fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
When Barack Obama won the 2008 election, I took to the streets. I wanted to see reactions to this historic moment. I drove to Jack London Square and found a full-on street party. In fact, driving from Oakland to Berkeley I saw people literally dancing in the streets all over. It was a day for…
Our vote is precious. Our vote is sacred. Our vote is our democracy. Please use it. However which way you vote, vote. Don’t let anyone deter or dissuade you. If you are eligible to vote, please vote.
He’s a real Nowhere Man, Sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody. -Lennon/McCartney A thought keeps jostling my head. Mitt Romney is a Nowhere Man, literally. I guess one could say that his record number of flip-flops on the issues make this moniker a given. But I’m not thinking of…
A group of us went to lunch regularly on Thursdays. On this particular Thursday, sometime in 2002 or so, we decided to try the Pakistani-Indian restaurant that moved into the space formerly occupied by Bison Brewery on Telegraph. As we were leaving, we noticed some small white business cards written in English, Arabic, Urdu, and…
After the lights dimmed, the familiar hum began as four men of color came on the stage. They stood in a circle, humming and snapping fingers, swaying back and forth. Then, one by one, each introduced us to the evening to come, an evening of storytelling. I first saw Pomo Afro Homos perform in 1990…
(Full Disclosure: I am a supporter of Rebecca Kaplan for City Council. But this is one of the reasons why.) Why? Why is long-time Oakland City Council member Ignacio De La Fuente running for the at-large city council seat? Mr. De La Fuente has served on the City Council representing District 5 for the past…
(Editor’s Note: We here at the gar spot came across a discarded script for a political ad that was never produced. From what we could tell, this script was meant as a silent movie, with black and white photography, broad pantomime performances, and placards that displayed the dialog. There also would have been in the…
I stayed up until sunrise. I hadn’t intended to. It just sort of happened. The first part of the night, I spent playing video game. I kept a bunch on my laptop, chiefly for conferences. Whenever I got bored, which happened frequently at conferences, I started playing with the volume turned down while whoever yammered…
For the first ten minutes I sat there listening to all of these colleagues, folks I hadn’t seen for ages, go on about my great achievement. And I first I was pissed off. How did they know about my work? How would they know so much about Lambda when I hadn’t published anything, not even…
I missed the first presidential debate. From what I’ve been hearing, though, President Obama tacked towards the timid and let Romney be the aggressor and controller of the evening. That’s a pity. Because Romney’s performance will likely be what folks remember about the debate, not the accuracy, or lack thereof, of his facts. But during…
