Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Brother Code

I watched “Milk” tonight and I came to the realization that my brother set many landmarks that influenced the person I am today. I never completely understood his motivations for the things he did, but it seems clearer now. I think, in his own way, he was clearing the way for me to be accepting and non judgmental. And, he did it in a way that was acceptable to me – he moved me towards acceptance and tolerance in a manner that wasn’t offensive – I didn’t realize it was happening.

As a 16 year old, I thought we went to drink and play pool at The Black Crow because they didn’t card me. We could drink and play pool and be cool. Sure, there were a lot of fags there, but we were just drinking and playing pool, and they let us.

As a 17 year old, we went to Darcelle’s to watch female impersonators because he liked music and pageantry, what did I know? Between Darcelle’s and Rocky Horror, it was all the same shit – I was just hanging with my big brother.

His fascination with the assassination of Harvey Milk never clicked for me. We were watching it on TV and he surmised that Dan White was a closet homosexual when he murdered Milk and Moscone. But he was obsessed with it. I kept going to fag bars with him – they were the only places that would let me drink underage.

Much later, I moved to his town. He was thinner, cleaner and more private than I was used to. I adopted many of his habits – they just made sense. It was humid, hence the excessive use of baby powder. We swam to stay thin, rode bikes to be healthy, groomed ourselves to be clean. I never suspected.

When he came out to me on his porch, over a Camel Light and a Bud Light, I wasn’t surprised. It really didn’t matter to me, he was my brother and I loved him. “I really don’t care, I love you.”

“I know that. I have always known that. But, what you don’t realize is that I am afraid of being fired. I am afraid mom and dad won’t love me. I am afraid of not having kids, of being persecuted because of who I am, and I have been this way ever since I can remember. You read Sports Illustrated, I looked at the pictures.”

That conversation initiated an internal journey of discovery for me. I began to analyze my relations with other people and other cultures. I took to “chaperoning” my brother to gay bars – disco and bear bars. He tended to prefer the bear bars. The guests thought we were a couple and were shocked to find out that we were brothers – I think it gave him a distance to cruise without being engaged.

For me, I found it liberating to hang with gays without being objectified. Sure, some dudes hit on me, I’m not a troll after all, but I had an in, my brother. I find now that I am always looking for the in – I want to be accepted in different cultures; black, Hispanic, gay – all of them.
Middle aged white man wants to be accepted in all cultures – that’s my personal statement. I still powder post shower, shower religiously – sometimes three times a day, trim body hair, use cologne – I am well groomed. The grooming thing is a part of the legacy my brother left me. Regret for using perjorative terms – that’s the rest of the legacy.

Peace!

Spike

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I Write!

My friends ask me if I still write, now that I am busy teaching and stuff. I agonize, but I conclude...


I write these days. Sure I do, I write. “Lacks development of key ideas - suggest you organize before writing.” Sometimes I write “your conventions are not up to an appropriate level for this class. I suggest you down track.” Other times I write “refer to the rubric - your meaning is unclear.” Often, it is just “Lacks a controlling idea.”

What is the point? I still write! I may not write myself, but I write. My writing may not be an expression of my own ideas, my own thoughts and dreams dribbling and drabbling onto paper, it may not be fulfillment of my ideas rolling out of my brain with the tick, tick, tick of the computer keys signifying a stream of my consciousness, but, I write. I may lack the joy of ideas rolling out of my brain like the waves of a noreaster piling up on Jones Beach, or a jag of writing about things that make me pause and say, what the hell? But, I still write.

Sometimes writing is just writing. Just expressing yourself, putting words on paper, as it were, is still writing. It doesn’t have to be development of a novel, or another chapter in the memoir; sometimes writing is just about writing. And, sometimes, telling my students to organize first is all the writing I do. And, that is okay.

Sometimes. Sometimes.

But not now. I feel an itch. I will scratch!

Spike