raindrops on roses

I’ve been joking around way too goddamn long. I’m starting to come to, to wake up from this self-induced coma. Today for the first time in years, I thought of this one book. It was the only book ever banned in my stupid little public school. 200 years after the United States of America was founded this seemingly ordinary woman named Judith Guest wrote a book called ‘Ordinary People.’ The first sentence of the book is: “To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to possess a guiding principle.”

It’s incredibly easy to lose your way and lose yourself to delusions. I grew up thinking I was on the fringe of all school cliques and prided myself in knowing how little most of that crap meant. Somehow the universal desire to be cool (Whatever the hell ‘cool’ is) gripped me late in life and now I’m paying for it. I’ve got to make an about face before it’s too late.

I’m so sick of trying to be cool. You can fool other people for awhile, but it’s damn near impossible trying to trick yourself. Cool peopl are lonely, if you ask me. Really cool people are outrageously pathetic. The ego is something to be crushed and not built up in the fashion of a shrine or megamall. At a certain point trying to undo past mistakes might be hopeless; I admit that.

When trying to take your face off it’s best to listen to the blues. Blues music is unlistenable until you’ve lived through something excruciating. But after that moment, the chords don’t deliver sounds, they deliver arrow wounds that bleed you healthy again. I used to think that rock ‘n’ roll was the great universal. I don’t think too many kids in India or Brazil are relating to the Ramones or Alice in Chains. I am sure that people everywhere can relate to the blues and the heartache that makes us all human.

I’m writing this because I can’t write songs. I want to relay this message on behalf of everyone who’s ever been a bastard. What is a bastard? A bastard is what you become when your actions offend your most essential hopes. Bastards are the people who try and take their faces off when they look with horror on the deeds of yesterday. By this defintion, I’m a bastard.

It’s a sign of cowardice to hurt instead of getting hurt. I’m sorry for all the hurt I’ve made in this world - the hurt I do and do not know about. Hurt shouldn’t be anyone’s legacy.

-A. Steele The Daily Bull

Russia’s take on the most livable city is a place where children feel comfortable and safe. Hence, their theme is off of a fairy tale, The Adventures of DUNNO and his friends.

The children in the story will go around to various “cities” within the building that will show off exhibitions on green technology (City of Flowers), clean energy (City of Sun) and space exploration developments (City of Moon). There will be 12 towers, with 4 being open for the exhibitions and 8 for VIP events and technical [read foreign intelligence service] operations.

I am sooo freaking excited. [P.S. I have to wear a dress for my uniform!]

Name: Borders and Boundaries Project

Intended Goal: To coordinate a piece with Hamilton College students and residents of the nearby city of Utica to start a dialogue about the meaning of borders and boundaries between two radically different demographics: those who receive elite forms of education and those who do not. To use community theater as a way to bring individuals together, discover their differences and similarities – and then create a performance to celebrate their discoveries.

Achieved Goal: Bring me to tears; make me rethink the value of theater; bring to light again how a small group of determined individuals can really make a difference.

The piece was disjointed and non-linear, so I don’t see any reason why this post should be any different.

What is home to you? Grandmother; Central New York; lakes; mother; streets of New York city; Russia; family; bricks from the demolished Washington Courts neighborhood.  Childhood memories? Supersoakers and Barbie dolls. “I knew that if I kept living in the projects, I would have to kill somebody or be killed.” Skip-it and Hot wheels cars.

Age? 21.20.22.23. Fears? Being myself on stage. Being myself on stage. Being rejected. Being lonely. Lonely. It gets lonely sometimes. Is he looking at me when he describes being lonely? He is definitely looking at me when he says he’s lonely. I don’t believe in marriage. Just never seen it work out. Personal stories about home? “I tried this experiment my first semester of college. I didn’t call my mother just to see if she would call me. She didn’t.” Drug-free for two years, job as an assistant at a place to help other women get clean, college student, young mother.

Personal boundaries/borders: I only eat carbs and cheese! Vegetarian? Brussel sprouts love. Russian delicacies. Cornbread and fried chicken. Corinne’s dedication to a non-profit organization that her parents do not support. Deaths in the desert? How come I didn’t know any of this? “I always speak my mind. I can’t help it and somehow I feel that’s somewhat unattractive. ” Theater is scary; but it kept me calm and I learned to let people in. Theater is freeing!

Hannah said that playing yourself on stage was really weird. As an audience member, I had such a weird reaction to the piece as well. My flatmate discussing her love of brussel sprouts and her fear of rejection and guilt at being born into an easy life? That’s not a character. Or Ashlyn revealing that her mother, in a subtle way, did not want her? “I felt like a doll that the owner felt tired of playing with.” And James looking really straight at me [even though I was off to the side of the audience] and rebringing up an issue we had talked about the night before: that of being lonely in a place where you’re so isolated, it hurt to breathe for fear of disturbing the quiet?

I think it must take such guts. It’s one thing to completely cast away who you are and give yourself into this character that someone else has written for you. Know that you are using your body and your heart and your emotions but not your personality or your experiences. To most of us, that’s the one thing we can identify with. Yes, Stella Adler would argue that acting is using your own personality and your experiences, but I am relatively sure that that is not going to always work in that field. But at least it’s comforting.  And it’s the only way for a lot of those types of people to be anything anyway. [Not meant as an insult!]

But to play yourself? Hello, this is me. Here are my insecurities and my experiences. My prejudices are written across my arms, I’ll stretch them out for you. That says, “believe.” Welcome to my house! Yes, those are my graduation photos. Would you like a bite of my family’s cooking? So glad to have you as a guest! All this drama on stage? Lines, set motions, all for a character that is yourself? Finally, all your experiences and personality? But then after the show. The audience is clapping and there’s a girl on the right that has tears in her eyes. I think I’ve had a few classes with her before. She must’ve liked it! Oh, look! There’s a thumbs-up from my literature professor! I guess…I guess…maybe I have more reason to accept who I am just because it’s me, now. Theater is freeing.

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I guess I just wanted to say I really enjoyed it. And A. Keyes did a good job with the mashup, even if “it’s not really a mashup.” <3

By John Corvino, columnist, 365gay.com

01.22.2010 12:03pm EST
Not long ago a friend approached me for relationship advice. He’s a white guy who was contemplating dating a black guy, and, as he put it, “I thought you could give me some insight since you’re in an interracial relationship.”

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His query took me by surprise. To be honest, I had forgotten that I’m in an interracial relationship (though I’ve been in one for eight years and counting).
It’s not because I “don’t see color” or anything like that. Of course I see color. People who don’t see color in this society are blind to an important feature of others’ experience.

Maybe it’s because I frequently don’t see Mark’s color. That’s partially a function—for better or worse—of our intimacy. But I suspect it’s equally a function of the fact that Mark is Asian.

Like many Americans, I tend to think of color in terms of a black/white paradigm. Living in Detroit, as Mark and I do, tends to reinforce that paradigm. “Interracial” means “black and white.” I’m well aware that it’s a false paradigm, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t common and powerful.

It doesn’t follow that people don’t notice Asians, don’t stereotype Asians, or don’t discriminate against Asians. All of the negative stuff still applies (in varying degrees). The difference, I think, is that when we white people make efforts to be more sensitive to race issues, we sometimes forget that there are more than two races. It’s not so much that Asians are invisible; it’s that discrimination against them is overlooked.

The gay Filipino-American comedian Alec Mapa is currently touring with a show entitled “No Fats, Femmes, or Asians”—highlighting a phrase he sees commonly in personals ads.

Mapa retorts that he objects to the idea—I’m quoting from memory here—“that belonging to a certain class of people makes you inherently unfuckable.”

I missed the next ten minutes of Mapa’s routine as I pondered the moral implications of his analysis.

Put Fats and Fem(me)s aside for the moment, and let’s focus on the “No Asians.”

Having been with Mark for nearly a decade, I recognize that the sentiment is common. Growing up, Mark was painfully aware of the fact that there were (virtually) no Asians in the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog or other standard markers of our notions of beauty.

Before we started dating, lots of guys told him, “You’re cute, but I don’t date Asians.” For that matter, people have told *me* that “I’m not into Asians, but Mark’s cute—you’re lucky you found each other.” (Yes we are, thank you.)

On the one hand, I think personal tastes are just that. For example, I’m not into beefy, muscular guys. Give me a cute scrawny nerdy type over a football player any day. Other people have the opposite preference. To each his own.

What’s more, there are some guys who are really into Asian guys (the slang term is “rice queens”). More power to ‘em, I say.

I would add that people get enough grief about their sexual tastes—especially LGBT people—that the last thing I want to do is give them more. Sexuality is a gift to be enjoyed, not an occasion for affirmative-action programs. As I’ve sometimes explained, “I’m not into women sexually, but that doesn’t make me sexist.”

On the other hand, our notions of beauty don’t arise in a vacuum, and some of our preferences are premised on false—and morally troubling—stereotypes. They’re hurtful. And the social structures that lead to them are an appropriate subject for moral scrutiny.

So my advice to people contemplating—or consciously avoiding—an interracial relationship? Keep an open mind. Listen and learn. And wherever you find love, celebrate and enjoy it.

***********

John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.

Found off of J. Cox’s twin brother’s Facebook.  Well written, Professor Corvino.

my drug-addict downstairs neighbors have found out about chat roulette.