Diving Into the Wreck: Summer Gay Thread 2016

http://www.momondo.com/inspiration/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/barcelona-gay-pride-parade-2016-alamy-.jpg

The spring thread was moribund; we needed a new one. I miss y'all, and we need to record our experiences, now more than ever.

Yes, lets do it!

I can finally tell this story: we went to a wake for my uncle a few weeks ago. Unlike my mom's family, I don't see my dad's family that often anymore (and I never really knew the uncle who died all that well), so this was the first time that most of them were meeting my husband. All good, no weirdness. At one point, though, a guy who knew my uncle in the army gets up and starts telling some stories, culminating in one about the two of them "busting" a suspected homo amongst their ranks. I couldn't even look at my husband as this was going on--not because I was shocked that some army asshole was a homophobe, but because I was so mortified at bringing him to something where this was being joked about. Later on, I was told that my mom and my aunt were both considering stepping in to cut off his speech (an awkward thing to have to do at such an occasion, obvs) and then we were approached by the minister and his wife (who is also my dad's cousin) who both apologized to us. No big deal in the long run, of course, but I kinda hate how it works where even though I'm sure pretty much everyone in the room was all in agreement in thinking this guy was a shithead, my husband and I were the ones who were made to feel embarrassed.

Summer is for mortifying jokes at family BBQs. Did he know about you and your husband? He must have.

Maybe. He wasn't one of the people I introduced him to, nor had I ever met him before, but it was a really small crowd and word may have gotten around. Eh, I've had a fairly easy ride ever since coming out, and especially since getting married, so this is, as you say, the kinda mortifying shit that's just gonna happen every now and then.

i guess i should go to Folsom St East this Sunday, as it seems a good year to attend a big allegedly transgressive outdoor leatherfest.

Had to pass up a session with the Pianist last weekend bcz of head cold. Goddamn Coughing Man at work, always spreading sickness from the two brats at home.

Anyway, moving on...

Here's something I mentioned elsewhere but kinda wanna get the thoughts of the gays on: Is having Nick Jonas as an ally "aww that's sweet" enough to outweigh the grossness of a straight white hetero celeb with a new album to pimp officiating (whatever that means) a vigil for the Orlando victims?

"Anyway, moving on..." from my last post, that is. Didn't mean to sound like I was dismissing Morbs (sorry).

But please do dismiss my redundant phrasing ("straight white hetero celeb")

i really really hate the term "ally" esp when an opportunistic boywhore like him is involved

Geopolitics are more interesting than gay relationships, so meh to "ally"

The Orlando massacre has rung something in me, so I've been raking the coals of my life the last couple days. For anyone interested, here's my account of my first gay bar experience, the first visit as banal as you'd expect.

prefer badminton to both

xp

i've picked a great season for my first Florida visit in 32 years...

sorry for the coal-raking, i'm sure it's been hard.

Not my first gay bar experience, but during a fairly early one a guy came up to me and said "Excuse me, weren't you in Fiddler on the Roof like a long time ago?" then cackled and walked away. I'm fairly certain I was being insulted, but I'm not sure exactly how.

good exit line too!

who wasn't in fiddler on the roof like a long time ago?

were you dressed as an Old World milkman?

via donna rouge... I saw the crowd in front of the Stonewall on Monday evening but was not tempted to join them because of the entirely familiar shit that's described here:

Cuomo took the stage, to much applause from the crowd around us. We chanted “Pass ENDA,” the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Even the promise of employment non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation did not move the crowd. Instead, they responded enthusiastically to Cuomo’s promises to “do what we did after 9/11.” As the applause broke out, I flashed back to memories of the FBI raiding mosques, homes—including my own—and Muslim charity organizations. If the crowd remembered how the state had imprisoned thousands of Muslims after 9/11, it certainly did not show it or did not care. If anyone remembered that the global “War on Terror” had taken hundreds of thousands of lives, it certainly did not seem to bother them.

Politician after politician took the stage and talked, not about homophobia, but about gun control. In the same breath, they lauded the NYPD for “protecting New Yorkers.” Indeed, the police seemed at home in front of Stonewall, carrying the same assault rifles that had been used two days earlier to kill the people we had come to mourn. A group of NYPD counterterrorism officers with canines, stood in the middle of the street talking to each other in relaxed voices. They were one with the crowd.

In the crowd, all around us, were the flimsy politics of those who thought sexuality was just one hurdle in the fight against an otherwise-just society. The majority of Stonewall attendees were enamored with the rich, powerful people who had hijacked our grief, and would not hear of any disruptions. We tried, at various points, to heckle the men in suits and rally the folks around us to engage in actual chanting. My friend shouted “Fuck the NYPD” during De Blasio’s speech. She received contemptuous glares from the audience, with one man simply saying “No.” Another man, standing next to her, said “They’re the only people protecting us.” She responded, “Do you know where you are? You’re at Stonewall.” Another voice interjected, “That was a long time ago.”

http://muftah.org/queer-muslim-unwelcome-new-stonewall/#.V2QcIrsrJhE

Fuck Cuomo, fuck de Blasio, fuck the police.

there is a medical device called a "sphincterotome"

I think there should be a sports arena called the Sphincterodome

welcome to the sphincterdome!

well what a quiet summer

Alfred nearly exposed me to Zika in Miami

The cheeseburger croquettes were more lethal.

I just returned from Boulder, the un-gayest city in America.

i'm going to Boston... a close second?

need a report on the Alley Bar

There never was a thread after this, huh?

Boulder, the un-gayest city in America.

I disagree with this, btw.