waynewrite

09:37 pm: Where Are We Going, and Why Am I in This Handbasket?

If you haven't been getting your recommended daily  allowance of apoplexy, I recommend a visit to The Smirking Chimp, at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/. It's a generous daily selection of left-wing blogs and columns--often funny, sometimes outrageous, but most often just plain outraged.

The writers whose work appears here have some recurring concerns, such as: why the hell haven't we impeached W yet (he whose nauseating face gives this website its name), and why are the Democrats--including the (gag) Presidential candidates--so fucking lame? Why has this country turned to shit, and whose fault is it, and what can be done about it?  

No one has all the answers, it's true, but there are some stimulating thoughts and arguments out there...and plenty of evidence that there are still people who are passionate about America and can express that passion with intelligence and fire. If this website doesn't get your adrenalin going, nothing will!

Tags: politics

10:20 pm: For Hard Times, Iron & Wine
I heard the song "Resurrection Fern" today, by singer-songwriter-genius Sam Beam, who records under the name Iron & Wine. I think it's one of his most beautiful songs yet:

In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road
We'll keep everything
Grandma's gun and the black bear claw
That took her dog

And when Sister Lowry says "Amen"
We won't hear anything
The ten-car train will take that word
That fledgling bird

And the fallen house across the way
It'll keep everything
The baby's breath
Our bravery wasted
And our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days we will save
What our ghosts will save
We gave the world what it saw fit
And what did we get

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We'll see everything
In the timid shade of the autumn leaves
And the buzzard's wing

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies all wound around with baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

Watch a live performance of this song on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoAwoqhstUM

And watch for Iron & Wine's upcoming album, The Shepherd's Dog.

10:11 pm: Joe Kort Tells the Truth
I'm glad I subscribe to Joe Kort's newsletter. Kort is a psychotherapist and author who never fails to demonstrate clear insight into GLBT issues. In his latest newsletter he writes about a phenomenon that, thanks to him, is receiving the name it deserves: Covert Cultural Sexual Abuse. I am reproducing the article here:

Covert Cultural Sexual Abuse

What happens to children and teenagers when they hear people they idealize like Tim Hardaway say things like this? How can a gay or lesbian child not be psychologically harmed--if not traumatized--hearing important media figures and others in authority positions to them speak negatively about homosexuality.

I call this Covert Cultural Sexual Abuse (CCSA). Here is a sample of what I will be addressing in my upcoming Norton book for straight clinicians working with gays and lesbians:

In treating and helping gays and lesbian, we must understand how homophobic acts constitute covert cultural sexual abuse. I’ll argue that the claim that “being gay is nothing more than just a matter of sex” is covert cultural sexual abuse. It dehumanizes gays and lesbians to nothing more than sexual beings. And just as with sexual abuse survivors, the world can become overly sexualized for gay men and sexually repressed for lesbians. Over time, many of gay and lesbian children and teenagers grow to believe the homophobic assertion that gay equals sex, and thus become prime candidates for psychological problems.

Heterosexism is defined as the assumption that everyone is (or should be) heterosexual; the belief that homosexuality is subordinate and that heterosexuality is superior, or somehow more “mature.” In “Healing from Cultural Victimization: Recovery from Shame due to Heterosexism,” Joseph H. Niesen, Ph.D., details the painful effects of sexual/physical abuse—and heterosexism, which he defines as “a form of cultural victimization that oppresses gay/lesbian/bisexual persons.” He states that this stymies individual growth and development, just as [in] individuals who have been sexually/physically abused.”

Covert sexual abuse does not involve physical touch; it can involve flirtations and suggestive language, propositioning, household voyeurism/exhibitionism, sexualizing language and preoccupation with sexual development.

Like sexual harrassment on the job,gays and lesbians are the victims of indirect, covert seuxal abuse hearing things like:

- The Catholic Pope saying homosexuality is evil


- The President of the United States say that marriage for lesbians and gays is wrong and against family values


- The US Military not allowing openly gay men and women to serve with heterosexual men stating that they worry gay men will be eroticzing them in the showers.

One definition of sexual abuse in general is when any person dominates and exploits another sexually—violating trust and the implicit promise of protection. Typically, someone who sees himself as “in control” uses his status to control, misuse, degrade, humiliate, or even hurt others—who, by inference, are always inferior.

Society's judging gay men and lesbians for our sex acts alone and even passing laws against same-sex attraction is covert cultural sexual abuse. A dominant perpetrator—uncle, stepfather, or half-bother who's familiar, trusted, and seemingly all-powerful—can easily lure a boy into a sexual relationship and force him to comply. Indeed, many studies confirm that in cases of rape, the basic motive is not sex, but power. The abuser's ideal target is a child who's still naive, lacking the “immune system” of emotional and intellectual experience that tells him when he's being violated—and when he should resist and say no!

Consider the gay boys and girls and adolescents lured by heterosexist society into a sexual compliance—forced to role-play at being heterosexual. This parallels the sexual abuse of children. In Now That I Am Out, What Do I Do? Brian McNaught writes that “most gay people have been enormously, if not consciously, traumatized by the social pressure they felt to identify and behave as [. . .] heterosexual, even though such pressure is not classified as sexual abuse by experts in the field. Imagine how today’s society would respond if heterosexual 13- to 19-year-olds were forced to date someone of the same sex. What would the reaction be if they were expected to hold hands, slow dance, hug, kiss and say, ‘I love you’ to someone to whom they were not—and could not—be sexually attracted? The public would be outraged! Adult supervisors would be sent to prison. Youthful “perpetrators” would be expelled from school. Years of therapy would be prescribed for the innocent victims of such abuse. Volumes would be written about the long-term effect of such abhorrent socialization (as today we lament the ill-conceived efforts to turn left-handed people into right-handed ones). Yet, that’s part of the everyday life of gay teenagers. And there’s no comparable public concern, much less outcry, about the traumatizing effects on their sexuality.”

Many of my gay male and lesbian clients express severe grief for what they were told, as children, about homosexuality at church or synagogue, in school, and in their families. Many report listening to ministers preach against homosexuality as an “abomination” and “evil.” Every day, gays and lesbians are daily bombarded by newspapers, TV, and religious zealots who believe homosexuality is an abomination. Imagine the trauma felt by gay boys or lesbian girls—lacking emotional and intellectual maturity, as all children do—when they see those they admire, in charge of their welfare, protesting against homosexuality; and realize that they're one of those very people these homophobic authority figures are talking about! This is covert sexual abuse, an assault aimed directly at one’s sexual orientation and sexuality.

Unfortunately, as a result of their covert cultural sexual abuse, lesbians and gays are especially vulnerable to psychological problems. Given this information, a therapist is better equipped to help lesbians and gays more effectively.

It also helps lesbians and gays learn that there’s nothing inherently wrong with them; the problem is what heterosexist society has inflicted on them. By recognizing this, they—like the survivors of sexual abuse— can shed the victimization and empower themselves.

If you would like to subscribe to Joe Kort's e-newsletter, visit his website at:

http://www.joekort.com

09:27 pm: The Stories That Move Us
Run, do not walk, to the following article on the Outsports website:

http://outsports.com/local/2007/0124anthonytribute.htm

If you can read this story about the brief life of Anthony Castro without crying, then you're a tougher guy (or gal) than I am. (Not that it's so difficult to be tougher than I am.)

Also, on the subject of sports, Patricia Nell Warren's new book The Lavender Locker Room is now available. I've had the pleasure of meeting Patricia several times at the annual Saints & Sinners literary festival, and I'm convinced that she is one of the most intelligent and erudite folks on the planet. Her account of gay and lesbian athletes of the past 3,000 years is well worth looking into.

10:45 am: "Oh Say Can You See...."
At least some of the people who go to see the film Shortbus will be witnessing something they’ve never seen before: gay men having sex. This isn’t nearly enough payback for all the heterosexual sex scenes that gay men have to watch, practically on a daily basis, at the movies and on TV; but it’s a start. It doesn’t hurt that Shortbus stars the very-easy-on-the-eyes Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy, a real-life couple who aren’t afraid to let their chemistry spark up the screen.

I was disappointed that, at its end, Shortbus just devolves into a big production number, as if John Cameron Mitchell couldn’t think of anything else to do but pull a Hedwig Redux at the last minute. Still, I would recommend the movie for its humor and (some of) its drama; and the “Star Spangled Banner” sex scene is, all by itself, worth the price of admission. Take your mom with you: you’ll definitely have stuff to talk about afterwards.

09:43 pm: Take THAT, Salvation Army!
This was the day when I thought I might hear from the arts organization that I desperately want to work for…they called me back for a second interview on Friday, and I got to meet the CEO and even see the break room, which is usually a sure sign that they’re going to hire you. So the next step is for them to tell me they want to check my references at my current place of employment…but I didn’t hear from them. Not today.

I felt pretty blue about this, and by the time I got home I was in full whining mode. “I bet they don’t want to hire me,” I told my partner, “because I’m fat and ugly and stupid.”

“Oh, darling,” my faithful spouse said. “That is so unfair! You’re not ugly and stupid.”

I whupped him good for that, and then I felt better.

In the meantime, the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City is my new hero. According to the July 28th issue of the Kansas City Business Journal, the Foundation—which has assets of some $420 million—“has denied financing requests by the Salvation Army and the City Union Mission, saying their stance regarding homosexuals violates the foundation's anti-discrimination policy.”

Believe me, given the conservative nature of local philanthropy, this is a very, very big deal. Oddly, however, the Kansas City Star has carried no mention of the Foundation’s announcement. You don’t suppose that’s because the Salvation Army is one of the largest not-for-profit organizations in town, with a lot of influence over the media, do you? Hmmm….

02:34 pm: Queer Internationale
I’ve been having a blast, reading the latest Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly (Vol. 7, No. 4). The theme of this issue is “Queer Internationale.” It features an excerpt from the French novel Wicked Angels (Les Mauvais anges) by Eric Jourdan, originally published in France in 1955, censored until 1985, and just recently translated into English by Thomas Armbrecht. Ambrecht also contributes an illuminating essay on the history of this passionately written, violent novel about boys in love.

This edition of the Quarterly also features a short work, Gay Dracula, by Mexican playwright Tomas Urtusastegui, translated by Clary Loisel; Damien McNicholl’s harrowing tale “Prayers for a Bully,” about growing up gay in Ireland; and another Mexican contribution, “Mariposo, Butterfly,” by Olivier de Maderas. And because no “Queer Internationale” collection would be complete without a New York story, there is one here by…why, my goodness, it’s by me! It’s called “Signs of the Last Days,” and it’s a corker of a story, if I do say so myself.

There are many other good things, including book reviews, in this issue of HGMFQ. And beginning with the next issue, the journal will change its title to Harrington Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly—a more apt name since it contains more than fiction, and will, we are promised, even include poetry in the future.

More details on this journal can be found at the Haworth Press website.

12:27 pm: Advice for Beginners
Where have I been, where have I been? Well, for one thing, I’ve been helping to judge a literary competition, which means reading lots of manuscripts. Fortunately, we’re not really called “judges,” which sounds kind of old fashioned and pretentious.

What have I learned from this experience? We all know the story about the student who said to Nelson Algren, “Mr. Algren, I find myself on the brink of a writing career. What should I do?” And Algren replied, “Turn around and run like hell.”

(Please don’t tell me you don’t know who Nelson Algren was. Instead, read Never Come Morning or The Man With the Golden Arm, then come back to this page. I’ll wait.)

Okay, here are my tips for beginning novelists:

1. Bear in mind that, while you’ve always been a loner and have kept your engagement with others to a minimum, a novel about a loner who keeps his engagement with others to a minimum is often a difficult thing to pull off.

2. It’s nice to include a whole page full of epigraphs from your favorite writers, like Shakespeare and Flaubert and Goethe and Proust; you may, however, not want to so easily invite comparison between your prose and that of Shakespeare and Flaubert and Goethe and Proust.

3. You might want to gain a nodding acquaintance with things like grammar and syntax. Don’t expect your spellchecker to help you if you don’t know the difference between “there” and “their.”

4. Please don’t begin your novel with a lecture on the history and background of your setting. Lectures are not usually too engaging, and believe me, the reader will be looking for a good reason to set your book down and never pick it up again.

5. Try to avoid giving your characters names that carry a lot of historical or cultural baggage. You might, for example, want to avoid names like “Hitler” or “Jesus Christ.” Or “Jonah” or “Job.” And if your character has a dog, then for Christ’s sake don’t name it “Dog.”

6. Please don’t try to write about, say, the King of Spain if you don’t know anything about Spain or the job responsibilities of a king. It will show.

The hardest thing to tell a beginning writer is to write from the heart, because that sounds so hokey. Plus, the heart is a very temperamental and unreliable organ. But when you do write from your heart, and your characters become temperamental and unreliable, there’s more of a chance that something truly interesting will happen—to you and to the reader.

Okay, as advice this hasn’t amounted to much, but at least it’s nicer than telling people to run like hell.

09:42 pm: A Small, Good Thing
There's a lot to be depressed about lately. For example, homophobia in the Caribbean has reached a fever pitch...more on that later. For now, a feel-good story from Timothy Kincaid, a regular contributor to ExGayWatch.com. In today's article, entitled "Business to the Rescue," Kincaid makes reference to those innocent days when Americans tended to think that the federal government was on their side--that its role was to right wrongs and ensure peace, justice, and equal rights for all.

Okay, now that you're through rolling on the floor laughing your ass off, consider this: sometimes the real defender of the oppressed turns out to be...American business. Recently, the likes of Kraft, Ford, and Bank of America have taken stands against anti-gay stockholders. (I'll never make a Velveeta joke again, I swear.) And in Los Altos, a small town in Santa Clara County, California, an attempt by the Mayor and the City Council to quash the local high school's Gay Straight Alliance took an unexpected turn.

It seems that, in 2004, the Alliance asked the town government to proclaim a Gay Pride Day in June. "Although it was initially resisted," Kincaid reports, "the proclamation was finally granted and the kids celebrated with a pizza party. No one else noticed much."

Fast forward two years, and what do you know--in 2006 the request for a gay pride proclamation was denied. According to Mayor Ron Packard, such a proclamation would be "divisive and not appropriate to our community." The City Council even went so far as to rule that such a request may never be submitted again.

Sound a bit harsh? Well, some others thought so, too, and they happened to be members of the Chamber of Commerce. They got together and created a stir.

As a result, the pizza party has been cancelled. There's going to be a Gay Pride Parade instead, right through the center of town.

Encouraged by the business community, other forces have rallied to the students' cause, including local service clubs, school boards, religious groups, and the League of Women Voters. The Congregational Church of Los Altos will contribute a float to the parade. Gay Straight Alliances from other local high schools--in Atherton, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale--will participate too.

The kids have one more potential obstacle to face: the City Council could refuse them permission to use the city streets for the parade. But not to worry: Santa Clara County has stepped forward with an offer to shut down Foothill Expressway, a major thoroughfare, so that it can be used for the parade route.

This is a small story, and it may not be the stuff that award-winning documentaries are made of, but it makes me feel mighty good. Be sure to read Kincaid's full story, with links to news articles, at ExGayWatch.com.

09:35 pm: In Pasta We Trust
Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

Before you say "No," or "What the fuck are you talking about now, Wayne?"...think again.

There are many, and I mean way many, who believe that we have all been touched by His Noodly Appendage...that the whole dang universe, in fact, was created by none other than the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

According to prophet Bobby Henderson, "We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power... We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don't understand is that He created the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is."

In an open letter to the Kansas School Board (with cc's to school boards in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, Illinois, Montana, and Indiana, as well as Texas Governor Rick Perry, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher, and South Carolina Senator Michael L. Fair), Henderson states the case for having Flying Spaghetti Monsterism taught in public schools alongside the theories of Intelligent Design and Evolution: "I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

Like so many other websites in these times of disposable income (for some, anyway), Henderson's features the Flying Spaghetti Monster on t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and what have you. And his book The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was just published.

So don't wait! Start saying "Ramen" instead of "Amen," become a Pastafarian, and don't forget to dress up as a Pirate! (In order to believe it, you have to read about the connection between the FSM and Pirates for yourself!)

09:32 pm: Never on Sunday?
Ever wonder what present-day sexuality is like on the site of ancient Greece, the home of you-know-what? Helena Smith makes some fascinating observations in her article "Brokeback Olympus," in the online edition of New Statesman (http://www.newstatesman.com/Life/200603130009):

I wept when I saw Brokeback Mountain, but I wasn't alone. When I looked around, nearly everyone crowded into the cinema in Athens was weeping by the time the credits came up. Or looking really rather shocked. The gay cowboys had got the audience good.

If every nation has a secret, for the Greeks it is their troubled relationship with homosexuality. This may surprise those who, like the Italians, still think of the act as amore greco.

The ancient Greeks, of course, loved sex and thought little of immortalising their homoeroticism in vase paintings, poetry, comedy and sculpture. When it came to Eros, Sappho's "loosener of limbs", there was social acceptance in abundance.

Modern Greeks, and the Orthodox Church, take a less forgiving view, and there are rules. The first is that gay sex, which is practised widely, not least by "happily" married heterosexuals, should never be flaunted. Men in cars crammed with baby buggies may cruise the parks and their wives may bed one another after lunch, but such things are to be enjoyed, not discussed.

The second rule is: you are gay only if you're out there screaming. Then and only then will Archbishop Christodoulos, Greece's fiery spiritual leader, denounce you (as is his wont) as a "pervert" and "sinner". Denial extends to the nation's gay artists. These include practically every major painter, poet, composer and singer (chanteuses being particularly prone to lesbianism) produced by Greece in the past century. But mention their sexuality and you draw a blank.

Unsurprisingly, queer politics, like sexual labels, arrived in Athens late. Until the 1980s the boundaries between gay and straight sex were blurred. Homosexuality was the exclusive reserve of the overly effeminate, a despised tag slapped on those deviant enough to allow themselves to be buggered. (Greece's penal code still refers to passive partners in gay relationships pejoratively.) Real men conformed. They were serious about their masculinity. They got married. Then they made their boyfriends best man, and godfather to their first-born.

"Greeks would rather live in Byzantium than old Athens, which is why this is the most homophobic society in the western world," says Grigoris Vallianatos, among the few brave enough to be a gay activist. "We're not conservative; we're hypocritical. Anything goes, anything is done, but nothing is said."

Small wonder that Brokeback Mountain should cause such a stir. Housewives, students, mothers, intellectuals, clerics, columnists and angry thirtysomethings have all unexpectedly rushed to air their views - both in the media and on cinema websites - as if collectively haunted by the message it conveys. Is this, they ask, the beginning of gay people becoming more visible in Greece? Won't homosexuality be contagious if even Marlboro men do it? Does this mean we're about to end our own conspiracy of silence?

Gay activists are delighted. The film has done more than make Greeks confront some awkward truths: it has laid the groundwork for a debate around gay marriage, an issue that has yet to be taken seriously in the land that invented homosexuality.

Is the stir caused by Brokeback Mountain in Greece much different from our own stir in the States? I don't think so. Our society is also hypocritical: we worship sex, and yet, thanks to our Puritan forebears, we're all tied up in knots over it.

Oh, to have lived in ancient Greece, when people of all sexes could be proud of the pleasure they took in each other!

09:49 pm: Nick Hornack: Walking Higher
It’s always a shock to hear of someone’s death, but when I learned, last night, that Nick Hornack had died--from injuries sustained in a car accident, at the very young age of 38--I went numb.

Writing under the name Alexander Renault, Nick had been a fixture on the gay literary scene for years, publishing erotica, essays, and interviews. His dream project was the book that became Walking Higher: Gay Men Write about the Deaths of Their Mothers. After many publishers rejected his proposal for this book, claiming that it would be too depressing, Nick decided to publish the book as a print-on-demand volume from Xlibris Press.

If Nick had known how much work it was going to be getting this book done, he might have given up at the start. But he worked tirelessly, even though he was sometimes frustrated by the demands of the job. His call for submissions for WH received a good response, but he agonized over having to reject some of the manuscripts. How, he asked me, do you send a rejection notice to someone who has poured his heart out to you?

I should mention here that I was one of the contributors to the book. A writer would have to be an idiot to respond to a call for submissions with a manuscript that exceeds the requested word limit nine times over; but because I am an idiot, that’s exactly what I did. I figured that the worst he could do was shoot a nasty note back to me.

Much to my surprise, Nick responded instantly with a very kind interest in my work. After exchanging a few emails, he came up with this proposition: would I consider cutting the manuscript of about 45,000 words down to 10,000? If so, he would be glad to use it. Now I was in a similar position to his: I didn’t know how much work it would be to cut a manuscript by 75% and still leave it more or less intact. So I said, “Sure!”

Somehow I managed to make a long story short—never an easy task for me, as anyone who reads my blog has noticed. Nick was incredibly supportive through it all. And after several agonizing delays, he finally saw his beloved book become a reality, in September of 2004.

I think Nick was disappointed that Walking Higher didn’t receive more attention than it did (though it's still too soon to tell what eventual impact it may have). He certainly took on the unfamiliar role of publicist with the same energy he devoted to his editorial tasks, never missing an opportunity to schedule a reading or interview. One reading took place at the Philadelphia bookstore Giovanni’s Room in November of 2004, with 11 of the book’s 30 contributors participating. I will always regret that I couldn’t make the trip, and so was not able to meet Nick in person.

One of the last messages I received from Nick began this way: “I always feel better when I hear from you!” The feeling was mutual. Now Nick is Walking Higher, and if there is a Heaven, then he’s negotiating a book contract with God. Let’s hope so!

Here is the bio of Nick that appears in Walking Higher:

Alexander Renault has published in multiple genres from pet magazines to
feminist newspapers, on philosophical issues from freedom of speech to the
intersections of religion and sex, on human subjects from survivors of
the holocaust to popular music’s rock goddesses. His journalism has been
published in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Born on
his mother's birthday, Renault is a tenacious Gemini with penchants for
feminism and psychology. He has been working in the mental health field for 15
years. Renault lives with his partner in a little ranch house in Bellefonte,
Pennsylvania, with their two Boston terriers, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

And here is a link to the book's page at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1413456030/sr=8-4/qid=1141876525/ref=sr_1_4/104-8713317-6991136?%5Fencoding=UTF8

11:13 am: The Academy Awards: Something for Everybody, Not a Lot for Anybody
The 78th Annual Academy Awards offered something for everybody, and not a whole lot for anybody. Brokeback Mountain won three awards; Crash also won three. Capote won a top acting honor; so did Walk the Line. The Brits were saluted with an acting win for The Constant Gardener, and yet another award for Wallace & Gromit. George Clooney, who was unsuccessful in the Best Director and Best Original Screenplay categories, got the Best Supporting Actor consolation prize. Hustle & Flow got some surprise recognition with a Best Song win for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” Members of the rap group Three 6 Mafia were ecstatic in accepting their award, and no wonder—they were the only African Americans who got to share in Oscar’s glory.

In any other year, I would have been happy to see Crash get Best Picture. It's a brilliant ensemble piece that, while you’re watching it, gets you emotionally involved with the characters. But I use the words “while you’re watching it” advisedly, because, at least in my case, Crash didn’t stay with me long after I left the theater. Brokeback, on the other hand, not only stayed with me, in my very heart and soul; it moved in lock, stock, and barrel, and shows every sign of taking up permanent residency.

So, yes, I was disappointed that Brokeback didn’t get Best Picture. I was also disappointed, in one respect, with Ang Lee’s acceptance speech for the Best Director Award. “Brokeback Mountain,” he said, “is... about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but most importantly, the greatness of love itself." This has been a continuing theme in blogs and online message boards, that Brokeback is “not just” about being gay—as if that, in itself, would be an ignoble aim. Don’t call it gay, it’s not a gay film, it’s not about gay cowboys, etc., etc. It is oh, so much “more important” than that.

Well, excuuuuuse me, but being gay is a big part of my life, and as a subject I think it’s important enough to deserve attention all by itself, thanks very much. I don’t need to “justify” a gay story by pointing out its “universal” significance. That’s not to say that Brokeback doesn’t have such significance; of course it does. But it’s also a gay movie about gay men, okay? Why is that still so hard to swallow? (Insert long, fruitless—no pun intended—multi-voiced discussion, the type that’s taking place on so many online forums, as to whether Jack and Ennis are “gay.” Punctuate frequently with the refrain, “Oh, no! Don’t call them ‘gay’, just because they’re two men who fall in love with each other!”)

At least Andrew Holleran’s essay on Brokeback in The Gay and Lesbian Review (“The Magic Mountain,” March-April, 2006) contains no apologetics. Taking the long view, he gives a useful summary of critical opinion, and articulates what so many of us have felt:

After years of watching gay subject matter come into the light, it was unexpectedly thrilling to see one of the oldest genres of American art, one of its fundamental tropes, being used to tell what it feels like to be gay.

An intellectual to the end, Holleran is still skeptical of the value of analyzing this film’s emotional power. Instead, he pays homage to it:

Trying to analyze this film is to reduce the claims that it has on one’s feelings; it’s pointless to do so, because, like all great movies, as Pauline Kael said years ago, it just sweeps over you. We will see Ledger and Gyllenhaal in other films…[t]hey, and we, will move on. But in some films characters exist, independent of reality. They live eternally in that particular movie, and the movie lives in us.

For those who feel crushed by the Academy’s Best Picture snub of Brokeback, let this be their consolation: that Jack and Ennis are alive, and will live on, long after the other films and their characters are forgotten.

09:51 pm: 'Brokeback' in Appalachia
Brokeback Mountain has stunned its detractors who said it would never play outside of New York and San Francisco. The theory was that nobody in “middle America” wanted to see “gay cowboys.” But the film is not only flourishing in our major urban centers, it also plays in Peoria…and in Appalachia.

Jeff Mann, a talented and versatile writer whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, lives in West Virginia and teaches at Virginia Tech. Writing in the Charleston, WVA Gazette (2/19/06), he shares his experience with Brokeback Mountain—an experience that, as so often happens, bordered on the profound. As he points out, we were all ready for it:

Anyone with any sense must realize that we gay people are starved for literature, music and films that reflect our experience. Surrounded by a frequently hostile majority, swamped by media infused with heterosexual images and values, we ache for affirming artistic mirrors of queer life. Those of us who have grown up in small towns and the countryside and who have resisted the urge to flee to cities where gay enclaves can be found are especially hungry for queer art that reflects the rural worlds we know.

Jeff was not only hungering for something like Brokeback, he was also prepared, having read Annie Proulx’s short story and followed up every reference he could find to the forthcoming film. The characters of Jack and Ennis even invaded his dreams. But he dreaded the prospect of watching the film amid homophobic audience reactions, like the ones that had ruined his viewing of Making Love in a West Virginia theater more than two decades earlier. It wasn’t the ignorant rednecks that he feared, but rather his own reaction to them:

I am 46 years old and 200 pounds, and I am more than willing to denounce homophobes and defend myself and my kind, either verbally or physically. A Martin Luther King statement keeps coming back to me: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” As much as I wanted to see the film, I also wanted to avoid getting into a fistfight, for my days of silence are long over. A jail term, I reflected, would not improve my chances of securing tenure at Virginia Tech.

Trying to resign himself to waiting till the Brokeback DVD was released, Jeff found that his dreams were getting more intense:

Both the story and the movie trailer images had leached so deeply into my subconscious that I couldn’t stop dreaming of Ennis and Jack. Sometimes I was traveling with them on horseback across the Wyoming landscape, a terrain I’ve seen only in films. Sometimes, we traveled together through my native mountains of Appalachia. One night, I dreamed about them all night long. I realized I had to see the movie just to get out from under it.

Jeff’s obsession finally led him and his partner John to a theater in downtown Charleston, for a 3 p.m. weekend showing of Brokeback. Anxiety ran high as he anticipated jeers and catcalls during the love scenes, but he got a surprise:

My country brothers made love in their high-mountain tent. They kissed violently after four years apart. They sprawled naked in a motel bed, delighting in their reunion. And that Charleston audience was absolutely silent….

Brokeback Mountain is one of the great movies of my life. I will always remember the first time I saw it. I will recall how those with whom I experienced that story recognized love and tragedy and met those eternals, those immensities, with the silent witness they deserve. That other immensity—hate—which so shapes the fears I share with Jack and Ennis, was not among us in that darkened room, on that winter afternoon.

Jeff’s beautiful essay is, like Brokeback Mountain itself, something to fall in love with. You can read and/or print it in its entirety at:

http://wvgazette.com/webtools/print/perspective/2006021825

Find out more about Jeff and his work at his website:

http://www.english.vt.edu/~jmann/

Jeff, I wish we knew how to quit you…!

10:04 pm: 'Brokeback' Spirituality
Yesterday I got an extraordinary email from a fellow named Matt. It was partly in response to a message I had posted on Dave Cullen’s Brokeback forum, about an unfortunate young Christian I had read about who regarded the film as a lesson in the miseries of homosexuality—and the necessity of asking Jesus to “cure” such tendencies.

Matt has quite a different take on Brokeback:

I’ve been possessed of this thought lately, that Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal performed a very Christly service for me. I experienced such a sense of profound relief and personal validation after my first viewing of BBM. But, deeper than that, this very afternoon during one of my dance/meditation sessions, while looking a BBM photo of Heath and Jake, I was seized by the knowledge of how profoundly they have affected hundreds of thousands of gay people. Many of us carry around a soul burden that comes with the territory of being homoerotic; my mother used to say that all Christians have a cross to carry in this life. Suddenly, I knew something for sure, and that was that Heath as Ennis, and Jake as Jack, took my cross upon their shoulders. I saw them act out my passion and love, the deeply physical, saliva-swapping, body-pressed-to-body, hands-on love I have lived. My agony, my ecstasy, my cross! The thing about my life that has wreathed my head with a crown of thorns, and disturbs my peace; the thing that has weighed so heavily on my shoulders all my gay years. They took it upon themselves in a big way, on the giant screen. So, this afternoon I felt as Christ must have when Simon the Cyrene relieved him of his cross, and these two men by doing this, so validated my life; and though I have heard that they are not gay, somehow came to walk upon my Via Dolorosa.........I feel blessed!

So one viewer sees BBM as an anti-gay polemic, while another finds redemption in it; and the most remarkable thing, to me, is that the movie itself is so silent on the subject of spirituality. The characters don’t seem to have much of a spiritual life; one of the few direct references to the church is Ennis’s comment about “That fire-and-brimstone crowd.” This man who is in so much need of comfort finds none in his local house of worship.

And yet, the intensity and sincerity of emotions in the film do invoke a kind of spirituality, or soulfulness. Certainly those two shirts hanging on Ennis’s closet door, next to the postcard of Brokeback Mountain, constitute a shrine. And when he says “Jack, I swear...,” it is a form of affirmation, perhaps even prayer.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no big fan of Christianity. People who are dumbfounded by murderous Muslims should remember that Christianity has much blood on its hands too. At the same time, I have spent many hours with A Course in Miracles, much to my benefit; our spiritual lives develop in sometimes contradictory ways. Perhaps it’s no surprise that BBM, such a deeply affecting film, could bring about a transformative experience of the spirit. Nothing that this amazing movie does could surprise me.

If anyone would like to write to Matt, he welcomes email at Genzano924@aol.com.

11:53 am: 'Transamerica': Another Untold Story
I saw Transamerica last night, and came away with some of the feelings that Brokeback Mountain leaves me with. What a great year for movies 2005 was—a year for telling stories that had never been told before. In Transamerica Felicity Huffman is a pre-operative transsexual who discovers, just days before her surgery, that she has a son. After rescuing him from a New York jail, concealing from him her life as a man and the fact that she is his father, she must travel with him back to her L.A. home, and to a life that may contain even more upheaval than she’s already known.

Some people will go to see Felicity Huffman as a transsexual, and Jake and Heath as gay cowboys, because they want to see a freak show. But these are fully realized characters, much more than the sum of their sexual parts. What makes Felicity’s Bree both touching and funny is her idealized view of womanhood: she doesn’t just want to be female, she wants to be a lady. Perhaps the funniest scene is when she and son Toby arrive at a friend-of-a-friend’s house in Dallas to spend the night, only to find themselves in the midst of a tranny party in full swing. Bree is horrified, on her son’s behalf as well as her own; at the same time she is no wide-eyed innocent, and understands these people who, in the safety of each other’s company, are free to be rowdy and vulgar. And why not? In a society where they must spend every day on the brink of humiliation, this vulgarity is hard won, almost a badge of honor.

Bree’s son Toby (Kevin Zegers) is also no innocent. A 17-year-old hustler and coke addict, his aspiration is to dye his hair blond and star in gay porn films. A greater foil to Bree’s longing for propriety could hardly be imagined. But what saves this story from falling into Odd-Couple cliché is that we see the tender, vulnerable sides of both Toby and Bree. We can even see, without too much heavy-handedness on the filmmaker’s part, that these are two characters who need each other.

In the context of the great indie films of last year, big-budget behemoths like King Kong start to look superfluous. It just doesn’t take millions of dollars’ worth of special effects to lay out a story that gets at the wonderment of being human. Or maybe “human” is too limiting a word. Transamerica reminds me of the closing line of Jeff Mangum’s song, “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”:

How strange it is to be anything at all.

02:38 pm: Peace, Love, and Monkey Business: A 'Brokeback' Forum
Back in December—which already seems a long time ago—Dave Cullen, a journalist who lives in Denver, was moved and excited enough by what was quickly becoming the Brokeback Mountain phenomenon that he decided to do something about it. He started a website devoted to the film and the story it was based on. That website (http://www.davecullen.com/brokebackmountain/) has grown and grown; in addition to a wealth of information about Brokeback, the site also features a user forum with, as of this writing, 1,070 registered members. (When I joined the Forum early in January, there were fewer than 400 members.)

How do you manage a discussion among hundreds of people who have little in common, except that they saw Brokeback Mountain and were profoundly affected by it in some way? The vast forum, which has a seemingly endless number of discussion threads, is actually managed quite well, thanks to a team of moderators who must be working round the clock. But inevitably, as membership has skyrocketed, a kind of groupthink mentality has settled in. This forum has become a bastion of peace and love and goody-goodyness; “negative” posts are discouraged, and angry posts immediately shouted down. Nowhere has this become more evident than in the discussion thread devoted to the Brokeback cast’s appearance on Oprah yesterday.

For people like me who avoid TV talk shows like the plague, there ought to be an Oprah orientation guide to let us know what we’re in for. I watched the Brokeback segment this morning--you can see it too, at (http://www.youtube.com/w/Brokeback-Mountain-Cast-on-Oprah?v=NRrW7ecrpxk&search=brokeback%20mountain) --and more than anything I was struck by the mawkishness of it. Oprah pandered to every squeal and giggle from the audience on the subject of the man-to-man kiss; watching this, it’s difficult to know what a self-respecting gay man is supposed to think. To their credit, the young actors fielded her questions with graciousness and good humor; Jake and Heath, in go-along-to-get-along mode, displayed a “cute” mixture of sangfroid and squeamishness regarding their homosexual roles. And a good time, apparently, was had by all.

Visiting Cullen’s “Oprah” thread on his forum, one finds the kind of praise heaped upon her that has made her the High Priestess of American Culture. Any suggestion that she might be something less than a deity is met with righteous anger and dismay. To some, the fact that people would even question her greatness is a source of anguish; it was so, so generous of her to devote a half hour of her show to Brokeback that the least we can do is be eternally grateful, never questioning her taste, conduct, or barely concealed belief that homosexuals are kind of freaky.

I guess that what we are seeing, with the widespread recognition and appreciation of Brokeback, is an appropriation of a great work of art by a culture that is shaped and informed by idiots. Is it possible to view this phenomenon without mixed feelings? If your answer is “no,” then don’t bother to participate in Cullen’s forum. It’s either peace and love, buddy, or it’s hit the road.

02:07 pm: Independence, MO, and AMC Theaters: Partners in Ignorance
On Sunday, a 17-year-old woman entered the AMC multiplex at Independence Commons and asked when they would be showing Brokeback Mountain. Here's how it went:


Woman: When are you going to get Brokeback Mountain?

AMC Employee: Never. It's gay.

Woman: Why aren't you going to show it?

AMC Employee: Because it's about, like, gay people. It's gay.


This is according to her blog on Xanga:

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=alternative_with_a_twist_of_li&tab=weblogs&uid=422206535

This conversation was also logged in on Dave Cullen's Brokeback forum:

http://davecullen.com/forum/index.php#4

And, who knows...maybe with your help...it will make its way even farther along the Internet. This kind of ignorance deserves recognition, don'tcha think?

11:37 am: Brokeback'ed Again...and the Eyes Have It
Saw the movie for the second time last night. Again I was swept away by emotion, but managed to see things I didn’t see before…and gained a deeper understanding of what makes this picture a pinnacle of cinematic art.

Time after time, we find ourselves focusing on the eyes of these characters: the opaquely suffering eyes of Ennis; the calculating-bitch eyes of Lureen; the sanctuary-seeking eyes of Alma; the furiously cynical eyes of Aguirre; the compassionate eyes of Jack’s mother. As for Jack’s eyes, those Gyllenhaal baby blues are so expressive that it doesn’t take a close-up to tell us what he’s feeling.

Moving from scene to scene, our attention skips to the characters’ eyes like a stone skipping over water; and these eyes, which we come to know so well, become storytellers all by themselves. Roger Ebert made a good point in comparing Ang Lee with Ingmar Bergman; the work of each of these master directors is as close as cinema ever comes to sheer poetry.

01:14 pm: 'Brokeback': Setting Free the Cabinetmakers
Okay, I saw Brokeback Mountain last night. And yes, it broke my heart. I cried like a baby during the final 20 minutes or so. And I didn’t give a damn that I was sitting there sobbing, because I didn’t feel manipulated by this story; it earns its tears honestly.

In the popular press, reviewers are busy, trying to make it look like it’s okay for straight audiences to see, and even appreciate, a film about homosexuals. Oops, excuse me! According to Roger Ebert—the film critic so square that even his head is square (I’m not kidding, check it out)—this film isn’t just about homosexuals:

The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it, because he always wanted to stay in the Marines, or be an artist or a cabinetmaker.

To which I can only say: Oh, thank God! Someone finally understands the agony of repressed cabinetmakers!

Meanwhile, in his very funny "The Straight Dude’s Guide to Brokeback," gay columnist Dave White gives some tongue-in-cheek reassurance to the straight guy who might be phobic about seeing this film: “It’s about 130 minutes long and 129 of them are about Men Not Having Sex.” His concluding point is hard to beat: “Imagine how many thousands of hetero love stories gay people sit through in their lives. So you kind of owe us.”

I second that. Dudes, you do kind of owe us. And if you still can’t hack the idea of two men kissing on screen…just think about those poor cabinetmakers!