Thoughts From a Mouthy Saint: The G "Live"

www.BellevillePride.Org
by: Colby Kluthe, MetroEast NEWS

Thoughts From a Mouthy Saint:  The G "Live"


The God Show was a title of writing Danny completed in 2005, which speaks to the variance between who we think ourselves to be, and the reality of who we are or fear we have become.
I think each of us have a perception of ourselves, and for the most part it must be comprised of how we "hope" others see us.   For me, I seem to anchor myself upon just how often I neglect to be our best version of who I know myself to be.  Afterall, its too easy to miss the mark.  The sounds and rhythms all have to be in synch.

For me at least that journey has lead me to both desperate places, as well as those places and feelings you want to hold on to and remember forever, as what you think you know could actually be true.  Could it actually be as fantastic as it's been made out?

The short answer of course is Yes, absolutely~ just not like you think.

The reality is we have to make just as many bad choices as good ones, and once we have fallen far enough, we somehow fall forward like a Radio Jesus.  Which brings me to my last and certainly most important point.  Our community must also wrestle with the reality of the substance of GHB , and the price we are paying for our adventures with it.  As someone who has admittedly had my rounds at the theme parks, I can think of no other substance that has so routinely sent our brothers and sisters in tow to nearby hospitals, some with extended stay packages.   We must consider carefully the cost if we do not stand up for ourselves and others in this regard.

"Marsupials may contract a virus. Rest assured; you'll find your way. Keep your thrill: take your pill. Aztec dreams and cortizone creams. Cornish maze peeled from Dutch haze among cloudy skys and stipend lies. Education grants and hollow rants. Young Mister Peyton belongs in Clayton. Great Danes around bamboo canes. Choose on taste and lose your haste." - Daniel McCree (June 12,2005)

Lily to Lily. . .Lost in the Moss and Fog of Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices. . .Monet as Inspiration Once Removed

Lily to Lily. . .Lost in the Moss and Fog of Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices. . .Monet as Inspiration Once Removed

by: Tess Farnham 
 Posted on November 28, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Speaking indifferently to him, who’d driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. . . what did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? –Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays”

I was first introduced to Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays” while doing double duty as single mother and non-traditional student.  Those days were frantic and full,  and as such, I could relate to both protagonist and anti-hero in this poem.

Always that inexhaustible ache to make a home for us somehow, but also the tug on my guts that too much time was slipping away; meanwhile, I wished there were four of me: one to study, one to write and make art, one to work, and one to nurture and be a safe harbor for my kids.
Better make that five. . . because I almost forgot the me who needed to collapse and just scream from the insanity of it all. (yes, there is mental illness in this recipe too, surprise!)

Pffttt. . .and I totally forgot to mention sex up there, didn’t I?  So much for those frills and fancy matters!

There was never enough skin or bones on me, it seemed, to excel at any of those things.  Mostly I felt like we were just getting by on what little we had to work with.

I had such dreams then too.  I was going to get a wonderful job, write a screenplay (yeah right), get the house with the picket fence; I WOULD make a home for us on my own.  I wasn’t getting help from their dad; he didn’t have the means to do it.

I was angry about that then.

Now that anger has evaporated into clouds of anguish that won’t stop raining these days. . and here I sit, swimming through the muck of it all. . .because idiot that is me, I lost them in the water somehow. I lost the truest loves of my life.

And at the moment, I am sick with treading against the tide. . . and the dam breaking. . .and I just can’t reach out for fear of taking everyone else down with me. ..I don’t even know how to reach myself anymore. Except to take it a day at a time, I guess.
And be thankful that my parents can still be there for me at the hardest times too.

This is the price you pay for making such a leap at eighteen. . .wanting to fill that gap of unhappiness with husband love and children, that ache, that undeniable ache to fall down a well of love and security.

Ironically here I was the day I first found that poem as I find myself now, so full of the same kind of longing. . .and falling so very short of my desperate expectations.

I remember too how Hayden’s last couplet made me stop and reconsider all the words I had wasted complaining as a child, but even more than that I realized the importance of pauses to just let go in the moment and be thankful.

Now it makes me wish we all had the maturity to embrace this kind of wisdom while we are young and still a little bit hungry.

Those Winter Sundays

–Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold
splintering, breaking.  The rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

 who’d driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

********************

Once again I feel the same flood of complex emotions encapsulated as I read “Monet‘s Waterlilies.”   So much ache and push pull at taking it all in.

 And again, those last lines really hit in a place where it hurts and soothes simultaneously.

 ”Here is the aura of that world each of us has lost/Here is the shadow of its joy.”

Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.

Laffy Taffy for the Holidays: Putting the Crack back in Christmas

 

www.BellevillePride.Org

Laffy Taffy for the Holidays: Putting the Crack back in Christmas
by: Tess Farnham- MetroEast NEWS
 

Rep. Barney Frank Announces Retirement

Rep. Barney Frank Announces Retirement

Daniel McCree.Org Newsletter: Celebrating the life of Ray Henry Ulrich

Remembering and Celebrating the Life of Ray Henry Ulrich

As Clair Janz mentioned, we are going to have a celebration of Ray's life. 

The Koken Art Factory has opened up their doors to us on December 10th. Please spread the word. Brenda and I are putting together some of his favorite songs to perform that night.

 

Ray was a friend of Daniel's and supporter of the Daniel McCree Foundation. We shall join with family and friends in the celebration of this important spirit from our vine.  He shall be missed.

To read his contributions to the foundation, (CLICK HERE)  

A story from RAY ~ a grape on the grapevine
by Daniel McCree Foundation on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 7:09pm

Daniel McCree.Org Newsletter: Celebrating the life of Ray Henry Ulrich: Remembering and Celebrating the Life of Ray Henry Ulrich As Clair Janz mentioned, we are going to have a celebration of Ray 's life. The ...

2 MEPSI Board Vacancies in 2012 (BELLEVILLE)

www.BellevillePride.Org
via MEPSI   
(BELLEVILLE)

MetroEast Pride of Southwestern Illinois announces community wide elections for two open MEPSI Board (member at large) seats. If you are interested in becoming more involved in the LGBT community, send us a brief bio and a descriptive graph of why you'd like to serve!
Please email metroeastpride@gmail.com if interested.

www.MetroEastPride.com 

Illinois Teen Sentenced for Gay Bashing

www.BellevillePride.Org

BellevillePride~ MetroEast News

Illinois Teen Sentenced for Gay Bashing 
unfinishedlivesblog.com

Yorkville, Illinois- An 18-year-old man was sentenced by an Illinois court to two years in prison for his role in a violent attack upon a gay man. Marquitte West was found guilty of hate crime.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Transgender Day of Remembrance
via VITAL VOICE MAGAZINE

(ALTON)
Each November 20th, Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is observed by the Trans and allied community around the world who gather in memory of those lost to violence and hate during the previous year.
(READ MORE)

Aint That Right, Bus Driver?

www.BellevillePride.Org

Aint That Right, Bus Driver?

by: Tess Farnham MetroEast NEWS 

 

November 4, 2011

 

On the bus ride through the rain and cold tonight, all the way from the Central West End to Southtown, I found myself locking smiles and bumping fists with this woman who was keeping herself amused by leaning into the aisle, over and over again and shouting through toothlessness:





“Aint that right, bus driver?”

And each time, without the slightest bit of hesitation, the driver would reply rather matter of factly from behind the fourth of the way wall of plexiglass that separated herself from the rest of us: ”That’s right.”

And each time afterwards, the woman would wrap her arms around her own waist and
roll back in the seat laughing, seemingly pleased with herself for having elicited one more positive response from the person in charge.

In response to that bit of repetitive interaction. . .for the whole twenty-minute ride home, between spasms of laughter and fidgeting, I could feel that oddly familiar sensation moving through my skin, sensation that can only be described as being caught between the wish for someone to make it stop and waiting for it to start all over again. This went on until I pulled the bell cord for my corner…though at times she would mix things up with the obsessive repetition of news flashes and singsong bits of wisdom:

“Everybody thinks Popeye was strong, but really he was a sissy,”

“Read my lips; catch my drift,”

and “Stare too long, you’re doing it wrong.”

At one point, she stopped to unwrap a very large sandwich and fondle it in anticipation, all the while casting her weary eyes down at its wrapper like a prized catch, the bag emblazoned with the name of the priciest gourmet grocer in the Cental West End , most likely anticipating the moment when the rain would let up just long enough for her to leave the bus and enjoy it.

But for now, she had found a warm place to find refuge from it all, no doubt thanks to the means of strangers, the first one with money enough for that sandwich, the second letting go of a transfer pass that paid for the ride. . . followed by the brown-eyed girl behind the wheel. kindly and obligingly saying those same two words over and over again. That’s right.

A loaf of bread, a jug of vitamin water and thou. . .

It was so very wet and cold on the walk to my place and I could feel the rain pelting my pant leg as I gripped the handle of the umbrella to brace against the elements. In a matter of minutes, I could see the stop on the street running perpendicular to my own ride. As I approached it, I realized I would have to raise my umbrella enough to clear the height of a man for whom I could not yield the right of way without taking someone else’s eye out.

And aside from the sound of his laughter as I passed, accompanied by that of the wind and rain, all I could hear in my head was the echo of the broken record lady.

“Read my lips; catch my drift.”

Now safely inside and sitting in front of my laptop…bowl of soup on the table. .. tea. ..and jammies. ..
I still have a very playful earworm that is slowly eating its way through to my teeth. 

 

Aint that right, bus driver?

That’s right.



TessiluStudio Holiday Gift Give-away: Two Fine Starving Art Prints Can Be Yours Including (whee!) Postage, a $36.00 value :

Southern Illinois AIDS Walk 2011 Dec 1, 2011

www.BellevillePride.Org

(CARBONDALE)

Southern Illinois AIDS Walk 2011
Thurs. Dec. 1, 2011 6PM SIUC Student Health Center

The Southern Illinois AIDS Walk has moved, and will be held at 6pm on Thursday, December 1 at the Student Health Center located on the SIU Carbondale campus. Volunteers will begin set-up at 3pm, and a health fair and registration will begin at 4:30pm. The event will end by 7:45pm.

Volunteer meetings will be held at 7:30pm at the SIUC Newman Center, 715 S. Washington Street, on the following dates: Thursday, Sept. 8; Monday, Oct. 3; Monday Oct. 24; Thursday, Nov. 17 and Wednesday, Nov. 30. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided at all meetings.

Volunteers are needed to help attract corporate sponsors, $50 t-shirt sponsors, and to motivate Southern Illinois to participate in the walk (the SIUC campus, high schools and community colleges throughout Southern Illinois, and communities throughout Southern Illinois).

Proceeds benefit the Southern Illinois AIDS Holiday Project, which serves 150 low-income households impacted by HIV / AIDS in the 19 southern-most counties of Illinois.

For more information, contact AIDS Walk founder Wally Paynter at 812-480-0204 or wallypaynter@aol.com, or AIDS Walk Chair Scott Ramsey at sramsey@siu.edu.

Please use this site to register or join a team, register yourself as an individual walker, sponsor a walker or make a general donation to the cause.

2010 AIDS Walk photo courtesy of Southern Illinoisan and staff photographer Alan Rogers.