Heroes

I was stomping into work yesterday...marching down the hill toward certain retail infamy. I was attempting to elevate my mood with a little Melissa Etheridge and curb my sense of accomplishment for having dragged my ass this far with a cold and sore throat, in the rain no less.

Then it happened. One of those moments of clarity, a real "palm to the forehead" type of thing.

Scarecrow came on.

I always feel like I have had a "special bond" with Melissa's celebrity-see how I so casually referred to her by first name there?

I saw her at a little Long Beach bar called Que Sera in the-gosh-early 90's? Well before she was famous.

When Somebody Bring Me Some Water broke her out, I saw an early BIG venue show of hers at the Roxy. The guy I was dating at the time didn't want to go. I had to make a choice...this was important. I had to really think about it. I thought, "Petur or Melissa Etheridge...Petur or Melissa Etheridge" the answer seemed to be all about me. A bond was formed-completely one sided, I assure you-between me and Melissa.

So when she writes a song that is so broadly appealing and relevant, it makes that song all the more powerful to me.

See also: I Run For Life about her battle with breast cancer and Tuesday Morning about Marc Bingham. I feel guilty for not remembering if he's a "c" Marc or a "k" Mark. Marc with a "c" is hotter to me, so let's go with that one for the purpose of this blog.

Those songs just kill me. I lose it inside everytime I hear them...but they also serve as a great grounding element for me. They really put things in perspective for me.

Scarecrow is about Matthew Sheppard. The song is so powerful-I'll probably use that word a lot in this post. It has particular resonance with me because of my own gay-bashing incident in college-a moment when I was not powerful but powerless. At the mercy of two strangers exorcising some demons on me.

Clearly, my outcome was different than Matthew's, but I still find myself running into that emotional wall every now and then.

When I was in SoCal visiting my parents in late October, the campaigning on Prop 8 was in full swing. My mother and I were driving somewhere and at an intersection we stopped at there was a group of "Yes on 8" folks on one corner and opposite them "No on 8" had taken up residence. I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop...for chaos to ensue. I must have said something because my mom started talking about how she kind of came undone that night I was bashed in college. My room mate, Cindy, had called my parents in the middle of the night to tell them. They had piled the whole fam damily in the car the next morning and came to make sure I was ok. My mom described a vivid memory of the terror she felt walking past my room mate's car, it's trunk covered in my blood.

I was terrified. The images of the prior night still fresh in my mind, replaying out of control. Not just the rednecks who assaulted me, but also the cop who responded. The way he looked at me like I had gotten what I deserved...how he challenged me to declare I was worth medical attention when he asked if I wanted him to call for an ambulance. How his look judged me. Cindy was a brick house and she was about to have a moment with this old bastard cop. My other room mates had to pull her out of the room.

And I did feel like I had gotten what I deserved. I didn't feel like I was worthy of medical attention for my wounds. So I sat there, wide awake all night. Face swollen. Oozing and blackening. Nose unset. Gravel in my ass and imbedded in the skin of my genitals.

But I lived. At the time, I could have died of shame. Unable to acknowledge my own homosexuality or protect myself. I never did tell my family the true nature of that assault. If they ever put two and two together, we are too Catholic to discuss it openly. Maybe mom was trying her best to reach out to me that day...I just couldn't risk being wrong about it and causing her any unintentional guilt or pain over that episode. I know I have an ally in every member of my family, I don't need to personalize this fight by dredging up decades-old events to solidify that. But I wonder if my experience has any merit for demonstrating the length of this battle for equality. Surely, people don't consider this a "current event"?

This is why the underdog will always appeal to me. It's why, I think, I like some of the guys I like, including my ex although we never discussed it civily. I think I see that same fear and vulnerability in them and want to heal it just by accepting them for who they are. Of course, I know that I can't make it better. After 20 years, I know that they have to make it better for themselves and find their own way, just as I did. But I can be that mentor for them, that safety net if they want it. These men make up a large part of the group of men I like to call "The Prodigal Gays" because they come back to me-for whatever reason-and that is a great satisfaction for me, personally.

When I think of the victims who paid the highest possible price...I feel ashamed. Not by comparison. Rather because everyday that I bitch about my life, I diminish their death. Everytime our efforts at achieving equal rights are defeated, our civilization erodes and dishonors their memory.

Marc Bingham died a hero on Flight 93, his partner was not legally entitled to assume his personal effects. If Marc's family had been petty, there would have been zero legal recourse for the surviving partner.

Gays cannot marry in California. They are legally banned from formally celebrating their relationship as a heterosexual couple would.

It's a word.

Marriage.

It has been given uneven political currency because our country's founding fathers never thought to formally outline marriage in our country-one based on freedom from religious persecution-by making marriage a government function over a religious rite. Further, the government has molly-coddled the churches to the point that they basically let them copyright the word and enable their fight to protect it.

It's a word.

It no more belongs exclusively to the church than the word "Heaven".

No more so than the word "Girl" belongs to the gays.

Or the word "Aks" belongs to blacks. (That oughta take the serious edge off this blog)

The thing that concerns me the most about Prop 8 passing in New Utah is that California was the state with the clout to bring about marriage equality for interracial couples. That action spwned the phrase "So goes California, so goes the nation". That's what concerns me.

Matthew Sheppard was tied to a fence rail, beaten, burned and left to die of exposure. He didn't die. He clung to life for days before finally losing his life.

This October marked the 10th year since his assault and murder.

Ten years later our legislators are still trying to pass the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Legislation and define equality in the work place and determine who is protected under the Employment Non Discrimination Act.

The hold up with ENDA? Bigotry. Some people still can't get their arms and mind around what a sexual minority is. They are trying to determine whether gays and lesbians are "people" while transexual and transgender people may simply be "freaks".

Well, folks...I accidentally answered that question with my careless use of the word "people". People are people. The rest is all adjectives.

When people forget that, I feel that rock in my ass (figuratively, in case it wasn't obvious) and wonder how long it will be that society will make me live with it there. Not society, that's not fair. The government.

At the same time, I realize that without people like Matthew, Marc, Milk and even Melissa we wouldn't be this close. We wouldn't be the political wedge we are today and sadly, we need to be a wedge issue before we can be equals in this country.

It's a step on the path to the equality that should never have been questioned in the first place.

I just hope we don't have to suffer too many more acts of heroism as a people before we make it there.

Blind as a...?

It's a beautiful fall day in Seattle. I decided to enjoy the day by sleeping through most of it-embrace your depression, people-and then take myself to breakfast at Zeena's, a neighborhood diner, before they closed at 3:00 as a rebound maneuver. Since it is fall-but beautifully done in a post Indian Summer kinda way-I went sans jacket, but kept on the shamefully unfashionable deep V tee shirt I slept in covered by an old Russell sweatshirt, my oldest and holiest, we're talking ass-showing-when-worn-without-underwear-and-damn-I feel-cool-just-for-owning-them-jeans and my favorite flip-flops.

To further offset the beauty of the day, I was unshowered, which means I had on one of my Nike ball caps, too.

I looked cool. My appearance was that of a dirty millionaire, belying my current financial holocaust.

I enjoyed breakfast-salami and eggs with about a pot of coffee-while reading the latest issue of the Advocate and enjoying their in version of one of my favorite games, "What If?". I inherited the love of this game from my mother, "What if you'd been in an accident?", "What if something had happened?" as she broadcast a parent's largest concern for their children-namely, all that they can't protect us from. My version-and the Advocate's in this case-is more positively speculative versus fear based love and concern. I was reading an article about what would have happened if Harvey Milk hadn't been murdered.

The restaurant closes and I am forced out on the street.

I am kicking my flip-flops through the damp leaves of First Hill's fall sidewalks as a fine mist falls. I am enjoying the wetness on my toes and the pleasant smell decaying leaves create hitting my nostrils as I walk home.

I look up, from the casual patrol my eyes are doing of the sidewalk to ensure I don't kick a raised portion of First Hill's lovely sidewalks and bloody myself or kick a dog poo a pet owner has failed to retrieve (an odd yet still practical pass-time for this afternoon considering Harvey Milk wrote and got passed into city ordinance San Francisco's Pooper Scooper law)-to see a man about a half a block away coming toward me. He is carrying a child...a toddler boy and my heart just filled with these pesky and overwhelming feelings of warmth, joy, love. My brain registered an attraction to the guy. I thought he was a hottie. A DILF.

As I passed by them, I realized the guy was a barker.

I made a mental note to get my eyes checked-or start wearing my glasses more regularly.

Still, I was amused to find myself laughing about how my eyes have betrayed me in my older years, but my ego refuses to submit to the proof before me and wear those damned glasses.

Then I thought about how bad my eyesight actually was and thought perhaps I was overreacting. My eyesight was relatively good for a person my age, right? To support this, I devised a scale for eyesight within the animal kingdom:

On the outermost left end of the scale, with excellent sight: Owls.

On the furthest right end of the scale, completely sightless: Helen Keller.

I began at the right end of the scale, pulling back to where I thought my level of ocular degeneration resided and then on toward the left end of the scale:

Helen Keller-blind, deaf and, possibly, dumb depending on whom you speak to but I disbelieve that last part, she learned sign language when hardly anyone knew it.
Naked Mole Rats-google these ugly mothers, they look like a buck toothed penis.
Bats-SONAR gives them sight-like qualities.
Snakes-increased sense of smell helps them "see".
New York governor David Paterson-legally blind.
Drunks-Beer Goggles, my only argument for this placement on the scale.
Me-given to bad attractions based on looks from across a distance, but a little more common sense at my disposal than a drunk.
Rabbits-I forget, has it been disproved that carrots are good for your eyesight?
Eagles-eagle eyes are a positive attribute, but overall, Owls are considered to have better vision than the regal eagle.
Owls.

Well, now I feel quite a bit better about my eyesight. As long as I don't look too closely at the space between myself and owls, I won't feel too bad. If I looked closely at the gap between me and owls, I might accidentally-even with my poor eyesight-notice the shorter gap between myself and the legally blind David Paterson and that would shake my rationalization.

Can't have that...

Then I started pondering how an animal's other senses make up for poor-or no-eyesight. You know: bats and their SONAR, snakes and their tongues, Helen Keller and her ability to sign R-E-S-P-E-C-T into the hand of her caretaking miracle worker, that type of thing. I wondered if I had a heightened sense that was compensation for my poor eyesight.

I stumbled, mentally, back to that overwhelming feeling of love I felt from that man toward his son. Was I able to see or sense what was in a person's heart because I was nearly blind as a common drunk? Is that what initially made me look up from my dog poo patrol to see that man and his child?

God knows, it wasn't gaydar. That's hardly my heightened sense.