How tough is unrequited love? This tough: It takes you from cool to pathetic in a broken heartbeat. We all like to see ourselves as aloof from emotional turmoil. Sadly, that's not life. I don't care if you're the epitome of finger-snapping cool, aka Frank Sinatra, or the epitome of hip-hopping cool, aka P Diddy, you've got tears running down your face now and then. Love is like open-heart surgery, without anesthesia. It'll cut a hole in your chest, shred your defense systems and leave you howling in pain.
Pain so complete it overrides all other emotional circuits. Pain that makes you hollow, desperate.
Ironic, isn't it, how hard love hurts? By definition, love is wonderful. But it's like a perfectly thrown pass. It might be the most beautiful thing in the world, but if there's nobody to receive it, it just crashes into the grass -- and the guy who threw it feels like shit.
There is, however, hope. Not so much that the object of your desire will suddenly embrace you, but that time will heal. And as you wait for that to happen, you can still daydream. Love, after all, is as irrational as it is painful, as capricious as it is essential.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Screwed ... Or Not?
I love being gay. I'd hate to be straight. Having said that, there is one thing about queerdom that bugs me -- namely, the expectation of sex whenever two guys date.
I don't mean anticipation. I mean expectation. If you don't go to bed with a guy on the first date, he's flabbergasted. And if you're still just cuddling by Date 2, he's ready to throw his fishing line into another stream. Not that there's anything wrong with having sex 15 minutes after you've polished off dessert, but -- for the zillionth time -- I really want to develop some affection for the guy before jumping under the covers with him.
Obviously, Insta-Sex isn't an exclusively gay concept. Maybe it isn't even more prevalent in our community. Perhaps the notion of -- to use an archaic term -- courtship is dead everywhere.
The Big Tease
My fantasies have taken a disturbing turn.
I dreamed about chocolate cupcakes the other night. Chocolate on chocolate. With lots of rich, creamy frosting.
Rarely do I eat baked goods, opting instead for fresh fruit -- especially cherries, watermelon and bananas. I do love sweets. I just don't like what they do to human bodies, so I avoid them. Which may be why I found myself fantasizing about cupcakes.
Not only do I dream about cupcakes. I also turn dreams into reality -- though I don't quite consummate the love.
A few weeks ago, for instance, I bought a half-dozen chocolate cupcakes from a Harrisonburg baker and brought them back to the office. Fortunately, I came to my senses and gave them to my staff -- five 20-somethings who gobbled them up confident that their metabolisms would scrape off the mega-calories belly-flopping into their bodies.
In New York last month, after drinking three glasses of wine with dinner, I stopped at a Greenwich Village bakery and bought four cupcakes -- two chocolate on chocolate, two chocolate on white. Again, despite my slightly buzzed state, logic trumped desire. When I finally got back to my hotel in Chelsea -- after walking from the Village and stopping at an 8th Avenue bar to watch the end of an NBA Finals game -- I tempered my appetite, licking the frosting off all four cupcakes, but eating only about half an inch of cake on two of them.
Kinda like foreplay.
I dreamed about chocolate cupcakes the other night. Chocolate on chocolate. With lots of rich, creamy frosting.
Rarely do I eat baked goods, opting instead for fresh fruit -- especially cherries, watermelon and bananas. I do love sweets. I just don't like what they do to human bodies, so I avoid them. Which may be why I found myself fantasizing about cupcakes.
Not only do I dream about cupcakes. I also turn dreams into reality -- though I don't quite consummate the love.
A few weeks ago, for instance, I bought a half-dozen chocolate cupcakes from a Harrisonburg baker and brought them back to the office. Fortunately, I came to my senses and gave them to my staff -- five 20-somethings who gobbled them up confident that their metabolisms would scrape off the mega-calories belly-flopping into their bodies.
In New York last month, after drinking three glasses of wine with dinner, I stopped at a Greenwich Village bakery and bought four cupcakes -- two chocolate on chocolate, two chocolate on white. Again, despite my slightly buzzed state, logic trumped desire. When I finally got back to my hotel in Chelsea -- after walking from the Village and stopping at an 8th Avenue bar to watch the end of an NBA Finals game -- I tempered my appetite, licking the frosting off all four cupcakes, but eating only about half an inch of cake on two of them.
Kinda like foreplay.
This is from my Livejournal account, which I have abandoned for Blogger.com
Love and iPods
I was chatting with a young gay friend today who recently broke up with a longtime -- and quite insane -- boyfriend. Back in his near-native New York City after a disorienting few months of living with Crazy Boy in the sticks -- metro Providence, where my pal was aghast to discover that he had to drive a car to find food during his lunch break -- Mike has begun dating again. He thought he had found Mr. Right on the first pitch. The guy was his type (i.e., a Roger Clemensesque beefy physique) and showered him with attention -- initially. Today, Mike reported that the would-be BF has turned his life into an emotional yo-yo.
After calling every day for a week, Beef Boy has all but ignored Mike's messages for the past several days. Mike, being gay, is in major fret mode. I counseled my fluttering pal to do one of two things: 1) be patient and let the relationship move at its own pace (in other words, give the guy room to breathe) or 2) launch a full-court press to woo the guy (you know, send him little gifts). That's when Mike informed me that he had given Beef Boy his spare iPod. I pondered that for a moment. True, it's not the most romantic of gifts. Not chocolate. Not caviar. Not a bottle of merlot. And, true, it wasn't a great sacrifice. He gave him his spare iPod, not his only iPod. Still, in the 2000s, nothin says lovin like an Mp3 player. I mean, pop in the earbuds and you can transport yourself a million miles away from the office or train or apartment. Only time, of course, will tell if the iPod will turn Mike into the Apple of Beef Boy's eyes. But, beyond pondering romance and gifts, Mike's situation reminded me how long and bumpy the road to love is for most of us. Mine has been a dead end so far -- and time isn't on my side -- but the chase is essential to my well-being. If I thought I'd never again find somebody to love -- as fucking painful as love is -- I don't think life would be worth living. So I'll keep tabs on Mike's romantic adventure, and if the iPod eventually does the trick, you'll find me in the Mp3 aisle at Circuit City. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
After calling every day for a week, Beef Boy has all but ignored Mike's messages for the past several days. Mike, being gay, is in major fret mode. I counseled my fluttering pal to do one of two things: 1) be patient and let the relationship move at its own pace (in other words, give the guy room to breathe) or 2) launch a full-court press to woo the guy (you know, send him little gifts). That's when Mike informed me that he had given Beef Boy his spare iPod. I pondered that for a moment. True, it's not the most romantic of gifts. Not chocolate. Not caviar. Not a bottle of merlot. And, true, it wasn't a great sacrifice. He gave him his spare iPod, not his only iPod. Still, in the 2000s, nothin says lovin like an Mp3 player. I mean, pop in the earbuds and you can transport yourself a million miles away from the office or train or apartment. Only time, of course, will tell if the iPod will turn Mike into the Apple of Beef Boy's eyes. But, beyond pondering romance and gifts, Mike's situation reminded me how long and bumpy the road to love is for most of us. Mine has been a dead end so far -- and time isn't on my side -- but the chase is essential to my well-being. If I thought I'd never again find somebody to love -- as fucking painful as love is -- I don't think life would be worth living. So I'll keep tabs on Mike's romantic adventure, and if the iPod eventually does the trick, you'll find me in the Mp3 aisle at Circuit City. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
This is from my Livejournal, 2006, as I continue to move posts to this site
Join The Holy Orgy
I was reading that 94 percent of American kids jack off. In addition to making me feel good about our nation, it got me to thinking of my own experience as a teen-ager. Let me say for the record that I was among the 94 percent who took matters into their own hands. Fortunately, I was never fed any bullshit warnings about the dire consequences of masturbating, so I simply enjoyed the moment. Or, more accurately, the moments. The many moments.
Maybe it helped that "Hair" -- you know, the tribal rock musical -- was popular at the time. It scandalized America in numerous ways, including with the lyrics in "Sodomy": "Masturbation can be fun/Join the holy orgy/Kama Sutra." Needless to say, those wise words became my mantra as a 17-year-old.
I did have one quirk. (Shocking, eh?) In high school -- as I fantasized about the cute guy on the basketball team or whoever caught my fancy that day -- I liked to jerk off to a certain Rolling Stones song. Much to my regret, I can't remember for sure which one. I think it was "Ruby Tuesday." I do recall with certainly, though, another musical theme: In college, I'd often listen to Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken" or "Moonshadow" in the immediate afterglow of my handiwork. As you might expect, those tunes still bring back pleasant memories.
Kama sutra.
Maybe it helped that "Hair" -- you know, the tribal rock musical -- was popular at the time. It scandalized America in numerous ways, including with the lyrics in "Sodomy": "Masturbation can be fun/Join the holy orgy/Kama Sutra." Needless to say, those wise words became my mantra as a 17-year-old.
I did have one quirk. (Shocking, eh?) In high school -- as I fantasized about the cute guy on the basketball team or whoever caught my fancy that day -- I liked to jerk off to a certain Rolling Stones song. Much to my regret, I can't remember for sure which one. I think it was "Ruby Tuesday." I do recall with certainly, though, another musical theme: In college, I'd often listen to Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken" or "Moonshadow" in the immediate afterglow of my handiwork. As you might expect, those tunes still bring back pleasant memories.
Kama sutra.
Thoughts On A Wintertime Visit To NYC
1) I think the four biggest physical icons in New York are the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Stature of Liberty and the Washington Square Park arch (left). One represents money and power, another entertainment and commercialism (on steroids), another the hope of freedom, another an urban, Bohemian spirit. It was in that spirit that I was approached by a 50ish black guy as I sat on a bench talking on the phone in Washington Square Park. He drifted past once, muttering something. I kept talking. He circled back. "You want some weed?" he asked as I tried to concentrate on my telephone conversation. "No thanks," I replied politely. Then, after I "hung" up, another guy approached me and mumbled something. I assume it was another offer of drugs. I demurred and said, "Have a good week." (Why, I don't know.) He responded in kind. Two observations: First, both dealers were quite brazen and reasonably friendly. Second, I was happy both times that the guys were dealing, simply because I initially feared they were beggars, which would have required a mini-conversation and a few bucks. 2) In an 8th Avenue diner at about 12:30 one morning, I sat munching on a grilled cheese sandwich when an older, good-looking black gentleman walked in and sat down at the next table. He smiled and said matter-of-factly, "You're so handsome." I giggled, said "thank you," and resumed munching. He continued to praise me. "Hot," I think, was among his observations. (As I said, he was older.) Even though I didn't want to encourage him, I also didn't want to diss him. So I chatted a little, asking where he was from (D.C.), what he did (actor) and how his cheeseburger was (OK). Then, he asked, "Are you a top or bottom." Three times. (If you're not gay and don't know what "top or bottom" means, maybe the Spanish version will help: "activo or pasivo." If that doesn't do the trick, think dicks and butts.) Each time, I rebuffed him, finally telling him I wasn't going to answer. I also gently deflected his hand from landing on my knee. I was a little embarrassed by the guy's question, but I wasn't disturbed by his advances. Sex is important. Love is important. Maybe he thought he had a chance at both in a lonely Chelsea diner.
3) The two companies that have absolutely cornered the market in NYC are Poland Springs bottled water and North Face coats. It seems like every third guy in Manhattan wears North Face gear. Even the first drug dealer in Washington Square Park did. If there's a business or culture writer in the house, it would make a good story.
4) January in Manhattan is a minimalist time. The air is squeezed drier than in summer, allowing only a few dusty snowflakes to drift from skinny clouds. Trees strip down to their skeletons, transforming themselves into finely lined etchings rather than thick oil paintings. Oddly, these traits accentuate the city's beauty. Don't get me wrong: I'd jettison winter in a heartbeat. Give me spring and fall, despite their melancholy. And give me summer, give me summer over and over and over again. Winter? I like about a month's worth, just enough to see naked trees outlined against icy blue skies, just enough to make me long for the first blossoms. But I'm glad I saw the city in the dead of winter. Buildings seemed more stark, more muscular without makeup, without leaves and flowers to mask their spindly fire escapes and rough exteriors. In the thin January air, the Empire State Building looked sharper than ever. And there's another plus: Those trademark summer street odors were gone, leaving only the sweet aroma of onions and peppers caramelizing on vendors' grills.
5) I'm so fucking happy, so freaking proud that I'm gay. I went to dinner with a beautiful, charming young Trinidadian, a budding journalist, and couldn't have imagined a better life. Gay to de Bone.
From my Livejournal blog, January 2007
A Biology Lesson
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Gay Flicks 5
8. Broken Sky 2006
MY TAKE: If you want to see the complexities of love condensed into 2 hours and 20 minutes of jaw-dropping cinematographic beauty, check out "Broken Sky." Along with "Angels In America" and "Trick" -- yes, "Trick" -- this is my favorite gay movie. It's unforgettable. Never before have I sat in front of a screen and been so stunned by the artful beauty of a film. You become a drop of blood in a pounding heart.
PLOT: Set at the National Autonomous University of Mexico -- a dramatic campus with 144,000 undergraduate students alone -- the film luxuriates in its three chief characters, a trio of seriously lustful gay students longing for love. Its frank portrayal of gay sex -- frank but not pornographic -- would turn off many people. So would its pace and depth, both of which make "Brokeback Mountain" look like a romantic comedy. You could print the movie's dialogue on a gum wrapper. Everything is expressed through the actors' eyes and bodies, through the camera's mournful lens.
FAVE SCENE: I can't pick one. Check out the video below.
MY TAKE: If you want to see the complexities of love condensed into 2 hours and 20 minutes of jaw-dropping cinematographic beauty, check out "Broken Sky." Along with "Angels In America" and "Trick" -- yes, "Trick" -- this is my favorite gay movie. It's unforgettable. Never before have I sat in front of a screen and been so stunned by the artful beauty of a film. You become a drop of blood in a pounding heart.
PLOT: Set at the National Autonomous University of Mexico -- a dramatic campus with 144,000 undergraduate students alone -- the film luxuriates in its three chief characters, a trio of seriously lustful gay students longing for love. Its frank portrayal of gay sex -- frank but not pornographic -- would turn off many people. So would its pace and depth, both of which make "Brokeback Mountain" look like a romantic comedy. You could print the movie's dialogue on a gum wrapper. Everything is expressed through the actors' eyes and bodies, through the camera's mournful lens.
FAVE SCENE: I can't pick one. Check out the video below.
SEX QUOTIENT: Intense.
Gay Flicks 4
7. Adventures Of Felix 2000
MY TAKE: Sami Bouajila plays a cute, gay, HIV-positive Arab who lives in an English Channel town on the northwest coast of France. The film is a classic character study, weaving homophobia, racism and AIDS into a meandering 95 minutes. In a cool touch, it's set in spring, so the skies often are dramatic but the scenery dew-fresh, which fits the flick's tone.
PLOT: Felix loses his job and decides to take a five-day trip -- via feet and thumb -- to the South of France, hoping to meet his father for the first time. En route, he finds a new "family" of sorts.
MY TAKE: Sami Bouajila plays a cute, gay, HIV-positive Arab who lives in an English Channel town on the northwest coast of France. The film is a classic character study, weaving homophobia, racism and AIDS into a meandering 95 minutes. In a cool touch, it's set in spring, so the skies often are dramatic but the scenery dew-fresh, which fits the flick's tone.
PLOT: Felix loses his job and decides to take a five-day trip -- via feet and thumb -- to the South of France, hoping to meet his father for the first time. En route, he finds a new "family" of sorts.
FAVORITE SCENES: In the beginning of the film, the camera follows Felix as he rides his bicycle along the oceanfront in his English Channel hometown of Dieppe. It's the sort of scene that would probably be chopped in half or less by an American movie-maker. But it evokes wonderful feelings of youth and freedom. At the end of the film, Felix is reunited with his boyfriend after his journey to Marseilles. Their playful warmth is every gay guy's dream.
SEX QUOTIENT: Nothing overt, though there is full frontal nudity in one scene. But, hey, Sami's a beautiful human being. Enjoy.
Gay Flicks 3
6. Slutty Summer 2005 MY TAKE: The critics hated this little flick. But I liked it, maybe because I didn't expect a cinematic masterpiece from a film shot on a shoestring budget in Manhattan. Yes, the acting is uneven. Some is bad, some is very good. But the story is cute, if cliche-ridden, and the actors even cuter. Luke (Jesse Archer), as the most stereotypical gay character, is totally endearing, if endlessly horny. And Tyler (Jamie Hatchett), as the BritBoy model, is astonishingly beautiful and sexy. What's not to like? Oh, and I love Tyler's quote when Markus (writer-director-actor Casper Andreas) asks him to define their relationship: "Well, I hesitate to call us fuck buddies," he said in his clipped British accent, "because i do enjoy talking to you."
PLOT: Four pretty, young gay guys get jobs as waiters at a Chelsea restaurant and spend the summer looking for sex and love.
FAVE SCENE: The gay Jewish dork, Peter, finds a boyfriend -- a cool black kid -- and the two of them walk hand-in-hand down a neighborhood sidewalk in Manhattan.
SEX QUOTIENT: Not real explicit, but sexy.
TRIVIA: Jamie Hatchett is a former Versace underwear model.
MORE: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/slutty_s
Gay Flicks 2
4. Happy Together 1997 MY TAKE: Wong Kar-Wai never fails to fascinate. His films are as much about art as they are about plot. None more so than "Happy Together," a study of two gay Hong Kong guys who move to Buenos Aires and soon drift apart. The breakup of their relationship is difficult to watch at times, but the underlying energy of the film keeps your eyes squarely on the screen. As playwright Hang Ong wrote on the DVD version: "It's also about the pop world of love, ships passing in the night, and the wonderfully lush moments..." Wong shows over and over again in his films, a critic suggested, that the world is one neon-lit fast-food joint, whether you're in Southeast Asia or South America.
PLOT: Gay lovers move from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires and their relationship disintegrates.
FAVE SCENE: I love the Taipei segment at the end of the film, simply because of the frenzied cinematography.
SEX QUOTIENT: Nothing to write home about.
TRIVIA: Nominated for the Golden Palm award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival
MORE: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1083093-happy_together/
5. Just A Question Of Love 2000
MY TAKE: This flick grew on me. Made for French television, it intelligently chronicles a budding relationship between a beautiful 23-year-old student (Laurent) and a slightly older agricultural researcher (Cedric). Laurent is still largely closeted, which highly annoys Cedric. Nevertheless, the interaction between these new lovers seems uncommonly realistic, as do their relationships with their parents. The film also is just plain gorgeous -- from the characters to the settings.
PLOT: The student and his teacher become lovers -- and the teacher prods the student to become more honest about his sexuality. Laurent's parents, small-town pharmacists, are hard sells, to say the least.
FAVE SCENE: Cedric pulls up in his car outside Laurent's apartment, ostensibly to make sure he got home all right. In truth, he can't get the kid out of his mind. Laurent is equally as excited to see Cedric, and soon they are in bed.
SEX QUOTIENT: Light. Some modest bed scenes, but remember this first aired on French TV.
MY TAKE: This flick grew on me. Made for French television, it intelligently chronicles a budding relationship between a beautiful 23-year-old student (Laurent) and a slightly older agricultural researcher (Cedric). Laurent is still largely closeted, which highly annoys Cedric. Nevertheless, the interaction between these new lovers seems uncommonly realistic, as do their relationships with their parents. The film also is just plain gorgeous -- from the characters to the settings.
PLOT: The student and his teacher become lovers -- and the teacher prods the student to become more honest about his sexuality. Laurent's parents, small-town pharmacists, are hard sells, to say the least.
FAVE SCENE: Cedric pulls up in his car outside Laurent's apartment, ostensibly to make sure he got home all right. In truth, he can't get the kid out of his mind. Laurent is equally as excited to see Cedric, and soon they are in bed.
SEX QUOTIENT: Light. Some modest bed scenes, but remember this first aired on French TV.
Black and White
Shawn, a 20ish black kid with a trendy cell-phone earpiece attached to his right ear, was telling a friend about a fight he got into on the subway.
By his account, rendered in animated fashion at Union Square in New York around midnight, he and his girlfriend got onto the train and had to stand because all the seats were taken. Suddenly, a big white dude bumped into him -- even though Shawn hadn't "stopped short," which apparently would have negated the guy's bump.
So Shawn turned around and -- as I remember the story -- made some annoyed-but-non-threatening remark to the guy, who replied, "Fuck you."
Oops.
Shawn, wearing a suit and accompanied on the train by his white Czech Republic girlfriend, said he immediately went into "hood" mode." Out went the proper English. In came the ghetto talk. Which, as Shawn told the story, essentially terrorized the white dude, who -- fearing a faceful of fist -- began bear-hugging Shawn, lifting the lean, 5-11ish kid off the floor.
Obviously, Shawn had a choice: blow off the guy or start whaling on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he said, he spied what appeared to be a security officer approaching -- making the decision easy.
"He was white, I was black. And black guys always get the blame," he said.
So ... BOOM! Shawn's fists were flying.
When the security guy broke things up, Shawn said an old white woman -- as is their wont, he noted -- blamed it all on the black kid.
"You know she wanted to say 'nigger,'" Shawn said.
Shawn's white girlfriend, though, stuck up for him, and -- as I remember -- all ended well.
The story was one of many Shawn told in an hour-and-a-half monologue to his friends, first to a pretty white girl with a European accent, then to a studious-but-strong-looking black guy (whose reaction to the subway tale was, "Shawn, that was a long story.")
A sampling of his subjects: 1) how mainstream American culture sucked because white Americans were basically "watered-down Europeans," 2) how people in Union Square would look at a big electronic readout with rapidly changing mega-digits and speculate that it was the national debt or the number of people Bush had killed, when in fact it was a clock to the nth degree (which he said he figured out after about a week of studying it), 3) how kids in the hood used to make fun of the way he dressed, calling it "homo" (he was wearing a gray T-shirt tucked into tight blue jeans; a snug, untucked checkered button-down shirt; a silver-chain loop on his belt; and red-and-white sneakers untied), 4) how his style of dress is now catching on in the hood, where baggy is out; and how some white dudes just can't pull off the look (noting guys he'd seen in bars with their balls clearly outlined and their "hairy asses" showing when they leaned over), and 5) how everyone his age still raves about "KIDS," a 1995 flick about New York City teens' addiction to drugs and sex (he thought the lifestyle it chronicled was lame).
The guy was obviously bright and culturally and politically aware. At first, I thought he was gay, because he mentioned gay things and said he hung out in Chelsea, but by the end, I wasn't sure. In fact, how much of his monologue was real and how much was shtick is anybody's guess. He was, however, way better than a comedy club on a weekday night. And, once in a while, he drew me into the conversation. When he and his friends left the steps of Union Square at around 12:30 a.m., he reached over, shook my hand and said, "My name's Shawn. It's been good talking to you." Cool, I thought. Even cooler would be seeing him again. Fat chance, right?
Wrong.
About an hour later, I saw Shawn standing outside a brightly lit cafe at the corner of 23rd and 8th in Chelsea, lecturing a bleeding white kid. Soon, an NYPD car flashed to the scene, along with the rescue squad. Uh-oh, I thought, there goes Shawn. But the black-white thing, in this case, didn't hold. I have no idea why the white kid -- whom I first saw literally stumbling past the open-air Venus diner a couple feet in front of my grilled cheese and french fries at about 1:15 a.m. -- was bleeding, but he was the only one taken away by the cops or medics.
I thought about race -- and Shawn -- again Thursday in lower Harlem. I had wandered up 114th Street, a narrow road with teenagers playing basketball on the hot pavement and other black guys hanging out on the stoops of the skinny sidewalk. In a scene out of an NYC cops flick, about 20 police cars -- mostly cruisers, but also a handful of unmarked detective cars (along with one three-wheeled meter-maidish vehicle) -- screeched onto 114th, lights flashing, sirens squealing. Cops sprayed out like shot-gun pellets. Two panting officers raced to the scene on foot. Speculation on the street was that they were looking for someone connected with the shooting of two policemen earlier in the week. It took only five minutes or so for the cops to determine it was a false alarm, and away they went just as quickly as they had arrived.
What was notable, though, was how many of the black guys scattered when the police approached. Many of the cops -- the vast majority, maybe -- were black or Latino, but that didn't matter. Inner-city blacks and big-city cops don't mix.
That's no surprise, considering the stunning number of young black men behind bars in America.
Using information from the U.S. Justice Department's annual report on inmates, the World Socialist Web Site presented stark statistics on life for black men in America:
"More than a quarter of U.S. inmates in mid-2002—a total of 596,400—were black males between the ages of 20 and 39. This means 12 percent of black men in their 20s and early 30s—more than one in ten—are in jail or prison. The report calculates that over the course of a lifetime, 28 percent of all black men will have spent some time behind bars."
The numbers haven't changed much, according to more recent federal studies. In 2005, the Justice Department reported, 12 percent of black men in their late 20s were in prison or jail -- compared to only 3.9 percent of Hispanics and 1.7 percent of whites.
It's even worse for the poorly educated -- and one study estimates that New York City has a 61 percent high school dropout rate.
Reported the New York Times: "In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison."
I have no idea how many black guys are wrongly convicted of crimes. Most, I assume, deserve to be in jail. Most, I also assume, grew up in environments that helped seal their fates -- meaning no father at home, lousy schools, gangs on the streets, a numbness to ever-present violence, an acceptance of drugs. Listen to rap songs. Those guys are like reporters from the ghetto. Life isn't easy.
Race itself, however, plays zero role in why somebody commits a crime. Put white or brown kids in the same circumstances and they'd turn out the same way. That doesn't mean racial profiling doesn't lead to more blacks being jailed. It just means that race isn't the root cause.
Profiling, of course, demeans and marginalizes people. It doesn't make a kid think, "Wow. Isn't that policeman nice, mom?" And it takes places everywhere. Here in Harrisonburg, a college town in the Shenandoah Valley, the city's star high school athlete -- and later a Division I-AA football All-American -- once told me that when he walked to the 7-Eleven, cops would stop and ask what he was doing. That would never happen to a white kid here.
Police, no doubt, would cast a wary eye on Shawn -- or is it Sean (and do I use "Shawn" because it sounds blacker?) -- before they would on a white guy. It's not fair, but Shawn clearly has accepted it -- meaning the system has beaten down even this exceptionally bright, articulate and knowledgeable kid from the hood.
No wonder he decided to pound that white dude on the train.
By his account, rendered in animated fashion at Union Square in New York around midnight, he and his girlfriend got onto the train and had to stand because all the seats were taken. Suddenly, a big white dude bumped into him -- even though Shawn hadn't "stopped short," which apparently would have negated the guy's bump.
So Shawn turned around and -- as I remember the story -- made some annoyed-but-non-threatening remark to the guy, who replied, "Fuck you."
Oops.
Shawn, wearing a suit and accompanied on the train by his white Czech Republic girlfriend, said he immediately went into "hood" mode." Out went the proper English. In came the ghetto talk. Which, as Shawn told the story, essentially terrorized the white dude, who -- fearing a faceful of fist -- began bear-hugging Shawn, lifting the lean, 5-11ish kid off the floor.
Obviously, Shawn had a choice: blow off the guy or start whaling on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he said, he spied what appeared to be a security officer approaching -- making the decision easy.
"He was white, I was black. And black guys always get the blame," he said.
So ... BOOM! Shawn's fists were flying.
When the security guy broke things up, Shawn said an old white woman -- as is their wont, he noted -- blamed it all on the black kid.
"You know she wanted to say 'nigger,'" Shawn said.
Shawn's white girlfriend, though, stuck up for him, and -- as I remember -- all ended well.
The story was one of many Shawn told in an hour-and-a-half monologue to his friends, first to a pretty white girl with a European accent, then to a studious-but-strong-looking black guy (whose reaction to the subway tale was, "Shawn, that was a long story.")
A sampling of his subjects: 1) how mainstream American culture sucked because white Americans were basically "watered-down Europeans," 2) how people in Union Square would look at a big electronic readout with rapidly changing mega-digits and speculate that it was the national debt or the number of people Bush had killed, when in fact it was a clock to the nth degree (which he said he figured out after about a week of studying it), 3) how kids in the hood used to make fun of the way he dressed, calling it "homo" (he was wearing a gray T-shirt tucked into tight blue jeans; a snug, untucked checkered button-down shirt; a silver-chain loop on his belt; and red-and-white sneakers untied), 4) how his style of dress is now catching on in the hood, where baggy is out; and how some white dudes just can't pull off the look (noting guys he'd seen in bars with their balls clearly outlined and their "hairy asses" showing when they leaned over), and 5) how everyone his age still raves about "KIDS," a 1995 flick about New York City teens' addiction to drugs and sex (he thought the lifestyle it chronicled was lame).
The guy was obviously bright and culturally and politically aware. At first, I thought he was gay, because he mentioned gay things and said he hung out in Chelsea, but by the end, I wasn't sure. In fact, how much of his monologue was real and how much was shtick is anybody's guess. He was, however, way better than a comedy club on a weekday night. And, once in a while, he drew me into the conversation. When he and his friends left the steps of Union Square at around 12:30 a.m., he reached over, shook my hand and said, "My name's Shawn. It's been good talking to you." Cool, I thought. Even cooler would be seeing him again. Fat chance, right?
Wrong.
About an hour later, I saw Shawn standing outside a brightly lit cafe at the corner of 23rd and 8th in Chelsea, lecturing a bleeding white kid. Soon, an NYPD car flashed to the scene, along with the rescue squad. Uh-oh, I thought, there goes Shawn. But the black-white thing, in this case, didn't hold. I have no idea why the white kid -- whom I first saw literally stumbling past the open-air Venus diner a couple feet in front of my grilled cheese and french fries at about 1:15 a.m. -- was bleeding, but he was the only one taken away by the cops or medics.
I thought about race -- and Shawn -- again Thursday in lower Harlem. I had wandered up 114th Street, a narrow road with teenagers playing basketball on the hot pavement and other black guys hanging out on the stoops of the skinny sidewalk. In a scene out of an NYC cops flick, about 20 police cars -- mostly cruisers, but also a handful of unmarked detective cars (along with one three-wheeled meter-maidish vehicle) -- screeched onto 114th, lights flashing, sirens squealing. Cops sprayed out like shot-gun pellets. Two panting officers raced to the scene on foot. Speculation on the street was that they were looking for someone connected with the shooting of two policemen earlier in the week. It took only five minutes or so for the cops to determine it was a false alarm, and away they went just as quickly as they had arrived.
What was notable, though, was how many of the black guys scattered when the police approached. Many of the cops -- the vast majority, maybe -- were black or Latino, but that didn't matter. Inner-city blacks and big-city cops don't mix.
That's no surprise, considering the stunning number of young black men behind bars in America.
Using information from the U.S. Justice Department's annual report on inmates, the World Socialist Web Site presented stark statistics on life for black men in America:
"More than a quarter of U.S. inmates in mid-2002—a total of 596,400—were black males between the ages of 20 and 39. This means 12 percent of black men in their 20s and early 30s—more than one in ten—are in jail or prison. The report calculates that over the course of a lifetime, 28 percent of all black men will have spent some time behind bars."
The numbers haven't changed much, according to more recent federal studies. In 2005, the Justice Department reported, 12 percent of black men in their late 20s were in prison or jail -- compared to only 3.9 percent of Hispanics and 1.7 percent of whites.
It's even worse for the poorly educated -- and one study estimates that New York City has a 61 percent high school dropout rate.
Reported the New York Times: "In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison."
I have no idea how many black guys are wrongly convicted of crimes. Most, I assume, deserve to be in jail. Most, I also assume, grew up in environments that helped seal their fates -- meaning no father at home, lousy schools, gangs on the streets, a numbness to ever-present violence, an acceptance of drugs. Listen to rap songs. Those guys are like reporters from the ghetto. Life isn't easy.
Race itself, however, plays zero role in why somebody commits a crime. Put white or brown kids in the same circumstances and they'd turn out the same way. That doesn't mean racial profiling doesn't lead to more blacks being jailed. It just means that race isn't the root cause.
Profiling, of course, demeans and marginalizes people. It doesn't make a kid think, "Wow. Isn't that policeman nice, mom?" And it takes places everywhere. Here in Harrisonburg, a college town in the Shenandoah Valley, the city's star high school athlete -- and later a Division I-AA football All-American -- once told me that when he walked to the 7-Eleven, cops would stop and ask what he was doing. That would never happen to a white kid here.
Police, no doubt, would cast a wary eye on Shawn -- or is it Sean (and do I use "Shawn" because it sounds blacker?) -- before they would on a white guy. It's not fair, but Shawn clearly has accepted it -- meaning the system has beaten down even this exceptionally bright, articulate and knowledgeable kid from the hood.
No wonder he decided to pound that white dude on the train.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Yum 7: A Stir Fry, Sort Of
It's blood orange season, so I'm squeezing those scarlet drops into all kinds of dishes, including something resembling a stir-fry. I say "resembling" because I don't use a wok and I like to cook the vegetables longer than you would in a regular stir-fry. Anyway, this is it:THE SAUCE
1) Squeeze three to six oranges (depending on juiciness and size) into a bowl. Today, I used four blood oranges and two cara-cara oranges.
2) Squeeze another type of citrus in the bowl. A lime or lemon is good.
3) Add a few slurps of low-sodium soy sauce.
4) Add a generous slurp of maple syrup.
5) Add a minced smallish garlic clove.
THE FRY
1) Lightly coat a skillet with oil. I use olive oil, but -- obviously -- a more traditional stir-fry grease would be fine.
2) Saute some sliced leeks, several minced garlic cloves and a third of a jalapeno.
3) Add sliced sweet bell pepper (red, yellow or orange), sliced baby portobello mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, a few grape tomatoes, sliced zucchini. (Or, really, whatever you like.)
4) Add salt, black pepper, a little ground coriander, maybe some cilantro.
5) After it's softened some, add the sauce.
6) Cook another 10 minutes or so.
THE CARBS
1) Brown rice or ...
2) Couscous or ...
3) Bread.
MORE PROTEIN
1) A medium-hard cheese like gouda or jarlsberg, chunked.
Yum.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
More Mood Than Shiver
I'm not a big horror flick guy, but I love foreign films, so I watched "Shiver" (or "Eskalofrio" in Spain) the other day. The plot is pretty predictable -- light-sensitive kid moves to the mountains, people die, he becomes a suspect, turns out the monster's a psycho girl -- but the atmosphere is indeed terrifying. The movie appears to be set in a remote region of northern Spain called Asturias, a wet place of steep canyons and dark forests. The director, Isidro Ortiz, captures the insular dread of the setting perfectly. By the end of the flick, he also achieves his goal of making the dark a sanctuary. "I've tried in 'Eskalofrio' to build a horror thriller where the monsters are the heroes and where you must flee from the light to take refuge in the darkness," he wrote. "A back to front tale." That in itself is creepy.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Perceptive Bitch
So I'm having dinner with a young Mentos guy. (What's Mentos? Please.) And the young waitress -- who, inexplicably, apparently has the hots for me -- brings separate checks to our table. "The top is yours," she tells me. "The bottom is yours," she tells Gabe. Hmmm. Was she upset? Anyway, as Gabe said, how dare she presume?
(OK. Mentos. That's what I call cool, hip, multicultural, well-traveled guys. You know, like the EuroKid commercials for the Freshmaker. ;)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Dumb and Dumber
The absolute worst thing in the world: dining alone in a crowded restaurant on Valentine's Day. Yes, it's dumb, but nothing screams "PATHETIC" louder. So, of course, I ate alone in my home tonight, thank you. Hmm. Dumb and dumber?
Saturday, February 7, 2009
So, So, Soooo Gay
Although I apparently am the only homosexual in America who didn't watch "Sex and the City" when it initially aired on HBO, I'm making amends. Not long ago, I buzzed through the first season on DVD. Drooling, I then bought the complete series -- for only $99, I might add -- and am officially hooked.
As everyone knows, this is a "gay" show in drag. Yes, it's about four women's sexual adventures in NYC, but queers can totally relate to the plots and emotions. Maybe it's the promiscuity. I mean, we all know men are horny as shit 24/7. So are these girls. That alone makes it relate-able. Then there's the fashion, the sassy wit, the shopping, the ... OK, so I'm getting a wee bit stereotypical. And, of course, the TV series was created by a gay dude.
Anyway, the show's writing is hit and miss. But -- and here's where the "omg, i'm so gay" comes into play -- I watched an episode yesterday and wept like a 6-year-old girl. It's when a devastated Aiden comes to Charlotte's wedding and breaks up with Carrie, who had earlier told him she had slept with Mr. Big. So everyone's crying, including me. Then, as a still-tearful Carrie poses with her three pals in a wedding picture, she says: "It's hard to find people who will love you no matter what. I was lucky enough to find three of them." Lost it. Why, I really don't know. But sometimes, as cynical as I am, sappy romance knocks me flat.
Friday, February 6, 2009
A Reminder
It's important to remember -- even belatedly. Last October was the 10th year since Matthew Shepard's murder. Savagely beaten and tied to a fence in the Wyoming prairie -- the only places on his face free of blood were where his tears had fallen -- the 21-year-old gay college student was discovered the next day by a cyclist who thought he was a scarecrow. Shepard died five days later. Most evidence suggests the two young killers were fueled by drugs and homophobia.But, trite as it sounds, his death did not go unnoticed. Shepard became a symbol in the battle to protect gay people from hate crimes. Those crimes still exist, but -- a decade later -- a majority of Americans appear to accept gays. They might not want them to marry. They might not want to get too close to them. But they don't want to exterminate them. The subsequent humanization of this innocent kid was one small step along the way.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Just Take The Freakin Subway
The only thing about Taxgate that bothers me is this: What made Tom Daschle feel he needed -- and perhaps deserved -- a car and driver at his command ... 24/7 ... as a private citizen? It's just another deliciously nasty little snapshot of this greedy era. Daschle apparently felt he was just too important to do what 95 percent of people do: either drive themselves or take the subway, the bus or even a cab. Instead -- and I'm guessing here -- he felt his time was so important, his station in life so lofty, his service to the nation already so generous that he was entitled to a round-the-clock chauffeur. It actually wouldn't bug me so much if Daschle had been spending his own $100,000-plus a year for the livery. But to accept it as a gift? From a rich guy trying to rub shoulders with "powerful" people? That's pathetic.(The picture: THAT'S what Daschle should have been driving -- a 100 mpg car that was quite popular on Capitol Hill, at least for photo ops.)
Sunday, February 1, 2009
A Serious Party
So, I stayed home tonight, cooked dinner (soft-shell tacos with freshly made salsa) and clicked the evening away on the Net. As you might know, I'm fascinated with Justin TV, so -- in the background as I did other things -- I watched a very young, very cute Marine get drunk. He was with two buddies (down from six the night before) in a penthouse at Myrtle Beach ($16 a day each for seven guys), downing beer and booze most of the night. A few minutes ago -- he's now talking to buddies at another party that HE'S watching on the Web -- Stephen told a friend that he'll be spending the next month on the boat he's attached to. Then he'll be stateside for two weeks, presumably at his base in Jacksonville, N.C., before going back to sea for a while. After some time off, he said, his unit will be "deployed" in May. He didn't say where it was being sent, but I'm guessing Iraq or Afghanistan. When I heard him say that, the partying suddenly didn't seem so frivolous. It seemed more like a defensive mechanism, a last chance for normalcy. I wanted to hug him. And thank him.
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