Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Bullying: a low human instinct institutionalized, examined on screen.

Why Lindsay Anderson's "If..." couldn't be made today, and why it's needed more than ever.

 
Tomorrow night in New York there will be a rare screening of the 1968 British film If... as part of the Queer/Art/Film series so ably put together by Ira Sachs and Adam Baran. This film helped me get through my hellish high school experience — because even though I did not go to a British boy's boarding school and was never caned (or had my nipples twisted by a priest) I felt a complete identification with the students suffering in the stultifying atmosphere of the school in the film. And as a teen struggling with coming out one year pre-Stonewall the sub-plot in the film of a homosexual romance between two of the boys, presented without judgement — in fact presented romantically, I found the film transgressively thrilling.

Of course, the heroes of the film fight back against the school in a climax of bloody violence that makes Columbine look like a picnic — it was made at a time when revolt was in the air and student protests were taking place across the U.S. and Europe. But in the U.S. it was the students who were dying at the hands of the National Guard. In this film, Malcolm McDowell as Mick and his buddies take up arms and open fire on graduation ceremonies. For me, this was divine sublimation. I was that angry, but I certainly wasn't going to act out any of my fantasies of revenge. Today however, in a country where it's easy to get a gun, we actually have scenes like that in If... And they are not dramatically satisfying. They are tragic.

And everyone weeps for the fallen. But in the last few months, looking at the young suicides - those who killed themselves because they were tormented for their sexuality, real or percieved - I know that a suicide is rage turned inward, rage turned at a target where it will be effective since rage against bullies, schools, adults seems hopeless to these young people we have lost.

If... gave me courage to survive my high school years. And showed me an image of gay love that was casual, no big deal, just something that was simply right. More revolutionary that shooting prefects from a rooftop.

I haven't seen If... since the late 60s. In the last few years issues like Columbine and other acts like it have made me wonder if it were even more relevant today. Not because it made heroes of the boys who fought back, but it made it clear why they felt  the need to do so. And with the recent increased coverage of lgbt youth suicide (I won't say increased suicide, because it's always been there, quiet and not covered by media with the serious it has always deserved) I find If... even more important to see and talk about in the lgbt community even here in the U.S.

Consider the case of Andrew Shrivell — a cyber-bully in a position of power. He might have been able to continue his insane attacks had not the recent events helped shine an light on his ugly little mind. But this is the tip of the iceberg, and like most icebergs, the vast majority of nastiness is below the radar screen and not covered by media. It is the living hell kids go through every day.

"It Gets Better" videos are a good thing. They give hope to those who have resources enough to find them. But it doesn't change day to day reality. And when you can members of Congress, and institutionalized religion on the side of bullies, it's no wonder teachers look the other way and our schools become our local version of Lord of the Flies.

The truth is that children are not comfortable with ambiguity at certain ages. They like certainty, categories, clarity, definition. And lgbt people upset those categories. Hell, there are adults who never grew out of the this childish need to see the world in black and white. Those of us who've been over the rainbow know there are all different shades in between and a whole universe of colors to play with. And that's nothing to be scared of — rather it is to be celebrated.

The problem with If... is that Columbine happened. And while I had revenge fantasies, I have no desire at all to shoot down the student body of Pat Robertson's Liberty University. I just want to shatter their color blinders.

School bullying / Anti gay bullying and advertising:

I've been watching this Chrysler Town and Country commercial for months and every time I see it I am disturbed. It's clear the spot was directed so that the boy who jumps in his mother's van is running from a gang of boys who want to beat him up.

The voiceover suggests it's just a race home, though even in this challenge there is a note of menace.

You can see from the face of "Parker," the boy they are chasing, that he is running in fear.

What was the agency that made this thinking? It's bad enough that school teachers across the country turn a blind eye (or even participate) to bullying behavior. But for an ad agency, in this case, I believe it's Fallon since they're the agency of record for Chrysler, to run an ad which uses the situation to get attention (and entertain and sell) in the today's climate is irresponsible. Because while it's true this behavior is widespread, showing it in a commercial in this way normatizes it. Condones it, even as Parker manages to get away because of the hero product, and his clueless mom driving the Town and Country.

Chrysler should stop running this ad immediately. And both Chrysler and Fallon should be contributing serious money to organizations that combat the scourge of bullying and organizations that protect lgbt youth and youth at risk of bullying.

There has been enough written about this online for me to know now that I'm not the only person who sees this storyline. And some say that the voiceover track was changed from a more overt bullying situation. I wouldn't be surprised given the way the spot is directed. I would guess that the agency presented this to the client as an inexpensive fix to a bad mistake. Sorry guys, doesn't work. You ought to eat the cost, and reshoot a new spot. And pay for your mistake with support for bullied youth.

Take a look at the spot: do you see this the way I see it? And where the hell is GLAAD? After last week's awards to agencies for the good they do, why haven't they raised this as an issue?

 

William "Wolf" Agress, who would have been 54 today...

Bill was my first serious relationship, when I was in college. We met at a meeting of Gay Youth — he started coming as a regular when I was president in 1971. He was aggressively snobbish about language and intelligence and used it as a defense since he was hit on by lots of guys of all ages. It made him hard to get to know. In fact, I didn't even like him when we first met. And he was never easy. But he was an original — and he was always an activist. I loved him a lot. And I miss him to this day.

When we first began our relationship, he was still smooth and free of chest hair. And he knew it was a look I preferred, this being the androgynous '70s. He asked me once, "Will you still love me when I'm hairy?" I told him yes, and I did. Even when he grew a wild beard. His wild heart took him to traveling the country — he lit out for the territories. We were each other's first — and the memories I share of him to this day with my friend Marion, who was there, leaves us both laughing and crying at the same time.

At his memorial service I was weeping uncontrollably — and then the rabbi came out to speak of him. The rabbi was cute, and I turned to Bill's brother and said, with a moment of lightness in the grief, "Bill would have said this rabbi was cute." His brother said, "He did, he me the rabbi before he died, and that's just the first thing he said to the rabbi — 'you're really cute.'" And then we laughed and cried at the same time.

Bill was one of the first to be diagnosed with HIV, and he was a founding member of the PWA coalition. He wrote for their magazine — articles like "THE CONDOM CONNOISSEUR"  — and he hosted their cable TV show. 

If you're a regular reader, you will know I've written about the Tupelo tree in the Ramble's Tupelo Meadow in Central Park. Bill and I used to climb that tree together. And when I took this photo out to scan it, underneath it I found a poem written for Wolf (he was always Bill to me even though he changed his name to Wolf, which was in fact the English translation of his Hebrew name, Z'ev) by Eric Thorndale, one of the original members of GAA who we were friends with and worked with as part of GAA's AgitProp committee. Eric, like me, was interested in medieval and renaissance English literature. The difference is that he regularly wrote poems in the style of the period. The poem below, that he wrote for Bill, mentions the Tupelo tree in the first line.

For Sweet William:

Thou comely Swain    by Trysting Tree,
I sought in Words    a looking Glass
That long undimm'd    might shine of thee
But as I laid me    on the Grass
And watch'd the lighted Morning shine,
I thought how Words    might wane and pass,
Which Thought    the while was woeful Tine.

What Words need I    when all's behight?
I'd bed in Burrs    could I but cleave
To thee    in blazing Bliss unstight —
How would that Joy     me speechless leave

How would my leaping Heart be blithe
When wordless    in thine Arms I writhe!

Sunday Morning Short Film: Facing A New Age

For this the month of another birthday in my marvelously queer 50s, here's a sweet and smart little film that was presented in the Documentary Shorts section of NewFest this last June. If you like this film, be sure to join NewFest and come to events throughout the year as well as next year's lgbt film festival in NYC. As one of the founding members of Gay Youth of NY, it's interesting to reconnect with the alumni and watch each other grow old, those that us who have survived. And this film raises many important issues for us and our community.

Fundamentalists see violence as acceptable: Pinchas is the template for Haredi response

Voz Is Neias, the website of the Orthodox Jewish Community, reports today that youngsters putting up posters in Jerusalem to condemn the deadly shooting spree in a Tel Aviv gay youth center last week were attacked by haredim in Mea She'arim.

The comments in response to the report range from thoughtful to hateful with everything in between, as responses to hot button issues on a blog usually are. But make for interesting reading into the minds of a community (if a rather skewed view that can't be called representative.)

Vigil for the Victims of the Attack on the GLBT Youth Center in Tel Aviv

This evening Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in NYC hosted a vigil for the victims of the attack last week in Tel Aviv. Co-sponsored by a list of groups that was so long you would think there would have been a vast crowd. Nope. Barely a third of the Westbeth yard was filled with people. It was heartening to see all the young people from the Center's youth program though — these kids live with the threat of violence on a daily basis in ways many of us older folk forget.

Speaking at the gathering were Rep. Jerry Nadler and Jay Michaelson of Nehirim among others. Christine Quinn spoke, though what she thought of the huge sign for Yetta Kurland in the window of her campaign HQ across the yard who knows.

Carl Siciliano of the Ali Forney Center spoke movingly of the plight of gay youth in this country. And David Saranga from the Israeli Consulate in NY spoke of Israel's commitment to full LGBT equality (though what that means in a country where only Orthodox rabbis can perform religious marriage ceremonies I don't know).

Here are the videos of Rep. Nadler and Jay Michaelson speaking:

Sunday Morning (Not A) Cartoon: If I was straight

I had planned to post some of the usual queer animation when I came across this video, and felt it just had to be seen. It is sweet, moving, sad and funny. Check out his youtube channel.

This is why Mark Segal started Gay Youth New York in 1971. Today a young man could face the same issues we all dealt with, but today he can share it with the world.

Marriage equality, the NYC Prop 8 Demo and channeling anger

Tonight the NYC queer community expressed its anger at the passage of Prop 8 in California with an old-fashioned street demonstration outside of the LDS church on Broadway and 65th Street. It was encouraging to see thousands of us to fight for marriage equality, even though it was for another state. How many of those that were out tonight have been part of the marriage equality fight in New York state? Certainly quite a few, since I recognized quite a number from the annual lobbying day in Albany. But many are not connected to any organized efforts. And there were some who chanted slogans that were anti-church.

Now, I am not exactly pro-church. I continue to be amazed that the one thing that brought together all the feuding religions to sit down in Jerusalem was their desire to issue a statement condeming queer people. It's enough to make a queer Jewish Buddhist into a militant atheist. Except that's actualy accepting their definition of queer folk — outside the spiritual. And quite frankly, I refuse to deny my connection to the Divine.

 Ours is a community that has been spiritually wounded by the religious establishment. And often, at demonstrations like these, where the religious establishment has truly done something heinous, the pain of this wounding comes out in expressions of hatred for religion and denial of our deepest longings for experiencing the Divine. The reason I seek loving relationships with men is that is where I experience the Divine Presence. I experience divinity and mystery in all my relations (to steal a phrase from Body Electric) whether they are physical or not, with men and women. But that highest connection has been in loving relationship with another man.

This evening I heard a lot of anger. And anger is appropriate. But I don't want my queer community to throw out the baby with the bath water by jettisoning spiritual connection while fighting organized bigotry and ignorance masquerading as religion.

Over at fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver has been debunking the analysis that it was the black  community that was responsible for the Prop 8 loss. His analysis of the voting patterns showed that it was a demographic I fall in, that is voters over 45, that made the difference.

But the point i really want to make here is the lesson that needs to be learned from the Obama campaign. The queer community in California created advertising that talked to people who were already on their side. Or just to themselves. They did not get shoe leather on the ground organizing in communities around the state. They did not work hard to engage people in the middle who could be swayed one way or the other. Sure, the LDS poured lots of money into the state. But churches are also communities that are highly organized. Where is our community organization? Our leaders are not deep in the community — and they sure dont' do much cross community organizing.

The very fact that we are even having this issue be fought so closely is something I never expected to see in my lifetime. I expected when I came out and joined the gay movement in 1970 that I would see a world where we felt safe, and were not objects of ridicule, disrespect or violence. That how we expressed our love would not be a violation of the law. I wasn't expecting to see legal recognition on the order of marriage. In fact, in 1970 there were many in the movement who wanted nothing to do with the institution they saw as obsolete.

I deeply believe marriage is important and makes communities stronger. And so I want it for my queer community. I believe deeply in the American value of freedom of religion. That means there will be religions out there that will never recognize my relationships as either valid or expressions of Divine love through human action. That's okay with me. I don't have to join that religion. And they don't have to marry me to anyone.

The mixture of marriage rites and marriage rights are some of the confusion that makes this a problem in the pubiic arena. But we are not engaging the people of faith who would be on our side. I am thrilled that the Empire State Pride Agenda has a program called Pride in the Pulpit, which engages communities of faith and leaders of those communities so that they actually are a large part of the efforts in Albany to extend marriage rights. I would have liked to have seen those people at the demonstration tonight. I chose to wear a star of David and a kippah at the demonstration be be out as a person of faith, because I felt it was important not only to be queer identified, but identified with Divine love. Which transcends religion.

May we open up to the pain of our spiritual wounding and use it to reconnect. May we use this reconnection to reach out to those who would hear us and support us if we learned to listen to them and truly hear their concerns. And I know we will prevail in our cause, because ultimately, nothing can withstand the power of love. 

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One of the nice things about the demonstration was I got to hang out with friends. I ran into people from GLYNY Again, the alumni organization of Gay & Lesbian Youth of New York (in photo below). I ran into friends from synagogue. From the Center. From my old schools. Work. It was quite a lot of fun in that way.

And as I left I saw the line of police cars that we so often see even when there are no demonstrations. As though they were there to intimidate the population. When Ann Northrup was instructing the marshalls on how to make sure there was no violence at the march, all I could think was, there are provocateurs in this crowd. There are secret police taking photos. And the line of police cars did not make me feel safer, they reminded me that the Bush years have been a growing police state, that used the terrorist attack of 2001 as an excuse to further strip us of our freedoms. I can only pray that the new president can reverse this trend, even though so much of this erosion is local.

Gay Youth to GLYNY Again: A Queer Odyssey

The first generation of post-Stonewall gay and lesbian youth made an important contribution to the generation that followed. And they in turn passed their contributions on...in GLYNY...Gay & Lesbian Youth New York. And they in turn...well, Out At The Center captures it all here:

I'm just proud to be in this lineage and that we continue to do good work in the community.

Sunday Afternoon at Splash Bar's Wet T-Shirt Contest

Okay, not really Miss Thingyan. These are photos from the annual ThinGyan New Year's Water Festival celebrated by the Burmese community in New York City down on Henry Street on the Lower East Side. Great noodles. Deliciously cold iced orchid tea. And lots of water from super soakers and silver bowls splashed around for good luck in the new year. There was also entertainment — traditional dance troupes and singers from the more than 30 different ethnic groups that make up the Burmese nation. And while most of the men were in those sexy sarongs called longyi, this young man had to endure the heat, and dance, in this traditional fashion statement.

There was also a fund raiser raffle to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Nargis. The day turned out to be a GLYNY Again mini-mini reunion, since I went to the festival with John Chiafalo, the 4th Chair of Gay Youth in the early 70s, and Mark K., who is the GLYNY Again archivist (which is not so different from the position he held in GLYNY in the mid 80s).

Afterward we were good and soaked...well just a little sprinkled...we headed uptown for another ethnic celebration by an exotic culture. Yes, it was the Bastille Day celebration on East 60th Street, where there were many delicious desserts, including this handsome young fellow in a balloon version of a revolutionary tricorner:

Ah, New York City. Why would one want to live anywhere else in the world?