BuggBlog

God rest ye mary gentleman

As a little kid during the '70s, Charles Nelson Reilly was  one of my first exposures to big, flaming homosexuals (alongside Paul Lynde), thanks to my love of TV game shows. He's gone now, and the world's a little sadder, because they really don't make 'em like they used to.

Broadcast news

The prospect of watching yet another country march itself into a drain spiral is rather depressing, but it's not really all that surprising to watch Venezuela take another step in that direction as President Hugo Chavez shut down a popular television station that broadcast things he didn't like. It doesn't really matter what part of the political spectrum you're talking about, Left or Right -- the people in power always want to shut other people up, if they can.

Of course, because Chavez hates George Bush, there will probably be many, many people on the left here in the U.S. who will eagerly issue apologia, if not downright stirring defenses, of the Venezuelan "president": I wish we had someone here in America to take care of that horrid Fox News. It seems too easy these days to confuse a shared hatred of George Bush with a shared political platform.

Then again, given his censorious approach, Chavez seems like he's perfectly cut out to serve on the Bush administration's FCC.

All crime and no punishment

I'm sitting at my computer on a Sunday morning, editing copy for the Capital Pride Guide -- profiles and preview stories for the annual celebration that culminates in thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people taking to the main street of the nation's capital for a peaceful and enjoyable celebration of our community. The local government supports it, the police provide protection and the federal government keeps its nose out for the day.

Meanwhile, Doug Ireland reports  that over in Russia for the second year in a row an attempt at a gay pride event has been met with violence, as police arrested organizers and allowed anti-gay, ultra-nationalist hooligans to run free, pelting organizers and participants with eggs and bottles, and physically attacking some of them. This picture from Ireland's blog of a hooligan winding up to punch British gay activist Peter Tatchell sums up rather a lot:

Think that guy has any fear of being arrested for physically attacking someone?

It seems a long, long time ago when the Communists collapsed and it seemed like the world was preparing for a turn to the better -- that ideal seems lost, perhaps permanently. I don't base that on just the reaction to a gay pride march, although that's indicative of the rot in Putin's Russia. I had a straight friend once who spent a good amount of time in Moscow on business -- private contractor stuff. He got picked up by police in a van and spent the next three or so days being beaten in a jail cell before being dropped back on the street, sans his valuables.

It seems trite sometimes to say that we're lucky to be gay -- or whatever -- in the U.S., where even with the many problems we face, we've made enough progress to make these Russian-type incidents, if not impossible, then nearly so. But in our own comfort, I hope we don't avert our gaze from parts of the world that can seem so distant from our own concerns.

A moment of higher education

Over the past few months, I've noticed an uptick in the amount of mail I receive from my Virginian alma mater, Washington and Lee University. I assume that they have some actuarial chart that tells them that now, nearly 20 years after my graduation, I have enough distance from my actual experience that I might want to have something more to do with them. Of course, my experience was a mixed bag, thanks to the preponderance of spoiled, rich daddy's boys who didn't quite cotton to the idea of homosexuals in their midst. Particularly homosexuals like me who got outed and hounded and all that crap.

Whatever, I'm actually more beyond it than I ever expected, just because of the whole "whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger" principle. Not that I wouldn't change my experience if I had the opportunity, but life is what it is, and things go on, and we all focus on the present instead of the past.

Meaning, I'd begun to have a bit of a thawing towards Washington and Lee now that I'm a little older. It's easier to remember that the education I got was truly first class. The faculty was great, even the ones who, unlike my teachers back home in Kentucky, didn't hop on the "Sean Bugg is a genius" train (lest you be erroneously impressed, remember I'm from a very small and rural area, so the smart kid competition really came down to about five of us, all of which is probably a story for another day). The administration was even a fairly good experience for me, as they scrambled to console me after my outing experience. Yeah, the university president was probably a bit fearful of a lawsuit and my consolation was in their best interest, but a lot of the support I received was sincere and heartfelt, and went a long way toward keeping me sane during a very difficult period.

So, with all that in mind, I was thinking, oh, what the hell, maybe this year I'll give to the Annual Fund or join the local alumni group. It's 2007 -- let's all just move on.

Then, this morning as I was sitting in the ridiculous traffic on 18th Street, I spied a silver Toyota 4-Runner with Virginia plates and a distinctive Washington and Lee trident graphic on the right side of its back window. On the left side was was a 2004 "W" for president sticker -- okay, fine, both sides of that battle really should get rid of all the stickers by this point. But right in the center of the 4-Runner's back window was a "Vote 'Yes' For Marriage" sticker -- "One man, one woman," supporting the lamentably passed constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships and just about everything else up to and including sharing a ride in a car together.

And suddenly, I remembered why I won't give money or join the D.C. alumni association or otherwise lend my support to the institution: Because the place is overrun with over-privileged jerkwads.

How on earth did I ever forget that? Thank you, Mr.-or-Ms. Toyota 4-Runner, for reminding me. From now on, every time I consider donating to Washington and Lee, I'll be sure to fork over the dough to Equality Virginia instead.

I'm not a total asshole on this -- some very, very cool people other than myself went to Washington and Lee, but the overwhelming majority at that point in time (late '80s through early '90s) were exactly as I describe. But cool people were there. Just not enough of them.

My secret shame

No, not pornography. I said my secret shame.

And that would be the point where the handful of family members who still read this blog decide to bail out.

Anyway, my secret shame is something far less sexy. Well, depending on how sexy you think porn is, which is definitely in the territory known as "subjective." But whatever your opinion on that may be, I'm pretty sure an addiction to Guitar Hero II is even less sexy. I believe it was about on my fiftieth run through Deep Purple's "Hush" on "Hard" difficulty -- and believe me, that song's far more difficult than you would think -- that I realized, "I have a problem." Between that and my repeated attempts to get at least four out of five stars on "Freebird," I knew I had to have a break.

And if my high-school self heard my adult self whining about not getting a high score on a country-rock classic like "Freebird" -- the redneck "Stairway to Heaven" -- my high school self would have kicked my ass. Or, at least, gotten some bigger, badder friends to kick my ass for him. Although, in my defense, I got five stars on "Shout at the Devil," so sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll all the way baby, wooooooo! It's just like being back at that triple-bill concert of Accept, Aldo Nova and Blue Oyster Cult back in 1983. Rock rock 'til you drop, man!

And that just proves my point. Now you see why I had to bring my rockin' toy guitar and the game disc to a friend of mine for safe keeping for at least a couple months. But when August comes around baby, it's five stars all the way.

Ain't that a kick in the head

On the off chance you haven't see this yet - I saw it on Queerty yesterday or so -- I laughed myself silly:

Then Yusef showed me this, from his own YouTube archive and I laughed myself silly again:

So, laughing at Jerry Falwell's death makes me uneasy. Watching small children get kicked in the head by errant breakdancers makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. There is just something so wrong with me.

Last call for Schadenfreude

I hadn't really planned on writing anything about Jerry Falwell, given that the whole gamut of lamentations and celebrations hit the the web about 60 seconds after his death was announced. I ran across something this morning, however -- a blog-post from CourageMan, a Catholic blogger, taking Blade editor Kevin Naff to task for his break-out-the-Champagne celebration of Falwell's passing. CourageMan dug up an interview we did at Metro Weekly a few years back with Tammy Faye Messner, in which she talks about her forgiveness of Falwell (as well as her husband, Jim Bakker). That was an interview I didn't expect a lot from, but got a lot out of -- and she's always seemed perfectly sincere in her forgiveness, even as she explains how hurt and betrayed she felt. Anyway, CourageMan's point seems to be that if Tammy Faye can forgive Falwell, people like Naff might want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I've been tracking some conversations among some gays and lesbians urging restraint in response to Falwell's death, because big death celebrations don't play well politically in the mainstream. That in turn generates defiant calls to "Fuck that shit, anyone up for some nude grave dancing?" I'm with the former, and not because I have any great need to "forgive" Falwell for his detestable actions against gays, of which there are many. It's because I'm uncomfortable with the celebration of death. Perhaps that's because in my disbelieving agnosticism, I strongly suspect that death is the end -- no afterlife, no reincarnation, no second chances. That makes even the death of a rank bastard something to be at least maudlin about.

Also, while I find Falwell's political and religious activism to be reprehensible, perhaps grave dancing could be saved for those more truly monstrous in their crimes -- Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, the genocidaires of Rwanda, and too many others to count. In Falwell's case, toasting the Grim Reaper is a bit of, um, overkill.

Puff puff

I started smoking when I was 16. I quit for a few months when I started college but, after watching St. Elmo's Fire, I started again -- something about watching Andrew McCarthy doing the mouth-to-nostril inhale really turned me on -- and I didn't stop again for about 18 years. Stopping was not an easy thing. It required patches and Wellbutrin prescriptions and a lot of teeth-gnashing. Yet every time I walk into a 7-Eleven I have to stop myself from ordering a hard-pack of Marlboro Lights.

Such is the nature of nicotine addiction.

One of the earlier lessons my father taught me -- and that I remember -- is that the two people in the world to be wary of are the ex-drinker and the ex-smoker. It was, in essence, a warning against the dangers of self-righteousness, and having been at one time or another an "ex" in both of those activities, I've been acutely aware of how I deal with both myself and others when it comes to cigarettes and booze.

Being a libertarian, I'm pretty much of the mind that if someone wants to smoke himself to an early death via emphysema and lung cancer, that's his choice. Then again, I believe if someone wants to drive without wearing a seat belt or ride a motorcycle without a helmet, go right on ahead. Short term losses in insurance rates are made up for in long term gains to the gene pool, and all that jazz.

So when it comes to smoking in public places, I'm torn. I'm not a big bar hopper these days, being married and suburban and all. But I can say that I vastly prefer non-smoking bars -- I don't like being around cigarette smoke or stench, unless I'm really wasted enough to think I want to smoke again, which I usually immediately regret after one drag. Smoke-free spaces mandated by legislation would seem to be right up my personal alley.

I'm bringing this up because Malcontent Matt, who I generally enjoy reading and agree with more often than you might think, has a particular hard-on for anti-smoking legislation. Judging from what I've read, he seems to have a particularly severe reaction to cigarette smoke -- a problem I actually identify with, given that since I've stopped, exposure to smoke usually makes me gag and cry and cough like I'm caught in a pollen storm. Problem is, while I generally expect Matt to take a position that markets and demand should be the driving force behind social change, on this one issue he seems to believe the opposite. From a post last Friday (see, I told you I was falling behind), he takes a certain local gay paper (not mine!) to task for following Mark Lee's claims of a business downturn for gay bars in the wake of D.C.'s smoking ban. Matt says:

Putting dubious statistics and analysis aside for a moment, I don’t feel all that bad for the bars whose business might be down because of the smoking ban. I’m sorry, I just don’t. If you can’t figure out how to compete on an even and smoke-free playing field, then you should not be in business. It’s the American way.

Agitating against the public health, however, is not.

Okay, if there was such a demand for smoke-free bars and nightclubs, why didn't bars and nightclubs cater to that market before? I know of a couple popular gay bars that tried smoke-free nights a few years back, only to quickly retreat when the regular crowd diminished. Matt says that smokers, unlike helmet-less motorcycle riders, directly and negatively impact the health of non-smokers such as himself. But that's only true if non-smokers such as Matt continue to frequent bars and nightclubs which allow smoking. It seems really odd to me to read a somewhat-right-of-center blogger such as Matt claim that businesses that can't comply with heavy-handed government regulations shouldn't be in business. That doesn't really strike me as doing business the American way.

Of course, this is all a moot point. D.C.'s bars are now totally smoke free and I totally enjoy that fact when I'm in them, even if I'm uncertain about the means used to achieve the ends. But to say "Agitating against the public health, however, is not," strikes me as somewhat less than a hop, skip and a jump away from, "Won't somebody please think of the children?" And that road tends to mean a lot less freedom for everyone. Even if it's just the freedom to kind of be an ass.

Screw your pass!*

I don't know why, but I was kind of surprised when the bank officer asked Cavin if he was single.

We were opening up a joint savings account -- finally -- and had already established that I was a long-time Wachovia customer, etc. None of the questions about citizenship and such surprised me -- I've spent time returning to the U.S. with Cavin after a trip from Canada, so I know that anyone with a pronounced accent and non-Caucasian appearance is in for some extra questioning when it comes to citizenship. It doesn't seem to bother him, so I don't let it bother me.

But the single question kind of threw me. And before I could think of anything to say, Cavin simply told the guy, "We just got married."

Naturally, the bank officer got a brief look of confusion on his face, so I jumped in with, "We just got married, but we're legally single." It is Virginia, after all.

Once that got settled, things went fine and, as per my capitalist philosophy, the bank officer went on to congratulate us, marvel at the generosity of our families, and attempt to sell us a wide array of banking services. Moments like that are what make me love America, despite all its faults.

It pays to remember that my wedding, while perfectly legitimate in eyes of our family who attended -- both his and mine -- is pretty much a social construct of our own creation (normally, I'd never use the term "social construct" without a thick layer of irony, but in this case it actually seems appropriate). It's not legal, but it counts. Sure, I'm in Virginia, a state that's particularly hostile to not only gay marriage, but gays in general (I'm speaking of the whole state, not just of the largely pro-gay Northern Virginia suburbs). But I just had a big gay wedding that drew from the rural, conservative, Indiana/Kentucky family of my side and the Vietnamese, anti-communist, conservative, immigrant family of Cavin's side -- and they both loved and supported us. That counts for something. And more people need to take the same step to make those "somethings" add up. Just because you don't live in Massachusetts doesn't mean
you can't get married.

I mean, really. The gifts are still arriving every day via UPS. Heterosexual couples have had this racket to themselves for years. Get in on it while you can.

All politics and bellyaching and avarice aside, I do finally have the photos from our wedding up. In the left column of this page, you should find links to the photo albums chronicling the day. All thanks go to Ward Morrison -- you may recognize his from his work at Metro Weekly -- who did a phenomenal job capturing a really special day for me and Cavin. As in everything when it comes to my good fortune in finding Cavin, I've been extraordinarily lucky in life, and I'm thankful for it.

So now I promise I'll find something to talk about other than my own wedding. I haven't written nearly enough about my Guitar Hero II addiction....

*So said Heather Langenkamp, as Nancy wandering the dream halls of her Elm Street high school. Oh, just go Google it and figure it out yourself. I may even get you a Pepsi. If I don't get too obscure with the references.

Hold your horses!

Yes, yes, yes, I promised on Monday to have pictures from the wedding up shortly, and here it is Saturday and I haven't gotten anything together. In my defense, I just got all the photos yesterday. Our fabulous photographer, Ward Morrison, shot 998 photos of the set-up, ceremony, luncheon and reception, which I've now whittled down to about 300 possibilities for posting. It's going to be a long weekend. Anyway, just as proof, here's how Cavin and I looked shortly before the ceremony started:

And here's the cake:

Don't worry, photos of me looking like an idiot will follow later.