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)
I love you, Pappy!! This is just fantastic. By the way, the youth of today don't really read, so don't take offense about them not reading your blog. They just don't read. We can thank the internet and cell phones for that. I didn't know you had a blog. I do now . . . and I will will read it. That's a promise.
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