THE SIXTH ANNUAL TOP TEN BEAUTIFUL MEN LIST

The Beautiful Man List was created in response to People Magazine's World's Most Beautiful List. I have always been dismayed by society's slender, Aryan-esque standards of beauty. There has always been a great disconnect between whom I give my applause to and to whom gets thunderous standing ovations. Over the years, however, I have discovered that my own tastes have a tendency to run parallel to classically beautiful archetypes of fair skin, chiseled muscles and slender features. So much so that friends and onlookers alike have commented, "So what exactly is the difference between you and the White Folks' lists?" I have yet to come up with a comprehensive, logical answer but with this being the last official list of the Monthly Breeze... I think I've come close.

The Tao of Social Networking

Having been born in 1971, I am a card carrying member of an elite group of people affectionately called “Generation-X”. I would like to believe that I’m too young to be considered “old” and too old to be considered “young”, but let’s cut the shit here… I’m fucking old. But I do feel us old Generation-X’ers do have a slight technological advantage over other generations in that, our grasp of life before the internet is just as strong as our obsession with it. In broad terms, my children can’t conceive of a corded rotary phone with no voicemail or call waiting any more so than my parents would want to talk to their girlfriends and drinking buddies using only 140 characters. I on the other hand have fond memories of having to dial 0 for the operator to get directions to a restaurant, digging for change in my pocket to use a payphone, using our UHF/VHF television as monitor for my old Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, being in complete awe when we first got AOL and hearing those distinctly technical guttural noises and thinking, “Oh my God! That’s the future squeaking at me!” I also remember when I wanted to talk to someone I had to do it the old fashion way… awkwardly, uncomfortably and unknowingly; I knew nothing about them but the basic information I could ascertain from my immediate five senses… they looked good, they smelled decent enough, the pitch of their could be lower, but fuck it… proceed and say hello or whatever best line happened to be. There was no profile to look at beforehand, no simple visual assessment of how many mutual friends you have or how many friends they have accumulated, there were no graphic shots of their genitalia on display, there was just you and the other person and you just pressed your luck.

DOES IT GET BETTER?

(c) Breeze Vincinz

 

This is going to be my entry into the "It Does Get Better Campaign", despite the fact it might be over with by the time this gets published. Nevertheless, I still wanted to say a little something about gay teen suicides and speak to those teenagers who are questioning their sexuality and are having such a hard time coping with their peers during this time.

I was talking about the "It Does Get Better Campaign" with a friend of mine. I was thinking about the idea of "it getting better". Honestly, I guess I question the idea of it getting "better" and is it a level of delusion that we want to promote. In one aspect I think we definitely should tell teenagers, "You know what, you're a teenager; the world is kind of microscopic at this point. But it is bigger, and it is better." I know when I was a teenager, when I was 15 or 16, my world was just High School and I didn't think anything existed outside of it. My thought was that the people who were fucking with me at 15 or 16 were always going to exist, they were always going to fuck with me and I was never going to get out of that situation. And truth of the matter is, I think this should be a campaign of, "Dude, once you graduate, seriously, you never have to see those fools… ever again in your entire life. " I can tell you, honestly, I am 39 years old, I have not seen those people since I graduated. You hear me? You never have to see them, ever again. I think that alone should give you some inspiration to keep going because once you graduate it's a done deal. So just get through the next couple of years.

ASTROLOGY AND THE SINGLE MAN

(c) Breeze Vincinz

Once upon a time I befriended a clairvoyant. And like all of my relationships, platonic or romantic, its formation was fierce, quick and alcohol laced (well on my part at least, he was a teetotaler). I haven’t spoken to my teetotaler clairvoyant friend in quite some time but he popped up in my head today; the end of what I imagine to have been an extended patch of bad times for the past week or so. My weight loss has plateaued, I got stood up on Valentine’s Day (fuck you Joey!), though there have been a ton of “better” I have unwittingly skidded into the “worse” in the dysfunctional marriage between me and my job, and to top it off I was witness to three, yes THREE (!), separate fights on the bus ride from work… one that I unfortunately was a part of when a zaftig and disheveled young woman loudly proclaimed that I was trying to steal her bag because I, dressed in a turtleneck, jeans, boots, leather jacket and laptop bag, looked homeless and was trying to steal her purse. I blame it on my lack of sleep lately as well as just the accumulation of bullshit going on but I very ashamedly have to admit that… well… I read her for filth. I read her from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z. I called her everything but a child of God. It also didn’t help that this woman, who quite frankly looked like a tousled understudy for the movie “Precious”, was actually gathering sympathy from people on the bus while she pined on in the most dramatic of tones that could have rivaled Loretta Divine in “Colored Girls” about how “Somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff!” All of a sudden I was the male antagonist in every Black female empowerment story, from Mr. in “The Color Purple” to Russell in “Waiting to Exhale” to Basil in “The Women of Brewster Place”. There I was just reading my book… and this chick had the bus believing that I raped my dates and thrown babies out of windows and was trying to steal alla of her stuff…

THE FIFTH ANNUAL TOP TEN BEAUTIFUL MEN LIST

(c) Breeze Vincinz It's that time of year again. The time when every state in the union does it's best Los Angeles impression; the sun is shining, the sky sparkles magnificent hues of blues, the grass beams with an almost fluorescent of green, so bright that no one notices the dog poop… Most major cities are spurred by such natural beauty to host LGBT pride celebrations in which Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals, Transgenders and their heterosexual counterparts take to the streets in glorious abandon to celebrate the lives, achievements and rock hard abs of our brethren (… and sisteren). Here at the Monthly Breeze we give our own accolades with our very own Beautiful Man List in which we give props to the beautiful men who rarely make it on the Beautiful People lists published by main stream publications (e.g. People, US Weekly). Maybe it has something to do with their lack of fame, or maybe it has something to do with their abundance of melanin and/or cellulite. In either case, we salute each one of you Beautiful Men… whether you are Gay, Straight or the "Tyler Perry" grey in between...

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

(c) Breeze Vincinz

As a man of size, and a certain amount of body hair, after the initial shock of divulging my homosexual tendencies, the usual follow-up query is whether I'm a Top or a Bottom. I have skirted the answer for so long that many people just assume I'm a Bottom because no self respecting Top would ever shy away from the title. The truth lies somewhere in between. 

As forward thinking as I try to be, I was brought up in the ghetto of 1980's Chicago. The most famous gay men in my generation were RuPaul and Jeffery Dahmer. If the 70's were about "free" love, the 80's were about it's "resale"; either by putting it on glittery display for profit, or feeding it to guilt ridden notions for psychotic satisfaction. In either case, fame was at the end of either fork of that road and I for one did not want to be anywhere near it at the time. In my teenage mind with my Housing Project home life and my Catholic school rearing I was under the strict belief that as far as sex is concerned that anyone who gets penetrated is the submissive one and anyone who penetrates is the dominate one. So in my mind as far as "gay" sex was concerned, I envisioned Jeffery Dahmer fucking RuPaul… and eating him afterwards.

"JUST WRIGHT" TRIES TO GET IT RIGHT

(c) Steven G Fullwood

"A female physical therapist is drafted by an all-star basketball player to help him recover from a career-threatening injury. The two soon fall in love in what is a modern-day Cinderella story."
- Yahoo.com film blurb. 

I went with my bud "R" to see it even as I made fun of it after getting a waft of the stinking trailer. Corn-nee romantic comedy starring black people. Still I see enough bad (white) mainstream films (unintentionally) and apparently have shitloads of disposable income (in my mind) so I parked my yellowed ass at Harlem's Magic Johnson Theater, which has the amenities a self-satisfied critic like myself sometimes needs and desires: black movies and black people. Of the black movies, there are only maybe two per century, primarily written (hahaha!) and directed (bwahahah!) by Tyler fucking Perry. Of the black people, I want to be with my people as they talk their asses all the way through the film, laughing at the funny parts, booing and hissing, and saying things like "Oh no she didn't!" as if they were sitting at home alone in their draws.

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

(c) Dale Guy Madison

Would a man’s sexual preference in being strictly a bottom or strictly a top be the ‘deal breaker’ in considering a long term relationship with him?

Back in the day, let’s say the late 1970’s, I received a copy of my GAY 101 TEXTBOOK and I flipped to the chapter called: “Pancake Queens.” Old school fags used to call them “Confused Sissies” or “Flip Flop Queens.” It seems there was this unspoken rule that states:

Some of us strictly take dick (BOTTOMS), Some of us strictly throw dick (TOPS) and then some of us are confused who do both (VERSATILE).

There is a delicate balance that cannot be disturbed between Tops & Bottoms. I upset that balance because I refused to be strictly anything.

I was one of the lucky fags. About 10 of my high school buddies all came out of the closet with me in 1976. We were a wonderful support to each other. We had each other to guide us through this magical world of GAY-O-RAMA. What we did not know was that our generation of disco, platform shoes and glitter dust ushered in a revolution that upset the balance of gay nature. We loved giving and receiving. We dressed asexual. We weren’t extremely masculine nor were we AB FAB! You could say we were like Marlo Thomas, “Free to Be… You and ME”:

Every boy in this land grows to be
his own man

In this land, every girl grows to be
her own woman

Take my hand, come with me
where the children are free

Come with me, take my hand
and we'll run

to a land where the river runs free
to a land through the green country
to a land to a shining sea
to a land where the horses run free
to a land where the children are free

and you and me are free to be
and you and me are free to be...
...you and me

I came out the closet in 1976 and although I was young and full of cum, I was not dumb. I quickly purchased a copy of The Joy of Gay Sex. I rationalized that this gay life was the ultimate “best of both worlds”. Where else could you go and have as much sex as you want to and not get anyone pregnant? My Dad had 13 illegitimate kids; the last thing I wanted was to get some girl pregnant. I loved sex, this was the perfect solution! How dare you tell me I can’t use both organs God gave me? I loved dick as much as I loved ass.

The generation before me seemed to think that gay life had to be some reflective version of a heterosexual life. Gay relationships had roles. There was a masculine (TOP) role and a feminine (BOTTOM) role. To me, that did not seem very GAY. I did not want to be locked into a role. You see the TOP role inferred better and BOTTOM role suggested less.

I did not think of myself as less of a man because I choose to give up my manhole. I did not think of myself as better because I was enjoying a tight juicy ass. The multiple options of gay sex made me feel that two men enjoying each other in every versatile way possible was the best sex.

Larry was the first man I was involved with who was an exclusive top. He took that role seriously. Emotionally and sexually, he had to be the one in control. He was older, made more money, liked to take care of me and shower me with gifts. That’s where we had problems. He wanted me to be a quiet, passive lover who stayed in the background. But my personality was too “out there” to settle for being quiet. I loved the gifts and the trips and the Sunday ritual of massaging his scalp with Sulfur 8 ointment. He used to let me go through his closets and select a tie for each of his suits; I would pre-tie each in a Windsor knot so they were ready to pull over his head. He was romantic and sweet and kind to me, as long as I stayed in place. I did those chores for him because I loved him, not because I wanted to be placed in a symbolic role of a “woman serving her man.”

The problem was I could not just stay still in one place and fill that one role. I enjoyed playing the dominant role sexually as well. It was one of the things I relished about gay life. You could be a top one night and flip the script and be a bottom the next. There was no such flipping with Larry. He said I was “confused.” It was our deal breaker.

Don’t call me confused.

I know exactly what I want.

I want your ass, I want your dick.

Your ass…

Your dick…

Your ass…

Your dick...

Your ass round my dick…

Your dick inside my ass…

Don’t you see,

it takes a real man to say:

Drop the masks

and drop ya drawers

Total bottoms bore me

Total tops annoy me

Give me a FLIP FUK

any day

I do u

U do me and as we

fuk we do each other

Fuk U/ Fuk me

Then flip it

Signed,

A 50 something Old School Brotha.

Actor/Author Dale Guy Madison is the author of “Dreamboy: My Life A QVC Host & Other Hits” and is currently publishing the adult fairytale, “Sissy Sammy in the Land Of West Hollywood 90069.”

THE NAKED TRUTH

(c) Breeze Vincinz

Once upon a time ago in a galaxy called Hollywood, your favorite upwardly immobile African American homosexual in an unbridled show of affection and horniness for his boyfriend allowed himself to be photographed in the buff. And we're not talking Playboy "Art" shots with soft lighting or a furry kitten gently resting upon dramatically lit supple skin. We're talking full boogie post coital open orifice money shots with vodka bottles, audio cassette cases and that old "Isobel" poster of Björk kissing herself in the background. And as is the nature of everything regrettable done in life, at the time… it was great, it was nasty, it was fun. Years later after sobering/growing up I now consider it to be stupid, stupid, stupid. I recently came upon these pictures not too long ago while perusing some old backup files I have kept over the years. I have always considered these pictures to be the bane of my existence and the anchor to an otherwise aerial life. I imagined my eventual happiness to have the obligatory Halle Berry/Sandra Bullock Oscar suffix whereas the greatest thing in the world happens only to be followed by the worst thing in the world to happen. There I am, Toni Morrison giving me a hug after I accept my Nobel Peace Prize, then the next morning, there I am on the front cover the LA Times, all of the 400 pounds that I was at the time, with parts of my body showing that typically only my proctologist, my ex-boyfriends or a few lucky gentlemen down in Atlanta during 2009 pride have seen with the headline, "BREEZE IN THE BUFF" or "BIG BREEZE TINY DICK" or "NOBEL REVOKES PRIZE STATING, 'THAT AIN'T NOWHERE NEAR PEACEFUL!'"

But looking at those pictures in the present day, observing my rotund body, my unruly hair (facial and chest), that look of complete and utter contentment on my face in a moment where I felt utterly safe, protected and loved I realized… I don't look that bad.

After having a conversation with a friend who said that writers tend to overexpose themselves on social networking sites, blogs, websites and such, I began to think about my own compulsion to… make my privates go public.

For the most part it's been a fairly productive endeavor. However as of late it has provided some amazingly uncomfortable moments, personally and professionally. Personally I have stifled some people just as quickly as I have befriended them as my overexposure has caused some sobering misconceptions and judgment calls. The same is also true professionally whereas chunks of my personal life have been slopped down into the laps of several members of the administration at my place of employment, these newsletters notwithstanding.

Option A would be to censor my provocative, incendiary and off color leanings and become conciliatory both in tone and content. Option B would be to say "fuck you" to all the "hataz" and post those naked pictures of myself everywhere as a roadmap to the different places of my ass that they can kiss. I've settled on Option C whereas I remain cheeky but to also hold certain cards a little closer to my chest.

One thing I've been preaching to friends and family alike for quite some time now is the idea that you can't change people, you only change yourself. In this case, if I write something provocative or make out with a dozen guys in a drunken stupor in a bar or some rogue blogger somehow finds those pictures of me au natural and posts them in "Elephant Fancy" magazine, I can't control what people think about them or the subsequent judgments following. All I can do is control my actions and stand by what I've said and what I've done. In that, Plan C is basically to say and do things with just a little more integrity, a little more resonance but in essence still do what the fuck I want to do. Which in this economy is quite the bold statement to make when there is a chance that members of Administration of your place of employment will find out that there are post coital open orifice money shot pictures of yourself that show body parts that typically only your proctologist, your ex-boyfriends or a few lucky gentlemen down in Atlanta during 2009 pride have seen (Big ups to ATL by the way!)

Another tenet I have been preaching is that when someone pisses you off, it's because you're seeing a part of yourself in them that you don't want to deal with. In that, I have definitely been seeing myself in the friends and administration that have been pissing me off… none of us want to give me credit for the good things. The naked truth of the matter is, I'm an African American homosexual male. This newsletter has been out for almost six years now and I have been kissing strangers in bars for far longer than that. I love my friends. I love my family. I am, in truth, an awesome employee. A grocery list can be made of all the shit I've done wrong over the years but a comparable list could be made on all the things that I got right. I have this tendency to look at the face value of the more comical and seedy parts of my life and downgrade it just a bit. Well, just like those naked pictures of my portly self, I have taken a good long look at my life, all of it, the good, the bad, the dudes, the dildos, the mothers, the motherfuckers, the accolades, the insults, the awards, the disappointments, and I just have to say for anybody who still has a compulsion to stand in judgment that despite it all… I don't look that bad.

FACEBOOK FIERCENESS

(c) Breeze Vincinz

For those not in the know, I stopped watching television awhile ago. There are a few shows, however, that I have kept up on via their respective websites. One of which is RuPaul’s Drag Race which has turned out to be one of my favorite television shows. As many times as I have heard the phrase, I never thought “Bitch, your pussy on fire” could be said with the dignity and class that RuPaul gave to it. While I originally questioned the final result of Tyra Sanchez taking the title of Drag Queen of the year, it was great to see (s)him with a touch more humility and grace during the reunion show. 

Inspired by the fantastical mind fuck the show put me through, I was inspired one evening to jot down on my Facebook page several drag queens name for myself in the off chance that one glorious day I would ever don a dress. Here are the finest suggestions given that night:

• Chamomile Tampon
• Patchouli Snatch
• Amber Areola Summer Tit
• Julie Crisco Rectum
• Princess Lemon Sphincter
• Amanda Sucken Blo
• Chlamydia Pepper
• Dew Shand Spray
• Lucy Felcher

AN OPEN LETTER TO RICKY MARTIN

(c) Breeze Vincinz

Dear Ricky,

I recently I had a talk with my brother about sexuality in youth. His belief is that children are asexual. I don't particularly believe that, not when so many of us have play-boyfriends and play-girlfriends starting in kindergarten. It's not the perverse sexuality of us heathen adults but I remember getting a special little knot in my stomach sitting next to Leah Richardson in grammar school. I remember how flush I would get when my fifth grade teacher Mr. Dickens would walk anywhere near me. And I remember you from way back in the day when they used to show Menudo videos in between my Saturday Morning cartoons. It wasn't gratuitous or graphic or even remotely explicit notions. I was just this little boy who got a pit in his stomach whenever he saw another little boy on television… who just happened to be wearing gym shorts, a cut off shirt and a headband at the time.

So fast forward through our lives, our loves, the first time we kissed a boy, the first time we kissed a man, the first time we made love and well… the first time we just flat out fucked a man. Though I have definitely screamed from the mountaintops about the differences that exist within the gay community, there are certain aspects of the gay experience that remain consistent for all of us. We may all use different seasonings... but the meat is still the same. And while I don't know your story, I don't know your timetable, I don't know when you first had that special pit in your stomach and whether it was for a boy or a girl or which teacher made you blush or who you watched on Saturday mornings that got your motor running… but I'm willing to bet that you had all those experiences and a ton more.

And because of those experiences, I felt that when you finally acknowledged your homosexuality last March, that you weren't admitting it to yourself, because I think you already knew… a long time ago. I imagine that it was really for the media and for the sarcastic bitches on the rag who waited with baited breath for the next attractive celebrity to out themselves so they can pull out their kazoo and proclaim to the world in a screechy high tone voice, "I knew it!"

And I also guess that, being a father now and wanting to live an honest life, you just wanted the question to be done and over with so you can live and give an authentic life to your little boys. What I'm trying to say is, because I don't think anybody has actually said this yet, it's been more of a collective "Well, DUH!" from everybody in the states… but thank you. Thank you for having the balls to be true to who you are despite the shitload of derision, sarcasm and late night talk show host jokes that you knew were going to be thrown at you. Thank you for inspiring those other little boys out there still looking at you that not all homosexuals are tragic victims of an out of control libido… but can be financially stable fathers… with buns of steel. And lastly… welcome to the community dude. And in the immortal words of Ms. Rupaul… don't fuck it up.

Love always,

A CERTAIN LEVEL OF AWARENESS

(c) Breeze Vincinz

Once upon a time my parents had sex. It’s an absolutely horrible, atrocious and downright sickening thing to come to terms with. The majority of my life has really been supported with the image of my parents innocently holding hands on a front porch drinking lemonade and watching the sun kissed horizon when a stork from the heavens gently cascades down and presents them with me, a wonderfully pre-scrubbed little cherub lightly dusted with baby powder with nothing to offer but subtle purrs and giggles of enjoyment. They sleep in separate beds and any copulation pretty much consists of a light kiss on the cheek over breakfast toast or maybe he would help brush her hair after a rainstorm. This theory along with other concepts like incurring weight loss by drinking Diet Coke with a large pizza and buffalo wings as well as “hope” being a financial plan have kept me in a warm, comfortable state of oblivion for quite sometime now. But the truth of the matter is 0 calories + 2,100 calories = 2,100 calories. Management companies don’t accept “potential” instead of rent checks. Once upon a time… my parents had sex.

But still, I remember the blissful days of yore, chubby and content in my asbestos lined abode, satisfied that danger, inequity or harm would never really be bestowed upon a baby powered cherub like myself. This came to mind recently after a wonderfully grimy sexual tryst with a faithful Booty Call of mine.

Booty Call: a visitation made with the sole intent of arranging a meeting for sexual acts with the person being contacted.

The way we interact is that he comes over, we have a really nice conversation from anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour, maybe even watch a little television. We put on some jazz, we talk a little more, we move a little closer and become and little more intimate and then… well… we fuck… really hard. We fuck like rabid monkeys who haven’t been fed all day. We don’t make love, we fuck. When it’s over, we have a little more of that easy conversation that we both adore and if time allows we might go at it again and if not there’s a nice kiss and a hug as we part separate ways.

We’ve had this routine for years now and it seems to work for the both of us. Coincidentally he has been in significant relationships during all this time, both with men and women. Currently, it’s with a man who resides thousands of miles away. No matter. I charged my two liter diet coke and large supreme pizza on my credit card at a 37% interest rate and invited him over.

After our last sexual tryst, however, while lying in his arms for our comfortably predictable post-coital wrap up, I mentioned in a relaxed and breathy tone how happy I was that he came over. And in that candle-lit room he intoned even more relaxed and breathy, “It is what it is, nothing more, nothing less, just really good sex.” I yawned and stretched and breezily said, “You… sir… got to get the fuck out of here.”

I mentioned this to a couple of friends and the consensus is that, if the sex is good, astoundingly good at that, why end this relatively functional tête-à-tête. And if I really didn’t have any intentions of truly pursuing him, then why did my body go cold, my skin frost over into ice then crack all the way through to the core? Why was I a little surprised he didn’t get frostbite from just lying right there with me?

The truth of the matter is that I never really had any intention of elevating our association to something more substantial or formal. The truth of the matter is that I have always been fully aware of his more substantial and formal relationships. But I will admit I did think it was a little more. Nothing akin to a “relationship”, but definitely something respectful, cordial and even-keeled. But I’m realizing that this is something akin to babies being dropped off by storks, Pizza Hut diets and I.O.U. financial plans. The truth of the matter is that… what we have is just really good sex… nothing more, nothing less…

…and I just didn’t need to hear it, regardless if it was true or not.

To put it into words somehow made everything off kilter. In this, I really needed some delusion here. For him to say that what we have is just sex implicated that I want more or that all of the extra accoutrements of our fucking, the talking, the caressing, the candle-lit room, is completely inconsequential. In this, he was no longer my Booty Call, but I was Cum Dump.

Cum Dump: someone who has a tendency to malign the need to receive fundamental respect in an effort to ingest as much semen as possible.

Prior, it was more like we were each other’s Booty Call, Fuck Buddies, Friends with Benefits. Lying there I realized that this was not the case; when his husband is away and he needs to get off, I’m just the nearest hole around. And while I didn’t feel like that before, I wonder if that’s what I have always been and just didn’t realize it, the same way I never realized my parents ever fucked… really hard… like rabid monkeys who haven’t been fed all day, or drinking Diet Coke thinking it would soak up the fat of the large pizza and buffalo wings or counting on my student loans to be paid once my million dollar check comes in from being on the cover of Rolling Stone one glorious day. I was realizing how much a little delusion has played a part in my psyche all these years, and how sometimes, in my own passive aggressive way, I have mistaken it for hope or optimism… and how that has to stop.

It reminds of something Maya Angelou intoned whereas when you know better you do better, and that’s the soap bubble of delusion; once you realize you’re in it… it bursts, and you can never get back in. So hear I am, the chubby, check bouncing, cum dump descendant of fucking rabid monkeys. Yeah… I miss my delusions of grandeur. But I can say that certain level of awareness that thrusts upon you when the bubble bursts is nothing short of an orgasmic spiritual revolution. Now that you know, you go to the gym, you balance your check book, you’re grateful your parents comingled because otherwise your sorry ass wouldn’t be here in the first place, you know who you are and you are no one’s cum dump and now you know how to never put yourself in that position again but first and foremost you stop fucking other people’s men. And once you realize all that… you write it all down so everybody who dares take a look at it rethink what they’re doing… and wake up too.

HUMILITY IN THE AGE OF ASSHOLES

(c) Breeze Vincinz

The situation has happened a few times now. I visit a city specifically to participate in their Gay Pride celebrations taking place (Black and otherwise) and when I contact the people I know who reside in said city they respond in the most sarcastic tone, “Why would you come here during gay pride? I’m avoiding it like the plague!” Keep in mind that said friends are most definitely gay. This happened three times in three different cities with five different friends last year alone. Not even a month into the new year while making plans to go to a Gay Pride celebration later this year and I am already hearing grumbles from an inhabitant of, “Oh God, I’m not going anywhere near the pride celebrations. Why would you even come here during that time?”

It’s definitely something that affected my trip to Atlanta last year where I had unfortunately gravitated towards a brood of people who deemed the whole concept of the Pride celebration to be passé, uneventful and tiresome. At one point I wanted to go to the park where a lot of the participants would be gathering to commonwealth and enjoy the day and I wound up being convinced by said brood that, “nobody’s at the park but young queens twirling around and sashaying about.” The brood, as it were, were closer to my age range and their arguments that these pride celebrations are more for the younger set regrettably spoke to my more spinster-like sensibilities and I wound up instead spending a lot of time at the Olive Garden, going to the gym, buying a Honey and Oatmeal scrub mask from the Body Shop and other activities just as mundane and antithetical to having a kick ass vacation á la the movie “The Hangover”.

It wasn’t until I got back home when I realized that I had been bamboozled, that I had let my own insecurities and fears take over and I had spent an extended amount of time being the disgruntled old man that I figured my everyday waking life had predetermined for me. I wanted a vacation from that too. I wanted to kick up my heels, meet some new people, drink a couple of beers and observe the young queens twirling around and sashaying through the park. Which is why I did get a bit perturbed recently when talking to an Atlanta native about returning this year with a strengthened resolve to fully partake of the festivities only to be met with the same dour diatribe of, “Oh! Why would you even bother?” And this time by somebody under 30.

It got me to thinking about the cynical state of modern Black gay-dom. Geographical and age differences aside, there is a certain burning thread of bitterness that seems to be cutting through the souls of my Black Gay brethren nowadays and I can’t seem to find where that spool begins, where it will eventually knot and end… or even how to cut the goddamn thing. I start with myself and my own bitterness, jealousy and discontentment. I imagine what I would say if someone from out of town were to come to Los Angeles specifically to partake in our Black Gay Pride celebration and what my response would truly be. I would more than likely accompany them in discovering what the city and the organizations dealing with the festivities had to offer but I know there would be this blasé undertone of, “Seriously… this is all bullshit.”

I think as the years go by and society continues to mold itself to whatever Zeitgeist deemed appropriate by the powers that be, every faction that falls short of that paradigm creates a succinct disgruntlement that embodies their hopes, dreams and fears. The struggle for equality for different groups, while having obvious similarities also has distinct qualities intrinsic to said group. The Feminist movement had a specific agenda, as did the Civil Right movement, as did the Poor People’s Campaign… as does the Gay Rights Movement. And the same way each movement had its own plan of attack and rallying cry, the battles that were lost created their own cynicism and modes of bitching and complaining. In modern times, the African American community is commonly clumped with Republican Conservatives as the duly appointed antagonists against LGBT equality, leaving the African American LGBT community who witness White Liberals covered in the American flag rolling on the ground demanding equal rights via Gay Marriage with the distinct rallying cry of, “Fuck you Shirley! Quit blaming me for your goddamn poor planning and maybe I’ll help your sorry ass!”

And is the nature of cynicism, it’s contagious and self replicating and get’s in the way of anything positive that could happen. Thus, instead of celebrating and supporting each other during Black Pride Celebrations, we get the glowering, “Oh God, I’m not going anywhere near the pride celebrations. Why would you even come here during that time?” It’s like with any family whereas you have all this built up frustration about things that happen outside the house and when you get home you unleash on the people closest to you because they just happen to around at the time.

I could give an extended grocery list about the state of disarray that previous Black Pride celebrations have been here in Los Angeles but the truth of the matter is that despite all my bitching and complaining… they provided a much needed confirmation that, whether I like it or not, assholes and angels included, these people, all of these people, are my family. And there is a certain humility in realizing your own place in that family. I do believe that the person who avoids Black Gay Prides like the plague is doing so because, unconsciously… they don’t want to deal with the virus that they are themselves. That they too have been bamboozled into believing that they are not who Black Gay Pride was meant for, that they are either a level above or a level below queens twirling around and sashaying about. Well… I have a cousin who shot up his house and almost his wife because he dumbfoundedly hid his guns in the oven without telling her before she started making dinner. I have a brother who insists on wearing his socks up to his knees when we go to the gym together. My dad is a Republican. I sometimes squeeze my chest together to make it resemble a pair of ample breasts. And you know what, I’m not a level above or below those guys. I love then all I’ll go home to watch them “sashaying” around any day of the week.

LIFE AS VIDEOGAME

(c) Breeze Vincinz

Although I am a computer geek I have never been a big gamer, though there have been a few games that I was ever so happy to envelope myself within… Super Mario Bros. 3 being on the top of that list. I always thought that this was a game that truly captured the essence and spirit of American culture. I used to be obsessed with it back in my twenties. I would come home every night after six hours of school, eight hours of work and a couple of hours of tending to my physically ill husband and pseudo-mentally ill family to comfort myself within the multi-hued sunny skies of Mario and his compatriots. I have never been able to dissect exactly what was at the core of my fascination with that game outside of the fact that its realm existed so far away from my own apocalyptic reality at the time that I imagined it to be closer to any heaven than I could envision. There were certain things about that game I just thought was so beguiling. For one, there was no scoring involved. No matter what you did, you were never ahead or behind in regards to scoring; there was no high score to beat, just other worlds to get to. Additionally, the main goal of the game was to get to other said worlds and the best way to do this was to develop your skills in one to get through to the other, and to also gain as many extra “lives” as possible along the way so just in case you did get killed… you had a couple of other lives to live in these other worlds. And the most beguiling aspect of this game was that the only way to acquire these extra lives… was to acquire as many gold coins as your chubby little avatar could come into contact with.

Thusly, your goal became not necessarily to win but to live and the only way to live was to make money… and the only reason why you wanted to make money was to live… to make money… so you could live longer… to make more money… ah… to suck the sweet milk from the teat of mother capitalism.

Lately my newest obsession has been with Farmville. Now with Farmville you plant different forms of vegetation and when you harvest the crops, you get… yup… gold coins. Now with those gold coins you buy more seeds to plant more crops to harvest so you get more money… to buy more things… that help you make money… so you buy more things… that help you make more money… and the teat keeps squirting on.

I’ve never really been too much into the rock ‘em sock ‘em genre of video games such as the Grand Theft Auto series or Doom. I very much prefer my videogames of the blue sky variation with a Casio keyboard theme song. With that I’ve been thinking of developing my own videogame. I’m thinking of calling it “Breeze’s Superhero Love Gang Bang Double Happy”. You are a Superhero and you are in a Gotham City-like urban environment filled with bitchy queens, starfuckers and player haters who are destroying the city with derision, cynicism, questionable fashion choices and back handed compliments. You defeat them with honesty, kindness, love and antibiotics. For every villain you defeat you get to fuck another superhero and if you defeat several enemies at the same time you get to fuck several superheroes at the same time. And with each villain you defeat you get to a higher level, until you reach the ultimate level… “Heaven.” So the more you love, the more you fuck… and the more you fuck, the more you love… and the more you love, the more you fuck… and you wouldn't get any gold coins until you get to heaven.

THIS DISCUSSION OF SEX

(c) Breeze Vincinz

Believe it or not, my father is a very conservative, traditional, old-school type of guy. There is a belief that my apple gently fell from some sort of Richard Pryor-cum-Lexington Steele-cum-Divine tree. In reality, my dad is more like “Frasier”, my mom is more like “Roseanne”, my brother is like Will Smith in “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and I see myself more or less like a Kathy Griffin-in-training. In broad strokes, I would consider my family to be a somewhat pedestrian PG brood; I am usually the one pining for existential enlightenment through enema jokes, anal sex and/or the words “autoerotic asphyxiation” (they just make me laugh).

Recently, my African-American “Frasier” father decided to create a profile on Facebook and decided to be my Facebook friend, much to my chagrin. I discovered a long time ago that, unlike Kathy Griffin with her humorously supportive parents, my folks could truly live a lifetime without me talking about bathhouses and glory holes and such. And while I still spout on about those topics, I have put in a consorted effort to shelter them from my racier prose. Then my father comes along and becomes privy to one of the last great outlets I have to be as provocative and offensive as possible, Facebook. I warn him that some of the things I say are a bit “blue” and he reassures me that over the years that not only has he grown to accept that I have an idiosyncratic sense of humor, but that he has also acquired a thick enough skin to handle any off color element that might protrude from this direction.

When I went on vacation this past Labor Day I changed my status to read, “Going to Atlanta for an extended four day proctology exam, I can’t wait!” To wit my other Facebook friends responded with barbs such as “And I have a needle for you baby!” and “Make sure you clean it out thoroughly before you get to the office girl!” and “We’re doing oral exams at the Peachtree Hotel, you should come and get a check up!”

He disabled his account about a week later.

Like many American families, sex was never discussed in our household so like many American Families; I grew up with a heightened sense of curiosity, inquisitiveness and fear in regards to it. It’s something that I have been working steadfastly in resolving in my adult years and hoping I can help in changing for the next generation, the idea that sex is this taboo exercise only for the most downtrodden of us, particularly homosexuality which is only to be performed by the excommunicated and/or insane,

I think we as a society have come light years from our sanitized and shellacked puritanical beginnings, but there is still enough racial tension, gender politics and sexual dissention in the ranks to refute anyone’s thought that someone fully sexually aware equates to an intelligent, capable, strong member of society. Those double standards are also still there. A man with an active sex drive is still considered a stud while a woman with an equally active sex drive is still considered a slut. A heterosexual man with a girlfriend is still considered wholesome while a homosexual man with a boyfriend is still considered unholy.

I sometimes get the same judgment calls from my own circle of friends with whom I have begrudgingly expressed my sexual proclivities to. Two friends in particular, one male, one female, have found it increasingly hard to look past my sexual practices and focus on the guy behind the penis as it were. With the male, it’s a fascination that pops up in absolutely any conversation:

Breeze: Hey, did you see the new Chris Rock movie, “Good Hair”?

Male Friend: No. But did you see it near that bathhouse you went to and got fucked by five guys!?

…or…

Breeze: I’ve got so much work to do tomorrow. I think I might go to bed early.

Male Friend: Is that what you did when you went to the bathhouse and got fucked by five guys!?

…or…

Breeze: How’s your mom doing? Is she out the hospital?

Male Friend: She’s good. Not as good as you were when you went to the bathhouse and got fucked by five guys!?

With the female friend it’s a deep seated belief that the moments I have outside of eating, sleeping and working are most definitely involved in some sort of sexual activity:

Female Friend: I called you last night and you didn’t answer phone. What were you doing? Were you sucking somebody’s dick!?

…or…

Female Friend: You were taking a long time in the bathroom. What were you doing, sucking somebody’s dick!?

…or…

Female Friend: That’s a nice shirt you have on. Why did you wear it? Are you planning on sucking somebody’s dick in it!?

Usually when these conversations occur I get a little perturbed and recently another friend told me that my “puritanical” reaction is a bit hypocritical considering the fact that I am so sexually active. The thought being that if I have, indeed, been fucked by the entire Lakers basketball team then I should be willing and able to receive any joke, teasing or musing in regards to it at any time. And the more I thought about it the more I realized that I had indeed opened that door. If you pontificate on the amount of anal sex you have on a regular basis I think it’s natural for your friends to giggle when you accidentally sit down on a can of soda that someone has left in a chair and you don’t notice it going up. But I guess there is a concept of pretext and context that is usually missing in discussions of sex within my inner circle. Personally, I think its cool to, let’s say… have a chart in your house that ticks off every time you have gotten or have given head this year (personally I had to buy a new Sharpie for the month of September, Labor day in Atlanta and all), I think it’s another to bring said chart to work, or my mom’s house, or a funeral. That thought made me think of pretext and context. I’m pretty sure that even Jenna Jameson would be upset if over Christmas dinner with her mom if you would say she’s eating a turkey leg in the same manner in which she sucks a dick. Not that it wouldn’t be true, not that there wouldn’t be a level of humor to it, but it’s the timing of it all, and the pretext that just because she is one of the most famous pornographic actresses out there that there are no lines of decency that could exist in her world.

I am starting to realize that over the years, life does wear you down, scrubs the edges off of you like those smooth rocks you might find in a river bank. I’m not sure, however, if this is a good thing or bad thing yet. I keep remembering Sarah Tobias, the character Jodi Foster played in the movie “The Accused” and the fury of conversations it caused back when it was released. No one deserves to be disrespected, defiled or debased. But as I grow older the question I ask myself is… would she put herself in that position again years later. Because it wasn’t her fault that she got attacked, in that... she did nothing wrong. But I do wonder if a 40 or 50 year old Sarah Tobias could still taste the sweetness of being sexually free; wearing a revealing outfit, having a couple of drinks with her girlfriends, flirting with some cute guys, or has life smoothed that over for her. I wonder about this because I am realizing that more and more people are beginning to think that because I constantly spout off about my own  sexual conquests, experiences and mishaps that I deserve to bent over the metaphorical pool table also. And I think it was that thought, the presence of that condemnation from society if not from his own self a little, that forced my father to delete his Facebook account.

The compromise I have made is to become “Cautiously Promiscuous”. I think it’s the perfect culmination of life smoothing me over but still being able to maintain my hardness.

Cautiously Promiscuous (‘ko’-sh?s-’le-pr?-’mis-ky?-w?s):

1. The act of fully manifesting an enormous sexual appetite while showing discretion when describing said acts to your messy ass friends who are more than likely dealing with their own sexual hang-ups and are giving you the same shards of judgment that they feel society would give them if they had the balls to go and get as much ass as you do. 
2. Not convincing your father to re-establish his Facebook page so you can continue to change your profile page status to read something on the lines of, “In an effort make a statement in regards to the sodomy laws still established in Detroit and to boost the spirit of it’s citizens as they face the worse unemployment rates they have ever seen, every time I have anal sex I am going to refer to it as getting some ‘Detroit’”
3. Having as much Detroit as humanly possible and choosing the correct people to have in your inner circle who won’t mention it every fucking five minutes. 
4. Not mentioning it every fucking five minutes myself.
5. Choose partners who won’t mention it every fucking five minutes… you don’t want to be an Idaho.

SUICIDE AND THE SINGLE MAN

(c) Breeze Vincinz

I have been under an absolutely immense amount stress and anxiety for the past couple weeks, maybe even a month or two. And then today… it started raining.

The other day while at the gym, I was pondering the whole concept of suicide. Sometimes I think it’s good to get in those heart spaces when everything is just completely out of whack and fucked up. I think it’s good for your personal space to be shitty sometimes. Mainly so you can remember it when someone else is going through the same thing and you can at least for a couple of seconds identify with their humanity. For me, I’ve been thinking of some former managers, evil reality show villains, that asshole bus driver that dropped me off like a half a mile away from my bus stop, all those other people whom I wanted to see dead and wished them harm. Then I’m hurt, like right now, and beaten, and downtrodden and run over and I just want it to end and I realize when all those people were being so shitty, they probably felt the exact same way I feel right now. I got to remember this feeling, because what I really want right now aside from reprieve is just compassion. I just want somebody to hold me, not want anything from me and just tell me that every thing is going to be okay.

I think I would choose death if it weren’t so… you know… final. I somewhat believe in reincarnation and the transfer of energy once you leave this space but I think some things are very succinct. Fingerprints are unique for a purpose. When you die, you may come back again, but you’ll never have those same fingerprints, it’ll never be the same. What we’re going through right now is very unique, and as much as “right now” completely fucking sucks for me, I guess I’m not ready to completely give up on it just yet. If I go right now, there’s no turning back, I wouldn’t just die, everybody I know would die, everything I do would die. I may come back but, this whole thing that I know of right now wouldn’t exist for me anymore. There would be no more Monthly Breeze or Downtown Los Angeles City Walk or momma or America’s Next Top Model, or Diet Cherry 7up or Facebook or, just the slew of other things that make up my world view… I would have to start completely all over again and who knows when and where I would turn up… if I would turn up.

As I get older I’m trying to come to terms with my own mortality. I remember a grade school teacher once telling me that the main thing separating us from animals is the fact that we know that we are eventually going to die. Dogs just bark, fish just swim, but we know eventually one day, it’s all going to go, and once you make that realization, that’s when you begin to live, and take advantage of your opposable thumbs, your working limbs, you appreciate your lungs still being able to be filled with air, your voice still being able to speak a cognizant language. I know one day I’m going to eventually die and the thought totally sucks…. I got so much more game to play! Right now, I have a grocery list of shit that I feel is just beating me down and just raping the happiness out of my soul but I just have to think of the bigger picture in that… no one really leaves this earth completely “clean”, like… everybody gets a little shit thrown on them at one point or another… everybody, from Ghandi to Audrey Hepburn to Oprah… nobody’s perfect and no one has had a life completely filled with perfect circumstances and easy loving… everybody has had some shit thrown on them at one point or another. You just gotta wipe it off and keep going. You gotta realize you aren’t the only one, the first one or the last one really… to ever be shitted on… and it’s okay. It fucking sucks… but it’s okay.

Besides, I keep going back to my parents. Well… all of my family and my friends really but mainly momma and daddy. They’ve been through about thirty or so more years of being shit on than me. Who am I to complain about anything or consider ending it all when I haven’t even begun to go through the crap they have. And for some particular reason I just think they would just be extremely pissed off at me… ending my life… for my job?! For my ex-boyfriend!? For the credit card people!? For the Federal Student Loan people!? For the Gas Company!? I think they would be enraged at me for not having the balls to stand up to all of those entities and say, “Fuck you! You can’t have me!”

But I do understand the inclination. And I hope I can offer some sort of solace to anybody who might be going through the same thing… because we all do… and we just got to get over it.

It’s stopped raining by the way.

ICONIC DIVAS AND WHY GAY MEN ARE ATTRACTED TO THEM

© Dale Guy Madison
It’s an age-old question: Why are gay men so fascinated with divas? Is it their attitude or a vicarious experience? Are we inspired by triumph over adversity? Entertainers have attitude. Who has not lived vicariously through their favorite star? Has there ever been a person in general who has not triumphed over some kind of adversity? Gay fans unlike others in entertainment are fiercely loyal, dedicated, and steadfast to their icons long after the hit records and box office bonanzas have dried up.
 

A gay icon is a public figure, gay or straight who is embraced by many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Qualities of a gay icon often include glamour, flamboyance, and strength through adversity. Judy, Barbra, Diana and Madonna embody many of these qualities and more.

Somewhere over Judy Garland, skies are blue
(1929-1969) Judy Garland could be called the first non sexual gay icon. According to Jon Murphy of ScotsGay Magazine, the first example of a gay icon was St. Sebastian who, in the Nineteenth Century, was viewed by gay men as a classic closet case (suppressed homosexuality) and a tortured image of homosexual desire (Murphy 1). St Sebastian was a Christian saint and martyr, who is said to have been killed while the Roman emperor Diocletian engaged in the persecution of Christians in the 3rd century. There exist many paintings of him nude as a young man with arrow piercings all over his body.
 

The Twentieth century gave birth to the Hollywood film system giving gays females on screen they could adore without any sexual attraction. Gay audiences have related to Judy Garland’s journey to the land of OZ as the perfect metaphor of being different in a world and the acceptance of social outcasts. Judy sang “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and ironically the rainbow flag is the symbol of the gay pride movement.

People who need Streisand are the luckiest people in the world
(1942- ) In 1963, when Garland sang a duet with Barbra Streisand on her television variety show introducing her to audiences, it was like one icon passing the torch on to the next. If Garland typified the diva of the fifties, Streisand carried the banner through the sixties.
 

With the success of the Broadway show and film Funny Girl, Barbra also embodied the ugly duckling/beautiful swan syndrome perfected by Garland. She won an Academy Award for her first movie performance. Unlike Garland, Barbra refused to have her large nose fixed to fit the image of standard beauty. She made awkward beautiful and had success with movies that reflected that attitude in “The Way We Were” The Owl and the Pussy Cat” “What’s up Doc,” “Yentl” and her own remake of “A Star is Born.”

If you need me… call me Miss Ross
(1944- ) When Berry Gordy, founder and creator of Motown discovered The Supremes, his goal was to create the perfect crossover act that would appeal to both black and white audiences. The same cross-generational mix of black and white gay fans that followed The Supremes made Diana Ross a true gay icon with major crossover gay appeal. 

Diana Ross, the lead singer of the trio, stood out from the start. She is a drag queen image come true. Her huge wigs, heavily made up eyes, and sequined gowns are imitated nightly in gay clubs across the country. In 1964, Ross was a skinny black, hunched back singer with popping eye movements. She inched her way ahead of the two identically dressed background singers beside her. Diana became the first cross-over gay icon. She became an icon for white as well as black gay followers.

Madonna, like a virgin touched for the very first time
The 80’s marked a new kind of gay icon when Madonna exploded on the musical scene with her smash hit “Borderline” in 1984 as the AIDS epidemic took off. Rebellious and fearless, unlike Diana Ross, Madonna tackled controversial gender, religious, and sexuality issues in her songs and music videos. Madonna boldly acknowledged her gay fans with open arms and was one of the first celebrities seen embracing an AIDS patient. Previous icons surfaced form some tortured kind of image. Garland was plain looking, Streisand had the Jewish nose, Ross was the skinny poor girl group singer, but Madonna was brazen, self confident and attractive from the start. She posed nude for art classes while a struggling singer.

Like Ross’ brother Chico, Madonna’s gay brother has always lived in the shadow of his big sister. Christopher Ciccone recently wrote a tell-all book about his sister’s life, but everyone must surely wonder (“What’s new?”) since Madonna has always been very candid about her life. She has talked openly about her bisexual experimentations and flaunted her affair with Sarah Bernhard.

CONCLUSION
These women survived adversity or at least portrayed a struggle on screen. They have had personal connections to the gay community and used the public personas to embrace the situations. Are they divas because of an attitude or have they lived up to the attitude that was expected of them? That could be the subject of another paper. 

These women have evolved into a distinct personal style that was not considered traditional. These women have set fashion standards. Their larger than life images are emulated by gay and straight fans who adore what they have seen. The stories of triumph are like dreams come true for gay audiences who want to believe the odd one out can come out on top. 

Wayne Koestenbaum is quoted in the “Fabulous Sublimity of Gay Worship” saying that “gay culture has perfected the art of mimicking a diva—of pretending, inside, to be divine—to help the stigmatized self imagine it is received, believed, and adored. (Farmer 8)” Gay self image is constantly under attack. Diva worship reinforces self esteem and adds a coating of invisible protection. Queer theorist Daniel Harris suggests gay worship paved the way for gay liberation (Milnes).

What stands out most, is the connection these women have to gay audiences during their concert performances. The audiences feel their love and total acceptance. It is something that cannot be faked. Their gay audiences believe their divas truly love them. 

When Judy Garland cries, singing Over the Rainbow, her fans cry. When Barbra Streisand says she has stage fright, her fans support her fears to get her through those moments. When Diana Ross goes into the audience and sings Reach out and touch somebody’s hand, her fans get to touch her. When Madonna shocks the world by kissing a black man in a field of burning crosses they know she speaks for them by breaking all taboos. It is hard not putting these women on pedestals who have given themselves to their gay audiences in the most pure honest way they know how, through their art. It is this complex connection to divas and gay men. It is an unarticulated awareness of his own differentness and society’s signals to him about his emotional orientation, sexual identity, and gender roles.