Well, yesterday was very boring. I basically took my cousin to work and came back to the apartement. But don't get me wrong, boring is really the wrong word. It was just uneventful.
Today was a bit different. I got up and got some coffee. I needed it because I have had some heavy little revelations over the past couple of days. First, was the book of poetry that I bought. I read a bit of Cavafy and a poem by Luis Cermuda called "Birds of Night". Both were very nice. They talked about relationships between men in a way I forgot. Now with the electronic age, men don't even talk anymore. It is like sex is up for grabs, but I am afraid that HIV is too.
Which brings me to another deep point. Here in Atlanta I see so many spas that are catering to positive men cosmetically. The latest thing is injectable poly-L-latic acid for the "restoration of facial fat loss". I think it is a great idea, don't get me wrong, but HIV seems to very industrialized, sort of like diabetes (my thing right now). It is a bit nerve racking to me, because it is the idea that you can be and will be healthy by looking healthy . . . and is that the case? And what does your world and life look life if your drug cocktail run you 1500 a month. My little diabetic bill has effected the quality of my life dramatically, especially in the last 12 months . . . add HIV to that. Gee whiz? And if you are a college adjunct, a writer or an artist, forget it! You will have to change professions. Or what about a place like Germany, where doctors turned me away because I did not have insurance (a gay doctor in Stuttgart did that to me, and I thought he would show some solidarity . . . fuck him and the whole fucking city . . . fucking ass wiped, custard lipped motherfucker . . .sorry, had to let that out . . . I got that random cursing syndrome brought on by extreme moments of stress . . . I think it my be hereditary).
Which brings me to gay cowboys and Brokeback Mountain. A bunch of white gay guys are telling me to see and support this movie, but something deep inside of me -- next to my Spike Lee bone -- is not responding in the same way as people saying, go see Malcom X. I am wondering what this is about? This deaden feeling inside. In analyzing my feelings, I get that same ackwardness I felt when an old co-worker talked to me about Jane Austin and Pride and Prejudice as if I would naturally "identify". Like, I dislike Jane Austin just slightly less than I hate doctors in the city of Stuttgart, Germany and the German insurance industry and their way of explaining things to me about it and my chronic sickness. I had to read Ms. Austin in university and I was awashed in dinner parties, and years later I had to hear all these women at my publishing company and the archive I worked at talk about Jane Austin movies and a scene where Mr. D'arcy came out to the garden with no shirt on. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
And that is what I hear when I hear about Brokeback Mountain. I think Ang Lee is fantastic. The Ice Storm is the most perfect movie ever, American Beauty you can have, and as for Jake and that other guy playing in this movie, I think they are cute, but would prefer to see them get done right by a homothug from uptown or a papi from Jersey City. That is just me, otherwise all that 'kind' of beauty just cancels itself out to me. But I am going to see the movie eventually, I just wonder with whom. I have to admitt that I feel like it will bring up issues with me and Das Experiment and why it did not go so well, and therefore I kind of want to sit it out. Aside from having to sit and listen to a bunch of evil fags from work say I am a confused bitch, I don't want them to beg me to see a film that includes a married man falling for another man and dealing with the aftermath. They act as if they do not understand me anyway, so who the hell are they to tell me to support this movie, whose premise they mock in me?
I normally save my support for something more militant. Like the documentary on article 175 and the Nazi era's persecution of homos. Then I will get a Spike Lee tingle in my spin. Every queen I know has gone to see the movie because of a chance to see fucking on the big screen (I did that in NYC's red light district when I was 20 something. I don't think those theaters exist anymore. Pity.). And, like you can see dick on your computer or DVD and pop your own popcorn. I just don't understand. I hear that other countries have given the film a PG-13 rating anyway or maybe even PG. America gave it an R. I kind of am over certain things concerning the trivalizing of sex and it being turned into a childrens taboo for adults.
I will see the movie because of Ang Lee, because it is beautifully shot and because I may find something new in it. I am not so sure I will identify with it though, and the other half of my heart says that it might remind me of Das Experiment (his racist and homophobic mother that referred to me as "the Gay Nigger", his now ex-wife, then wife, whatever). This is a tragic movie from what I understand. And one day in the not so distant past, Das Experiment said that our situation was tragic. And he was right. I was being an American optimist. Fucking German Realism.
----
On a lighter note. I was at a dinner party with a fireman, a porn star and an embalmer today. Very enlightening. I will hold on to the details. I have to save somethings for myself.
And I bought the latest album by Eros Ramazotti (I think that is how you spell it and pronounce it). He makes me feel like a teenage girl inside, 16 to be exact. But I am much different outside. The fireman said he thought my butchness was cute.
I am not trying I promise.
Just being myself.
I like Atlanta.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Lost in Atlanta
I wake up at 8:30 am and there is no coffee in the house. That is how it always starts in this house. First my cousin gets up. Then he gets online. I follow about 10 minutes later and then have a cup of water or something. I might find an English muffin. Cuz will play the Luther Vandross Tribute album followed by me blasting the Brown Sugar soundtrack like Mahalia Jackson vinyl on a Sunday morning following biscuit cutting and frying sausage.
It is cool.
Last night I was stood up by Georgie, or rather he had a problem. Basically, I talked to him about meeting first at 6. Then he said no, he couldn't and would like to meet at 9:45 because he has to get his cousin. I said sure I understand. So I told him I would wait for him outside of the complex at 9:40. So, I did all the things I have not done in a thousand years. I showered (I do do that normally, but I am talking about in the courting sense), put grease in my hair (I do that only when I have to work), brush my hair (I just started doing that last year), found a nice shirt in my suitcase, brushed my teeth, put on clean socks (bachelor habits, I know. I do clean undies, but clean socks sometime miss my field of vision), and splashed on some Cologne (I never do that). I already had shaved and felt pretty dapper. So . . .
I stood outside from 9:40 until 10:00 pm. At 10:00 he called my cellphone to tell me that all of highway 75 was closed and there is no other way to get to my house. He said he was sorry and wanted to postpone. I just thought to myself . . . "No!", but said: "I am sorry, tommorrow is bad. I am spending quality time with my cousin late at night when he gets off work and I am here only until Wednesday. Let's just call it off this time." I don't remember what he said after that because I was cold and hungry and I felt that I had wasted my day in Atlanta waiting for him from 4:00 pm when we talked first to confirm until 10:00 pm.
Ass!
I was locked out!
We did not get a copy of the key made.
Double Ass!
So, I drove around the city after picking up a coffee and eating some fig newton tart like thing because coffeehouses don't serve REAL FOOD (Except Cafe CoCo in Nash Vegas). I went through downtown, which to me is like Nashville but just larger streets, which are more practical for a city. But if you go to a city like Rotterdam you see narrow streets to. There is something to be said about this Southern metropolis thing that is growing up around us. Atlanta, Charleston, Nashville, Raliegh/Durham, etc . . . It is a flavor, but what it will be in 20 years, don't know.
While driving I thought about this obsession we have with making cities better and more livable. Is a city ever finished? Did we ever have the notion of a finished city in the past? And what is more livable? People have talked about this concerning Stuttgart for example. And others have talked about it concerning Cologne and Berlin. France is shipping money out of its Parisian center to other cities such as Lille and Marsielle to make them more economically productive and viable for a particular quality of life. It seems to be never ending. But some believe that the South is red hot now. And I think it is too. But Atlanta is massive, it is Nashville but more consistant and connected.
Then after snapping out of deep thought, I realized I was lost.
Once I got to the Morehouse area I was amazed at the way it resembled parts of Nashville, but it is breathing. Fisk is an old residential area, with bits of ghosts and spirits beckoning at every call, like Morena Street and the beautiful house where Nella Larsen threw herself from a window in a failed suicide attempt. But viable industry? Not really. It is just a neighborhood.
This area around Morehouse I saw of Atlanta (don't know its name), has factories and backeries that spew lush smelling steam in the air, or expell sugary chemical gases that remind you of that pink floor wash you can by in a New York bodega. But it is still the hood.
Well, I just got lost and found my way again. Picked up my cousin at the train station. Bought some dinner. Ate. Talked about the black boys on the internet, and how in Germany my body type (not to mention my colour) was not well represented, therefore very exotic. You know, long legs, short torso, big ass, long arms, etc . . . Now I am in a city full of guys like that, and celebrated very opening on websites. Baby, they are not bashful down here.
Then we went to sleep. It was such a good sleep. Many dreams again. I think getting out of Nashville is triggering some visions in me. Things about the recent past. Things that are unsettled or unresolved. Things for which I feel shame. Things for which I hoped, but never happened. A mourning of sorts, but only in my dreams . . . that can be vivid and scary and wonderful. Last night I dreamt that I was being attacked by field rats. I fought them with my bare hands, but I could not make the two largest ones die. I held one in each hand and tried to crush their windpipes, or tear holes into their chest. I felt their bites and woke up with sore spots, until I realized I had been sleeping on my arm.
Wendy's late at night is not a good thing.
It is cool.
Last night I was stood up by Georgie, or rather he had a problem. Basically, I talked to him about meeting first at 6. Then he said no, he couldn't and would like to meet at 9:45 because he has to get his cousin. I said sure I understand. So I told him I would wait for him outside of the complex at 9:40. So, I did all the things I have not done in a thousand years. I showered (I do do that normally, but I am talking about in the courting sense), put grease in my hair (I do that only when I have to work), brush my hair (I just started doing that last year), found a nice shirt in my suitcase, brushed my teeth, put on clean socks (bachelor habits, I know. I do clean undies, but clean socks sometime miss my field of vision), and splashed on some Cologne (I never do that). I already had shaved and felt pretty dapper. So . . .
I stood outside from 9:40 until 10:00 pm. At 10:00 he called my cellphone to tell me that all of highway 75 was closed and there is no other way to get to my house. He said he was sorry and wanted to postpone. I just thought to myself . . . "No!", but said: "I am sorry, tommorrow is bad. I am spending quality time with my cousin late at night when he gets off work and I am here only until Wednesday. Let's just call it off this time." I don't remember what he said after that because I was cold and hungry and I felt that I had wasted my day in Atlanta waiting for him from 4:00 pm when we talked first to confirm until 10:00 pm.
Ass!
I was locked out!
We did not get a copy of the key made.
Double Ass!
So, I drove around the city after picking up a coffee and eating some fig newton tart like thing because coffeehouses don't serve REAL FOOD (Except Cafe CoCo in Nash Vegas). I went through downtown, which to me is like Nashville but just larger streets, which are more practical for a city. But if you go to a city like Rotterdam you see narrow streets to. There is something to be said about this Southern metropolis thing that is growing up around us. Atlanta, Charleston, Nashville, Raliegh/Durham, etc . . . It is a flavor, but what it will be in 20 years, don't know.
While driving I thought about this obsession we have with making cities better and more livable. Is a city ever finished? Did we ever have the notion of a finished city in the past? And what is more livable? People have talked about this concerning Stuttgart for example. And others have talked about it concerning Cologne and Berlin. France is shipping money out of its Parisian center to other cities such as Lille and Marsielle to make them more economically productive and viable for a particular quality of life. It seems to be never ending. But some believe that the South is red hot now. And I think it is too. But Atlanta is massive, it is Nashville but more consistant and connected.
Then after snapping out of deep thought, I realized I was lost.
Once I got to the Morehouse area I was amazed at the way it resembled parts of Nashville, but it is breathing. Fisk is an old residential area, with bits of ghosts and spirits beckoning at every call, like Morena Street and the beautiful house where Nella Larsen threw herself from a window in a failed suicide attempt. But viable industry? Not really. It is just a neighborhood.
This area around Morehouse I saw of Atlanta (don't know its name), has factories and backeries that spew lush smelling steam in the air, or expell sugary chemical gases that remind you of that pink floor wash you can by in a New York bodega. But it is still the hood.
Well, I just got lost and found my way again. Picked up my cousin at the train station. Bought some dinner. Ate. Talked about the black boys on the internet, and how in Germany my body type (not to mention my colour) was not well represented, therefore very exotic. You know, long legs, short torso, big ass, long arms, etc . . . Now I am in a city full of guys like that, and celebrated very opening on websites. Baby, they are not bashful down here.
Then we went to sleep. It was such a good sleep. Many dreams again. I think getting out of Nashville is triggering some visions in me. Things about the recent past. Things that are unsettled or unresolved. Things for which I feel shame. Things for which I hoped, but never happened. A mourning of sorts, but only in my dreams . . . that can be vivid and scary and wonderful. Last night I dreamt that I was being attacked by field rats. I fought them with my bare hands, but I could not make the two largest ones die. I held one in each hand and tried to crush their windpipes, or tear holes into their chest. I felt their bites and woke up with sore spots, until I realized I had been sleeping on my arm.
Wendy's late at night is not a good thing.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Living and Performing Blood Tied Psychic Art
My cousin and I spent Sunday together like that performance artist that tied himself to another lady and lived for one year without speaking or touching her. And she was just as silent and untouchable. The only difference between us and the performance artisit is that the bond is in our heads . . . and we talk all the time.
My cousin said that he laughes at me because I have the same reactions as he does to many things, so much so that it is sickening (that is meant in the Black Faggot sense of the word). I guess it is because we are both switch hitters with some subtle differences. He really prefers black and latino guys. I did I guess till I moved to Germany and I had to broaden my horizons. It did not take long for that to happen.
Our relationship experiences are similar. We are both feeling a deep sense of lost concerning the circumstances of our displayment. Him from LA, me from Europe. We both have the same attitude concerning friendships and their place in our lives. La La La . . .
So, yesterday was more about just being around one another. I took Cuz to get his laundry done. In the meantime I went to a bookstore, got a coffee and bought a book (like I need one of those . . .but the price was a steal). We then went and bought some food because we can't go out until Tuesday, because of his work schedule and on Monday night I have a date for the first time in a year. It is with a guy named Georgie. He is from China I think, but has lived down South for a while. He is 30. Travels a bit. In the resturaunt management business. This is cool because I have had romantic interests running around since Christmas but only kissing, no dinner. No movie. No glasses of wine on a rooftoop somewhere. Just busy schedules. Kisses here and there after driving someone home. Or postponed events because of brothers visiting from Philly, uncles in from San Diego or trips to see cousins in Atlanta.
So a real bonified date today. Plus perfect weather and a feeling that one is in a city. That energy concerning this city is bubbling around me. People getting on with their own thang. I love it. And the park is great. All the people running to it or from it. Georgia Tech professors and atheletes hopping about. That feeling of being in place and being optimistic about ones life is here. I like it.
I called the Goethe Institute, spoke German to the woman. Asked about diplomas. She said they will be giving tests in May. I thought that would be cool. I also got real estate books to see the house prices. Then after that, I will look at the job market. See what is here. People say that there is a lot here, but I am not so sure. I just wonder what is here. I see young professional people in large numbers with their babies and their dogs or both. Or white gay men (I call them Marys, cuz calls them Judys) with their boyfriends and their lovers or both. So, that has to be a sure sign that there is something to keep the middleclass upwardly and mobile. That may soon be me . . . here . . .if the feeling is right.
The only thing that has crashed the day has been the Persian Prince's telephone call. We had a talk. He told me I should tell my mother that I am gay. I said I just show my girlfriends to her, what else is there to it. He went on and on. He is one of these people that think bisexuals do not exist there for I have to come out because I am confused. And since he got married to a woman to appease his parents and then got a divorce he thinks that that is what I am up to. I did not say f*ck you, but I wanted to simply tell him that Atlanta can not be paradise if there is no real job for me here. Boys and ass do not paradise make (in the tradition of Yoda). That is number one. Number two is simple, we are are different people. And three, I don't care about all the phases you went through coming out and your parents excepting you . . . I am sure it was a great growth experience for you . . . but when it comes to my family, that is not possible. Marriage to a man is about as logical as a cow climbing a tree. They can't get their heads around it. And that is fact.
Persian Prince started to talk about his conservative family who are from a country where men are killed for their sexual preference. And maybe to him, what I am going through is a bit too dramatic. But after I explained to him what my family is like and how I do not have a problem with men that keep their business to themselves, he went on to tell me that that is how men in his society deal with it. Then he said that he is not one of those men. I went on to say that I thought all of this "either your are 'out' as a homosexual, or 'in the closet' and not part of the movement" is very facist to me. Not excluding the body culture, the ideas of love that are akin to a big Roman Centurion sex club for the big bootied man and the shear fact that I have to somehow dress and act a certain way in order to be part of the gay community (this is after he told me where to shop in the gay neighborhood).
The conversation ended applicably though. I still like his parents very much. I still want to get into his pants (he is waiting for me to loose weight, shave my chest and my nut sack and get new clothes . . . yeah right! . . . I ain't doing that much for booty . . . he needs to get with the program he is missing good stuff) and I still wonder if in his advise I am missing some essential truth, as I believe he is missing some essential truth in my hesitation towards identity politics and the same sex experience.
Hey?
Who cares in the end?
One day I will just kiss him too, but with no follow up date. I am sure. He is looking for love in the avenues that I only like to visit. So, we can only be brief with one another and speak as intensly for 39 minutes as we did today, ignoring the other but racing to get the last line anyway.
So, beyond talking, napping, drinking wine, cooking food, driving around the city by myself, looking into a tatoo parlor, etc . . . there is nothing to report. Just good vibes. And plans for us cousins in the future (a visit to LA and Miami are in order).
So. That is that.
Will tell you about date tomorrow.
My cousin said that he laughes at me because I have the same reactions as he does to many things, so much so that it is sickening (that is meant in the Black Faggot sense of the word). I guess it is because we are both switch hitters with some subtle differences. He really prefers black and latino guys. I did I guess till I moved to Germany and I had to broaden my horizons. It did not take long for that to happen.
Our relationship experiences are similar. We are both feeling a deep sense of lost concerning the circumstances of our displayment. Him from LA, me from Europe. We both have the same attitude concerning friendships and their place in our lives. La La La . . .
So, yesterday was more about just being around one another. I took Cuz to get his laundry done. In the meantime I went to a bookstore, got a coffee and bought a book (like I need one of those . . .but the price was a steal). We then went and bought some food because we can't go out until Tuesday, because of his work schedule and on Monday night I have a date for the first time in a year. It is with a guy named Georgie. He is from China I think, but has lived down South for a while. He is 30. Travels a bit. In the resturaunt management business. This is cool because I have had romantic interests running around since Christmas but only kissing, no dinner. No movie. No glasses of wine on a rooftoop somewhere. Just busy schedules. Kisses here and there after driving someone home. Or postponed events because of brothers visiting from Philly, uncles in from San Diego or trips to see cousins in Atlanta.
So a real bonified date today. Plus perfect weather and a feeling that one is in a city. That energy concerning this city is bubbling around me. People getting on with their own thang. I love it. And the park is great. All the people running to it or from it. Georgia Tech professors and atheletes hopping about. That feeling of being in place and being optimistic about ones life is here. I like it.
I called the Goethe Institute, spoke German to the woman. Asked about diplomas. She said they will be giving tests in May. I thought that would be cool. I also got real estate books to see the house prices. Then after that, I will look at the job market. See what is here. People say that there is a lot here, but I am not so sure. I just wonder what is here. I see young professional people in large numbers with their babies and their dogs or both. Or white gay men (I call them Marys, cuz calls them Judys) with their boyfriends and their lovers or both. So, that has to be a sure sign that there is something to keep the middleclass upwardly and mobile. That may soon be me . . . here . . .if the feeling is right.
The only thing that has crashed the day has been the Persian Prince's telephone call. We had a talk. He told me I should tell my mother that I am gay. I said I just show my girlfriends to her, what else is there to it. He went on and on. He is one of these people that think bisexuals do not exist there for I have to come out because I am confused. And since he got married to a woman to appease his parents and then got a divorce he thinks that that is what I am up to. I did not say f*ck you, but I wanted to simply tell him that Atlanta can not be paradise if there is no real job for me here. Boys and ass do not paradise make (in the tradition of Yoda). That is number one. Number two is simple, we are are different people. And three, I don't care about all the phases you went through coming out and your parents excepting you . . . I am sure it was a great growth experience for you . . . but when it comes to my family, that is not possible. Marriage to a man is about as logical as a cow climbing a tree. They can't get their heads around it. And that is fact.
Persian Prince started to talk about his conservative family who are from a country where men are killed for their sexual preference. And maybe to him, what I am going through is a bit too dramatic. But after I explained to him what my family is like and how I do not have a problem with men that keep their business to themselves, he went on to tell me that that is how men in his society deal with it. Then he said that he is not one of those men. I went on to say that I thought all of this "either your are 'out' as a homosexual, or 'in the closet' and not part of the movement" is very facist to me. Not excluding the body culture, the ideas of love that are akin to a big Roman Centurion sex club for the big bootied man and the shear fact that I have to somehow dress and act a certain way in order to be part of the gay community (this is after he told me where to shop in the gay neighborhood).
The conversation ended applicably though. I still like his parents very much. I still want to get into his pants (he is waiting for me to loose weight, shave my chest and my nut sack and get new clothes . . . yeah right! . . . I ain't doing that much for booty . . . he needs to get with the program he is missing good stuff) and I still wonder if in his advise I am missing some essential truth, as I believe he is missing some essential truth in my hesitation towards identity politics and the same sex experience.
Hey?
Who cares in the end?
One day I will just kiss him too, but with no follow up date. I am sure. He is looking for love in the avenues that I only like to visit. So, we can only be brief with one another and speak as intensly for 39 minutes as we did today, ignoring the other but racing to get the last line anyway.
So, beyond talking, napping, drinking wine, cooking food, driving around the city by myself, looking into a tatoo parlor, etc . . . there is nothing to report. Just good vibes. And plans for us cousins in the future (a visit to LA and Miami are in order).
So. That is that.
Will tell you about date tomorrow.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Primero
I got up kind of late. Maybe about 8:30 or 9 on Saturday. My mother took the car to get serviced which was cool, because she was there for a little while and I would have been there forever if I got there at 10:00 or 11:00 am. She also bought some food from the store for the trip and for me to give my cousin when I got to Atlanta. Meanwhile, I got my clothes together, got my suitcase out and looked up the directions on mapquest. I also looked up information on the Goethe Institute for their location. I need to take their placement test to see which certificate I want to aim for. I don't plan on using the cookbook translation as proof of language competence, I could not complete the job the way I wanted after entering the hospital a year ago. Not proud of my job, though the editing job I did for a book before that, I am proud of.
Once I got the car at about 11:00 I went to the bank to deposit my check and got a Double Latte Machiato at Provience in Hillsboro Village. Then I went to the bookstore and bought a book on Modern Persian. Used. It was only $7.95. Then I picked up wine for my cousin. I bought him one bottle of Kaiken Malbec (he loved it, I have tasted better . . . Trepiche I believe is the label . . . great, like candy), a bottle of Ste. Michelle Gewurztramener, one Fontana Pinot Grigio and one bottle of Bogle Petite Sirah (I loved it, cuz was not impressed . . . at least we got a bottle each to swig down). Then I went home. Called my Persian co-worker. Told him about the book. He told me about every club available in Hotlanta. He was so happy about it and my trip. I think Nashville puts you in a rut, especially if you live single or like guys or what have you. It gets to be small real quick, and the orientation of the city (not in the sexual sense) is undecided. People don't know where things are going. There are the clubs that are old staples like The Chute and then there are these other clubs like Play and Tribe that are new and sparkly and warm and fuzy, but quickly turn into the same old watering hole after a while. Atlanta gives spice and edge and a destinct flavor that is becoming more and more Atlantan everyday. It is defining its own party. I am happy about that. And so is the Prince of Persia (we all call my co-worker that because he is beautiful and dashing and exotic and so vain . . . but in a funny and self-conscious way. He knows it and can become like Laurel and Hardy so quickly that you don't mind discussions concenring his foot scrub).
Then I showered. I packed the car. Skipped dinner. Went to Target. Bought a 16 pack AAA ultra Engergizers for my insulin pump (medical expense about 8.00 dollars . . . not covered by insurance ever), a Guiness shirt and hat (I have a cyst on the back of my head, can't go to a new city with that on my head . . . the price of vanity 14.00 dollars), deoderant (can't be stinkin'), showgel (Irish Spring bar soap does not travel well). Added battery to my pump with the hood of my trunk up. Then drove to work to return the wine key to the bartender. Then got on the road. Got on 24 East. Stopped at Exit 111 to go the batherroom and buy some Red Bull. I was tired. Then I went to a winery. Bought a table red to go with the other 4 bottles and the food my mom bought cousin. Then I drove on. Stopped at Nick-a-Jack Lake for a piss again. Drove over Mount Eagle at the precise moment of twilight, it felt so good. The view was something born out of my body and the universe. Just a massive body of earth that cut the horizon in half. I love the vastness of America. I really do.
Went from 24 to 75 South in Chatanooga. Drove to cousins neighborhood. Reminded me of DC driving through, but his apartment is so wonderful I can't even explain. We talked. Opened the Malbec. Gotta pizza. Then went to a club. I won't say anything else till I decide if this site will be intellectual or . . . screw it! . . . upon the request of the Prince of Persia we went to Swinging Richards. The boys are completely naked and dancing like a in stripping scene from a Wyclef Jean video. Very sexy, very Atlanta style show with all the trappings of heterosexuality . . . champagne room and all. We were a bit bored I think, and I ended up talking to people more than gauking . . . but this is definitely the idea I had in my mind of Atlanta before getting there. Just a crunked out place . . . except the club has no black boys. We have to go to a different bar for that I guess.
Race and faggots. . . . do we have a mini-series on that yet? Or should we call Ken Burns for the documentary?
Got to Cuz's home. Talked a bit. Drank some more wine. Fell asleep watching the UNCF telethon's tribute to Stevie Wonder. It was being aired here in Atlanta. Saw Yolanda Adams, Kim and Herbie Handcock. Kirk Franklin had a set, but this whole 20 year addiction to porn starting at 9 is a bit much. I have to read the article in Jet, but why should we be taught such shame concenring our bodies and natural urgies. After all. He was only 9. It is not like he has been doing lines of cocaine since 9. We all have been trying to figure out our woodies since that age at least and for me, it still continues.
Weird.
Gotta go.
It is already the next day here.
Having a late lunch and more wine!
Monday I will do some work . . . family tree and Goethe institute top the list. But also see if this is a place where I could stay for a while. Maybe. It is normal. Like you can buy wine in the grocery market. Not in Nash Vegas (some rich white patrons called it that to me one time at work . . . I liked that lady who said it, the way she said it, and how much it is the truth). Coloured folks call it Cashville . . . go figure. Stuttgart Germany is called Stuggie Town but the hip hop community. And Heilbronn is called Heilbronx by my old German friends because of the crime and poverty I guess.
But back to wine. Buying it in the grocery . . .
. . . NOT POSSIBLE IN NASHVILLE! Though we have 26 wineries in the state. And we were a state full of grapes until prohibition and people were forced to pull their grapes from the ground and plant tobacco. That is what the lady said at the winery. I think we need to call Ken Burns to check that out too.
Once I got the car at about 11:00 I went to the bank to deposit my check and got a Double Latte Machiato at Provience in Hillsboro Village. Then I went to the bookstore and bought a book on Modern Persian. Used. It was only $7.95. Then I picked up wine for my cousin. I bought him one bottle of Kaiken Malbec (he loved it, I have tasted better . . . Trepiche I believe is the label . . . great, like candy), a bottle of Ste. Michelle Gewurztramener, one Fontana Pinot Grigio and one bottle of Bogle Petite Sirah (I loved it, cuz was not impressed . . . at least we got a bottle each to swig down). Then I went home. Called my Persian co-worker. Told him about the book. He told me about every club available in Hotlanta. He was so happy about it and my trip. I think Nashville puts you in a rut, especially if you live single or like guys or what have you. It gets to be small real quick, and the orientation of the city (not in the sexual sense) is undecided. People don't know where things are going. There are the clubs that are old staples like The Chute and then there are these other clubs like Play and Tribe that are new and sparkly and warm and fuzy, but quickly turn into the same old watering hole after a while. Atlanta gives spice and edge and a destinct flavor that is becoming more and more Atlantan everyday. It is defining its own party. I am happy about that. And so is the Prince of Persia (we all call my co-worker that because he is beautiful and dashing and exotic and so vain . . . but in a funny and self-conscious way. He knows it and can become like Laurel and Hardy so quickly that you don't mind discussions concenring his foot scrub).
Then I showered. I packed the car. Skipped dinner. Went to Target. Bought a 16 pack AAA ultra Engergizers for my insulin pump (medical expense about 8.00 dollars . . . not covered by insurance ever), a Guiness shirt and hat (I have a cyst on the back of my head, can't go to a new city with that on my head . . . the price of vanity 14.00 dollars), deoderant (can't be stinkin'), showgel (Irish Spring bar soap does not travel well). Added battery to my pump with the hood of my trunk up. Then drove to work to return the wine key to the bartender. Then got on the road. Got on 24 East. Stopped at Exit 111 to go the batherroom and buy some Red Bull. I was tired. Then I went to a winery. Bought a table red to go with the other 4 bottles and the food my mom bought cousin. Then I drove on. Stopped at Nick-a-Jack Lake for a piss again. Drove over Mount Eagle at the precise moment of twilight, it felt so good. The view was something born out of my body and the universe. Just a massive body of earth that cut the horizon in half. I love the vastness of America. I really do.
Went from 24 to 75 South in Chatanooga. Drove to cousins neighborhood. Reminded me of DC driving through, but his apartment is so wonderful I can't even explain. We talked. Opened the Malbec. Gotta pizza. Then went to a club. I won't say anything else till I decide if this site will be intellectual or . . . screw it! . . . upon the request of the Prince of Persia we went to Swinging Richards. The boys are completely naked and dancing like a in stripping scene from a Wyclef Jean video. Very sexy, very Atlanta style show with all the trappings of heterosexuality . . . champagne room and all. We were a bit bored I think, and I ended up talking to people more than gauking . . . but this is definitely the idea I had in my mind of Atlanta before getting there. Just a crunked out place . . . except the club has no black boys. We have to go to a different bar for that I guess.
Race and faggots. . . . do we have a mini-series on that yet? Or should we call Ken Burns for the documentary?
Got to Cuz's home. Talked a bit. Drank some more wine. Fell asleep watching the UNCF telethon's tribute to Stevie Wonder. It was being aired here in Atlanta. Saw Yolanda Adams, Kim and Herbie Handcock. Kirk Franklin had a set, but this whole 20 year addiction to porn starting at 9 is a bit much. I have to read the article in Jet, but why should we be taught such shame concenring our bodies and natural urgies. After all. He was only 9. It is not like he has been doing lines of cocaine since 9. We all have been trying to figure out our woodies since that age at least and for me, it still continues.
Weird.
Gotta go.
It is already the next day here.
Having a late lunch and more wine!
Monday I will do some work . . . family tree and Goethe institute top the list. But also see if this is a place where I could stay for a while. Maybe. It is normal. Like you can buy wine in the grocery market. Not in Nash Vegas (some rich white patrons called it that to me one time at work . . . I liked that lady who said it, the way she said it, and how much it is the truth). Coloured folks call it Cashville . . . go figure. Stuttgart Germany is called Stuggie Town but the hip hop community. And Heilbronn is called Heilbronx by my old German friends because of the crime and poverty I guess.
But back to wine. Buying it in the grocery . . .
. . . NOT POSSIBLE IN NASHVILLE! Though we have 26 wineries in the state. And we were a state full of grapes until prohibition and people were forced to pull their grapes from the ground and plant tobacco. That is what the lady said at the winery. I think we need to call Ken Burns to check that out too.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Dreadhead Laying in Bed, Watching CNN, and Eating Ice Cream
Much going on. I leave for Atlanta today. But the last 2 days have been all the right conversations at the right time I think.
I called Jay in Germany. And he was in classic Jay fashion. First, he was in bed watching CNN in his new bohemian digs in Cologne. I could see him clearing his dreadlocks from his head, and we did our proverbial lick over the phone (you really had to be there for the birth of that ritual between us). Jay is like my childhood friend by some supersonic soulmate machine. We did not spend our childhoods together, but when he talks about working on Broadway with Gregory Hines, getting reviews for shows, learning the cakewalk for a show, witnessing the AIDS pandemic, etc . . . I feel like I have that big brother I never had . . . but in our own special way "LICK!" (and we ain't f*cking!, just to let you know. But he knows enough sh*t to blackmail me if I ever get elected Senator from Tn.).
I wanted to recreate the conversation for you, but I am afraid that I have waited too long and I do not have time to recreate it. But here are some highlights.
Conversation Excerpt I
Jay in the city of hot and ass in the air German boys: I am watching this mining thing on CNN
Littlemilk in the land of Dixie: Yeah it makes me sick.
Jay: It is just stupid Americans: "Look at us, we pulled them all out. They are alive." Overly optimistic in all situations and then getting things wrong.
Littlemilk: Yeah. (I forgot that in Germany people do have this feeling about America, and the longer you stay there you get infected by German Realism and Pessimism. I have been out of the loop for some time concerning that perspective on life.).
Jay: So when are you coming home to Europe?
Littlemilk: Gotta get some insurance. (Little tears form in the side of my ducts. You have to meet the people I lived with to understand. Many black artist are there that just had to get out of the states. Some for reasons concerning family. Others because of sexuality. I think mine was a deep disappointment in my life in NYC and the people that should have been my mentors. For Jay, no idea. I think it was just a gig for him. You build a life seperate from what you know, and after a while, you crave it. That is immigration, migration, leaving home, etc . . . Right now I am learning about returning home as an everyday way of life, not an abstract black home with greens and black peas falling out of the sky and the bottom of every cornbread skillet burning the bottom just right. I used to write about that. But that was my NYC Southern Act, born out of youth and reflection. Home is now more the experience and excepting the limits of a place . . . I am getting too philosophical again . . . back to sex and German beer. )
Jay: Are you getting your dick sucked?
Littlemilk: No, not really.
Jay: What!
Littlemilk: Well . . .
Jay: YOU ARE SLEEPING WITH GIRLS AGAIN, AREN'T YOU?! (Sigh)
Littlemilk: Well, I meet this woman . . . (Note: I get this sh*t from my straight friends and from my gay friends. It is like I am falling into some bad habit. Gays think that it is an identity crisis and I should somehow leave those girls alone. The straights think that I have just been hurt by girls and I am just messing around with boys because I am used to it . . . but that is only when the straight friend realizes that their is a difference between a bottom and a top. If they think I am taking it up the ass, then I get a condesending attitude that I am somehow not really a man. That I should sit and talk about shoes and lipstick and can't be invited to play soccer. )
Jay: . . . (Interupting) Well, I am loving Cologne.
There is more to this conversation, but more than I have space and time to talk about here. I love Jay because he is practical. I asked him to send me good spiritual energy to get me out of here. He told me, "If you can't generate that by yourself by now, then what makes you think I am going to waste my energy on you. It is about me this year." Hard truth. I love Jay.
Jay was also concerned about my insulin pump and the tub coming out of my stomach. It is serious and not that serious. But I think that it put somethings into perspective for him, though I guess my choice or words was too dramatic. It did sound worse than it is in a way, but for non-diabetics that just run around the world doing whatever they want without having to manage a machine coming out of their stomaches I imagine it can sound a bit crazy. But he did say that he cared in so many words. I have not heard that from many people in the past year at all. I forgot that people ever saw that struggle in me. But that is partly my fault because I am always trying to hide it.
I sent him information on the Augsburg Zoo Exhibition in Germany and some other things that he wanted me to give him. He reminded me that in our little bohemia that we created in 2004 that I was cresended the Intellectual. Jay is a singer and a dancer. He plays in a musical in Germany now. He is f*cking great. Especially when he is tortured by laser beams and dies at the end of the first act.
But he has a steady job with insurance.
I called Jay in Germany. And he was in classic Jay fashion. First, he was in bed watching CNN in his new bohemian digs in Cologne. I could see him clearing his dreadlocks from his head, and we did our proverbial lick over the phone (you really had to be there for the birth of that ritual between us). Jay is like my childhood friend by some supersonic soulmate machine. We did not spend our childhoods together, but when he talks about working on Broadway with Gregory Hines, getting reviews for shows, learning the cakewalk for a show, witnessing the AIDS pandemic, etc . . . I feel like I have that big brother I never had . . . but in our own special way "LICK!" (and we ain't f*cking!, just to let you know. But he knows enough sh*t to blackmail me if I ever get elected Senator from Tn.).
I wanted to recreate the conversation for you, but I am afraid that I have waited too long and I do not have time to recreate it. But here are some highlights.
Conversation Excerpt I
Jay in the city of hot and ass in the air German boys: I am watching this mining thing on CNN
Littlemilk in the land of Dixie: Yeah it makes me sick.
Jay: It is just stupid Americans: "Look at us, we pulled them all out. They are alive." Overly optimistic in all situations and then getting things wrong.
Littlemilk: Yeah. (I forgot that in Germany people do have this feeling about America, and the longer you stay there you get infected by German Realism and Pessimism. I have been out of the loop for some time concerning that perspective on life.).
Jay: So when are you coming home to Europe?
Littlemilk: Gotta get some insurance. (Little tears form in the side of my ducts. You have to meet the people I lived with to understand. Many black artist are there that just had to get out of the states. Some for reasons concerning family. Others because of sexuality. I think mine was a deep disappointment in my life in NYC and the people that should have been my mentors. For Jay, no idea. I think it was just a gig for him. You build a life seperate from what you know, and after a while, you crave it. That is immigration, migration, leaving home, etc . . . Right now I am learning about returning home as an everyday way of life, not an abstract black home with greens and black peas falling out of the sky and the bottom of every cornbread skillet burning the bottom just right. I used to write about that. But that was my NYC Southern Act, born out of youth and reflection. Home is now more the experience and excepting the limits of a place . . . I am getting too philosophical again . . . back to sex and German beer. )
Jay: Are you getting your dick sucked?
Littlemilk: No, not really.
Jay: What!
Littlemilk: Well . . .
Jay: YOU ARE SLEEPING WITH GIRLS AGAIN, AREN'T YOU?! (Sigh)
Littlemilk: Well, I meet this woman . . . (Note: I get this sh*t from my straight friends and from my gay friends. It is like I am falling into some bad habit. Gays think that it is an identity crisis and I should somehow leave those girls alone. The straights think that I have just been hurt by girls and I am just messing around with boys because I am used to it . . . but that is only when the straight friend realizes that their is a difference between a bottom and a top. If they think I am taking it up the ass, then I get a condesending attitude that I am somehow not really a man. That I should sit and talk about shoes and lipstick and can't be invited to play soccer. )
Jay: . . . (Interupting) Well, I am loving Cologne.
There is more to this conversation, but more than I have space and time to talk about here. I love Jay because he is practical. I asked him to send me good spiritual energy to get me out of here. He told me, "If you can't generate that by yourself by now, then what makes you think I am going to waste my energy on you. It is about me this year." Hard truth. I love Jay.
Jay was also concerned about my insulin pump and the tub coming out of my stomach. It is serious and not that serious. But I think that it put somethings into perspective for him, though I guess my choice or words was too dramatic. It did sound worse than it is in a way, but for non-diabetics that just run around the world doing whatever they want without having to manage a machine coming out of their stomaches I imagine it can sound a bit crazy. But he did say that he cared in so many words. I have not heard that from many people in the past year at all. I forgot that people ever saw that struggle in me. But that is partly my fault because I am always trying to hide it.
I sent him information on the Augsburg Zoo Exhibition in Germany and some other things that he wanted me to give him. He reminded me that in our little bohemia that we created in 2004 that I was cresended the Intellectual. Jay is a singer and a dancer. He plays in a musical in Germany now. He is f*cking great. Especially when he is tortured by laser beams and dies at the end of the first act.
But he has a steady job with insurance.
Friday, January 06, 2006
The Spirit and the Cobblestone
I am up again. I can't sleep. I should take this time to write something that is part of a larger project, but for now it is me and this blog. I got hungry because this reduction of calories is killing me. My largest meal is in the evening, but it is not filling me up. So I made refried beans. Tons of carbs. Sue me. I am on an insulin pump, I should always eat something or I could get sick. But to this date no Portuguese verbs and no gym. I don't know if I am lazy, distracted, scared or what. Sometimes I just forget. I simply need new habits.
Let's see. Today was productive for a variety of reasons, all my impulsive behavior reared its head in a way that I have not seen in a month of Sundays. I think I am rebelling. After all, I am in the South . . . and it is a Red State . . .so, I got to excuses right there . . .one political and one historical.
First I uploaded so much house music that I don't know what to do with myself. Hours of the stuff. Some of it just good old stuff from mixed CD's borrowed from The People. Others are more jazzy, a couple are a bit too experimental for my taste (I like house that I can stomp too) and one is from some DJ named JuJu out of Amsterdam. It was made for The People by an old high school friend of mine. I have not seen him since I left Nashville 15 years ago. He used to DJ and make mix tapes back in the day, and now he lives in Memphis and does music there. He was mad cool. I probably would not recognize him, last time I saw him he had severe acne and braces.
I also got some 80's essentials. Funk. Gap Band and the sort. Stuff that used to blow out the AM station. Stuff you would put in a specific order and give to a girl on the bus (The Big Cheese) or to say you are sorry after French II on a Monday morning before announcements (Gawd that was so Cold War!).
I also went to the hospital yesterday. Productive. I immediately called an old friend in the Bronx and talked for a little while during a stroll in the mall. I wanted to stop by the resturuant and tell my boss that I am going to Hotlanta this weekend to see family, but he was not there (this is not going to be a pleasant conversation). So I just headed to the mall and went to one of these French bistros that are made for mass consumption and had a pastry called a Cobblestone. I was greated by 3 round the way girls that talked real fast and giggled. They were about my age. It was fun. All that Southern "pumpkin", "sweety", "have a wonderful day" 10:00 am glee and cheer plus an espresso. I enjoyed them more than the pastry. It needed more butter folded into the dough. I ate it and sipped contemplatively while watching middle aged women walk laps. I will go back to try the soup in a sourdough bowl. It is so yuppie. I would normally say something cynical about it, but this is where I live now. What can you do? Even NYC has an Au Pain with the same type of chicks except they ain't smiling.
Called my CUZ. Setting up my trip. I gotta go. I need to see Atlanta, all this chatter about the city is killing me. People talk about it like it is the New Jerusalem. It could well be. But my cousin is from LA. He will give me a good perspective. He also said he would teach me to surf and asked if I wanted to move to South Beach. That is where our other cousin is. Actually Boca Raton.
Who knows what the future brings. Maybe we do need a familial alliance to get through this phase of life. I know I have been hit hard. LA/Atlanta Cuz has had a hard road (he was just diagnosed with diabetes too and I don't know anyone else that is diabetic and my age. This is going to a great cousin/male/diabetic/clubbing bonding experience). Miami Cuz is MIA. I know I miss the water. And the Spirits.
Upon returning the CDs to The People, Black Nationlist Lesbo -- BNL (the DJ) and I talked. We talked about love. Do we really know how to love? Do we really experience love? Does love solve everything (no! that is a lie! some sh*t you have to do yourself!)? Is love between the same sexes harder (no, but sometimes there is an us against the world feeling that is intoxicating . . . but that could be my own Issues.) She did not want to get deep. I respect that. These are the last days she will be with her lover of 6 years.
While Wine Expert Lesbo was at work in some hot to trot ritzy joint, we listened to music while waiting for her to get off work. BNL was going to pick her up. BNL gave me a page describing her piligrimage to some Native American mounds in Georgia. It was beautiful. Her encounter with the Spirits and the river was wonderful. I forgot for a moment that when I was younger I played in the woods. We would see shadows and things that scared us, or heard giggles like there was an extra child. And our parents would talk about Indians in these political and etheral ways. The matriarch of the family next door said that the Indians were treated worst than the blacks so matter a factly that I still feel it in my current analysis Black politics. A feeling as if we are not the only ones . . . and at least we are still here (I miss those down home observation blarred out between commercials while a girls head is being parted and lined with green petroleum jelly and fragrance).
My most vivid memory of the woods (besides my encounter with a green snake on a sappling, that was mystical too, but I almost pissed my husky jeans) happened when I was about 12 and we walked down the Path, to the street below us. I saw a golden bird. It glowed in the mist of a green that was wet and pulsing. The pigment seemed to bounce like rain. Its back was to me and when he turned it had these piercing red eyes. It flew away with its giant wing span through the folage and disappeared like a fleeting deer. I was the only one that saw it.
Imagine that.
I was always seeing things.
Let's see. Today was productive for a variety of reasons, all my impulsive behavior reared its head in a way that I have not seen in a month of Sundays. I think I am rebelling. After all, I am in the South . . . and it is a Red State . . .so, I got to excuses right there . . .one political and one historical.
First I uploaded so much house music that I don't know what to do with myself. Hours of the stuff. Some of it just good old stuff from mixed CD's borrowed from The People. Others are more jazzy, a couple are a bit too experimental for my taste (I like house that I can stomp too) and one is from some DJ named JuJu out of Amsterdam. It was made for The People by an old high school friend of mine. I have not seen him since I left Nashville 15 years ago. He used to DJ and make mix tapes back in the day, and now he lives in Memphis and does music there. He was mad cool. I probably would not recognize him, last time I saw him he had severe acne and braces.
I also got some 80's essentials. Funk. Gap Band and the sort. Stuff that used to blow out the AM station. Stuff you would put in a specific order and give to a girl on the bus (The Big Cheese) or to say you are sorry after French II on a Monday morning before announcements (Gawd that was so Cold War!).
I also went to the hospital yesterday. Productive. I immediately called an old friend in the Bronx and talked for a little while during a stroll in the mall. I wanted to stop by the resturuant and tell my boss that I am going to Hotlanta this weekend to see family, but he was not there (this is not going to be a pleasant conversation). So I just headed to the mall and went to one of these French bistros that are made for mass consumption and had a pastry called a Cobblestone. I was greated by 3 round the way girls that talked real fast and giggled. They were about my age. It was fun. All that Southern "pumpkin", "sweety", "have a wonderful day" 10:00 am glee and cheer plus an espresso. I enjoyed them more than the pastry. It needed more butter folded into the dough. I ate it and sipped contemplatively while watching middle aged women walk laps. I will go back to try the soup in a sourdough bowl. It is so yuppie. I would normally say something cynical about it, but this is where I live now. What can you do? Even NYC has an Au Pain with the same type of chicks except they ain't smiling.
Called my CUZ. Setting up my trip. I gotta go. I need to see Atlanta, all this chatter about the city is killing me. People talk about it like it is the New Jerusalem. It could well be. But my cousin is from LA. He will give me a good perspective. He also said he would teach me to surf and asked if I wanted to move to South Beach. That is where our other cousin is. Actually Boca Raton.
Who knows what the future brings. Maybe we do need a familial alliance to get through this phase of life. I know I have been hit hard. LA/Atlanta Cuz has had a hard road (he was just diagnosed with diabetes too and I don't know anyone else that is diabetic and my age. This is going to a great cousin/male/diabetic/clubbing bonding experience). Miami Cuz is MIA. I know I miss the water. And the Spirits.
Upon returning the CDs to The People, Black Nationlist Lesbo -- BNL (the DJ) and I talked. We talked about love. Do we really know how to love? Do we really experience love? Does love solve everything (no! that is a lie! some sh*t you have to do yourself!)? Is love between the same sexes harder (no, but sometimes there is an us against the world feeling that is intoxicating . . . but that could be my own Issues.) She did not want to get deep. I respect that. These are the last days she will be with her lover of 6 years.
While Wine Expert Lesbo was at work in some hot to trot ritzy joint, we listened to music while waiting for her to get off work. BNL was going to pick her up. BNL gave me a page describing her piligrimage to some Native American mounds in Georgia. It was beautiful. Her encounter with the Spirits and the river was wonderful. I forgot for a moment that when I was younger I played in the woods. We would see shadows and things that scared us, or heard giggles like there was an extra child. And our parents would talk about Indians in these political and etheral ways. The matriarch of the family next door said that the Indians were treated worst than the blacks so matter a factly that I still feel it in my current analysis Black politics. A feeling as if we are not the only ones . . . and at least we are still here (I miss those down home observation blarred out between commercials while a girls head is being parted and lined with green petroleum jelly and fragrance).
My most vivid memory of the woods (besides my encounter with a green snake on a sappling, that was mystical too, but I almost pissed my husky jeans) happened when I was about 12 and we walked down the Path, to the street below us. I saw a golden bird. It glowed in the mist of a green that was wet and pulsing. The pigment seemed to bounce like rain. Its back was to me and when he turned it had these piercing red eyes. It flew away with its giant wing span through the folage and disappeared like a fleeting deer. I was the only one that saw it.
Imagine that.
I was always seeing things.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
On German Prepositions and the Promise of Portuguese Verbs
I am writing this at midnight because I gotta get up and go again to the hospital. Different doctor. 60 bucks. I will see him every two weeks. He is like my diabetic shrink. We talk about whatever I want, but I think our focus has grown to include all the things that make me feel different. Diabetics do feel different (hell, I am a freaking black, middleclass snob, bisexual, diabetic . . . when in the bloody hell do I not feel like I am sitting at the bottom of a well and the party is going on above me?!). It is an identity. The first guy to write about the identity politics of the physically ill and handicap should get tenure at NYU really fast. And I think that that bitch would be "useful". Hell maybe someone has already written something about it. I should google it tomorrow.
The thing I realize about this blog is that I am going to have to edit. The sad fact of the matter is that since I have left NYC, I have not been writing. I have been busy learning German. I learned it well enough to translate a cookbook, but I must say that I did not like the experience. Trying to write a PhD, teaching a class on German History and translating a book did me in for sure. It is probably the reason I got sick and my sugar went out of control (drinking beer after my Bossanova Choir practice every Monday probably did not help things either).
Anyway. Edit. Edit. Edit.
I have noticed that since I have learned another language writing is a bit more taxing. I need more time to find the right word, and I am not comfortable with some of the underlying things in the English language that I used to be able to manage like a man on the flying trapeze. I can't turn a curve or switch a gear the way that I used to. And I have become less erudite. I don't know why. Maybe because German is a different way of being all together linguistically. Prepositions are murder . . . the dative and accusative articles are used depending on whether the object is moving or static. I get it right speaking, because I probably learned the whole sentence in the office or from a student. Also writing in German is a child like experience for me. I kind of get around to it, the heart of the matter is not something I sketch with great detail. I just make crude sentences with the super glue German conjunctions that I know, and concentrate on getting dependent clauses to look half way decent.
This blog is an exercise in and of itself. I write everyday now in the hopes that one of my friends read it and in preparation for the real writing I want to get back to. A novel, a play, a thesis . . . all have swung under the roof of my cranium, but my fingers are not very responsive. They are waiting for the right syncopation, syntax, turn of a phrase, mixture of sentences, allusions or that sentence that has seven words that begin with the letter T, etc . . . It just does not come so quickly.
Plus. Today I should really get started on those Portuguese verbs and grammatical rules. I think I have learned as much at the resturaunt as I will. I like the people there, but my year of rest is almost up. And I want to get on the hunt for that new professional life. Maybe it will be stateside. I will save some money, and be off again.
I read a piece on Ghana recently. And it would be nice to see Africa again. I don't know why I long to go back. Maybe it is a sense to go home. Europe is fine for everyday, but the possiblity of building a community is difficult if you are always seen as exotic.
Plus, I want to see the Atlantic at that latitude again. It is so muddy and dark and flat. It seem so vast, like I could just run into it. It doesn't crash like the Atlantic on the coast of Portugal. It doesn't roll like a jelly roll on Venice beach. It does something else completely. Like you can stand on its edge naked and wash with some soap made from plant fat and the hot ash of a palm tree, or throw a net out in the middle for lunch and simply walk back. The contradiction to this picture, its opposite mental pole is that is somehow still violent. It flows like a mighty river with no banks. There is nothing stopping it from running all the way into the middle of the continent except a verbal agreement, a handshake, a nod of heads of sorts.
It just might have to be.
For now at least.
But I gotta clean this blog up. Too many mistakes.
But I feel better.
Listening to Os Mutantes and Maria Bethania now.
Feeling back to normal after a Bush induced session of manic depression.
Thinking about a trip to Atlanta.
It is impulsive I know.
Maybe it won't workout, I gotta other plans for this money.
But I do want to see my cousin and be in a city.
The thing I realize about this blog is that I am going to have to edit. The sad fact of the matter is that since I have left NYC, I have not been writing. I have been busy learning German. I learned it well enough to translate a cookbook, but I must say that I did not like the experience. Trying to write a PhD, teaching a class on German History and translating a book did me in for sure. It is probably the reason I got sick and my sugar went out of control (drinking beer after my Bossanova Choir practice every Monday probably did not help things either).
Anyway. Edit. Edit. Edit.
I have noticed that since I have learned another language writing is a bit more taxing. I need more time to find the right word, and I am not comfortable with some of the underlying things in the English language that I used to be able to manage like a man on the flying trapeze. I can't turn a curve or switch a gear the way that I used to. And I have become less erudite. I don't know why. Maybe because German is a different way of being all together linguistically. Prepositions are murder . . . the dative and accusative articles are used depending on whether the object is moving or static. I get it right speaking, because I probably learned the whole sentence in the office or from a student. Also writing in German is a child like experience for me. I kind of get around to it, the heart of the matter is not something I sketch with great detail. I just make crude sentences with the super glue German conjunctions that I know, and concentrate on getting dependent clauses to look half way decent.
This blog is an exercise in and of itself. I write everyday now in the hopes that one of my friends read it and in preparation for the real writing I want to get back to. A novel, a play, a thesis . . . all have swung under the roof of my cranium, but my fingers are not very responsive. They are waiting for the right syncopation, syntax, turn of a phrase, mixture of sentences, allusions or that sentence that has seven words that begin with the letter T, etc . . . It just does not come so quickly.
Plus. Today I should really get started on those Portuguese verbs and grammatical rules. I think I have learned as much at the resturaunt as I will. I like the people there, but my year of rest is almost up. And I want to get on the hunt for that new professional life. Maybe it will be stateside. I will save some money, and be off again.
I read a piece on Ghana recently. And it would be nice to see Africa again. I don't know why I long to go back. Maybe it is a sense to go home. Europe is fine for everyday, but the possiblity of building a community is difficult if you are always seen as exotic.
Plus, I want to see the Atlantic at that latitude again. It is so muddy and dark and flat. It seem so vast, like I could just run into it. It doesn't crash like the Atlantic on the coast of Portugal. It doesn't roll like a jelly roll on Venice beach. It does something else completely. Like you can stand on its edge naked and wash with some soap made from plant fat and the hot ash of a palm tree, or throw a net out in the middle for lunch and simply walk back. The contradiction to this picture, its opposite mental pole is that is somehow still violent. It flows like a mighty river with no banks. There is nothing stopping it from running all the way into the middle of the continent except a verbal agreement, a handshake, a nod of heads of sorts.
It just might have to be.
For now at least.
But I gotta clean this blog up. Too many mistakes.
But I feel better.
Listening to Os Mutantes and Maria Bethania now.
Feeling back to normal after a Bush induced session of manic depression.
Thinking about a trip to Atlanta.
It is impulsive I know.
Maybe it won't workout, I gotta other plans for this money.
But I do want to see my cousin and be in a city.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Stadt, Land, Fluss
I am unmotivated today. Think it has to do with the fact that I work at night, and I have been spending my nights with The People. Last night we watched Underworld. While watching it, I realized that I need a trip to NYC. That would help me out. I guess part of it is that The People seem to be stuck in the same mode of thinking and behavior as I was in when I was 21-years-old and at 33 that is not fun.
I don't think it is the maturity. That seems to be there, but there seems to be nothing for The People to do if they don't get married and have kids. You are stuck renting videos, inviting people over and watching movies like Underworld. Throw in some flavoured Martinis and there you go. You have life in the alternative world of The People. Some DJ's. Some Poets. Some Gender Benders. Some of Everything. But everybody scared to move.
I think I will tell you the tale of Miss A, her friend ViVi and the search for a 2,000 dollar car tomorrow. Miss A is paying. That happened yesterday. It was an adventure and memorable, and that part of my life is vibrant. Work and friends. It is home that is lacking. And it is the world of this city (I guess I am forever talking down about Nashville, but hey my customers from other places do that too), and watching my mother's generation and herself enter retirement. That is the modus operandi of my home life now. But, my life is on hold as I try to figure out the best way to make a lot of money to pay for my medical cost and a house versus writing. I just can't sit the fence anymore. I can do both, but it is hard to complete things when you are constantly being knocked out by medical bills.
Right now, with all that is going on, I just want to go back to Germany for a little while if not forever (they really make me pay for medical coverage there . . . the socialist system is meant for Europeans, not foreigner entrepreneurs . . . they want you dependent on someone), believe me. This President and his administration is crazy. The Lobbyist are screwing us all. I don't know anybody that is happy. What I read is nothing that changes the status quo of ideas concerning race and money. New Orleans is a disaster. And the people in my communities are just people that are disatisfied with their jobs and every aspect of their lives thanks to television. HGTV makes everyone feel inadequate about their house (it used to be just their bodies). A woman named Suzy is feeding into this idea that ones self-esteem is based on ones credit rating. And the electronic news age has made it so that mistakes are happening all over the place. I can't even talk about that mine in West Virginia. It is terrible.
Oh, and Mr. Christmas Night didn't show up yesterday evening for his date. I will find out today why not. I think I am just love starved in the "Daydreaming" Aretha Franklin with her sister Carol's supporting background vocals sense of the word.
When I am down, or am in deep contemplation I put on "Can't Explain (42nd Street Happenstance)" by Jil Scott. I put that bad boy on repeat and just get through what I got to do. Today is that kind of day. But it is the inablity to put my finger on what is the problem. Maybe it is retrieving the world that I lost. But don't we all loose several worlds in a lifetime. Maybe even more. Dozens, perhaps.
Tomorrow will be better I hope.
I don't think it is the maturity. That seems to be there, but there seems to be nothing for The People to do if they don't get married and have kids. You are stuck renting videos, inviting people over and watching movies like Underworld. Throw in some flavoured Martinis and there you go. You have life in the alternative world of The People. Some DJ's. Some Poets. Some Gender Benders. Some of Everything. But everybody scared to move.
I think I will tell you the tale of Miss A, her friend ViVi and the search for a 2,000 dollar car tomorrow. Miss A is paying. That happened yesterday. It was an adventure and memorable, and that part of my life is vibrant. Work and friends. It is home that is lacking. And it is the world of this city (I guess I am forever talking down about Nashville, but hey my customers from other places do that too), and watching my mother's generation and herself enter retirement. That is the modus operandi of my home life now. But, my life is on hold as I try to figure out the best way to make a lot of money to pay for my medical cost and a house versus writing. I just can't sit the fence anymore. I can do both, but it is hard to complete things when you are constantly being knocked out by medical bills.
Right now, with all that is going on, I just want to go back to Germany for a little while if not forever (they really make me pay for medical coverage there . . . the socialist system is meant for Europeans, not foreigner entrepreneurs . . . they want you dependent on someone), believe me. This President and his administration is crazy. The Lobbyist are screwing us all. I don't know anybody that is happy. What I read is nothing that changes the status quo of ideas concerning race and money. New Orleans is a disaster. And the people in my communities are just people that are disatisfied with their jobs and every aspect of their lives thanks to television. HGTV makes everyone feel inadequate about their house (it used to be just their bodies). A woman named Suzy is feeding into this idea that ones self-esteem is based on ones credit rating. And the electronic news age has made it so that mistakes are happening all over the place. I can't even talk about that mine in West Virginia. It is terrible.
Oh, and Mr. Christmas Night didn't show up yesterday evening for his date. I will find out today why not. I think I am just love starved in the "Daydreaming" Aretha Franklin with her sister Carol's supporting background vocals sense of the word.
When I am down, or am in deep contemplation I put on "Can't Explain (42nd Street Happenstance)" by Jil Scott. I put that bad boy on repeat and just get through what I got to do. Today is that kind of day. But it is the inablity to put my finger on what is the problem. Maybe it is retrieving the world that I lost. But don't we all loose several worlds in a lifetime. Maybe even more. Dozens, perhaps.
Tomorrow will be better I hope.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
On Nurses, Cars and Pretty Little Young Things
OK.
I am skipping my appointment with my nurse today because I am not in the mood. First, I was dropped from my insurance, and second I have not done my blood sugars 4 times a day like am suppose to. So to pay 150 dollars out of pocket to have her bitch at me and be frustrated and for me to be frustrated is not happening today. That's that.
Second. I get to see my doctor on the 27th. I will pay 150 dollars to see him and to take my hemoglobian A1C test. That is good enough for me right now.
Also today I take Miss A to look at cars. One of the black nationalistic lesbians (THE PEOPLE) that I know got a brief stint at Car Max. She is leaving for Atlanta on Saturday and breaking up with her other half. The Car Max lesbo asked me yesterday to take care of her Wine Expert lesbo while she was gone. I said yeah I would. It broke my heart. They have been together for 6 years. It seems to be the theme of the last couple of years with most of my friends. Other friends I have are making babies. They can get along with convention, it is not contradictory to their nature, their innate sense of self. I wonder sometimes what that is like. I wouldn't give anything to be anything other than me. But to have the right sexual orientation, race, family name, etc . . . it must be pretty orgasmic. Then again, there are many rich kids that deal with the suicide of a parent, the absence of a father, loneliness . . . it could just feel like the movie Home Alone. Trapped in a secure world.
When I was in Germany a someone told me, "We (my friends) are all trying to live in this different way but just don't know how." I thought that was profound.
Anyway. Miss A is a beautiful woman from Brazil. She just got divorced and used to live in Barcelona. Now she is in Nashville . . . weird no? So she needs a car for 6 months then she goes back to Barcelona to go to graduate school. I don't know where this is going romantically, she is interested in another man, I am interested in dating this other guy, but I do get that feeling . . . the feeling to lead . . . when I am with her. She is a little distraught, and a little tired, and busy trying to figure out the Americans like when I was busy trying to figure out the Germans. She has that look in her eyes. I turn into a big hunter gatherer when I am with her and she is responsive. I am getting this car for her because I would like to make sure she is OK. I don't know if it is a feeling of husband and wife, friend, guardian angel . . . I don't know. But I like the fact that I can be honest with her about everything. And we can be friends so, why not leave it at that. Plus we speak Portuguese now and then. She will need help today for sure, a little translation. I gotta work on my verbs. Man so much to do.
I asked the boy that I kissed on Christmas Eve to go out with me on this evening. I want to go see King Kong again. I really want to see Munich, but I am afraid the English might be too much. King Kong is more visual. I don't know what he wants from me and my Spanish is not good enough. I am getting frustrated, because I am an affectionate and attentive person when it comes to getting attactched. He does not show any affection during work, which seems unfair. Straight people do all the time. Time will tell. The latino machismo is heavy in the resturaunt and the way they look at us (boys who like boys) puts most people (other gay folk) on guard. I don't care. You can tease me, just don't use the feminine pronoun, article or ending near me. I am a man, first and foremost. But anything concerning dick, ass, ass pounding, crushes on the dishwasher. . . I don't care.
I don't care if they pinch my butt, but I usually do it back. Sometimes they protest, sometimes they don't. Its like being in a lockerroom.
Otherwise. Gotta go to the gym, maybe before work. Gotta blender for shakes. Then, I gotta get my resume ready again. Got my rejection letter from the last application. Don't think the job was meant for me. Nashville is just not meant for me in general. I think a good number of my friends are depressed here. It is its normalcy combined with the whole gospel and country music thing . . . it just eclispe so much of the identity of the city . . . people are forever scrambling to make something else like rock, rap, heavy metal, etc . . . survive. We will have to wait and see what happens.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Monday Morning
Well,
The reality of the situation hit me this morning. I live in Tennessee.
Now, I grew up between Nashville and Northeastern Alabama, and to add to that, I belong to a very conservative family. Sure I am a male here, and there are double standards, and there are many affairs and infidelities . . . but what my mother told me this morning shocked me beyond belief.
As I am walking upstairs from my slumber my mother tells me that she talked to my aunt, and that one of my female cousins just got married. Why did she get married? Because she is the assistant church secretary, and the pastor called her house three times upon which a man answered the phone -- ALL THREE TIMES! So, Pastor told Female Cousin to get married because she could not hold her position in the church and be shacking up.
So she got married.
Stop the fucking bus!
I lived with married couples in Europe (nonsexual but plenty of tension). I have been in a couple of interesting situation that did not manifest into anything physical with married couples. I have been with guys. I have lived with a girlfriend for a little while. All the while my mother has been calling me nervously for the past 15 years of my life about who I am living with. What I am doing. Mind you she never says sex, fucking, licking, sucking, being satisfied (I remember when a friend of mine's father came to university and asked his 21-year-old daughter if her boyfriend was sexually satisfing her while puffing on a spliff . . . I was in total awe). Neither does the Pastor. This has kicked up some stuff in me.
1. I live with pilgrims.
2. I was taught to live in shame and guilt about intimacy and the body.
3. I was also taught that Jesus is always watching, and I should do what he wants me to do.
4. When I come home I have to fight this thinking, not in myself anymore but with others.
Which means that many men and women live double lives so they don't have to fight.
5. Hell, when I wake up in the morning, that world view is greating me at the top of my stairs.
Now, that could very well be 800 dollars worth of therapy right there. I am aware of that. But, I am so sure that others have had to go through the same thing. The same realization, and even more frightening, how many people have married despite their sexual orientation because of a call by Pastor or Moma. Interesting hmmmm.
And then there are the straight folk that are living in the matrix. Is it comforting to have the world's views (at least here in the bible belt) on your side, or is it different. Does it feel different . . . the world . . . when it is catered to you?
That's all I am saying.
Now my mom, she has interesting views about the world and life and I think that she is more humored by the facts of the marriage . . . the story we should say . . . than by the theology. But she did tell me this story with a bible in her lap and eating breakfast.
Man. The South.
The reality of the situation hit me this morning. I live in Tennessee.
Now, I grew up between Nashville and Northeastern Alabama, and to add to that, I belong to a very conservative family. Sure I am a male here, and there are double standards, and there are many affairs and infidelities . . . but what my mother told me this morning shocked me beyond belief.
As I am walking upstairs from my slumber my mother tells me that she talked to my aunt, and that one of my female cousins just got married. Why did she get married? Because she is the assistant church secretary, and the pastor called her house three times upon which a man answered the phone -- ALL THREE TIMES! So, Pastor told Female Cousin to get married because she could not hold her position in the church and be shacking up.
So she got married.
Stop the fucking bus!
I lived with married couples in Europe (nonsexual but plenty of tension). I have been in a couple of interesting situation that did not manifest into anything physical with married couples. I have been with guys. I have lived with a girlfriend for a little while. All the while my mother has been calling me nervously for the past 15 years of my life about who I am living with. What I am doing. Mind you she never says sex, fucking, licking, sucking, being satisfied (I remember when a friend of mine's father came to university and asked his 21-year-old daughter if her boyfriend was sexually satisfing her while puffing on a spliff . . . I was in total awe). Neither does the Pastor. This has kicked up some stuff in me.
1. I live with pilgrims.
2. I was taught to live in shame and guilt about intimacy and the body.
3. I was also taught that Jesus is always watching, and I should do what he wants me to do.
4. When I come home I have to fight this thinking, not in myself anymore but with others.
Which means that many men and women live double lives so they don't have to fight.
5. Hell, when I wake up in the morning, that world view is greating me at the top of my stairs.
Now, that could very well be 800 dollars worth of therapy right there. I am aware of that. But, I am so sure that others have had to go through the same thing. The same realization, and even more frightening, how many people have married despite their sexual orientation because of a call by Pastor or Moma. Interesting hmmmm.
And then there are the straight folk that are living in the matrix. Is it comforting to have the world's views (at least here in the bible belt) on your side, or is it different. Does it feel different . . . the world . . . when it is catered to you?
That's all I am saying.
Now my mom, she has interesting views about the world and life and I think that she is more humored by the facts of the marriage . . . the story we should say . . . than by the theology. But she did tell me this story with a bible in her lap and eating breakfast.
Man. The South.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Leroy
You see the thing is, I did not have the heart last night the tell the living room that Gene Anthony Ray is dead or at least that I read that he had died in a European newspaper. It was New Years and instead of going out with with the gay guys to the club, or out with my co-workers from Mexico and El Salvador, I headed over to some friends' house. We have had a hard year, we have not all been on talking terms, we have been upset with each other and the choices that the others have made but not really looking at our own stuff, and we are seeing relationships change in front of our eyes. 10 year relationships and stuff like that. So, I wanted to start with them, cause we are peas in a pod. A funky left over pod, from Xmas before last.
Anyway, I want to give these friends a name without talking about their shit out in the open on this blogsite. Cause they got massive force, quick tongues and ain't slow about doing street justice on somebody despite their new suburban house and their little dog. So . . . a description and a name . . . hmmm . . . the house consist of 2 beautiful but angry black women in love and one flower child black man in the promise land (who is straight) and they can join powers like the wonder twins (triplets) and put a psychic hurting on a negro so let's call them THE PEOPLE, cause they represent all that practical blactacality that keeps people grounded. But sometimes it can keep you blocked in . . .hince, we are all trying to step out of 2005 and into 2006 more responsibly and spiritually intact. It is a shame though. I always thought we could make a commune together in some very forward and vocal part of my mind. But it is not going to be.
Okay, I digress.
So instead of being with the El Salavadorians (god only knows what was going to happen there, but maybe it is me being xenophobic, surely a good number of white folk would not have hung out with me last night though I live in a nice middle class neighborhood) or with the faggots (we all know what that would have lead too . . . me getting horny and not getting any as it always does in this damn town) I went to The People.
We played my Black Box Greatest Hits Australian import CD. We listened to other hot tracks from the multiple DJ's in the house, then we toasted to 2005 and the bitch that she was. She blew shit down and knocked things over, don't you think?
Then we drank some more, listened to more music, watched Fame with the sound down, then we watched it with the sound up, from the beginning all the way to the end. And all of a sudden people started to talk about Leroy like he was alive and that was his name and they saw him last week. And I just sat there. I watched the film, and I started to remember all these things about the film. And how no one will make a film like that again, and how I wanted to study a million different languages and play trumpet and all those things when I was younger. And . . . and . . . and . . .
We all did.
Think about the past. And what we were doing.
It was a great way to look towards the future of this year. 2006.
Plus I meet a girl at this party.
Well, she is a woman.
She is bisexual.
It makes me feel good.
After a year of waiting for what I really want.
A boy for Xmas.
And a girl for the New Year.
Nothing happened.
Just a telephone number.
I was happy with it.
And I was being honest about all my shit.
And people at the party wer not being judgemental.
And after where I was.
Now . . .
I think America is freer in certain ways than Germany.
Or maybe it is the fact that I have a deep understanding of the language and magic here.
People do what they feel.
I never thought I would think it a novelty.
But after the last 4 years of living without it.
Who knew?
Without magic.
Without doing what you feel.
Man.
Nice night.
Anyway, I want to give these friends a name without talking about their shit out in the open on this blogsite. Cause they got massive force, quick tongues and ain't slow about doing street justice on somebody despite their new suburban house and their little dog. So . . . a description and a name . . . hmmm . . . the house consist of 2 beautiful but angry black women in love and one flower child black man in the promise land (who is straight) and they can join powers like the wonder twins (triplets) and put a psychic hurting on a negro so let's call them THE PEOPLE, cause they represent all that practical blactacality that keeps people grounded. But sometimes it can keep you blocked in . . .hince, we are all trying to step out of 2005 and into 2006 more responsibly and spiritually intact. It is a shame though. I always thought we could make a commune together in some very forward and vocal part of my mind. But it is not going to be.
Okay, I digress.
So instead of being with the El Salavadorians (god only knows what was going to happen there, but maybe it is me being xenophobic, surely a good number of white folk would not have hung out with me last night though I live in a nice middle class neighborhood) or with the faggots (we all know what that would have lead too . . . me getting horny and not getting any as it always does in this damn town) I went to The People.
We played my Black Box Greatest Hits Australian import CD. We listened to other hot tracks from the multiple DJ's in the house, then we toasted to 2005 and the bitch that she was. She blew shit down and knocked things over, don't you think?
Then we drank some more, listened to more music, watched Fame with the sound down, then we watched it with the sound up, from the beginning all the way to the end. And all of a sudden people started to talk about Leroy like he was alive and that was his name and they saw him last week. And I just sat there. I watched the film, and I started to remember all these things about the film. And how no one will make a film like that again, and how I wanted to study a million different languages and play trumpet and all those things when I was younger. And . . . and . . . and . . .
We all did.
Think about the past. And what we were doing.
It was a great way to look towards the future of this year. 2006.
Plus I meet a girl at this party.
Well, she is a woman.
She is bisexual.
It makes me feel good.
After a year of waiting for what I really want.
A boy for Xmas.
And a girl for the New Year.
Nothing happened.
Just a telephone number.
I was happy with it.
And I was being honest about all my shit.
And people at the party wer not being judgemental.
And after where I was.
Now . . .
I think America is freer in certain ways than Germany.
Or maybe it is the fact that I have a deep understanding of the language and magic here.
People do what they feel.
I never thought I would think it a novelty.
But after the last 4 years of living without it.
Who knew?
Without magic.
Without doing what you feel.
Man.
Nice night.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
King Kong
I fell a sleep during the first part of King Kong. All the way up to the point where she was captured . . . the white woman . . . can't remember her name. I won't give any details, but the "savage scene" was not that bad, the savages were these non-descript people that looked aborignal, and black and white, all done up in some strange body paint. Its OK. The music was good at that point, and all that chanting made my spine tingle. So I woke up quick and watched the rest of the movie. Besides my goddaughters wanted something to drink. They devoured a X-Large popcorn, which is as big a mop bucket. FOR REAL!
All I can say is that it is a visual feast, with tons of things that will scary the hell out of ya. The only racialized part was the fact that King Kong was out looking for "beauty" on the streets of NYC which is this little white thing, and I keep having flash backs to time when I used to hang with some rough necks that did nothing but lift weights and fight against the system as UPS and FED EX delivery people in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Those guys would be the Kongs. Nothing like a young strapping black Buck walking into your office (where I was the only black male hired in the entire American division for some time . . . we are talking coast to coast) to make you want to get whisked away out of the window and be taken to the roof.
Negros need some kong too!
I digress.
Otherwise things are goin' alright. New Years is coming. I am going out with the people at my job. Things are a bit better, because I was flirting with with this chick at the resturaunt, and flirting with this guy. I let the girl know that I was bisexual, which naturally shuts down relationship possibilities with 80 percent of the women that I talk to, and I kissed the guy on Xmas Eve.
So, there you have it. We are all going to be at the same club, and my co-workers, who have figured out that I like both men and women (most of the guys really want to know if you take it up the ass, if not, then you are OK. Just talk about soccer and what have you and you will be OK. Two of them want to get off with me. Can't decide if that is OK. I don't kiss and tell, but a couple of these supposeitly straight bitches chatter like church mice.), will see me kiss the boy tonight. The club is going to be packed. I like this guy. My spanish is not up to par, his english is missing things. But hey. . .
I gotta shot. . .
After the heartache of this year (old girlfriend) and my German man (let's call him Das Experiment). . .
And I am still young . . .
All I can say is that it is a visual feast, with tons of things that will scary the hell out of ya. The only racialized part was the fact that King Kong was out looking for "beauty" on the streets of NYC which is this little white thing, and I keep having flash backs to time when I used to hang with some rough necks that did nothing but lift weights and fight against the system as UPS and FED EX delivery people in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Those guys would be the Kongs. Nothing like a young strapping black Buck walking into your office (where I was the only black male hired in the entire American division for some time . . . we are talking coast to coast) to make you want to get whisked away out of the window and be taken to the roof.
Negros need some kong too!
I digress.
Otherwise things are goin' alright. New Years is coming. I am going out with the people at my job. Things are a bit better, because I was flirting with with this chick at the resturaunt, and flirting with this guy. I let the girl know that I was bisexual, which naturally shuts down relationship possibilities with 80 percent of the women that I talk to, and I kissed the guy on Xmas Eve.
So, there you have it. We are all going to be at the same club, and my co-workers, who have figured out that I like both men and women (most of the guys really want to know if you take it up the ass, if not, then you are OK. Just talk about soccer and what have you and you will be OK. Two of them want to get off with me. Can't decide if that is OK. I don't kiss and tell, but a couple of these supposeitly straight bitches chatter like church mice.), will see me kiss the boy tonight. The club is going to be packed. I like this guy. My spanish is not up to par, his english is missing things. But hey. . .
I gotta shot. . .
After the heartache of this year (old girlfriend) and my German man (let's call him Das Experiment). . .
And I am still young . . .
Friday, December 30, 2005
The New Year
OK.
So here I am. Up fairly early. I am rapidly approaching my year annivesery of living at home. I have not lived here for 14 years. It has been difficult. And a bit life changing. The mold that my parents cast me in, is not the man that I have grown into. But they don't care, they have me 1/4 of the way crammed back in the mold. But maybe that is just part of my true life anyway. You can't escape home. Nashville has shaped me, if I like it or not.
Can you identify?
Ok, I will not be cynical because my ass could be dead from a high glucose induced coma because I did not have anyone that gave a shit about me. That is dramatic, I know. But after working with homeless kids in NYC, I have a tendency to appreciate my dysfunctional family, because life without a family is something very, very different.
OK.
Let's continue with the idea of age.
First. I take my godchildren to see King Kong today. I am aware of they psycho-sexual crap that is in it, and I have friends that are boycotting, but I am doing this for the children and for myself. I want to see how the stuff is addressed. What is the vision? And now the kids are 12, 8 and 9. Man. Time plays tricks on you.
Second. I kissed a boy that is 10 years younger than me on Christmas Eve and I think I have a love jones or a crush on him (not sure which one, but I am leaning toward crush). He is in his early 20's and is from Mexico and has the kind of body I like (thick and round in all the right places and unapologetically so). Muscles are good for eye candy, but it really does not tell someone if they are any good in bed. Give me a nice round bottom and a little bit of a stomach any day. And the way his ass wiggles when he walks . . . sigh.
Third. Another year has passed by. And this is the first one where I can say that I have not achieved what I wanted. I want it to hurry or end. I got about 48 more hours. Then I want to get on with the business of life. I think I have come to a critical point in terms of university, PhD and that profession. It might not be the best place for me, but I am not listening to the warning signs . . . like no money, hard work load, under appreciation of the humanities in this country (most countries), and the fact that one is a starving artist or writer is no longer sexy and exciting . . . especially at this age. . .
So that is that. Have to get ready to work on New Year's Eve. Man. It will be a lot of people at the resturaunt. 200 in 5 hours.
Geeh-wizz Buttman. That's alot of fact sloppy butts!
So here I am. Up fairly early. I am rapidly approaching my year annivesery of living at home. I have not lived here for 14 years. It has been difficult. And a bit life changing. The mold that my parents cast me in, is not the man that I have grown into. But they don't care, they have me 1/4 of the way crammed back in the mold. But maybe that is just part of my true life anyway. You can't escape home. Nashville has shaped me, if I like it or not.
Can you identify?
Ok, I will not be cynical because my ass could be dead from a high glucose induced coma because I did not have anyone that gave a shit about me. That is dramatic, I know. But after working with homeless kids in NYC, I have a tendency to appreciate my dysfunctional family, because life without a family is something very, very different.
OK.
Let's continue with the idea of age.
First. I take my godchildren to see King Kong today. I am aware of they psycho-sexual crap that is in it, and I have friends that are boycotting, but I am doing this for the children and for myself. I want to see how the stuff is addressed. What is the vision? And now the kids are 12, 8 and 9. Man. Time plays tricks on you.
Second. I kissed a boy that is 10 years younger than me on Christmas Eve and I think I have a love jones or a crush on him (not sure which one, but I am leaning toward crush). He is in his early 20's and is from Mexico and has the kind of body I like (thick and round in all the right places and unapologetically so). Muscles are good for eye candy, but it really does not tell someone if they are any good in bed. Give me a nice round bottom and a little bit of a stomach any day. And the way his ass wiggles when he walks . . . sigh.
Third. Another year has passed by. And this is the first one where I can say that I have not achieved what I wanted. I want it to hurry or end. I got about 48 more hours. Then I want to get on with the business of life. I think I have come to a critical point in terms of university, PhD and that profession. It might not be the best place for me, but I am not listening to the warning signs . . . like no money, hard work load, under appreciation of the humanities in this country (most countries), and the fact that one is a starving artist or writer is no longer sexy and exciting . . . especially at this age. . .
So that is that. Have to get ready to work on New Year's Eve. Man. It will be a lot of people at the resturaunt. 200 in 5 hours.
Geeh-wizz Buttman. That's alot of fact sloppy butts!
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Day One
Well, I guess I should start out by saying that I took my Secret Santa gift certificate to Tower Records and bought two albums. One is called Folon . . . The Past, by Salif Keita. It made me think about NYC and my days eating couscous and Lamb Mafe (I think that is how you spell it). I actually started to crave those golden kernels of micropasta, and a peanut sauce or something sweet and onionie. That all takes me bak to walking through Harlem; special nights at the Sound Factory Bar and Octogon, and having a big glass of sorrel or ginger while eating something spicy. Damn me for getting stuck here! Well, what can one do?
The second album is "blackboxhits&mixes". I jammed that bad boy all the way home. I swear I don't even remember driving. I just got to the house as if I was in a Jetson mobile (remember that). I needed it. I wanted to remember what that time was like. Being in college, having dreadlocks, playing in the band, falling in love with house music and a couple of other episodes that I won't mention here. Hell, I might become president one day. Marth Wash will be in my cabinet. She negotiated herself out of that legal fiasco of Black Box, I am sure she could be secretary of state.
And on a side note, the whole Source "hot ass mess" mess has got me tripping too. More on that, with links. Later though. This is my first post.
I love the way music can tie-up past and present. Things that I am going through now get a new meaning when I play certain songs.
Funny, I asked this chick at Tower for Black Box and she did not know who they were. The day before I asked for Terence Trent D'Arby, and her co-worker did not know who the hell he was. And then again today, after finding this wonderful Australian Import of Black Box, I asked for Dalida . . . she looked so surprised to see that Tower carried it, but her look of surprise tripped me out. I teach kids her age, and now they are running the cash register at Tower Records. I remember when that place was just a nondescript space across from Vanderbilt. It's almost been 20 years since Terence Trent D'Arby. 15 or so since Black Box.
The sad fact of the matter is that I am aging. I just did not expect for it to be so painless. It just happens day by day without any fanfare until nobody in the freakin' record store recognizes a single word coming out your mouth. Infact, they sigh just before you reach their little magnet school asses.
But other than that. A good day at the job. No stress. Tons of flirting as usual, and talk about the New Year. What will it bring. I know I gotta get my ass in gear . . . how about that?!
PS
The older 30 something guy that worked behind the counter gave me the fever while I was looking at the T-shirts that benefit the New Orlean relief effort (they mean the musicians, not the black folk). I might go back and pick up a shirt. He looks stranded too. But I did not feel like it was love at first sight. Just interest at first sight. He is interested in me. I got interested in him. He was organizing the Vocalist section. I thought he was a customer. I'll hit him up same time next week.
Interesting.
The second album is "blackboxhits&mixes". I jammed that bad boy all the way home. I swear I don't even remember driving. I just got to the house as if I was in a Jetson mobile (remember that). I needed it. I wanted to remember what that time was like. Being in college, having dreadlocks, playing in the band, falling in love with house music and a couple of other episodes that I won't mention here. Hell, I might become president one day. Marth Wash will be in my cabinet. She negotiated herself out of that legal fiasco of Black Box, I am sure she could be secretary of state.
And on a side note, the whole Source "hot ass mess" mess has got me tripping too. More on that, with links. Later though. This is my first post.
I love the way music can tie-up past and present. Things that I am going through now get a new meaning when I play certain songs.
Funny, I asked this chick at Tower for Black Box and she did not know who they were. The day before I asked for Terence Trent D'Arby, and her co-worker did not know who the hell he was. And then again today, after finding this wonderful Australian Import of Black Box, I asked for Dalida . . . she looked so surprised to see that Tower carried it, but her look of surprise tripped me out. I teach kids her age, and now they are running the cash register at Tower Records. I remember when that place was just a nondescript space across from Vanderbilt. It's almost been 20 years since Terence Trent D'Arby. 15 or so since Black Box.
The sad fact of the matter is that I am aging. I just did not expect for it to be so painless. It just happens day by day without any fanfare until nobody in the freakin' record store recognizes a single word coming out your mouth. Infact, they sigh just before you reach their little magnet school asses.
But other than that. A good day at the job. No stress. Tons of flirting as usual, and talk about the New Year. What will it bring. I know I gotta get my ass in gear . . . how about that?!
PS
The older 30 something guy that worked behind the counter gave me the fever while I was looking at the T-shirts that benefit the New Orlean relief effort (they mean the musicians, not the black folk). I might go back and pick up a shirt. He looks stranded too. But I did not feel like it was love at first sight. Just interest at first sight. He is interested in me. I got interested in him. He was organizing the Vocalist section. I thought he was a customer. I'll hit him up same time next week.
Interesting.
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