Today was a nice day. It's clear to me we are going to have a cold winter. You can smell it. People have already dug out their winter coats. I have. I usually hold out until Thanksgiving. We have had some mild winters, which just lull you into a false sense of security.
Of course, this is the perfect meteorological reflection of the times. I remember watching some footage from Matthew Shepard's funeral and it was hard to tell whether or not it was snowing or just very odd rain.
We are entering a long cold winter.
I volunteered today at Out of the Closet, the thrift store near me that divides its proceeds among 50 AIDS charities. It's not a pokey little place. A lot of activity and diversity. A young Puerto Rican guy came in to "check the vinyl" in the back. People love scanning the bookshelves. Rich ladies who want to know if that horseradish dish is Waterford Crystal. E is thrilled to tell me that he found the hardware to reattach a drawer pull to that antique oak chest he has not been able to sell otherwise. Hopefully it will move now, and net a good price to boot. The place is jammed with stuff, but if you look carefully, you will see that things are constantly moving. I keep relieving them of books every fortnight.
M, another volunteer, tells me how the police are returning to pre-Koch tactics in the Rambles. Posing undercover as interested parties, and then arresting people who take an interest and "pull it out." Uniformed cops are literally seen hiding under bushes, waiting for something to happen. Like there's nothing better to do, like maybe catch the East Side Rapist, who's terrorized the neighborhood for years. When I had dinner with AH two weeks ago, he told me how some police departments, like in Vancouver, actually prioritize and have eschewed this activity. I thought the undercover entrapment stuff was something that died out in this area. The last time I heard about this was five years ago, at the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.
A bit later, D walked in. He lives in the neighborhood, apparently. Just a gorgeous 30something with a 1970s attitude and dressed the part. He sported mirrored wraparound sunglasses and a short haircut and some sort of furry jacket that I have not seen in two decades. Like he stepped out of the set of extras of Velvet Goldmine or something. Just really something
Well, he reported that he was in Central Park, and completely minding his own business, and probably looking far too fabulous for nature, and the police scurried by, so wanting to enjoy the park, moved to a more secluded area, which brought the police to him, and they said, "What are you doing here?" To which he replied, "What are you doing here?" His assessment of the situation is that by speaking up and being white, he got them to back off. "I guess I'm `lucky' I'm a white boy." Maybe only on the outside, D honey, only on the outside. He also said that he overheard two uniformed cops outside the main entrance to the Rambles cruisiest areas saying, "Didn't you get any?
This makes the intention of the police clear. They are not just patroling and maintaining a presence. They're out to get people. It's clear the Mayor and his henchmen have declared "hunting season" on us quite open. The beatings at the Protest have made that abundantly clear also. M also points out that the Rambles have been a gay area for well more than a century.
Later, M told me that four years ago, when New York hosted the Gay Games, one of the museums was approached to hold an exhibit of gay and lesbian artists' works. So a committee was established to sort out how to best represent the community. Well, pandemonium ensued. The internecine warfare over being PC turned off the museum completely, and they washed their hands of it. This reminded me of the other night at PS 41. Everyone wants their particular voice represented. So does everyone else. So everyone talks at once and all you can hear in the end is a lot of commotion, but not unity.
M concluded that gay men and lesbians have a lot of things in common, but that their basic agendas are incompatible. I am not qualified. I am simply not around enough lesbians to know one way or another. But I would like to think that some people out there are able to see above all the "political" nonsense.
Boy, am I a dreamer or what?
I have been reading Secret Lives--a trilogy of novellas--and I started Tom Wakefield's "The Other Way." I also got Michael Bronski's The Pleasure Principle out of the Yorkville Branch of NYPL today. I will read that next. It features a naked man on the cover, artfully covering his naughty bits with his crossed palms. This book seems a good companion to Culture of Desire, which is five years old, and which I bought at Out of the Closet today. In the latter book, which features two half-naked men, they talk about how a lot of black men wind up seeking out white men since the naked white man is pedestalized and revered. Meanwhile, these book covers almost make thinking people not want to buy the book. My must four out of five books directed at gay men have "boyz" on the cover? Don't we have enough trouble, without perpetuating our own bad stereotype of being completely superficial? On these books it makes some sense to have these sorts of covers, but the "sex sells" ploy is just so overused.
I went to a reading of Charle's Kaiser's The Gay Metropolis--a book with a cover featuring a simple night-time skyline of Manhattan--and someone there told me how on the subway, an angry Brooklyn woman yelled at this man, "Go ahead. Go ahead and read your gay book!" Truly angry, truly hostile. The guy was just sitting there on the D train reading a gay-themed book. I guess a whole lot of assumptions come into play. That only gay people read these books. That she's homophobic is certain. That just thinking gay is crimethink. It reminds me of how men in Russia could be arrested just on the suspicion of having homosexual desires, even if they were celibate. Just seeing someone reading a book with the word "gay" on the cover made her angry. Lucky for him he wasn't hurt. These are the "provocations" that often lead to hate crimes.
Speaking of the outer boroughs... I went to Flushing to visit the belle soeur and my brother. I spotted the planets out again tonight, Jupiter and Saturn. They had me over for a taco dinner. The house was minus the kitten she rescued and gave to my co-worker. During the evening, Lynne asked me if it seemed that there were more vicious attacks on gay men than lesbians. I don't know the stats; I do know horrendous crimes have been perpetrated upon both sexes, usually by men, but often goaded on by "their women." So I wonder how much I might have to fear reading Michael Bronski's book on our public transit, especially in a place like Queens. I lived in a working class neighborhood with Knucklehead for a eighteen months in Queens. Believe me, we never worried about holding hands in public. It was pretty well-ingrained wisdom in us both to not ever do such a thing, and we never did, except maybe at Jones Beach. Maybe once. I can count the number of men whose hands I have held in public on one hand. That's our lives. At least my life, but I don't think I'm alone. I wonder what the police would do if I had a boyfriend and we were simply seen holding hands together in the "wrong" part of Central Park. If that should ever happen, I hope D is on hand to give them what for.
Lynne asked me if our English cousins reacted to my letter, and I was glad to report that things turned out as I had hoped. I'd heard from two out of three precincts. Nothing has changed, really, but I get to be myself instead of hiding. Good for me. Good for them. Bully for us all.
Oh, and Newt Gingrich resigned his Speaker of the House position. There is a higher power after all!
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