F.E. Feeley Jr.'s Blog, page 4

Living the Divine (Poem)

I hear the sound of the windchimes

the first six notes of Amazing Grace

the rush of water from the fountain

and traffic outside my window

Lighted candles burning,

in my dimly lit apartment office

scented wax and a bamboo plant

and a clock from a yard sale

still with it’s selling price

my desk is gorgeous

wooden, polished,

with a lamp in Tiffany’s style

bought from two retired republicans

gone off to live the rest of their wealth

in Arizona

a pair of inexpensive earbuds

that sing rock and roll when I work out

a brown leather wallet filled with credit cards

my favorite a golden American Express

my mother never thought I’d own

I am a homeowner

a dog walker

a bread baker

and a love maker

to a man, I call my husband

while the Virgin Mary watches over us

from her spot on the wall

I have a good life.

Dear God, I have a good life

when did all this happen?

how did all this happen?

what divine accident was I a party to?

The post Living the Divine (Poem) appeared first on F. E. Feeley Jr.

From a Veteran on Veterans’ Day

Thank you for the good wishes on Veterans Day.

I was thinking about it last night before I went to bed. With Donald Trump snubbing the WW1 veterans in the centennial of Armistice Day.

He couldn’t go, apparently, because it was misting outside.

Take that for what it’s worth.

Yet, I don’t want to talk about him. He’s everywhere, right now.

He’s sort of like the Spanish Flu that wreaked havoc on the population fo the world during the first World War leading to an unparalleled death toll.

I want to talk about heroes.

I’ve seen this quote passed around on the internet as long as I’ve been a veteran, as long as I’ve been aware of the burden veterans carry post service.

This quote goes like this:

It is the Soldier, not the minister

Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter

Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet

Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer

Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer

Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician

Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,

Who serves beneath the flag,

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

I think this has the right intention, but I think it’s wrong-headed.

One of the things that I’ve observed about the veteran, myself included, is that they are everyday people. They are pulled out of the population of this country, or they’ve chosen to serve for various reasons. Sometimes it’s patriotism, sometimes it’s money for school, sometimes it’s just because they have no forward momentum in life and need some stability. Everyone serves for different reasons.

Yet, regardless of why they served, they served. It’s okay to call these people heroes. Most veterans you know today, have served in the middle east in some way or another since September 11, 2001. There have been many battles in both Iraq and Afghanistan that these young people, very young people, fought and died at.

However, again, as I age I realize not all soldiers wore uniforms and not all battles are fought on foreign soil.

Wars come in all shapes and sizes. Ideas are introduced into the mainstream of society and those ideas combat old, established, ways of thinking and have either bolstered the old ways or tore them down.

It’s a success if those ideas that are torn down are so without a shot fired. Without a fist raised. Without violence.

It’s a failure when the opposite happens.

See, war isn’t about success, about victory, war is about failure. As cliche as it is, war is about a failure of people to communicate their ideas in a productive way.

Whether you’re talking about the European theatre of operations in WW1 or the Bridge in Selma Alabama, those were battlegrounds. Those people who participated in those events were soldiers. Those places were where ideas clashed.

And it’s sort of unique, after the rockets red glare finally fades and those that remain to pick up the pieces of their lives and try move on. The love they’re shown and in some instances, the animosity they receive for being brave enough to challenge the old ways of thinking for the hope of something new yanks them out of their humanness.

The effect is the same. Isolation.

When we talk about those people in Selma, or in WW1 we forget or we never really admit that they are human beings. People. Just like us. Depending on who you are and what you believe you either put them up on pedestals as icons of glory or you throw them down into the dirt with pejorative names.

The effect is exactly the same. Isolation.

We extract them from or refuse to accept them into, the whole, into the body, from the tribe.

It’s a burden we veterans recognize, its a burden those in the various civil rights movements recognize, those in the marriage debates recognize, those in the struggle for gender equality recognize, those in the fight for equal wages recognize, those in the struggle for Trans rights, #metoo, all recognize, the journalists, the preachers, the founders, the teachers, nurses, doctors, voting booth watchers, social workers, those people on the bridge in Selma, immigrant organizations recognize, dreamers all recognize.

That heroes walk among us.

So, how do we take care of our heroes including those who fought in foreign theatres?

It’s quite easy, really.

Love one and you can love them by realizing that just like you, they’re human beings.

Happy Veterans Day

The post From a Veteran on Veterans’ Day appeared first on F. E. Feeley Jr.

From a Veteran on Veterans Day

Thank you for the good wishes on Veterans Day.
I was thinking about it last night before I went to bed. With Donald Trump snubbing the WW1 veterans in the centennial of Armistice Day.
He couldn't go, apparently, because it was misting outside.
Take that for what it's worth.
Yet, I don't want to talk about him. He's everywhere, right now.
He's sort of like the Spanish Flu that wreaked havoc on the population fo the world during the first World War leading to an unparalleled death toll.
I want to talk about heroes.
I've seen this quote passed around on the internet as long as I've been a veteran, as long as I've been aware of the burden veterans carry post service.
This quote goes like this:

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

I think this has the right intention, but I think it's wrong-headed.

One of the things that I've observed about the veteran, myself included, is that they are everyday people. They are pulled out of the population of this country, or they've chosen to serve for various reasons. Sometimes it's patriotism, sometimes it's money for school, sometimes it's just because they have no forward momentum in life and need some stability. Everyone serves for different reasons.
Yet, regardless of why they served, they served. It's okay to call these people heroes. Most veterans you know today, have served in the middle east in some way or another since September 11, 2001. There have been many battles in both Iraq and Afghanistan that these young people, very young people, fought and died at.
However, again, as I age I realize not all soldiers wore uniforms and not all battles are fought on foreign soil.
Wars come in all shapes and sizes. Ideas are introduced into the mainstream of society and those ideas combat old, established, ways of thinking and have either bolstered the old ways or tore them down.
It's a success if those ideas that are torn down are so without a shot fired. Without a fist raised. Without violence.
It's a failure when the opposite happens.
See, war isn't about success, about victory, war is about failure. As cliche as it is, war is about a failure of people to communicate their ideas in a productive way.
Whether you're talking about the European theatre of operations in WW1 or the Bridge in Selma Alabama, those were battlegrounds. Those people who participated in those events were soldiers. Those places were where ideas clashed.
And it's sort of unique, after the rockets red glare finally fades and those that remain to pick up the pieces of their lives and try move on. The love they're shown and in some instances, the animosity they receive for being brave enough to challenge the old ways of thinking for the hope of something new yanks them out of their humanness.
The effect is the same. Isolation.
When we talk about those people in Selma, or in WW1 we forget or we never really admit that they are human beings. People. Just like us. Depending on who you are and what you believe you either put them up on pedestals as icons of glory or you throw them down into the dirt with pejorative names.
The effect is exactly the same. Isolation.
We extract them from or refuse to accept them into, the whole, into the body, from the tribe.
It's a burden we veterans recognize, its a burden those in the various civil rights movements recognize, those in the marriage debates recognize, those in the struggle for gender equality recognize, those in the fight for equal wages recognize, those in the struggle for Trans rights, #metoo, all recognize, the journalists, the preachers, the founders, the teachers, nurses, doctors, voting booth watchers, social workers, those people on the bridge in Selma, immigrant organizations recognize, dreamers all recognize.
That heroes walk among us.
So, how do we take care of our heroes including those who fought in foreign theatres?
It's quite easy, really.
Love one and you can love them by realizing that just like you, they're human beings.
Happy Veterans Day

Colin Kaepernick shouldn't be kneeling alone...

I was ten minutes into browsing the internet when I happened upon the news that Nike is having former San Francisco 49ers player Colin Kaepernick be their spokesman for their 30th Anniversary of “Just Do it.”

For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the past however many years – Colin Kaepernick was made famous by kneeling in protest during the National Anthem over the murder of black people in the United States by white cops.

I have two points:

John Rich, of Big and Rich, tweeted a picture of a pair of cut up socks that his sound man, a former Marine, held in protest of Nike’s choice. Now, that man has the right to cut his socks if he wants to. Although someone should tell him that Nike already has his money (Dixie Chicks anyone?). I am here to say that it shouldn’t only be black football players kneeling at these games or anytime the National Anthem plays.

Why?

Well, we should be kneeling over the fact that young black men are being targeted by white cops. And if you set the race thing aside for just a second, we should at least consider that our fellow citizens are being murdered by cops without due process of law. Moreover, if you can’t let go of the race thing, then maybe you can at least get yourself over it enough to understand that if it can happen to them, it can happen to you.

We should also be kneeling over veteran suicide rates. Veterans represent less than 1 percent of the population of the United States overall. And 99 percent of you all talk so much about how much you love and respect them. Yet we have this terrible phenomenon occurring. From what I understand it’s still at a rate of 22 per day. We should be kneeling over that. We should be bowing our head, at that. To rid ourselves of the apathy that allows that to happen.

Secondly, black people are heroes. Black people fought and died for this union whether unwillingly (I.E. the moment the first black foot touched American soil to The Vietnam War) or willingly (recent history). There are black veterans. Lots of them. There are black service members. Lots of them.

Yet, not all heroes wear uniforms and not all battles are fought in some foreign country.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Mary McLoud Bethune, George Washington Carver, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Maya Angelou, Shirley Chilsom, the list goes on forever…

those involved in the Civil Rights movement, those people who fought domestic battles when The United States government refused to let them have equal rights before the law, when the FBI sent a letter to Dr. King telling him to kill himself, those people were heroes. That was a battlefield. Those that died during the lynching years between 1865 and 1955 – the last being Emmett Till – he’s a hero.

Colin Kaepernick – is a hero.

The battlefield is the hearts and minds of America for the soul OF America.

As a veteran, I wholeheartedly support Colin and all the other football players drawing attention to the fast and loose rules of our society that says “other” is expendable. I support them kneeling much to the ire of those who dislike it – because there will NEVER be a right time and place for their protest. There was never a ‘right time’ for The Civil Rights Movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, The March on Washington, there wasn’t a ‘right time’ for Brown Vs. Board and the destruction of Jim Crow Law, there was never a ‘right time’ for The Civil Rights Act(s) except for the time and place in which they happened.

“Throw that football black man. Entertain me.”

Are you kidding me?

As a vet. I stood for his right to kneel. As a vet, I stood for the lives of Americans after we were attacked on 9/11. As a human being, I stand for Colin Kaepernick but what I won’t stand for is being used by paper patriots, the 99 percent, to use me or my brothers and sisters in the front line of your social ire when you can’t stand for us when we’re suicidal, or homeless, or hungry, or dealing with drug addiction, white, black or otherwise.

When someone like Colin or like LeBron James does something wonderful, something audacious, something good – the backfire is always “What about the vets?”

Well, what have you done for the vets, 99 percent? What have you done to eradicate poverty, and lift up your fellow citizens of black and brown heritage?

Vote for 45?

We all should be kneeling over that and everything else wrong in this country.



P.S. I challenge Nike to scour the internet for the duration of this campaign to pick out words used to protest it. Words such as Veteran, Military, and Flag. For each instance, this is used, and its already started, I challenge Nike to donate 5 cents to the Veterans organization of their choice or any organization that helps African Americans access to health care, education, or clean water for those folks in Flint. You know, issues brought up anytime someone does something nice but is never taken care of by the people who complain.

Colin Kaepernick shouldn’t be kneeling alone

 

I was ten minutes into browsing the internet when I happened upon the news that Nike is having former San Francisco 49ers player Colin Kaepernick be their spokesman for their 30th Anniversary of “Just Do it.”

For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the past however many years – Colin Kaepernick was made famous by kneeling in protest during the National Anthem over the murder of black people in the United States by white cops.

I have two points:

John Rich, of Big and Rich, tweeted a picture of a pair of cut up socks that his sound man, a former Marine,  held in protest of Nike’s choice. Now, that man has the right to cut his socks if he wants to. Although someone should tell him that Nike already has his money (Dixie Chicks anyone?). I am here to say that it shouldn’t only be black football players kneeling at these games or anytime the National Anthem plays.

Why?

Well, we should be kneeling over the fact that young black men are being targeted by white cops. And if you set the race thing aside for just a second, we should at least consider that our fellow citizens are being murdered by cops without due process of law. Moreover, if you can’t let go of the race thing, then maybe you can at least get yourself over it enough to understand that if it can happen to them, it can happen to you.

We should also be kneeling over veteran suicide rates. Veterans represent less than 1 percent of the population of the United States overall. And 99 percent of you all talk so much about how much you love and respect them. Yet we have this terrible phenomenon occurring. From what I understand it’s still at a rate of 22 per day.  We should be kneeling over that. We should be bowing our head, at that. To rid ourselves of the apathy that allows that to happen.

Secondly, black people are heroes. Black people fought and died for this union whether unwillingly (I.E. the moment the first black foot touched American soil to The Vietnam War) or willingly (recent history). There are black veterans. Lots of them. There are black service members. Lots of them.

Yet, not all heroes wear uniforms and not all battles are fought in some foreign country.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Mary McLoud Bethune, George Washington Carver, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Maya Angelou, Shirley Chilsom, the list goes on forever…

those involved in the Civil Rights movement, those people who fought domestic battles when The United States government refused to let them have equal rights before the law, when the FBI sent a letter to Dr. King telling him to kill himself,  those people were heroes. That was a battlefield. Those that died during the lynching years between 1865 and 1955 – the last being Emmett Till – he’s a hero.

Colin Kaepernick – is a hero.

The battlefield is the hearts and minds of America for the soul OF America.

As a veteran, I wholeheartedly support Colin and all the other football players drawing attention to the fast and loose rules of our society that says “other” is expendable. I support them kneeling much to the ire of those who dislike it – because there will NEVER be a right time and place for their protest. There was never a ‘right time’ for The Civil Rights Movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, The March on Washington, there wasn’t a ‘right time’ for Brown Vs. Board and the destruction of Jim Crow Law, there was never a ‘right time’ for The Civil Rights Act(s) except for the time and place in which they happened.

“Throw that football black man. Entertain me.”

Are you kidding me?

As a vet. I stood for his right to kneel. As a vet, I stood for the lives of Americans after we were attacked on 9/11. As a human being, I stand for Colin Kaepernick but what I won’t stand for is being used by paper patriots, the 99 percent, to use me or my brothers and sisters in the front line of your social ire when you can’t stand for us when we’re suicidal, or homeless, or hungry, or dealing with drug addiction, white, black or otherwise.

When someone like Colin or like LeBron James does something wonderful, something audacious, something good – the backfire is always “What about the vets?”

Well, what have you done for the vets, 99 percent? What have you done to eradicate poverty, and lift up your fellow citizens of black and brown heritage?

Vote for 45?

We all should be kneeling over that and everything else wrong in this country.

 

P.S. I challenge Nike to scour the internet for the duration of this campaign to pick out words used to protest it. Words such as Veteran, Military, and Flag. For each instance, this is used, and its already started, I challenge Nike to donate 5 cents to the Veterans organization of their choice or any organization that helps African Americans access to health care, education, or clean water for those folks in Flint. You know, issues brought up anytime someone does something nice but is never taken care of by the people who complain.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Three Magi (Preacher’s Kids)

I was a child on Easter Sunday,

in the back of the family car in my white Sunday shoes, grey vested, and grey pants

the door opened and your father stood there with a smile on his face

he was so tall, and he blocked out the sun

I thought I was seeing God for the first time…

then I’m a little older and the world is frozen and blue

black branches from sleeping trees reached upward and scraped holes in the clouds and caused the snow to fall quietly

on Belle Isle and we were sliding across the frozen pond

you and your brother and I and mine

we traded ice skates for the soles of our shoes….

Time passes in my mind

images on an old camera reel

and it’s pouring down rain

and we’re shirtless

your brother, you, and me

running and splashing and throwing ourselves on the lawn

pretending we’d been struck by lightning

and we laughed until our sides ached

We were the three kings, three magi, from the Bible

and instead of frankincense, myrrh, and gold

we had hymnals, and pews, and blue carpeted runways

where we’d flee between the adults

around the white painted former bar

and across the street from the party store where the Arab man sold us Faygo and hid his girly mags

when your father asked him to.

I remember…

cracking my head on a telephone box

your appendix surgery

long treks to churches where the people were so much more rich than us

but they didn’t know who was in their midst

three magi, three kings, ready to take flight

anywhere we wanted to go…

…and then, it was one last night together

one last dinner

I think that is when I first became acquainted with the concept of loss

there was laughter, adults talking, there was food around my father’s table

and I silently prayed that time would crawl to a stop

but God didn’t hear me or he denied my request

even for magi such as me

and before the night ended I waved goodbye to you all as you piled into your van to go far away…

I remember the time before time knew who we even were

and the years and the miles we’ve trod across

has stooped our shoulders, and added lines to our eyes

just hearing your voice tonight brought all those memories back hurtling back

from the dusty reel I’d had packed away

in some unkempt corner of my mind

my dear Christopher, Matthew,

there really isn’t much of a point to this other than to say…

I know the way life is

the complicated lives of three kings, so different from who we were

time has had its way with us

and the grape juice has turned to wine

My poem has a purpose, though

there’s a method to my prose as the Witching Hour draws close

and the spirits press themselves against the veil

begging for me to go to sleep

so they can whisper their stories to me

and that is, with the simplicity of the little boy that remains somewhere deep inside this tired man’s soul,

to say, “God, I’ve missed you.”

I’ll see you two in that space where we’ve never aged

after all, the pond is still frozen

in that space where

the rain still falls

and the white-tailed deer on Belle Isle

watch curiously

and the blue carpet runway is lit for three wild boys,

three kings, three magi,

to take flight

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Work “Woke” or Perish

When the Supreme Court Decision came down in Obergfell, I thought that I would be jumping for joy, ready to go out and party, ready to fly a rainbow flag in the faces of those who said it, A) shouldn’t happen and B) won’t happen. Gay marriage would never happen inside of the United States.

For over thirty years I, and many in the LGBT community as well as their families and friends that supported them, lived with the pressure of a world where two people who very much loved each other couldn’t take their relationship forward and secure their lives in a meaningful way.

But I didn’t party. I didn’t run around screaming with a rainbow flag. I didn’t even have a drink, a toast, to the Human Rights Campaign and my people who immediately set about getting married by the hundreds.

I took a nap.

The pressure that was on me, that had been on me for years since I came out of the closet, suddenly evaporated in a text from my husband that declared, “WE’RE MARRIED”.

See, we drove 15 hours from deep in the heart of Texas (clap, clap) to Des Moines Iowa a year prior to get married.

I had received a little 500 dollar advance for my book, Objects in the Rearview Mirror, and that Saturday evening, at a gas station, I looked at him and said, “Hey, you want to go?” And we did.

I drove all night through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and finally into Iowa, arriving at a bed and breakfast so tired I was shaking.

My Army training kicked in. I was taking that hill. I was delivering my fiancee to the steps of the courthouse or wherever it was we had to and marrying the crap out of him.

M/M Romance is largely homophobic without the Bible verses

I was driving around in town today running some errands with my husband and talking about the latest dustup in M/M Romance.

It’s this thing that happens every year, like Burning Man, or Christmas without the lights and the indie music scene. ((It’s more like “The Purge,” as people grab their pitchforks and dive behind bunkers to defend their turf over a blog written or a comment made.))

Across the parking lot from where we were, turning into a Wendy’s was a church van of Baptists. All these people piled out dressed in jean skirts and shirts and ties and it reminded me of when I was part of that religion passing out free tickets to heaven. As a kid, I was pretty miserable in that organization very much like that one and the reason for that was it was homophobic. It was also misogynist, racist, and a high control environment (cult), but being a young man questioning his sexuality, it was pretty much a suck ass religion that I got away from as soon as humanly possible.

We were talking back and forth, my husband and I, when the truth smacked me in the face as to why I am as miserable as I am being a writer.

M/M Romance (or Male/ Male Romance) is largely homophobic. They’re just homophobic without the cherry-picked bible verses screamed at you from in front of a bank, or at a mall, or at your Uncle Joe’s house, yet it retains the power of white privilege and superiority.

I read and shared a blog written by an acquaintance of mine who landed on the genre with both feet. I didn’t quite agree with what he had to say, but there were a few valid points made and one I completely agreed with was over the issue of its subgenre MPREG (or male pregnancy).

Now M/M Romance has been around almost a decade, I’ve been a part of it (or on the fringes really) for about 5 years.

Yet, like I said, these blow-ups are sort of an annual thing. Someone (usually a gay male) is overwhelmed at some point about the stereotypes thrown on gay people in this genre of fiction. Sometimes those stereotypes are more cliche’s concerning the subject of romance and sometimes, they’re blatantly homophobic.

Let’s take MPREG for instance. Let me show you an example of what I mean:

[image error]

Once you parse through the badly written …whatever that is, you can somewhat ascertain that a man walks into a bathroom where an “Omega” (the one supposed to get pregnant by his alpha) is so “in heat” that he has to bang himself with a vibrator.  It’s pretty gross this idea of dehumanizing someone. The concept of alpha male/ omega male is nothing more than the literary way of walking into a redneck bar with your boyfriend and a well-meaning but slightly inebriated associate asks, “Which one’s the guy and which one’s the girl?” And I think I’m being nice.

Gay people have been accused of the inability to love. It’s been called lust and relegated to nothing more than ‘rutting’.  This not only reaffirms that stereotype, it makes the “omega” completely unable to control his basic bodily urges and ‘destined’ to breed with the Alpha male. Which, is kinda rapey, and it’s kinda misogynistic since the sword-wielding Scotsman, Sword Wielding Nobleman, Sword-wielding (Fill in the blank), a lot of whom looked like Fabio, has moved over from Het Romance to gay people’s lives and are now superimposed.

When this is brought up, or any of the other problems within M/M Romance is brought up  such as racism, sexism, bi-erasure, etc by a gay person, person of color who is a reader, bisexual reader, etc we get a variation of this:

 

“We raise your flag high even if it doesn’t represent us on a personal level. We share your stories. We fight for you. We are your mothers, your teachers, your nurses, your doctors, your best friends…

We fight for you to love who you want to love. Sometimes we have to fight our husbands, our fathers, our brothers, our bosses because they don’t believe in what we do in our hearts. Because we fight for you.

Do we use mm romance and gay porn to get off?! Hell yea… but before that… men used the beauty that is a woman in passion or in pain or in humiliation or two women together to get off long before het women discovered cocky boys…

So this bisexual woman who is also a mother, best friend, lover, rainbow flag supporter, porn watcher, smut reader will continue to be me and read and watch whatever the fuck I want and you can sit in your corner and judge those who never once judged you.”

Well, thank you for being a somewhat decent human being…

but

I could make this much shorter, here it goes: “I like the kind of sex you have, even though the heterosexual males in my family find it gross, so I write about it in books and I’m making a ton of money even if we’re not exactly accurate about who it is you are. I am bisexual, I really don’t have a dog in your hunt, but since we’ve been fetishized since time immemorial, it’s totally cool for us to do it to you as well, and remember we vote.”

Are you helping me or are you holding me hostage?

I kinda feel like it’s the latter.

The oppressor’s motives have changed but it doesn’t mean the oppressor’s damage is in anyway contained.

I know a lot of m/m writers and for the most part, they’re fairly benign. However, when it get’s bad, it gets fucking awful. So awful, this little genre off in the midst of the literary sea usually only garners public attention when a nuclear bomb blast goes off. And that’s usually a honey, someone’s been a racist, a publisher decided to put up a website dedicated to the slave trade to promote books and had pictures of slaves you could sell and trade (Yes, that slave trade), or someone or a group of someones has been running a catfishing scam claiming to have terminal cancer and raised thousands of dollars in fraudulent gofundme money.

Not only were these authors writing ‘gay’ characters, they were also posing as gay men themselves.

Now, I am not saying that change hasn’t come to m/m. It has, by socially conscious people screaming and demanding to be heard. People who read something and react like the book about a gay man’s father who opened up a gay conversion home who really did it out of an act of love and gay people should appreciate that.

Fuck. All.. The. Way. Off.

However, the change hasn’t happened fast enough. Just like I had to flee the Fundi Baptist Church of my youth, it’s time for me to bail on anything really associated with M/M Romance even though, as a writer, m/m has become so powerful anything I produce will be viewed from that lens. It’s the default of queer fiction. And that’s not a good thing.

So, to my gay brothers out there who are readers, who are perhaps thinking about finding a publisher for your manuscript, you may want to avoid M/M Romance altogether. It isn’t about you. It doesn’t represent you, and you’re really not that welcome. Or, you are, if you know to keep your mouth shut.

I never learned that lesson.

 

 

 

 

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What America means to me

I remember waking up to the horror of September 11, 2001 by the sound of my mother screaming my name from the bottom of the stairwell.

“We’re under attack!”

Foggy brained, having slept in my jeans from the night before working as an unloader at Walmart I sat up.

What? Are we under attack?

Are the neighbors invading? There’s a zombie apocalypse? Has Canada become sick of our shit?

“They’ve hit the World Trade Center and the White House.”

Who? Who has hit the what?

Okay. I was up and half asleep worked my way downstairs to figure out what was going on.

I walked into the living room where my dad was watching the news when the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

“Dad, what movie are you watching.”

“It’s not a movie.”

My life changed that day as we watched the news. As we watched the scene change from New York City to The Pentagon as another passenger jet had driven into the side leaving a gaping black hole of destruction and smoke.

We watched as both towers in New York crumbled and fell upon the inhabitants.

I fell asleep to CNN that night and woke the next day with the news media at the scene of what had now been declared an “act of terror”.

America, the beautiful, had been devastated by the loss of over 3,000 of our citizens of all walks of life, in just a few minutes.

I was in shock. The sound of airplanes overhead (fighter jets patrolling the skies) for the very first time in my life scared me. Terrified me.

Later that night, as the shock wore off, after watching hours of grown men and women holding pictures of their loved ones near the site of the World Trade Center begging anyone that would listen to them with tears in their eyes, I wept.

I knew a war was coming. Months later, I signed up for the Army.

I served for the loss of those at the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and in the Pennsylvania field. I served for those whose lives were taken aboard those aircraft that had been hijacked by 15 people from a far-off place. And I served to protect my home, my family, and all free peoples of the world.

There were a lot of people dead. The enemy hit soft targets. And, in their hatred of us, there was a sort of universal equality in their decision that is ironic. To those 15 hijackers, “All Men (universally speaking) were indeed created equal”. They were all American. Those 15 men, in just a few hours, managed to do what this country couldn’t do in over 200 years of this nation’s existence.

It didn’t matter if they were white, black, gay, straight, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or Jew. It didn’t matter of their victims were disabled, saintly, criminal, a banker, an investor, or a janitor staff in those buildings.

Afterward, there was a sense of unity throughout the country. Rural areas rose funds, donated blood, and volunteers from all across the country went to Ground Zero to do the work in a pit of absolute horror.

In these days of national unrest, civil disobedience, inhumane treatment of non-citizens, an economy that serves no human purpose, and a very aroused republic, I can’t help but think of America’s future.

There’s a lot of fear among the populace. Fear of ‘other’ and fear of “Tyranny.”

I can’t help but wonder if Osama Bin Laden, while dead thanks to the actions of the Navy Seals and President Obama’s orders, is closer to winning posthumously while the citizens of this country and citizens all over the western world have started to turn on each other.

Politics of discord, and of hate, have risen up from the depths of a hell we thought we’d banished them to 60 years ago. Things are being said about people and done to people we thought as a country we’d put aside. Was it a lack of vigilance? Was it a lack of watchfulness? Was it trading liberty for security? Or was it all of these things?

I am unsure. All I know is that America doesn’t feel like the country I lived in prior to 9/11.

Today, there is a necessary and terrible question concerning foreign influence upon our Chief Executive, President Donald Trump who seemed to skate right into the White House despite all the things he’s said about fellow citizens, journalists, POW’s, women, the disabled, and his love affair with tyrants all over the world.

Yet, despite all of that, despite the white-hot conversation taking place in the marketplace of ideas, on the news, across social media, and in our homes today. I realize something I should have realized when I saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center tower.

That America is an idea. And ideas once put forth, cannot be destroyed.

It can’t be destroyed by terrorism. It can’t be destroyed by hate, by fear, nor by tyranny. Nor can it be destroyed by referring to its guardians, The Media, as “Fake News.”

Our founders, while imperfect in all ways imaginable, lit a match that caused an inferno to sweep the globe. Ideas of liberty, freedom, equality, while not yet fully realized at any time in this country is the shining city on the hill that we strive for. Those ideals are to Americans as Canaan was to the wandering children of Israel. A land of Milk, and Honey, a land of safety and prosperity, and peace.

America is about hope. It’s hoped that those immigrants who seek our shores, and our borders, who cross thousands of miles in unrelenting heat, toils, and snares, see. It’s a promise that they can see that sometimes even we, as Americans, are blind to.

This great apocalypse that is Donald Trump, this great “uncovering” of the truth, has exposed a country terrified of shadow and uncertainty that he capitalized on.

Try as he may, however, he nor others like him, nor foreign interests in our electoral system, can ever make that shining city on the hill grow dark as long as we hold the truths that were declared self-evident that all men are created equal, in our hearts.

That is what America means to me.

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Trump Sucks

Really....there's no blog. I just needed to get that off my chest.

Have a good day.