Queer Notes From Vermont

Careful what You Wish For/ Or / On Being a Round Peg in that Proverbial Square Hole.

1. Confused teens and Older Queens

Greetings to readers. It is late spring and I am once reminded of the great gay month. In June 1970 I was a young lad of 18 and on my own for the first time in New York City. It was a real gas being 18 and gay in New York. Christopher Street was was happening. There was a community. We all knew that history was being made that magical summer. A year before the police tried to raid a gay bar called the Stone Wall right across from Sheridan Square, right on Christopher Street and for the first time in history the queens fought back, drove the police out into the street as an angry crowd gathered. I was not there for that momentous occasion. Funny though, I was there the weekend before it happened and the weekend after. I used to sneak away from my home and hop a train to New York to party for the weekends and I remember seeing the charred remains of The Stone Wall and asking one of the locals what had happened. They dismissed it with a contemptuous comment about how these trashy drag queens started a riot. I knew nothing of the consequences of what these 'trashy' drag queens had done. They had started the whole gay rights movement.

But like I say, I had no idea. I was still clueless when I turned 18 and moved to New York from my home in the West Mt Airy section of Philadelphia where I was born and raised. I came out in Philly. There was a very large gay population and they hung out in a center city park called Rittenhouse Square. It was a meeting place for all the cities beat/hippie/homosexual/and whatever else 'kook' population, as my father used to call them and no, he was not a surfer. (a kook in surfer terms is an amateur, or bad surfer) I became one of those 'kooks' in my fathers eyes but I guess that was not as bad as if maybe I had turned out to be one of those 'faggots' that roamed around the streets of center city at night.

Well I did. I knew very little about what it was like to be gay in late sixties America. I didn't understand that the sixties stood for liberation of black Americans, American Indians, women, etc, etc. But it never pertained to gay men and women. We were still hated and still conspicuously discriminated against even though everyone seemed to be doing it behind closed doors. At least it seemed that way to me as a horny teenage boy who recently came out.

Philadelphia had a very old and incestuous 'out' society structured like old aristocracy (or maybe more like prison order). Young guys would come out of the closet and be taken in by older men who would actually throw coming out parties for their young prodigious interns who would get connected with jobs and doctors and lawyers, other older men, everybody. And then there were the South Philly gay Italians who had their own connections and they were the ones who operated the clubs and entertainment. Of course at election time and other reasons there were the usual raids on gay bars and even in Rhittenhouse Square where everyone met on hot summer nights to mingle and check each other out and the park would get converged on occasionally by the Philadelphia P.D. (Frank Rizzo was the police commissioner at the time) and you had better have your shit together or you'd most definitely spend the night at the round house (police station). That did happen to me once but luckily my parents were in New Jersey visiting my big sister and they never checked my age so they just put me in a drunk tank for the night with another minor from the park. In the morning we were all herded before a judge, shamed and fined 50 dollars and released. I was back in the park the next night.

If you had the right connections in Philly things were generally OK though. That is not to say that everyone was connected. I got taken up by an older guy. I could stay with him if I didn't want to go home which happened often. He enjoyed me (I was 17) and I enjoyed him, he had a great pad on Spruce Street. But I was never given a coming out party and at the time I didn't want one. I was an unusual breed in Philly in 1969. I was a gay hippie. There were not too many gay hippies in Philly.

I found my crowd in New York's West Village, on Christopher Street where it was possible to meet just about anyone from anywhere. I started attending Gay Liberation meetings. There was a march organized to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Stone Wall uprising and in June of 1970 I got to be part of it.

'Out of the closet and into the streets!” we all chanted and we meant it. We were tired of being second rate...nay....fourth rate citizens and we wanted the world to see who we were. This was not well received in midtown Manhattan. There were taunts and epitaphs shouted at 34^th street. There were bottles thrown at us at Time Square. There was hostility but we marched anyway. And then we all stood mesmerized in Sheep's Meadow in Central Park to see all the people who joined us. It was mythical!

Equal rights for gays and lesbians was our objective however remote in 1970. Gay society consisted of a subculture that was capable of going far underground depending on how far you went for satisfaction; a world after dark, in the subways and on the docks of the Hudson. In shady bars we all gathered and listened to the jukebox. I met orchestra conductors and Harvard professors and working studs from Harlem, Brooklyn, New Jersey. Artists and actors and wall street brokers and construction workers and mafia hit men and GI's back from Nam. There was the Warhol gang always close by having predawn breakfast at the little truck stop cafe on Christopher and Hudson. There were back alleys and dangerous after hours clubs to entice my curiosity. It was fabulous! Everyone was fabulous! I was fabulous too. For the first time in my life I was happy! Being eighteen and on Christopher Street in the summer of 1970 was a once in a life time thing. And I knew it.

But in those stoney times we were also the disinherited, blatantly discriminated towards, victims of thugs, blackmail, police brutality and essentially were denied our Bill of Rights. There were the drugs and the alcohol taking it's toll on the freedom seekers like myself. Many of us were raped (against our will) and sexually abused by sexually confused and mentally unstable others, probably in the closet.

Homophobia is almost exclusively made up of confused teens and older queens.

I think about that and I am OK with that thesis. Only a confused or frightened man or woman can be truly homophobic, happy heterosexuals couldn't be bothered. It's all these gay or bisexuals, guilt ridden and bent by religious babel and social taboo who think they are heterosexual and go out to prove it that make it deadly.

2.

This is The Modern World! The All Male Cast of Ozzie and Harriet?

Can this really be happening? I'm an old Bastard! I wished for equality in my youth and damn if it's not happening.

By the late 70's I was living in San Francisco. It was out of control! Disco fever was the harmless precursor to a much deadlier fever ten years later. But disco fever made me wonder. Something had to give! Guys were fornicating, sodomizing, adulterating in the most godless positions just about everywhere from Polk to Folsom streets and Eddy Street to The Castro. It was all sex drugs and disco! Seriously!

I used to know quite a few lesbians. Lesbians (a lot of them anyway) seemed more settled than the men to me. I wondered why men couldn't settle down like the women. Many women were living up in Sonoma County with lovers. Or they would move to Oregon and till a farm. They seemed monogamist. I was envious. I wanted men to settle down and quit this Bacchus abandonment even though I was going out every night myself and...I will not elaborate.

So today gay couples adopt children. They move to the burbs. They came out of the closets and into the cul de sac. Really lovely, young good looking and rich. Most communities welcome them (not all but most eastern and west coast do). And I am proud and supportive.

I am also reexamining myself. I wanted this. I dreamed of this. And yet. It's who I am. I am not a family man. I have no interest in being so. I love dark shady saloons. I am indulgent. I have a weakness for bad boys and still love a festive party. And yet there is hardly a trace of that anywhere in the new gay society emerging into the mainstream American dream. There isn't even gay bars anymore and if they are it's usually old guys like me listening to 70's disco music, drinking bloody mary's and reminiscing, reminiscing, reminiscing! The young don't have to hide in gay bars anymore. They just go to clubs and anything goes. There is no real sub society anymore. I miss those underground scenes. I miss the naughty secrets. The danger and the misdemeanors. Something you did and would never confess to anyone. I'm trying not to be an angry old man and roll with the times but I guess I've always really been a bit of an outlaw and the old gay streets of New York, San Francisco, Chicago and all the other dark sides of major cities of 40 years ago were more to spark my romantic imagination.

Yeah I miss that. But times change and, yes, I changed too. How could I retro into that world when we have this new segment of consumers; same sex couples, marriage, kids. That American dream now avails itself to people who 41 years ago could not have it.

Sorry folks. I say, I support it and I do, but, damn it, it all seems a bit boring! Maybe I just was never cut out for that lifestyle. I've always been a round peg in a square hole. Even in today's new gay consumer and family lifestyle I'm still an illicit. William Burroughs is still a favorite in my library. Cursing is still one of my preferred films and and to quote Woody Allen;

Interviewer: Do you think sex is dirty?

Allen: Only when it's good.

Thank you for reading this.

The Most Hated People In The World

Being a homo in a small town in Vermont is not a whole lot different than being a homo in Los Angeles and I guess that's good because I could be stuck somewhere east or west of both places where loving your own sex culminates in symbolizing that “glorified perv” or “Having a Gay Agenda” image that the evangelists peddle to their flocks. Sometimes that crap drifts across The Connecticut River from New Hampshire but generally Vermonters don't care two licks

I'm lucky. I live in a rural state and this rural state was the first state to pass a civil union act so we lesbians, gays, transgender and bisexuals can live like “normal” people do and not like the subcultural underground freaks we were 40 years ago when the whole gay movement started. Sinfully delicious I remember those days but those days are over. The AIDS epidemic of the 80's and the slow and steady homogenization of gays into the mainstream in the past 20 years has put that wild time to rest. Someone once said, nothing is as good as it used to be but everything's just a little better, time moves on. And careful what you wish for.

I know a guy here in Brattleboro, a straight boy but he so wants to have gay sex. I think it's funny. Most straight guys avoid the whole gay sex issue when they find out they have a gay friend. Suddenly you hear all this stuff about woman’s genitalia, their romps with women and that reaffirmation that they are straight. Can't say that I blame them, we men are by nature horn dogs. That's both straight and gay and it's not that they are homophobic, they just don't want to be in that uncomfortable place of having homosexuality as an option. But my friend is the opposite. He wants to do it. And what's funny is that he is heterosexual and no matter how much he tries he just can't...oh how can I say it...just can't get it up? But he says that gays are much easier to be around, less competitive, not afraid to reach out and be loving. That's not the first time I have heard that from straight men who make platonic friendships with gay guys. But I am not sure the gay guys really are looking at it as purely platonic. I mean I'm always real nice to young good looking men, I reach out, etc,etc.

But something about all this sounds like a generalization, I mean there are obnoxious gay men (should see me after a few drinks) but it does sounds a whole lot better from straight guys than I hate fags! It has been my experience through the years though that most heterosexuals who are comfortable with their own sexuality have no issues with being around and befriending other gay men (Platonic we're talking now ie; amor Plotinicus) and the way gay men relate to other men can be a refreshing experience in case you have ever found yourself in the company of alpha males and caught in some testosterone driven pissing match. So lots of straight men are finding that gay men can be alright to be around and that we will not lift their shirt and tallywhack their loins at the first possible chance. That is unless they want it.

Unless some god or some interpretation of god is saying otherwise. And this God does say otherwise unfortunately even if it is written by man. God says otherwise in many forms and many religions. But what is the question here? Just what is God telling his/her followers about love and sex amongst ones own sex?

I was raised in the Methodist Church. I was having gay sex at an early age with other boys in neighborhood. It was something we never talked about but I feared a judgmental god and I was very confused. With the other kids I was doing this unmentionable stuff and I was doing it with the Catholic boys around the corner and although I never really gave it much thought I did think it was alright because they were Catholics and not one of us. (that's another story) But I was young and puberty had not yet occurred but for a prepubescent young boy I was going at it with the boys from Holy Cross with quite a bit of vigor. What I didn't understand after these episodes was why these boys who engaged me so affectionately would suddenly turn on me and chase me home with very nasty epitaphs coming out of their mouths. It was two faced. It is a dilemma that still to this day confounds me.

I enjoyed it though. And it was not till I was older that I was able to identify it. I don't think I really had a name for it. Then when I was 14 I was singing in the choir at the church. By now I knew the difference between hetero and homosexual sex and I was trying like hell to go the former. But the choir director had other designs. He was a religious man. I had known him many years, before my voice dropped and I grew hair in places that I never had hair. I don't know how old he was. Much older than I but at 14 twenty-something was pretty old. He was probably in his mid twenties and showing an interest in me. He seemed to like me, I thought he was kind of interesting, he was good looking and I was a horny kid.

He wanted to talk to me about the love of Jesus one spring evening after choir practice. We talked about Jesus and then I got my first proper BJ from someone who really knew how to do it after praying to Jesus for guidance and then the Lords prayer. After I got off he started to cry and apologized to me, telling me he couldn't help himself and then he wanted to pray for guidance again and wanted me to get on my knees but by then I was too traumatized myself from all the tears and repentance for I felt like we had done something horrid and sure that I was going to go to hell and burn there if my parents didn't find out first and speed up the process. And there was no way I was going to get on my knees with this guy.

After that night I had little patience or respect for the choir or Jesus! It had been brewing in my mind for quite some. The idea that anyone who didn't take Jesus as redeemer would go to hell, we were talking about 80% of the world here. And all this talk about sin and meanwhile there was this war raging in Southeast Asia and what we were praying for...something was wrong. I did however let him do it to me a couple of times after. He was very good at it. And he seemed to like my equipment too. But the hypocrisy! Even at fourteen I could see it and could never bring myself to pray again. Not like I could before, you could say that was the beginning of my adulthood

Thinking back on it there is a mixture of comedy and tragedy. But this is all nothing new. With the uncovering of all the priests in the Catholic church with all the boys...no wonder all those boys from Holy Cross knew what they were doing...it's barely shocking. And yet the Vatican continues to condemn homosexuality which to me is the institutionalization of homophobia, condoning violence towards our brothers and sisters and bringing nothing short of disinheritance, ostracism by friends and family and all the pain and suffering that goes with it.

We, lesbians and gays are the most hated people in the world. I cannot think of any other group of men and women who make up a measurable population around the globe who are less feared and despised. I wish I could candy coat the whole thing but I cannot. When I hear expressions like 'that's so gay' or someone decides to insult someone by calling them a faggot. Then I listen to the right wing factions in this country and their anti-gay stances on same sex marriage or The gay agenda. And it occurs to me suddenly and not without some anger that we are the last human being's still legal to hunt.

It's all over the world too. In many countries it's the death penalty. Some countries allow only women to be gay, some countries legalize it but the culture is so homophobic that it's worth your life to be out about it. Anyone who has traveled through Mexico can attest to that. I don't think I have ever seen a more bisexual nation as Mexico. A gay man can have a blast there but you best not make a public statement about it or you can get into a lot of trouble with the heavily Catholic folk there. It's denial! It's the same all over the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

In my next installment I want to try and explore world religions and why practically all world religions condemns homosexuality and what we gay and lesbians can do to protect ourselves from it and how we can, as a force, a sizable population around the globe, bring change in the way we are viewed.

In closing I want to quote Bill Maher on a talk show who quipped; I have lived in West Hollywood and I know what The Gay Agenda is...It's Starbucks at 8, the gym at 9, the tanning salon at 10.

Thank you for reading this.

My Queer State, Not That Queer

I just got back last night from a two days in New York. I was visiting friends in Brooklyn and I am amazed at how shamelessly I admired men in coffee shops and restaurants, on the subways and parks, and how shamelessly they enjoyed being admired by me. It occurred to me that we gay men and women are getting absorbed into the mainstream even though we always have been.; it's just that we were never allowed to take our sexuality with us before and in the big and not so big cities of 21st century America (I guess with the exception of Colorado Springs and some places in Utah) it's no big thing to be gay anymore. But we do have opposition. Just like it seemed to be no big thing to be Jewish in Berlin in 1924 and look what happened 20 years later. It's still a stigma to be homosexual. It can be easily held against one if someone else is looking to be malevolent. Gays themselves can be guilty of this. Some of the most homophobic people I have encountered were acknowledged out gays themselves. So watch it guys and girls and watch what you say about your own kind. That's a good reminder to me too. It can be very insidious.

I guess the first subject I think would be my gay friendly home state of Vermont. Gay friendly it is as this was the first state to recognize same sex union. On December 20^th 1999 with Baker vs State. This to the howls of nationwide conservatives and right wing Christians and even not so right wing Christians. Perhaps not so conservative either. On radio Howard Stern, then a still immensely popular syndicated radio host, would use certain metaphors referred to someone as being homosexual as 'they are taking their vacation in Vermont'

Although the State of Vermont has a progressive national profile the interior can be another matter. With the passage of the same sex union in 1999 and passed by the state legislature in the summer of 2000 there was a backlash. According to Greg Johnson's Civil Union, a Reappraisal '...an ugly, nativist “Take Back Vermont” movement was born and flourished in many counties of the state. Several lawmakers who heroically supported the law in the face of intense opposition lost their seats in the November 2000 election. Although most statewide candidates who supported civil union (including then-Governor Howard Dean) were re-elected, Republicans seized control of the Vermont House of Representatives on the strength of the backlash to civil union.' ¹

This is a largely rural state. Sparsely populated with an even smaller population of natives. Flatlanders as we are called have moved here and replaced the dwindling youth population who grow up here and head for more cosmopolitan centers in New York, Boston and California. But I also notice a large group of 30-something with children. Many of these parents did grow up around here, moved to metropolitan centers and then moved back when they had children. Probably because of the better living standard and most probably the educational system which this progressive state government invests in; not to mention a state run health care system to ease the burden for middle and lower middle income families.

But any way it falls, a lot of the money and politics resides here with the refugees from some other place. This was an immigration sparked in the 1960's; most likely brought on by the states new accessibility with the construction of interstate 91 and fueled by the late 60's 'back to the land' movement with their communal farms and young urban refugees looking for an alternative lifestyle. It is interesting to note that before 1967 Vermont was a republican state and after that year it turned notably democrat and not to no small chagrin of the small rural farmers, loggers, tree farmers, etc, 'Woodchucks' as they are known. English, Irish, Scottish, French Quebecois with a smattering of native American. They are the natives of this state, many who trace their ancestry on this land before the American revolution. It is not a matter of if you were born here, it is if your grandfather was born here that makes you a native Vermonter. And we, from other places, 'flatlanders', will always be outsiders . This was the political base for the Take back Vermont movement that Johnson mentions. It is not that the native population is all homophobic. No more than rural California or Upstate New York. But it does conflict with the national view that Vermont is this haven for progressive thought and gay rights even though gay marriage passed through the state legislature in 2009, nine years after the Civil Union bill passed. One of the things that impressed me most of all about it was that, unlike Maine. California, Colorado, etc, etc, the bill passed unopposed by any grass root organizations or churches; the exception being a few Westboro Baptist church members protesting in downtown Burlington and even they were surrounded by UVM students who chanted 'GO HOME'

But the homophobia is here. Not blatant (nothing is blatant in Vermont) But sort of a passive hatred, an indifference. Like; I don't care who they are, I just don't want my children around them or want them for neighbors. That insidious and quiet, reserved distaste for these ideas from the cities that have polluted the fine old values that the old natives hold dear. A world were homosexuals can get married and adopt children are not one of the fine old belief of generational Vermont even though we really are everywhere, even out in the old family sugar house, whether accepted or not, whether allowed to get married and adopt children or not. But that Yankee (almost British) habit of loud actions to mum words can be just as deadly as the gay basher in the park.

Another curiosity; as the first state in the union to legalize civil same sex union, a bold and courageous piece of legislation, opening the way to marriage, I might add; But there is not, to my knowledge, one gay bar in the whole state. Not one! Not in Burlington, Brattleboro, Rutland, Montpelier or Bennington! What does that tell you?

1http://lawreview.vermontlaw.edu/articles/v30/3/johnson.pdf

Out of the Closet and on to The Blog

In the month of June 1970 when I was 18 years old I formed a life long ideal. I was not a very worldly young man but I had this conviction that I still hold at 59 in 2011.

On a sunny Sunday morning in June 1970 I marched up Seventh Avenue, New York to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Stone Wall riots. The Stone Wall was a gay bar in New York City that was raided by the police solely for being a gay bar and for the first time in modern history all the gays in that bar pushed back and drove the stunned police out. A riot ensued on the streets of Greenwich Village that lasted several days. This is widely accepted as the beginning of the Gay Rights movement and the march I participated in that one year later was the first Gay Pride Day ever and I have maintained the memory of this day in my youth with great personal pride.

I have always been a homosexual but there have been times in my life where it was a don't ask don't tell situation. Especially when I was surfing. I am not exactly proud of that. But I was not trying to hide it either. One had only to ask and I would have gladly informed. But no one asked. I would have found it hard not to suspect who I was. I was in my forties and fifties, not married, never had been, no girlfriend, no talk of “babes” and breasts and all that other stuff surfers talked about while waiting for waves. I don't know... maybe they just didn't care. The surfing scene was pretty homophobic though. It was probably more like don't ask don't tell. There were quite a few surfing rednecks who I got chummy with and I was not exactly flamboyant enough to rouse suspicion. I rode waves and charged when they got big. I earned the respect of some who would have ostracized me had they known my past. There are a few gay friends of mine who will surely balk at this knowing who I really am and my flamboyancy on demand....sure...I need an identity at 59...I am really an old queen! And suddenly I find myself possessed with a sense of pride about it.

To confess; I don't think there really is an excuse for my “straight” behavior down at the beach except that I wished to be a chameleon and for the first time in my turbulent existence; fit in and be one of the guys, I didn't want to discuss my sex life to anyone except perhaps one or two but the whole thing seems farcical because I make friends easily and got to be good friends with a few men who, I guess, were under the assumption that I was straight but here I was posing as a...what? Straight man? L.O.L.! The ghosts of my dead brothers in San Francisco are howling with laughter like banshees. What was I thinking about? The truth is I need to come out. “Out of the closet and into the streets!” we shouted on Seventh Avenue that sunny June Sunday in 1970. And it was my anthem.

But let me face a fact. I am 59 years old, I write. I have written one damn good novel, working on another equally damn good one which is taking a long time to finish but what's the hurry? I have three novellas, endless short stories and this blog that no one seems interested in. Indeed! No one seems interested in any of it and I am finding that any American writer at 59, unless he or she has something unique to write about or one is Robert Stone or William T Vollmann, becomes irrelevant to a youthful reading audience.

So go queer writer in Vermont. Write the social, economic and political conditions of the homosexual around the world. Commentary from an old queen retired to icy Vermont, the same one who almost burned down San Francisco city hall in 1979 when Dan White got his light sentence for Murdering Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone, who put on a dress and a blond wig and tap shoe 'd up Market Street, I got laid that day, who chased L.A. gang members down the street with a bat after they tried to beat up another gay guy on Christmas night in 1988, who fucked rock stars (I won't drop names, no it wasn't Elton John), who shed tears and watched helplessly as friends and lovers died of AIDS, one after the other as an indifferent Reagan era turned away, who finally took his tempestuous soul to the sea and rode waves, who woke up one morning and could hardly walk, who cried more tears at not being able to surf again, who took his broken heart here in this small Vermont town to write memoirs and stories and novels and Queer Notes from Vermont.

This is not necessarily out the goodness of my heart.

This is a queer writers blog. I invite others to contribute. I do not shy away from controversy, I welcome the unorthodox, I may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. .

But enough about me, lets talk about you. What do you think of me? (just kidding)