I just picked up the latest issue (the “L.A.” issue) of Butt magazine finally. I grabbed the last (only?) copy from American Apparel. If guys are interested in this great magazine, step in and ask for them to get more copies. Do it on Coming Out Day on Oct. 12th and kill two birds with one stick. AA has several copies of the Butt compilation book but that’s available from Amazon. As for the issue, it’s a mixed bag as always but gets a thumbs up from me. Six of the ten articles are studs in my book:
JAVIER PERES THE BAD ASS ART DEALER by Jop van Bennekom (an interesting philosopher/art dealer speaks on porn and art snobbery)
HOLLYWOOD by prvtdncr (a fun photo essay of cryptic homo graffiti)
MARCO FLORES THE AWESOME HOUSECLEANER by Frank Rodriguez (an “everyhomo” portrait - I really dig all of these “everyone-has-a-story-to-tell” interviews)
GORE VIDAL THE FANTASTIC MAN by Gert Jonkers (short but sweet interview with the maverick now living in L.A. after many years in Italy)
JEPPE THE DANISH POPSTAR by Sean DeLear (a young European’s thoughts on living in L.A.)
BUTTSTUFF one LA sex story (short story that skates smoothly between cliched hand mag porn and slice-of-life essay)
As for the others… I don’t really get the whole Perez Hilton “phenom” (if that’s what it is) and since he doesn’t seem to care if people get him, I’m totally at peace with that. He’s a part of Los Angeles, no doubt. Our online pharmacy is the perfect resource for people to get their drugs without any hassles or awkwardness. buy cialis We work hard to make sure you save money every time you shop with us. buy levitrabuy soma At our online store, you pay less and get more. buy viagra
On Friday night, fifteen or so of us from P-FLAG and Q Center gathered to make balloon hats for the entry in the Eugene Celebration parade on Saturday morning. The hats turned out great and the entry made a real impact. I heard from colleagues (before they knew I had the slightest role in pulling it together) that they turned out great. Sally and Elise spearheaded the entry - thanks, folks! P-FLAG were selling the hats at their booth after the parade. I hope they were able to recoup some costs. Sheppard, a new guy just moved to town, talked to me about gayeugene.com and gay community events as I was leaving the work party. He said he’d be at the Q Center meeting on Monday but wasn’t there. I hope everything is alright. Sunday I had to cancel the barbecue with Pride committee I’d scheduled at the house to celebrate a successful Pride. Long story… I might post about it when I’m able to laugh about it. Monday night Q Center transitional board met with a streamlined and disciplined agenda (yay!) . I’m charged with drawing up some guidelines and specifications for a contest to decorate Q Center to be a more solid meeting space with some window treatments that support some privacy, some climate control, and… who knows what. I may use this blog to gather my thoughts and collect people’s comments. Edward and I both have great ideas and I’d like to get notice to the schools at the UofO and L.C.C. We had two new people at the meeting that were rather quiet but then it was a business-like, disciplined meeting. Jer is organizing a road trip to Oregon Aquarium in Lincoln City on Saturday. I might go but my weekends are becoming more precious. I didn’t attend Eugene Celebration this year; I was too busy with work and fighting.
I met with the Q Center transitional board focus group (phew!) last night at Allan Brothers coffee. We had a good meeting. It’s funny how groups of people take a certain time to gel before they really get down to business. Q Center is going to be a success because a lot of great people are devoted. I think everyone can sense that devotion but ties beyond the devotion will take time to grow. Tonight I sat in on the meeting of the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Emerald Empire (the drag court, in a nutshell.) Again, it’s a great group of devoted people. They had a good year last year - raising $10,000 for local organizations like HIV Alliance, Greenhill Humane Society, Centro Latino, Q Center and others. I knew that doing drag can be quite an expense but I had no idea that so many members gave so much individually - in time, money and other resources. They were presenting their 34th court from the coronation ceremony a few weekends ago. Empress Uno was there, too, from however many years ago and it was an honor to see her. It’s hard to imagine gay life in Lane County thirty years ago. Congratulations to Emperor Tom and Empress Daphne. I attended to get a scoop on the calendar of events for the next year and received a great outline; it’s going to be a busy year. I’m excited for a show in the park this year. I’ll be at next meeting at Mother Kali’s to pay some dues and then try to sit in quarterly or so. I’ll type in their events soon and you’ll see it all under the calendar tab above. Their next event is Investitures on Sept. 21st.
We had a good time in Bend and Portland this last weekend for Edward’s birthday. Driving to Bend Thursday afternoon, we attended a concert by the alternative rock group The Shins. It was a dramatic show; it rained hard for a few minutes between the opening act and The Shins and there was lightening throughout the entire evening. I can’t say The Shins are my favorite band (they covered Pink Floyd’s Breathe for an encore - ‘nough said) but I was with some real fans and there was energy in the air (literally!). After the show ended, we raced back to the Red Lion to sit in the jacuzzi and dip in the pool before it closed at 10pm. I jumped back and forth between the heated jacuzzi and the unheated pool a few times; it’s good for your pores. The front desk at the motel was far from hospitable the entire visit. They acted “put out” having to answer any question we might have. I’m the type that is quite conscious of being part of an obnoxious group and we were not that in the slightest. After the dip, we visited a couple Bend nightspots that had Edward found online: The Blacksmith (dead yet far from welcoming) and Astro nightclub. At Astro, we had some munchies and enjoyed the lively crowd. Everyone seemed to have gotten a charge from the night’s weather. I tried a pomegranite mojito (but can’t say I recommend it) and we shared a crispy pizza and some delicious onion rings. On Friday morning we ate some breakfast at the Black Bear Diner and headed to Ikea in Portland. It’s a beautiful drive to Portland from Bend and we played a fun “name that show” game with my 100 All-Time Top TV Themes CD. Coming into Portland through Gresham was a route none of us was familiar with but we eventually made it to the new Ikea. The five of us flew through it and shared a bit of Swedish meatballs before heading downtown for a cocktail at C.C. Slaughter’s. Next we went out to Saburo for sushi. It was the usual hour wait so we sat and read The Mercury and Willamette Week. After a delicious sushi dinner, we went downtown for dessert at Whole Foods pastry counter and a sweep through Spartacus. Ginny bought a ball gag and something else; it was her first time there. Wandering around downtown we found that Club Portland, the bathhouse, is now closed. Their last day was Sunday of Portland Pride in June, I’m told. I never visited it (never heard a good thing about it) and now I guess I never will. It’s funny how the neighborhood changes. I remember in the early nineties how lively things were and now it’s seems to be just Silverado, Scandal’s, The Eagle and Boxx’s. We sat in Silverado for half an hour or so (enough time for some guy to try to pick me up; always a boast for the ego) and then hit the road. I slept the entire way but we rolled into town about midnight on Friday.
It’s a beautiful night tonight to bring out an introspective mood. I went to the Ems game earlier with my parents. Edward and his son were supposed to join us but they decided they didn’t want to go. I was rather pissed off and yelled at them; it looks like they just stayed home and got high on VH1. My parents and I left the game early before the Ems turned inside out. I grabbed a big soda and bean and cheese burrito at the game so I went to work for a time and then came home to sit up and wait for the lunar eclipse. I pissed in the backyard and then sat outside reading Letters to a Young Poet as the moon slowly slipped into shadow. Then I wandered the neighborhood for a while - watching the stars and the orange moon, wondering why my neighbor had their television on. I wandered around for a time with my hand in my waistband like an old man - a sudden habit of mine over the last couple of days. I stood in a rather introspective mood, not depressed but a strange feeling of craving a change - maybe craving a mistake. I remained staring at the moon for probably half an hour, watching it throb as my vision blurred occasionally. Every cricket and train whistle was celebrating the moon’s change. Then I saw a shooting star and went inside and played Bob Dylan’s “Shooting Star.”
I thought I’d take a moment to check in with some personal studies. I’ve had some friends (and friends of friends) over the last few years that seemed to crash-and-burn in middle age on a whole number of levels and I’m determined not to do that. To try to avoid any crisis, I’ve been studying some about men and their life stages. I finished Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation last month and really enjoyed it. It was a title I picked up when I worked at Barnes and Noble. I’d read C.G. Jung’s Man and His Symbols when I was in community college and have been interested in shared mythologies ever since.
I’m in the middle of Robert Bly’s Iron John and Mark Thompson’s Gay Soul and am really enjoying them both. I tend to read a few books at once these days. Iron John (subtitled A Book About Men) takes a single story from Brothers Grimm and analyzes and expands it through poetry (Blake, Bly, Keats, Neruda), life experiences and studies to discuss the stages of a man’s life. I picked it up for cheap at St. Vincent’s on Seneca in Eugene - they’ve a great book selection, shelved and categorized as any bookstore would be and they have a number of copies of Iron John. Bly states in the introduction that the book doesn’t specifically address homosexual men and their specific issues (my word, for lack of a better one) but that much in the book will speak to them. I’m finding that to be the case. It’s really a gem of a book and I understand the praise that is heaped upon it. I’m going to recommend it to my partner’s sixteen-year-old son after I’m done with it. He’s in the middle of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance right now.
The book Gay Soul (picked up at Powell’s in Portland) is definitely a mixed bag but I’m enjoying it as well. It consists of a number of interviews the author has done with queer thinkers, authors, poets and speakers. I started with the names I recognized (Joseph Kramer, Harry Hay, Paul Monette and Ram Dass) and am now going front to back with the other interviews.
I missed all the Coronation events this weekend. I felt rather behind in projects around the house. I heard Coronation was a great success but haven’t just yet discovered who was coronated. I’ll report once it’s posted around.
I did travel down to Last Resort Campground on the North Umpqua River for their first annual Gay Men’s Camp “Out.” It was a good group of men that I visited with for a few hours. The drive from Eugene was about two hours. The owners, Dustin and Paul, own the nice little campground on the way to Diamond Lake. They have big plans for the future involving cabins and a small lodge. Visit www.golastresort.com for details. I took a walk across the road and down to the North Umpqua and then walked up a little creek they have running alongside the campground. They’ve put in a little swimming spot in the creek. They had a number of activities planned for campers including a hike or two and a short trip to some hot springs. I’d recommend it if you ever want to get out of town with a tent. Next year’s Camp “Out” will certainly go on my list of things to do. I’m not much of a camper at this stage in my life but I have been in the past.
I attended another good transitional meeting at Q Center as it continues to rise from the flames. Unfortunately, attendance was down by about a third compared to the first meeting. We’re still split into three groups: fundraising/grant writing, marketing/visibility and board-building. Next meeting is in a month.
Wow! What a weekend! I’d really welcome more comments on what others thought. Friday night after work, I stopped by the Pride Kick-Off Dance at Indigo District. It was just warming up but it looked like a good crowd gathering. The organizer seemed a little put off that not many men were showing up but, honestly, if your group’s name is Hot Flash Productions and that’s featured over everything and the other eleven times out of the year guys are not welcome to your events, it’s really tough to scream a big welcome to gay guys. It’d be like having an event marketed as “Gloryhole Productions presents a dance for the LGBT community” and expect women to be intrigued. Just my personal opinion…
Saturday morning I showed up at the festival site to help set things up. Things went quite smoothly. There is always room for improvement for next year. About 4:00pm, we started to run into some difficulties. Parking became a problem - next year we will need to hire a dedicated traffic control person instead of relying on volunteers. Then the ADA toilet filled up because someone moved it over to be outside the beer garden and lots of people used it. Then some protesters showed up - seemingly believing we were performing abortions or something. It’s so weird - LGBT people often go through great hurdles to become parents biologically and here are these people insinuating we’re mad abortionists.
Entertainment was really good… a good mix and some great fresh faces. We seem to face the same problem each year of peak attendance being between 2:00pm and 5:00pm and our event goes later. I don’t know if there is a solution. Overall, attendance was up and everyone that I talked to had great things to say. I heard no complaints at all.
That night we got to the White Party at 10:00pm or so and it was hopping. Again, there were little things that could have been better (more food, more bartenders, more dance music grooves vs. hip-hop) but in general it was a smashing success, I think. I can’t say if it was a financial success as the Red Lion must be quite expensive to rent on a Saturday night.
Again, I’d really welcome comments on events that added up to an entire Pride Weekend - the Kick-Off Party by Hot Flash Productions, the march from Saturday Market to the Pride Festival, the Pride Festival, the “Shades” event put on by BRO, the concert by Complicated, the party at Snafu, the White Party by Club Pynk… anything else?
Next weekend… I.S.C.E.E. Coronation and a visit to Last Resort Campground.