one voice

"A writer, a writer - - you know,
you should have this little
voice inside you saying "Tell
the truth, tell the truth....""

Quentin Tarantino

i watched the grammys last night, along with several million other americans. i am not sure if i am just getting old, but i thought the sound sucked. i doubt i could have enjoyed most of it less. when the "rap pack" and m.i.a. did their thing, i was astonished as how little i could hear. it sounded as if i was in a tunnel and needed a hearing aid. i guess the possibility also exists that i need a new television. guess i shoulda tried hulu.

but i know that best new artist went to adele and i am completely okay with that. she has an unmistakable voice and a style that is understated and very authentic. i salute her today. congratulations adele.

and i ask the producers to try to get their shit together because i don't think i can stand to sit through another soundless show.

until then, i will still support new music, old music, vintage music, cover versions, live versions, and filmed versions as much as i can.

Adele - Chasing Pavements (Live)
Uploaded by Marerw

gay men's health crisis

dance hall days

two true blues.... top pic 1984 upstairs at medusa's
btm pic very recently with a face that still lights up my heart

fairyland balls
mating calls
lovers quarrels
expanding morals
desires spurned
urges burned
signals turned
lessons learned

theatre
cabaret
showlounge
studio
loft
catwalk
switchboard
performance art
workout room
interpretive dance
community room
powder room
mixology

these were my dance hall days.

there are tidbits of my life that will always have glimmer. moments and memories, sounds and smells, snapshots and silhouettes that may always be etched into the sandscape of my history.

i got an email from my friend blue (pictured above channeling "mrs. levin" with medusa's sister sharon) from chicago last night. typed in the subject line was "oh gurl".. and in the body of the note, he went on to say that he was listening to some old favorites... ian dury and the blockheads with spasticus autisticus.. chery lynn doing star love... and loleatta holloway with hit and run...

i was driving to work as i read these words on the new blackberry and my heart skipped a beat. honestly it did. these tunes used to represent so much more than just a few minutes to us back then. they were anthems of sorts and somehow helped cement a bond between those of us in the club. we silently agreed that these dj- probably someone like mark hultmark or frankie knuckles or mark stephens, had what it took to consruct the soundtrack of our young lives. they had put in the time and the research, understood our history and our mission, and could soothe our souls and spawn inspiration while they held court in the crow's nest.

i find it soothing to take a moment now and then to sink back into my armchair of memory and breathe in an elixir of youth, memory, passion, and hope. i can't ever go back, but now and again, i can play the video. i know i am not the same, but the soundtrack still holds much of the same excitement it did then.

i have known blue since 1979 (i think). i remember him from an earlier time- probably 1976 or 77. he was in the "rula lenska look-a-like contest" at cheeks and he introduced himself as bluela lenska - rula's once-prettier sister who had fired the wrath of rula and become the consequence of acid in the face. i think blue was high on mda or something, but i didn't know him then and i remember asking someone-"who is that?"..

anyway, blue and i met at columns (an afterhours club). we were both standing on the perimeter as a remixed version of phil collins' "in the air tonight" and thinking we had been shapeshifted into dullsville. we both looked directly at each other. one couldn't help but notice that he was wearing the most peculiar lime green pompom hat. i asked him about it and he told me it was actually a scottish purse that he had repurposed (21st century word- sorry- but it works here). i laughed and he told me that he was a member of a scottish bagpipe band. i asked if he was scottish and he said no- he was german. i was to determine later that it was probably the opportunity to wear kilts and the outdoor party that attracted him. we closed columns that night and walked the 60 blocks or so from downtown back up to boystown along the lakefront. we talked about people we knew, music, our own stories, and the stories of others. we talked about growing up, about parties, and about life.

we became fast and fantastic friends, even roomates for awhile. we have remained friends over the years, travelled to europe together one summer. his father used to live in denver for a short while and blue would visit regularly. blue's father was gay also, and there are some wild and wonderful stories there, too. especially the ones in which his father worked as a masseuse in a very large and posh chicago health club. handjobs for the stars.... and he came to visit when i lived in san francisco as well. he was the best houseguest i had, as he couldn't wait to explore the muni system to get around.

one of the more memorable nights for me was the halloween party medusa had just before he opened the club. it was in a car showroom, and we called it "pull up to the bumper" named of course after the grace jones song of that name. there were classic cars rented for the occasion and we had all dressed that year. if i remember correctly, we were all wearing skirts for some reason or other. maybe it was the edie sedgwick party, i cannot truly recall. none of us had much money, but we did have imaginations. imaginaiton and intelligence was all a boy needed to make it work. i do know that party and that dressup began a long fascination of wearing them for me. i continued that phase for the next 4 or 5 years or so. i remember liking to twirl in them, but not liking the draft... and finding out from so many that i had nice legs.

so when he sent that email, i didn't miss a beat getting in step with his memories. there are shared memories of that music, that joie de vivre, those dance hall days.
can't change 'em, and wouldn't if i could.


sidenote: there is a group on facebook called medusa's on sheffield which i belong to. this particular club personifies the peak of my clubbing days in chicago. ask anyone from that city who is around my age or younger, and they'll tell you about that club. it was more than just a dance hall as so many of them are. the saint, the probe, studio 54, heaven. they are more than clubs. more like a rite of passage. i love that facebook seems to have touching and reconnecting so many hearts and minds.

so sit back and hava listen to a tiny glimpse of my dance hall days. today's sound choice is cheryl lynn with "star love" (definitely worth a listen)

it's a sin

another labor of love has come out to bloom. i think this one is better than the last, and hope they continue to get stronger. so many thanks to so many people. i am learning so much along the way.


SIN Newsletter 4

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Health aids denver

today's sound choice is the pet shop boys "it's a sin"

always midnight

Are you blind?
Can't you see me standing here
waiting in line?
For you.
Are you mine?
Not just when you wanna be
all of the time?
Are you?
Are you blind?
Don't you see me standing here
Won't you tell me what it is
I'm waiting to find..?

it's been such a strange holiday season. i actually can say i'm not so sad to see it go. i have felt as if i have been doing most things incorrectly and felt bumbly and boobish. additionally, having people around who are actually in the process of having mental breaks has offered anything but solace. that would have exacerbated any situation, i think.

it is said not to start new ventures or relationships when mercury is in retrograde. i am not actually sure what the meaning of all that is, but i believe that as the tide flows in and out and is affected by the moon, so my body and brain- made mostly of water, work in very much the same way. we are influenced by the rotation and gravity that we cannot consciously feel. and perhaps, being bipolar, i am influenced even more deeply by those external factors.

but these last couple of months have been awkward at best. i am learning, not quickly enough no doubt, that i am not responsible for everyone else's issues. and i'm really learning on a deeper level that most things are not about me. sometimes things just happen and no matter how differently i had done things, they would have been in the same place.

i have to get back to a place where i feel i have something to give others, because that is very much the case. but i have been swirling around in a whirlpool of doubt and self pity. my arms are tired from paddling against the current and i think i need to rest.


today's sound choice is pat monahan with "always midnight"

launch

peter staley's arrest in nyc protesting the cost of hiv drugs.

If you run an Internet search on Vietnam and the war, most of the information you get begins at about 1962. I think this is telling. It is missing the whole period that led up to the reasons the war happened in the first place.
Brendan Fraser

the new denver hiv resource website is finally online. this is the 1st of 3 phases of online information to be made available for denverites and coloradans. i am glad the process has begun.

please take a look as we want the hits to be many so that if someone googles hiv in denver our site will pop up. of course that is my mug in a shot from the site used in the banner here. it will be disappearing in a couple of days. if you click on the "living with hiv" pulldown, you should see me. there is more in store for this site, however.

alas, the whole story of living with hiv will not be on this site as we know it. it will mostly be a resource for people looking for information and answers now and at this juncture in their lives. and well it should be useful like that.

but there is so much that got us here that is slipping into the quiet. so much tenacity and so much chutzpah. but that story is for other days. for today, please just take a gander at the new digs and feel the light emanating from behind the plus sign shaped windows.

planning council website

today's song choice is the one and only bob dylan with "like a rolling stone"

karma police

If you wait to be invited, you might never get to go anywhere interesting.

What if we decided to love each other with the same speed at which we decide to hate each other?

There’s a spiral in the healing process. Some of the things you deal with early on and you think you have laid them to rest, but as you grow and your life changes, they come around again and you get to heal them on a much higher level. This used to really frustrate me, but now I see it is part of the process.

Are we ever done with healing? I reframe this question to, are we ever done with growing? For me, the answer is I hope not. I hope I grow until the day I die.

We can’t force a flower to open or a carrot to grow. Nor can we force our own process nor make it go faster.

The real crime of the heart is never to reveal it....

borrowed quotes from wholebalance blog

i have a friend that i met first in the mixed gay/lesbian chorus in denver about 22 years ago in denver. we were never really that close, but were chummy none-the-less. i left denver in late '99 and went to live in san francisco. that was the trigger of a demise for me as sf was the city where i started partying again with coke and late meth. it didn't fare very well for me at the time. i remember a lot of drama and trauma.

i came back to denver and attempted to get clean a couple of times. of course, getting clean is a process and it took some time to figure out that i was going to need to go a bit deeper if i was to actually kick the bitch. my friend offered to let me rent his basement apartment which was gracious, and i ended up taking him up on his offer.

i relapsed again while living there, and ended up taking advantage of his kindness and not in a nice way. it tainted our friendship and it has not returned to a semblance of its original. i made a serious effort to make it good as soon as i could. i was not settled at the time, and hadn't worked a steady job in about 3 years.

i made an amends (or thought i had) as soon as i had entered into a 12step program. i especially felt the part about taking responsibility for my own actions and doing the amends with the sole purpose of accepting whatever i received as a result of the said action.

his words have been kind at most junctures since that time. i have seen him on occasion and have traded formalities when our paths have crossed. but i have found out in the last year and a half that he is not quite as forgiving as perhaps he lets on. at a catering gig last year he accused me of stealing a catering client from him. granted, i have been working for her steadily for 3 years, but i have never been cooking. i have only been doing bartending and service work for her. she has hired other caterers to cook instead of him. i am fully aware that she made this decisions completely independently of my input. the hurtful thing about his accusation was that he made it in front of an entire room of staff. what was most hurtful was that i had done all i had done in earnest.

i bartended a party for him again yesterday. again the hurtful feelings return. he is making fun of me with two other staff members. it stung like a hornet. not because what he was saying hurt so much, but because he has chosen to lift himself up by demeaning me, in lieu of discussing any issues he has directly with me. this is part that hurts. this is the part that causes me pain. this is the hypocrite in him that creates harm.

this behavior is quite familiar to me. i engaged in and utilized it for years. i wore it as a protective cloth to keep my own feelings as distant from my heart as possible. i am quite sure i am on the receiving end of some of the same unwell actions i have imparted upon others on many an occasion.

and this is what i must accept as part of life, learn what i can from, and let go. this may take time.

today's sound choice is "karma police" by radiohead

virtual insanity

Edward de Bono:
Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

halt! stop what i'm doing and check my hard drive.... what the hell?!?! of course in recovery world, the world halt is a warning sign that is an acronym:

hungry
angry
lonely
tired...
that's the meaning for halt. and those descriptors are not a good place for me to be. they signal that i am not grounded and not using good judgement. yet they accurately describe where i find myself right now.

i chatted with a good friend of mine on the phone late last night(thank you t) and found out that i need to do some work. i realize that i have a couple of expectations for some things that are on drawing board right now, and that mere fact is causing me undue pressure. i think i have convinced myself that if i don't get a certain something, then i will have failed. and that i won't get that certain something because i don't deserve it. this is hardly a healthy outlook. if i don't get something, i will still have worth. i have worth without these things. i can be happy without these things. eeee gaaaaad ... how did i find myself here???? i don't even remember following a rabbit down a hole....

expectation, that's how. i have fallen into a trap and i need to stop fighting and let go.
(but i like the drama)
i would rather choose peace
(then i would win)
it's not about winning
(but i want to win)
and then what happens?
this whole process starts over again.

And I'm thinking what a mess we're in
Hard to know where to begin
If I could slip the sickly ties that earthly man has made
And now every mother, can choose the colour
Of her child
That's not nature's way
Well that's what they said yesterday
There's nothing left to do but pray
I think it's time I found a new religion
Waoh - it's so insane
To synthesize another strain
There's something in these
Futures that we have to be told.

sound (2nd) choice today..... jamiroquoi doing "virtual insanity"

grace of my heart

I can't hold onto her, God give me strength
When the phone doesn't ring
And I'm lost in imagining
Everything that kind of love is worth
As I tumble back down to the earth

while i was at a clinic yesterday working with a client, the social worker there pulled me aside to speak privately. he informed me that a co-worker of mine had been found dead in her apartment on monday. foul play was almost certain. broken furniture and blood were scattered everywhere. i went numb as i heard the news.

aimee and i had taken a ride last thursday to the food bank. it was about an hour and a 1/2 together. we talked about her life, her apartment, and how much she liked her new life. she moved to colorado last year from california after getting clean from years of meth use. she was pre-operative transgendered and could easily pass. she was smart, easy to talk to, and had been hiv positive for about 8 years.

she came to work at our agency with the "transaction" program which does outreach for the trans community around hiv care and prevention. it is a new program, but aimee has been very instrumental in promoting it to the hiv community and the gay community at large. she had spoken on two panels that i know of, sharing her story of recovery from drugs and her story of transition with small audiences.

in my car last week, i played a cd that i put together as we were driving. today's song choice is on that cd. the car was silent as this played. she sighed at the end of it, and said that is a beautiful song. we talked about all the other songs and laughed and shared stories. i am mad as hell that somebody can lose their self control like this and can snuff out another persons light. i am also a bit stunned that this is the 2nd friend of mine to be murdered in less than 3 months. are these hate crimes? is this related to hiv? how angry should i get?

i have rambled a bit here, but please know i am okay. i am just trying to stay in my feelings. i am sad, very sad. but i do know that she struggles no more with her identity. or her body. and that causes me to smile.

song choice is "god give me strength" by kristen vigard from the film "grace of my heart"(both of which i love, love, love)

and i also love the vid posted at absolutewille

starting a conversation

We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell on them.
Lillian Hellman

brian finch from acid reflux has participated in an outreach project which is designed to address hiv stigma in the gay community. he forwarded the link to me, and i have been kinda blown away, because i live in a small city which hosts a culture where hiv stigma actually thrives.

in my city, hiv is simply not discussed openly. if it is brought up, people will either change the subject, turn away, or even more disheartening- walk away.

i know thia fuels internalized self-hatred on the part of poz men and it also fuels an atmosphere that inhibits testing and safer behavior discussions during hook-ups. people make safety decisions based on hunch and appearance.

the website that hosts this approach to a healthy conversation is hivstigma. i encourage you to poke around it and see some of its offerings. there are several recorded interviews with gay men both negative and poz. i don't hear conversations like these often and i find them heartwarming.

here is a clip of brian's interview.


my fingers are crossed today. i am hoping quietly for a change in the direction i would prefer.

and steven todd has submitted a new post at prison's a bitch

and of course today's song choice is a live version of sade's sweetest taboo..

anhedonia

Definition of Anhedonia
Anhedonia: Loss of the capacity to experience pleasure. The inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences. Anhedonia is a core clinical feature of depression, schizophrenia, and some other mental illnesses.

An anhedonic mother finds no joy from playing with her baby. An anhedonic football fan is not excited when his team wins. An anhedonic teenager feels no pleasure from passing the driving test.

"Anhedonia" is derived from the Greek "a-" (without) "hedone" (pleasure, delight). Other words derived from "hedone" include hedonism (a philosophy that emphasizes pleasure as the main aim of life), hedonist (a pleasure-seeker), and hedonophobia (an excessive and persistent fear of pleasure).

anhedonia is a brain condition that can be brought about by prolonged stimulant abuse. the brain forms many extra dopamine receptors in response to it getting flooded by huge bursts of the chemical on a regular basis. it is fooled into thinking there is so much available that it needs to form more receptors to handle the flow.

once a person tries to stop their meth or cocaine use, the brain does not automatically understand this. the extra receptors are still active. they are like munchkins waiting for the arrival of glinda. and when glinda (the big dopamine dumps) doesn't come, they panic and cause the brain to react in a highly agitated and negative fashion.

being used to big highs and big lows, the brain can initially only understand that it doesn't feel anything close to what it's used to. it only feels nothing. it doesn't remember happiness or pleasure. it only feels empty.

this is anhedonia.

if you or someone you know is in early recovery, this can easily be a by-product of getting clean or sober. there is no real quick fix. the brain takes time to heal. plenty of liquids, good sleep, and antioxidants and free radicals can be helpful though. and so can a friend with a great sense of humor.

it can be quite a challenge to comfort a friend while they are in the throes of anhedonia. they may easily become emotional about the loss of pleasure. they may not remember the pleasure they had, even yesterday. they may convince themselves they have never felt such a thing as good. and they may be frightened they will never feel it again.

their brain may be fooling them into a relapse.

for more information on anhedonia and relapse, consult with a mental health or substance use professional in your area. if none are available try findin one through nimh. a person can definitely weather the storm that is anhedonia. i found help through a higher power.

(oh, yes--- and a sponsor, too!)

twinkies and milk

not much needed to say here. gus van sant gives us another offering. a re-telling of the harvey milk story, of the early days of gay rights in sf and america, and the ensuing court battle around harvey's murder by councilman dan white and his famous twinkie defense.starring sean penn and the handsome brolin boy. this is definitely a story depicting the early struggles for gay rights, and the dan white situation caused me to stop eating twinkies as well as question the equity of the judicial system. i boycotted twinkies actually, and then i realized how nutrition free they are, along with ding-dongs and ho-hos. but i loved hearing on the news about people like me fighting for what is rightfully theirs and not backing down. it empowered me.

now, of course, twinkies are kitsch and acceptable again on an entirely different level. kinda like spam, tang, nerds, and space food sticks.

i'm posting the film trailer today. for music, look to the sidebar. european pop hits posted in finetune. over 1900 songs on that playlist. you can play it for a month and hear new music....

hava happy sunday...

stir of echoes

today was a myriad of events.

i got a call from a colleague who was hosting a fairly important meeting at his office. i guess his office mate was having a foulmouthed argument on the phone with someone else at the same time. even three location changes in the office couldn't mask the vulgarity and the pervasive anger. he was non-plussed and needed to vent for over a half hour. his verbiage was unbridled and his tone was intense. i definitely had a mood shift after this.

i spoke with the office that offered me a contract today. their approval department kicked out my contract request and asked for explanation. i haven't really been counting on it completely, but i was required to take out an insurance policy in order to apply. that's money i wouldn't get back. i'm sure it will come in handy.

one of the dipthoids that worked with me at my former office was nominated to co-chair a committee that i chair today. he declined, but then is still considering. what am i supposed to learn here? that i'm not in control? i know it will all work out, but i totally felt like i had been tasered.

i started my new counseling position last night. not used to working into the evening, but it felt good. i know very well the ambivalence to change i encounter there. after reading marc's post today, i have made this addendum:

i asked the students (9 all of which were under 35) what their impression of the democratic convention was. this is in suburban denver and most of their lives were uninterrupted by the chaos, extra security, or celebrity that ensued. one person shared that he felt inspired and would be voting for the 1st time in his life. the others stated that they never vote. they don't think their vote counts. that means 8/9 persons in that room feel completely disconnected by our political process and our form of government, and take what is thrown at them.

just in case