Musings for a Saturday Morning.

My very dear friend Kyle laid on my doorstep the posession of a sense of ethics and character. It was the best compliment I've ever been paid.

And so I must admit that I cannot be bought. I will tell you and everyone what I perceive is the Truth. This is not to say that I can't be mistaken or co-opted like everyone else. I just have a very strong bullshit detector and have values and beliefs that I will not sacrifice for anyone come Hell or high water. And I thank my parents for these.

So, that having been said, let's turn to other matters.

With everything going on, I very seriously worry about my community. I refer not to the neighbourhood to which I belong, but rather to the queer community that seems to be in such need of a gadfly. So I'm going to take the opportunity to function as such. As it is, I'm part of it, but only marginally.

I've made that realization lately. At first, I was depressed and then I stepped back and took a very good look at what I'm missing. Some folks may accuse me of being bitter and hateful because I'm not a part of it all. I hate to break it to them, but that doesn't wash for several reasons that I'll get into momentarily. And shame on you for using such a blatant Karl Rove type of thinking.

So, what am I missing?

As I see it, most of my community is comprised of people who are as devoid of thought as an M. Night SomeDamnedSillyLastName movie. It was during my stint amongst the smog-choked byways of Los Angeles, that I began to realize that the vast majority of gay men (I've very few lesbian friends so I won't even presume to try to comment on them) rarely think of much beyond what the wear and where they're going to go out and will Butch, Buck, or Billy be there tonight? Perhaps I'm doing a disservice and over-generalizing but I doubt very much if many of the guys rubbing the sleep from their eyes this morning and wondering if they should make this dude in bed breakfast or just hustle 'em out the door really will give a rip that scientists have seemingly discovered a tenth planet. Although, I wonder what it'll do to their irrational little brains as all those dreadfully insipid astrology books and the silly damned newspaper horoscopes are quickly proven to be flummery. Hell, I put it to you that they won't even open a bloody NEWSPAPER to read their horoscope. God forbid that they should worry their widdle bwains with the ghastliness in Iraq or the machinations of Karl Rove, that direct lineal descendant of Joseph Goebbels, and trouble themselves to get angry enough to start asking questions, those critical questions that our Fearless Leader and his cabal of crepuscular advisors don't want us to ask, and raising a duece of a stink. How many of these guys can even explain intelligently WHY what Karl Rove did ought to be enough to make us all rise up and defenestrate the fat, pasty sonofabitch. But I digress.

Apparently, I'm also missing a whale of a good time being sexually irresponsible and sleeping with any guy who answers my ad on Craigslist or Gay.com or who staggers up to undulate serpently at me at a bar. Now, let me head off the feeps in the back row who are going to start screaming that I'm repressed. Forget it already. I've sown my oats, I've just grown up and come to the realization that sex has its own meaning and for me that doesn't include fucking everyone who enters my ken. But what really startles me is that guys in this day and age are being so irresponsible and idiotic as to advertise for unprotected sex and engage in the same regularly with no more thought to their health or their partners than Mary Cheney had for us when she allowed herself to be prostituted by Georgie-Porgie and her cadaverous father, Dickhead Cheney for political purposes. I take this as further evincing the lack of grey matter. What otherwise sane and rational individual would knowingly court HIV not to mention the endless varieties of STDs? If we keep this up, we'll fuck our way to the grave and cause Santorum and his ilk to do a jig of glee. Wake up already, you moronic stoats, before tertiary syphilis rots what is left of your brain.

Vaunted gay taste seems to be another thing that I'm missing out on. Since I rarely concern myself with which designers are currently in and which are definitely not and I haven't shelves and shelves of unguents, creams, and other messes from the merchant designed to combat the ravages of age, gin, and cigarettes, I am something of an oddity. Mind you, I don't go out looking like something the cat just dragged in from the garden, but I manage to dress myself before going out without having to cycle through my contacts on my mobile to reach a consensus on what I am to wear. Nor am I afraid of growing older. It's a part of the natural progression of life. I frequently see men who are of a certain age who are in quite good shape (be it through their own efforts or the skill of the surgeon, that is another matter) but are trying so desperately to cling to their late teens and early twenties that it is painful to see. I counted thirty-two silver hairs amongst the raven tresses this morning and I'm leaving them in.

While I'm on the subject of taste, what the hell is up with the music in the clubs? As I write this, I recall noise of such a ghastly sort that it pains me. Shrieking pseudo-divas (I hate you MTV and VH1) and noise, noise, noise... as people look on and clutch their drinks in desperation or flail their bodies around in an approximation of St. Vitus' Dance while trying not to too obviously stare at themselves in the assorted mirrors present on the walls.

And then there is the... Oh, hell, what does it matter? I can sit here and shout that the sky is falling and that the emperor ain't gots no clothes and all that'd do is drive me hoarse. So I'll sit here and shake my head and keep a weather-eye on things, point out folly, and do my part (and yours, asshead, you know who you are) to keep the likes of Santorum at bay so that you can enjoy your overpriced cocktails and "dance" the night away. Let me point out a bit of lunacy and folly.

F'rinstance, what the fuck was with the theme for Pride this year? Pride Explosion? How long did it take the lackwits who organize Pride to come up with that one? By all accounts, however, it was much, much better than last year's. When we're being assailed on all sides and those precious gains we've made in the fight for equal rights are being eroded by elected assholes like Santorum (who, by the way, is a sick fuck and the last person who should be getting up on his hind legs and spouting off about the depravity of homosexuals - but that's a whole 'nother blog), the best they can come up with is "Pride Explosion"? What the hell is that? Were they expecting people to start exploding the moment yet another drag queen staggered by drunkenly? Rather than challenge us in our complacency and risk offending some, the organizers went for insipid rather than inspiring. In a year when much is/was at stake in Washington State (like the right to marry, morons), our brilliant Pride organizers give us dreck.

So as I reflect on this, any sadness at not being really one with my community is overwhelmed by relief.

Have an angry day.