There’s a more complete jockstrap post coming up later today in honor of the Super Bowl, but for now my own little football get-up is here to get in the sporty spirit.
Monthly Archives:
February 2013
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February
2013
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February
2013
03
February
2013
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February
2013
Memories of Super Bowl Glory
There is simply no way this year’s Super Bowl will ever attain the gloriously dizzying heights of last year’s spectacle. First of all, there are no sexy Patriots in the game. That means no Tom Brady, no naked Rob ‘The Gronk’ Gronkowski, and no Wes Welker. Second, there is no new David Beckham underwear commercial. Third, and most importantly, there is no Madonna (and no new Madonna song). The latter alone means it’s going to be one dismal letdown, even if Beyonce does her best.
Still, I may check out the game, because it’s what Americans do, and with my new interest in the sport I have a little better idea as to what’s happening on the field. As of this writing, I’m torn between the teams. Originally I went in routing for the 49ers, but ever since Chris Culliver made those homophobic remarks, I’ve been leaning toward the Ravens. It also helps that a straight ally, linebacker Brendan Ayanbadejo is playing for the latter. Besides, as a general rule I prefer the underdog.
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February
2013
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February
2013
Helping Out Upstairs
One of the double-edged swords of all the progress the gay community has made over the last few years is the fact that those young people coming of age now don’t remember how hard it used to be. As a thirty-something gay man, I feel in many ways on the cusp of that – I remember what it was like in the 80’s and 90’s, and I know how easier it is in many ways today. While this is the way it should be, we must not forget from whence we came, and all our rich, tumultuous, and often-unlearned history.
A bit of our history that I had not known until recently was a 1973 arson fire that killed 32 people in a gay bar. It went ignored by the media, and unknown to many, like myself, until Wayne Self brought it back to over-due prominence in his upcoming musical ‘Upstairs‘. Events like this need to be remembered. We cannot forget, because such hatred will flare up in other ways.
Director Zach McCallum sums up the story as such:
Upstairs tells the long-forgotten story of a tragic arson fire in a gay bar in New Orleans in 1973. Thirty-two people, many of them members of the then-fledgling New Orleans Metropolitan Community Church, which had been meeting at the Up Stairs Lounge, were killed, in what remains to this day the single deadliest crime against an LGBT population in US history. At the time, the story was almost completely ignored by the news media. Though a suspect was identified, no arrest was ever made.
Wayne’s play is an elegant, haunting tale of damnation and salvation, telling the stories of several of the victims of the fire. The characters  include Buddy (based on the real Buddy Rasmussen), a bartender who led 35 people to safety, and Buddy’s partner Adam. Mitch, the associate pastor of the NOLA MCC, and his partner Horace. Drag performer Marcy and her dresser Reginald. And Agneau, a tormented and self-hating gay man. It is a morality play with a twist, told with sensitivity and dark humor, with a catchy and modern jazz and blues influenced score.
The production is up against a large goal, and timeframe: they need to raise $10,000 in order to move forward. They’ve got a good start (about halfway there at the time of this writing), but it must be raised by February 17, so the pressure is on. Please consider helping out with a donation at THIS LINK. (Your donation will only be collected if they reach their goal.) Another way to help is to attend one of the shows (which is what I would do if I were a hair closer to California…) Tickets can be found HERE.
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February
2013
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February
2013
The Madonna Timeline: Song #85 ~ ‘Gang Bang’ – Spring 2012
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Like a bitch out of order,
Like a bat out of hell
Like a fish out of water
I’m scared, can’t you tell?
Bang bang.
Bang bang.
Some songs make you want to do bad things. Very bad things. A sinister bass line, a blast of guitar, a vicious whisper – all add up to the daring drama of ‘Gang Bang’ -the next selection for the Madonna Timeline. From her latest (and sorely under-rated) ‘MDNA’ album, this is Madonna’s return to controversial form. Many fans have likened the song to a throwback from her dark ‘Erotica‘ opus, but this goes a bit further, and finds our maiden/mistress at her angriest. ‘Gang Bang’ is fully loaded, and aimed squarely at the heart of the one who has done her wrong. (In this instance, coming in the aftermath of her divorce from Guy Ritchie, it’s hard to read anything other than a savage revenge play made against her ex-husband.)
I thought you were good,
But you painted me bad.
Compared to the others,
You’re the best thing I had.
Bang Bang, shot you dead.
Bang Bang, shot you dead.
The thing that has always struck me about Madonna, and a fact that many of her detractors have a hard time believing, is that most of her anger and acting out is a rather transparent display of hidden hurt and buried heartache. It’s hard to get truly mad at someone who comes from a place of sadness and loss, even if they do their best to turn it into something bitter and defiant.
I thought it was you,
And I loved you the most.
But I was just keeping
My enemies close.
I made a decision,
I would never look back.
So how did you end up
With all my jack?
Bang Bang, shot you dead.
Bang Bang, shot you dead
in the head.
Her performance of this song on the MDNA Tour was filled with guns and violence, and even in a pre-Sandy Hook world this was tough to watch. I’m not going to get into a gun-control debate here, though. It’s a Madonna song. You read into it what you want, and I’m not going to argue about it.
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head
Bang Bang, shot you dead and I have no regrets
Bang Bang, shot you dead in the head
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head.
All I can do is remember what it made me feel. This is one of those driving songs, the soundtrack to those times when you simply get in the car and drive with no destination in mind – you just want to get out of the house, away from your husband, and away from a life that sometimes seems at odds with everything you once dreamed. It’s the ultimate lashing out of anger, the purging of pent-up emotions, and, if you’re careful, a safe release of the madness that lurks somewhere in the midst of the happiest marriage.
And then I discovered
It couldn’t get worse
You were building my coffin
You were driving my hearse
Bang Bang, shot you dead
Bang Bang, in the head.
A confessional piece of pop art like this song can sometimes afford an easy reconciliation. Listening to it may quell the stupid fights, the ones over the small things. It’s no substitute for communication and figuring the big issues out, but I’m the first to admit that most of our fights (and not just between Andy and myself, but most of us) are over the small stuff.
I thought it was you
And I loved you the most
But I was just keeping
My enemies close
I made a decision,
I would never look back
So how did you end up
With all of my jack?
Bang Bang, shot you dead, in the head.
Every once in a while, though, I’ll get in the car, and there is no relief. There’s nothing left to be reconciled, there’s nothing left to alleviate, and there’s nothing left in me to forgive, and that’s when the song turns just the slightest bit dangerous. We all have our breaking points. We all have the capacity to hurt, and to get hurt. And in the end, we all bleed.
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head
Bang Bang, shot you dead and I have no regrets
Bang Bang, shot you dead, in the head
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head
You had to die for me baby
How could I move on with my life
If you didn’t die for me baby?
If you didn’t die for me baby?
I need you to die for me baby…
How far removed are we from the murderers and killers? How far apart are we from the person who, for that one moment, snaps and cracks and pops one in the head of the one who hurt them? We all like to think it’s so unfathomable, so far from who we think we are, from what we think we could do. But until you’re there, until you’re the one getting that shit heaped upon you, you’ll never know.
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head
Bang Bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head
Now my lover is dead, and I have no regrets.
He deserved it.
And I’m going straight to hell
And I’ve got a lot of friends there
And if I see that bitch in hell
I’m gonna shoot him in the head again
Cause I wanna see him die
Over and over
And over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over…
To be honest, it’s not my favorite song from the album, despite how much many other fans seem to love it. (It was instantly heralded as one of her best, and the end result didn’t live up to the hype in my head.) I do think it would have made a killer video, and Madonna did put out feelers for Quentin Tarantino to direct it (oh how I wish that had come to fruition), but as of this writing it hasn’t panned out. For now, it’s a nifty vessel for channeling the rage we usually feel at one point or another, and every once in a while I’ll turn it up, back the car out, and drive.
Now drive bitch!
I said drive bitch!
And while you’re at it, die bitch!
That’s right drive bitch.
Now if you’re gonna act like a bitch,
Then you’re gonna die like a bitch.
Song #85: ‘Gang Bang’ – Spring 2012
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February
2013
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February
2013
The Exquisite Disdain
Even now, after all those ad campaigns, after all we’ve learned how about bad it really and truly gets, there is the glamour of self-destruction, imperishable, gem-hard, like some cursed ancient talisman that cannot be destroyed by any known means. Still, still, the ones who go down can seem as if they’re more complicatedly, more dangerously, attuned to the sadness and, yes, the impossible grandeur. They’re romantic, goddamn them; we just can’t get it up in quite the same way for the sober and sensible, the dogged achievers, for all the good they do. We don’t adore them with the exquisite disdain we can bring to the addicts and miscreants.
~ Michael Cunningham, By Nightfall
01
February
2013
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February
2013
Someone to Watch Over Me
There’s a saying old, says that love is blind,
Still we’re often told, “Seek and ye shall find.”
So I’m going to seek a certain lad I’ve had in mind…
It’s the sort of co-dependent anthem we’re not supposed to like – the sad, pathetic admission that all we want may just be for someone to take care of us. It’s not something that those who didn’t know me would ever accuse me of being, but those who did know – the few who saw through to my heart – knew it well. I was, and would always be, a reluctant romantic – try as I might to pretend otherwise. You only get burned so many times before you turn those romantic overtures down, but you’re never able to completely rid them from your most secret wants and yearnings. I’ve held onto mine all this time.
There’s a somebody I’m longin’ to see
I hope that he, turns out to be
Someone who’ll watch over me
I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood
I know I could, always be good
To one who’ll watch over me
This is not a post for those just stepping into a new relationship. No, this is the kind of kiss of death that you don’t impart until you’re married. The games we’ve been trained to play when it comes to love don’t allow you to be so bold, so brazen, so frighteningly raw. No, young lovers, hide your heart and bury your longing – at least if you want to hang onto the one you love. Is there anything so strange that we humans do as pretending to not be as interested as we really are? I wasn’t good at hiding that sort of thing. And guys weren’t good at dealing with someone who didn’t bother hiding it. So I danced alone for a long time, swaying in dim empty rooms whenever a song like this came on, rocking in solitude to lyrics that pierced my heart for lack of understanding, lack of experience, lack of love.
Although he may not be the man some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key
Won’t you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me
And I waited, and wondered, and hoped, and prayed. And waited, and cried, and loved. And there were lovers fair, and lovers cruel, lovers who cared enough to leave, and lovers who didn’t care enough to stay. And even though I’ve been with my husband for over a dozen years, love is still a tricky thing, seeping into the darkest corners to let in a little light, or pouring over the burning ache of hurts newly raw. I don’t always understand it, I don’t know how it comes to be, and perhaps that’s best. It’s not something you can corner or trap, not something you can control or cajole, but when you’re ready – when you’re really ready to be loved – someone will be there. And then the wanting will be okay.
Won’t you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me...
