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My parents have been in town the last few days visiting, and we have taken the opportunity (as we always do) to eat some great food (trying out some new restaurants) and walk around the city a bit. On Thursday night we went to a place called ilili for Lebanese food that was really spectacular. Every dish was nuanced and incredibly delicious. Last night we went to a place called Craft that is always on the best-of lists, and it was very very good, but really did not hold a candle to ilili in my opinion. This morning we went to the always excellent Whitehall for brunch with Josh and Michael, and tonight we will go see the revival (new staging, whatever) of Porgy and Bess on Broadway. All in all, a very New York trip for my parents.
They leave tomorrow, and I will be spending the next week starving off the pounds acquired while they were here, catching up with work, and preparing for the inevitable arrival of summer.
I just bid adieu to my friend Dimitri who was here staying for the last couple of days. Two days before that was my friend Digraj who stayed with me for three days. The week prior to that my friend Jose. All in all, this year I have had guests staying with me for 32 days out of this year, or close to a quarter of the year. And my parents (whom I adore) are arriving in 3 days for a 5 day visit. I enjoy having guests, and with all the hospitality that people have shown me over the years, I am happy to return the favors, either directly to them or in offering the same kindness to others. But there does come a point where one needs a little alone time, and I think I am close to that point. After my parents leave I am going to try to have a few weeks with no one sleeping in my apartment but me.
God, this was a long time in coming. And did anyone seriously believe that Obama didn’t personally believe this a long time ago? And why now, why not weeks ago when it could have made (some) difference in the North Carolina Amendment One debacle? Is it a brave thing to do? Yes and no. It would have been braver yesterday and less brave tomorrow. That is the way history is. The President is clearly calculating that we have finally come far enough as a nation that this stance will no longer hinder him. Although I highly doubt anyone strongly opposed to same sex marriage would ever vote for Obama anyway, it could hurt him somewhat. And it could help him, certainly by energizing some on the left. Obama is a cool, calculated thinker, I have to give him that even when I disagree with him. This was a smooth political act with all that implies.
And yet, even knowing all that, I sit here with tears in my eyes. Today the leader of our nation stood up for equality. I have spent the better part of my adult life forging my own path, and a lot of that is related to the fact that I am gay. Would I have felt the wanderlust I did had I been raised in a part of the world or a time that was more accepting? (It is interesting to note that of the several members of my extended family that are gay, none of them live in our home state of Indiana. My family there is as wonderful, progressive and supportive as any family anywhere in the world, but I would not say the same about the state in which they live.) At this point in my life, I truly consider being gay to have been the single biggest gift I was ever given by the universe. It has forged in me a strength and curiosity about life, and a respect and fascination with difference that would never have blossomed in the same way. It has given me a terrible appreciation of the use and abuse of power, and a strong ability to follow my own moral compass. It has not been easy, and there were many times that I felt the petty hatreds and misunderstandings of people living in ignorance and fear. But these things ultimately made me stronger, and hopefully more compassionate towards those with outsider status. And although I have long seen this struggle as a blessing, I yearn for the day when being gay will make as much difference to how someone lives their life as being left-handed or having green eyes. When the choices they will make will be based fully on their own hopes and dreams, and not at all on the irrational bigotry of others. I have seen a lot of movement towards this goal in my own lifetime, and today is another step along that path. Thank you, President Obama.
I got into a slightly heated discussion with a new friend of mine the other day. He is Mexican, and just arrived here with his partner a couple of months ago. They will be living in NYC for the foreseeable future, as his partner got some posh job here. My friend, like me, is freelance and we meet about once a week for lunch. We were talking about comparisons between gay life here and there and he was remarking that he thought people were really uptight here about public displays of affection. Having lived in both cultures, I could see his point on one level (as there were many times I saw young lovers really going at it in the parks in Mexico City). But on another, I never saw gay people doing much PDA in Mexico, it seemed to me to be definitely something reserved for the straights. And even then, it seemed to me this was because so many young people lived with their parents and had no place to go. And on the subject of gay rights, he (rightly) pointed out that Mexico has country-wide marriage rights, something we still lack in the US. And my protestations to the contrary, he honestly believes that culturally, Mexico (and other Latin American countries) are far more accepting of gay people. Again, having lived there and traveled extensively in Latin America, I can only speak to my experience, but let’s just say it ran contrary to his impressions. He noted how much stronger the family unit and connections were in those countries, and that is something that (notwithstanding my own close-knit family) I granted was true. But I asked him if he was out to his family, and he replied that “they knew” about him and his partner, but that he didn’t bring it up or throw it in their faces. To which I replied that for me, equality means living as openly as any straight person, and having my life and relationships treated with the same respect and openness. He replied that he didn’t need that, and he honestly believes that things are better for gay people there. It was striking to me how different were the notions of equality that we each had. And how different our experience of each place was. I have no illusions about the United States, and I divide the country into regions or bubbles of equality. New York is a very different place than Omaha, and my daily experience is of course local, and very much equal on a societal level. I will not rest until we have full legal equality under the law, but I believe that is coming soon (although not soon enough obviously). And further, I am under no illusions that the Republican party will soon turn over a new leaf and let go of their disgusting hatred of us, but I am hopeful that they will have less and less sway over the culture. I think that our biggest point of divergence is over openness, and that is something that I will never relinquish– to me, that is the mark of equality. And that is probably why I think that the most powerful thing anyone can do to advance the cause of equality is to live openly, and refuse to be treated as a second class citizen. Coming out, and living openly is not “throwing anything in anyone’s face”, any more than living an openly heterosexual life is. It is all part of our human condition, and equally deserving of dignity and respect.
I am not a superstitious person, but I have to admit that there is (at least) one area in my life where a kind of magic very often prevails. I can’t count the number of times someone will come to me for help with a software or hardware problem (or almost any kind of technical problem really) explaining to me the action they tried and how it resulted in failure/crash/nothing/whatever. And then, invariably, I will perform the exact same action in the exact same way — and it will work. It very often extends to my mere presence in the room. Someone will explain their problem, and I will show up and ask them to repeat it (which they swear they have done countless times) and yet, with me standing there (or sometimes just talking to them on the phone) it will suddenly work. This causes all manner of frustration to the person who contacts me. For a long time, I would chalk it up to something they must have forgotten or done differently than me, or to something that they had forgotten to tell me. But this has happened enough times over many years to be downright spooky. My mutant power is apparently making things work by being around them. While not as flashy as walking through walls or turning my body to steel or teleporting, it is an awesome power nonetheless. And with great power, comes great responsibility. Now I just need a snazzy costume design and code name…
Satori, dreams — Stephen on April 27, 2012 @ 7:58 am — 1 comment
I was with a few people going on a trip, one of them was a friend of my friend Olaf. He was going to take me somewhere and Olaf would meet us later, but Olaf was yelling at him for not preparing something correctly and for running out of time. There were a couple of people who were experimenting with strange little glass jars that contained mini fusion reactors or something. They were very volatile but there was sometimes, if done properly, a time differential inside the jar that was different from the outside. One guy was explaining how he had saved 17 minutes in this glass jar, but he seemed a little dim like he didn’t really know what he was doing, he was just watching the other scientists who knew better. Just then the glass in his hand exploded and we were all knocked down to the floor and back in time 17 minutes. Later we were at a dinner and this colleague of mine, a woman I respected very much, told me she had just lost her job. And then we heard a report that all over the world the economic situation for people that lived next to rivers was very bad, they were all struggling. My colleague was sadly, slowly brushing her teeth and preparing to leave when I woke up.
Satori, Stephen on April 25, 2012 @ 11:58 am — 0 comments
Over the past few days I have been delighted to spend some time (in between work that is) with two friends that were in town briefly. First was my friend Ruthbea, in town from Boston with her Mom and kids. We had a group dinner with a bunch of Ruthbea’s friends Friday night on the UWS. There was a lot of wine and a lot of talk about kids. I went up a bit early for a little bit of quality time with Ruthbea, I only wish we had had more of it alone, it is hard to catch up in a group setting. After that, my friend and former roommate Jose arrived for a 2 day visit starting Sunday. We wandered the Highline and Chelsea area a bit while he was here, watched some TV, took in some good restaurants and chatted about politics, philosophy, and the general breakdown of American culture. It was lovely seeing old friends, but now I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
I am currently working on the archive site of deceased filmmaker (my friend Andrew in fact), and as I have been uploading his films to YouTube for embedding, I have noticed some very strange automated censorship at work:
With a number of the films, it appears that YouTube has some fairly sophisticated content scanning happening. So, for instance if it detects some song playing in the background of a scene, it will notify you that you may be in violation of copyright or something similar. In some cases, they will actually block your video automatically with a claim from some large company (in my case it was EMI), effectively judging you guilty of violation first, and making you prove your innocence to them to get it unblocked. WTF, who needs SOPA if private companies will censor for you? And it is always the huge corporations that have the power here, YouTube won’t be blocking and filtering just anyone’s content.
We have a big big problem with copyright and patent law run amok. Fair use is practically non existant, and shrinking more every day. The original intent of laws to protect copyright were limited and in the common interest. Not so any more, we are destroying our culture’s ability to create, which is always based on prior work and its appropriation and reinterpretation. Without free creative reign, our culture is weakened and stagnant. While a few people get very rich, the rest of us get screwed.
A guy named Kirby Ferguson deals with these issues clearly and eloquently in his excellent series, “Everything is a Remix“, I highly recommend watching all four parts (but if you watch only one, please see part 4 as it really brings it all home).
I was in Chicago for a singing audition for a new commercial jingle, and they told me that my part sounded great, but the other part (performed by other people) sounded terrible. The problem was that they had all the power and were not about to include my part. I was calling the corporate guys to get approval on my part, but the phone line kept getting cut. They were a group of mean girls stopping it from happening, and I decided to go on vacation. A lot, I was going on a lot of vacations. And on my way to the airport, I got on a call with my boss to tell him I was leaving, but then someone called in on the other line. It was my friend Jonny in Geneva who told me that his friend had clubbed his loud dog to death and that he would not be trusting him any more, no sir. But he said it in a laughing way, like he thought the entire thing was very funny. And then I woke up.
I went two-stepping with Josh et al last night, out to a place called Big Apple Ranch for their 15th anniversary party. Josh is an old hand at two-stepping and has been trying to get me to go for years, but this was the first time for me. After a hasty lesson, we were on our way and I tried to dance a couple of times, but I was several left feet at first. Still, I had a great time watching the crowd and running into a surprising number of acquaintances.
What I loved most about the place was how mixed it was and how gender roles were out the window. It really reminded me of that gay milonga I went to a few years aback in Buenos Aires, except that (unlike tango) the dances actually seemed like something a novice could get the hang of. The couples were all types (male-male, male-female, female-female) and positions (leading/following) and everyone seemed to be having a really great time. Some of the people were fabulous dancers and it was a lot of fun watching their moves. The atmosphere was completely accepting and supportive, and it really made one comfortable with just getting out there and trying a new thing.
I was a bit shy at first, but by the time the last big dance was happening (called the Barn Dance) I was really getting into it (well, to tell the truth I was thrown into it), and managed (through heavy repetition) to approximate a two-stepper.
