I've been considering ending this blog for several months. Partly, it's because I'm beginning to feel repetitive. You know the old joke about the stupid man (of various ethnicities) who keeps banging his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops? I've begun to feel that way.
Things might have turned out differently if America had replaced Bush with a competent and courageous progressive leader--but here I am on the same side as Sarah Palin asking if people have had enough of this "hopey-changey" thing?
I sure have.
Perhaps Obama will rediscover those great big balls he bounced around during his 2008 campaign and start dressing down those who are clearly intent on destroying democracy and freedom in this fading nation.
I doubt it. Too much applause and mob adulation from Illinois to Berlin convinced him that he was something other and much more than he was, is or could ever be.
Hillary would have delivered the change so badly needed to save this democracy. But she couldn't charm like an Obama or a Palin so you voted her away. Many of you called her dishonest--she was no promise keeper like Obama.
Enough on that.
As we navigate this slippery slope to Christian fascism, I will no longer wake up in the mornings and bang my head on the wall. I will engage in other more personally satisfying and productive pursuits.
So why now?
I had a tipping point moment the other day when I opened my mail and discovered a letter from some of my fellow Manhattan gays soliciting my support for a worthy community benefit cause.
Are they finally organizing to address the fact that this richest gay city in the world is only providing food and shelter for about one percent of the homeless gay teens who are struggling to survive on the streets of New York? No.
Are they calling for money to finance mass acts of civil disobedience to shout down the betrayal and incompetence of Obama and the Democrats--including New York Democrats who voted against marriage equality in Albany just months ago? No.
Are they going to use mass demonstrations to shut down the Uganda mission to the United Nations on East 45th Street in furious protest over government-sponsored gay genocide? No.
Are they going to organize a city-wide boycott of travel agencies--especially in gay neighborhoods--that continue to promote Jamaican tourism? No.
Rather they are organizing the financial and political clout of the new and very affluent gayborhood of Hell's Kitchen to demand that a long stretch of West 42nd Street be zoned for a the world first mega gay shopping and entertainment center.
They tell me that I should be "extremely dismayed to learn that in the past 5 years there has not been a new liquor/cabaret license issued to a gay nightlife venue in New York City."
I was shocked. It's not easy to make it through life when there are only 60 or 70 gay bars and clubs within five to 10 minutes of my Hell's Kitchen apartment. I have often wondered why there haven't been any new ones of late.
The authors are asking me to write my community board or show up for a community board protest demanding a new gay dance club on 42nd Street.
The letter reads: "As a resident of this neighborhood, you have enormous influence over crucial decisions that will be made by your local elected officials and Community Board 4 as to whether or not the State Liquor Authority will award xl dance bar the necessary liquor license. Without this license, our shared dream cannot become a reality."
I did not know I shared a dream for a new gay liquor license. How did I not know that?
Now, don't get me wrong. I loved the old xl Bar, but I'm equally satisfied by Therapy, Vlada. Posh, SB, Ritz, etc., etc., etc. I'm not sure yet another gay bar is part of my dreams.
But wait, this is not just about xl Bar. Not at all. This is about pouring millions of community dollars into a the creation of a gay "Mall of America" along prime 42nd Street real estate, and adjacent to the a new Frank Gehry designed theater. Now that's a cause I can wrap my head around.
"xl will be just one component of the new urban gay entertainment complex The Out NYC [anchored by 510 West 42nd Street]...and will bring together under one roof internationally-renowned, gay-oriented Axel Hotel; Nickel Spa for Men; Kitchen (brought to you by the same Hell's Kitchen restaurateurs who gave us Whym, eatery and Vinyl); and Retail by Base, all under one roof."
Coincidentally, I have several times written to a number of gay organizations and elected officials suggesting that this very same 42nd Street location would make a fantastic location for community service LGBT center, just a block away from the Bus Terminal, providing shelter, food, health services and counseling for the thousands of abandoned gay kids who swarm into this city from Christian America hoping to find a new life, freedom and self-fulfillment as a gay man or woman. Instead they find gutters, alleys drugs, prostitution and death.
Now they can stumble off the buses from Alabama, wander no more than a block and work the corner by the new gay mall and entertainment center.
When you pile this offensive and ridiculous behavior on top of the soaring incompetence of the gay advocacy "industry" and our politicians, one would need a much stronger stomach than my own to digest such offal.
I will continue to do the work I do in the community. I will continue to work on my book. And, I will continue my photography as represented on Manhattan Details and Manhattan Men--but blogging against the machine seems increasingly futile and even ridiculous.
Perhaps nothing says it better than the "scandal" over actors who were paid hundreds of dollars to act gay at Sydney's Mardi Gras Parade. A tradition born of activism and civil rights, a march for equality and human rights is now becoming a staged commercial event.
And a plot of land on 42nd Street that could have been used to house homeless gay teens will now be rocking it out until 4 the morning awash in vodka, meth and ex.
One last thing. When the Tea Baggers and the Evangelicals take over in 2012, I don't want to be so easy to find.
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