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I'll never have a particularly strong ego. I can be proud, I can be cheerful, I can be intuitive, but I'll always struggle with my own self worth. Fortunately I can fall back on faking it and charm, most of the time.
To quote Lyn Slater's book How to be Old, "I find the spotlight absolutely terrifying and distinctly unpleasant." Unquote. But regret is best when its someone else's, and Risk can be it's own reward, so here I am. I want to look Risk straight in the face these days, confront it, annoy it, and push it around a bit-- because I'm very aware that my time left on this earth is limited. Some of you will roll your eyes but having turned 60, I'm feeling my age.
The decorated cars-- artcars-- I have driven over the years are another mode of creative visibility. (Leaving aside for now the carbon footprint.) The cars I decorate are the equivalent of clothes that I modify and wear to be seen in. Maybe we are not all clothing fanatics, or car fanatics, but all of us, I think, want to be seen. We are a social species. We want to be witnessed. We want to be remembered.
I'm no celebrity but I'm aware of an interesting downside to this need for recognition that I have. There's a story I heard about an acquaintance who saw David Suzuki waiting in an airport-- and went over to speak to him. Mr Suzuki gave him a firm brush off; he was not in the mood to be famous at that moment. On some level I totally get this. When you drive a wild car to the grocery store, or the gas station, sometimes all you want is a carton of orange juice, not an over-eager fan telling you how very much she really thinks you're an artist, like its almost a plea. I try to be kind, but I often feel like David Suzuki. I don't mean to sound unappreciative. And maybe it is confusing! Generally I don't care. Sometimes I want to be more invisible than its reasonable to expect driving a car with a skateboard and a toy aircraft carrier task force on the roof. And yet this absurd craving for acknowledgement goes on.
Everyone says for you not to chase fame. Do what you love, and allow the universe to respond. And that is true, obviously. Sometimes I make an impact that is more than just someone telling me that I'm an artist. Sometimes people outright cheer-- one kid on a skateboard, (youth personified or so it seemed to me) told my that I have a Kickass Car. That to me was the best compliment ever (or so far). Sometimes I feel like that in me being seen, people feel like they are seen, or at least they feel like they have the potential, or that they also-- deserve to be seen. Sometimes they cheer.
Before the Kia I had a decorated police car-- I'd written World's Gonna Change in a huge font on one side, and Worlds Gonna Pay on the other; it had "anatomically correct" guns and missiles on the roof, a revolving radar dish, and googlie eyes-- signifying big brother watching you-- all over it. The eyes were arranged in various motifs around reproduction, sperm swimming on the doors, and an egg with more sperm on the hood. It was weird. It was Kickass.
I was headed back on the ferry from the Kitsap County Future Fair one night in June back in 2010, when there was a fire in the car while on the boat, which broke out when I was up on the passenger level. There was an alarm, there was a moment of panic, there was an overly aggressive retiree with a US Marines tee-shirt that nearly assaulted me. I was cuffed, questioned, detained, and finally released to go home, and briefly labelled a security risk. In putting out the fire, the crew had broken out some windows of the car. So I drove home on the highway two hours from Everett with the remaining windows down. (I realize now that the fire was a form of self-sabotage, started by a faulty neon light transformer.) When I got to Sumas, shortly before dawn, the town cop stopped me. He said I was weaving a bit. I was cold and sober. I think he was just bored, and maybe a little curious. And I was a raving queen driving a tarted up police car with missing windows. He let me go. Well, what was he going to do? I tell you all this because I'm sort of proud of it now, but truthfully at the time I was convinced that I had to quit being so transgressive with my art. Again with the transgressive. But what is art for, if not to question the comfortable. I still believe that.
Much later, in an effort to stir up a fan base or some such, I tried Tik-Toc, but gave up after a couple weeks. Most platforms and most of the posts on them are a means to either make money or, more constructively, build an audience (lastly-- reinforce social connections). But for me, having people follow me on Tik-Toc is only the low end on a continuum that leads to stardom. Except I never want to be famous if it only cements my dependency on the apps, making posting on social media a treadmill. So, maybe I'm actually okay with being invisible, or at any rate a non-entity-celebrity. Maybe I haven't tasted fame, but I've sniffed it out from the next room. Its lost its new-car smell; its more like your Dad's stale Pontiac with the cracked vinyl seats. Its nice enough, and it'll get you there. But don't wear short pants if you park in the sun.
I made plans back well before 2016; in honesty that's because 1) I've spent enough time in BC to know without a doubt that the culture up there is kinder and gentler than even progressive western Washington State; after all BC legalized gay marriage waaay back in 2003 and 2) I met a Canadian who agreed to marry me (in 2015). Its taken until this July to make the move.
Yes. Canada. By marriage.
I tell people now that if Obama was in office, it would make it harder to leave the US-- but I'd still go. After Trump's recent moment of joy during the Republican convention, I was happy to head north and not look back. Now with Kamala apparently taking the reins I'm still glad we made the move (from Seattle to Vancouver). Culturally there is just so much more CALM up here. Vancouver is a very big city-- even so most people here are open, accepting, engaging, kind. Even civil, usually, when in their cars. Seattle by comparison-- as progressive as it is relative to the rest of the lower 48-- is full of stressed out people who are apparently always late; racing rats in a car-centric ring of Dante's Hell. Mind you I drive a car in Seattle all the time-- but I know what its like to ride a bicycle there. (While on a bike I was rear-ended by a car in White Center in daylight while pausing at a stop sign. The fender was shredded but I walked away. The helmet saved me.
I see good things looking forward for at least the next four years. I think Trumpsters are on their heels at least for the moment. Its that inevitable pendulum swing, currently moving the cultural dial a tiny bit left (thank gawd I'm not trans btw). Maybe for a little while progressives in the US will have their moment. (Meanwhile up here we'll soon be saying goodbye to Justin Trudeau and hello to Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative party). As for me, no regrets what so ever. Even Pierre will be a pale shadow of social conservatism compared to the MAGA crowd.
There are times when Beauty just reaches out and grabs you by the neck. Sometimes images do that. Other times its more about something familiar that your insides react to, and no longer about what you're looking at. The more time I spend in Boston Bar, the more I'm able to appreciate what its like to have to adapt to things completely outside of my control-- aesthetically and otherwise. Things that might kill you.
The bears tore 2" limbs from some of our trees this year. They were hungry, natch. And this is not an unusual year for that. And theirs is not an unusual will to survive. Nature continues to fight Tooth and Nail to gain access to our tiny lives, or at least our few little rooms. She is relentless.
Inside my brain, maybe dead rats, blue tarps, rotting wood and screeching trains are pretty. But I don't really think so. Maybe everyone's idea of beauty is conditional, but at least for me, its not having to look in order to find it, so much as stumbling upon it when your other work is done. When you least expect it. Surprise!
It was that kind of visit. An OMG, suddenly reminded of how things have changed, and how lucky I have been. So I went through Mark's stuff first time since 2012. We did a nice purge to the local thrift shop (& land fill.) And then there was Pear Cobbler to die for, so to speak...
Oh, to be the KING of the world; powerful enough to eradicate nationalism, corporate greed and narrow straight people.
But maybe most of all--to be able to erase the differences that divide us...for to a lessor or greater degree, we all have our pride of country, our arms race mentality, and certainly our fear of difference. A world of fear and hurt has tread on the feathered shoes of our fabulous fairy friends in and out of the closet for too long. Or I could let all that power go to my head and become an unspeakable despot. Speaking of us and them, it is evidently a time for war--literally, figuratively, certainly in the eyes of the news media. But it isn't just about the Middle East; not about arbitrarily invading Iraq or any other country given to maniacal rulers or religious fanaticism or bombs or oil--its about the current consumptive hetero paradigm of Christian so-called normalcy! The media would have us riding a consumer driven culture of greed lead by a pResident who's own children fake drug prescriptions in order to cope? Call me a paranoid left-wing liberal, but is there not a pattern here?
So enough is enough--the time for renewal is now. And if that means only momentarily forgetting those domestic charges brought up by your ex-, and if you're not too intimidated by the written word (you got this far didn't you?), then bring your radical self, your pumps and a frilly skirt or two--and learn what I mean by VISIBILITY!
Hetero dominance has been in need of a blow job and a case of crabs for far to long! If you're gay,
recently out of the closet, or been loud and proud for longer than you'll ever admit--you're only as screwed up as society made you!Join me now in an alternative place, where religion is separated from spirit, and getting to know the unknown is the basis for PEACE.
For What Its Worth (or about me)--
For now I'm trying just to enjoy the benefits of country living (see photo, left), having moved from Seattle a year ago. When I'm not at my computer, I'm dabbling in cartoons and other imagery, in an attempt to create an atmosphere of discord--I'll succeed if somehow I have put the viewer on an unexpected edge. That isn't easy, given the saturation of images via TV advertising, movies, x-box, etc. But I think there is lots of room for exploration, beyond the flood of vampires, alien invasion, flying cars, etc. Not that flying cars can't be fun too, but for me, its about the proximity of
the edge.
I seem to have made it out of the closet in more or less one piece, sort of ironic to think that I've returned to the rural life after longing for years as a child to FLEE it. And in making it this far, I've somehow become an engineer, which may or may not surprise you. BSME. Engineers are not born but contrary to what a lot of fundamentalist preachers tell you, queers are.
Harry Hay who passed away this year, gets the credit for recognizing the true spirituality inherent in "faeries", and
perhaps all gay men. A faerie to me is someone who can snap back the insult that most ignorant straight men assign the feminine role to; and I'm not talking about sex. The best summation that I've found of what being a radical faery is all about is written by Rawley Grau, who describes faeries as having "a light-hearted camp sensibility that is
unmistakably queer" who believe that "gay people are a special tribe with a unique role to play in the evolution of human consciousness". If you're interested, another description of what it means to be a rad fey may be found
Thanks for visiting.
Musings, Journal Entries, Rants
OCT 22, 2003
Well I'm back. From outer space. Or rather, Berkeley. What a fun ride this
summer was. Met some great people and had more fun than I thought possible
with heteros. Gradually even my own stereotypes have to break down. These
people are all artists, go figure they would help expand my horizons.
Otherwise, life continues in a good way. I've got a new goddess for my resume--or at least for the personal satisfaction of a job well done as it were. I've got more comics on the way soon (this time I mean it). I've got
new plans and new hopes and new and increasingly complex designs on what happens next to the art car. And folks to get to know, gay and straight, in both Canada and the USA. Not bad, huh? Now if I could just learn how to market myself.
JUN 26, 2003
I don't remember the last time I heard good news on TV. Today the supremo court of the USA decided that sodomy isn't such a road to hell after all. Go figure. Could it be that someday I'll want to revise my ten fundamental truths?
APR 2003
An entire war is underway and precious little to say about that here. Except this.
NOV 2002
--Hideously Motivated. I fear only that life will not grant me the time to undo all that I've wasted. I'd like to begin finally the gathering of threads. "Overwhelming burden of work" is an understatement. Still must try. This on
the heals of near clinical depression brought on by not acknowledging the natural chemical processes present during conception, pregnency, and not least, life itself. The clouds above me grow only darker, and times that allow me
lucidity are more rare than cherries in January. This my current thinking anyway, in light of certain realizations I had in Saint John's namesake city. Things along the tedious lines of, for example, failing to love or at least acknowlege the human-ness in others is a form of murder. We all do it, but at that time and place I was crucifying myself for caring to much about some past abuse I was responsible for (I was seven at the time). Leading to thoughts about my ability to love or at least deal with other people, and the steps across that gaping canyon. It was a new low that I am scarcely out of. As I am beginning to see it, I'm happier when given ample solitary time to pursue this undreamable work that I'm about. My relationship with people is about the most important thing there is to me, but it seems I cannot fully realize it (them) without committing a lot of time--alone, to art.
November 6, 2002
--Election results flowing in; Republicans carry the day. No surprise there, considering we're in the midst of a pendulum sweep to the far right. Times of war evidently bring out the worst in stupid selfish people.
JULY 2002
--Outrageously Happy. I'm living the large dog lifestyle. Work consists of time in front of a computer, barefoot, with coffee the way I like it. I take Sadie for a walk around the park sometimes. For free time there's Canada,
either Vancouver or Boston Bar. There's time for friends, time for Mark, and even the occasional amorous encounter. And we've got faith, wonder, and a little bit of the future (well barring the end of civilization due to war).
JUNE 2002
--Well, life in America in the new millennium is finally looking up I suppose. So long as we can depend on the religious dogma of the fearful masses we can be sure that GOD will surely forgive those of us who are right in his eyes (Christian, and suitably verbal in our fervor.) So hopefully so long as enough zealots are around to sling praises and hunt for more godless homosexuals to bash, GOD will see fit to spare the planet from his smighting, or whatever.
GOD being a merciful GOD and all that. So I'm just a little fed up with all this "Nation Under God" crap. Like if it weren't for the pledge of allegiance, we'd somehow be a less noble (and GOD fearing) country? As if GOD gives a shit what we force our future little economic wage slaves to pledge? And lets just ignore the beliefs of all the Jews and Muslims and Pagans and Athiests out there, since this is "primarily" a country polluted with Christians? Never mind what treaty John Adams signed in Tripoli, which provides that "The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"?
OCTOBER 2001
--I suppose everything reveals itself in a new light--now less than a month after the tragic events in NYC and elsewhere. That is to say that rants about consumerism and heteroism take on a certain meaninglessness when held up against the probability of the entire world, or the United States at least, plunging into a very deep and bloody pit indeed. War is not the answer, and beyond that I don't have much to say. All this mindless flag waving and "God Bless America (and screw the rest of the world)" leaves me cold. God willing some day we'll learn why those in Israel and
Palestine cannot get along. The former Archbishop of Seattle, Raymond Hunthousen, is a great peacemaker and great man, for a Catholic. He said a long time ago that it takes more courage to posture for peace than it does for
war. I think his words are as true today as when he spoke them, at that time regarding the Trident nuclear sub program located in nearby Hood Canal. Putting down our arms and instead building houses and desalinization plants in Iraq is something that not enough people have thought about. That's what I would call peacekeeping!
JUNE 2001
--It seems to me like you're expected to lead a certain way of life based on 'your station' or more to the point, your job. Generations past, living and dead, that brought us 'the good life' generally want you to thank them on your knees for all their hard-won sacrifices. That's valid and all, but along with all those truly good things they helped bring to pass is a global economy that destroys individuality while pretending to cater to it, that allows wilderness areas to
be reduced to nothing more than a mass of 'natural resources'--for the use and disposal of a population that cannot seem to control itself. (Justified somehow by the Bible of all things.) Entire species disappear, part of business as
usual. Meanwhile I am expected to work away in a cubicle for 40 hours a week to help feed a system bent on nothing less than economic and military domination? This is why we're here? To become slaves to our possessions? And it would appear that through peer pressure and mass marketing, anyone who doesn't fit the social mold (have you watched an Old Navy commercial lately?) is told to reject their own lives.
Social conformity is way out of control. I think people by and large are a little too secure in their falsely fortified
self-righteousness, lulled to stupor by messages about America's greatness and righteousness repeated ad nauseum, during a time when the earth's warning signals should be waking us all the hell up. Its getting to me.
Now that I've explored my self-righteousness (and yes I'm right); here's a photo of my car. How can I be indignant over the ubiquitous SUV's that litter our highways--while driving an American barge on wheels myself? Its not easy, but when you consider the purely 'arms race' mentality of many SUV drivers...to whit, buy a larger vehicle to protect yourself from all those other large vehicles? I resisted until my Honda was totalled. So be it, but what really gets me is that you're burning more fuel to carry that extra differential (500+ lbs), which is useless weight unless your vehicle is actually IN four wheel drive. Certainly a four wheel drive vehicle has its uses, but the zeal with which many consumers have embraced these monsters is simply self-absorbed American arrogance. Anyway, if you find yourself behind my car on the road some day, at least you'll have something to read...
Whines from the '90's (or things I'm glad I wrote down)...
--So I wound up taking Rusteria to the Holloween Bump... Went home with him, "bumped pussies" etc. no spillage mind you, just a little heavy breathing. Odd to have sex without coming, but then Rus is a mixed bag of fruit. More to the point, given my perpetual theatrical 'coolness', that is lack of warmth--toward potential lovers, tailors, bodybuilders, poets not to mention orphaned kittens, racoons, etc--I wonder if it isn't closer to the new norm. What with only physical desire lately mushrooming out of the compost of life--isn't it more a question of who I'll be doing next, rather than who I'll be dating? Flush that 'I need somebody to love' mentality into the sewer, in favor of 'what can you do for me'? Alienation with attitude--the worst of what the gay community can spit up--is leaning on the opposite wall cruising me. And he's hot.
Perhaps a new kind of freedom can be won, one that doesn't allow for the giving away of my heart for the capricious, much-distracted amusement of a casual partner. Casual in his mind, but all to often a lover in mine. Daryl has been preaching to me the benefits of promiscuity; multiple sex partners each week the norm in his case (he's been cutting down a lot). All wrapped up in shiny latex condoms of course. Daryl and Dan Savage and practically everybody else in the gay community chime in with Gay Sex Mantra No 1: "Get sex as often as you can while you're still young." Followed by GSM No 2: "Look young for as many decades as you can." It seems unlikely that I'll change in the way many would like me to, yet time was that I slept around as much as possible. I just always wanted the experience to continue, meaningfully, ideally into an eventual reflection of the usual, conventional, straight marriage as modeled by my parents. Go figure that its the most uninspired unoriginal path I can think of. Boring but reassuring, like a large
dog.
One option--cease and desist all overt contact initiated to meet men. Consider tending your own garden instead, and turning it into a raging hard-on delight. I'm talking excess with Dick Eliot and wife Jane. Pallet fencing, bottle caps, totems, tricycles, and about a ton of reflectors.
email: radfeyart@gmail.com
OK to be GAY? And other issues... Henrieta's Hetero Defense Workshop II Gay Sex and Health --Doctors reporting that butt sex is bad for you because it is "against the natural flow" as it were, fail to face reality. Most wouldn't know a natural flow if it swept them away. Homosexuality has existed as long as "human history" . Suggesting to me at least that sometimes the natural flow might go in reverse...quite naturally.
Gay Sex and Health Part 2 --And now I read that some gay super booster has written a book about how gay sex doesn't work? He says it was sort of a let down for him. Not because of the partners, no, because of the act. Mark Simpson is the author, don't remember the title, but anyway he tries to build an argument against gay sex as being off-putting or simply to anti-hip for words. I think one can become physically ill from irony alone.
Visibility --Regarding how the decision to come out of the closet would be influenced by an awareness of the limits of fantasy, i.e. could two men conceive of let alone desire to spend their lives together. If the answer was no, as it might have been in the 1950's (and earlier) then how many men would opt to retain their closeted denial ("or straight identity")? And as a result, could there be a larger population of out, gay men during times of enlarged visibility and acceptance? It would seem so. Clearly things are much easier on queers than they used to be.
Vision --Regarding how it must feel to a writer if his play is undermined at a crucial early scene, say for example in "The Devil at 4 O'clock" that Spencer Tracy is killed when the plane crashes during the initial reconnaissance flight around the volcano--15 minutes into the movie. Leaving the supporting cast with no will to proceed with the script that the writer had in mind. With destiny no longer obvious, how do our replacement heroes go on?
Applied Science (1992) --Engineering touts itself as being applied science, but most of the time it seems to me like little more than making an educated guess and applying a safety factor. I've spent the morning trying to determine water hammer in a piping system. All this talk about bulk modulus and elasticity and shock waves is well and good but I've already specified a wall thickness for the pipe that's four times larger than the equations call for, making for a very reliable (if a bit over-sized) design. Meanwhile in the next cubicle Sven is performing a similar analysis down to a gnat's eyebrow, making a design equally reliable, and perhaps a bit more cost effective, tho spending a good deal more time than I on this one issue (pipe analysis). To my mind though, in the end it works out even; typically Army requirements tie our hands from trying anything remotely risky, in a design sense, which is fine with me. Its kind of a question of how many assumptions do you take for granted and how many do you verify.
With all our insights into the laws of physics, we're still forced to stay inside our mental box by a quandry of engineering "assumptions"-- for example, that we can define the tendancy of a piece of steel to deform elastically, in terms of pounds per square inch, and that this particular quantity is applicable to the matter at hand. (Do you know how many kinds of steel piping there are?) We can predict the outcome of certain events within a narrow set of parameters, and normally those parameters are adequate to our needs, say to fly a space shuttle or build a bridge, or design a fuel storage facility for Fort Lewis. But it intrigues me that so much of our science--at least as it applies to everyday reality--hangs on a cloak of uncertainty and doubt. And not surprisingly, engineers would typically be the last to admit that there's anything they don't understand. But the only reason to apply a "safety factor" is to compensate for what you can't know.
How's that for a sample of Dennis's reality? It's Tuesday, so this is definitely a work day, which explains in part the prior two paragraph's ramblings. Suffice to say that I'm a bit frustrated today. The job over-all is fine, tho.