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Quote of the week: ecstasy

Ah, Sweet,
The moment eternal - just that and no more -
When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core,
While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet!

-Robert Browning, from Now

To all bigots and haters out there

Here's what I say to anyone who would hate someone simply because they are different than themselves:Jenn and I attended a protest march this past Saturday in support of Kevin Aviance and against the violence imposed on him and several others within the LGBT community by close-minded idiots in separate, brutal attacks in the city in the last week. Turnout for the march through the Village was good (considering it was put together on the fly and was promoted only through word of mouth and e-mail exchange), around 3-400 I'd say. The energy level was high and the march was led by the legendary Hedda Lettuce. Media coverage was pretty good too and for some reason Jenn and I must have struck some photographic chord because everyone seemed to want to take our picture. There were only a handful of lesbians there, so maybe thats why. Or maybe they just wanted to get a picture of me (the freakazoid) with the beautiful blonde! You can see some media pics of the event, including one of Jenn and I on the Daily News site (click on the Search tab on the left and search for: Kevin Aviance [as usual my name got mangled!]).

After the grueling march (Jenn and I are both very out of shape I might add) and a jaunt on the Statin Island Ferry, we headed back to her place and collapsed exhausted onto her bed. Here's a pic to commemorate that moment. I think this is actually one of my very fav pics of us now...

Six Horsemen of the Media Apocalypse

If you aren't aware of it already, you should know that 5 or 6 huge multinational corporations own the vast majority of media and information production and distribution resources, channels and mediums in this country: News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch - Fox, MySpace, etc.), General Electric (NBC and lots more), Disney (ABC, ESPN), Time Warner (CNN, HBO, AOL, etc.), Viacom (MTV, BET + more), and CBS. In 1983 around 50 corporations had the same percentage of ownership!

Think the many and wide financial and political interests of these companies and their predominantly conservative owners don't negatively effect the content of the information and media which is then made accessible to the American public? Think again my friends - these corporations hire the people that make the decisions about what news to investigate, what themes to present in entertainment, and what information abouts its consumers to share with an intrusive government.

You can see this vast web of conglomerated media control on this chart:
http://www.thenation.com/special/2006_entertainment.pdf

There is also a useful chart with statistics here:
http://www.corporations.org/media/

You can find more articles and info on this topic here:

• http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=7&issue_area_id=6
• http://www.thenation.com/directory/corporate_media_consolidation

Capital Pride '06

Jenn and I headed down this past past Sunday to Albany for the annual Capital Pride parade and festival. On the way we icked up my friend Mackenzie. It was to be the first time any of us had been to such an event anywhere. The parade itself was fairly short, but lively and we followed it along its brief route. The main sponsor, besides the ever present CDGLCC (notice there is no mention of we "T's" in their name), was the Waterworks Pub - my fave club if people are actually there. The image below is of their float. I was a little perplexed in that included in the parade was a monstrous yagermeister bus - they must have been one of the sponsors, so I can't complain about the blatant commercialism, I guess...

Following the parade was a festival featuring a small stage with music and plenty of drag queens. I'm not really complaining, but from just watching the shows, you'd swear this event was Wigstock instead of Pride. But the crowd was a good mixture of LGBs, straights and even a couple Ts, young and old. The headliner act was the entertaining (and good-natured since the sound system kept shorting out)

Quote of the week: torture

There is only one thing that arouses animals more than pleasure, and that is pain. Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him.

-Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980)

We are all torturers

Get the word out on Torture Awareness Month - people need to know what atrocities are being committed in our country's name:
http://www.tortureawareness.org/

Also check out this blog "Against the War on Terror" - it's time we dispelled the idea that we can ever win this never-ending "War on Terror." It's like having a field full of dandelions and trying to eradicate them by taking a weed-whacker to a couple tufts of them. Until we get at the roots of terror (and our own nation's actions contributing to it) and it's appeal to disgruntled youth, it will only get worse.
http://againstwot.com/

Here's a snippet of their mission statement:

The war on terror is more than just another public policy. It is an attempt to make security the highest goal of American life. Our leaders have reduced politics to questions of mere survival, in which even the smallest risks are viewed as overriding threats to national existence. We at Against the War on Terror aim to challenge this view and the apparent need to eliminate fear itself....We reject the very premise of the war on terror....

man as midwife

Sound as species
This upside down world too low key to hear.
Human as evol-instrument played to perfection,
as army ant for queen freedom's forgotten cause.
That concert-embrace of feeling and rhythm and listener;
the closest we'll come to Creation.
Songs born to procreate

Un-bee-coming

I just caught the end of the world (international? english language?) spelling bee. As my regular readers probably have already surmised, I have a bit of conspiracy theorist in me, but I swear the end of that prime time spectacle was as fixed and just plain wrong as a Bush "town meeting." The final 2 competitors came down to two girls (way to go girls!!!), one blonde Jersey girl and one brunette Asian-Canadian. Well, they were both cruising along with relatively (for them, not for me!!!) easy words, but word length and obscurity started tipping slightly against the Canuck.

And then she was hit with a fucking German word: weltschmerz. That in itself is fine I guess (although I thought it was english language?!). But as soon as that word was announced, you could hear, where there hadn't been before in any previous rounds, a steady and fast series of clicks just off-camera. As the camera panned out a little you could see the battery of cameramen and photographers snapping away with machine-gun abandon, smelling, or perhaps even willing, that peculiarly cruel moment of not knowing; inevitably followed by the elevator-easy-volume-buzz of failure. I could see the look of defeat seep into her eyes as the barrage of clicks continued to grow. She could tell that all these strangers, only a couple feet from her, expected her to lose, maybe even wanted her to lose.

Was it American Pride taken to a cruel and totally unbelievable level? Was it a latent desire to have a "more American" looking kid win? Afterall, I think 5 out the last 7 competitions were won by Indian-Americans. Maybe not consciously, but I don't think there is any doubt that those photographers and the idiots that set-up, commercialized and whored out these brilliant and still innocent young people engaging in, at its core, a competitive learning exercise, effected the outcome. I believe both these girls are around 14 years old (8th grade?) and here they were having possibly their most vulnerable and brave moments and feelings broadcast upclose on national television to millions of perfect strangers all in the name of profit.

That just felt wrong to me, although I must admit I could not turn away once I stumbled on it at such a opportunely consumer-friendly time. I feel sort of guilty for having peeked in on this. This kind of pro-educational activity, involving bright young kids and serious competition should not be nationally televised. Let these kids win the prestigious awards and make mistakes and feel the ups and downs of competition, but not in front of such a wide and casual audience. But then maybe I'm just a rain-on-their-parade prude afterall... :-)

Quote of the week: truth

"Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority."

--Kierkegaard (1813–1855)