Man in the mirror: til it happens to you. Black gay pride 2007

You can’t make a person feel pride. I think it’s illegal. I feel conflicted every year like I do on Christmas because I’m not close to my family or Valentine’s Day because I’m usually lonely. What’s changed about me this year? Pride is usually the time I see people I haven’t seen in a year or two. Have I gotten fatter, I don’t know because I refuse to weigh myself. Have I gotten older, I don’t know because I see the same damn face every time I look in the mirror. I know I will see old friends and ex-lovers and some will say in their head that I’m not as cute as I used to be, or maybe time hasn’t been good to me or something unflattering. I will smile back with darts in my eyes as to say “I’m still here bitches.” Maybe they would be happy to see me, happy to see that I’m still alive. I guess that’s pride when we get older. The young live to die; the old just don’t want to die.

It officially begins with Phili. The blueprint is all the same. They usually have some silly theme.
Phili – “Your life, your pride.” I don’t know what that means. Are the clubs going to be free? Can I take the hotel towels? Of course I’m taking the hotel towels.
DC – “Liberty, Unity, Strength.” Again, I don’t know what the hell that means.
Miami “Sizzle.” It’s so obvious Miami is promoting a good dick sucking. It might as well be a Blatino party. It sounds hot.
L.A. – “Rock you.” Somebody must’ve been listening to Michael Jackson or something or just tired.
Detroit – “Eyes wide open.” In Detroit one must always keep their eyes wide opened because that city is ghetto.
New York – “Evolution of pride.” It sounds like a summer blockbuster movie or a video game where punks get make-overs or shot.
Atlanta “Moving it to the next level.” Again, I don’t know what that means. The themes are always so esoteric.

If black gay pride was a man, he would be 31 years old. We’re almost the same age. Each year with pride, I feel as if it’s trying to change. It wants to profit on the “Down Low” hype. It wants new blood. It wants to buy the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence and maybe adopt some third-world children. It’s not as young as he used to be. And it knows that the older have gotten complacent and don’t spend as much money. The older are not desperately looking for that approval. Yet, what is this new youth. Who are they?

It was like a horror movie. He couldn’t have been no more than twenty two years old. With hate in his eyes, he dragged a sledgehammer down the sidewalk, the block of metal thick as a fist scraped its knuckles against the concrete creating chards of flashes. Some black gay kids had gotten into a fight earlier in the bar. I didn’t know what had happened. I ran outside and saw a young man no older than twenty five years being kicked bloody. More important, it was that maniac with the sledgehammer rushing towards him. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. It was a Wednesday night which meant shirtless night at the gay bar. Most go for the free drinks from 10 -11 and then head over to the bar across the street. Mostly black kids went there because they played hip hop on the second floor. They didn’t used to charge to get in. Actually none of the bars charged to get in until too many young black kids started showing up. It’s because they like to fight. They don’t tip the bartenders. They are usually rude and loud. They don’t follow the white gay standards.

The charge was meant to discourage them. Five dollars for their regular customers seemed worth it to decrease the insanity. It always worked. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it happened. I lived a lot of places and always when too many black patronages usually mean a price hike. And now the fight.

I don’t know what’s going on with the young black gay kids anymore. In the last couple of years they seem like they’ve gotten more pissed like prison inmates. They come into the life with a chip on their shoulder. They club used to feel like a place to have a good time now it turned to gangs. I know the down low has done more than just been a problem with black women. The down low created the ultra-masculinity hype and said it was sexy. And now this ultra masculine gay boy was going to bash some kid’s head in with a sledgehammer. I was more amazed how everybody was just watching it like Monday night football. I ran to the kid with the sledge hammer. I wasn’t thinking. It’s a problem I have. A couple of months earlier I had gotten into a fight at that same bar. I don’t remember what it was about. I just got three ribs cracked and two missing teeth. I ran to that kid because I knew that anger. I knew that look in his eyes. He had gone too far to stop himself. Somebody else was going to have to do it. I ran to him because I wanted to tell him it wasn’t worth it. Yet, I knew that was stupid. I didn’t know what was worthy to him. I had done things in my life in hindsight that wasn’t worthy but at that moment was worth everything. Maybe that kid slept on the floor at his mama’s house. Maybe he had nothing to lose. Maybe life wasn’t going so good for him. Maybe that fight and winning was the only worthy thing in his life. I knew that look. I had looked for love, happiness and acceptance in many dark places. No one was stopping him so they might as well been cheering. I looked at the crowd, my black gay brothers; it was as if they wanted to see spilled blood like Rome. Some walked away as if it wasn’t their problem but will complain when the club raised the price again or closed down.

I took out a small mirror. I don’t know why. It was a mirror I carried with me to force myself to look into if I thought I had too much to drink at the bar and refused to go home. It was a mirror I looked into if I was going to do something stupid. It was my “safe” mirror. I learned the trick from an AA meeting that didn’t take. I pulled out my mirror and it’s a small mirror, wallet-size. I pulled out the mirror and flashed it at him. I hoped to reflect the streetlights, distract his anger for a second, maybe he’d think I was crazy or laugh or hit me with the sledgehammer. I didn’t know. I pulled out the mirror and put it in his face and for a couple of seconds he stopped. It was as if he saw his eyes and madness. But then he started up again. He was really pissed. So I screamed out that I was calling the cops. I searched for someone to join in the scream. A guy sensing my desperation screamed out he was also calling the cops and grabbed his cell phone. The sad soul let go of the sledgehammer. He ran in the opposite direction. I didn’t feel like a snitch. I felt like I saved both of those kids lives. I hoped neither remembered my face. Maybe that’s why superheroes wear masks to prevent having to testify in court.

Back to pride. I know this is the black gay community at its core, stripped, the anger, the self hatred, the nonchalance, raw sex, the drugs, the self protection, the violence against each other. I see it in the clubs, bars and porno. I’ve seen it online, in Flavaworks, those young kids just unconsciously throwing away their lives for pennies or fucking each other like prison bitches. It’s not even sex, it’s perverted disillusionments. I know because I had been all of that. Maybe that’s why Pride bothers me so much. It’s like going home on Thanksgiving and unable to talk about how Uncle Ray touched me when I was six years old. I’m just supposed to pretend we are all happy. I’m just supposed to pretend.

I believe we all come into this world happy and loved. It’s the noise that distracts us. It’s the noise of our mama and daddy. It’s gender. We don’t get to pick our names. And then for some us there’s the poverty, abuse, rape or war. All the noise makes us unable to hear ourselves, makes us believe we all don’t seek that innate happiness and love. Some of us begin to believe we are supposed to cheat or manipulate it. Some of us just give up. That happiness and love doesn’t go away. We just have to be still and reduce the noise to hear it. And then we grow up and become gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor. We become our religions. We become our fears. But it’s the same journey. The addict and housewife are on the same journey. The preacher and the prostitute are on the same journey. It’s to reduce the noise. Some of us call it god. Some of us call it clarity or charity. It all ends in death. We just take different roads.

I don’t believe that kid with the sledgehammer was a bad person. He was just about to do a bad thing. He got caught up in all his noise, the liquor, some weed, maybe somebody said something he didn’t like, but it didn’t mean he stopped wanting to be loved or happy, yet he was about to create more noise in his life. Even that kid laying on the ground, somehow he gotten himself in danger, maybe he asked for it. I know I’ve asked for it. It didn’t mean he didn’t want happiness or love. It’s amazing what we create to distract. It’s why we distract is the real issue.

There have been many mirrors in my life. There was the mirror of my childhood, my grandmother’s house; it was cracked just like my life. I remember trying to find a solid piece to really see myself. It was the mirror of the greyhound bus station when I ran away when I was fifteen years old. I needed make sure I was doing the right thing. There was the mirror of my first apartment. It made me feel free. There was the mirror that time I spent a week in jail for some bullshit. I hated that mirror because it was a shiny tin, just a hazy mess. There were all those mirrors at bathhouse and coming from one night stands. I usually avoided those mirrors. There was that mirror in the hospital when I almost died. I get up and go to the bathroom and see my blood shot red eyes and the light in me fading. I had hit rock bottom because nobody can come back from death.

And then it was that mirror I showed to that poor soul that night. I know after this weekend I will see many pictures in various magazines of black gay men hugged up on each other and smiling for the camera. What I really want to see are their mirrors at three o’clock in the morning. That’s the truth.

The thing about the mirror is that we all come into this world wanting to be happy and loved. Sometimes we get so distracted with our own noise. I think mirrors are to remind us of our truth. I know it’s hard sometimes because when we look at our reflections we see what we don’t like, but that’s only what we think others wouldn’t like. That’s not pride. I’m finally learning to look in the mirror and be proud. I got scars. I got dark circles. I got some knife wounds and emotional scars. But I am here. I am enough. I can finally go home because home is like testing my soul. I can finally do black pride because I longer have nothing to prove. This is my protest. I don’t need a silly theme to tell me how to feel. I got a mirror and look in it often. It tells me the truth. I listen. Don’t forget yourself this weekend. Happy Black gay pride.

Michael's art exhibit "Portrait of an amatuer artist"

The real terrorism: Gift Giving

Dear Martha Stewart:

I believe the real terrorism is gift giving--the use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political/social purposes.

It’s that social pressure or bullying to make us spend our hard earned money on frivolous holidays like Mothers Day or Valentine’s Day. Every year there seem to be a new holiday as I get older. It’s the panic of birthdays, housewarming parties, weddings or getting out of prison. It’s rushing the department stores hoping to find that gesture to proclaim or certify relationships. What if they don’t like it? What if it’s too expensive? What if what they got you last year sucked? And what do you get a person who just got out of prison, maybe a hooker. But what type of hooker? Should you spend a lot of money or not? Should you expect a "Thank you" card?

The real terrorism is the person receiving the gift. What if i don't like it? What if i don't want it?
Gift giving suggests some type of relationships. It assumes that we know each other intimately when we're just fucking. It’s an unspoken exchange of commitment. Like what if the creepy guy from work gives you an elaborate Valentines gift basket with edible underwear, handcuffs and a penis pump? How do you tell a person, thanks but no thanks for the penis pump? I don’t like when strangers give me gifts unless it’s Orpah. She gives away cars. Who wouldn’t accept a car from Oprah? Yet, if an acquaintance gave me a car, it would make me suspicious. After all, nothing in the world is free. It’s like if that person gave me a car in five years he or she may ask for a kidney or something. I’d want that person sent to Gautama Bay and interrogated. I went them tortured. I want information like do I have to send a Thank you card from something I didn’t ask for in the first place. It’s a car. Only Oprah can give away cars because it’s like farting for her.

Here’s my dilemma Martha Stewart. I feel as if I’m being harassed and I want to know the proper etiquette for casual acquaintances and gift giving. I have this friend. Well he's not really a friend more of a casual drug connection. It's not hardcore drugs but you know Martha Stewart how hard it is to keep a good drug connection in the city.

My friend but not really, we were walking from a party when I saw a homeless guy on the streets selling what I thought were computer speakers. I remember saying I needed new computer speakers. I was eventually going to make it to RadioShack but it wasn’t life or death. I usually used my headphones anyway. The guy, not really a friend, we’ve gotten high together a couple of times. I only knew him for a month or so, nothing serious. After the second time we met he told me he accidentally used me as an excuse. He said he told a trick I stole his stash of drugs because he didn’t want to share. I found that odd since we just met. He said he didn’t use my name-- that he just said the black guy did it as if that made it better. And then he smiled. Of course I had my reservations. I didn’t trust him. One time he stiffed me twenty bucks. But he did have good drugs. I figured I find something to like about him. The next week he called and left a message on the answer machine. He said he was out shopping and bought me a pair of computer speakers. I listened to the message and erased it. I felt a cold chill go down my spine. He called again like five times. His final message was “I guess people can’t do nice shit for your ungrateful ass.” It was rude.

I remember Gift giving was supposed to be a time of joy when I was a kid. It usually happened on birthdays or Christmas. My heart would fill with childish flutter as I urgently blew on my birthday candles because I knew the tearing of gift wrappings was next; or that Christmas eve, the inability to go to sleep because I be so excited to find out if I got that racing car set I asked for or a bike. Well, that was how I’d like to remember my childhood but Norman Rockwell never painted any portraits on the ghetto. I was an orphaned kid so my birthdays usually sucked. And don’t get me started on Christmas because who gives a kid soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste. I spent most of my childhood writing death threats to Santa Claus.

When I turned thirteen years old gifting giving seemed to stop. There were no more lies about Santa Claus forgetting the house. It was drunken grandma in her new fur. She always promised to make it up to me on my next birthday. That birthday never came. Or if it did, it was Grandma giving me a hundred dollar bill and demanding to know where I was going to hide it. The money always came up missing the next day. It stopped when I stopped telling her where I hid the money. The look on her face the next day was priceless. I would tell her somebody stole it like they always did. She’d call me a liar and beat me like a bully until I handed her the money. I guess the charades were over. I found out Santa Claus didn’t exist and Grandma was an alcoholic thief.

Gift giving changes when we become adults. It’s no longer friendly fire but carefully crafted assassination as in "no good gift goes unpunished." When I was kid it was basically birthdays and Christmas. As an adult, anyone can register at Target for whatever celebration. But gift giving has to have a certain motivation. I just don’t go out and buy underwear from my landlord because that would be weird. I don’t just show up to work in the middle of April and give my Boss expensive earrings because it might be construed as sexual harassment. Even with my lover, I can’t just buy flowers without arousing suspension of cheating. It’s a cruel world. I don't think it's weird of me to be suspicious of some guy who I’d gotten high with a couple of times suddenly out the blue buys me some expensive computer speakers. I mean, what the fuck?

I didn’t think it was cynical of me to question his intention. After all, he was a drug connection who once stiffed me on twenty bucks with the drug man. It’s not like he was a Boys Scout. It put me in an awkward position. I hadn’t thought about our relationship. I couldn’t imagine why when he was out shopping and suddenly thought of me. I didn’t want that type of relationship with him. I knew if I accepted the gift it unintentionally gave him some casual entrance into my life like calling me for bail money or some terrible inconvenience. I wasn’t ready for that type of commitment. And then there was the terrorism. I felt he attacked my privacy. I felt as if he was trying to bring down my protective wall with unsolicited kindness. I felt as if he was trying to change our relationship. I just wanted to get high. It put me in an awkward position. He thought when he left the message for the gift I’d be happy or grateful. I was more pissed. It’s because when someone buys you a gift that usually mean you have to get them something. Nothing in this world is free. I needed to buy time to figure out if I wanted to be his friend or whatever. I wasn’t romantically attracted to him. I just liked the drugs. I didn’t want to hang out with him like best friends. To be honest, I kind of found him annoying but after I'd get high, it didn't. It was good drugs.

The harassment didn’t stop. Every text message he mentioned those damn speakers like a bill collector. He questioned why I hadn’t come over to his place and picked them up. He often threatened to throw them in the trash like I was renting storage from him and I needed to come get my shit. It was annoying. I mean I didn’t ask for the speakers. I didn’t ask for the nice gesture. I didn’t ask for the terrorism. I guess that’s the point.

In the end, it was obvious there was intention behind the “nice gesture.” It was too important to him. Gift giving can sometimes be like proposing marriage, you have to be 90 percent sure the person is going to accept. Otherwise, it’s just embarrassing. It’s not that I didn’t want the gift but I needed to first let him reveal himself. I knew if I just stayed quiet he would tell me everything I needed to know. He told me in the crazy seven voice messages he left on my answer machine. He told me in the confrontational text messages. I figured by not accepting the gift I'd be dodging a bullet of soon to be crazy needy bastard of a friend. I imagined your answer. I know Martha Stewart I shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. I decided in the end not to accept the speakers. I was wondering should I send a “No thank you” card. I wanted to do something nice that was watershed with “Fuck off you crazy bastard.”


Love and Kisses,

Lazy Cheap Bastard

Refugee Artist: Art by any means necessary

In New York you see them with their guitar case laid open on the concrete floor singing their hungry hearts for change and dollar bills. Some walk by and cringe in embarrassment. Some place dollar bills in their hands. Some, mostly kids, make fun or harass. It’s not an easy life. In the summer, they hang in parks selling homemade t-shirts, jewelry or paintings. Some think they are hippies. They sometimes perform Isben plays or recite Shakespeare. In Louisiana they dance to drums and perform acrobatics. It’s a hard living. I say it is art by any means necessary.

In life we are supposed to stop and smell the roses but ignore each other. On my way to an interview for a job I didn’t want, I saw an older male group singing 60s souls music. The harmony was beautiful but I was in a bitter mood. My first judgment was they were homeless or crack heads who could sing. At first, I felt a little annoyed because I judged their presence as pollution to my mundane existence. I didn’t like my life. At first judgment, I felt sorry for them, figured they couldn’t get a real job and leave decent folks alone. Yet, in my heart, I knew I needed them. I needed their sad eyes and struggled smiles to be there singing their hearts out for pennies. I needed that part in the world that went against the status quo, that part in the world that made me believe just because it didn't make a lot of money or some fat head didn't approve, it can still exist. I tipped two dollars I couldn’t afford. Some people stop and smell the roses to feel better about their life. Some give money to the homeless to better appreciate their own homes. I give to the street artists, those who I figure are refugees. I have to support the fight for freedom. This is my life.

Where I grew up was like communism China but we called it the niggard ghetto. It’s always been “art” by any means necessary. To be soulful wasn’t encouraged unless it came in capitalistic constraints. I ran away. I didn’t feel like dying in a war I didn’t support. I became a refuge artist. When I’m on the streets in my "I'm a writer" t-shirt trying to sell my comic some look at me like I lost a war or something. I just hope they support freedom.

A refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, finance, religion, nationality, artistic expression, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.

I don’t claim to be a Darfur victim, but some days it feels like it’s my life or my art.

The war with money had become an issue in my life again. I had somehow figured out a way to escape it for a year with food stamps, unemployment and selling my comic. The unemployment ran out. I didn’t recertify the food stamps because I hated feeling like a loser. I had no choice. I was going to have to find work again. I hadn’t won the war yet. I was still a refugee.

Every time I look in the “want” ads I get a headache because I don’t want anything in it. I usually feel queasy and have to go lay down for an hour or two. I used to think it was laziness. I have to force myself to scan through the job ads because bartenders and the weed man don’t like broke people.

After I send out my resume, I remember my cousin Tweety. He was one of those kids who had gone bad like dandelions in a good yard. Everyone whispered about it like his family forgot to cut their grass in the summer or didn’t put up Christmas lights. I was only eight years old. I thought Tweety was the coolest motherfucker I knew. He played basketball like a speed demon or like some twisted Salvador painting, absurdly brutal and vicious. He was very popular and all the girls liked him because he was very good looking. I remember my grandmother saying in disgust that he was full of sin. She said he sat around and worried his parents with his nonsense of wanting to be more than what he was. The odds were against Tweety. I mostly remember the disapproving tone in her voice. It was as if Tweety not wanting to scrub McDonald’s toilets or whatever job there was for a black kid growing up in the ghetto was something his parents needed to cure before something really bad happened like the cops.

It was the late 80s ghetto. The sad part, Tweety did get a full scholarship to college but his freshman year he got busted for selling drugs. He lost the scholarship and got a couple of years in prison. No more Michael Jordan dreams. Six years later when Tweety got out, I was fourteen years old. I remember him on the basketball court. He was still popular and good looking. He was still a legend in my humble ghetto. I saw him on the basketball court and he looked so free, the way he moved was like he was playing against himself, playing against his demons. Seeing my cousin Tweety on basketball court I knew in my heart that it was the only place in the world he could win. I knew if he stayed inside those parameters he would always be the hero, but the second he stepped outside the boundaries, he was just another black kid in the ghetto who dreams didn’t work out. It was that need for money, that instant gratification that caused Tweety his dream. He couldn’t sacrifice. He couldn’t starve for his art. He didn’t even know he was in a war. If only he had become a refugee. Maybe he could’ve been saved.

A friend who buys my weekly comic every week at the bar called me a starving artist. I didn’t like it because I knew what it really felt like to starve. In the ghetto we were so “po” that we couldn’t afford the last part of the word. It was the shame the food stamps. It was the constipation of the government cheese. The electricity got cut off every other month. Most of my clothes were from the Salvation Army or hand me down clothes. I remember bathing and brushing my teeth with baking soda or eating cereal with water or mixing that awful dry powder milk. Then there were days when we just ate rice with pepper because we didn’t have sugar. There were days when we just didn’t eat. I lost the use of my legs when I was eleven years old for a week because I wasn’t getting enough sodium in my diet. So I knew what it felt like to starve. I wouldn’t do it on purpose.


Yet, I knew a different type of starving artist. Art was like food for me. When I can’t express, it feels like I’m starving. When I was in ninth grade I won the U.I.L playwriting contest for my play “Rosa Parks.” The finals were going to be held at University of Texas which was an hour and half drive. I knew my grandmother wouldn’t let me go because it was after school. My school Principle told me he called her and she said I could go. I knew he was lying. I didn’t care. I wanted to perform my play. I didn’t get home until almost midnight that day. We won. I got a trophy and a certificate. I got a standing ovation. I couldn’t be more proud until I got home. The second I walked through the door my grandmother slapped me to the floor. The trophy fell and broke. It didn’t matter that I won because all she cared about was that I didn’t come home from school to do my chores. I remember after the beating nursing my bruises. I cried not because of the pain. I cried not because of the trophy being broken. I cried because it felt like my soul was being purposely murdered. There was a part of me that needed freedom and it was imprisoned. I felt life was unfair. I was finally getting three meals a day in that prison but I was starving.

So I went underground. I became a refugee. I hid. I wrote my stories at two o’clock in the morning on that back of cereal boxes or the corners of newspapers. I snuck and acted in plays. It was like this force I needed to get out of me.

But war is hard especially if it’s with your family. I got tired of having to fight or hide all the time. It started wearing on my soul. I stopped taking my art seriously. I stopped seeking the expression. It was like I died. I just didn’t want to be a burden on my family. I just didn’t want to embarrass.

I know a different type of starving. When I graduated high school and went to college, I did what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy. I got the big job in the city. I got a great apartment. I wore fancy designer clothes. I had really cool friends. I wasn’t happy. We would go to art shows or museums and I feel part of me screaming. Every time I walked into a book store I feel a part of me clawing at my beaten into submissive demeanor. I felt so cold inside. Every day I got on that elevator in Chicago to go to the 42nd floor to my cubicle, I felt like I was suffocating. I was suffocating in my Hugo boss slacks, button up shirt and that shiny red tie strangling my neck. I started to know what it really felt like to starve as artist. I spent three years in Corporate America and was skin and bones. I walked around life like I was an emaciated skeleton. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t feel the kiss of a lover. I couldn’t feel the cold Chicago wind against my face. I couldn’t feel the pleasure of an orgasm. I had all the material bullshit but couldn’t feel. I felt as if I was barely breathing. I believe it’s because some people just got to dance. Some people just got to sing. If they don’t it’s like the sun not rising. It’s just darkness.

When I walked away from “good life” no one understood it. My sister only understood that she got really cool Christmas gifts and that was ending. My friends understood I could afford the tab at the trendy restaurants and that was ending. I understand I was in a loveless marriage. I was playing straight and gay as a two dollar bill. I wanted love that made my toes curled. I was looking for love that when I went to sleep I couldn’t wait to get back to it. Real success was finding something to love and allowing it to love me back.

The day I realized I was going to be an artist, I cried. I had to accept it. I had to find a way. But it’s a war to make a living. I want the same things other people want. I want security. I want a stable home. I want to be able to afford dry cleaning again.

It’s a war to get the respect back from your family after too many years of doing what they called child’s play. It’s the reason I call myself a refugee artist. It’s like when I was back in ninth grade, how I had to find a place that would allow me to be without the persecution. I think of my cousin Tweety on the basketball court. I know the only way I can win is with the pen and paper.

And then there’s the war inside my head. I’m constantly apologizing to grandma or my family for the embarrassment because I haven’t’ made it yet. I don’t make much money. I got to supplement the income with selling comics on the streets, bars and clubs. I got to get jobs I don’t like. It’s still a refuge. I don’t want the alternative. I need to express. I am a writer. I am an artist.

Thank you for your purchase. Stop to smell the roses but don’t stop supporting art. You see me singing my heart out in the subways. You see me painting faces at carnivals. You see me dancing in the parks. You see me playing my saxophone in the rain in February. You need me. We are all in this war. Let’s be free.