Category Archives: History

May 30, 2011

Memorial Day

By Joe

tumblr_llvcgiip061qfjriho1_1280Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 30 [Today] in 2011). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates men and women who died while in military service to the United States. First enacted to honor Union and Confederate soldiers following the American Civil War, it was extended after World War I to honor Americans who have died in all wars.

Memorial Day often marks the start of the summer vacation season, and Labor Day its end.

Begun as a ritual of remembrance and reconciliation after the civil war, by the early 20th century, Memorial Day was an occasion for more general expressions of memory, as ordinary people visited the graves of their deceased relatives, whether they had served in the military or not.

History

Graves_at_Arlington_on_Memorial_DayBy 1865 the practice of decorating soldiers’ graves had become widespread in the North. The first known observance was in Boalsburg, Pa on October, 1864, and each year thereafter. The friendship between General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan, who helped bring attention to the event nationwide, was likely a factor in the holiday’s growth. On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic – the organization for Northern Civil War veterans – Logan issued a proclamation that “Decoration Day” should be observed nationwide. It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle.

There were events in 183 cemeteries in 27 states in 1868, and 336 in 1869. The northern states quickly adopted the holiday; Michigan made “Decoration Day” an official state holiday in 1871 and by 1890 every northern state followed suit. The ceremonies were sponsored by the Women’s Relief Corps, which had 100,000 members. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 Union dead had been buried in 73 national cemeteries, located mostly in the South, near the battlefields. The most famous are Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington.

The Memorial Day speech became an occasion for veterans, politicians and ministers to commemorate the war – and at first to recall the atrocities of the enemy. They mixed religion and celebratory nationalism and provided a means for the people to make sense of their history in terms of sacrifice for a better nation, one closer to their God. People of all religious beliefs joined together, and the point was often made that the German and Irish soldiers had become true Americans in the “baptism of blood” on the battlefield. By the end of the 1870s the rancor was gone and the speeches praised the soldiers of both the Union and Confederacy. By the 1950s, the theme was American exceptionalism and duty to uphold freedom in the world. In 1882, the name of Decoration Day was formally changed to Memorial Day in “memory” and ‘honor” of those who gave their lives fighting for a common cause, America.

In the South

In Charleston, South Carolina in 1865, freedmen (freed enslaved Africans) celebrated at the Washington Race Course, today the location of Hampton Park. The site had been used as a temporary Confederate prison camp for captured Union soldiers in 1865, as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died there. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, freedmen exhumed the bodies from the mass grave and reinterred them in individual graves. They built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch and declared it a Union graveyard. On May 1, 1865, a crowd of up to ten thousand, mainly black residents, including 2800 children, proceeded to the location for events that included sermons, singing, and a picnic on the ground, thereby creating the first Decoration Day-type celebration.

142-NWS-Confederate_Memorial_Day__1-05122009.standalone.prod_affiliate.9Beginning in 1866 the Southern states had their own Memorial Days, ranging from April 26 to mid June. The birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, June 3, became a state holiday in 10 states by 1916. Across the South associations were founded after the war to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for Confederate soldiers, organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor impressive monuments as a permanent way of remembering the Confederate tradition. Women provided the leadership in these associations, paving the way to establish themselves as capable of public leadership.

The earliest Confederate Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the day and attend to local cemeteries. Around 1890, there was a shift from this consolatory emphasis on honoring specific soldiers to public commemoration of the Confederate “Lost Cause”. Changes in the ceremony’s hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, however, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with the Lost Cause.

Columbus, Mississippi at its Decoration Day on April 25, 1866, commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery.

2 Comments | posted in History

May 21, 2011

Moment of Zen: The Rapture

By Joe

tumblr_llgbk55YD11qzmowao1_500
It’s a complicated business calculating the precise date of the end of the world. There’s the Great Flood to consider, which may have happened around 4990BC, depending on who’s estimating. And the timing of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Then there’s a bit of math that involves equating one day to 1,000 years.
Do all that and it turns out that Armageddon will begin at 6pm on Saturday. That is, if Harold Camping has got his calculations and his reading of the Book of Ezekiel right.

The 89-year-old doomsday prophet, a former engineer, has prompted a tide of expectation, elation and derision after persuading listeners to his Family Radio Worldwide across the US and as far away as the Philippines to sell up everything and prepare for the beginning of the end of the world with the second coming of Jesus.

If all goes according to plan, those who have been “saved” by Jesus will rise into the air in the Rapture and look down as God smites billions of nonbelievers with a great earthquake rolling from city to city across the planet, and a bit of fire to boot.

Judgment day will begin at 6pm wherever you are. The mayhem will move west over the planet, wiping out cities, towns and villages.

In the US, some believers have given up their jobs and donated money they think they will no longer need to pay for more than 2,000 billboards across the country proclaiming “Judgment Day: May 21, 2011 – Cry mightily unto God. THE BIBLE GUARANTEES IT!”

Camping previously predicted that the end of the world would be in 1994. He blames that on an error in the math but says he has it right this time. “There is no possibility that it will not happen because our information comes from the Bible,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Besides his mathematical formula, Camping has conjured up more “evidence” that doomsday looms. He has pointed to the re-establishment of Israel – which some Christians believe is a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture – as a sign from God “that the world is getting near its end”. He has said that the earthquake and tsunami in Japan were a divinely organized foretaste of what awaits most of humanity.

Camping has also said that “gay pride” and same-sex marriage are “a sign from God that judgment day is very near”. “No sign is as dramatic and clear as the phenomenal worldwide success of the Gay Pride movement. In the Bible God describes His involvement with this dramatic movement … We will learn that the Gay Pride movement would successfully develop as a sign to the world that Judgment Day was about to occur,” he writes.


I, for one, will be standing outside when 6pm comes today.  I don’t want to hit my head on my way to heaven, LOL. This will also be my last post if the Rapture occurs;  so I will say goodbye to you all and will say hello again once we are in Heaven together.

Though this post is done with humor, Harold Camping does believe he has predicted the end of the world, which will actually come five months after the “Rapture” on October 21, 2011.  I am a Christian, and I tend to believe the Bible:


Matthew 24:36

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Mark 13:31-32

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.  But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

Therefore. I just can’t take these predictions seriously.  I also don’t believe in a literal “rapture” as described by those who say we will be flown up into heaven.


Some notable rapture predictions include the following:

  • 1844 – William Miller predicted Christ would return between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844, then revised his prediction, claiming to have miscalculated Scripture, to October 22, 1844. The realization that the predictions were incorrect resulted in a Great Disappointment. Miller’s theology gave rise to the Advent movement. The Baha’is believe that Christ did return as Miller predicted in 1844, with the advent of The Báb, and numerous Miller-like prophetic predictions from many religions are given in William Sears book, Thief in The Night.
  • 1914, 1918, 1925, 1942 – Dates set for the end by the Jehovah’s Witnesses
  • 1981 – Chuck Smith predicted that Jesus would probably return by 1981.
  • 1988 – Publication of 88 Reasons why the Rapture is in 1988, by Edgar C. Whisenant.
  • 1989 – Publication of The final shout: Rapture report 1989, by Edgar Whisenant. More predictions by this author appeared for 1992, 1995, and other years.
  • 1992 – Korean group “Mission for the Coming Days” predicted October 28, 1992 as the date for the rapture.
  • 1993 – Seven years before the year 2000. The rapture would have to start to allow for seven years of the Tribulation before the Return in 2000. Multiple predictions.
  • 1994 – Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles predicted June 9, 1994. Radio evangelist Harold Camping predicted September 6, 1994.
  • 2011 – Harold Camping’s revised prediction has May 21, 2011 as the date of the rapture.
  • 2060 – Sir Isaac Newton proposed, based upon his calculations using figures from the book of Daniel, that the Apocalypse could happen no earlier than 2060.

Sources:

7 Comments | posted in Funny, Gossip, History, Moment of Zen, Religion

May 20, 2011

On this day…

By Joe

8943jinf

On this day in 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.

And they have been helping to make men look hot for the last 138 years.

2 Comments | posted in History, Video

May 19, 2011

Mercuralia

By Joe

tumblr_ll9tjxGez61qepg91o1_500In Greco-Roman belief, the god Mercury (Hermes) was thought to have invented masturbation and taught it to his son Faunus (Pan). The Greeks called it thrypsis, “the rubbing,” and in Latin it was known as masturatus. As with other aspects, the Celts were influenced by Roman ways and beliefs after the two cultures began to merge in some areas.
Mercuralia was the celebration known also as the “Festival of Mercury”. Mercury was thought to be the God of merchants and commerce as well as the patron of masturbation. On 15 May, merchants would sprinkle their heads, bodies, ships, merchandise and businesses with water taken from the well at Porta Capena. But some believe they would sprinkle themselves with another liquid as well.
Obscure sources suggest men would masturbate – an expression thought not uncommon or unseemly to the Celts – in honor of Mercury on this day because he was believed the patron of the act and that doing so would bring virility and sexual prowess. Given that May is now known as masturbation month, an auto-erotic experience could seem an appropriate Mercuralia observation…
Image: Pierre et Gilles
163207_130005253732189_100001681458906_188331_3773745_nceThe picture and text are courtesy of Celt Eros: The mystique – imagined or real – of the Celtic male and Celtic culture appeals to many worldwide. The constructs of this culture, both ancient and modern manifestations, are alluring.  CeltEros is about sharing and spreading appreciation for the Celtic ethos, mythos and importantly – eros.

3 Comments | posted in History

May 17, 2011

Divan of Hafiz

By Joe

Hafiz i-Shirazi

hafezKhwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šhīrāzī, known by his pen name Hāfez (1325/26–1389/90) was a Persian lyric poet. His collected works composed of series of Persian poetry (Divan) are to be found in the homes of most Iranians, who learn his poems by heart and use them as proverbs and sayings to this day. His life and poems have been the subject of much analysis, commentary and interpretation, influencing post-Fourteenth Century Persian writing more than any other author
Despite his profound effect on Persian life and culture and his enduring popularity and influence, few details of his life are known. Accounts of his early life rely upon traditional anecdotes. Early tazkiras (biographical sketches) mentioning Hafez are generally considered unreliable. The preface of his Divān, in which his early life is discussed, was written by an unknown contemporary of Hafez whose name may have been Moḥammad Golandām.
Modern scholars generally agree that Hafez was born either in 1315 or 1317; following an account by Jami 1390 is considered the year in which he died. Hafez was supported by patronage from several successive local regimes: Shah Abu Ishaq, who came to power while Hafez was in his teens; Timur Lang (Tamerlane) at the end of his life; and even the strict ruler Shah Mubariz ud-Din Muhammad (Mubariz Muzaffar).

Ghazl No. 10 from the Divan of Hafiz

Divan_von_HafizHis mop of hair tangled, sweating, laughing and drunk,
Shirt torn, singing poems, flask in hand,
His eyes spoiling for a fight, his lips mouthing “Alas!”
Last night at midnight he came and sat by my pillow.
He bent his head to my ear and said, sadly,
“O, my ancient lover, are you sleeping?”

The seeker to whom they give such a cup at dawn
Is an infidel to love if he will not worship the wine.
O hermit, go and do not quibble with those who drink the dregs,
For on the eve of creation this was all they gave to us.
What he poured in our cup we drank,
Whether the mead of Heaven, or the wine of drunkenness.

The cup’s smile and the wine boy’s knotted curl
Have broken many vows of chastity, like that of Hafiz.

A variation on the interpretation of E.T. Gray, Jr.
in The Green Sea of Heaven, White Cloud Press, 1995.
http://www.gay-art-history.org/gay-history/gay-literature/gay-poetry/hafiz-i-shirazi-wine-boy-ghazal/Hafiz.htm

4 Comments | posted in Art, History, Poetry

May 12, 2011

U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School, St. Mary’s, California

By Joe

footerThe Christian Brothers who moved the College to Moraga in 1928 would scarcely recognize today’s Contra Costa County, with its crowded freeways and sprawling subdivisions in place of the orchards and pastures that once dominated the landscape.

Moraga itself, which has grown to a population of 16,000, maintains much of the bucolic charm that enticed the Brothers from Oakland’s Broadway and 30th Street eight decades ago. Yet the surrounding East Bay has experienced an almost continuous real estate boom — especially when World War II’s military mobilization and industrialization transformed the region.

The war certainly had a dramatic impact on the College, as the U.S. Navy’s Pre-Flight School took over most of the campus at 1928 St. Mary’s Road from 1942 to 1946. The arrival of thousands of Navy men housed in temporary barracks and trained in classrooms also brought a crucial missing ingredient to Saint Mary’s — a reliable supply of water that has allowed the College to expand ever since.

The Move to Moraga

tumblr_l7eyg41Fa81qc0um2o1_1280As the College started outgrowing the Oakland Brickpile campus after World War I, trains and automobiles were making it easier to settle in outlying parts of the Bay Area. In 1919, the Brothers purchased what seemed to be an ideal new location: 255 acres next to Lake Chabot in the San Leandro hills.

Unable to raise enough money for construction, the Brothers turned their attention elsewhere. In 1927, James Irvine’s Moraga Company — hoping a college would jumpstart real estate development — offered the Brothers 100 free acres, the beginnings of today’s 420-acre campus.

The Moraga location had many virtues — pastoral seclusion, rolling hills and plenty of elbow room — but it lacked a dependable water source. While the proposed San Leandro site was on a lake, the Moraga location was fed solely by the fickle flow from Las Trampas Creek through a marshy area north of campus.

“It’s amazing to me that the College was able to survive here for years without other sources of water,” says biology professor Lawrence Cory, a Saint Mary’s student in the 1930s. “Some years, there might be enough water, but what about years like this one (2007) when the creek is completely dry?”tumblr_l7eyh4AigG1qc0um2o1_1280

In fact, Moraga developed more slowly than its neighbors because Lafayette and Orinda were situated along the aqueduct system created by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) in the late 1920s. EBMUD, a public trust set up in 1923 to develop a steady water supply for East Bay communities, piped Mokelumne River water to reservoirs, including the Lafayette Reservoir, by 1929. But Moraga was too far away and too small, even with the arrival of more than 200 Saint Mary’s students in 1928, to merit the effort and expense of EBMUD incorporation.

This lack of water hindered early Moraga development efforts, as Nilda Rego chronicles in her history Days Gone By in Contra Costa County. In 1922, when the county and Irvine’s company split the cost of a “Moraga Highway” from Orinda — today’s Moraga Way from Highway 24 into the town — the project almost foundered due to lack of water.

E.E. O’Brien, the Martinez contractor who won the bid, had her crews implement creative solutions to the problem.

“They told me there would be many difficulties and said I could not get the water to mix concrete for one thing,” she told the Contra Costa Courier on May 8, 1922. “Water was obtained by impounding dams along the right of way, thereby conserving the rainwater that otherwise would have run off.”

Necessity: Mother of Invention

tumblr_l7l2dtaqx51qc0um2o1_1280During their first years in often-arid Moraga, the Brothers relied on similar improvisations to keep the College hydrated.

As they began setting up the College in 1927, however, lack of water did not appear to be a problem. If anything, there seemed to be an abundance.

With heavy rainfall in 1927 and 1928, the campus was often flooded, slowing construction. Las Trampas Creek frequently overran its banks, rainwater flowed down from the hills and the campus’ adobe soil turned to thick mud.

One of the College’s oldest Moraga alums, Bob McAndrews ’32, remembers his first year at the College as particularly muddy: “We had to slog between buildings in boots because roads and pathways weren’t finished and the winter was exceptionally rainy.”

The soggy beginning failed to dampen the Brothers’ spirits. They lived in an era marked by new confidence in water management feats similar to EBMUD’s successful dam and pipeline system. William Mulholland’s aqueducts had brought water hundreds of miles south to thirsty Los Angeles and earthquake-shaken San Francisco dammed faraway Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite for a reliable water supply. The Brothers were convinced Las Trampas Creek could make a big enough reservoir to supply the College.tumblr_l7l2fkOnrT1qc0um2o1_1280

So Lake Lasalle, created with a $100,000 earthen dam constructed by Berkeley contractor J.P. Brennan, was formed. The College’s main source of water from 1928 to 1942, the 134-acre-foot reservoir was north of the campus (behind the Power Plant) at the mouth of Bollinger Canyon.

Wells supplied some of the College’s water, but Lake Lasalle provided the rest, including irrigation water for the campus’ 20 acres of lawns. A pumping station sent lake water to redwood storage tanks located in the hills behind De La Salle Hall (near today’s “SMC” logo). The College also set up a treatment system in the hills for purifying and chlorinating water.

The water tanks proved to be an irresistible target for some pranksters: At the height of the Saint Mary’s–Cal football rivalry in the early 1930s, Berkeley students tried to paint a big yellow Cal “C” on them before games.

For a while, the water system did more than quench the campus’ thirst. The lake itself was an added attraction, as students swam and boated there in the 1930s. A 1939 Gael yearbook writer rhapsodized: “Lake Lasalle, limpid, cool, inviting, where many an hour is whiled away in an easy jaunt around the mossy banks … a tranquil panorama of water, sky and rolling hills to soothe the weary eye escaping from the printed word.”
Soon enough, however, this aquatic idyll faced a significant problem — the steady accretion of silt due to erosion which threatened to overwhelm the lake.

The Brothers’ own ad hoc hydraulic engineer, Brother Nivard Raphael, took matters into his own hands. In 1941, he built a small foredam to catch silt upstream from Lake Lasalle. But Las Trampas Creek uprooted it, leaving him back at square one. He later attempted to use the sump valve that contractors built into the bottom of the lake to drain silt through an underground pipe. The valve failed, and much of the lake’s water was lost.tumblr_l7l2gpJNZ11qc0um2o1_1280

These efforts to revitalize Lake Lasalle were soon overshadowed by a more pressing national concern: preparation for World War II.

A Navy Needs Water

With an acute shortage of fighter pilots after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy set up pre-flight training schools at colleges across the country. Naval officials considered several West Coast locations before accepting Saint Mary’s offer of its Moraga campus.
In a brusque wartime communication, Navy Secretary Frank Knox informed Brother President Austin via telegram on Feb. 27, 1942, that “St. Mary’s College has been selected by the Navy Department as one of the four locations for pre-flight training. Your patriotic cooperation in this vital program is appreciated.”

By June 1942, the campus’ population swelled from around 300 to more than 2,000 — the vast majority of whom were navy cadets and officers.tumblr_l7l2i0tpLe1qc0um2o1_1280

With a pre-flight curriculum that included boxing and swimming rather than Greek and Latin, certain accommodations were necessary. Major construction projects — including temporary barracks, a field house and a rifle range — were completed with lightning speed.

The Navy pumped silt from the bottom of Lake Lasalle to level out the area between the Chapel and St. Mary’s Road for athletic fields. The College still uses some of this space for rugby and soccer fields.

But Lake Lasalle itself, the Navy concluded, was not a good primary source of water, especially during a drought.

“When the Navy came here, they were determined not to have to rely on a creek,” Cory explains.

The College was still outside EBMUD’s service area. But while the utility district could turn down the Brothers’ request to run water pipes to Moraga, it couldn’t say no to Uncle Sam.tumblr_l7l2jbm1ns1qc0um2o1_1280

“The Navy went to EBMUD and told them to bring in water,” says Brother Raphael Patton, the College’s unofficial historian. “The response — that it was too far and too expensive — was what had denied the College a water connection since 1928. The Navy did not take this response kindly.”

Top Navy brass made it clear that water for the College was crucial to the war effort. Admiral L.E. Denfield sent a telegram about it to the Joint Army and Navy Munitions Board Priorities Division on May 12, 1942:

“To provide adequate water supply, both for drinking purposes and for fire protection, a pipeline will have to be constructed. The subject school (Saint Mary’s) is scheduled to open June 11, 1942, and accordingly it is requested that proper rating be assigned to the College as soon as possible.”

Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, the chief of naval personnel responsible for overall manpower readiness, followed up with another telegram.tumblr_l7l2m8WVlO1qc0um2o1_1280

A few months later, EBMUD and the College made an agreement leading to the installation of iron pipe beneath St. Mary’s Road to the closest EBMUD water main (two miles away, near the intersection of Rheem Boulevard and Moraga Road) and pumping equipment to bring 200,000 gallons a day to the College.

With access to EBMUD’s Mokelumne River water established, the Navy trained thousands of pilots for action against the Axis powers. After the war, it left behind the water infrastructure that has allowed the College to grow over the last six decades.
Following years of improvisation and praying for rain, the College’s water supply was finally resolved — no more relying on Lake Lasalle, which gradually turned into a willow-covered wetland.

Photo_1

Source for text:  http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/news-and-events/saint-marys-magazine/archives/v28/sp08/features/01.html

4 Comments | posted in History, Nudity

April 26, 2011

The Wild Honey-Suckle

By Joe

Each evening during this time of year when I walk outside I am overwhelmed by the beautiful sweet smell that flows on the breeze and envelopes the sky.  The smell is that of wild honeysuckles which grow on the fence around the side of my house. There may be many things that I don’t like about the South, but the smell of wild honeysuckle in late spring is something that I will always love and cherish.

The Wild Honey-Suckle by Philip Freneau

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,tumblr_ljpbjr4Bd51qf3353o1_400
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet;
     No roving foot shall crush thee here,
     No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
     Thus quietly thy summer goes,
     Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died–nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
     Unpitying frosts, and Autumn’s power
     Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
     The space between, is but an hour,
     The frail duration of a flower.

In the picture above, the model is not holding honeysuckle, but it’s the closest thing I could find.

Philip Freneau, 1752-1832, American poet and journalist, b.Philip_freneau New York City, grad. Princeton, 1771. During the American Revolution he served as soldier and privateer. His experiences as a prisoner of war were recorded in his poem The British Prison Ship (1781). The first professional American journalist, he was a powerful propagandist and satirist for the American Revolution and for Jeffersonian democracy. Freneau edited various papers, including the partisan National Gazette (Philadelphia, 1791-93) for Jefferson. He was usually involved in editorial quarrels, and, influential though he was, none of his papers was profitable. His political and satirical poems have value mainly for historians, but his place as the earliest important American lyric poet is secured by such poems as “The Wild Honeysuckle,” “The Indian Burying Ground,” and “Eutaw Springs.”

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/philip-morin-freneau#ixzz1KVIHwdwl

3 Comments | posted in History, Nudity, Poetry

April 25, 2011

Lies and Controversy

By Joe

tumblr_lfm4mzkerD1qajhgvo1_500

On August 21, the gay blogger and youtuber, Davey Wavey (www.breaktheillusion.com), posted a video blog about the “7 Huge Gay Lies” that gay men tell.  In the video, Davey explained that the majority of gays lie about:

  • how many partners they’ve ever had
  • using gay hookup sites
  • cheating on their boyfriends
  • their penis size
  • their fetishes
  • having safe sex
  • their age

This caused a shitstorm of controversy which, sadly, led Davey to take down the video and post this one instead.  The controversy around the video was led by another gay blogger and youtuber named Tyler Oakley, who claims that these are just negative stereotypes and teach young gays bad habits, while also denying ever lying about any of the above. (I’ll take him at his word on this.)  I personally have never lied about any of the things above either, though Tyler goes further to state that not only has he never lied about any of these things, but that he has never done any of them.  In a comment on Davey Wavey’s original video he stated:

  1. I’m honest on how many partners I’ve had.
  2. I’ve never used a hookup site.  I met my boyfriend on a blind date.
  3. I’ve never cheated.  I have respect for them and myself.
  4. I’ve never been in a situation where someone has asked me for my penis size, so I’ve never had a chance to lie about it.  Maybe I have a higher standard for the conversations I have.
  5. I only have safe sex with committed tested partners.
  6. I’ve never lied about my age.

You should stop perpetrating stereotypes.

Now, if these is true, great for Tyler.  Like I said before I won’t say he is lying because maybe he is not.  But, I have a few things to say, and I will go through them point by point (all seven of them).

First of all, I am as honest about how many partners I’ve had as I can be, though the exact number is a little fuzzy. (I’ll be the first to say that I had my slutty phase, but I don’t think it was too slutty of a phase.) There are some hookups, that I would like to forget, but I have a pretty good memory of them.  To give an example of one of the ones I would like to forget was a guy that I met online.  He was a fellow teacher (special ed, which in my opinion makes him a pretty special person).  We seemed to have a lot in common, and I enjoyed our chats.  We decided to get together for some “fun.”  We were chatting after we met up, and he was talking about his kids.  Now, I always refer to my students as my kids, so I didn’t think anything more of it.  Then he made a comment about his wife.  We were kind of in the heat of the moment, and I put it at the back of my mind while we were both naked.  In retrospect, I should have stopped him and sent him on his way.  I believe in being faithful to a partner, and I felt disgusted with myself for fooling around with a married man.  It is not one of the highlights of my life.  Not all men are honest about the number of partners they’ve had.  I’ve run into this many times.  We should be honest with each other, and Davey is right that not all of us are.

As stated in the previous paragraph, I have used gay hookup sites.  When you are a gay man in the South, there are several good reasons for this.  1)  There aren’t a lot of places to go meet other gay men, especially while living in small towns or rural areas.  2)  Not everybody has friends who know other gay friends to set them up on blind dates, and it can be hard to find us in a small community. 3) Sometimes we need to be discreet.  There are other reasons, but these are the three biggies.  Good for Tyler for not using gay hookup sites, but what is wrong with it?  Those sites are not just about sex and immediate hookups, though many guys think of them as such.  I have met some great people that I have had a lot of fun with, sex or not, on these sites, and I will not lie about it (though maybe I will be vague about it to some of my straight friends).  The point is, why lie?  It is nothing to be ashamed of. (And on a side note, we know Davey Wavey has used hookup sites because he has blogged about it, and his naked profile pics are all over the internet.)

I personally have never cheated in the traditional sense of the word, except for the special ed teacher, and that was accidental.  I didn’t’ think I had to ask if he was married or not.  I was naïve, and I have since learned.  Furthermore, you all should know that I am a Christian.  In my belief, lusting in one’s heart (as Jimmy Carter put it), masturbating to the image of another man, checking out that hot guy across the room, etc., are all forms of cheating. That brief though is a betrayal of your partner, and you are not being completely faithful to your partner.  The old saying “Just because you are on a diet, doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu,” is actually just plain wrong.  If you are in a committed relationship, then why would your eye wonder.  Truth be told, it is human nature for our eyes to wonder.  How do we remedy this?  I honestly don’t know, but I have no doubt that we should be honest with our partners.  Lies only lead to problems.

Now, penis size… OMFG!  I mean really.  If I had a dollar for every time a man lied to me about his penis size, I might not be a millionaire, but I’m pretty sure I would be comfortably well off. If I had a dollar for every time any man has lied about his penis size to me or not, I would be at least a billionaire.  Tyler wrote, “I’ve never been in a situation where someone has asked me for my penis size, so I’ve never had a chance to lie about it.  Maybe I have a higher standard for the conversations I have.”  Really, he has never had that conversation with someone else. I’ve had that conversation with straight men and gay men alike and numerous female friends.  When it comes down to it, most men lie just a little.  I don’t, because honestly, I’m happy with my size.  I wish it were a bit longer, but I’ve never had a complaint. And as for Tyler’s statement, “Maybe I have a higher standard for the conversations I have” what kind of fucking boring life does Tyler live.  I mean really. (Maybe that is not fair, but I dislike it when people try to act like total goody two shoes.)  What the hell does this guy talk about.  It is certainly not all that I talk about, but there is nothing to be shameful or deceptive about.  I have friends who are very open about these kinds of things, and a couple of beers, sex talk, and you have a fun night ahead.  (A tidbit of historical gossip here, the only man in history that it was widely rumored during his lifetime to have a huge penis is Marcus Antonius.  Believe it or not, in Ancient Rome, this was a slur.  He was seen as being led around by his cock, and subsequently, Cleopatra.  If it was so big, how did he keep it hidden under that short leather skirt?) Enough said. Just be honest about your size.

Okay, so I will admit that I don’t always tell everyone I am with about my fetishes. If a guy were to ask, I would tell.  We all have things that we find sexually exciting.  By the way, Tyler did not address this lie.  Does he tell all of his partners about his fetishes? Why did he leave this out? Maybe he really is just completely boring (again, maybe not fair).  I’ve never read his blog, and after seeing how he reacted to Davey’s video, I don’t think I want to.

As for safe sex, I haven’t always been safe.  I was the top in unprotected anal sex once (long story that involves and orgy and a guy that put my dick into his ass before I knew it, and in the heat of the moment I went with it).  Tyler wrote, “I only have safe sex with committed tested partners.”  Again good for him, but he never says that he is always honest with them.  Also, no sex is totally safe.  Tests are not always accurate. Partners are not always faithful, no matter what we want to believe.  Oral sex is not completely safe (though deemed low risk if you don’t swallow) even if you use dental dams and condoms.  Condoms can break.  All kinds of problems can happen.  Abstinence and solo masturbation are the only truly safe sex.   All the rest is “safer” sex.  Again, this is something that I am honest about. There is no reason to lie.  Better to be safe than sorry.

I will not, have not, and never will lie about my age.  A year older is a thing to celebrate, and it  beats the hell out of the alternative (i.e. death).  I am happy that I am a 33 year old man.  There are more things that I wish I had done before this age (finished my PhD for one), but we all have some regrets.  It doesn’t make me ashamed of my age.  Have men and women ever lied to me about their age?  Yes, they have, and they will continue to do so as long as we have an emphasis on youth. Be honest and be proud.

I don’t think (in fact, I know) Davey Wavey was not trying to perpetuate stereotypes, but in is touch feely gay guru way was talking about honesty.  Davey Wavey, from all of his stuff that I have read and watched, tries to get us as gay men to love ourselves and to guard ourselves against the ever prevalent self-hatred that so many of us face at on time or another.  I am sorry that he took down the video.  I didn’t get to see it before it was taken down, but I can’t believe it was offensive as Tyler lambasted him for.  What Davey is like in real life is, I hope, very close to the personality he portrays on his blog and videos. I may not divulge my completely true identity here, but I endeavor to be honest about who I am.  Some of my readers who have gotten to know me outside of my blog would, and again I hope, describe me as a loving and caring person.  And as a human being, I may have a temper on occasion and my students get to see it every so often.  None of us are perfect.  I still work very hard to follow my two main rules in life:

Do unto others and you would have them do unto you.

and

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I don’t always succeed, but I do my very best.  I am sorry that the gay community lashed out at Davey Wavey for being honest about what he sees as problems in the gay community.  Never has there been a civil rights movement (at least not in my knowledge), that have taken criticism about and especially from within their community well.  A few weeks ago, I was honored to hear a conference paper about homophobia in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.  The main person that the presenter was discussing was a gay man (and as I write this I can’t remember his name) who got moved to a behind the scenes position, and eventually out of the movement, because of his perceived sexual immorality, i.e. his homosexuality.  However, it was this particular person, who while Martin Luther King, Jr. was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize was called upon to ask King and the other ministers gathered to “stop having orgies in the hotel.”  The point is that until we start working together instead of letting the green monster of jealousy and our own ignorance about our community, we cannot move forward.  We will only move backwards.  Yes, the GLBT community is very diverse, but we have one thing in common, and that is that we are GLBT, we love someone of the same sex, and we have a long road ahead of us for equality.

Further Reading:

There are many other reactions: negative to either Davey or Tyler. I think if you read Tyler’s original post and his reaction to Larson’s “open letter” you will see that Tyler probably took Davey’s comments the wrong way, at least in my opinion.  This post is most of all to address the “7 Huge Gay Lies” that Davey outlined in his post.  I think the original message is worth reading and that the vitriolic reaction to it tells us (sadly) a lot about the gay community.

For something of more of a lighter mood click “more” below.  Warning it contains graphic nudity.

 

It will not get bigger just because you lie about it.

I wonder if Pinocchio ever grows a mustache, LOL.  I’ve never been a huge fan of shaved pubes.

tumblr_lfzk6r4kSK1qge0mdo1_400

Be happy with what you’ve got.

4 Comments | posted in History, Inspiration, Miscellaneous

April 22, 2011

Federico García Lorca

By Joe

ecc136e4c1c9b6e1_LittleAshes750I recently watched the movie Little Ashes, a 2009 Spanish-British drama film, set against the backdrop of Spain during the 20s and 30s, as three of the era’s most creative young talents meet at university and set off on a course to change their world. Luis Buñuel watches helplessly as the friendship between Salvador Dalí and the poet Federico García Lorca develops into a love affair.  Years ago, I had read a book about García Lorca and had found him to be fascinating, so I wanted to see this movie.  (I’ve always found Dalí to be a little strange, I had to watch the film Buñuel co-wrote and directed with Dalí, Un chien andalou (1929), or An Andalusian Dog.  No matter how much I try I cannot forget the scene in which Simone Mareuil’s eye is seemingly split open with a razor blade. It still freaks me out to think of it.)
García Lorca’s death had been mentioned and discussed in the novel Wild Man by Patricia Nell Warren.  It always saddened me that this genius had been murdered by Franco’s death squad because of his political views and possible homosexuality.  Therefore, after seeing the movie Little Ashes, I wanted to do a post about his poetry.  Whether his poetry is about repressed homosexuality or not, is really not for me to say.  I am not an expert on his poetry.  I merely find it beautiful and wanted to present it with my interpretation.
Salvador-Dali-Federico-Garcia-Lorca-salvador-dali-from-little-ashes-6459167-800-600As for García Lorca’s homosexuality or bisexuality, I don’t think there is much of a historical debate about it.  While it is widely acknowledged that Lorca was infatuated with Dalí, for years the artist denied entering into a relationship with Lorca.  Dalí stated:

He was homosexual, as everyone knows, and madly in love with me. He tried to screw me twice …. I was extremely annoyed, because I wasn’t homosexual, and I wasn’t interested in giving in. Besides, it hurts. So nothing came of it. But I felt awfully flattered vis-à-vis the prestige. Deep down I felt that he was a great poet and that I owe him a tiny bit of the Divine Dalí’s asshole. He eventually bagged a young girl, and she replaced me in the sacrifice. Failing to get me to put my ass at his disposal, he swore that the girl’s sacrifice was matched by his own: it was the first time he had ever slept with a woman.

Writer Philippa Goslett supposes:

It’s clear something happened, no question… When you look at the letters it’s clear something more was going on there… It began as a friendship, became more intimate and moved to a physical level but Dalí found it difficult and couldn’t carry on. He said they tried to have sex but it hurt, so they couldn’t consummate the relationship.

Federico García Lorca Biography from Poets.org

3894e1b1-2a2c-472a-994b-9dfe63a86ca9Federico García Lorca is possibly the most important Spanish poet and dramatist of the twentieth century. García Lorca was born June 5, 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town a few miles from Granada. His father owned a farm in the fertile vega surrounding Granada and a comfortable mansion in the heart of the city. His mother, whom Lorca idolized, was a gifted pianist. After graduating from secondary school García Lorca attended Sacred Heart University where he took up law along with regular coursework. His first book, Impresiones y Viajes (1919) was inspired by a trip to Castile with his art class in 1917.
In 1919, García Lorca traveled to Madrid, where he remained for the next fifteen years. Giving up university, he devoted himself entirely to his art. He organized theatrical performances, read his poems in public, and collected old folksongs. During this period García Lorca wrote El Maleficio de la mariposa (1920), a play which caused a great scandal when it was produced. He also wrote Libro de poemas (1921), a compilation of poems based on Spanish folklore. Much of García Lorca’s work was infused with popular themes such as Flamenco and Gypsy culture. In 1922, García Lorca organized the first “Cante Jondo” festival in which Spain’s most famous “deep song” singers and guitarists participated. The deep song form permeated his poems of the early 1920s. During this period, García Lorca became part of a group of artists known as Generación del 27, which included Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, who exposed the young poet to surrealism. In 1928, his book of verse, Romancero Gitano (“The Gypsy Ballads”), brought García Lorca far-reaching fame; it was reprinted seven times during his lifetime.
1928In 1929, García Lorca came to New York. The poet’s favorite neighborhood was Harlem; he loved African-American spirituals, which reminded him of Spain’s “deep songs.” In 1930, García Lorca returned to Spain after the proclamation of the Spanish republic and participated in the Second Ordinary Congress of the Federal Union of Hispanic Students in November of 1931. The congress decided to build a “Barraca” in central Madrid in which to produce important plays for the public. “La Barraca,” the traveling theater company that resulted, toured many Spanish towns, villages, and cities performing Spanish classics on public squares. Some of García Lorca’s own plays, including his three great tragedies Bodas de sangre (1933), Yerma (1934), and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (1936), were also produced by the company.
In 1936, García Lorca was staying at Callejones de García, his country home, at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was arrested by Franquist soldiers, and on the 17th or 18th of August, after a few days in jail, soldiers took García Lorca to “visit” his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernandez Montesinos, the Socialist ex-mayor of Granada whom the soldiers had murdered and dragged through the streets. When they arrived at the cemetery, the soldiers forced García Lorca from the car. They struck him with the butts of their rifles and riddled his body with bullets. His books were burned in Granada’s Plaza del Carmen and were soon banned from Franco’s Spain. To this day, no one knows where the body of Federico García Lorca rests.

Selected Sources:

  1. Smith, David (October 28, 2007). “Were Spain’s two artistic legends secret gay lovers?”. The Guardian (London). Retrieved May 11, 2010.
  2. Bosquet, Alain, Conversations with Dalí, 1969. p. 19–20. (PDF format)
  3. “Federico García Lorca.” Poets.org – Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.

Leave a comment | posted in Gay Icon, History, Movie Review

April 19, 2011

Si Mis Manos Pudieran Deshojar

By Joe

Si Mis Manos Pudieran Deshojar by Federico García Lorca
— With English Translation

tumblr_lhlh2fp1Ua1qe5yzqo1_1280Yo pronuncio tu nombre
En las noches oscuras
Cuando vienen los astros
A beber en la luna
Y duermen los ramajes
De las frondas ocultas.
Y yo me siento hueco
De pasión y de música.
Loco reloj que canta
Muertas horas antiguas.

Yo pronuncio tu nombre,
En esta noche oscura,
Y tu nombre me suena
Más lejano que nunca.
Más lejano que todas las estrellas
Y más doliente que la mansa lluvia.

tumblr_lj1ejbORua1qdcsbjo1_400¿Te querré como entonces
Alguna vez? ¿Qué culpa
Tiene mi corazón?
Si la niebla se esfuma
¿Qué otra pasión me espera?
¿Será tranquila y pura?
¡¡Si mis dedos pudieran
Deshojar a la luna!!

————-

If My Hands Could Defoliate

I pronounce your name
on dark nights,
when the stars come
to drink on the moon
and sleep in tufts
of hidden fronds.
And I feel myself hollow
of passion and music.
Crazy clock that sings
dead ancient hours.

zzzzzzzzzSimonVroemena

I pronounce your name,
in this dark night,
and your name sounds
more distant than ever.
More distant that all stars
and more doleful than a calm rain.

Will I love you like then
ever again? What blame
has my heart?
When the mist dissipates,
what other passion may I expect?
Will it be calm and pure?
If only my fingers could
defoliate the moon!






Federico García Lorca

Many recognized his homosexuality from the start, but for decades Spain’s literary establishment, and even his own family, refused to acknowledge that the country’s best loved poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, was gay. His biographer, Ian Gibson, has conclusive evidence that Lorca’s poetic achievements sprang from his lifelong frustration at concealing his homosexuality.

lorcaIn Lorca y el mundo gay (Lorca and the Gay World), published in Spanish on Monday, Gibson describes how the poet’s works were censored to conceal his sexuality. It was not until the late 1980s that Lorca’s sexual identity became grudgingly acknowledged, in the face of denials and evasions. Gibson blames the decades of silence on a deep-seated Spanish homophobia. “Spain couldn’t accept that the greatest Spanish poet of all time was homosexual. Homophobia existed on both sides in the civil war and afterwards; it was a national problem. Now Spain permits same-sex marriage that taboo must be broken.”

Some academics who recognized the truth “suggested the poet’s homosexuality was alien to his poetic creativity”, Gibson writes of the man he’s studied for 40 years. Scholars colluded in the cover-up for fear of losing access to the poet’s archives, or antagonizing the family, he says. “All his poetry turns around frustrated love. His tormented characters who can’t live the life they want are precisely the metaphor for his sorrow. He was a genius who turned his suffering into art.”

After Lorca was assassinated by death squads in August 1936, at the start of Spain’s civil war, his brother Francisco and sister Isabel made every effort to expunge any trace of homosexuality from his life and work, Gibson claims.

A family spokeswoman, Laura Garcia Lorca, says they never talked of her uncle’s homosexuality when her father was alive. “We didn’t want his murder to be considered a sexual crime but to stress it was a political crime. It was difficult for my father to accept the homosexuality of his brother. However my Aunt Isabel [who died in 2002] spoke openly in her later years about homosexuality, and came to accept it as something natural. I imagine my father spoke of it among friends, but never publicly,” she said recently.

As late as 1987, a long introduction to a standard textbook of Lorca poems, The Poet in New York, contained not a word about his sexuality. But that US trip in 1929, which produced an explosion of anguished creativity, was the result of a failed love affair with the sculptor Emilio Aladrén, Gibson reveals. The beautiful sculptor abandoned the poet to marry an English woman, Elizabeth Dove, which plunged Lorca into a deep depression.

Poems written shortly before his death were finally published in the mid-1980s. But the title, Sonnets of a Dark Love (to read this sonnet, click “Read more” below), was softened to Love Sonnets, even though the verses clearly referred to a man: “You will never understand that I love you/ because you sleep in me and are asleep./I hide you, weeping, persecuted/ by a voice of penetrating steel.” The masculinity is clear in Spanish, in which nouns have gender.

Gibson says he went back to the beginning and re-read all of Lorca’s earliest poems for this latest book. “I discovered an anguished, tortured – gay – love … Those who deny his homosexuality must now shut up, or at least question their prejudices. It’s a relief after so many decades of obfuscation and silence, to reveal the truth.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/lorca-was-censored-to-hide-his-sexuality-biographer-reveals-1644906.html

Sonnet of Dark Love

tumblr_lj6slwV4sg1qgucp7o1_400Oh secret voice and song of a dark love!
Oh lowing without lambs! Oh hidden wound!
Oh needle of bile, cankered camellia!
Oh storm without a sea, town without walls!
Oh nights of iron darkness that descend
on mountains of mourning, proud peaks of grief!
Oh hound in the heart, the heart’s forbidden cry,
song ripening in silence without end!
Fly from my throat, you voice of burning ice,
yet don’t abandon me here in the wild
where flesh and sky mate without bearing fruit.
Don’t haunt the heavy ivory of my skull–
take pity and strip off this strangling shroud,
I who am love, I who am nature’s child!

8 Comments | posted in Gay Icon, History, Nudity, Poetry