Category: history

We Are Family

I got all my sisters with me!

“We Are Family” is one of those songs from the disco era–the ones that still get played on oldies nights in queer bars and continues to live on. Obviously, it’s an iconic gay anthem–about our found families rather than the blood ones that so often want nothing to do with us–and it’s also really popular with sororities…at least it was back then. It’s a very joyful and uplifting song, lyrically, so it’s also fun to belt out at the top of your lungs. Disco was a really fun time for a gay boy in sparsely populated Kansas…it’s where my love of dancing really took off. The dance floor was, for many years, the only place where I felt free.

Yesterday was a decent day. We were very fortunate to not have any of that bad weather that was forecast, at least not here in the Lost Apartment. I’ve not checked on the storm toll throughout the rest of the South yet, primarily because I’ve not even finished my first cup of coffee yet. But I did see yesterday some horrific weather was happening throughout the South as the result of that storm cell yesterday, so I hope everyone got through it okay and is doing well this morning. Weather events are both terrible and terrifying. It’s kind of ironic that my current book I am writing is set during a weather event. But I feel rested this morning and I got up early (Sparky wasn’t quite as kind about letting me sleep later), and am about to start my second cup. I did okay yesterday. I was still mentally fatigued yesterday so wasn’t able to get a lot of creative work done, but managed some. I also did some chores and picked up around here, and walked to Walgreens in the morning to get butter, which I’d forgotten at the store on Friday (and I need a stick of butter for today’s dinner). Aside–Walgreens actually had stock. The one-two punch of Hurricane Ida and the pandemic dealt it a blow I didn’t think it was going to ever recover from; there were empty shelves everywhere, empty refrigeration cases, and you could never be sure they’d the one thing you needed–which happened more than once over the years since then. But I was very pleasantly surprised to see they had finally restocked, and they had things….not just the butter I needed but some other things I also needed and didn’t think they would have. NARRATOR VOICE: They did have those things, which was most pleasing to mine eyes.

This is delightful news–not quite “oh they opened a new Rouse’s in the CBD that’s actually on my way home” delightful, but it’s nice to know that I don’t have to get in the car to go get things necessarily anymore. I love when my life becomes more convenient.

I spent some more time with Moonraker yesterday, and it’s…something. There’s an unemotional distance in Fleming’s voice (he also uses the distant third person omniscient narrator style of writing, which I was trained so long ago not to use–I always use first or close third person, and it always surprises me when I read a legendary author’s work to find they use it), and there’s no sentimentality to it, either. The casual misogyny of the time is an eyeful, as well as the way Bond (and by extension, the secret service and the culture/society as whole) doesn’t really view women as people, but rather as almost ignorant children who need the guiding of a man). It’s also a good reminder that the Bond novels weren’t as over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek as the films1. The original novels definitely have a completely different feel from the movies, that is for damned sure. Fleming died around the time the first film was being made, so he never saw what Hollywood did to his characters and stories. I suspect he wouldn’t have cared much for them; the books are very cold. But it’s interesting to revisit it, and the similarities/prescience of Hugo Drax to Elmo Dusk are definitely eerie and make the book more compelling to read than it would have been a year ago.

Three out of four of the Lefty Awards last night went to friends–James L’etoile won Best Novel; Rob Osler won Best Humorous; and John Copenhaver won Best Historical–and two were openly queer writers writing about openly queer characters! Woo-hoo! The times, they are a-changing! There were also a number of other friends also nominated, so shout out to one and all the nominees and winners! Huzzah!

We did finish watching Running Point, which was a lot of fun and we greatly enjoyed it. We then watched the first three episodes of Adolescence on Netflix, which is disturbingly real. It opens with a 13 year old boy being arrested for the murder of a classmate, and the child is very definitely disturbed. We’ll finish that today probably, but I also have a lot of writing to do. We’ll see how everything goes.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, all, and I’ll be back at some point.

  1. Ayn Rand, in writing about “heroes” in film and novels, wrote about the early Bond films in an essay about art. I remember how much she loved Dr. No–really one of the only Bonds to be done as a serious film–and how much she hated Goldfinger. ↩︎

I’ll Never Love This Way Again

Remote Friday, which used to be Work-from-Home Friday–they call them “remote days” at the office now, so I had to rename the blog entry to be correct, because I am nothing if not a stickler (as if). I was correct in assuming I would be brain frazzled when I got home from work (it was a good day, if busy, and I got a lot done. Even wilder, there wasn’t much back-up of traffic on the highway), so I recharged for a bit in my easy chair with Sparky, and reacquainted myself with what happened in the advancing collapse of the Weimar Republic while I turned my attention away, and wasn’t in the least bit surprised at the most recent Neville Chamberlain-like statesmanship from Democratic leadership. The party just needs to die at this point before it gets too ugly…for them. I believe when MAGA turns on the people they voted for it will be incredibly violent and deadly–which is going to be a true Reign of Terror, since the betrayal runs so deep. The failure, and potential death of the Democratic Party–thanks, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, for your utter failure of leadership–will be less ugly, but ugly just the same. It’ll save me some money, since I will no longer be donating to any politician or party going forward…and I certainly will not be doing any campaign work of any kind ever again, either. Right now, the list of donations for 2026 is looking like it will be entirely to primary opponents. Why on earth would I ever support people who aren’t going to fight for the country and the Constitution?

I managed to get chores done last night, as I wasn’t physically tired at all, but had no bandwidth for reading or writing–but instead of sitting in my chair all night, I got my ass up and started doing chores. I did laundry, emptied the dishwasher, and washed everything in the sink and reloaded and ran it again. I picked stuff up and worked on the kitchen, too. I hate that my mind is so fried by Thursday, but this was also a busy-ass week and I was in clinic every day. I also slept very well last night, and Sparky wasn’t as insistent that I get up at six as he usually is. I also managed to pay my car registration on line, got the bills all paid, and now get to do some work-at-home duties before running some errands before settling in to read and write for the rest of the afternoon. LSU’s final gymnastics meet is tonight, at Auburn, so we’ll be watching that tonight, and we need to find something new to stream–but we also have this week’s Reacher and Abbott Elementary to watch, too. That’s tonight sorted, any way.

Tomorrow the weather is going to be ugly with some sort of super storm cell capable of producing powerful tornados. We don’t really have basements or interior rooms here, and the houses all have enormous windows, so yeah, tornados here are quite unpleasant. Yet another reason for me to get everything done outside of the house that needs to be done today, you know? I just need to get the mail and some groceries, nothing too terrible and relatively easy to get taken care of, which will be very nice. It also appears that the Irish Channel St. Patrick’s Day parade is cancelled, possibly postponed.

By checking the news for the weather, I also saw that today is the anniversary of one of the city’s darkest days in history–the lynching of eleven Italian-American immigrants in the city jail. The police chief had been murdered, and the (bigoted) view of New Orleanians that it was a Mafia or a local Italian crime gang, so when some of them were acquitted…the good white men of New Orleans (sarcasm) stormed the jail and lynched the prisoners. It created an international incident and almost led to war with Italy; to appease the Italian government, one of the things the US did (besides paying an enormous indemnity) was create Columbus Day–which is how that happened….funny that a holiday created to honor a genocidal maniac came about because of bigotry, racism, and murder. I wonder…is this the time period racists mean when they talk about how New Orleans “used to be safer”? Because that doesn’t sound too safe to me…maybe it was when Storyville was open? When the Axeman was killing people? I do want to write about the lynchings some time, but I don’t know how to turn that into a story or a book. Perhaps someday….

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back either later or not till tomorrow morning. I will see you then!

Goodnight Tonight

Wednesday pay-the-bills day has rolled around again (huzzah?). But we’re also halfway through the week and I am not exhausted yet, so that’s a plus? I slept very well last night, and the bed felt very comfortable this morning when Sparky and my alarm started trying to get me out from under my heavy blankets. Yesterday was a fairly good day. I finished the short story and sent it in, and now tonight hopefully I will be able to get back into writing the book again. St. Patrick’s Day is also this weekend, so I’ll be trapped at home because of the Irish Channel parade–traffic will be horrible, so I need to check the time and what day and the route and all that and plan my weekend around it.

There’s nothing more New Orleanian than planning around a parade, is there? Ah, the Crescent City life, right?

Paul got home late again last night, so after I worked on my story and did a few chores, I settled into my easy chair with Sparky for some bonding and to watch the news…which becomes more and more dystopian and insane every goddamned day. Now the government is illegally detaining and disappearing legal residents under the guise of “preventing anti-Semitism.” This is terrifying. This is one of the biggest violations of the First Amendment I’ve seen. If we have to listen to bigotry and prejudice and hatred all under the umbrella of ‘free speech,’ then everyone has to suck it up and hear speech they don’t like. It isn’t “free speech for me, but never for thee.” Everyone in this country, whether they are here legally or not, is entitled to the protections of our Constitution–which include due process. It always amazes me that people miss that part. (It’s the same kind of elitist “us v. them” that Christianity teaches them.)

And now we have someone using the highest office in the land to make car commercials in front of the White House. Talk about cheapening the dignity of the office! But the office was cheapened when he returned to it, wasn’t it? I will give him credit, as he’s accomplished several things no one thought possible in uniting Canada and Europe against us. What a lovely way to repay our allies, right? We’re going back to that horrible period between the world wars, where our economy crashes and the United States are isolated from the rest of the world….and how did that turn out for the world? SPOILER: Not well.

Sigh. I suppose we should be glad it wasn’t a McDonalds or KFC commercial.

I am so tired of living in this, the dumbest timeline of all. It’s been really amazing seeing how fragile our systems and institutions are, and how much people love to cosplay “patriotism” without understanding even the barest minimum of how to be a good citizen in this country. I’m tired of people complaining about paying their taxes but also bitching about how shitty the government is. Why are we so uneducated? Because the Right has always hated free public education and has been doing their damnedest to undermine and underfund it since its inception. The reason why societies always fail under conservatives/libertarians. Libertarians are all about the theory, but subscribing to a theory that is a fallacy will always end up with terrible outcomes. The fact that so many people don’t know how fucking tariffs work (and neither do the current administration) is a stinging indictment of public education–not to mention no longer requiring either a civics or government course. (My US Government course has proven so valuable to me over the years…like 2000, when I was one of the few people aware of what the Electoral College was and its role in elections.) But…an educated populace who knows how the government works and is capable of critical thinking would never vote conservative, so here we are. No Christian should ever vote conservative and show their face in church the following Sunday, but…

Sigh. A lot of people in our society love to cosplay at things they don’t understand.

I still haven’t started reading my next book, and I may try to dive into Moonraker tonight after I get home from my errands (Sparky needs treats!). We shall see.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later!

Yeah, Tom Cruise was most definitely NOT the embodiment of Reacher

New York Groove

Sunday morning where we’ve sprung forward (I hate Daylight Savings Time) and I feel off, like always when this happens. I’ve never cared for the spring part of it, but must admit I do enjoy the “extra” hour in the fall. I did go to bed early last night, and slept well–it apparently rained overnight, which undoubtedly helped with that. Of course, Sparky’s body clock didn’t change, so he wasn’t hungry enough to bother me until it was actually time for me to go ahead and get up, which was nice. (It’s this fall when he’ll annoy me early, isn’t it?) I have some things I need to get done today, which should be easy enough to do. I finished reading The Bell in the Fog yesterday (my thoughts are posted here) and really enjoyed it; and I am going to revisit an old Ian Fleming James Bond novel, Moonraker1 next I think. I may read something new alongside of it, but I haven’t decided which yet. Revisiting the original Fleming Bond novels will also give me something to think and write about on the subject of toxic masculinity and sociopathy. (So many post-war “heroes” defined masculinity so narrowly–and dangerously; Mike Hammer, James Bond…and yes, reading The Bell in the Fog put me in mind of post-war crime fiction.)

I am kind of working on a long essay–I have been since last spring, actually–about gay men and masculinity, and how societal norms and mores about them impact/twist our lives and makes it harder for us to just, I don’t know, be. I just read a great piece on the taboo of the male body that also plays into the paradigm I’m writing about. The societal reticence about the male body, and male nudity, is almost always centered on the groin area; you could depict a male completely nude as long as there was a fig leaf over the genitals. A lot of Renaissance paintings and sculptures at one point had “modesty leaves” placed over make genitals–and why is that? (Don’t even get me started on women…I’d be here for the rest of the year) Because whenever someone sees a limp penis resting on a pair of testicles they go mad with desire and sexual lust? (Although the way websites for gays drool and get “parched” over revealing pictures of influencers, actors, musicians, and other celebrities has always turned my stomach a little bit. I know, I know, but at the same time there’s something a little ‘junior high locker room” about that I find personally distasteful and almost cringe-y. Your mileage might vary and I am only speaking for myself. I enjoy looking at gorgeous men as much as the next gay man or cishet woman; I post one on here with every entry that isn’t about a book, movie or TV show. I like eye candy! There’s nothing wrong with it! I just feel the way the links and emails and so forth are shared, and the language used, is kind of juvenile and pandering and Tiger Beat-esque.)

You see how reading can influence my work? Lev’s got me thinking about writing queer historicals again–not that I was ever not going to write Chlorine, and I am hoping to get that done this summer or fall, finally–but the next book I am writing is Never Kiss a Stranger, which is also kind of a historical, since it is set in New Orleans in the summer of 1994. (An excerpt from it will be published in an upcoming anthology, which is very exciting for me. I also sold an excerpt from Chlorine recently also as a short story, so guess what, Constant Reader? You’ll be able to get a preview of both books soon! How fucking fun is that?) I often think of all the things I want to write–books, essays, short stories–and get overwhelmed because I know I’ll never get to them all before I expire. It doesn’t look like I will ever be able to retire now (fuck you again, MAGA, now and forever and ever, amen), so it really is going to be about managing my energy, being selfish, and being able to continue to write in my free time. It’s also going to make doing research no easier. Sigh. I am starting to resent all the volunteer time I’ve done over the last twenty years or so–not for Saints and Sinners, but pretty much everything else. I used to think I was making a difference, not only in the world but in various writing communities, but the truth is I wasn’t.

I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world, and the reality is I should have realized that difference I could make would be best served from my writing, not from anything else. I think that comes from a lifetime of never taking myself seriously because no one else ever did. I did learn things about myself, the community, and other people from the volunteering; so that was something gained, and while I hardly consider myself to be a “sage” or even a “community elder” 2, I have been around a long time. I always thought I got started in publishing way too late, but the number of people who published their first novel before forty isn’t that long, actually. But that also means I’ve been doing this now for almost thirty years (I started writing for a queer paper in Minneapolis in 1996, and my how things have changed over the years. I also never really had any desire to be famous; sure, when I was a kid I fantasized about being a movie star or a singer (alas, couldn’t act or sing), but writing was what I always wanted to do, hungered to do, and basically that desire subsumed every other ambition or fantasy. I also never wanted to be a celebrity author, or have the kind of success others have. All I ever wanted was to just write and make a living from that. I don’t need to be rich; I’ve never needed that. I’d prefer to be comfortable, and never have to worry about bills and things.

But the thing with money and success is most people never think they have enough, isn’t it?

Look at Space Nazi, for example. Isn’t he about the right age to be a boy from Brazil?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat at you again soon, most likely tomorrow morning.

  1. I saw a meme on-line that pointed out how dated Moonraker was–since it’s about a billionaire who moves to England and gets involved in the government with an ulterior motive… ↩︎
  2. I can’t deny I am old, so therefore it stands to reason I am, in fact, an elder. But I don’t think I’m a sage at all. ↩︎

I Want Your Love

Iris Saturday! And it looks like a beautiful day out there outside my windows. I also don’t feel sick this morning, which is also wonderful. After working yesterday I felt very sick and very tired, so I just decided to shut my brain off and just mindlessly drift through news clips on Youtube, as well as whatever my brain decided for me to look for (the temple destruction scene at the end of Samson and Delilah, for one example) as I finished laundering the sheets and went to bed. I slept great last night, too, and feel pretty good this morning. That’s awesome because it is, after all, IRIS SATURDAY! I probably won’t stay out for Tucks after Iris, but I am not missing my ladies! I also feel like I can get some things done around here today, too. I’ve been slacking on the house (and on, well, everything) for a while now–being sick didn’t help matters much–and so I should be getting it all under control today. I want to get some reading done, catch some beads, do some cleaning and some writing, while I’m at it.

I also watched a couple of 1970s movies last night while Paul worked (I got tired of the news; I can only watch American elected officials embarrass the country in front of the world so many times. What a fucking disgrace) and watched a Gene Hackman hard-boiled private eye movie (Night Moves) and a classic I’ve never seen (that no one ever talks about anymore either–The China Syndrome) and I enjoyed both. There’s really something different about the movies of the late 1960s and 1970s, a kind of gritty realism that showed the world as it was–dirty, graffitied, muted colors–that went away with movies in the 1980s, where everything was prettied up for the movies and departed from realism. It put me in mind of my Cynical 70s Film Festival that I did during the shutdown, and how so many movies were about paranoia and not trusting the government; which, after Vietnam, civil rights, and Watergate was very much a leftist thing. (Weird how that’s shifted–it’s the right that doesn’t trust the government anymore; that would be an interesting study, wouldn’t it? How that changed and shifted over the years? Another thing I hate about the right is that they’ve made the left defend the government rather than critiquing it.) Night Moves was okay–the mystery itself wasn’t terribly interesting but the thing that was interesting was Gene Hackman’s performance. The film was an excellent character study, even though we never really learned much about him. My primary takeaway from the film was that Gene Hackman would have made a great Travis McGee. Talk about missed opportunities. (Although it would also be a great role for Alan Ritchson…)

The China Syndrome was born out of the 1970’s paranoia about using nuclear reactors to create energy. After all the lies before, during and after Vietnam–not to mention Watergate–people weren’t really into trusting government reassurances, and weird things were happening with the nuclear power plants anyway (Karen Silkwood’s story would also be filmed, Silkwood, which was another one of those “paranoia/can’t trust the government or corporations” movies); they were building one fairly close to where we lived in Kansas–Wolf Creek, I think was the name–and there were protests about it (Kansas folks just saw as it as a place to work and no more thought into it than that) and I also remember in the classifieds in the Emporia Gazette some group always ran a little ad that said “NEVER FORGET KAREN SILKWOOD” so I already knew that story before the movie was made. Michael Douglas produced the movie, and of course Jane Fonda was in it–they were both very anti-nuclear energy; so of course it was seen as a “Hollywood liberals trying to scare people” film. But shortly after it was released, Three Mile Island (our almost Chernobyl) happened–and the movie became a huge hit. The movie ended positively–the news about the accidents at the plant in question gets out finally at the end1–which goes to show how hopeful these kinds of movies sometimes ended; when we all know the reporter and her cameraman, as well as the nuclear engineer played by Jack Lemmon, would have all either disappeared or been found dead under mysterious circumstances.

I really should watch an old movie when I’m too tired to write or read, rather than doomscrolling news clips on Youtube.

I’ve also been terribly remiss on my newsletter; I’ve started several that are in progress that I really should finish and share with the world–and should send out one before it’s time to do my review of The Bell in the Fog (Lev AC Rosen). I am trying not to overdo it–I mean, I pretty much write this every day so I don’t need to be sending out newsletters more than once a week; there’s only so much Greg people can take, after all. And I also expect you all to read my books and short stories, too. What can I say? I really enjoy writing.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and get to work around here. Have a lovely Iris Saturday, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later.

  1. Sorry-not sorry for not putting up a spoiler warning for a forty-six year old movie. ↩︎

Chuck E’s In Love

Tuesday of Jury Duty and parades; Sunday’s parades are rolling tonight, which should make getting home tonight a lot of fun. Jury duty was painless, other than I sat there without being called up to the pool until all juries were seated and they let us go in the early afternoon. I then had to go to work because the slip they gave me was for only five hours, and I wasn’t up for using my paid time off to get to eight for the day, so…there I went. I mostly scrolled through my phone while reading Lev AC Rosen’s marvelous The Bell in the Fog, which I am really enjoying. I do have to report again today, and I hope that’s it for the week. They did say that the city was shutting down at 5 tonight until Ash Wednesday (yes, we do pretty much close the city down for the last week of parades, don’t you wish you lived here, too?), so I don’t think I’ll have to go back after today. But that’s fine. I’ll either go up for voir dire or be let go after the morning, so hopefully I’ll be able to spend time reading my book while waiting to be called or released and that will be the end of it. Sunday’s rained out parades are tonight, so I am going to want to be home well before four. (I did slalom by driving on St. Charles Avenue; they have barricades so no car can get up enough speed to really do a repeat of the New Year’s terrorist attack on Bourbon Street…and it’s kind of fun. Traffic will continue to be a nightmare until after it’s all over. I just need to make it through this week until Friday…

I managed to work on my story last night. I deleted the extra, unusable 900 words, which dropped it down to about a thousand, and am now at a little less than three. Good progress, and I should be able to get it finished tonight. I doubt I’ll go out to the parades tonight–getting up at six every morning certainly puts a damper on that–but I do want to get home before the true madness starts. I’ve been very lucky with parking so far–praise be to the Carnival gods–and I know that’s not going to last through the entire season before the car is permanently parked for about five days Friday morning. I am debating whether to take all of Lundi Gras off, or going in for a few hours and leaving early. The latter makes the most sense, after all; save that time jealously! I don’t want to run out again, and I am actually at the point where I’ve got a nice amount of both (sick and vacation) in my bank now. Woo-hoo! At least I don’t have to worry about the time off I need to use for parade season. That’s a lovely release.

The country continues to swirl around the toilet bowl more with each passing day. Yesterday we betrayed NATO and Ukraine at the United Nations, joining with the true axis of evil on this planet–Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.–and continue to lose whatever moral leadership and authority we ever had (not that we ever had much of anything on that score to begin with); we are becoming isolated, the way we were before and between the world wars…which turned out so well for the world in the end, didn’t it? What happened in Coeur de Lion, Idaho the other day was appalling and recorded for the entire world to see (another black eye for the country); the violent abuse of a woman simply because she was calling out the bullshit she was hearing, while white people (men and women) cheered and applauded and the moderator of the event taunted her from the stage on his microphone, making jokes? That is some seriously small-dick energy, really. It also resulted in the usual social media nonsense, with people on-line responding (especially white women) with the usual lack of self-awareness: “I would never allow that to happen in front of me without saying or doing something!” Newsflash: white people–both men and women– always turn their heads and look away, “not my problem” or “I am not putting myself at risk to intervene” and so on…until it actually affects them. Where was all this energy on November 5th? Where was it for George Floyd or Breonna Taylor? Where is it for trans people, being stripped of their rights every day? Where it it for queer people, ever? Where, after all, were all the Southern white people who were opposed to racism, Jim Crow, and lynchings that I always hear about now, but actually did nothing while it was actually happening?

Not my problem is always the response, but everyone marginalized (you know, the people so many straight white women like to lord it over) is supposed to immediately DO SOMETHING when it’s a straight white woman–and if you point out their blatant hypocrisy…you’re a misogynist. Straight white women LOVE to pull out their “oppression” card whenever a discussion isn’t going their way and they have no defense for the appalling things they say other than “you have male privilege.” Really? My sex life was a crime until 2003. Was yours for the first forty-two years of your life, ma’am? I couldn’t marry my partner until 2014. Did you have to wait until you were fifty-three before you could legally marry the love of your life? I watched all my friends die (twice over!) in the 1980s while most straight white women smiled dismissively and said “not my problem.” Some of the biggest public homophobes of my adult life were straight white women. I know as a cisgender male I do have privilege; I certainly have more than lesbians and trans people, for example. But I have always lived under the threat of violence as a gay man; and before I owned my identity I did not pass as straight.

And yes, gay men also get sexually assaulted–and usually with objects. Gay men also get beaten and attacked, even killed, by straight white men. Sometimes with straight white women cheering them on. You just don’t hear about it up there in your precious lily-white privilege tower because you don’t care. Often assaults on gay white men–just like assaults of straight white women–don’t get reported because the cops don’t care and blame the victims. You don’t care unless it’s a white woman…when white women made sure the ERA didn’t pass; white women got Black and brown men killed all the time; and the Daughters of the Confederacy weren’t exactly gay white men, were they? A Republican controlled US government laughed about AIDS killing gay men.

But do go on with your homophobia, dear.

We all need to do better. It’s very easy to see something appalling in an online video and be very upset at the failures of witnesses to act, and to say “I would never.” But ask yourself this, white people: have you ever seen a white someone being racist to a Black person and said nothing? Have you watched as homophobes come for queer people, in real life or on-line, and did nothing? Do you challenge racism, homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia when you see it, or do you leave it alone? I know what the answer to that question is, by the way, and keyboard warriors who do nothing but talk big on-line sicken me to my core.

And for the record, I will always go on the offensive when some ignorant bitch of a white woman tells me I’m a misogynist when I am agreeing with her–especially when she tells me she’s done more for queer rights than me, using the condescending straight people “honey.” Literally, go fuck yourself with barbed wire, you homophobic bitch. Misogynist enough for you? (She also trotted out the “gay friends” defense–and when I pointed that out she then claimed “I never said they were friends”–oh, so you don’t have any friends but you’ve been to Pride a few times and even marched in a parade once! My God, let’s put up a statue of you in front of Stonewall! WHERE WOULD QUEER PEOPLE BE WITHOUT THE SACRIFICES OF STRAIGHT WHITE WOMEN? I guess I should be glad you didn’t go with the old pedophile/groomer shit, Miss Zero Followers. I screen capped the entire thing before blocking her flat bony unwashed ass.)

Coeur de Lion is now in the “find out” phase, and if we actually had a real government this would be investigated as a civil rights violation by the Department of Justice…but we don’t have a real government anymore. I always wondered what it felt like to be an abolitionist in the 1950s, when the government was geared to protect slavery in the land of the “free.” The company that employed the thugs that assaulted the woman has lost its business license, and it also looks like the grinning douchebag sheriff has been defrauding the LAPD pension fund–working another LE job while drawing a disability pension from another one–so I hope California throws the book at him.

This is what we are. This is what we have allowed our country to become. Even those of us who voted against this didn’t do enough to stop this—and it should have been stopped when it was the Tea Party. Remember those racists? The ones who didn’t want healthcare and the media dutifully reported on everything they said and pushed it breathlessly without ever calling out ONCE the clear and obvious racism? FOTUS climbed aboard the Tea Party train, remember? He started the birther bullshit and promoted it on every network who would let him because he was a “celebrity.”

But no, white people who patted themselves on the back for voting for Obama were very quick to stay home in the 2010 midterms because cleaning up the Bush mess was taking longer than everyone thought it should.

And God forbid everyone get health insurance. The HORROR!

We all own this, you know. Every last one of us white people. And we’re the ones who need to clean it all up–even though we know the fucking assholes we’re saving will knife us in the back again at the very first opportunity. They might regret their votes now–but they would do it again in a heartbeat. They prefer this to having a biracial woman in charge.

This is exactly what they wanted. And we should never let them forget. Letting them getting away with it was a mistake in 1865.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, and remember to do your part–even if it’s something you think small or inconsequential. Water wears away stone and the effects may not be immediate.

But it can end in something beautiful.

I Love the Nightlife

I also love to boogie–especially in the disco round, oh yeah, baby.

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment after kind of a nice, slow and easy day around here. Paul stayed up late working so pretty much slept the entire day away again, and I myself got up late yesterday, too. I didn’t mind, even though I was a little perturbed that I got up so late. But I had a nice morning. I did some things I needed to do and cleaned and organized some more, and I got up pretty early this morning, too. I don’t know how motivated I feel today, but I am hopefully going to get some good writing work done this morning so I can spend the afternoon reading. Sounds like a winner to me. We did finish catching up with Reacher, Abbott Elementary, and Prime Target last night, too. Tomorrow I get to report to Criminal Court for jury duty in Mid-city, so I will be finding out what’s going on with that. I’m hoping to be dismissed before parade days start; I’d rather go to the office and leave early than try to get home at five from Criminal Court in Midcity, which would probably require taking I-10/90, getting off at Tchoupitoulas, and doubling back from there with no place to park. Ah, well, this too shall pass, and as a crime writer, it’s always interesting to see how criminal court–or courts in general–operate up close and personal.

It’s gray outside, and rain is expected, which should put a damper on any and all parades today. There are no night parades, so technically I could make a grocery run after King Arthur ends, but I doubt I’ll want to be out and about at that time anyway. I do have all kinds of things to do today–I want to spend the morning writing and the afternoon reading, if at all possible. It’s always so nice to curl up in my chair with a blanket and read while it’s raining, you know? I like feeling snug and cozy; which is why I am so particular about sleep arrangements. Want to know something weird about me? I sleep with four blankets, because that’s enough weight to make me feel snug and comfortable. I have a soft wool one on the bottom and one really velvety soft one on the top. I need two pillows, always, and also need the ceiling fan on and a little personal fan on my nightstand going. Weird? Just a little bit. But I think we all have things that we do, little rituals, that bring us comfort and joy. Just me? Probably. I always default to me not being normal, I suppose; the product of my youth. Thanks, bully trash!

I did work on an essay yesterday a bit, one called “Try That in a Small Town.” I started writing it when the Jason Aldean nonsense happened last summer, because that “real America” bullshit has always, always pissed me off; and essentially has always been used to demonize cities–you know, the economic engines that fucking drive the country–and reassure provincial types who stay in rural areas that they are more important than the city dwellers. This of course goes back to the lies that were always told to encourage immigration when white people felt the need to “fill the continent” with white people while exterminating the natives. You can be free, you can own land and property, you can prosper because the government will leave you alone to do as you please and not restrict your freedoms. No, the rich people needed more consumers, and they also needed population in the “empty” territories to produce and buy. The United States has always been expansionist; even the Founding Fathers assumed more states would be formed out of native land, after they were pushed out. Anyway, I actually lived in a very small town in a very rural county in an underpopulated state for five horrible years–and I will dispute to my dying breath this notion that small towns are the “real America” (fuck you again and again with razor wire, Sarah Palin)…because everyone acts like they’re like Mayberry when they are really Peyton Place–horribly judgmental with lots of cruel gossip and backstabbing, and the sexual perversions of these “good meat-and-potatoes Americans” not even Grace Metalious could have dreamed up–and Peyton Place was nothing more than a novelization of things she witnessed and experienced in a small town. It always infuriates me, you know, to hear this “real America” shit. Try to make it without Chicago, New York, LA, Boston, and San Francisco. The fucking economy would crater in about two seconds. But…cities are usually Democratic strongholds, so they must be demonized, always.

And there’s the rain! I knew it was coming. It’s just a drizzle but it’s enough for the gutter to drip water on the cat enclosure just outside my laundry room–and it’s only raining on that side of the house. This happens here a lot–it can be raining on one block but not the next; one part of the city can be getting a flooding rain while it’s sunny and bright in another–but I don’t remember the last time it only rained on the other side of the house. New Orleans, always so bizarre.

It also seems that the American people are getting fed up with what’s going on in Washington, and they are starting to push back. I’ve progressed beyond FAFO, to be honest1; the danger to the country’s future is that strong that the mocking and pointing fingers and laughing and atonement can come after the threat has been overcome. I think this is the kind of lesson we needed to learn; we’ve always taken our system for granted and always assumed the government was stable and would hold–forever smug about governments toppling and falling in other countries while we remained stable. The problem is that stability was only achieved through horrific compromises…and human rights should never, ever, under any circumstance, be left to public or government whim. The seeds of self-destruction were planted in the Constitution with the compromise on enslavement. Senators used to be appointed by state legislatures, not the people. BUT it was also designed to be a living document, changed and amended over time to clear up inconsistencies and always, always, intended to protect the people from government overreach. I also agree with something I saw on social media yesterday–every elected official should be required to have regular town halls to meet with their constituents, and they also need to remember they were voted in to work for their district, not the president. Separate but equal branches of government means nothing when elected officials in Congress abdicate their roles for whatever reason.

And really, what is MAGA but the modern Confederacy? Yes, they are also Nazis…but remember–the Germans learned about how to deal with undesirable sub-populations by studying enslavement and Jim Crow. There’s your heritage, rednecks. You were Hitler’s blueprint. And weren’t plantations simply concentration/work camps with a nicer name?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning (or night).

  1. I’ve not, and never will, forgive MAGA voters, to be sure–just like I’ll never stop mentally dancing and pissing on Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s graves. But I can put that aside for now to overcome this threat. But there needs to be a reckoning–unlike after the Civil War and 1/6/20. ↩︎

(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away

A cold Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment. My doctor’s appointment went well–all my vitals were at appropriate levels, my lungs are clear, and all medications appear to be working properly, which is lovely. I came home from that appointment to do chores and make the house orderly before we headed out to Metairie for Paul’s appointment, after which we went to Costco. You know, for the first Friday of parade season, it wasn’t that terrible. It was crowded, yes, and there were times I had to wait for inconsiderate assholes who were blocking aisles thoughtlessly (a regular occurrence at the grocery store, a rarity for Costco) and the check out lines ferociously long, but it didn’t take us long to spend a shit load of money (Paul also ordered a new pair of glasses and our membership was also due for renewal). I was a bit concerned about parking when we got back, as it was closer to parade rolling time that I was comfortable with. I had noticed there were a lot of cars parking in the neighborhood–unusual–when I left for my appointment, and there was also a lot more traffic on the roads I usually traverse. Understandably, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to park within a mile of the house, but once we departed for Metairie/Costco I realized why everything was the way it was–they’ve turned the side of St. Charles people can drive down1 while parades are rolling into an obstacle course2. This is, I imagine, for crowd safety precautions after New Year’s, but damn…it’s going to make negotiating St. Charles and the neighborhood about ten times harder than it is usually is.

Thanks, asshole terrorist. I hope you’re roasting in hell like you deserve.

I also spent some time with Lev AC Rosen’s marvelous The Bell in the Fog, the second book in his Andy Mills detective series set in early 1950’s San Francisco. It’s an interesting period to read about: after the war but before Stonewall, when sodomy was still an enforceable crime and the hatred of queer people was so intense they were targeted mercilessly and no one fucking cared.3 Lev is a terrific writer–I loved Lavender House–and this one starts out really well. It’s very reminiscent of the old masters of crime/noir/hardboiled–Hammett, Chandler, Cain–which is why he gets nominated for awards so regularly.

I also have apparently sold another short story. I had sent something to an anthology at some point last year and completely forgot about it, to be honest; yesterday I got an apologetic email from (I guess? It has been a while) the editor saying they want it if it’s still available. That was a lovely bit of news, to go along with the terrific feedback from the other anthology that asked me for one. I am going to finish writing another one this weekend (if it kills me) so I can focus on finishing my book. I’d forgotten–as it has been a hot minute–how nice it is to get positive feedback from peers. And rather than questioning or explaining it away in my head (just being nice, etc etc), I decided to accept it and feel good about it, which is a lovely new approach to my career. In the moments when I allow myself to go down the natural path of current events (my publisher will get shut down, my books removed from the bookseller websites–it galls me that they’re on Target’s website, although they probably make very little me off me–and my career shut down completely in the de-queering of the country), I find it ironic that my stress, anxiety and depression didn’t allow me to ever enjoy my career very often, and that now I am finally beginning to enjoy myself and the nicer side of publishing/writing, it could all be stripped away from me. (For the record, straight people, losing our writing careers because of our sexual identity is something we have to think about all the time. Do you? So, fuck off with your I’m-an-ally-as-long-as-it’s-just-words-online bullshit. DO SOMETHING.)

But yes, I am feeling like I definitely need to get back to producing work, and that feels good for a change, you know?

Sparky also let me sleep late this morning, the little darling, and even curled up in the bed with me rather than trying to get me up. I think he waits for my alarm like Pavlov’s dog; I’ve trained him to react to the sound as well as his stomach. We watched LSU Gymnastics win at Kentucky last night, but they didn’t have a great meet–a bit of a letdown after defeating Oklahoma last week in Baton Rouge and a packed house–but it was fine; they hadn’t won in Lexington since 2016, and this year they did despite a bad meet. We then watched the premiere episode of Season Three of Reacher, which is based on one of my favorite Reacher novels, and am loving it. (I also like that his portrayer, Alan Ritchson–whom I’ve liked since I first noticed him on Smallville–is a devout Christian and not a cosplay one; he calls out the evangelicals and their false prophet regularly. He recently gave an interview to GQ in which he talked about Matt Gaetz, whom he went to high school with, and just ripped him to fucking shreds. You see? I don’t object to Christianity when people actually are real Christians.) We also watched some Arrested Development, too, before going to bed much later than we should have.

Overall, Friday was a pretty good day. I am going to get some reading and writing and cleaning done today–I need to unload the dishwasher and refill it at some point; and there’s always organizing and cleaning to get done. I also need to answer emails–I no longer have to stick to my old rule of “no emails on the weekend”–and I need to get some more newsletters written and finished to send. I’m trying hard to not deluge people with my newsletter; I am very prolific, as has been pointed out in the past repeatedly, and who wants to read my thoughts, views, and opinions on a daily basis? Even though I didn’t publish anything–not even a short story last year–I still produce a prodigious amount of writing all the time.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines–more accurately, I am going to repair to my easy chair with my book for a while before I actually start getting things done around here–and I may be back later. I am trying not to do more than one post here per day…but anyway, have a lovely Saturday, and I’ll be right back here tomorrow.

Screenshot
  1. I’ve always marveled that one side of the neutral ground is for the parades and the other side is open to traffic heading uptown. St. Charles is a major artery of the city, and they usually have to keep that side open because everything inside the parade is blocked off–and people do need to get uptown. Not really sure how this obstacle course drivers need to negotiate will work, or if they are going to take them down every night and put them back up again before the parades start–which means shutting St. Charles down for however long it takes to set up. Sigh. ↩︎
  2. I’ll try to get a picture of it at some point. ↩︎
  3. Straight people have always been awful, and the white ones the worst of all. ↩︎

Boogie Wonderland

Friday morning and I have the day off! I have some doctor’s appointments and an errand to run on top of that–it’s parade season and I won’t be able to leave the neighborhood from tonight around five till Sunday around six–and we are going to Costco today, too. There’s another errand, too, and I am not certain how much parade participation there will be. It’s supposed to be cold and a bit rainy all weekend, and beads hurt when it’s cold. I can do cold, I can do rain, but both together? That makes standing on the corner getting pelted with flying objects not a lot of fun. (One of my favorite parade experiences was one warm night when it was sprinkling as we went out to greet Orpheus. The crowds always start departing about halfway through Orpheus so they can get up early for Fat Tuesday, but even more than usual left that night because it started raining harder with the parade not even half over yet. Shortly, Paul and I were the only ones out there, getting drenched and getting buried with beads from the drunk riders trying to get rid of everything they could to the few of us who remained to see them pass. Staying to the end of Orpheus was why our Fat Tuesday started so much later than everyone else’s.) It’s very sunny and the sun is quite bright out there this morning, despite how cold it is. (I’m not going to bother to check–it can wait till later.) There are two parades tonight–Alla and Cleopatra.

I felt really good yesterday and rested and managed to get some things done. I did the dishes when I got home, worked on the laundry for a bit, and wrote a little bit, too. I stayed up later than usual–Paul got home late and we chatted for a while before I went to bed. Sparky tried getting me up at the usual time, but was very sweet and patient and let me sleep for a while longer before he got too hungry and insistent it was time for breakfast. I also had my first piece of cream cheese-filled king cake this morning (I bought one the other night on the way home from work, but hadn’t had any. You can imagine my shock to open the box this morning to find that there was no knife in the box (cardinal sin) but there was only about a quarter of it left. (Paul does love him some cream-cheese king cake.) I have to start getting ready to go to my doctor’s appointment, too. I made my Costco shopping list (seriously, newcomers to Costco–lists are crucial when going to Costco. I also advise going to their website before you go into you local store for the first time; the website can be set to your local store and so you can look up things to see if they’re in stock), and we’ll be heading there after I get back from the appointment. Parades also start tonight and this weekend, so once we get back…we’re pretty much trapped in the neighborhood until after King Arthur passes.

And next week I get to navigate jury duty during parades. Can’t fucking wait.

I was also a bit satisfied to see that Canada beat our national hockey team last night. I certainly never thought I’d see the day when I’d feel that way about a US national team loss, but here we are. I am ashamed and embarrassed by all these MAGA assholes talking about annexing Canada–which would wind up worse than our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, since it would mean that their Resistance would be majority white, so our systemic racism wouldn’t know what to do, which means atrocities on the level of Abu Gharib, if not worse.

And if you think Guantanamo Bay hasn’t had a concentration camp there for decades, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought. You can never go wrong assuming the worst about our government... and you’ll still be shocked and appalled by how awful our leadership has always been. The variances in foreign policy generally aren’t great between presidents. Obama campaigned against the forever wars when he ran in 2008, but once he was in office he didn’t really end those wars, did he? The only significant changes in our foreign policy during my lifetime came during Jimmy Carter’s presidency (governing as a Christian, he couldn’t continue supporting the regime of the Shah of Iran, which was horrifically oppressive…) or Trump. The difference is our allies supported Carter. The rest of the world is realigning to escape alliances with the United States because we are now a rogue nation. A fucking rogue, outlaw nation, led by conmen and grifters where everything is up to be looted by the billionaire class and everything else sold off for spare parts.

Now they are talking about “checking” the gold in Fort Knox. Brace yourself for a torrent of lies. Not even Goldfinger got away with going after the gold in Fort Knox, and both the book and movie picked Fort Knox because it was so impregnable. No one ever talks about the gold in Fort Knox anymore; when I was a kid everyone did. I mentioned Fort Knox the other day at work and many of my younger co-workers didn’t even know what Fort Knox was…it’s not part of the national conversation anymore, the way it was when I was a kid. “Safe as the gold in Fort Knox” used to be a saying back then. Maybe it was the influence of Goldfinger on the zeitgeist, but it was definitely there.

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world.

And on that note, tis off to the mines of spice with me. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader

Every 1’s a Winner

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Tomorrow is my usual remote day, but I have a couple of doctors appointments so I am taking the day off. I was right about being tired; by the end of the day I was so tired I thought I might fall asleep driving home! But I didn’t, and I got the mail and came home and got inside safely, locking the door and the cold outside. It’s very cold this morning, too (currently a toasty 31 degrees!). We watched some Arrested Development last night, and I did some work on my writing. I got some welcome feedback on a short story I wrote for an anthology, which was also very nice. I slept very well last night, too–the cold, I think, played a part in that as well as my physical exhaustion when I got home last night. I even did some chores last night, which was very pleasing. I have an errand to run on the way home from work tonight, and once I get home from the appointments tomorrow, I’ll be in for the rest of this very cold weekend in New Orleans, and buckling down and writing. The parades also start this weekend, so I need to be very judicious in my parade attendance so I can get some writing done. I am feeling more into my writing than I have in a very long time, so that is very cool and kind of exciting to me. I was terribly concerned over the last two years that I’d never write anything again. I think that the combination of everything else going on, in my life and in the world, along with severe burnout, was why I was struggling to write, and when the depression is mixed in, well, it’s no wonder I was uninterested in writing anything and couldn’t get anything done.

Definitely wearing layers today, too. The apartment is warm, but here at my desk? Not so much, really. But I am so grateful for last night’s sleep! I actually am awake and alert and not foggy in the least. It feels good to feel like I’m totally present, which I didn’t feel like the first part of this week. God, sleep is the best, isn’t it? I feel like today is a day when I can get things done and function and get my entire act together for a change. Hopefully, this feeling will last me for a while. I guess the trip last weekend required some readjusting back into my life–it’s weird how something like that can be so disruptive once you’ve settled into a routine (rut, whatever) with your life, isn’t it? But I am also in a very good mood this morning, and I’ve kind of been too tired lately for that to be a thing, you know? And definitely plan on riding this wave as long as it lasts–it’ll probably crest this afternoon. I do have some chores I need to do once I am back home, and of course, back to the store today on the way home (thank God for CBD Rouse’s, so I don’t have to go the long way uptown).

IN my tired state last night (and after being scolded/lectured by two trolls on social media, whom I made very sorry that they emerged from under their bridge) I was thinking about things–going to Alabama always makes me think about things from the past, plus all that 70’s research I’ve been doing lately–and I was remembering, with Sparky curled up in my lap, how different life is now from when I was a child. (Shocking, right? Who knew that I’d go through the same things every other older person has throughout history!) I was talking to Dad about Mom and her mother and what things were like for Mom growing up (Dad always talks about how great Mom was and how she never complained, despite how poor they were when they were first married; I replied, “Yeah, that apartment in Chicago might have been tiny but she had running water and a telephone, so that probably seemed like a step up. She didn’t know any better.”), and of course that led into how Mom and her mother never, ever reminisced or thought about the past…and I said “Well, it’s also kind of weird to think when my grandmother was born the Archduke hadn’t been assassinated yet and Europe was dominated by monarchies and empires”…which tripped him out a little. And she had older relatives who’d seen the Civil War. I was born during JFK’s presidency, before Vietnam and in the midst of the civil rights movement. Women couldn’t have credit in their own names and were erased as people, assuming their husband’s name legally as “Mrs. John Smith” rather than as “Lisa Smith.” There was no such thing as no-fault divorce, and the grim reality was most women made their hellish marriages work, dooming them to a life of misery.

Our country really hasn’t been around that long, and neither has our progress toward the ideals of the founding–we’ve never achieved that original ideal, and now we are sliding back into the abyss as a tyrant is in charge (Reagan could only dream of the power the FOTUS has assumed and been gifted by his craven political party) and our constitutional republic is on the ropes. I also have realized over the last week that the only people who can save the country from this threat is the opposition–the courts aren’t going to do it, Congress sure as hell isn’t, the media is laughably unconvincing propaganda-pushers with no desire to do their jobs properly, and neither are the “all-in” party that supports this. I no longer subscribe to the notion that MAGA voters and politicians have been “fooled” somehow, conned…at this point, we just need to accept the fact that they are willing participants–all of them. They can’t say they didn’t know because he told them, for years, what he wanted to do and they cheered, so yeah–I have no empathy for any of them. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as “MAGA regret” because I will personally guarantee that if the election were done over and held again tomorrow, every last one of them would vote for him again despite what they now know.

There can be no forgiveness without atonement and true repentance–that should be the lesson of the Civil War.

Well, this turned into a rather lengthier tome than anything else I’ve done on here this week, hasn’t it? That’s a good sign I am going to take with me into the spice mines for today. Have a great Thursday, everyone, and stay warm!