Babes in Transland

Things are getting certifiable over in Trans-land.

TRANSWORLD -- a major cannibalism-site, where you can directly observe the Left eating itself.

For background, newbies might want to read Michelle Goldberg's New Yorker piece from almost 4 years ago, still one of the best summations of the Troubles:

The most dramatic change in the perception of transgenderism can be seen in academia. Particularly at liberal-arts colleges, students are now routinely asked which gender pronoun they would prefer to be addressed by: choices might include “ze,” “ou,” “hir,” “they,” or even “it.” A decade ago, no university offered a student health plan that covered gender-reassignment surgery. Today, dozens do, including Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale, Stanford, and the schools in the University of California system.

As I said, Goldberg's article was written almost four years ago. Transgender is now fully acceptable most everyplace in the West.

As a result, the omnipresence of radical trans postmodern 'theory' has skyrocketed, but they seem to have no real political agenda at all. You'd think health care would bring them out to protest with us about trans health care... but ((crickets)). You'd think they would be demonstrating in droves against Trump, a conservative who wants to roll back civil rights protections... but ((crickets)).

In short, shit has gotten very weird even since that eye-opening article.

For one thing, the split between the trans men (assigned female at birth) and trans women (assigned male at birth) has become almost-explosive, as these two groups continue to embrace very different agendas. Trans men want to blend in unobtrusively and simply be seen as males; by contrast, this new crop of young radical trans women (most of whom call themselves lesbian and "non-binary") pointedly do not.

The main thing trans women seem interested in right now is lesbians. On tumblr, it is a rather embarrassing and all-consuming fixation; they rarely even talk to non-lesbians like me anymore. They are obsessed with young lesbians and "lesbian spaces" (that they claim they are being kept out of) and talk about lesbians seemingly constantly.

One reason trans women are resentful and dislike trans men is that lesbians will sleep with them regardless of whether they are calling themselves men, and will not sleep with the trans women even if they call themselves women. This is because lesbians are attracted to vaginas and not penises. It used to be that the trans women went and got themselves surgical vaginas, but those days are long gone. The current statistic is that only 15-20% of trans women have genital surgery, although a large majority do get breast implants.

That means the new task is to convince lesbians to like penises. Or at least to convince them that they should show equanimity regarding all genitalia ... and let's face it, that is a tall order.

You hear that? No difference.

And if you think so, you are a "terf".("trans exclusionary radical feminist") [1]

For the record, there is no account of any "terf" physically harming a trans woman in any way, yet we repeatedly (daily!) read this scary stuff:

Extremely 'radical'--and yet... they gleefully quote that old dead European white hetero cis guy Sigmund Freud (they are permitted to dabble in misogynist patriarchal theories when necessary--but don't YOU try that, missy!):

And check out the science (or lack of it) ... this insane gibberish is likely what gets to me the most. Kids are being taught that hormones change "every cell in the body"--apparently, despite their ubiquitous Ivy-League educations, they do not even know what chromosomes are:

Read that carefully. If you do not subscribe to this nonsense, you are now "a bigot".

So take a number and stand in line.

Question: Since I have no more estrogen, does this mean "every cell in my body" has changed back to--what? Childhood? Old women are children now? What in the world----????!?

And I learned over on tumblr that simply asking that question, or any clarifying question, makes you an evilll terf who deserves to be beaten. Really. They will tell you that, over and over... if you protest that you are 60 years old and beating up grandmas is not a real good form of PR for your movement, they just laugh and promise you that yes it is, they hate old grandmas the most. One grandma already got slugged over in the UK for showing up at a demonstration; the hulking young trans woman went directly after the old woman, not the young ones, who far outnumbered her.

~*~

OHHHH DAISY you are being alarmist!--say my mild-mannered readers. Most trans women are like conservative activist Blaire White and just want to live their lives, etc. True enough, but I am talking about the activists, who have made "trans activism" their vocation, their life, their entire raison d'être.

BTW, it is notable that Blaire gets misgendered and called names by other trans activists who hate her--so always remember: misgendering is okay if trans people do it. (PS: they've done it to ME repeatedly too!)

In fact, many SJWs/trans activists actively seek to harm Blaire White; she did a whole video on that. Again, remember the rules: threatening violence against trans people is also okay if done by other trans people and social justice activists.

And on that note.. I must share the most recent violent insanity in wacky Transland that inspired this whole post.

BELOW is a tax-supported public library display in San Francisco, all about killing the terfs... when library patrons (of all genders and politics) dared to complain about it (as they would about a display advocating violence against ANY group of people, needless to say) the library staff and PR folks presented their concerns as "terfs attacking the poor trans women" again. Never mind that some parents did not want their children to see violence against women glamorized and endorsed by the public fucking library.

Right wing blogs are all over this (there's the warning, that is a right wing blog)--cackling about how the Left is eating itself, and "maybe the trannies will finally get rid of the feminists for us?" Their right wing dream come true.

Trans activists don't seem the least concerned about how the right wing is orgasmic over their genocidal plans for the terfs.[2]

This "art" is by a gang called the "degenderettes" which is obviously a deliberate play on the word "degenerates"--cute, huh? (Sounds like people who have never actually been afraid of degenerates, doesn't it? Maybe because they know they are the people everyone should fear.)

They claim to be part of Antifa. Of course.

~*~

Here is their library display.

First up, some t-shirts stating intent: "I punch terfs"--well that seems straightforward enough.

The "Your Apathy is Killing Us" slogan was brazenly stolen from ACT-UP, who were fighting the AIDS epidemic and earned the right to use it.

Apathy is not killing trans women since as we see, they are the ones intending to do the killing.

"Femme sledgehammer"--just so you know the person wielding it is a "feminine" trans woman (I guess?):

Check out the "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" barbed wire around that last bat. In case you need to pound some grannies when it really matters!

And did somebody just ask why we might not want to go the bathroom with this individual:

Its those "bloody highlights" that give you pause.

Thank god I live in the South, where they still have library displays about, you know, books.

Remember the famous last line of that movie about Mrs. Bates??? She wouldn't hurt a fly. I am sure the degenderettes wouldn't either.

Photo from Gendertrender, and here is GT's article about this event.

~*~




[1] This word used to have meaning, as I have explained in previous posts, but not now. I am regularly called a "terf" and as regular readers know, I had trans people on my radio show several times--the very opposite of "exclusion". When I say this in my defense I am either ignored or told that it doesn't matter, my "opinions" (that biology matters and is a scientific reality) are what makes me a terf. Further, as readers also know, I am a socialist feminist and not a radical feminist.

Using the correct terms and labels for people (like their pronouns) obviously is not a privilege granted to EVERYONE, right? They demand correct terms while zealously and deliberately mislabeling me, and don't miss a beat. THIS is why "terf" is called a slur instead of an accurate term--they use it to inaccurately-label women who aren't even radical feminists.

Why else would they do this, unless it IS a slur, like "alt right"?

This is why I no longer care about the pronouns. When they decide to label me correctly, I will return the favor, and not one millisecond before.

[2] This interesting fact reminds me of the billionaires at the helm of their movement, with openly-pro-military agendas. Mainly, Jennifer Pritzker, who funds university chairs in transgender studies. Pritzker is a billionaire and a Lt. Colonel, and I find it peculiar that trans SJWs who (like the degenderettes) call themselves Antifa and anarchists, would take the money of someone with such a zealously-fascist military career... and yet, they do.

As far as I know, not a single so-called social justice trans person has denounced this munitions-billionaire inserting their right wing pro-military agenda into the trans movement. Not one. If you have seen ANY trans criticism of Pritzker, please link in comments... as far as I can see, Pritzker is universally accepted, feted and welcomed by the trans movement, as is billionaire Martine Rothblatt. Money changes everything.

When the degenderettes tell the likes of Pritzker to fuck off out of their movement, I might believe they are serious about "anarchism"--but until then, they are posturing, ridiculous liars, greedily using Aunt Jennifer's lucrative munitions profits (made by dropping bombs on brown people of the wrong religion). Hey, a few brown people are a small price to pay for being able to fund your art exhibits, right? You would rather take money from someone who still has hard-ons over the Yom Kippur war.

Antifa, my ass.

~*~




EDIT: Trans activism is excusing & advocating violence against women, and it’s time to speak up (Feminist Current)

Glenn Greenwald verbalizes my worries about gay rights

Yesterday it was announced by the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, that Wikileaks whistleblower/political prisoner Bradley Manning was selected as one of the Grand Marshals of the yearly San Francisco gay pride parade, considered a high honor in the gay community.

Almost immediately, Lisa L Williams, president of the Board of SF Pride, wrote a statement retracting his nomination:

Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country. We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country.

Yes, you read that right. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is an insult to the military.

Glenn Greenwald (who is also gay, for the record) wasted no time in blasting Williams, calling her statement a "substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials, which has since been decisively and extensively debunked, even by some government officials." Greenwald correctly reminds us:

Indeed, it's the US government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of "actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform."

And then Greenwald underscores the incipient fascism (my label, not his) of Williams warning the organization's members that EVEN THE HINT of support for Manning, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. WILL. NOT. BE. TOLERATED.

Wow.

This certainly is a long, long way from the San Francisco Gay Pride parade I once attended, decades ago, which tolerated (celebrated!) every bizarre, crazy activity and wayward political belief in the world. This had the wonderful result of making everyone feel welcome and giving off a warm, beneficent glow. This event was where I saw the revolutionary Tom Robinson Band, in 1981. (Robinson was an influential, radical gay punk rocker from the UK, who founded Rock Against Racism, a cause I was once allied with myself.) I suddenly realized that me and Tom Robinson probably do not belong in today's gay rights movement, which is now officially aligning itself with the government and trashing a courageous gay man who dares to speak out (and has had his civil rights violated as a result). Tom Robinson and Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald (and me) are OUT... apologists for right-wing warmongering like Lisa Williams are IN... it is the wholesale Lady Gagaization of gay rights; the defanging and neutralizing of a once-radical movement that asked the tough questions. Its all razzle-dazzle and the Bravo Network and Will and Grace reruns... nothing that asks participants to seriously question the status quo. (As it was for me, when I was young.)

Depressing.

Further, it isn't just the Lady Gagaization of gay rights, but the corporate sponsorship of gay rights... Glenn Greenwald ticks off the list of glitzy parade sponsors (HERE is the official list) which include AT&T, Verizon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Clear Channel, Kaiser Permanente... basically the same list of corporate shysters presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Greenwald carefully catalogs their sins against the people, and then sputters:

So apparently, the very high-minded ethical standards of Lisa L Williams and the SF Pride Board apply only to young and powerless Army Privates who engage in an act of conscience against the US war machine, but instantly disappear for large corporations and banks that hand over cash. What we really see here is how the largest and most corrupt corporations own not just the government but also the culture. Even at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of cultural dissent and disregard for stifling pieties, nothing can happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute something even a bit deviant takes place (as defined by standards imposed by America's political and corporate class), even the SF Gay Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non grata at SF Pride, illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and hedge-fund purveyors of the nation's worst right-wing agitprop are more than welcome.

And then, Greenwald starts making some interesting connections. Lisa Williams once worked for the political campaign of ... guess who?! President Hopey-Changey himself!* Greenwald reminds us:

It was President Obama, of course, who so notoriously decreed Bradley Manning guilty in public before his trial by military officers serving under Obama even began, and whose administration was found by the UN's top torture investigator to have abused him and is now so harshly prosecuting him. It's anything but surprising that a person who was a loyal Obama campaign aide finds Bradley Manning anathema while adoring big corporations and banks (which funded the Obama campaign and who, in the case of telecoms, Obama voted to immunize).

And finally, Greenwald voices the worries and concerns I have had for years... which it seems are finally coming to pass:

When I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their mindset. This event illustrates exactly what I meant.

Yeah. And I remember ancient arguments I engaged in, with wacky old reds like the RCP, who warned me that gay rights was cosmetic and would NOT upend the status quo the way I was convinced it would. Were they right, after all?

From Greenwald's piece last month, mentioned above, titled The gay marriage snowball and political change:

If anything, one could say that the shift on this issue has been more institution-affirming than institution-subverting: the campaign to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continually glorified and even fetishized military service, while gay marriage revitalizes a traditional institution - marriage - that heterosexuals have been in the process of killing with whimsical weddings, impetuous divorces, and serial new spouses (as Rush Limbaugh might put it: I'd like you to meet my fourth wife). And these changes are taking a once marginalized and culturally independent community and fully integrating it into mainstream society, thus making that community invested in conventional societal institutions.

Notably, Malcolm X also worried about the "buying off" of the black community, in just this same fashion. Some of us have probably forgotten that this was one of the tenets of Black Nationalism, that integration was also a form of neutralization ... and in the process of integration and assimilation, much intrinsic radicalism and core identity can be compromised.

Is the gay community being bought off and neutralized?

Unfortunately, I think so. Faster than you can say LADY GAGA. Or Bradley Manning.

~*~

*This perfect term for President Obama comes from Mister LarryE, aka Lotus, who has a cool blog you should all check out.

The History Project, part 2

My original intention was to put the lady-stuff here on International Women's Day... and I guess you see how that turned out. Hey, better late than never!

And so, I am finally getting around to posting Part Two of the History Project. Intro to the DEAD AIR History Project (and first installment) is here. (You can click all photos to enlarge.)

~*~

Anarcha-Feminist Notes, September 1977, which I believe was published in Madison, Wisconsin.



San Francisco Women's Building Newsletter, March 1981.



From Berkeley 1981, movie poster for "El Salvador: The People Will Win".



Ancient black-and-white photos of my hometown (Columbus, OH) Take Back the Night march, one of those antiquated Second Wave feminist things almost completely lost to posterity. (1983)



Bookmark from Fan the Flames feminist bookstore in Columbus, OH. Since they began in 1974 and this bookmark is celebrating 10 years, it must be from 1984. From Outlook Columbus:

Began in 1974 by six women who each contributed $100 to a book collective, the shop evolved and moved many times over the next 22-and-some years. Fan the Flames grew from the United Christian Center, to the Women’s Action Collective, to the YWCA, and finally to their own space in Clintonville [and the store was then renamed Women's Words]. It may have been the final move that killed them. Moving away from their diverse audience downtown, and adding on to that the burden of renting their own space, proved too much and the advisory board decided to close shop.

The Women's Action Collective was in its own building for awhile, something I can't even imagine now.



Purty Pittsburgh Smoke-In poster, which I framed for my spare room. (1977)



"Freeze It! A citizen's guide to reversing the nuclear arms race"--San Jose, 1983.




Stay tuned for the next installment, sports fans! And I promise it won't be another half-year this time.

Greenville Candlelight Vigil for Marriage Equality

... tonight at the Unitarian Universalist church.

Candlelight vigils and supportive demonstrations are taking place throughout the nation tonight, and all week long. Legal arguments before the Supreme Court will begin tomorrow, for and against the constitutionality of gay marriage. From NBC:

The U.S. Supreme Court this week takes its first serious look ever at the issue of same-sex marriage, considering two cases that raise a fundamental issue: does the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection allow legal distinctions between same-sex couples and those of the opposite sex?

The greatest potential for a ruling with nationwide implications comes in a case from California, to be argued Tuesday, brought by proponents of Proposition 8. The following day, the court will hear a separate case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.

Approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008, Prop 8 amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. It was placed on the ballot after 18,000 couples had been legally wed there.

A federal judge in San Francisco declared the ban unconstitutional, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling. Once a state grants a fundamental right like marriage, the appeals court said, it cannot later take it away, even by voter initiative.

Photos of our vigil below, and you can click to enlarge all photos.

I hope you will also take part in one locally. Like the signs say, "Equality means everyone."

And When the Sky was Opened

A very old woman ran into me at the market today, slammed me in the butt with her cart. She started to cry, and her daughter (about my age) swooped in to rescue her... and I realized that she was what we used to call 'senile'. I guess the acceptable term is now Alzheimer's, that catch-all diagnosis for when the mind goes. I patted her, assured her it was okay. But I was alarmed, because in her distress, I could see myself and what awaits us all.

Buddha told us to meditate on death, and I have.

I once realized the abject terror in the old Twilight Zone episode, "And When the Sky Was Opened" -- was based on the fact that it mirrored our own experience and terror of death. In the show (written by Rod Serling and adapted from a short story by fantasy-genius Richard Matheson), three men come back from a flight into space, and begin to disappear, one by one. The title of Matheson's original story was, fittingly, Disappearing Act.

On the day of their return, the newspaper headline reads "Three Spacemen Return from Crash: All Alive" and then, after a strange chain of events, there are only two. But... there have always been two. The newspaper headline has changed, and now announces: Two Spacemen have returned. It is as if the third astronaut never existed. The two astronauts remaining start to panic, as everyone around them insists, no, there were only two of them, not three. Never three.

At the end, it is James Hutton (father of Timothy) who is the last astronaut left, looking for his suddenly-missing friend, the second astronaut. He then sees the newspaper headline, which now says only ONE astronaut has returned. The expression on his face has remained with me all of my life, ever since seeing this particular Twilight Zone episode as a child. And when I Googled the image, there it was (see above). Obviously, I wasn't the only one.

He knows he is next.

And the show ends with an empty room. None of them have returned from the flight. The camera pans to where their aircraft was. It is gone, too.

My grandmother died in 2004 and my mother died in 2006; it was when my mother died that I realized, I was up next. Maybe not for awhile, one hopes, but up nonetheless. It was no longer a far-away thing that happened to the old people... I was now the old people.

And so it was today, when I saw the old woman in the store, crying and confused. I saw that it was not simply her confusion that made her cry, although it was that, too... it was that she was afraid. I saw James Hutton all over her face. And then, I saw myself.

As I comforted her, I hoped someone would do the same for me.

~*~

Speaking of which, a sweet voice of my childhood is gone. Let us take a moment to remember Scott McKenzie, who recorded John Phillips' folkie-pop hippie anthem, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)".

I remember being in San Francisco, hearing the song and feeling oddly displaced, because of course the San Francisco I had moved to was not the one in the song, although it had always inspired me. I had moved to Kool and The Gang era San Francisco, the end of the disco era. I remember falling asleep under an open window and starry sky in Oakland and hearing it there too, thinking how odd it was that the song had helped make San Francisco too expensive for people like me to live in. For this reason, it made me sad to hear it, one of the first feelings of aging that I ever remember experiencing.

I came home from the market, and my experience of the woman running into me and weeping, to hear that McKenzie had passed.

It was the perfect ending to a day I had started with an extended meditation on death.

~*~

San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) - Scott McKenzie



In this video of McKenzie performing the song at the Monterey Pop Festival, you see Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass... again, the perfect ending to my daily meditation...

Van Robert Ault 1956-1996

Photo of Van from Our Faerie Ancestors, used with tremendous gratitude!

~*~


One thing I loved about the TV show SIX FEET UNDER, was Nate's continuous apparitions of his father.

When you know someone very well, you know what they would say. You just know. Other times, you are dying to know.

I remember wishing Van a happy belated birthday, the same week as the People's Temple disaster. (He had attended the church a couple of times, pronouncing it "odd.") "Oh honey, those poor people! I can't bear it!" And those words echo, as I watch the TV shows chronicling the horrific events of 30 years ago. And I miss him, the one who couldn't bear it.

Missing my friend, one of the touchstones of my life, is almost impossible to write about. I have tried several times. What can you say about the sort of individual who is simply LARGER than life? An amazing, dynamic, theatrical personality who was a fountain of love, ferocious wit and unending generosity? I can say: he took me in when I had nowhere to go, fresh off a Greyhound bus from the midwest. He shared his home with me. He gave me the beginner's course in San Francisco 101, what to watch out for, who to trust, who not to trust. I couldn't have functioned there without him; my guide, my mentor for the city.

He was my best friend.

But I find I can't describe him accurately. He was just too big for words. His eyes were bright green, like a cat's. (If you dared ask him if they were contacts, he would mimic slapping you; they weren't.) He was 6'4" and struggled with keeping weight on his whole life. I met him when we were both 15 and he was already full-grown but weighed only 135 lbs. People gaped at him; the word gaunt barely covers it. He took me to the Chattanooga Choo-Choo restaurant in Tennessee and Glide Memorial Church and the I-Beam in San Francisco. He took me to gay bars and introduced me to the first drag queens I had ever seen in person. We danced late, late into the night at discos. He showed me porn and than ran it backward: "Watch how THIS looks!" and then hooted and squealed.

He was either the president or vice president of the official Supremes fan club. He would be mad at me for not remembering which. I have a photo of him with Mary Wilson, and on the back, his trademark scribble: "Don't I look like I'm coming?!" Yes, he did.

In short, I adored him. And I can barely write this. One of the major losses of my life, this beautiful person.

~*~

"What are THESE?" said the naive girl from the midwest, leafing through Van's wallet. There were several colorful, plastic membership cards to the popular San Francisco bath houses. "Do you take baths there?" asks naive, unaware Daisy.

"Well I suppose you could!" he winked at me. "But I don't know anyone who does!" I asked about the sexual protocol of the bath houses, and he told me everything.

~*~


Left: Van wrote several new-age books in the 80s, and was on the staff of MAGICAL BLEND magazine. (I'm not sure if it is still publishing or not, but can't locate a decent web page.)



By the 90s, I had moved to the south, the same place he had escaped from. He tried to talk me out of it. "It's changed, Van, really," I said on the phone.

"Not nearly enough," he sniffed at me. He called it "Baptistland" and would sing made-up lyrics to the tune of Bruce Springsteen's "Jungleland"--down in BAP-TIST-LAAAAAND! Always, always, making me laugh.

I attempted to tactfully approach the subject of the bath houses, the MATH, the sheer MATH. Mathematical probabilities. I got sick when I thought of it, got a headache.

I couldn't tell him that, so I just asked: "Are you worried? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. And then he sent me a sparkly pagan greeting card assuring me that he was okay, while also informing me that he was HIV positive. "Constant changes," he added, signing his name.

Constant changes?

I wept, but composed myself before calling. "You calling to see if I'm still here?" he asked, acidly.

I shot back, "Maybe I am, what's wrong with that?"

"Don't lose that sass, sister-woman!" he ordered, laughing.

I've tried not to.

~*~

An actor (as well as writer), he liked to make phone calls 'in character'--invariably pretending to be other people. For my phone calls, it was Baptist preachers. In his best televangelist voice (which was remarkably authentic), he would shout into the phone at me: "I'm calling from Bloody Jesus Baptist Church, and would like to ask you to ATTEND THIS SUNDAY. Are you SAVED?" He changed the name of the church each time, and on at least two occasions, actually faked me out. He would chuckle, then gloriously guffaw, if he had actually fooled you. He did it to everybody. I heard him call a friend on the phone and pretend to be Laurence Olivier.

"He won't call me back, but betcha he calls LARRY!" he said to me, after hanging up.

~*~

(deep sigh) I love you, dearest Van. I missed your Scorpio birthday, because it has taken me since November 11th to write this coherently. Last year, could not manage it at all. I promised myself, this year. This year, I will write it.

Van's apparition says to me, "Don't take that stuff too seriously!" then muses, "If I'd had the internet, honey? I'd put it to some excellent uses!"

And the apparition adds, "Try not to waste your time, okay? Just don't waste it."

I won't. I promise, I won't.


~*~

When I left the Bay Area, he made me a mix tape. "This will make you think of me, and you can take it everywhere you go and think of---(((here he sang a deep baritone C)))---MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

And I did.

This was the last song on it.

Lena Horne - Believe in yourself (from "The Wiz")



Believe in yourself, as I believe in you.

On Proposition 8, the Mormons, and more...

The Mormons were successfully forced into accepting the government's domestic rules for their religion. I have always thought this was wrong. If they wanted polygamy, that was their business. I find it shameful that a government founded on the separation of Church and State, would actively interfere with the establishment of (any) church belief.

Isn't it ironic that a US president who was himself likely gay, James Buchanan, is the one who sent the army into the Utah Territory (known to Mormons as "the State of Deseret") in 1857. At this time in history, polygamy was an important matter of doctrine in the Church of Latter Day Saints:

The doctrine of the church basically believed that there were countless number of souls waiting to begin an earthly life. The human soul was united with the body at birth which grew and matured, and eventually created new families which led to more births and more souls beginning an earthly existence. Procreation was therefore a very important part of the Mormon religious doctrine because spiritual souls could be granted earthly bodies. Polygamy or the system of “plural marriages” first appeared in the church in 1841 and by 1870 there were an increasing number of plural marriage families in the Utah Territory.

And after federal intervention, Utah was under the heel of Uncle Sam, much like the Native Americans in that same area of the country. By 1890, the Mormons got with the program and renounced polygamy as LDS doctrine. (Of course, as we know, some people never did.)

Thus, the Mormons have now morphed into the oppressor, and seek to bring the power of the government into other people's domestic choices. Apparently, they were the primary financial sponsors behind California's PROPOSITION 8, which passed.

They didn't learn. (((sigh)))

Actually, some did.

Prop 8: California gay marriage fight divides LDS faithful

The church's effort against gay marriage is its most vigorous since 1970s
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
10/26/08

The thought of going to church in her southern California LDS ward makes Carol Oldham cry. She can't face one more sermon against same-sex marriage. She can't tolerate the glares at the rainbow pin on her lapel.

Oldham, a lifelong Mormon, is troubled by her church's zeal in supporting a California ballot initiative that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. She feels the church is bringing politics into her sanctuary.

It has tainted everything for me," Oldham said, choking up during a telephone interview. "I am afraid to go there and hear people say mean things about gay people. I am in mourning. I don't know how long I can last."

The LDS Church's campaign to pass Proposition 8 represents its most vigorous and widespread political involvement since the late 1970s, when it helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. It even departs from earlier efforts on behalf of traditional marriage, in which members felt more free to decide their level of involvement.

This time, LDS leaders have tapped every resource, including the church's built-in phone trees, e-mail lists and members' willingness to volunteer and donate money. Many California members consider it a directive from God and have pressured others to participate. Some leaders and members see it as a test of faith and loyalty.

Those who disagree with the campaign say they feel unwelcome in wards that have divided along political lines. Some are avoiding services until after the election; others have reluctantly resigned. Even some who favor the ballot measure are troubled by their church's zeal in the matter.

"I do expect the church to face a high cost - both externally and internally - for its prominent part in the campaign," said LDS sociologist and Proposition 8 supporter Armand Mauss of Irvine, Calif. He believes church leaders feel a "prophetic imperative" to speak out against gay marriage.

"The internal cost will consist of ruptured relationships between and among LDS members of opposing positions, sometimes by friends of long standing and equally strong records of church activity," Mauss said. "In some cases, it will result in disaffection and disaffiliation from the church because of the ways in which their dissent has been handled by local leaders."

Robert Rees, a former LDS bishop in California, says he has not witnessed this much divisiveness in the church over a political issue in the last 50 years.

Whatever the vote's outcome, Rees says, "it will take considerable humility, charity and forgiveness to heal the wounds caused by this initiative."

Talk about prophecy! Now that the Proposition has passed, outlawing gay marriage, the heat is ON.

Prop. 8 Protests Head To Salt Lake City
Demonstrations Planned At Mormon Headquarters Over Church's Funding Of Gay Marriage Ban

(CBS/ AP) A group of protesters plans to rally in front of the headquarters of the Mormon church over the faith's support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in California.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encouraged its members to work to pass Proposition 8 by volunteering their time and money for the campaign. California voters approved the measure Tuesday.

The Friday evening protest comes a day after people demonstrated outside a Mormon temple in Los Angeles. About 1,000 gay-marriage supporters waved signs and brought afternoon traffic to a halt.

On Thursday, outside the gates of a Mormon temple his father helped build, Kai Cross joined more than 2,000 gay-rights advocates in a chorus of criticism of the church's role in the likely passage of a statewide ban on same-sex marriage.

Once a devout Mormon who graduated from Brigham Young University, the 41-year-old Cross was disowned by his family and his church after he was outed as a gay man in 2001.

"They are on the losing side of history," Cross said Thursday of the church's opposition to gay marriage. Cross and other protesters blame leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for encouraging Mormons to funnel millions of dollars into television ads and mailings in favor of Proposition 8.

The ballot measure was sponsored by a coalition of religious and social conservative groups, would amend the California Constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual act. It would override a state Supreme Court ruling that briefly gave same-sex couples the right to wed.

According to the CBS News Election and Survey unit’s analysis, black voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop. 8 - by a 70 percent to 30 percent margin. Hispanic voters overall favored the measure as well but only by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin. White voters were slightly on the side of approving it, 51 percent to 49 percent.

There is disappointment that the African-American community, which just saw the election of the first black president, voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage, reports CBS Early Show correspondent Hattie Kauffman.

The protest came amid questions about whether attempts to overturn the prohibition can succeed and whether the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California over the past four months are in any danger.

For Cody Krebs, 27, four months was not enough time to fulfill his "intense hope" to marry one day; he and his boyfriend have been together for little more than a year, so they aren't ready to wed.

On Thursday, Krebs dodged eggs hurled at protesters from an apartment building. He said he'd seen worse growing up in Salt Lake City.

"It's important to come out like this because it gets the gay community into the public eye," Krebs said. "I feel like this has started a lot of conversations that had to get started."

The demonstration began outside the temple in the Westwood section of Los Angeles and noisily spilled through the western side of the city, with chants of "Separate church and state" and "What do we want? Equal rights." Some protesters waved signs saying "No on H8" or "I didn't vote against your marriage," and many equated the issue with the civil rights struggle.

Two people were arrested after a confrontation between the crowd and an occupant of a pickup truck that had a banner supporting Proposition 8. One demonstrator ended up with a bloody nose in the fracas. Seven arrests occurred during Los Angeles-area street marches late Wednesday.

The temple protest was organized by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. Its chief executive, Lorri Jean, announced a Web-based effort dubbed InvalidateProp8.org to raise money to fight the constitutional amendment.

Gay-marriage proponents filed three court challenges Wednesday against the ban. The lawsuits raise a rare legal argument: that the ballot measure was actually a dramatic revision of the California Constitution rather than a simple amendment. A constitutional revision must first pass the Legislature before going to the voters.

Andrew Pugno, attorney for the groups that sponsored the amendment, called the lawsuits "frivolous and regrettable."

"It is time that the opponents of traditional marriage respect the voters' decision," he said.

The high court has not said when it will act. State officials said the ban on gay marriage took effect the morning after the election.

"We don't consider it a `Hail Mary' at all," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "You simply can't so something like this - take away a fundamental right at the ballot."

With many gay newlyweds worried about what the amendment does to their vows, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said he believes those marriages are still valid. But he is also preparing to defend that position in court.

The amendment does not explicitly say whether it applies to those already married. Legal experts said unless there is explicit language, laws are not normally applied retroactively.

"Otherwise a Pandora's Box of chaos is opened," said Stanford University law school professor Jane Schacter. Still, Schacter cautioned that the question of retroactivity "is not a slam dunk."

An employer, for instance, could deny medical benefits to an employee's same-sex spouse. The worker could then sue the employer, giving rise to a case that could determine the validity of the 18,000 marriages.

Supporters of the ban said they will not seek to invalidate the marriages already performed and will leave any legal challenges to others.

A 2003 California law already gives gays registered as domestic partners nearly all the state rights and responsibilities of married couples when it comes to such things as taxes, estate planning and medical decisions. That law is still in effect.

Regarding the statement that "a majority of blacks voted for Prop 8"--that particular proclamation isn't going over too well in various parts of Blogdonia.

For more on that, and other excellent fulminating on the topic, please check out:

Prop 8: The Rush to blame the Brown People (excellent collection of links at Alas, a blog)

Mark Oshiro: Protesting Proposition 8, Now You Need Your Allies (Womanist Musings)

Okay, the "Black people cost gay people the right to marry in CA ZOMG" meme needs to stop, NOW. (Fetch Me My Axe)

And Rick Warren is being singled out for ire, at long last! Yes, demonstrations in front of Saddleback Church! (CBS News account)

And on the subject of generalized sexual hysteria and Victorian bullshit, Proposition K in San Francisco also failed. Lea Brown described the measure in the SF Bay Guardian:

Prop. K would allow sex workers to organize for their rights and safety. It would enable them to report abuse in the industry without fear of prosecution. It would improve their chances of maintaining their health by lessening the stigma that prevents many from seeking the health care services they need. And it would do all this while still allowing law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute human traffickers.

My favorite sex-worker blogger, Renegade Evolution, shares her strong feelings about Prop K's failure. (And as usual, a very lively comments section!)

And along these lines, don't forget to have a peep at the 11th Feminist Carnival for Sexual Freedom and Autonomy!

EDITED TO ADD: Join the Impact - Protest Prop 8 on November 15th. Thanks to The Jaded Hippy for the link.

Merl Saunders 1934-2008

Merl Saunders, photo by Bob Minkin.

~*~



I haven't had a chance to write a formal obituary... but wanted to acknowledge the Deadhead family's loss of Merl. A friend called me at work to tell me over the weekend.

Also see Annie's wonderful post.

~*~

Merl Saunders dies at age 74

Merl Saunders, a keyboardist best known for his collaborations with Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia, died Friday at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco of complications from a stroke he had several years ago. Saunders was 74.

A musician who worked in a variety of genres in a long and varied career, Saunders played piano and keyboard but favored the Hammond B3 organ. He led his own bands and worked with an array of musicians, including the blues-oriented Bonnie Raitt and B.B. King, jazz legend Miles Davis and the jam band Phish.

He played on the Grateful Dead's 1971 album "Grateful Dead," but it was his collaborations with Garcia away from the group that earned him lasting notice. Starting in the 1970s, they worked on a variety of projects and recorded several albums together, including "Heavy Turbulence," "Fire Up" and "Live at the Keystone." Years later they released the popular New Age album "Blues From the Rainforest." Saunders later released a video chronicling his journey to the Amazon.

Garcia credited Saunders with teaching him the Great American Songbook and expanding his knowledge of harmony.

"He taught me music," Garcia said.

Saunders said their association had a "charisma and chemistry you couldn't question."

"We wouldn't play together for a couple of years, then we'd walk onstage and sound like we'd been playing together every day," Saunders told the Los Angeles Times shortly after Garcia's death in 1995. "That's called knowing. Sometimes I still play off him; I hear what he's doing, the notes he'd be playing, even though he's gone."

Resquiat in Pace, dear friend.

More at Dead.net.

----------------
Listening to: Grateful Dead - I Know You Rider
via FoxyTunes

Happy 4th of July!

Left: The US and South Carolina flags, downtown Greenville, SC.

~*~




And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They're interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in the cockpit
And next year its the great Bush pilot
And now its the Chameleon Kid
and he keeps changing the logo on his captains cap
and now its a donkey and now an elephant
and now some kind of donkephant
And now we recognize two of the crew
who took out a contract on America
and one is a certain gringo wretch
who's busy monkeywrenching
crucial parts of the engine
and its life-support systems
and they got a big fat hose
to siphon off the fuel to privatized tanks
And all the while we just sit there
in the passenger seats
without parachutes
listening to all the news that's fit to air
over the one-way PA system
about how the contract on America
is really good for us etcetera
As all the while the plane lumbers on
into its postmodern
manifest destiny



Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Bird With Two Right Wings

Seven songs meme

Lovely Ren roused me from my grief by tagging me with a meme. See what nice friends I have? (She got an iPod and it just seemed pertinent!)

~*~

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring-summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

I've already posted several of these songs and decided to post the rest, so you can listen to em here if you want to.

~*~

LAUGHING--David Crosby

Actually, I've been listening to the last two minutes, the amazing steel guitar solo by Jerry Garcia, which is resplendent.

MUSIC EYES--Heartsfield (2nd song in link)

Overjoyed to find this old song, and have listened to it about 5000 times since it was first posted to YouTube last week.

AIN'T LIFE GRAND--Widespread Panic

Always makes me think of summer, for some reason... probably because I first remember hearing it in a horrendous summer traffic jam, where I had the AC in the car way up. And it properly reminded me: you aren't in an accident, you aren't poverty-stricken or unemployed, people care about you, so just calm the fuck down. Zen message, which I listen to whenever I need to be reminded: Ain't Life Grand?

I love the wistful, ironic way the song is delivered. I think it was Wendell Barry (?) who said the Southern Way is "sitting on the fence post, commenting wryly on the ways of God"... and this song is the musical equivalent of that sentiment.

~*~

This next one goes out to the AA folks. I've listened to it most of my life, at some point. I love the hard-nosed sensibility; like the last song, it "wakes me up"--as the Buddhists would say. It brings me back to myself and reminds me of first principles. It's also one of the greatest country songs ever written.

I was once at an AA picnic and virtually EVERY SINGLE PERSON KNEW THE WORDS...even the children! That says plenty, huh? (Unlike a lot of people these days, he takes FULL RESPONSIBILITY!)

Mama Tried - Merle Haggard

[via FoxyTunes / Merle Haggard]

~*~

Abrupt change in sensibility. I've been patiently waiting for Netflix to ship me the movie about Ian Curtis, titled CONTROL. I MUST SEE IT. Meanwhile, listening to WARSAW, which is the most claustrophobic punk song ever written.

Every now and then, I get a sort of clairvoyance concerning who isn't long for this world. Or is it (as the skeptics would undoubtedly say) that I'm just very attuned to the particular reality of addiction? (see AA reference above) At various times in my life I have heard certain songs and then pronounced "That person isn't long for this world!"--spooking my daughter, Delusional Precious, with my prescience and accurate fortune-telling. Most historic of these documented instances: WOULD?, ALL APOLOGIES and NO RAIN. In each instance, I thought, wow, that guy is gonna die, and SOON. I don't know if it's the actual song-lyrics, or the fact that I have heard literally thousands of addicts talk in thousands of 12-step meetings, and the overall sentiments expressed in the songs ring some kind of existential bell? Or is it something else I am hearing on some other sensory level? Whatever it is, I can hear it, and it always alarms me in a distinctive way. DEATH IMMINENT is what I hear. (And the song might even be relatively sprightly, as NO RAIN is, but I heard it anyway.)

And I thought the same thing when I heard WARSAW. I thought, DAMN, that guy, whoever he is, is NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD. (When I finally get the movie about Ian, promise to post a review!)

Warsaw - Joy Division

[via FoxyTunes / Joy Division]

~*~

Nostalgic pining away for the days in San Francisco before AIDS took my friends away. It was fun, you guys. I have no words to properly express it, but I do have the song.

(Why does it start out with a HARP? Because we were in heaven, of course.)

Boogie Nights - Heatwave

[via FoxyTunes / Heatwave]

~*~

And this election season, we are well reminded that the big fish eat the little ones, the big fish eat the little ones...

Something we should always keep in mind, even if we are optimistic.

Optimistic - Radiohead

[via FoxyTunes / Radiohead]

~*~

I TAG THE FOLLOWING:

white rabbit (who had issues with my quirky meme! you should like this one better, dude!)
Jojo
Annie
Rootie
Vanessa, who usually includes fun stories with her memes, like I do.
Nexy
And John Powers, to get him to update his blog!

~*~

Yall have been just wonderful in the face of my grieving. Thank you so much. It was (and still is) a shock.

My mother's beloved Siamese kitty lived to be 18, and I was kinda hoping for that long lifespan, even though I knew Grand Old Man's digestive system wasn't in very good shape.

And it happened so fast; just like with old humans. Simple illnesses are no longer simple.

It's hard to write without my muse. I've been doing it so long; Grand Old Man nestled in my lap as I typed. And when I got going really good, he would emit a sweet, quiet, musical purr, as if he could somehow sense that my brain was creatively humming along. His contented purr let me know I was writing well. We were connected that way, and I feel like a tentacle, a sensory antenna, was severed.

I just loved him so much. It will take a long time to recover.

Martin Fierro 1942-2008

Left: Martin Fierro, photo by Robert Minkin, from Dead.net.

~*~





Music fans and Deadheads everywhere have suffered a great loss, with the passing of mighty saxophonist Martin Fierro. He died of cancer yesterday, surrounded by family and friends in Marin County, California.

Martin is known to Deadheads primarily for playing flute and saxophone on the 1973 Grateful Dead album Wake of the Flood. He also played with several of Jerry Garcia's side projects, including the Legion of Mary.

Martin was born in Mexico and moved to El Paso, Texas, at the age of 10, where he played saxophone in his high school marching band. Then he heard music by Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and others, changing and rearranging his world, as the music did for so many other young people of the era. Martin's music took him to new places and new syncretic combinations; a new musical synthesis. He was a fixture in the Bay Area jam band scene of the late 60s/early 70s, sitting in with bands like Mother Earth, Sir Douglas Quintet and Quicksilver Messenger Service.


Left: Jerry Garcia birthday concert poster, from Honest Tunes. (2006)

Dead.net reports on Martin after the breakup of The Legion of Mary:

Martin had no trouble finding work following the dissolution of the Legion of Mary; indeed his tenure with Garcia was like a springboard to an expanded fan base and many new opportunities. He continued to play on and off with Merl Saunders—a lifelong friend—and he also played often with various groups led by John Cipollina, including a marathon stint in the great Bay Area jam band Zero. His association with Zero also led to an enduring musical partnership with Steve Kimock, as well. In fact, the last time I saw Martin play was with a re-formed Zero (with Kimock) at Wavy Gravy’s birthday benefit at the Regency Ballroom in SF in 2007. Over the years Martin also sat in with many other jam bands, from String Cheese Incident to Dark Star Orchestra. “I just love to play, man,” he told me, “I’ll show up and it’s, ‘Oh, Martin, you gonna play with us, right?’ And I say, ‘Well, I do happen to have a horn with me…’” he laughed.

When we spoke, he joked about how he had cheated death on numerous occasions: “The worst was a surfing accident in Hawaii [in the late ’90s]. I broke my neck and my back, man. I was dead for close to ten minutes and they brought me back, and then they thought I was brain damaged or I’d be paralyzed. The next day I played a gig with Zero!” He laughed heartily—as he often did. And whether there was a touch of exaggeration in the tale or not doesn’t matter. (He did, in fact, carry a lot of physical pain with him, from that and other episodes) But it shows his zest for life, which he retained until his final days on earth.

Another one gone too soon.

Yes.

Our prayers and Deadhead love go out to Martin and his family.

**You can share memories and leave messages and memorials at martinfierromusic.com.