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.

POVERTY: A LOVE STORY

(c) Breeze Vincinz

I remember an episode of the original “Melrose Place” when Heather Locklear’s character Amanda, a ruthless, cutthroat Donald Trump/Omarosa Bin Laden hybrid whose net worth seemed to be in direct proportion to her immorality explained with all the romanticism in the world that when she was younger her main goal in life was to write poetry and paint in oil and acrylics. When it was asked why she didn’t pursue those dreams, all the romance dropped from her face and she responded very flatly and coldly, “Because poverty sucks.”

I began to think of the tumultuous relationship with Poverty that I have had over the years. Truth be said, he’s been the one asking for a divorce; it’s been me who has wanted to talk things over, see if we can work things out. He’s been so consistent; my childhood friend, my adolescent confidant, my adult lover-rapist-therapist… he’s always been around to kiss and/or kick my ass when appropriate. For the past couple of years I have been talking with other entities: Prosperity, Self-Sufficiency, Affluence, Brand Name Ravioli… it’s been pissing him off. “Haven’t I provided for you? Haven’t I been there! When those financially rich and soul poor people demean you haven’t I masturbated you into a cynical, derisive, generic Ravioli and Ramen Noodle calm! Do you think they care about you? When you had no shoes haven’t I always provided you with Payless Shoe Source shoes! When you needed to travel haven’t you consistently flown coach because of me! You would be barefoot and immobile if it weren’t for me!”

And the truth of the matter is… he’s right. If I would have listened to Opulence I would totally be on Skid Row by now or at least have moved back in with my mom… homeless not being able to afford a condominium mortgage, car note, insurance, credit cards for Macy’s/Bloomingdales and such. It was Poverty who sat me down and said, “Kiddo… don’t save up for a car, just get a bus pass, and why buy when you can rent this ghetto ass cold water flat off of Sunset Blvd. with me and we will be just fine.” And I guess we have been… for awhile at least. But there is something awfully unfulfilling about our dysfunctional little relationship lately, something that I used to think was this manifestation of my growing ego, of me wanting to keep up with the Joneses as I get older. It doesn’t feel like that anymore. In certain ways it feels like I want more just to keep up with me. And it other more prominent ways, I think I have just become exponentially co-dependent on that relationship. I have used it as the punch line of so many of my jokes, the excuse for so many of my short failings, the hub of so many of my dispositions. And while Opulence has his distracting attributes of wanting you to live beyond your means, Poverty can be just as destructive with never wanting your means to ever grow or flourish

Not too long ago I received a comment about one of my articles in which the author touted that I need to “stop claiming poor” with the inclination that if I claim poor then I will be poor. I was extremely pissed reading that comment and I still am not in a pleasant enough state of mind whereas I can thank the author for the advice but what it did do was open my eyes to the type energy that I am giving out to the world. I don’t think that proclaiming myself to be poor makes me poor but I do think that it gives people who are listening an opportunity to treat me as if I am thusly welcoming them into my already dysfunctional relationship with Poverty… and the last thing any shaky relationship needs is well intended advice from someone who only has half of the story. One part of the story is that I have embraced Poverty, the other half of it is the reason why, and the reason why is that in certain ways….I’ve fallen in love with Poverty. You know, he has always been there for me. If there was ever one thing I could ever count on in life, it’s been my inability to pay shit on time… if I pay it at all as well my ability to be self deprecating in regards to my finances and to usher comical shards about my appearance and/or manner due to my income. And like with any relationship, you go through your changes, you both grow at different rates and hope that at the end of the day you still wind up together. Well, I am realizing, and I am putting this energy into the world, that as bittersweet and comforting as these decades have been for me, yeah… I think it’s time we get a divorce.

And dude… like any divorce, it’s not as easy as it sounds! I have been obsessed with anything that emanates from the mouth Suze Orman lately and last Monday I actually sat down, listed every single one of my creditors and gave each and every one of them a call to work out a repayment plan, which let me tell you… took courage of Herculean proportions to do! That along with trying to get back on schedule with paying my rent is probably going to affect my trip back to Chicago this Christmas and that’s when Poverty keeps creeping back in, “Fuck all those Credit Cards, and your management company doesn’t care if your rent is late! Go to Chicago! Get more credit cards to pay for the trip! You won’t have any money when you get back but you don’t have any money now and if you stick with me, you’ll be eating Ramen Noodle dinners again for the next couple of months to pay for the trip and you’ll be fine… just like you always have been!” It’s a convincing argument. It’s one I listened to and atoned to for a couple of decades now. But I also keep hearing two other voices in my head also that are basically saying the same thing, “You’re in a fucked up situation, but you can get out of it, and never return.” One voice is Suze Orman’s, the other, is my own.

So, I want to say that this is a “trial separation” but I somehow feel like a battered wife with a bloody nose and a blackened eye saying she wants a “trial separation” from her husband. You can just feel swarms of voices screaming, “No girl, he needs to leave!” Yeah, my sweet love Poverty has to go. I don’t forsee myself ever becoming a ruthless, cutthroat Donald Trump/Omarosa Bin Laden hybrid… but I will honestly and loudly proclaim that “Poverty Sucks!” And if I ever eat another Ramen Noodle as long as I live it will be too soon.