"My Life, and Times" ...How I came out.

When I was a kid in high school, just 16 I went to the "Village" This because I had been warned there were "perverts" there.
It seemed the place to be.
I remember seeing the actual "Stonewall Inn". I couldn't go in because you had to be 21.
I looked in the window, and except for a Transvestite, the 'first' I ever saw. It seemed like any other bar. Yeah I'd been in bars.

*My dear Uncle Louie took me to have a look.
Part of my "Education" into the real world.

Anyway how could I know that three, and a half years later it would be a "Queer Ground Zero".
So unlike the Zillions that claim to have been there I actually was. Just a bit early is all.

*Stop me if you've heard this one.
It was my good ol' Uncle Louie who was really my Mom's uncle, but ya know. It was Uncle to whom I first came out to as Queer Artist Maniac. Like in any Coming Out moment it was full of weirdness static, and terror.
Remember this was 1966. The last Civil War vets just kicked the bucket...so it was a while ago, and being gay wasn't cute.

Uncle was the only one that had always been honest with me about the world. I was always able to confide in him. Mind you he was one tough guy.
He literally ran away with a rural circus as a kid. He did what a generation of early 20th century boys dreamed of doing. ...came back alive too.

He went to sea traveled the world. 'Was in the Merchant Marine Navy during WW2 survived, and came home to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Which was his profession when I went to his house with my Great Secret. I remember sitting down with him in his kitchen. He lit up a Chesterfield, and asked me what was wrong.

He could see that I was freaked so he was very concerned. I remember he said "...there's nothing you can tell me that I haven't seen or done myself"...wadda guy. He reassured me it'd be okay just tell him what happened.

Well I did.

He hit the roof!
He bleeping did, but not for the reasons you think.
He said to my confession of innocent dreams of queer passion. Bright passions till them *radioactive cows came home.

He said...

"IS THAT ALL!!"

He went on Uncle did...
"You tell me you're a Sissy?!"

"I know that, we 'All' know that.
We knew when you was a little boy! I thought this was about something important. I thought you got someone pregnant!"

No bleeping lie this is how it happened.
My gawd what a family. Good thing I didn't tell him I thought I could fly. That's one thing he might not have "seen or done".

This is basically how it went down.
He said he met plenty of guys like that. It was just how some guys turned out. I shouldn't worry. Just, and here he was serious...don't tell folks outside the family. He warned it's a dangerous life...and he was right then as now.
I really loved uncle.
He looked out for me more I noticed after that.

Anyway the whole damned family knew the whole time.
So much for my great, and grand secret. I mean being caught trying on Moms stuff when I was 11 didn't help.
So a secret. Like the one Liberace thought he hid so well.

I should write a damned book.

*( About them "radioactive cows". It was only in the mid-1960's that they finally stopped testing them "H-Fucking-Bombs" out west. ...in the open air fer craps sakes!
Bleeping morons.
Me, and my generation have "Strontium 90" in our bones behind that madness. '...them cows didn't do too good either.)

Anyway that's my Gay Pride 50th Anniversary story.
...such as it is.

I just came across this in my archives.

Such a life I had.

"What Saturday used to mean to me means to me."
Another mostly real life story,...Once upon a Time.
Reading comics doing chores. The basic Norman Rockwell fantasy. Which in this case was real. Traditions used to be important. One could tell the time of year by them. Even the time of week.

Saturday Movie Matinees for kids. Once an iron tradition.

I was a solitary lad. Some few pals, but mostly on my own. It was in this state I went to the movies. 'Back in the day each 'hood had a movie house. These in them gleeful long ago days of "duck, and cover" segregation, and the .10 cent comic books. Ours was the "Carroll Theatre". It died the usual death of these beloved places as a porn grind house in the grim 1970's.

A moment.
I'm thinking of our dog "Brownie", and a half remembered cat named "Tippy". Them, and the rabbit we somehow ended up with. She was kept in a wire box under the back porch, and one day was found dead. I'd imagine of a broken lonely heart.
She wasn't given a name I remember, and no one I can recall played with her...she was just there. So died. She has haunted me to this day.

But I digress into unresolved sorrows, and mysteries.
Well to the movies, and their place in my kidhood. It was a thing we did an experience that we had for ourselves...it was ours not our parents not the nuns just ours. That, and those arbitrary authorities ceded it to us.

So on Saturday were free to wander to dream of other worlds free to imagine escape. Free to have what should be the birthright of every kid, but ain't. We were free for one day to have fun. The movies wandering around doing insane bleep that we should have been doing 24/7 365 through our whole childhoods.

...but were forbidden to.

On Sunday if you were Jebus fans. You were sent to be indoctrinated into false, and heartless cosmologies. ...religion.
Fill in the blanks if you were trapped in other cults.

On Monday,...the beatings resumed.

'But Saturday our Holy Saturday.
Well I recall watching a profoundly swell holy film called the "Atomic Submarine". It started out with hundreds of ships mysteriously sinking all over the place, but especially around the North Pole,...this back when it had ice.

The good guys that is the United States Bleeping Navy sends one of their brand new Atomic Submarines,...hence the title, to deal with shit. One thing leads to another, and them Navy guys finds a giant ship eating UFO hanging out under the ice!

Intermission.
Or where the Theater makes their real money.
Oh the prices of them days. A hot dawg with a coke .25 cents. When it went to thirty it was like the Great Depression again. We had to hit up our folks for an extra five cents...a hard negotiation!

Anyway loaded with candies mutated hot dawgs drowned in plastic mustard, and bubbly sugar water we were ready for anything them Alien bastards could deal out!

The flick grinds into action, and we gets a good gander at the Alien boss. Good grief! He looked like a deep fried rubber ducky! ...with gravy. The maniac immediately starts melting sailors...the black one first of course.
That bleeped up Alien guy had the traditional heat ray going like crazy. He even takes out two other subs...both British. Some sort of message there...I think.

Of course in the end the smart Yanks,...the good guys of all history,...ahem, figures out everything, and sends them Alien jerks packing.

They tries to escape the deranged might of the US fucking Navy by taking off back to "Planet X". This so they can tell their guys how weak stupid, and over taxed everybody is on earth. That, and they better get over here pronto to wipe us out before we wise up, and come knocking on their crib. Youbetcha we blows them space jerks,...with gravy to hell!

Anyway after having a swell time watching that film classic. Drinking several gallons of soda pop, and scarfing down ten pounds of candy.
Off to home I go to tell my mom that the earth is safe.
I told my dad too,...he was much relived.

My dad was a kindly neat guy that loved us almost as much as he loved the electric train layout he constructed to my mother's horror in the basement that he also finished. Not with that pine-board crap. Which as most know are just roach, and mouse motels in waiting.
Rather he being strong smart, and cool smoothed off all the walls with plaster, and re-cemented the floors. Installed panel lighting, and built a giant railway system that was the second home to all the kids on the block.

He also got the whole sweaty lot of us ice cream when the damned truck finally came. Our Ice Cream guy was Mr. Irving. Every 'hood had their special guy...he was ours.

Dad was a good guy. I loved him to bits. He was an island of calm in my otherwise ironic hellish childhood. This because I imagined myself a Colored Holden Caufield,...Google 'em.

"...shop work"

Well the Bear's name is "Alcibiades". He's named after some old Greek guy I think. I noticed him around the digs the other night. I thought it was just another hallucination. 'Been having a lot of them these days.

Anyway when I realized he was real I asked him to come clean. He only gave his name, and occupation. He's a mechanic. Learned it in the Army he said,...and that's 'all' he's said so far.

"Bob the Bunny" remains silent on all this.

Well I can hardly throw that guy out. I mean especially with him being a Vet, and all. So we worked a deal. He tunes up my fleet of scale model vintage cars, and he can stay. I'll buy him honey tree bark, and berries till his Vet Administration checks start coming in. Also he can crash in the living room behind the TV. ...I hardly watch it anyway.

We'll see what happens next.

"I Persist"

 

"I Persist"

Well I'm enjoying hot soup on this now somewhat chilly day. This planetary climate alteration thing has us fried one day chipping ice off the walk the next...figuratively.

All part of this strange world I've lived into. Thing is I'm still not used to a non-demanding life since retirement. Forcible though it was. There's really no place I 'need' to be.
Before I had responsibilities serious ones. As during the care-giving era of my, and my sister's life. Looking after aging, and seriously ill elders that we loved so. That, and when working I had shows to plan engineering shifts to prepare for. Internal political station warfare to contend with.

Now I just wake up, and well... I mean for a while I took classes went on long walks taking photos. 'Did art stuff, and such, but I think I'm now retired from that as well. As I told my former shrink, "...the world is getting away from me. I don't understand or seem to belong in it." Like my grandmother who was born at the very end of the 19th century, and lived to see us fly in the air go to the moon have the beginnings of full Civil Rights. That, and my heavens Queer Pride parades, and the very early digital age. Like her I feel a stranger in this even stranger land.

Like that book's title. "Still I Persist in Wondering"

"...Long Term"

 

"...Long Term"

We're an interesting species. We can dream Heaven, and Hell then bring either or both into physical existence.

What's that if not a kind of Magic.

We can live, not just live, but prosper in everything from sub-zero to 120f degree climates. We're a hardy, and persistent bunch.  Just like the  dinosaurs before us.

Climate Change?

Desertification shrinking glaciers famines wars over fresh water pole shift ocean rise. You kidding this is nuthin' total bullshit.

The multiverse ain't getting rid of us that easy.

Bleep that. 

Get used to us we're here for the long term.

The 'real' long term. 

"Eckk"

 

"Eckk"

As you know besides everything else I'm a shape shifter. I find it easier to turn into cartoon characters as opposed to say a radioactive toaster. Anyway there I am what's her name from "Alice",...guess that makes me "Alice' sleeping, and healing.

I'm also the cat.

"...just say'n"

 

"...just say'n"

Humanity will Crash with a Fire that will be seen at the Galactic Rim!