fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd. How many times do we have to live the same nightmare, travel the same dark path, scream the same anguish until our voices go raw? I’m very tired. 100,000+ dead from COVID-19, with African Americans disproportionately bearing the brunt of the pandemic in the US. And then these killings…
Thirty years ago, October 6, 1989, the Castro Sweep happened. And I was there. What started as a fairly routine ACT UP demonstration turned into a police overreach of epic proportions. I wrote about the Sweep a few years ago in a review/critique of a book by Paul Krassner (RIP), where he wrote about his…
My standard workout routine runs Sunday through Friday. On weekdays, I get up quite early, usually by 4:30. After shaking away grogginess, I dress in a t-shirt and shorts—sometimes long pants in the winter—then go around the house in the backyard to the rear entrance to the garage. This leads to the basement, a low-ceiling…
I started writing a very different post the other night about the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. I wrote a draft about the need for police departments nationwide to better police themselves, to root out bad officers, and to hire better officers to begin with so that problems do not occur. And then…
From the Oompa Loompas, we learned the following: Who do you blame when your kid is a brat, pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat? Blaming the kids is a lie and a shame. You know exactly who’s to blame: The mother and the father! At age 16, Ethan Couch killed four people while driving…
I went to a talk by legendary former South African jurist Albie Sachs the other day. He spoke about his role in bringing marriage equality to South Africa. Albert “Albie” Sachs was born in South Africa and early in his youth, he explained, he began resisting the racist apartheid government of his country. For his…
After the first instance of racially motivated violence during Selma, I wanted to start shouting “Black Lives Matter.” I held my tongue, so as not to disturb others in the theater. But I wondered if others in the audience saw the obvious connections between the racial violence of 50 years ago and the violence we’ve…
My husband and I went to dinner last night at one of our favorite restaurants in Berkeley. On the way, we saw a group of about 8 or more motorcycle cops gathered at a corner gas station just down the block from where we were going. As we waited for the light to change so…
