Category Archives: my life

The Authors Speak Interview Is Up!!

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Bizarro author Eric Mays’ interview with me went up on The Authors Speak website!!   This was a great opportunity to get the word out about my projects and toss back and forth our perspectives on the publishing industry, the state of LGBT fiction, retold fairy tales and dreams of turning books into musicals.

What does “bizarro author” mean you might ask?  Well, bizarro fiction has emerged as a specialized genre described delightfully by its proponents as “the genre of the weird,” created by a group of small press publishers in response to the demand for good weird fiction, and “Franz Kafka meets John Waters.”  Having read Eric Mays’ “Naked Metamorphosis,” I’d call it urban fantasy meets “The Evil Dead” series.  I haven’t read much bizarro, but the titles are pretty damn brilliant– Cameron Pierce’s “The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz” for example.

So I’ve been basking in a little sun-shower of publicity and trying to get back to work on revising my latest manuscript.  Wish I could say it was cruising along but between work and social obligations plus a bit of a mental gnarl, it’s barely inching along.

Next week, my blog goes dark while my partner and I entertain house guests.  In July, hard core writing starts anew, I promise.

Gay Pride and Political Awakenings

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June 2010.  LGBT Pride events are happening across the country to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots.  Some nifty trivia: in Germany and Switzerland,  the Pride celebration is called Christopher Street Day (CSD) because the riots,  considered the spark that ignited a Gay rights movement in the US and around the world, happened on Christopher Street in New York City.  Another reason why NYC really is the center of the universe.

Gay Pride rankles some people.  And not just non-gays but gay folks too.  You hear the angry questions:  Why do gays need a parade?  Why isn’t there a Straight Pride march?  Why does Gay Pride have to be so in your face with drag queens, dykes on bikes and leather daddies?

My thoughtful answer is:  Gay Pride is about community celebration and empowerment.

My less thoughtful but more gratifying answer is:  Sorry but you just don’t get it.

I saw my first Gay Pride parade when I was five years old.  My family went to Provincetown every summer for vacation , and it’s a great oddity of my childhood that years before I would come to terms with my sexuality, I was immersed in the gayest community in the Northeast.

I remember the parade seemed to just up and happen all around us—men in wigs and impossibly high heels, shirtless guys holding hands, floats filled with people wearing so much make-up I thought they were clowns.  I wasn’t scared, more curious than anything, and I certainly had no idea what it was all about.  But my parents quickly ushered me and my brother down a side street and away from the commotion.

We stopped going to P-Town a few years later when my mom heard about a deadly disease infecting gay men and worried that it was contagious.  Our family vacation moved to “safer,”  more “family friendly” places like Nantucket and Kennebunkport, Maine.

I wouldn’t see another pride parade until I was twenty-two years old.

But my social-political consciousness started growing before that and continues to grow today.  The seeds were planted early, and I credit my mom.  Notwithstanding her past squeamishness about gay people (she’s become a quiet but adamant supporter of gay rights since then), she instilled in me strong values, wrapped up in something she told me at a young age:  “Your only obligation in life is to help make the world a better place.”

I took her words to heart.  In grade school, I used part of my allowance to make contributions to the National Wildlife Federation.  In junior high, I passionately debated gun control against my NRA-influenced peers.  For my high school newspaper, I wrote op-eds against censorship in music and anti-youth discrimination by local merchants.   And while lacking the ability to accept myself personally, I always stood up for gay rights.

My first real foray into political activism happened when Operation Rescue, Randall Terry’s pro-life extremist group, came to Buffalo to picket abortion clinics.  A bunch of us, all guys, decided to participate in an early morning counter protest.  Admittedly, it was an impulsive decision—we’d been up all night drinking beer (we were college students).   We held up signs, chanted and stared down the faux-fetus-wielding bible-thumpers.

In the dim light of wintry upstate New York, that was my moment of recognizing political power.  It was some parts internal and some parts external.  I felt with certainty that what I was doing was important and right.  I was surrounded by people who also believed as I did, and they believed, we believed together that we could make a difference.  I sought out that experience again and again at college demonstrations for divestment from South Africa, Earth Day rallies, anti-war protests (the first Persian gulf war:  NO BLOOD FOR OIL) and many, many gay rights causes.  And in recognizing my political power, I began to recognize myself.

Nowadays, I go to Gay Pride events to support the organizations, hold hands proudly with my partner, and feel the rush of thousands of us taking over the streets.

Somewhere at every parade there’s someone, young or old, taking part for the first time.  Somewhere,  someone is awakening to his or her political power.

Happy Pride!!

On Riding Trains

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About a year ago, my lifestyle changed dramatically when my beloved VW Golf was totaled in a multi-car collision.  Thankfully, I wasn’t in the car at the time.  It was parked peacefully, legitimately, minding its own business street side when the accident occurred, and it served as an airbag for one of the cars spinning out of control.  A total loss.  But since the car was nine years old, with 140,000 miles on it, my insurance pay out was just a few thousand dollars.  Not enough to replace it.  So after I maxxed out the days that my insurance pays for a rental, I became a train commuter.

There are a lot of advantages to taking the train versus driving to work in the NYC metro area.  It’s a far healthier lifestyle.  I get more exercise since I have to walk further to the station than I walked back and forth to my car.  There’s a lot less stress letting someone else do the work of getting there while meanwhile I can read, write, or send cutesy text messages to other people.  I’ve almost missed my stop on several occasions because I get so immeresed in these activities, and the time goes amazingly quick compared to sitting on a parkway, staring at an endless carpet of cars stretching into the distance, searching with a fool’s hope for a sign of movement.

I also see a lot more people by traveling on the train, and as a writer, that makes for occasional inspiration.  I get to eavesdrop on one-sided cellphone conversations all the time.  Strangely, they’re almost always some kind of fight between girlfriend and boyfriend, daughter and controlling mother, or divorced husband negotiating child visitation with wife.  Or maybe people just sound angrier on their cell phones.

The morning trip is blissful.  I do a reverse commute so everyone gets a two-person or three-person seat to themselves, often with lots of empty seats in front and behind them, and everyone is sleeping, looking as cozy as though they were tucked in their beds.  It’s quiet as a library and I can read and write with full concentration.

Then there’s the occasional cute conductor to pique my interest and random people carting tons of luggage, looking horribly aggravated as they lumber to disembark at Jamaica station, onward to the shuttle at JFK (this has gotta be one of the greatest miseries in life).

And I now have the self-righteous claim that I’m reducing my carbon footprint by commuting.  I do care about the environment, but the truth is I’m just too cheap to buy another car.

Can Two Men Tango?

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My partner and I started tango classes about a week ago.  This was a big deal, me being profoundly rhythm and coordination-challenged, him being hostilely disposed to social organizations of any type and fairly intolerant of learning curves.

Our prior dance experience consisted of an awkward, argumentative two-step that opened up the dance floor at our wedding.  And we have been seen dancing the typical free form, no contact bob and shimmy that gay men do at clubs, inspired by a few drinks or out of obligation to the fact that we are, after all, gay men.

He’s actually a quite a good dancer.  He can salsa and merengue and his vogueing  was admired in certain circles during the 1990’s.  I have been occasionally acclaimed, and more often reprehended for my tendency to throw a lot of shoulder action into my dancing.

Tango lessons have leveled the playing field.  This was a pleasant surprise, and, as he explains, it’s a lot harder being choreographed than just moving your body to the beat.  I, on the other hand, prefer being choreographed.  I enjoy rules, proven, trustworthy rules.  I need instructions for every part of my body because left to its own devices, it’s not pretty.  So, we’re both stumbling through the lessons, quick to accuse each other when we make a mistake, yet each determined to get it right.

There’s still something strange to me watching two men dance the tango.  Perhaps it’s a vestige of internalized homophobia, which I thought I had overcome through numerous public displays of affection and tempting disapproval from my sixtyish Romanian hairdresser when I confirmed once and for all that I wear a wedding ring because I’m married to a man and even agreeing to enter my name as the “wife” at the Macy’s bridal registry.

There’s a great line from comedian Bob Smith (also a Buffalo native) which I’ll paraphrase:  “As gay men, my partner and I demand our equal right to display affection in public as long as we can maintain the right to avoid affection in the privacy of our own home.”  This is something I can relate to though Hunny-Bunny (H.B.) sees it the other way around.

Anyway, my point is that I have to get over this hang-up over watching two men tangoing.  I have no problem watching two men do other kinds of intimate things together, not that I’m a voyeur or a porn-addict, I’m just saying I’m being a bit hypocritical.

As long as there are no mirrors involved, I feel perfectly comfortable dancing the tango with other men.  I do find it easier to lead than to follow but I think anyone would.   It’s pretty tough to remember your steps while trying to keep in synch with your partner.  Luckily, due to a decided height advantage, I end up leading H.B. most of the time.

But the cool thing about our tango class is that it’s “open role.” This means the program operates with the mantra, repeated by the instructors with a certain pride and fervor:  “Everyone leads.  Everyone follows.”  This is how it really should be in the world.   No one should be stuck in the same role, stressed out by constantly setting the pace or having to politely endure being led by someone who really has no idea what he’s doing.

Which brings me (finally) to my insight of the day.  I like being gay because it gives me a right to be flexible with gender roles.  There are times when I’m happy being gruff and domineering and others when I prefer to be coy and wouldn’t mind being on the receiving end of a little chivalry.

In the meantime, I’ll work on my same-sex tango-phobia.  I think it’s a good thing to push oneself on these issues.  Our instructors have invited us to join a queer tango troupe performing at various public venues.  That would be the ultimate test.

Are you a cat or are you a Cat?

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It was only a matter of time before I put up a post about Chloë, Miss Chloë the vet tech calls her at the animal clinic.  She’s my tiger-stripe domestic short hair, and she keeps me company every night while I’m typing on my desktop (or playing on-line Scrabble during my too frequent literary lapses).  My partner and I have a two-bedroom apartment and I’ve dubbed the guest bedroom:  “Chloë’s room,” sometimes to discourage unwanted houseguests, as in “Sorry, but Chloë doesn’t like sharing her room.”  But before Chloë came along, the guest bedroom was my home office so we’ve worked out a co-habitation arrangement—she’s not allowed to jump on the computer desk and I’m not allowed to harass her while she’s sleeping under the guest bed.  Actually, neither of us follow these rules, and we end up glowering at each other for stretches of time over the invasion of our respective personal spaces.  But we never stay angry at each other for long.

The title of this post references Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series (the “animals” and “Animals” that inhabit Oz), and like a true Maguire geek, at least once a week I take Chloë aside and ask her the question.  Chloë is immensely interested in household chores like sweeping, dusting, cleaning the toilet and washing the dishes.  It’s awfully annoying to have someone watching you do all the work without even offering to help out a little.  So my partner and I fantasize sometimes that we could dress up Chloë in a maid’s uniform and cap and have her bus our dinner dishes, tidy up the kitchen, mop the bathroom every now and then.  The least she could do is clean up her own litterbox considering she is so fascinated when I do it.

Chloë doesn’t think much of books.  She prefers television, but when it comes to entertainment, she’ll forsake any kind of media for the joy of attacking my shoe laces or batting around a shiny piece of foil.  She’s really quite a tom boy.  When we bought her a fancy glass beaded collar, she was insufferably tetchy and greatly relieved when we took it off of her.  But in case any Christian evangelists are thinking that her unladylike tendencies (she’s downright bullying at times) are the result of her upbringing by two dads, let me make this clear:  she was born that way.  At six weeks old, she used to chase me around the apartment like Davey going after Goliath.  I like to tell our friends that Chloë is a lesbian, but really, Chloë keeps her own counsel regarding matters of the heart.  It wouldn’t matter to me if Chloë chose a boy cat or a girl cat.  I’m open minded that way.

Someday I’ll write a story about Chloë.  It will have to involve birds, toilet flushing, chewing up flower arrangements, cracker boxes—all her favorite things.  I envision something in the thriller genre, maybe a detective novel, though she doesn’t have a long enough attention span for a convoluted plot.  Or mayble I’ll write a story in the vein of M. Night Shyamalan.  Like most cats, Chloë can see dead people.