A Conversation

I shot this picture of 2 men in Franklin Square in Philadelphia last September after the square was renovated and refurbished. The homeless people and drug addicts had been evicted and children and their families were encouraged now to visit. I wasn’t sure what the story of the men was, but I was certain that they were friends. They had an ease of conversation about them that bridged whatever kind of gap that may have existed there and bonded them to each other.

It seems like it was a lifetime ago when I didn’t have an iPod glued to my ear. Whenever I’m out, travelling, walking, away from home or the office, I’m listening to something. Sometimes it’s music that I’m listening to or podcasts, or if I’m on the train I’m going even more blind trying to watch a movie or play games on a 3½ inch screen.

I’ve noticed recently that this keeps me sort of isolated from what’s going on around me. People will walk up to me while I’m on the street and try to ask me something, directions, money or whatever and I will often not see or acknowledge them. Alright, sometimes I’ll ignore them on purpose, but other times it’s because I’m so wrapped up in my own little world that it’s hard for them to engage me in whatever they want me to engage in.

It used to be that when I would take the train home before I got my first iPod, I would sometimes over hear the conversations of those who were around me. I remember one time coming home from work when the two men in front of me were talking to each other and one of them gave his theory as to why the train tracks in Haddonfield, our next stop, were under street level whereas the tracks were above ground for every other stop. One man said it was because Haddonfield NJ was like Jerusalem and the Jews wouldn’t take that type of inconvenience or desecration in their town. They both laughed.

I didn’t think that they were being racist or bigoted because I don’t really think there is a significant Jewish presence in Haddonfield. I thought they were just talking and joking because that’s what friends do between themselves no matter how it may seem to those on the outside. I may have been wrong. But friends will often have a sort of shorthand, a method where they can keep in synch with one another in order not to communicate but to comfort each other; even if it's just to comfort each other over a boring 20 minute train ride.

I noticed that about myself when I looked at a video that was shot of a fellow blogger and friend, Curtis on Fat Tuesday. The whole thing was a spur of the moment thing and took about 40 minutes. Much of it was really a bunch of nonsense rather than mind boggling scintillating conversation. If you’re interested, I’ve cut it down to about 20 minutes of sparring and parrying and can be found in the My Stuff widget at the side here. Or you can see it cut down even further to a cleaner version that is on YouTube as well as on Vimeo which is less than 8 minutes long and is shown below.

Look at them or don’t.

Either way, there is something special that people have with their friends. At least I think it’s something special that I have with my friends as opposed to the relationships that I have with the hundreds of other people that I just know, and I think that's worth talking about.

Memorial Day

It’s home for the holidays for me. That’s code for not going anywhere. I used to go out on Memorial Day. I used to go somewhere for the holiday weekend. One time was Boston. It was the mid 90’s and I had waited until the Friday before the holiday to think about going somewhere. I was fighting with whoever I was with then as usual and the there was this $25 fare from Philadelphia each way on Trailways, which was a hell of a lot cheaper than the $400 plus the airlines were asking to go to Miami with 1 days notice.

When I moved to South Jersey from North Jersey, I started to head to Washington DC like most people who live and or work in Philly did. When I say most people I guess that should be specific and say most black gay males did that. We were heading for the black gay pride events that were being held in DC. What other people did I don’t know.

I remember that we would head for the clubs on Saturday perhaps. Tracks, was the name of one of the clubs. We would line up outside for about 20 to 30 minutes waiting to get in, waiting for the pat down and crutch grope that we all had to endure. The club itself was large with many dance floors and packed wall to wall with all shades of chocolate brothas grinding on each other, showing and sharing all that they had or all that they were allowed to.

If I didn’t head down there on Saturday, then I would be on I95 on Sunday. We would be passed by hundreds of white dudes on motorcycles. I put it that way because I think, “white dudes” brings up images of the movie Easy Rider and Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” people on a mission. I found out later on that the riders were part of the Rolling Thunder, an organization that rode to DC to celebrate and remember veterans or promote campaigns to search for missing Vietnam vets and POW’s. I instead headed to Dupont Circle and then Banneker Field where people would walk around the perimeter of the field for an hour or two, sometimes in the rain looking like lost souls hoping to run into an old friend or a piece du jour for the evenings entertainment. Those were the days when some people wore spandex without underwear. Some men looked kind of sexy and others looked like they had used that penis pump a little too much and should have been seeking medical attention rather than sexual encounters.

Nowadays, I believe most people in the Northeast head for warmer get togethers like Miami’s Sizzle events, or the San Juan Brothas Puerto Rico or Cancun gathering. I, on the other hand don’t.

I could give some noble reason like I have gotten to a certain maturity and say that things like that don’t excite me anymore. But that really wouldn’t be true. I think I get bored easily and tired more often and the days of me hopping off a plane after acting like I was in the Golden Calf scene in The 10 Commandments and heading straight to work are long behind me.

This year instead I shall try to remember what Memorial Day is about. No, not the sales. Since no one in my family has ever fought in a war, I shall visit a memorial. Maybe the Vietnam Memorial in Philly which is no where near as dramatic as the DC one, but it has the same sentiment. I shall go there because even though I was too young to understand what Vietnam was about when it was going on, I don’t know how long it will be before I can go to an Iraq Memorial or count the amount of names that will be listed there.

I'm not Stella

I am not been one of those people who has travelled from circuit party to circuit party. Neither, am I someone who has been to all of the black gay events that are seen on almost every major holiday in every major city. I am more of a stay at home person whose big excitement for the week will be finding something new on TV or maybe a trip to the park for sightseeing the boys or reading a good book alone on the bench. But this year, I have been giving some thought to celebrating next year’s Memorial Day weekend in Mexico. Why there?

Well Mexico was the country that was chosen for Memorial Day’s bacchanal by the San Juan Brothas organization. They are a group of people who have dedicated themselves to having the best god damned party and get together for gay black and Latino brothers on the island of Puerto Rico on the holiday. A party, where the sex and the alcohol flow freely. Where everyone has a good time and everyone walks away with good memories and maybe a few regrets. Hopefully these regrets are cleared up with a few visits to the clinic. But next year, as rumor has it, Bill Gates will be holding a conference on the island and so almost every hotel in Puerto Rico has been booked up in advance. What was the group going to do?

Well they chose Puerto Vallarta in Mexico as the spot to be for a few days but changed it to Cancun when a host hotel, ME, was found able to accommodate both the group and the anticipated arrivals.

This is a hotel that seems to sit on land that is stuck out in the middle of the sea on land not much wider than the width of the building. This is where a friend of mine at my gym has a time-share he’s trying to sell, says that they have just finished replacing all that sand that was lost from the last hurricane and brought to an end all the repairs to the building structure. Hmm. Nothing says a vacation of rest and relaxation better than when you are putting up boards in the windows and facing a life threatening event.

Then I wondered to myself, who else would go to Cancun? My answer was young people, married people, straight people. People who want to be doted on hand and foot. White people. Not that I have anything against being among these people, in fact some of them pay me and call themselves friends, but how am I going to get loose in front of them? How am I going to be able to get my groove on or even back?

Well I guess I have until next year to figure out these conundrums. But if I don’t and you see me out on Memorial Day in Rittenhouse Square, please leave a little room on the bench, I'll probably have a good book to read.