i passed the time (at 3-4am) defacing Marvel Comics property with CLexish graffiti. Heh.

my roommate was throwing this shirt away. i rescued it...and did what any CLexhead would do when unable to concentrate on writing or art. Or at least i'd like to think so.



Text on the shirt is as follows (plus there's a better pic, and a Gay Superman belt, *g*)

( Read more... )

Tags: clex, dorkery, fandom, gay, geekness
Currently Living In...: home between shifts
Fuzzy or Emo?: amused
Brought To You By:: "Crucify" by Tori Amos

Okay; this one is not so much for the CLex as just for anyone who's gone through...well, the whole goddamned ridiculous thing. This song is something EVERYONE should hear...and what she says in the last stanza... Tell your children, please. Love is NEVER wrong.

I have always loved this song; but it makes me cry, because it should not even be an ISSUE anymore; or ever. Hundreds, thousands of years of crippled souls, lost loves, tortured lives; and for WHAT?!

It's only love. We all want it, we all need it, so what's the big damn deal?

It's only love, people.
***

( Silent Legacy )

Tags: activism, gay, injustice, lyrics, sexuality
Currently Living In...: OlyWa
Fuzzy or Emo?: determined
Brought To You By:: "Silent Legacy" by Melissa Etheridge. EVERYONE listen to it!!!

Found this online, by Anonymous;
( RE )

Tags: activism, gay, sexuality
Currently Living In...: OlyWA
Fuzzy or Emo?: amused
Brought To You By:: "Silent Legacy" by Melissa Etheridge

TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO THINK BEING GAY IS WRONG AND EASY HERE IS A LITTLE MESSAGE FOR YOU:

I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag, beat up, and threatened everyday.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the woman who was refused a pap smear, because "you gays don't really need to check that; it's only necessary if you're sleeping with men." I got cancer and it went undetected because I was refused preventitive care due to lack of awareness.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends im a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to "teach me a lesson"


IF YOU BELIEVE THAT HOMOPHOBIA IS WRONG, REPOST ON YOUR PROFILE.

Tags: activism, gay, sexuality
Currently Living In...: home with Net, finally
Fuzzy or Emo?: enraged
Brought To You By:: "Silent Legacy" by Melissa Etheridge

(01-02/99)

Idgie and Ruth and a thousand women
Ever fighting the blows of bible and time
Wanting only to Love, without stupid restraints
Wanting only to Live, Together-as-One

Why do they stop us? Society's ills
Are all that would stand between us and our Joy
Causing Hate and regret, and depression and Fear
Telling me i can't Love You, and You that i'm ill

Making sure She can't be with the-one-of-Her-dreams
'Cause the-one-of-Her-dreams thinks that Love isn't real
'Cause so many times Love has pushed her away
Driven her off in the name of that Fear

But normal is only in Laws made by those
Who Hate what they don't understand, and revile
The things they've been taught to revile, and Love
The norm' that destroys half the Loves they come near

We retreat in safe-houses we've built of our Hurt
We hide behind walls we have sealed for ourselves
Caulk them up with concrete made of Terror and Tears
Bundle up under quilts in a self-saving Hell

Love comes packaged with pain; we must take it foregone
Love is highest of Highs and the lowest of blows
We are harnessed with Loss form the first day we Feel
But should ever that keep us from feeling the word?

We must Love! we must Love with Love's breath on our tongues!
For the sake of those Love-less who give up the fight
The tallies will rise in the casualty ward
We must fight on! though knowing we're doomed from the Heart

I would rather be anguished or dead on the slab
Than be caged like that one-of-Her-dreams that i saw
So confined in her head, can't believe, couldn't see
The Love right before her the thing she most feared

Could naiveté be the cause of my stand?
Perhaps; though all traumas i've seen and i've felt
We all seem to live through them; choose Cage and the Lock
Or choose the cold pain of the air on thin skin

And maybe there's never a true "only one"
And likely we're chasing a dream-coloured fool
But something has us keep trying, despite Waste and Hurt
So its die in a prison/keep stumbling for fools

And Tawanda will wait for our lot to be cast
The prisons passed by and the bunkers betrayed
Step out blinking from concrete, again and again
Together as One waits for fools and their Dreams.
***

(I was still struggling with that rollercoaster that is 'coming out' once I left Beki, and Africa; it made Scotland quite a ride, in a completely different way.)

Tags: activism, gay, poetry, sexuality
Currently Living In...: Olympia, WA
Fuzzy or Emo?: hopeful
Brought To You By:: "Crucify" (TORI!), "Adia", Sarah McLachlan

See, here's what I don't get about current 'Brokeback Mountain' debate. I get the
love story...God yes I get that! I don't know how anybody could actually see the
movie and NOT be devastated by it. I get the message of it...hell, its a huge part of
my own existence (and, I might venture, of anyone's who has ever lost love through
fear). What I don't get is the whole 'defiling the cowboy stereotype' thing...and the
ones whose big rebuttal to that is, 'they weren't cowboys, they were shepherds'.
(Actually, if you're going to argue that point, you'd do well to note that in the
Northwest, the correct usage is 'sheepherder'. 'Shepherd' will likely get you a bloody
nose and the reply, "the only shepherd I know is Jesus Christ". People are touchy
about such things back where I come from. Just FYI.)
.

See, when people call it a cowboy movie (and from there, of course, oversimplifying
the whole thing, 'the Gay Cowboy movie'), they're talking about the stereotypical
male pillar of masculine spittingness that the 'cinema cowboy' is supposed to be (as
with any mythological figure, if they ever were as we now imagine them in real life is
debatable indeed), vs the REAL PEOPLE they are nowadays and the REAL issues the
lifestyle/ economic/ sociocultural area entails.
.
First let me establish my credentials. I believe I am eligible to speak on the matter,
and yes, I do know wherefrom I speak...having grown up in a place like Crouch,
Idaho where unless you turned your back on it and disassociated yourself, everyone
who grew up there was considered a cowboy, whether they were actually employed
as a logger who rodeo'd on the side for money, kept sheep, horses, cattle, or just
had a cowboy pickup and did odd jobs like tar-filling/roadwork for the county,
construction, sweeping floors at the mercantile, selling firewood, or flagging on the
road crews for money to feed their families in an economically depressed area with
little to commend itself culturally. And yes, tragically, a town where at least one boy
per year in a class of no more than 20 committed suicide rather than be outed as
gay or bi...but that is a whole other saga. The point is, it doesn't matter if you're
actually 'herding cattle', and it's just nitpicking to natter on about whether the boys
from Brokeback should be considered 'cowboys' because the summer they met, their
odd job was to herd sheep, not cattle. Just as pointless, in my book, as my
complaining that there are no 'real cowboys' on earth anymore, if there ever
were...or at least that they're a VERY dying breed. But there is something left of
that breed; and the Brokeback boys are just that. These characters were very well
done, written by people who know what these folks are truly like; not by people who
want to bottle-feed us yet another mythical indestructible-man stereotype.
.
Jack and Ennis reminded me a great deal of the boys and men I grew up with in
arse-end-of-nowhere Idaho. Men who knew what the life REALLY was...but still
bought into the stereotype of the John Wayne cowboy; because it gave them
something, anything to believe in in a harsh world with precious little to keep one
going, barely any more to feed the soul than to feed the body. Hardy folk, in other
words, and it doesn't matter which animals were looked after, what seasonal job
they were doing that year. The LIFESTYLE and CULTURE of the Brokeback boys was
inexcapably that of the latter-day cowboy...yes, the downtrodden vestige we have
now, and not the old 1800's Louis L'amour cowboy driving Texas beef a thousand
miles with ten other ole boys. We all may believe in that image somewhere in the
backs of our minds, and none more than these modern day vestiges do themselves;
we've been fed that mythos with our mothers' milk. But there simply aren't any
more of them left...or very few.
.
No; the folks you see in Brokeback are only people keeping just a small vestige of
the hardworking 'frontier' lifestyle going in the face of a changing world...and the
onslaught of people who've "gone country" after listening to a few hours of the pop-
country played on the local C&W music station. They are the down-home folks who
are either stuck in an economically depressed area due to some family situation or
other inextricable concern; or those who wouldn't trade the life despite all its
hardships, because they've found something to love in it. Either way they are
hardier souls than I and I'm impressed with them; for I got out the minute I could.
Then there is the third type; those who know their way of life is slowly disappearing
forever, but have never been more than thirty miles outside their hometown in their
lives (and yes they do exist, I grew up with 600 of them). These people do not
leave, cannot even consider any other lifestyle because they know no other way to
live, and consequently are too terrified of the unknowns to try anything different.
They know the facts by heart, even if they've never heard them voiced; they have
had the opportunity to learn few if any other skills; and this fact ill-prepares them for
a different world and life outside the home-country. Of these, only a few are brave
enough to do something that most of us couldn't face in their shoes; to leave
everything they've ever known, down to their bones, to face an inexplicable, fast-
paced, too-easy world where everything is served up on a fast-food platter, ten
thousand people are walking all around you, and your skills, culture, language,
everything they've been bred for for generations...means exactly zilch.
.
Jack and Ennis are cowboys, yes...but not the kind that everyone on the religious
right is trumpeting that we've 'defiled'. These are REAL cowboys; the kind I knew
and grew up with in a town much like 'Riverton, Wyoming'. Jack is a rodeo cowboy
with wanderlust; a young man who's seen more of the world than his family's tiny
secluded prison of a ranch, and who has finally gone good money in order to make a
living; a man therefore who is much more able to see other possibilities in life.
.
And on the other hand, there is Ennis, perfect product of his society. Well, I've
known a thousand Ennises; tough, softspoken mutes, tragically unable to make
sense of the incomprehensibility of life outside the tiny town in which they've trapped
themselves by marrying and having kids too young in a place with no future; stuck
with nothing to look forward to but a string of personal failures imposed by a harsh,
if not impossible environment.
.
Having spent my life trying to get AWAY from just such a dream-crushing place,
while watching "Brokeback" I always find myself torn between hating the depictions
of that town and Ennis's life and urging him to break away (as I feel I managed to do
none too soon; those towns are like whirlpools or lodestones that suck you into a
timewarp)... Torn between that instinctive turning away from a possible fate
evaded, and in reluctantly understanding the stunted life that this allows himself;
because he lives in a trap he can't see his way out of. The amazing accuracy of feel
and detail of that life (you can practically smell the dirty sock smell of the
laundromat below, where no one can afford enough detergent to quite take that
faintly bitter, odd reek out of the graying linens), not to mention the tragic intimacy
of the trap in which Ennis finds himself; all the the tragic, misguided nobility of these
stubborn, hardy folk, is both abhorrent and yet nostalgic to those who've lived there
and left to find another life. This is the first movie I've ever seen that gets it across
so completely without being an "Urban Cowboy"/"8 Seconds" kind of trailer-park
cowboy cliche. There are enough of those out there already.
.
This movie shows the haunting pain and injustice of one life of imposed traps; both
the self-imposed and socially-imposed...but under the greater message is another; a
slice of a doomed part of Americana, a failed section of what was once considered a
huge slice of 'the American Dream'...gone horribly wrong. I saw the last of the true
cowboys die in Crouch, Idaho a few years ago. We may not want to believe it, may
fight against this new, slightly tarnished but much more realistic vision of the old,
dented but un-vanquished hero; we may fight it or deny it…but it is true no matter
what I say or what you say. The 'Cowboy' of the 1800's is gone, if he ever was as
we imagine. All that's left now are the last generation of their children; young
people who are undereducated, undervalued, underskilled, have drug problems,
drink too much, have dysfunctional families of their own, know how to do one thing,
and that is to work HARD...and who will never get out... Them, and the greenhorns
that moved in in the last ten years 'to get a piece of the great American West'; who
dress in cowboy boots and hats and learn to ride in big, shiny-new spangled
saddles because they heard about it in a Garth Brooks song; but were never taught
to take those hats off at the door or wipe their boots, and never worked four hours
from predawn before breakfast in their lives...much less gone hunting every year
without thought of a trophy on the wall because there simply wasn't enough money
to feed their kids more than one meal a day if that.
.
The Jacks and Ennises of the world are two sides of a faded coin; binary depictions of
a twisted, bitter remnant of a dying culture and breed. They represent the one that
got out...and the one that never will; the one that managed to keep the virtues of
the life, the lessons of it; the toughness...and the one that managed, through no
fault of his own, to inherit too much of the stringy, malnourished part of the dream
that starved to death long ago under its own weight of mythological expectations and
carbon-copied Reaganomics. McMurtry and Ossana brought all this to life with
AMAZING authenticity; which is only right, since they are the sort who should know
what REALLY exists behind the mythological, behind the stereotypes...because no
one who hasn't experienced it firsthand ever will. And if John Wayne is 'turning over
in his grave', I doubt it would be from such a realistic depiction of what is left; he
was a man that would appreciate blunt honesty; and a man that knew what the old
cowboys were REALLY like…in all the slices of their lives.
.
Jack and Ennis are cowboys. Maybe not of the type we've been taught about in the
grand American mythos of the Cowboy; no. These are what REAL cowboys are
like...in the real world. Well-mannered, sweet boys turned hard and bitter by the
exigiencies of a failed American Dream; hardworking, tough...but and trapped and
fading away and slowly becoming lost; men and women to be admired and to be
pitied all in one. The other kind, the John Wayne, Clint Eastwood type; the 'Shanes'
and the 'Preachers' and the 'Young Guns'...they probably never really existed; not as
we imagine them now...or if they did once...they're long gone.
.
Brokeback Mountain is a cowboy movie. Not a 'Gay Cowboy' movie. It gives us
something to admire, something to emulate, something to mourn, and something to
avoid. In other words, it's just a wonderfully well-made, poignant, bitter, and yet
somehow oddly uplifting commentary on love lost, dreams lost, and perhaps the
courage to find something to save...and maybe something new to live for at the end
of that dusty, dead-end road.

Tags: activism, gay, movies, news, sexuality
Currently Living In...: Olympia, WA
Fuzzy or Emo?: frustrated
Brought To You By:: "Silent Legacy" by Melissa Etheridge!!!

Ok, I'm going to finally get in here and post my views on this movie that changed my
life…though from my profile, one might assume that I was ripe for it. LOL! But I've
been quiet about it for long enough. It's definitely time I said my piece (or pieces) about
this incredible film and cultural milestone.
***

Thank you very much to everyone who opened themselves up to a firestorm in order
to do a wonderful, heart-changing thing; some who challenged themselves and their
own pain by going to see this film, some who challenged upbringing or the catcalls
and judgment of friends and family to do the same; and those who challenged
themselves all the more by taking the initiative to write and or speak honestly and
openly about how this movie/story affected you. It is always difficult and a risk to
share a difficult and eye-opening personal experience; but doing so challenges us all;
and it's the folks that dare to do these things that will change the world for the
better; this simple willingness to inspect the true root of our beliefs, separate out
what we've been taught from what we find truly affecting and related to our own
experience. For all of you out there with this bravery, know; it is self-challenging and
the sharing of experiences like these that will change and better the world and our
perceptions of Faith, one heart at a time as we learn and grow...or rather, allow
ourselves to hear these messages. I'm glad this movie is one that will do that with
some, should they allow themselves to approach the message long enough to let it
work whatever change in their hearts that they need on their journey. I cannot judge
their journey, for I am on my own, and each of us has experiences that make no
sense to anyone but ourselves; for we are the only ones that see the world through
our eyes. Therefore we cannot condemn the ways others live based on their
experiences; we have not the point of view to do so. Only God/Spirit can see the
world as we ALL do...and if that is the only omniscience, then none of us can judge.
Love thy neighbor, and leave the Judging to God, I say...and all I can think is that
too many people must not love themselves, if they cannot love others as they
*should* love themselves. And that makes me sad. But every day also gives me
reason to hope.
.
Movies like this one (read, movies that speak of real human emotion and the real
daily tragedies of human experience; and movies that let us FEEL these emotions,
tragedies, and experiences rather than telling us what to feel in words) are rare in
this market of stupid comedies and explosions...rare especially in broader 'market
cinema'. But when they do get out there, break out of the 'indie movie' circuit and
become more readily accessible, if they can change even one person's life, then my
hopes for the world are affirmed. Many condemn these movies as a knee-jerk,
without even knowing wherefrom they speak...they 'KNOW' the movie is 'evil'
because they 'KNOW' it...not because they challenged themselves in any way to
actually SEE it first. Indeed, I doubt many of these folks who are so vehemently
against the so-called 'gay agenda' went to see "Brokeback" or "Transamerica", or
they might realize that the only agenda most of us have is to be loved, respected,
and treated as human beings.
.
Granted, many cities didn't show these movies, meaning that folks who WANTED to
see them in some areas would have had to drive or fly to another city to do so
proving once and for all that our 'elected' officials think of us as children to be
'protected' from ourselves rather than simply giving us the choice to watch
something or not, but that is a whole other rant. But as I've said above, it is my
belief that no one should have an opinion on something they haven't seen/
experienced for themselves, or at least tried to put themselves in those shoes
for a moment or two. Experiences cannot be judged, because no one but the
experiencer has any idea what the heck they're talking about; and if anything has
actually been experienced by someone, then it is as valid as any other experience. I
cannot judge the validity of the effect that any experience has had on another
person's life; I can only judge my own...but it is the fact that, upon discussion, so
many people had such a similar experience with this film that makes me feel that we
really all have a great deal more in common than we might believe; as much as the
experience might have touched us for different reasons...for we are all different.
Thank God.
.
Speaking of wonderful variety, I too would have liked to see more variety in the
awards. This has been a great year for movies, with many making very important
points (which in my world means moviemaking at its best; using the power of the
screen to reach out and make people THINK...even if some would prefer to spend
their money on trashy, big-budget remakes that don't strain their faculties or
comfort zones at all). "Munich" and "Good Night and Good Luck" and perhaps
"Crash" certainly deserve more awards. But all in all it's been a very intelligent movie
year; and a year with a whole BUNCH of standouts makes it hard to get a good
spread on the awards.
.
Still, part of me is also elated. Who would have thought a film like "Brokeback"
would have made it to eight nominations in any show in the US? (Or that
"Transamerica" would win anything in this country?!) The fact that they can even be
shown in mainstream theaters in this country--whatever the limitations put on
circulation--rather than being restricted to the 'arthouse' circuit as they once would
have been shows how far we've come. And when I saw "Brokeback", three times
thus far in the week since it's gotten enough buzz to actually leave the 'safe' cities
for the second tier, there were a lot of straight men wearing western attire there
with their wives...and people came out thoughtful and moved. And that right there is
a testament to how we're FINALLY, if slowly, growing as a society. It's the first thing
in a long time that's given me hope that the USA might actually get back to what
was once great about it, and maybe even live up to its great potential after all...as a
country where, one hopes, someday everyone will be safe and free to live and love
without needing to harm anyone else to *feel* safe...instead of just talking about it.
.
I have now seen this movie three times, and wish I could see it more; for each time,
I have found something different; deeper, more heart-wrenching...and in the end,
salving. I have seldom seen a movie whose cinematography, writing, music, casting,
editing, direction, production, setting, and overall feel were so in tune. "Dances With
Wolves" springs to mind. Day-Lewis and Stowe's "Last of the Mohicans". And yes, oh
yes, although this one came at a time when the movie could not be as brave as
"Brokeback" with its adaptation, "Fried Green Tomatoes", beside which "Brokeback"
has its rightful place reserved on my shelf, as the novella stands beside "Fried Green
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" on my shelf of literary masterpieces. Because in
the end it's not about the make-up for the necessary but difficult 'aging', not about
why Gyllenhall is called a 'supporter', why Hathaway didn't get recognized as much
as Williams...but about the EXPERIENCE...and how it changed every one of us who
saw it. I cannot wait for the deleted scenes sure to be on the DVD (as evidenced by
dialogue and scenes not seen in the theatrical release but shown or heard in the
trailers), hoping that with more Jack and Ennis, I might get just one more tiny clue
more as to WHY...and maybe even...'someday'.
.
For this reason, I went to find the novella, and read it in minutes, starving for
meaning; driven by the pain...and the reluctant beauty. For this reason I went back
and back again; and as many have said, the first time, the ending shattered me, the
few moments of dialogue staggered me ("And then you tell me you'll kill me for
needin' something I hardly never git! I wish I knew how to quit you!" "Then why
don't you? You're the reason I am the way I am! I have nothin', I am nothin'..." and
the terrible catharsis of "You aren't nothing. I love you," still unspoken...and the
image of what has been lost because in that time and place, it simply could not be
had. The second time, the music stepped out as a star, where in the first viewing, it
was so much a part of the experience that I didn't hear it so much as *felt* it. Now
every time I hear that music, those few beautifully spare, painful, poignant chords of
lonely guitar, I see Ennis holding the shirts, looking at the postcard, and I cry as I
haven't cried in or at a movie since I forced myself to stop crying at anything, at age
six, for similar reasons to Ennis's, though in a much different situation. And in the
last time, while still shattered, I even managed to find a kind of peace with the
finality of the ending; and the faint breath of hope, like air, that breaks into the
terrible self-imposed claustrophobia of the final image of Ennis Del Mar; still with his
love and pain in the literal closet...but now able to cry, and promise Jack what he
could not in life. "I know better now; we would have lost anyway. But at least we
wouldn't have lost the years, too; and what might have been before this end."
.
A movie with a message that, like the protestations of love that so many feel are
necessary to *portray* love, connection, loss...did not need narration to worm its
way into the hearts of everyone watching, gay, straight, or self-challenging; a
message and moment and music that haunts long after the movie ends, and
demands another viewing just to try to get it right in one's head. "WHY did it have to
be this way?" Because it WAS. And in some places, sadly...it still is.
.
I waited for the Oscars tonight to see if true Artistry and pure experience would win
out over market value. I guess we're not quite there yet, because the battle became
about the hype, though this movie that is not really *about* being gay, and that
finally pokes holes in a stereotype (the Western Man, the Cowboy, not the gay man
or the ex-gay) that badly needed some air let in to reality. Monolithic status and
unrealistic pedestals do no one any good, as no one who is human can live up to
such standards, which have nothing to do with reality and the real human condition.
I feel justified in saying these things having been raised in a place much like 'Signal
Wyoming'; Crouch Idaho, home of a rodeo ground and only 600 cowboys, where the
only way out was bullriding or logging for Boise Cascade, and the teen pregnancy
rate was the highest in the US, and grinding poverty was the norm, and lack of
education celebrated as a cultural plaudit. These things became part of my bones;
the bleakness of that life, all the things I was so desperate to escape. Now it is gone,
and in its place are a new generation of people who have never worked so hard for
so little in their lives, moved to 'God's Country' to 'go country', and think that putting
on the hat and boots and listening to Garth Brooks makes them 'cowboys' who have
a right and the authority to comment on the portrayal of a lifestyle they really know
nothing about.
.
No true cowboy or ranch hand that I ever met, be it sheep or cattle or horses, would
walk into any building without taking their hats off. They didn't *talk* about being
cowboys, try to prove it. They simply were. Them I respect, despite my reservations
about the lifestyle. I do not respect the grand mass of folks who talk about this
movie as if they know what they are talking about, for most of them didn't even
bother to watch it...and most of them have never met a TRUE cowboy. If they did,
they'd learn something about shooting off at the mouth when you don't know nothin'
about the life. And I've seen quite a few of this sort of old school cowboy at this
movie; and when they left they were all talking with their wives, or crying. And if a
real cowboy can cry for a true human drama, then who are we to challenge that? To
me if even one person has had a new experience, opened themselves and been
touched, then Oscars or not, "Brokeback" has already won.
.
I've gotten a bit far afield here, but I'll come back to the beginning long enough to
thank everyone in here once more for their willingness to stick it out there...both to
allow the film to work in you in whatever way it was meant to in your personal
journey and experience, and for your willingness to share that experience with
others so that we all might be enriched in our own experiences. With discussion
comes learning; and IMO, that's what we're here for...to learn from each other and
in that way find greater Understanding and Love.
.
I'll close with the following quote:

"Some people might be amazed to discover that other people can be spiritually-
minded, and yet not use their spiritual vocabulary."
.
This quote helps me to try to live the tolerance that I request from others. Since our
spiritual vocabulary, as with any of our vocabularies, comes from our worldly
experience (of spirituality, the world, life, etc), and each experience is different,
therefore the vocabularies we use to describe those experiences to each other
*must* in fact be different. And as language is worldly, it is inherently inaccurate for
such experiences...but as it is the only tool we have to share such things, we must
use that gift from God and discuss, Discuss, DISCUSS!!!
.
May love and wonder work within us ALL.

Tags: activism, gay, movies, news, sexuality
Currently Living In...: Olympia, WA
Fuzzy or Emo?: discontent
Brought To You By:: "Trouble", by the Indigo Girls!