fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
Statues with camera eyes. The Control Room with the teeter-totter cameras mounted at both ends. The large, balled camera with the shutter lens, always revolving, always watching. The Supervisor with his bald head and thick, black glasses and his familiar battle cry: ORANGE ALERT. Rover, the deadly weather ballon. Questions are a burden to others….
Two big time apologies concerning gay issues came out this past week, almost back to back. Both were in response to stupid, homophobic or at least homophobic-tinged statements made by the speaker. And in both cases, they were genuine apologies, not those silly, half-assed “I’m sorry if you’re offended” type apologies. First we had Howard…
25 years ago, either this week or next, I wrote a letter to my family entitled “What James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin, and Gregory A. Russell Have In Common.” Sadly I don’t think I have a copy of it anymore, though I don’t think the essay itself was as good as the title I gave it….
I have a jingle going through my head that may or may not be from an old Boy Scouts ad. It went something like, “Join the Boy Scouts of America Today, and together we can form a better USA!” A manly male chorus sang it a cappella, with an echo, giving it an almost hymn-like…
We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel. -Gandalf, from “The Two Towers” by JRR Tolkien Chortles undoubtedly rose high in Fairfax, Virginia, along with slapping hands and champaign glasses, after a Republican-led filibuster blocked the much negotiated gun reform bill from…
A pressure cooker loaded with nails and ball bearings. That’s what the FBI now says constituted one of the two bombs that went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. A pressure cooker. Seems sadly appropriate. Our world today is jam packed with imaginary demons and boogeymen. All of them can be described…
My first encounter with Roger Ebert, as with many outside of Chicago, came from his TV programs with the late Gene Siskel. To be sure, none of us really went to the movies that much. But we loved watching the two of them go at it, so their program became a TV watching ritual in…
At work a long time ago a former office mate of mine, let’s call him Buster, expressed in hushed tones his disapproval of same-sex couples raising kids. I say hushed tones because another colleague of ours had recently become a mother when her partner gave birth to their daughter. I guess Buster didn’t want her…
In 1981, shortly after taking office, President Ronald Reagan nominated Dr. C. Everett Koop for the position of surgeon general. Though largely unknown to the general public, Dr. Koop had gained a reputation within medical circles for his innovations in pediatric surgery. And he also had some cache within conservative and right-to-life circles because of…
So we all know the story now. The Onion made a series of irreverent, snark-filled tweets during the Oscars. And then they demeaned a nine year old. The joke, so say knowledgable comics, was to take someone innocent who is doted on and then turn that very innocence on its head, to say, in effect,…
