Band of Disaster

I don't like knowing anymore. To hell with the internet, to hell with access, to hell with always being informed.

They fire at my happiness, every morning - global warming, recession and Britney Spears. I can't do it.

I think denial is highly underrated. I miss the quiet, innocent days of summer; my favorite rock outcropping at the beach and knowing the best place to catch waves for bodysurfing.

Instead, I now have the war on terror, the war on reason and the war on me. The world is ending, true, but hasn't it always been ending, the same way that I have always been dying?

Time marches on and my innocence lies trampled by time's big marching boots but no one stops the parade. What if I changed direction, swimming up the stream of time? Could I put to shore in the past before I knew so much?

Some would say that now I know the truth but frankly, I doubt I can trust the news. The infamous "they" could be telling us anything. Besides, good news isn't interesting, so here we are with all of this bad news. Congratulations.


I've been feeling ill lately so my doctor suggests a comprehensive blood panel to determine what the cause may be. While we were both happy to see my amazingly perfect blood work, we were both baffled by the results - so why do I feel like crap half of the time? My doctor smiled at me and recommended I stop reading the news every morning and take a vacation. She also, off the record, thought maybe I should smoke pot again, within reason, to help with my anxiety.

But I don't want to spend my time in a marijuana fog anymore than it's possible for me to return in time to the beach of denial. I must find a way to be with all of this troubling information without being suffocated by it.

Had I been on the Titanic, I think I would have liked to be with the band. They stayed on deck, playing music, as the ship sank. Perhaps the listing of the ship as it plunged into the icy water was irrelevant when compared to the beauty of music. Were they in denial? Not a chance. Did they realize the inevitability of their own demise? Absolutely.

I believe the band chose to play on because, when faced with calamity, there was no other choice but to be who they were - that was their lifeboat because that was their life.

Prefab Identity

"Welcome to the Castro - here's your Prefab Identity," is what the signs should read as you cross Market Street and head into the rainbow-flag-adorned but otherwise dreary urban neighborhood.

I noticed that I could guess how isolated a childhood any man I'd meet may have had based on his flamboyance. That is to say that the smaller the birth town, the larger the flames. I couldn't figure out why we all acted this way, at times, and then it struck me: when one has no mirrors, no heros, no mentors to help define who he is or wants to be, and he also lacks the self-awareness while being wrapped in self-loathing and insecurity, well, he may just grab the first tangible and accessible personality traits that are presented en masse. I wondered, "where does the 'gayness' all come from anyway?" It was asking this question that caused me to lose the ability to carry on so.

I have never, at least to my knowledge, been defined as "flaming," but this thinking did make me look closely at my own behavior and speech patterns. This Castro-speak was so infectious and that, combined with the lack of bullying, the removal of the fear of getting the crap kicked out of me, and the freedom of just being, did make the opportunity to nancy around a bit more alluring. There was literally a local dialect around me and I worried about how much of it I might be inadvertently absorbing. Or was it simply a natural phenomenon? Did gay men speak and act this way by nature or nurture? I at least wanted to ask the question, even though asking it infuriated my peers. I was clear that the sexuality is real, natural and something with which we're born - but the affectation, if it is that, is it real, invented or adopted?

I then set out on my quest to find my own voice. What did I sound like? Did I really lisp? Did I enjoy jokes and speech with itchy rashes of sexual innuendo? The answer was, Not Really.

I also understood the important role that all this plays in the development of a man in a society that really does not want him by and large. Let's face it - there's rarely a celebration when we 'come out.' Nobody took me to Chuck E. Cheese, that's for sure. These habitual wispy pretenses were like life preservers for those adrift in the sea of isolation - they were necessary tools for connection, engagement and acceptance, three things society robs from anyone who is different. I also began to understand why this so called "faggot" comportment had always made me uncomfortable - even when I exhibited it myself; it seemed so inauthentic once self-acceptance had been achieved. I could almost see the men inside my friends and me screaming for new mannerisms or at least asking for them in a calm, masculine voice.

Still, I knew plenty of heterosexual men who were effeminate but curiously many of them also had close gay friends. Perhaps it was a one-size-fits-all modular personality, an equal opportunity eccentricity, ready for anyone who hadn't a clue yet who they were.

I became incapable of communicating with my fellow queer. Everyone became lab rats to me, subjected to my unfair secret mannerism surveys. The pendulum had swung too far in the other direction, and now I judged my comrade's authenticity on how much they accentuated their "S's." I became worried that I might spend the rest of my life alone for this reason. I didn't want a "straight acting" partner; instead, I wanted a "no acting" partner - not apparently straight nor gay but real. I realized then that I would have to examine my own characteristics to determine which were mine and which were adopted. I knew that I must become whoever it was that I wanted to attract.

I moved from the Castro neighborhood four years later having met someone seemingly free of foibles. We live in the country now and I love it here among the earthy folk. When we visit my old 'hood now, it's always an odd safari into the depths of the gay ghetto life. I see many young men with the prefab identity firmly in place and I fight the need to tell them what my experience taught me. Perhaps it was a journey only for me and they're just fine and comfortable with the way they are. I will always question it though and wonder what the community would be like if after coming out and being ourselves, we all just really began being ourselves without taking our stylistic cues from the others. Maybe the closet has many sets of doors.