hiding of specified items, the specification of items which do not exist at all, as well as the recording of serial numbers deliberately mistyped. Hopefully these options can be agreed upon between the partners.
Ah, the smell of Napalm on the internet.
THIS MORNING I read about Congressman Foley having sent emails to an ex-congressional page. Not his page, but a page he missed. The overly familiar tone made the 16 year-old recipient feel icky. Foley mentioned another page, “and he’s in really great shape.” A further request for a photo was interpreted by the boy as sick x 13.
The denials were routine. Foley’s outgoing warmth was apparently misconstrued. “It’s a political smear campaign of the worst kind,” said Foley’s campaign manager. The usual internet trolls came out in support of [closetted] Congressman Foley. Why make a big deal about the page being a boy? Why not accord Foley the presumption of innocence?
THIS EVENING, Congressman Foley is confronted by emails and instant messages with other former pages, by definition highschool teenagers. Some of the exchanges were sexually graphic.
And Congressman Mark Foley, six-term Republican representative to West Palm Beach Florida, outspoken [gay] opponent to gay rights, chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, screen name “Maf54” to his highschooler correspondents, folds.
You’ve known me for 25 years and still I am a complete enigma to you? I’ve slept in your bed, given birth to your children, spent countless evenings watching the Cubs lose, folding laundry, tending house with you. You’ve known me since I was driving a (very cool I must say) green Camaro in high school. For crying out loud, we’ve grown up together! We’ve shared a life that no one else will ever be part of.
You tell me that you loved me, that you poured yourself out for me, bled for me even, and all I see is an aloof and unreasonable dickhead. I’ll tell you that I tried to be pretty and intelligent and in control, perfect and accomplished in every way, but you see a tragically flawed and irrational human being. I’m all about a lively battle between the sexes, but this is ridiculous! There must be something else afoot.
Well, here is our long-awaited chance to thank the Junior League. Well-groomed women wearing pearls have taught me something that I will forever remember and appreciate always. It’s not about the externals, the things that make us look like a great pair. It’s not about how smart we are, or how funny, or how attractive or talented. It’s about the inner sanctum…the sacred and holy place that makes us US. It’s how we perceive the world, how we process information, what we value.
You are an extrovert. You get energy and inspiration in the presence of other people. I am highly introverted. I may look like the life of the party but I spend three days alone in a closet after a backyard barbeque to re-energize myself.
You are sensory. You feel fantastic after an intense game of yard darts, the sun overhead, the wind at your back…You hike mountains, you travel…you pay attention to the outside world. I am intuitive….I live inside my head. I can easily content myself on a blanket alone watching, feeling elated and peaceful…knowing that everyone is having a great time and that this is a lovely slice of life. I’d be the happiest quadriplegic on the planet….so unimportant is the sensory to me.
You are a thinker, you follow your head, you’re comfortable with the impersonal, the exacting. I am a feeler…I follow my heart, I’m in touch with the personal and the emotional. I cannot divorce myself from the inner life….matters of the heart…the divine. You easily can. Here’s the solution, you say. TaDa!
You rely on knowledge and information to make a judgment. You feel a sense of urgency until a decision is made, you like to tie up loose ends. My reality is based on perception, facts be damned! I keep my eyes open and look for alternatives…I am spontaneous and in no hurry to resolve things.
No wonder we can’t work it out. We live in the same world, yet it is a world completely apart. We love the same children but view them in very divergent ways. We encounter the same problems yet our solutions are diametrically opposed. On many days, we don’t speak the same language at all.
I am an idealist….I’m enthusiastic, loving, giving, spiritual, nurturing, focused on personal journeys and human potential. I have a deep commitment to the positive. You are a rational….you are self-controlled, logical, pragmatic…you have incredible strength of character and are decisive and autonomous.
Here is the funny part. You need me. You need me to give you vision, to give you wings, to keep you human and relational. And I need you…to keep me grounded, to keep me sane, to appeal to reason and make me strong.
I think we did our best to work things out. We didn’t understand each other….we still don’t. I’ve now chosen a new mate. Guess what? He’s a lot like you. He’s rational and logical but softer and more accessible than you were. At least I hope so. And you’ve chosen a new mate. She’s pretty and kind but more rational and exacting than I am.
So maybe we’re wiser. Time will tell, I guess. But I know one thing…..there is no one that I would rather have been linked to for the past 25 years than you. No one that I would rather share parenting duties with than you. My love and respect for you is undiminished. I am incomplete without your guidance and strength. You are still my better half.
Tom Cruise is gay. John Travolta is gay. Vin Diesel is gay. I don’t care if you think they are too cute, or have that special tu-ne-sais-quoi that only a heterosexual could exude. They’re actors! And they’re gay!
(If you Google “Vin Diesel”, you’ll see that blog entries abound by guys who’ve hooked up with him at clubs.)
(John Travolta is always the not-easily-placated queen of whichever movie set he’s working on. Ask anyone who works in the entertainment industry.)
(Tom Cruise’s pecadilos stay just outside of the gossip columns. Since the 80s! And so what? It’s fine! He’s gay!)
They’re gay. Nothing wrong with being gay. Nothing wrong with jumping unto a couch proclaiming your love for Katie Holmes. Nothing wrong with staying in the closet…
Unless you are serving a corporate mouthpiece that is simultaneously denying gays equal benefits and human rights, or a corporate media that is advocating homogeneous marriage (pun rejected) and religious worship.
There is something wrong with a media which covers up the normalcy of homosexuality at the same time that it holds gay rights under full frontal attack.
This isn’t about whether Tom Cruise wants to come out or not, it’s whether the media machine which is Tom Cruise the bankable property wants to come out. Very plainly it doesn’t.
Do you care if the media doesn’t want to be outed?
The fight over gay marriage is not about parenting rights or hospital visitation rights, although those are no small things. It’s about benefits, primarily health insurance benefits. If roughly 10% of human males are gay, that’s the percentage of the significant other population which the insurance industry doesn’t want to cover. That’s a lot of money. And outside of the walls of the beancounters in the huge insurance buildings, sitting in Emergicare waiting rooms, or sitting at home because they don’t have a doctor, that’s a lot of people.
If we live in a time when it can be admitted that Alexander the Great was gay, then Tom Cruise can be gay. Perhaps a gay Tom Cruise would still be bankable. Probably not in Asia. Well tough titties.
He can go on boffing Indoneasian hotel stewards to his heart’s content. We just don’t need to see his proto-hetero hystrionics on national TV which the networks use to force-feed white bread religion and marriage down our throats.
When you see such glee on the face of an actress like Katie Holmes, you see her happiness at having signed a fixed term contract to be Tom Cruise’s beard in exchange for the visibility of being the chief accessory to the world’s most bankable star. Tom Cruise is introducing Katie Holmes to Scientology. Could be, he’s not screwing her. Tom Cruise and Co simply set up a contract with the next actress who wishes to take centerstage with him, with specific guidelines and for a specific time period. Nicole Kidman, Mimi Rogers, et al, chose not to renew their options, or vice versa. Nothing wrong with that.
But there is something wrong, Tom, with being used as a tool to oppress others like yourself who do not have the financial resources you have.
And there is something wrong with a media perpetuating myth.
Here’s a very nice article about the unique film collection at TOONS.
Reprinted from The Colorado Springs Business Journal:
‘Oasis’ for the offbeat
By BOZENA WELBORNE, Editorial InternMost people, when they think of Toons — if they’ve heard of the store at all — will envision a graffiti-ridden former gas station-turned-store on Nevada Avenue. Its location and its ambience make it a likely hangout for the Colorado College students in its vicinity.
But it’s much more than that. Toons actually draws much of its clientele from “working, commuting students from UCCS or other community colleges, as well as students who come by during the holidays,” said Eric Verlo, the founder of the music, video and vintage items store.
The store has an eclectic collection of videos, used albums and CDs, vintage posters and collectibles that run the gamut from “clairvoyant,” heat-sensitive gummy fish (the cheapest item in the store at 25 cents, and very popular with those CC students) to $2,000 vintage jukeboxes (the most expensive item and the least likely to be sold, Verlo says).
Most of the used goods come directly from the closets and attics of the Colorado Springs community. Generally, Toons will purchase used items at 50 percent of their original price, though it may vary according to the quality of the item or how many copies of the item Toons has in stock.
Toons’ owner is especially proud of the store’s diverse video collection, with 4,700 titles and maintains they are not merely hard-to-find videos, but videos the average person has “probably never even heard of.” What the store can’t make up in number, it makes up in the sheer diversity of its collection. There is also a very strong Eastern European film collection, as well as the obligatory French films.
Verlo emphasizes the highly academic nature of a portion of the collection, maintaining that many of the films are chosen specifically because of their sociopolitical or cultural significance.
Because the store carries such a diverse assortment of items diverging from the mainstream, Verlo is hard-pressed to identify any competitors. The most likely candidates would be Media Play, Best Buy and Blockbuster Video. Verlo says those retailers are just beginning to realize the potential of catering to the non-mainstream market, of “introducing people to new things,” and may increasingly compete directly with Toons.
Few people know that there are actually two Toons stores, one at 802 N. Nevada Ave., but also a less well-known store at 3163 W. Colorado Ave. The latter, actually called the Bookman, opened first in 1990, while the Nevada Avenue location opened at the site of an old gas station in 1993, in a conscious effort to drift away from the typical strip-mall-feel evident at many stores.
Verlo came up with the idea of opening such a store while visiting his retired parents in Colorado Springs. Verlo started contemplating what he would do after his own retirement and, considering his passion for books, decided that he would like to own a bookstore and thus, the initial idea of Toons was formed. Verlo’s unique life has also had an influence on the eclectic nature of the store. Verlo is a graduate of UCLA who has lived in France and the Philippines, and has traveled extensively.
Verlo estimates startup costs fell somewhere in the $10,000 range. Since the idea of the store was a gradual development, the inventory itself was gradually collected without a specific vision. So, the cost of accumulating the inventory wound up being more expensive. Today, Verlo knows that probably was not the best way to purchase the store’s inventory, but the method is responsible for the store’s unique, museum-like feel. He emphasizes that the store’s existence is not really driven as much by a profit motive as it is by the idea of creating a collection of unusual items to intrigue and be enjoyed by the entire community. Toons is still pretty much breaking even with any excess profit immediately re-invested into enlarging the diversity of the store’s wares. This accentuates the fact that it is really a labor of love on Verlo’s part, as well as that of the staff.
Although it expanded to the Nevada Avenue store in 1993, Toons is now branching out onto the Internet with its own Web site at http://www.toonsmusic.com. The store’s staff created and maintains the site.
Ironically, Colorado Springs’ growth has not benefited Toons. Verlo said most of the growth has been at the outskirts of the city. Because of this, he says, fewer people come downtown, where the store is located.
Currently, Toons is trying to attract a more upscale, older clientele at the Nevada Avenue store and has consequently sectioned off a portion of the store, hoping to appeal to this new client base. Jitterbuzz.com, a top Washington D.C.-based Web site for swing and lindy hop aficionados, called the section “the largest swing selection of any record store in town (Colorado Springs).” Verlo hopes the store’s new setup offers some variety, while allowing the older and younger generations to choose whether to interact or keep to themselves.
Verlo believes that Toons’ ultimate legacy for the Colorado Springs community is its very existence. It provides the city with an oasis of non-mainstream ideas. Verlo advises those who seek success or at least contentment in the business arena to “do what (they) want in life,” as he did in creating Toons.