In light of the passage of the horrible new voting restrictions, I urge you to take 15 minutes to watch this fascinating documentary on the history of Voting Rights and Voter Suppression in North Carolina.
I learned a lot of North Carolina History I did not know and saw so many historical parallels to what the Conservatives are trying to do in North Carolina and other states today.
This may be the best use of 15 minutes you’ll have all weekend.
Filed under Politics
New post up on my other blog:
No one ever understood Southern sexual politics better than Tennessee Williams. But given the time in which he produced his work, some points had to be made subtlety and obliquely…and much can be read into his work and that’s a liberty I’m going to take….
Sexual politics are an art form in the South. Tennessee Williams understood this as does every Southerner who has a mind….
MORE: Chapter 75: The Lessons of Scarlett O’Hara and Maggie the Cat | My Southern Gothic Life.
Filed under Scott's Commentary, Social Commentary
Sometimes my own Gay Community can piss me off as much as the Religious Right or Conservative communities.
I have issues with intolerance in any community and I’ve seen quite a bit of it in the Gay Community both recently and over time.
The specific example that is annoying me right now is some of the comments I’m seeing about a talented young, Gay musician named Steve Grand who has published an excellent music video called “All-American Boy”
He has become a bit of an internet sensation with over 200,000 YouTube views and about 12,000 likes to his Facebook page in less than 48 hours. And the nasty comments have begun to annoy me.
First of all, I must say that most of the comments from both Gay and Straight people, men and women, have been very positive and supportive. Steve Grand has touched a lot of hearts with this video and I’m so glad for the support he is getting.
Steve is telling a very personal story. That is a right we all have and only a few have the talent to do it so well. That may be part of the problem- jealousy. He also happens to be a gorgeous young man and I’m sure that has something to do with some of this jealousy as well…
The main complaints can be summarized as a) it doesn’t have a happy ending, b) it makes gay people look like hard-drinking, smoking predators trying to steal straight men from their girlfriends and c) it looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch ad.
The shallow end of the Gay pool is in a frenzy of pique.
This may not just be a Gay thing. It may be based, in part, on our national obsession with ourselves and the incestuous points of view that grow in the little bubbles we all live in. We sometimes forget not everyone thinks like we do or lives like we do. Or has the same problems, experience and issues we do. Or has the same journey….
I hate to break it to this vocal little Gay minority, but all Gay People aren’t alike. Whether we will admit it or not, we all still struggle with the repercussions of the societal and internal homophobia that has impacted us from birth. We aren’t all well-adjusted, post-Stonewall Modern Gays living in harmony with our world. We aren’t all living in New York, San Francisco or other big, accepting cities. We don’t all have all the same experiences. And if any group should have learned not to judge, it is us….
And these people also seem to forget that this is one young man telling his own very personal story and taking a very big risk with his fledgling career. The entire Gay Community ought to be applauding him and wishing him well.
I am forever annoyed at the Gays who spend all their time worrying about the “image” of the Gay Community. They are the ones who clutch their pearls and tear their well-coifed hair over Drag Queens at Gay Pride Parades, transgendered people being included in Equality initiatives and Butch Lesbians. I hate to tell them, but we will not have really arrived, as a community, until we can embrace all the many kinds of Gay people and their right to live their lives and tell their stories.
I’m not perfect. I have my issues with the frequent popular media assumption that all Gay men are rich white boys, with perfect bodies and perfect clothes-when they are wearing them-who live to take drugs and have wild sex at Circuit Parties. Or decorate. Or want to get married and have children like middle-class straight people.
We are more diverse than that and don’t need to support these stereotypes by applying our own stereotypes or tearing down people trying to live their individual lives and make their individual dreams come true.
By the way, have you ever been to a Summer Solstice Celebration? Those straight people give Gay Pride Parades and Drag Queens a run for their money in the outlandish categories. But they are open and accepting. They are secure. They are enjoying a celebration.
We have to be secure enough to celebrate all the many types of Gay people. We need to accept there are Redneck rural gay men and women, Black Gays, Asian Gays, Latino Gays, Married Middle Class White Gays, Fat Gays, Drag Queens, Elderly and Middle-Aged Gays, Transgendered People, Handicapped Gays, Dykes on Bikes, Lipstick Lesbians and yes, gorgeous young Gay Men and jealous, petty, evil Gay Bitches who need to be called out.
And some of you probably are thinking, right now, that I am one of the latter….if so, too bad.
We also need to understand that homophobia does still exist in the post “Will & Grace”, post Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, defeated DOMA and post Prop 8 world. And most of us have been damaged by it by some degree or another. That’s the reason we should have more tolerance, more sympathy and be more willing to support our Gay Brothers and Sisters than other groups.
The Gay Community is a maturing community and an assimilating community, but we still have young gay people, like Steve Grand, growing up facing some of the same challenges we all faced.
Those of us who are older need to be the biggest cheerleaders for those who are coming along. They may not realize it, but they are standing on our shoulders and the only way they can learn from us is if we talk to them, support them and listen to their voices.
If we all share our stories and listen…..
The Gay Community, if there really is such a thing anymore, needs to understand that we are diverse. We need to accept and celebrate that or we are no better than the Conservatives and the Religious Right who try to force everyone into their own little stereotypes of appropriate behavior.
And we need to learn to celebrate and support one of our own when he’s on the way to making it big.
Filed under Gay, Music, Uncategorized
This song and video by Steve Grand seems to be going seriously viral over the 4th of July Holiday and justifiably so…
This is a very touching video that hits home to a lot of we guys who grew up far from the City Lights of the Gay Ghetto’s in New York, Washington and San Francisco. This young man really captures the angst of being a young, Gay guy in a very straight world.
I’ve seen some pissy comments from some of the Big City Gay guys about this video and all I have to say is, either you’ve forgotten where you came from or you were really, really lucky…
As evidenced here, Steve Grand is a very talented young, Gay singer-songwriter. I hope to see and hear much more from him soon.
And on another level, this song and video also fills a void in genre music. There has been a vital Womyn’s Music scene for many years, but the Gay Male music scene has really struggled to find an audience. Matt Alber had a similar break through, a couple of years ago, with “End of the World.”
I think Steve Grand has the potential to follow, and perhaps exceed, Matt’s success, change this dynamic and, hopefully, also find a successful place in the mainstream music world. Steve apparently wants to be the first “out” Gay Country Music Star and it’s certainly time…
Writing this song and making this video also seems to be a very personal and brave decision by this young man.
As Steve writes on his FaceBook page:
I fought with who I was for most of my life. In every way a young person can fight with himself.
But starting today… I’m laying it out there. I’m done playing it safe.I don’t have a manager or a label or any sort of funding other than the tip money I make playing piano downtown at The Joynt, and also, ironically to some, in the churches on Sunday morning… (we’ll see how long I’ll be singing “Glory to God” should this video see the light of day).
As far as the ascetic achievements of the video… lets just say I was lucky to have a good friend introduce me to the best team I could have asked for… who held on to the roller coaster that was this project and dealt with all my intensity and craziness as the true professionals they were.
I wrote the song during a drunken piano jam session at a party. I recorded the vocals in my parents basement and worked with my friend Max Steger: http://maxsteger.com/ to record and mix the rest of the instruments.
I feel like music industry people wouldn’t like the idea of me “pigeonholing” myself by telling this story as I have. But I don’t believe the world sees change until it sees honesty.
So I went in on my own.
I went all in. There is no Plan B. I’m nervous/excited/horrified/anxious about the implications all of the choices I am making (and have made throughout my journey of discovering myself as a man and as an artist) will have on my future. But then I remind myself I never really had a choice. This is the story I’ve been aching to tell my most of my life… it is what I hold dearest to me.
And he later posted:
time to be brave. the world does not see change until it sees honesty. I am taking a risk here in many ways, but really there is no choice but to be brave. To not tell this story is to let my soul die. It is all I believe in. It is all I hold dear. We have all longed for someone we can never have… we all have felt that ache for our #allamericanboy
Filed under Gay, Music, Uncategorized
I just finished Lee Zacharias’ amazing novel “At Random”. Once I started the book, I could not put it down.
“At Random” is the work of a mature, masterful, very brave writer in her prime.
In an era when most books are either plot driven or character driven, it is increasingly rare to find a book that is both. The extremely well-developed characters haunt you. The plot engages you and pulls you deeper and deeper into the book and its characters until you can’t wait to see what is going to happen to these complex, flawed people. You really care how they are going to react to and survive the impacts of “random” events on their lives.
So much is going on in this book on so many levels, but it is so masterfully told you never feel overwhelmed. There is a brilliantly, subtly drawn portrait of a marriage under stress. There is an evocative illustration of how tenuous the hold can be on middle class American lifestyles. The book forcefully illustrates how unexpected events can expose the frailty and fluidity of class distinctions. The book masterfully shows how these unexpected events can force us out of our bubbles and force us to reexamine our lives when we least expect or want to do so. The book brilliantly shows how American institutions, laws and the system can so easily fail at so many critical points and how these failures have real impacts on real people. There are contrasts and comparisons between these middle class Americans and the poor Montagnard refugees and how broken promises and societal expectations impact each group. There is biting, subversive study of how casual friendships fail under stress and how people try to find real connections to each other. There is a trough line theme of growing awareness of how fragile our hold is on so many aspects of our lives.
This is not a comfortable book, but it is a brave, intriguing, and haunting book. It is technically flawless, beautifully written, brilliantly plotted and emotionally engaging- sometimes to the point of discomfort. But, then, that’s what makes it a masterfully executed book of literary fiction and not your average cozy or escapist plot driven entertainment.
Please take the time to read this book. I promise, you will not regret it.
Filed under Books
This is one of , if not the main reason the GOP is trying so hard to limit voting by passing Voter ID Laws, limiting early voting and gerrymandering districts…
And the challenge for the Democrats is to still drive this level of participation when President Obama is not on the ticket….
From Taegan Roberts Political Wire:
“America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home,” the AP reports.
“Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly.”
I feel the need to share a few thoughts about Boston and the tragedy that occurred there….
I can already see people trying to use this horrible act of terrorism to justify their own ends and feel the need to give my perspective….
This attack was personal to me, at least at first, as I had some friends at the Marathon in Boston. I and they were lucky. They were fine…
But that still made feel connected to this in a way I haven’t felt connected to these events since that awful day in September of 2001…
First of all, as more details are emerging about the Boston Marathon bombings, people are desperately trying to make a link to Islam and Islamic terrorism. This really disturbs me…
I just want to ask people to stop, think and remember- three things that are increasingly difficult to ask people to do in America.
Remember, if there is a religious link, it is not a question of Islam being the root of all evil and driving terrorism. Violence is contrary to the teachings of Islam, just as it is to Christianity.
Fundamentalism and the viewpoint that one’s personal views are right at the expense of all others is the aspect of any religion- or politics- to fear.
No single religion drives Terrorism. Angry, isolated people do….
Stop and think about it…
And remember….
Two of the worst terrorist attacks in America were perpetrated by so-called Christians.
Eric Rudolph was the man who executed the deadly bombing at the Olympic Park in Atlanta back in the 1990’s that also injured many more people than it killed. He also killed and maimed others with his bombs at abortion clinics. He was a member of the Christian Identity Movement.
Timothy McVeigh, who killed 186 people when he bombed the Federal Office building in Oklahoma City, was also a Christian. He was upset at the government response to the Branch Davidian sect and the tragedy that followed.
They both wanted to be the personal delivery mechanism of vengeance…and they were Christians.
So, don’t blame Islam. Don’t blame Christians….
Blame the poor, sick, lost individuals who perpetrate these acts of terror.
Think….
Think of the victims and their families. Wish them a recovery and the peace and strength to handle what they were so unexpectedly given.
Don’t spend so much time worrying about the perpetrators and don’t seek to place blame so simplistically and freely.
Don’t look at this as an opportunity to reinforce stereotypes and your own prejudices.
Don’t try to make political mileage out of this like so many politicians are already trying to do….
Remember the 3 tragic victims who’s lives were cut so tragically and unexpectedly short. Remember the people with such horrific injuries that their lives are changed forever.
And remember this is an aberration. This was an act committed by a couple of young men whose’s reasons we may never really know, accept or understand.
This was their choice, their crime, their individual action…
Like it or not, we have to try to hold individuals accountable and not seek to judge whole groups of people just because we perceive they aren’t like us or our beliefs….
Times like this should not be used to drive personal agendas…We should have learned that from all the mistakes after 9/11.
Remember….
You can’t blame a whole group of people or people of a certain belief for the actions of a couple of misguided or sick so-called “losers”….
At times like this, we have to think- not just feel or blindly react. We can’t look for simple solutions in a complex world.
But, stop and think….
We can try to follow a few simple, personal guidelines to get through times like this….
First, focus on the living and on life….
Then focus on keeping our freedoms, not using actions like this as an excuse to limit them…
Focus on preaching love, not hate….
Focus on practicing acceptance and not judgement…
Focus not just on putting yourself your beliefs first, but think on how you can give hope to others, understand their journeys and help them move forward in life…no matter that they may not believe just as you do….
We really are all in this together. Boston proves that. As did New York, the Pentagon, Oklahoma City and Atlanta….
Don’t focus on hate and blame; that’s probably the type of thinking that drove these two young men to perpetrate this horror…
Focus on the right things….
The good things…
That’s the best way to avoid this happening again…..
Filed under Scott's Commentary, Uncategorized
Great editorial from Boston Native Dennis Lehane in the NY Times today….
He explains how Boston will deal with the terrorist attack in all the right ways, unlike how the Bush administration and some people reacted to 9/11….
Here is a brief excerpt, emphasis in the second paragraph is mine.
I encourage you to click the link and read his entire column:
But I do love this city. I love its atrocious accent, its inferiority complex in terms of New York, its nut-job drivers, the insane logic of its street system. I get a perverse pleasure every time I take the T in the winter and the air-conditioning is on in the subway car, or when I take it in the summer and the heat is blasting. Bostonians don’t love easy things, they love hard things — blizzards, the bleachers in Fenway Park, a good brawl over a contested parking space. Two different friends texted me the identical message yesterday: They messed with the wrong city. This wasn’t a macho sentiment. It wasn’t “Bring it on” or a similarly insipid bit of posturing. The point wasn’t how we were going to mass in the coffee shops of the South End to figure out how to retaliate. Law enforcement will take care of that, thank you. No, what a Bostonian means when he or she says “They messed with the wrong city” is “You don’t think this changes anything, do you?”
Trust me, we won’t be giving up any civil liberties to keep ourselves safe because of this. We won’t cancel next year’s marathon. We won’t drive to New Hampshire and stockpile weapons. When the authorities find the weak and terminally maladjusted culprit or culprits, we’ll roll our eyes at whatever backward ideology they embrace and move on with our lives.
Filed under Law Enforcement
Very….
This poll should be a wake-up call, but it won’t be…
The GOP just doesn’t care….
They are only going to play to their Tea Party base because that’s how they have gerrymandered the Districts…
Remember, over a million more people voted for Democratic Congressional candidates last election, but the Republicans still control the House- again, due to gerrymandered districts…
From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post.com site:
I already touched on today’s new Post poll this morning, but there are a bunch of numbers in here that really deserve their own post.
To wit: It finds that only 23 percent of Americans — that would be fewer than one in four — believe the Republican Party is “in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today,” while 70 percent believe that it is “out of touch.” Among independents, those numbers are 23-70. Among moderates they’re 20-75.
By contrast, Americans say by 51-46 that Obama is in touch. Among moderates that’s 56-42 (he fares worse among independents, 44-53, though far better than Republicans).
At the same time, the poll finds the public siding with Obama and Democrats on many major issues surveyed. Americans disapprove of the sequester cuts, 57-35 — cuts that Republicans are describing as a “victory” for them. Americans support a path to legality for illegal immigrants by 64-32. In fairness, the poll doesn’t test citizenship specifically, so this finding is somewhat inconclusive, but a new CNN poll finds that 84 percent back a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have a job and pay back taxes.
Filed under Elections
Lost in the 21st Century 
Flashback: What to take to College: Freshman Year-1977
It’s almost time for the kids to head off to college and this always makes me think of when I left for my Freshman year at Washington and Lee University in September of 1977.
I start this post with a sense of trepidation as I fear it may turn into one of those “I walked 5 miles each way to school in the snow and you children have it so easy” posts….
Still, thinking back over this, I’m amazed at how much things have changed since 1977. So, at the risk of making myself seem ancient, I’m going to try to revisit the list of things that were essential to our college life at that time:
That’s about it….
Oh, and Washington and Lee was then an all-boys school. It would not go co-ed until 1986 or so….
We shared a pay phone in the hall and all chipped in to share another direct dial phone in one guys room. Cell phones had not yet been invented. One of our major expenses each month was long distance phone calls to our friends at other schools and dates at the “Girls Schools” like Hollins, Sweet Briar, Mary Baldwin and Randolph Macon Woman’s College. Most of us made our families track us down at the pay phone in the hall and didn’t give our parents the shared phone number. We wrote letters and notes home via snail mail. Mainly to ask for money….
To get said mail, we had to open Post Office Boxes at the Post Office and go by there daily- or sometimes twice daily- to check our mail for checks. We also had to open checking accounts at the local bank as large state-wide- not national- banks were just starting up….
We shared a refrigerator in the hall. Thanks to the Honor Code, it was no big deal and nothing was ever stolen.
Note what we did not have:
When we look at the rising cost of education, I can’t help wonder what the breakdown is and how much is driven by the increased amenities today’s students “need”…
We also did walk to class in the snow. We didn’t cancel classes back then as schools did not have the liability issues they face today…..
It was a different time and place….
And, sometimes, I kind of miss the simplicity and slower pace of those days….
I don’t miss the lack of air conditioning…
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Filed under Education, Scott's Commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged as college, College Freshman, College Freshmen, College Students, Dorm Life, Lexington VA, the south, Virginia, W&L, Washington and Lee University