Lunamania

Pride is like one of those large obligatory family holidays. It's made out to be the Holy Queer High Holiday--kinda like Christmas, Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. But unlike Christians who celebrate the birth of Jesus, Jews reflecting on the year to come, or the millions celebrating the colonization of America, most queers I know can't really articulate what we celebrate during Pride. As evidenced by the awkward laugh that follows each "Happy Pride!" greeting, we don't even know how to acknowledge our High Holiday. The pressure to get out there and DO SOMETHING FOR PRIDE is then only intensified by the absence of special Pride foods to prepare, eat and occupy our time with.

Pride raises some vague sense of "visibility" or "being out", but what exactly does that mean? There is that hope of finding community mingling with tens of thousands of queers. However, my lofty search for my peoples usually die with the first rice queen club float or the ten millionth GAY PRIDE MEGA MIX CD brought to you by Insert Your Favorite Alcoholic Beverage Here hitting me on the head. The benefits of capitalizing on the emerging "gay" market on my Queer High Holiday does not top my list of queer things to celebrate.

I guess the right to have the state regulate/validate homo-relationships did top a lot of What I Want for Pride lists this year. Wedding gowns and tuxedos in a Pride parade? What's up w/that? The Monday after Pride is the one time of year that I fully expect the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence or some Leather Daddy leading her Femme on a Leash to greet me from the front page of the NY Times. What happened to radical queers? What about all the things that make being queer real--finding your people, honing your gaydar, mapping the safe bathrooms in a new city?

To be historically accurate and fair I should note that Pride in NY and SF do commemorate the Stonewall uprisings in New York. I suppose for me Pride is about hoping to find some inkling of that spirit of resistance amidst the crowds of queers gathered to worship at the altar of Bacardi and BMW. And like any family holiday, Pride always brings a warm and fuzzy moment or two. I always like seeing the fags and gay boys waving their homemade signs supporting the dyke marchers. My favorite this year goes to "I came out of a vagina!" Then there's that feeling after finding the queer Asians amidst the 750 topless white women at the Dyke march. This year Dyke march was also an occassion to re-unite with some old friends and hang out w/some new peoples. See, I'm not 100% snarky about Pride.

And now on to the next great national holiday...the Fourth of July!

Posted by at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the pampered, communication challenged Lakers going d-o-w-n, baseball season in full swing, and the Olympic track and field trials (both on the track and in the courtroom), I am a happy sports fan. I've remedied my neglect of the sports sidebar--see the new Go Team! section. Now you can come for your Lunamania fix and then read about your favorite teams.

What remains a sports mystery is the egregious absence of a Bay Area WNBA team--and Sacramento is not the Bay Area. Two baseball teams, two football teams, one rather sad NBA team, and more queer choirs than all those combined. But not one WNBA team w/in BART commute. Who's asleep over at WNBA land? WNBA games are affordable and family friendly! Yes! If you don't know where the queer women of color go, check out a WNBA game! The queer factor aside, WNBA games are pure sports greatness.
1. Young women and girls get to see strong athletes that have yet to be tainted by BALCO.
2. Despite salaries on scale with the non-profit social work world, the players' love of the game is evident. Of course their near evangelical promotion of the league is in part motivated by a self-interested desire to see a viable pro-league in the U.S. This way the players do not have to be relegated to the relative hinterlands of *gasp* Italy or Japan. Regardless of motives, player friendliness and promo events are a good thing (cue Martha.)
3. T-spoon is the coolest athlete to grace a sports arena. OK, maybe she's in the top 5 along with Jackie Joyner-Kersee (RIP), Michelle Kwan, Ichiro Suzuki, and Mike Piazza.

Posted by at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two entries on one day! I resent having Reaganmania be the first thing on this page so am re-populating with another post about ME. ME ME ME!
I just read If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. Any time I read his stuff I just want to go and devour anything he wrote. This book was written in 1973, but he's managed to capture race, policing, incarceration, love, family, and gender in this timeless and human way. There's nothing "identity politic" or painfully clever about his novel or prose. It's just brilliant and real. "Hits you like a truck!" "Powerful!" "Emotional!" "FIVE STARS!" Oh wait...those would be the HARRY POTTER REVIEWS!
I cannot believe I haven't seen it yet. It's a disgrace. No wonder I am condemmed to a life of mundane mugglehood.

Posted by at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Won't people just shut up already?
Yes, Reagan was charismatic and possessed "undying optimism." Reagan was also evil and dying certainly doesn't change that. He was responsible for so many wack things--the War on Drugs, asserting that ketchup is a vegetable, slashing funding for mental health services, allowing jelly beans to determine media access to the White House, overseeing the phenomenal growth of the prison industry, inserting ridiculous martian invasion scenarios in nuclear arms negotiations with the former-Soviet Union, unprecedented nuclear buildup and military spending, insisting on an official and personal schedule determined by an astrologer and a sincere belief in Armageddon in our life time, Iran contra, dismissing striking air traffic controllers--and then shamelessly accepting the re-naming of the DC airport to Ronald Reagan International.
The list could go on and on. I'm not going to analyze--why enable this national dementia? But I can't resist a few choice quotes.

Reagan on AIDS:
"Maybe the Lord brought down this plague," because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." C.Everett Coop, Reagan's own surgeon general said, "because transmission of AIDS was understood primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs, the advisors to the president took the stand, they are only getting what they justly deserve."

Reagan on homelessness: "You can't help those who simply will not be helped. One problem that we've had, even in the best of times, is people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice."

Reagan on Latin America: "Well, I learned a lot....I went down to (Latin America) to find out from them and (learn) their views. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries"

Reagan on education: "The state of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity." �responding to student protests on college campuses during his tenure as California governor

Reagon on unemployed workers: "Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders."

Reagan on the environment: "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do."

Posted by at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are gathered here today to...fall out of our chairs over Alicia Keys. Peoples, say what you want about Diary of Alicia Keys sounding just like Songs in A Minor, her lyrics being shallow--blah blah blah, but Alicia Keys on 4 mega-size screens is hot. The Artist Once Again Known as Prince didn't have an opening act, but he did play a 3 minute clip of Alicia Keys inducting him into the hall of fame. Very smart--She got the crowd more amped than any opening act.

So, on Wednesday, Anita, Nirej, Mazdak, Oscar, and my Beloved Monkey braved the snarly 880-S to San Jose to worship at the temple of Prince. He's a genius, the one and only shexyMF. I mean what other 5'2" super femme purple loving man in a turquoise blue suit and 4 inch heels can rock a sold out stadium with just his voice and electric guitar? Fugghedaboutit. He also played with his great band. I was into how much he respected them as musicians in their own right--really showcasing them in a bunch of solos and jams. He also gave free copies of his new album to everyone. It made the price of the $60 ticket more palatable.
Live music--it's a good thing. My next show is going to be the X-ecutioners. They are playing at the Fillmore later this month. Turntable madness!

Posted by at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Long weekends" are misnomers. I've never met a weekend that wasn't too short. There's just too much fun to be had and sun to enjoy. My Resident Monkey and I were aiming for several days of lounging on the couch, loafing around the various waterfront parks and dog runs, catching a movie. Such a lounge-y pace was an alternate a reality as our pets cooking us dinner or Tamu refusing dinner.
We had fun tho.. runs to hardware stores, cooking dinner for 10 people over 2 days, a furniture sample sale, a most excellent mint chocolate chip ice-cream cone from Ben and Jerry's, a tasty seafood dinner on the wharf, 2 brunches with friends and family, a joyous realization that the butcher on the next block carries Filipino sweet meats, a visit to the Carijama Carribean festival down the street, 40 chocolate covered strawberries--courtesy of Pam, an early morning run to the airport to send off a friend to Kansas City, a neighborhood BBQ, and a partridge in a pear tree! Phew. I have to figure out how to manage my time to see folks here, be in touch with peoples on the other coast, read, chill, spin, learn more photo stuffs...Doh, and I have to squeeze in 40 hrs at work somehow.
Speaking of work, we're preparing for a regional roundtable discussion/strategy thang on language access issues tomorrow. I've been writing materials and muscle memory is kicking in to make labels for folders, check on butcher paper and marker supplies, lunch orders...

Posted by at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)