Mike Russell's Open Salon Blog

In Portland, Lady Gaga Dressed More Respectably Than I Did

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:09:16 -0400

Yesterday, I attended the rally protesting Don't Ask, Don't Tell in Deering Oak Park in Portland, Maine. My wonderful husband Jason and I live about a mile away, but he was at work, so I went by myself.

I arrived early and was lucky enough to get a standing spot in the second row. School had just let out, and there were many teenagers walking together, laughing and smiling. Portland is a progressive city but relatively small - the population is only about 66,000 - so it isn't every day that we can see the world's most famous pop star for free. I've been to other political rallies in town, and with rare exceptions, all the ones not involving Lady Gaga have been far more sparsely attended.

As expected, she didn't arrive until the very end, which makes sense, as it would be unkind to arrive early and then have all the celebrity watchers leave before the politicians and soldiers spoke. Of the early speakers, our Congressional Representative, Chellie Pingree, was the most eloquent. I feel fortunate to live in one of the few districts with an honest, unabashedly liberal Congressperson who will actually fight for the right things. The soldier's generally spoke well and passionately against the bigotry they had to face. Some were endearingly self-deprecating about not being the most famous musician alive.

Listening to them gave me a lot of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was very proud to see my own tribe represented by such outstandingly skilled people. On the other hand, I couldn't help asking myself if any of them had participated in torture or in bombing children. Some of them spoke of the many missions they had run in Iraq. So I had to ask myself what I was really applauding. I strongly believe in the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and for LGBT soldiers to be treated as full equals, but if I'm honest, that means we're equal to create just as much misery around the world as straight people do. It was a relief for me to see some protest signs at the periphery saying "No more homo blood for US imperialism." Despite its blatant broadside, it gave the event a more nuanced feel.

The other signs were the expected mix of adoration of Lady Gaga and calls to repeal DADT. My favorite sort-of-unrelated protest was a handsome shirtless transman carrying a sign saying, "I'm trans. You have a problem with that?" He seemed very proud of his hard-won masculinity, and that made him even sexier in my eyes, even though a similar swagger in a cisgender man would not have appealed as much to me.

In keeping with Gaga's over-the-top wardrobe, I decided to look a bit nuts. So I attended barefoot, wearing a twenty-foot-long scarf, a very brightly striped jacket, a pale green military shirt and short blue shorts, and a held up a sign saying "Every Man Has a Man Who Loves Him." Lady Gaga is a big Yoko Ono fan, and I thought she might appreciate the reference to Yoko's brilliant pro-gay anthem. Portland has brick sidewalks, so my feet are still a bit sore after walking barefoot for about two miles.

Lady Gaga arrived in a huge black van, and like a good dominatrix, she made us wait a few more minutes while a soldier led us in a loud chant of "This law sucks!" Then a local student leader spoke, and she gave a strong speech while pointing out that it also kind of sucks to be the last person to speak before a crowd waiting for You Know Who.

May I assume you've seen the videos of Lady Gaga speaking? If not, they're all over youtube and elsewhere. She came across more powerfully live, especially when she shouted at homophobic soldiers, "Go home!" She didn't seem calculated at all but instead seizing the same opportunity that John Lennon and Yoko Ono had, when they realized that they were ludicrously famous and that every thing they said and did would be on the news, so why not put that publicity to work for something good in the world? Gaga managed a level of moral force and outrage I don't expect from megacelebrities, so I salute her for that. And as everyone says when they see someone famous in person, she is shorter than I realized.

She wore a relatively restrained black suit and very high heels, so I was a bit out of step with her in my crazy clothes, but that was ok. The crowd absolutely loved her and cheered every word. In her activism, she may have done far more than Obama to get the injustice of DADT overturned, especially when she pressured Harry Reid to bring the issue to a vote. While that isn't an ideal situation and only feeds our warped celebrity-worship culture, we'll take our leaders where we can find them, and Gaga stood up to the plate powerfully.

I Don't Fit

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:01:28 -0500

I'm in the early stages of creating a children's book called I Don't Fit. I've dragged out some of my old paintings to inspire me and to use as backgrounds for some of the images. Here's a painting from 1991, The Screaming Tree (c).

And from 2002, Snaking Past Tree Anemones (c):

First Floor on Fire, chapter nine, part one

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 14:12:12 -0500

Chapter Nine: Nevaya Briggs

“Haha, Sis, wish I coulda seen you kick Price’s ass. Aw, that the shit!” Donyair bent over, laughing his dick off. That the one thing I would have done different, made sure everyone who got my back saw me beat Price. You could of stood on the moon and heard shout outs to me. Not sure what I’m a do now. Hell, I ain’t trying to think about that. Gotta think about something else.

Scratched my head. Damn, I hate my hair. Why can’t I have good hair for once? Cover it up with braids. Wish I could afford micros, really need those. Ms. Dee told me I should be proud of my own hair, that white people try to make me hate myself by hating my hair. But she old and ugly, what she know about hair? Ms. Dee never my age, and even if she was, it before hair been invented. Now, why I think that about her. She never did me wrong. She still a teacher, though, so she do me wrong someday.

“Donyair, when we get home, do something with my hair! I hate it!”

“Honey, we can’t always control our hair. You got a bad hair day. So what? You’ll live.” There he go making sense. That not what I wanted. He ought to know better.

“I’m an Aires. We supposed to be in control.”

“Nevaya, Nevaya, I can’t believe you still think that nonsense real.”

“Donyair, you don’t know, so shut the fuck up.” We always argue about astrology. Don’t know why Donyair can’t believe. He could at least pretend to believe when I’m around.

“Sweetie, make you own reality. Don’t follow some oldhead rulebook.”

Damn that Donyair. He made me stop and think for a minute. I ain’t following no rulebook. But I know astrology real, so that all there is to it. Don’t tell me something I done spent so much time on ain’t nothing but a waste. That would make me out to be some kind of damn fool, and I ain’t no fool, so that the end of it.

We stepped onto the subway back home. I never liked those dirty, falling-down Broad Street Line stops. Doors opened and shut, opened and shut, while that robot voice repeated, “Please stand clear of doors. Please stand clear of doors. Please stand clear of doors.”

I couldn’t stand it no more, so I stuck my head out the door and screamed, “Will somebody get they nasty ass off the door so this train can move??!!” A few seconds later, the doors shut, and we were on our way. We both could of died laughing.

Donyair and his ways pushed my other thoughts to the side. They still splashed around, but they didn’t take me over, at least not for awhile, not til I had to be alone again with my scream.

I don’t know why I didn’t lose myself in crack, weed, anything to make me forget what happened to me, the shit life that threw itself on me. I sure been tempted a lot, seeing some peace in folks’ high eyes, and I wished I could be like them and kick out my pain for a little while. Even if the escape all fake, it still feel good at the time. I saw that. But I also saw the whip of the crack, how it make everybody its bitch. And I ain’t nobody’s bitch.

Yeah, I know what all y’all thinking. She black, she poor, of course she on drugs, selling drugs, selling her ass for drugs. Probably got a thug boyfriend who wear a piece with ten bodies on it. Everybody know what really going on here. Well fuck all y’all and you nasty little minds. I never get near that shit. You been watching too much TV and listen’ to too much music. You better stop pulling on you dick to you fantasy of what you think I am.

Yeah, it true that I used to have a thug young bol. He been gone a year, and if I even say his name, I’m a cry. But you didn’t hear me say that, and I will hunt you down and stomp a mudhole in you ass if you ever tell a soul. I’m too strong to cry and always will be.

I didn’t care what my man did, ‘cause he loved me. I should of cared, should of told him to stop that shit, stop juggling poisonous snakes before it killed him. Oh, well. Nothing I can do about that now. He thought he all armor-plated, and I believed him. My own tall glass of chocolate milk, and another thug bullet threw that glass against the wall, broke it in a million pieces.

He made everyone think he all tough, nobody could touch him, but he was brittle inside. My glass of milk could break at a touch, but everyone so scared of him, nobody but me ever found out what he be. Big, diamond hard steel muscle, wrapped around me, opened me up, my first. Sure, other niggas touched me before, but he the first one to make my pussy holler.

First time I saw him, he all leaning on a street corner. He called out, “Hey, shorty.” Usually, fucking dickeaters who say that to me get a rock in they head, but something about the way he said it sounded almost funny, so I smiled.

I shielded my eyes from the sun so I could look him straight in the eye. “You lucky, just motherfucking lucky I’m in a good mood and don’t have to sock the shit out of you for calling me out my name like that.” And then I actually saw him. Damn. I knew right away most of the girls and some of the boys would die to get him. And I bet none of them really got him cause the way to this man’s heart was to not want it so damn much. When I first called out to him, I sounded as if I couldn’t care less if he wanted me or not, and that got his heart racing and dick so hard he almost doubled over in pain. I’m glad I didn’t know all that back then, or I would have fucked everything up, and he would of thought I was just like all the other girls.

I was real lucky none of his niggas was around, or else he would of had to call me a bitch dyke or something like that so he wouldn’t look like a pussy in front of his boys. But just the two of us, he could smile and say, “Well, what can I do to keep you in a good mood?” I ain’t stupid, not even back then. Clear as day, he used words to help him dive into my cat. But all the boys - not men, no matter how old they was - that I knew didn’t even try to show any style the way he did.

OK, I better get used to saying his name again …. Tyreek … I loved the sound of his name. It sound like a short song. We got together right away. It hurt like a fatherfucker, like my first time all over again, felt like being ripped apart, but then I loved it and had to have him all the time. Forgot about all my friends, didn’t give a shit about school. The world led to Tyreek. I knew he sold drugs. I knew he almost old, twenty-five when I was sixteen. But I didn’t want to think about none of that, didn’t want to think about what he did to hold onto his street corner. Being part of him, making him part of me, keeping my eyes open so no bitches got a piece of him, nothing but that mattered. I did for that man, and he did for me. Our shit was tight. I got a beef with anybody who say different.

And then a car screeched by and six bullets split his soul out of the box.

That night, I tried to rip my soul free with razors, but Donyair caught me, wrestled me down and sat on me. Wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t let go no matter how much I tried to throw him off. He kicked the razors away and still held me down, wrapped his arms around mine, scissored my legs together, made sure I couldn’t move. Felt like Mom holding me down before she hit me. Made me lose my mind. Mom, get the fuck off me! I had to break free, move my legs, free myself, grab those razors, but Donyair wasn’t having it.

I screamed and screamed until my muscles and voice gave out, and I collapsed with a scratchy moan into Donyair’s arms. Almost the only time I ever cried. Young and weak for a moment. Never again. At that moment, I hated him so much for getting all in my business, but by the next morning, I was so happy he did. I could see in his eyes he didn’t sleep all night. Sat down and watched me every second ‘til I didn’t want to have nothing to do with no razors. When I realized what he did for me, I looked him in the eye and smiled as much as I could before crying some more.

The words could just barely come out. “Bubby, if you ever lose your mind, I’m a do the same for you.” I hadn’t called my brother Bubby since I was a child.

“I know.”

That was just over a year ago. I ain’t touched a man since Tyreek. For three months, maybe more, every day, I wore different shirts, all with Tyreek’s name on the front. A lot of folks said I must be crazy, that I gotta forget him. Fuck them. Nobody get my heart again, nobody even get my pussy again. Anyone try, Price or anybody else, somebody getting stabbed.

I saved Tyreek’s toe tag, kept it in my left pocket. Still have it there, can feel it in my hand. Took one of his rings. I knew he wanted me to have it. Saved up, paid a jeweler to interwine his ring with one of mine, keep us close forever. Went without for awhile, but I had to do it. The rings stayed in my right pocket. Nobody’d dare try to take them. No teacher gonna tell me to take off my jacket. Fuck the school dress code. I’m a grown ass woman, and I do what I have to so I can keep things right with my dead.

Second-Class Citizens Loving and Fighting in Portland, Maine

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 13:11:27 -0500

Hey all, I'm taking a temporary detour from blogging my novel. A couple hours ago, I was sitting on the steps of Portland, Maine's City Hall, watching a press conference in response to the voters of Maine deciding against equality for all. Alas, the microphones did not work, and we had to strain to hear the speakers, especially with late-morning traffic buzzing behind us. But everyone behind the podium was nevertheless powerful and eloquent, refusing to give up hope.

A lot of us were crying and hugging, but we will keep fighting. We lost, but with smaller margins than with the anti-gay votes of 2004. We are on the right side of history, and future generations will be as embarrassed for our time as we are now when thinking about past laws forbidding interracial marriage or women voting.

We feel a lot of anger but will not let it turn to bitterness. While it is difficult not to burn with anger towards about half of my fellow Mainers for their ignorance, I will not turn away from them, but hope to keep talking and sharing with them until years from now, after my hubby Jason and I have gotten married, they will pretend they never opposed us in 2009.

During the press conference, there was a solitary couple holding an anti-marriage sign gloating that the voters had spoken. They reminded me of Nelson Muntz on The Simpsons pointing and exclaiming, "Ha ha!" Both of them were making hateful remarks about us. A group of No on 1 supporters, some of them still crying, locked arms and encircled the protestors with their backs turned to them. That I approved of. One supporter tried to cover up the hateful sign with her coat. That I did not approve of, because as poisonous as the message is, censoring it is not the answer.

Fortunately, the coat soon came down, and the heterosexists were able to keep holding up their sign. A local religious leader argued against them with brilliant restraint and class, explaining that Unitarians and many other churches are with us in our struggle.

Afterward, I went to the farmer's market on Monument Square, and I talked about this week's events with several perfect strangers, all wonderful people who offered hugs and support and the hope that we will change things for the better in the near future.

To quote Yoko Ono, who knows something about being hated and demonized for no reason, "Have courage. Have rage. We're rising. There's no confusion. We're all together."

First Floor on Fire, chapter eight

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:10:57 -0400

Chapter Eight: James Price

It is not entirely her fault. Nevaya simply does not understand, but she will someday, under my steady hand. Do not be mistaken. I am not some common child molester. Those monsters do not care about children; all they do is cause harm. I care about my students. I want the best for her. Obviously, I could not harm her or anyone else.

A lesser man would feel bitter, would try to get revenge against Nevaya for her folly. I will not do that. I will guide her so that she knows the right thing to do and will choose it willingly. I will, of course, have to teach her a lesson because she will never become a success in life if she thinks she can mistreat other people and get away with it. She must learn right and wrong. I will have to give a lot of thought to the best way to help her see the light. It must be a good lesson, one that will bring my student the greatest benefit. And when her eyes are opened, she will appreciate all I have done for her.

Nevaya is a beautiful young woman. The young men her age are not worthy of her. She needs someone who can appreciate her finer qualities and bring them to maturity. She can’t help but see that I am that man. I’m practically as young as she is, in the prime of my life. I’m still fresh. I know who Lil Wayne is. I’m almost in the same shape I was in college. There is no real generation gap between us at all.

When I was in high school, I got in a few fights. None of my teachers even tried to understand me. To them, I was just an out-of-control problem child. So I had to do something to prove to them that I was there, that I mattered. They kept sending me out of the room so they would not have to deal with me as a human being. They would just shrug their shoulders and say they tried all they could, oh, how they tried.

One bully in fifth grade, Charles, split my lip open. He just walked up to me and hit me. I had not said one word to him. But when I hit him back, I got suspended. Nobody at the school would listen to a word from me. That injustice will never happen to any of my kids. I will make sure that we listen to all of them. No matter how long it takes, we must listen to all their stories so we can know their needs. I have no doubt that Charles’ teachers had failed him, too.

I have scheduled a motivational speaker to reach out to all my kids soon. A former athlete, he grew up poor; his mom had to sell herself on the street. If I had had the chance to be one of her clients, I would have had to decline politely, because my kids come first. Maybe he can reach them where even I could not. Most principals would not care so much about the quality of the school assemblies, but I do. My kids need contact with people from the outside world. Assemblies must not be just a free period, a way to avoid keeping the focus on instruction.

Anyone can see that I am maintaining my high principles here. To do so, I am following a more creative path. I know how to think out of the box. Nevaya will be so much better off with me. If I had failed to care enough to intervene, she would end up with another drug dealing thug like Tyreek. Oh, yes, I know about her and Tyreek, because I care.