Guest Post: Father Tony

Father Tony here, guest blogging for Joe from Fort Lauderdale.

Dear Joe,

No, of course you didn’t call too early this morning. In fact, C and I have been up for hours and have been at the Euro Café on East Sunrise Boulevard, hard by the drawbridge on the Galleria mall side of the Intracoastal. Here, the French proprietress who repeats your order in her tongue squeezes real oranges for the juice which, when first presented, looks weak to my jaded and Winn-Dixied eye. It is so unsaturated by FDC reds and yellows. But, Holy Cleavage of Anita Bryant, the taste of it! We take it outside with flakey croissants to the little aluminum bistro tables, and I pass a TV screen that tells of yet another crane collapse on the Upper East Side. This one twenty blocks north of you, just as the other one had been twenty blocks south of you. Honey, you’re living on the San Andreas Faulty Crane Fault. You know those old phone books that no one in Manhattan recycles? Pile them up in your doorways to cushion the blow of the inevitable.

On the phone, you sounded even more Olympically stressed than you were last week. Come down here. To Florida. Now. This is not a state. It’s a good-for-you spa. It’s a giant avocado green vinyl barca-lounger from which to tri-focally view the concerns of others, with its gears rusted by salt air into the feet-up position. We are daily showered and in the car by 5PM, arriving for dinner at Tropics in Wilton Manors for the two-for-one entrée special, where through the ceiling speakers, Bette Midler sings the State song, From A Distance. Even C, so normally adamant and cynical about politics and the need for social reformation and revolution by and for the middle class, has been able to kick back a bit. He skates to the point of blisters. He throws himself into the waves. He sleeps by the pool. The sun has scoured the corn flower blue of his eyes so that in the space of just three days, those strange nervous men who have surrendered their passports to sane old age by taking root here, seem sweetly quirky to him rather than frightening. You know the ones. They have streaked and ragged yellow hair under a Marlins cap, and their tank tops hang like heavy drapery over skinny shoulders. They get hotel jobs and quit them bitterly. They chain smoke in front of Java Boys, holding the leashes to poodles and eyeing the too young guys who shuttle between Bill’s and Alibi hoping the doormen won’t recognize them.

Still, if not for C, I would not know the day’s news. That in France, gas now costs $8.20 a gallon, and that it is taxed there astronomically, so as to curb its use. C and I argue about whether or not raising the price of gas in the US would eventually drive its citizens away from oil gluttony and into demanding more and better and cleaner mass transit. Can we love a Hillary or a McCain who want a tax holiday? Isn’t that feeding more of the drug to an already addled public?

He also tells me that members of the Board of the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority for New York) each get several lifetime EZ passes that exempt them and their chosen ones from paying highway tolls. C has developed intolerance for those who take, for careless big business, for government that is dishonest, for the fat-with-sin who would dictate our behavior. I fear he is on the edge of becoming some sort of radical activist, and it takes all my energy just to keep him distracted with savory food and casual sex.

Sitting outside with our orange juice and croissants, the cigarette smoke from a gaggle of style-riddled European women sifts through my hair. The strength of the Euro has brought them into town in droves. They are buying real estate, just as the South Americans bought it in recent years, snatching up bargains that they could not quite afford until now. Their quilted silver leather handbags are not knock-offs. Yesterday we drove through the quiet streets of Coral Ridge where the for-sale signs at the ends of so many driveways are like tombstones for plague victims. The market continues to plummet. I wonder who is to blame. The fools who acquire a level of debt that exceeds their paying ability and the value of their homes, or the banks that so willingly made those mortgages knowing full well that their giddy and greedy actions would eventually result in this situation? Should I feel guilty about walking through a bank-owned two-bedroom/two bathroom that can be had for the price of a sedan?

I am distracted by a passel of cyclists who wiz by on their way to the beach. “Look at the heterosexuals”, I say to C, pointing at them.

“What do you mean?” he says.

“It’s just the way they buy all that matching shimmery gear. The tight fitting red, white or blue spandex with all the logos and the matching goggles and helmets and shoes and gloves. Gay men don’t do that.”

“Oh really? What about the harnesses and nipple rings and clamps and boots and t shirts?”

We are off to the races on a discussion about the differences between straight and gay. I disingenuously prop up the argument that we are different from straight people. But really, it’s just in the details. Gay marriage will finally deflate my already weak stance. In our drive to be “equal and the same” we will become just that, forfeiting our fabulousness, our theatrically constructed lives, our special and vivid colors, our way of saying those special little things we say that women bring home from the office and repeat to their disgruntled husbands. Our defiance. That is what will slip away between the cracks of equality. That may not be the future I want to fight for. Do you?

Last night at Alibi, I scanned the room, feeling like Walt Whitman, at one with every molecule of every gay man alive today, from the pear-shaped old lettuce bag in the white Lacoste over pleated Land’s End shorts on the stool at the bar receiving an order of fries from (and pinching the gyroscopic butt of) an impatient waiter-twink, to the “It’s my birthday!” Catholic thirty-six year old from Iowa who came out late in life and is two years into a relationship with the beautiful Cuban Carlos who has had a few Long Island Ice Teas ($3 each on Thursday only!) and is flirting with each of us and placing his straw cowboy hat on our heads before kissing the faces beneath it, to the slender and cute British boy named Rory from Kensington whose t shirt said “Fuck me like you hate me” and promised to return to us “to get better acquainted” once he had dropped off the drinks he was carrying to his group of friends.

The screens overhead gave forth music videos from twenty years ago! Janet Jackson takes a swan dive off the Manhattan Bridge. Alison Moyet opens her mouth to reveal a set of vampire fangs. C explains what has happened to the music business. I credit Shawn Fanning with a singular David vs. Goliath slingshot that brought the industry to its knees. We are back to producing songs at home, playing the spoons on our knees and snickering while we rhyme our way onto Youtube. This is good.

If only everything would shrink to cottage size again. If only the milk we drank came from the cow in our barn, and the juice we drink from oranges plucked from branches that graze our back porch, and there is that boy next door. Wouldn’t he be enough even if you never again ended the night at Slammer as did we, pushed up against the muscular shoulders of five feverishly naked guys all with our dicks pointing to the center of the group like divining rods announcing a sudden geyser about to buckle the floor boards, and as we may do again tonight? Isn’t a little information about what’s happening down the lane where someone has grown a particularly large pumpkin or a particularly spectacular violet iris better than knowing about how many bodies were pulled from the rubble of the crane collapse or how many millions a hedge fund manager made last year, or how a candidate is promising to be everything he or she has no real intention of being?

I close the shutters against those things and their foul odors, Joey. They do not exist for me. I listen to the music you sent us yesterday. Tangerine. The disco version of Baby Face. Danny Tenaglia’s remixed Miss Kittin. That song by Jean Carne. Here, in this place, have I orchestrated the salvation of my Salsoul, and it is working so that I do not. If I could subvert you, and C and all of you who work and worry, I would, and blamelessly. Relax. Feel better. Drop everything. Come visit. Bring Shelly. Or, we’ll see you in the Park in a few weeks.

Your devoted Father T.

Back In The Saddle

My deepest thanks go out to my dear friend Aaron for helming this here website thingy for the last week. While it was hard to stay away, I managed to get in some pretty decent and much needed down time, both physically and mentally. I should probably do this more often. So as many of you have suggested, I've asked Aaron to continue to help out as needed.

UPDATE: A couple of other guest bloggers will also pitch in. Stand by.

Caption This

Gay Bloggers Credentialed For Democratic Convention

The Democratic Party has released their list of bloggers credentialed to cover the convention in Denver. The LGBT blogs represented are Towleroad, Pam's House Blend, and AmericaBlog. Congrats to all!

CA Asks Court Not To Delay Marriages

The state of California is fighting the wingnuts that want a stay of the ruling approving marriage equality.

After fighting same-sex marriage for four years, the state Thursday urged the California Supreme Court to reject petitions that would delay enforcement of the court's landmark ruling permitting gays to wed.

"This historic litigation is now concluded," wrote Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Christopher E. Krueger in a brief filed with the high court. "It is time for these proceedings to end." In the brief, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said he plans to enforce the court's May 15 ruling "with no less vigor" than he previously sought to defend state laws that limited marriage to opposite-sex couples.

California's change of heart came as 10 other states, including Florida and Utah, filed a brief in support of a request by gay marriage opponents to delay the effective date of the court ruling. The offices of attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah protested that their states, which restrict marriage to unions of a man and a woman, would be inundated by litigation seeking to have them recognize same-sex nuptials in California.

California is prepared to offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning June 17, although the mere filing of the petition could delay same-sex marriages until mid-July, or, at the latest, mid-August, court officials said.

Again!

I cannot believe this. ANOTHER construction crane has collapsed on the Upper East Side, killing at least two people.

Two people died in a crane collapse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan Friday morning, according to the city's fire department, reports WCBS-2 in New York.

The construction crane smashed into a high-rise apartment building before crashing more than a dozen stories onto the street below. The Fire Department said it has pulled people out of the wreckage at East 91st Street and First Avenue. Their conditions were not immediately known.

The top floor of a nearby high-rise apartment building had been damaged. Firefighters and rescue workers were continuing to search through the wreckage. "This is totally mind blowing," Manhattan borough President Scott Stringer told WCBS-2. "It looks like a bomb exploded in Manhattan. It's just a total tragedy." The accident happened 2½ months after a crane collapsed, killing seven people about two miles south.

What the fuck is going on in this town? First Avenue is covered with debris and rescue vehicles. After the March disaster, the city buildings commissioner resigned in disgrace and an inspector was arrested for falsifying inspection documents. Clearly, nothing has changed.

Morning View - Central Park Mall

Lined by elm trees, the Mall is the "grand promenade" of Central Park and runs from 66th to 72nd Street. The Mall is also known as Literary Walk for the many busts famous writers placed along its sides.

Aussie Olympian Comes Out

Australian diver Matthew Mitcham, 20, has come out in advance of competing in the Beijing Olympics.

Like many athletes around the world, Australian Matthew Mitcham fought his way to the top of his sport to qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games. Unlike many of his Olympic counterparts however, the diver must fight to bring his life partner with him to the Games.

Mitcham, 20, came out in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald this Sunday. Now, he will compete on the 10-metre platform, diving for the gold as Australia’s only openly gay Olympic athlete.

What Mitcham would like more than anything else is for his longtime partner, Lachlan, who fought the tumultuous battle of Olympic dreams with Mitcham, to be there in the stands cheering him on. The young diver and his partner currently do not have the funds to get Lachlan to Beijing, but Mitcham tells the SMH that Johnson & Johnson offers an Athlete Support Programme that would allow for friends and family of those competing to travel to the competition.

Could we have another Greg Louganis here?

New CA Poll: Majority Approve Marriage Equality For First Time Ever

By a tiny margin, for the first time ever a majority of polled Californians say they now approve of gay marriage.

In a dramatic reversal of decades of public opinion, California voters agree by a slim majority that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, according to a Field Poll released today.

By 51-42 percent, registered voters said they believed same-sex marriage should be legal in California. Only 28 percent favored gay marriage in 1977, when the Field Poll first asked that question, said Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director. "This is a milestone in California," he said. "You can't downplay the importance of a change in an issue we've been tracking for 30 years."

While opposition to same-sex marriage has been weakening for years in California, supporters have remained a minority. In March 2000, for example, voters overwhelmingly backed Proposition 22, a statute that said the state would recognize only the marriage of a man and a woman. A 2006 Field Poll showed that half the state's voters still disapproved of same-sex marriage.

But the state Supreme Court's decision this month to overturn Prop. 22 might have turned the tide, DiCamillo said. "There's a certain validation when the state Supreme Court makes a ruling that you can't discriminate when it comes to marriage," he said. "That may have been enough to move some people who were on the fence about same-sex marriage."

This bodes well for the November ballot measure, although once the wingnuts get their PR machine in gear, these warm fuzzies of the moment may dissipate.

HomoQuotable - Chris Jensen

"The International Mr. Leather competition is purportedly the climax of the IML weekend. But this cowhide beauty pageant—which, at 3.5 hours, rivals the Oscars in terms of jaw-dropping self-regard—is interesting more as anthropology than as entertainment. (If you consider that the entire multi-hour event is underscored by a steady OON-cha-OON-cha-OON-cha house beat, punctuated with triumphalist theme music from "Gladiator," you'll understand why I had to go to the lobby at intermission to buy a handful of Excedrin.)

"The ceremony opened with a genial speech by IML founder Chuck Renslow, who set the tone for the evening by assuring us that “[Leather play is] still a power exchange. It’s still about trust and learning.” (Throughout Renslow's speech, several guys in the audience actually said “Amen,” while others raised their hands as if in prayer, tent revival-style. Now that I think of it, the whole IML experience reminded me just a bit of my fundamentalist Promise Keepers days back in the mid-'90s. Except, of course, with less laying-on-of-hands and more fisting.)" - Examiner.com blogger Chris Jensen, describing his first IML. The 2008 IML winner is Gary Iriza of Palm Springs.

[Photo credit: Dan Nash for IML Inc. More Photos here.]

Out Of State Gay Marriages To Stand In NY

Expanding on the May 5th decision by the New York State Court Of Appeals that the state must recognize legal gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, Gov. David Paterson has issued a broad directive to New York state agencies commanding them to prepare policies and procedures to do so.

Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California, and Canada. A case involving Patricia Martinez and Lisa Golden was cited in the directive changing policies on gay unions in New York.

In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.

In a videotaped message given to gay community leaders at a dinner on May 17, Mr. Paterson described the move as “a strong step toward marriage equality.” And people on both sides of the issue said it moved the state closer to fully legalizing same-sex unions in this state.

“Very shortly, there will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and probably thousands and thousands and thousands of gay people who have their marriages recognized by the state,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and has pushed for legalization of gay unions.

Massachusetts and California are the only states that have legalized gay marriage, while others, including New Jersey and Vermont, allow civil unions. Forty-one states have laws limiting marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Legal experts said Mr. Paterson’s decision would make New York the only state that did not itself allow gay marriage but fully recognized same-sex unions entered into elsewhere.

The directive is the strongest signal yet that Mr. Paterson, who developed strong ties to the gay community as a legislator, plans to push aggressively to legalize same-sex unions as governor. His predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, introduced a bill last year that would have legalized gay marriage, but even as he submitted it, doubted that it would pass. The Democratic-dominated Assembly passed the measure, but the Republican-led Senate has refused to call a vote on it.

Short of an act by the Legislature, the directive ordered by Mr. Paterson is the one of the strongest statements a state can make in favor of gay unions.

“Basically we’ve done everything we can do on marriage legislatively at this point,” said Sean Patrick Maloney, a senior adviser to Mr. Paterson. “But there are tools in our tool kit on the executive side, and this is one.”

The directive cited a Feb. 1 ruling by a State Appellate Court in Rochester that Patricia Martinez, who works at Monroe Community College and who married her partner in Canada, could not be denied health benefits by the college because of New York’s longstanding policy of recognizing marriages performed elsewhere, even if they are not explicitly allowed under New York law. The appeals court said that New York must recognize marriages performed in other states that allow the practice and in countries that permit it, like Canada and Spain.

Unlike Massachusetts, California has no residency requirement for marriage. Gay New Yorkers can fly out, get hitched, and come back with full marriage rights.

Open Thread Thursday

Who was/is the sexiest actor ever and for which movie? I'm prompted to ask this today because I caught a little bit of Ed Harris in The Abyss last night.

Morning View - Asia Society

At Park Avenue & E. 70th Street is the Asia Society , the "leading global organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States." I've never been inside, but walking past it almost every few days on my street, I've noticed that it has a museum shop and what seems like a nice restaurant.

A People of Distinction

Filling in for Joe, who has had a couple of very busy weeks and is feeling under the weather.

A couple of commenters on the post below expressed fears about the availability of state-recognized marriage for gay men and lesbians.

My take:

The goal here is to remove distinctions that the law makes between the rights of straight folks and the rights of gay folks. The goal is not to get rid of our distinctiveness as a people. Not only would such a goal be misdirected, achieving it would be impossible.

At the same time, it seems likely that same-sex marriage will change our culture.

Among our straight peers, marriage is something that is pursued. The institution confers a status, certainly a prestige, among people who take part in it. To be married is an achievement. To be a single, after a certain age, is to have failed. (Study the Sex and the City movie that opens this week to see how this works.)

I suppose that, over time, attitudes about marriage in our own community will be the same. Till now, there has been little stigma at all attached to being a single gay man at any age. (Lesbians might experience something different here.) In the future ...

I'm pretty sure that this line of thought is where a lot of anxieties come from. (I share them as well.)

Consider the comments on this post to be an open thread. Chat on this topic or anything else that you wish.

UPDATE: Lynette responds.

-- Aaron.

Marriage

Joe is otherwise occupied, so I'm afraid that today's performance will feature an understudy once again. Sorry! And, no, you can't get a partial refund on the ticket price at the box office. Them's the rules.

Memorial Day weekend brought some spectacular weather to New York City and environs. Almost summer-like! With the warm weather comes love in the air, not just here, but also in the state of California, where ...

A recent state Supreme Court ruling struck down statutes that limited the right of marriage to heterosexual couples. Barring further developments, gay men and lesbians will be able to marry as soon as June 14 in some parts of the state. Notably, conservatives are significantly overrepresented in the California state Supreme Court -- six of seven justices are Republican appointees.

This ruling comes on the heels of recognition that civil unions -- from an equality perspective -- are not working. Marriage equality, I wager, only happens when all people who wish to marry are covered by the same set of laws.

Been married? Getting married? Consider the comments on this post an open thread for this or any other topic. (And, by the way, how are you this morning?)

-- Aaron.

Memorial Day

4082.

For information about issues important to Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, you might visit this website. Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of the "Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America," is hot stuff. And, I mean literally ... hot stuff.

Consider this an open thread to discuss your plans for Memorial Day and the rest of the week.

-- Aaron.

Pressure Cooked

Do you know why a pressure cooker -- despite urban legends to the contrary-- is not likely to ever actually explode?

It has a safety valve.

(I guess device malfunction might cause otherwise.)

What kind of things do you do to keep the pressures of modern life from bringing you to the bursting point? What kind of measures do you take to keep things going smoothly, safely, evenly?

Feel free to discuss this topic or any other in the comments below.

-- Aaron.