Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Sad News: Thomas (Gus) Kosta, of The Dish Restuarant, Dead at age 43

Funeral is tomorrow morning, and there are cars leaving from The Dish on 8th Avenue before 8am. Here is the death notice that appeared in the Times:

Kosta (Gus) Thomas
THOMAS--Kosta (Gus), passed away suddenly while on vacation in Nicaragua, September 5, 2007. Born June 7, 1964 in Queens NY, survived by parents George and Irene Thomas; sister and brother-in-law, Maria and Anesti Makedon; nieces, Irene, Nikki, and Anastasia Makedon; all of Queens NY. A former NYPD officer and founding partner/owner of "The Dish Restaurant" 201 8th Avenue Chelsea, NY, Gus loved people and life. His warm, welcoming smile greeted thousands over the years in his community. His shared adventurous zest for each and everyday was better than a morning coffee. A wake will be held at Fairchild and Sons 1570 Northern Blvd. Manhasset, NY 11030, 516627-2000. Saturday, September 15, 2007, 3pm-5pm and 7 pm-9pm; Sunday, September 16, 2007, 3pm-5pm and 7pm-9 pm. Funeral Mass, Monday September 17, 2007, 10 am, Greek Orthodox of St. Demetrios 84-35 152nd St. Jamaica, NY, 11432, 718-291-2420.

Here was a former policeman who ran a restaurant in the heart of Chelsea that became a center of gay life in the city's most famous queer shtetl. When I worked in the neighborhood I had breakfast there everyday, and without fail Gus would greet me and sit and schmooze for a bit. When my office moved uptown, i felt like I was losing touch with a community because I wouldn't be eating there every day. There were actually days I left home early just to have breakfast there even though it was completely out of my way and inconvenient, simply because it was an experience of home in a particular way. This is what Gus created. And it has hard to imagine Chelsea without him.

Pay it no mind honey, but attention must be paid...

Randy Wicker, one of the early heroes of the post Stonewall gay movement was steadfast in his support for Marsha P. (for "pay it no mind") Johnson. I've posted the poem that Jimmy Camicia wrote that was inspired by Marsha's story, and way of speaking, which the poem captured perfectly. But I am very happy to note that Randy Wicker has now uploaded old videos of Marsha on YouTube. And I am happy to see that there have been comments from young queer folk who stay at Sylvia's place, and who know the history. This warms my heart, since in the past the history of queer people has been hidden, lost or passed down by word of mouth and broken across chains of generations. Technology is changing that.

Jack Wild, Elijah Wood and Psychedelic Children's Entertainment

Here it is Saturday morning, the time of the week for kids' show. It's when I would get up to watch HR Pufnstuf when I was a kid...well a little more than a kid, a young teen really, because I had a crush on the teen star Jack Wild who made his reputation as the Artful Dodger in the film version of Oliver. Pufnstuf was very weird, and to this day people laugh at the drug references and major trippiness of the show.

Over at the queer pagan blog, the eponymous Michael Mahler has posted a video of a similarly odd bit of children's entertainment from today that also features a sexy young man who many of us fancy — Elijah Wood — and there he is dancing with, well, I am not sure what to say he's dancing with. People in odd costumes not unlike the characters on Pufnstuf. However, while this show is trippy in it's own way, it doesn't really have the pagan animist sensibility of Pufnstuf, and sensibility that Mahler might well appreciate. Even if Witchiepoo is the villian.

Next week would have been Jack Wild's 55th birthday by the way. When he died two years ago I was stunned by how affected I was by his death. I probably hadn't thought about him in years. Except that we were born a week apart — and the thought that this sweet cute young man had grown old and died of cancer of the mouth from his inability to stop smoking pierced my heart — and reminded me of my own mortality.

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu

This Japanese New Year's post card of Hasidic Jews celebrating Rosh HaShana is one I have always loved. The phrase in English below, "Please continue your favors toward me this year too," is an English translation of the traditional Japanese request "Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu" after saying the new year's greeting which is the headline of this post.

The Jewish custom at this time of year is to seek forgiveness from others we have interacted with in the previous year, since in this time of meditative atonement, there can be no at-one-ment with God until we are at one with each other.

In that spirit, if there are any readers who have been offended by what you're read here, I ask your forgiveness. And for those who hold no anger, but only interest or affection, kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.

And while we are on the subject of Hasidic Jews and celebrations, I'd like to note that this month is also the 5th anniversary of the release of the film Trembling Before G-d. And that this film has had an enormous effect not only in orthodox Jewish communities around the world, but in other faith communities where orthodox response has broken the community and cut off those members who are queer. To celebrate the amazing changes this film has wrought, and to help continue the work it has begun, there are parties being held to support the film and its work. Follow the link if you wish to help organize a party, or attend one. Or just to buy the film — along  with a documentary about the effects of the film after its release. 

(Anti-Retro)Viral Advertising and Gay Sex

This condom ad is one of a series from Ogilvy Singapore. In the other two one of the figures is very clearly female. Here, not. So I assume this is a male couple, an ad for condom use in a city-state where queer sex is a crime that comes with a heavy prison sentence — especially if you are the political rival of the dictator Lee Kuan Yew. So did the ad run, or is just posted on Ads of the World for publicity and award possibilities? And the possibility that folks like me will pick it up and spread it online.

L'sangha tovah

My best wishes to all for a sweet and queer Jewish Buddhist new year. This evening marks the start of Rosh HaShana, when all Jews (even Buddhist and Pagan Jews) come together as a community and stand together in awareness of the One. In ten days, at Yom Kippur we make it explicit from the start that no one is to be excluded from the community of prayer and return. For that reason, this queer Jewish Buddhist deviates (ahem) from the traditional greeting to wish you L’sangha tovah.

Yes, sangha is a Buddhist term, but for this Jubu, sangha is  defined not merely as those Buddhists who are on that path consciously, but all of us, because all of us are in this together. All of us are part of, not separate from, the Divine (or from each other or the whole planet or all creation for that matter). And the Jewish prayers and rituals for this period of remembrance and return are all devised to (break) open our hearts to each other so we can experience this connection consciously. So we can experience the connection of Conscious Community.

Of course the Buddhists use the word sangha to refer to the formal monastic community, or those who are recognized as having achieved a high degree of realization. In the U.S. today the word is used colloquially to refer to the group of people one sits with regularly, those who share one’s practice.

However you define sangha, may you travel the path that is enlightenment in every step with them (and with all beings) in sweetness throughout the year.

Queer Cowboys In Advertising

The Marlboro man. John Wayne. The American archetype of masculinity is the cowboy. So what does it mean when a movie studio, which in fact is the perpetrator of such imagery, shows a cross-dressing cowboy? And just who is this ad supposed to appeal to? When they ask, "do you miss the good old cowboys?" do they think we don't know that many of the actors in those old Westerns were quite queer? Or is this simply a reaction to Brokeback Mountain, a  call for the blindness of the past?

The Jack that Larry Craig wanted was clearly a pair of shoes...

In my continuing survey of heterosexual panic about getting checked out in the men's room in advertising (or fascination with same) here's an ad for Jack Shoes. Which is clearly why Senator Craig touched the other man's foot — he really was into the shoes. That's all it was about. Right?

Looks like they are selling man juice to me

The French advertising agency that came up with this campaign for Diesel's new fragrance, Fuel for Life, knows exactly what they are doing, and what they are really selling. This is homoerotic to the nth degree — the placement of the product in both these ads next to the crotch tells the whole story. So just what has been finally legalized?  The market for cologne that smells like cum may be rather limited. I mean, it is readily available.

Happy 117th Birthday Colonel Sanders

No, this is not the Colonel Sanders mummy. It is one of a number of cast statues of Harland Sanders that were kept at the KFC warehouse across the street from my apartment in Tokyo. Though perhaps someday, when the relics of our civilization are dug up by some future race they will look at these statues and decide that, much as museum curators say of anything they dig up that they don't know what it is, it was used for ritual purposes. And with the colonel, to a degree, they'd be right.