Weekend Beats

Joe Goddard (of Hot Chip fame) and London based chanteuse, Valentia, have joined forces to craft this beautiful and haunting little dance number. The lyrics have an almost formal quality, as if the singer is challenging "Gabriel" to a duel, or laying a curse on him... or maybe i just need coffee...

I've been bouncing around to it all weekend. Enjoy!

to September 11th

Today is the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, and the internets are awash with "How has 9/11 changed America," & "Where were you when..?," stories. As to the second, i watched the Twin Towers fall through the haze of a whiskey hangover while i sat cross-legged on my living room floor. A good friend of mine had called to rouse me from bed with a near hysterical "We've been bombed! Those bastards attacked us." I'm not sure who she thought attacked us (i never did think to ask her), and it wasn't bombs they hit us with, but our own airplanes. But those details were almost irrelevant as i sat there this too-big pajama bottoms with tears streaming down my cheeks.

As to how the attacks have changed us? It hasn't been for the better: The fall of the Twin Towers wounded us, and made us a people afraid of the world beyond our borders. The obscene amount of blood and treasure that has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan is staggering. We have created elaborate rituals to create the illusion of security, but don't actually make people any safer. And a huge Homeland Security apparatus that is unmanageable and who's ballooning costs simply can't be objectively justified. And all the while our leaders drape themselves in the American flag and tell us that this war against 'terror' (as if we were making war on the Boogie-man and his allies, the Monsters Under The Bed.) is unending.

 We aren't stronger, or freer, or safer (despite what some would have you believe) than we were before the attacks. We are manifestly none of those things. But the thing that strikes me most of all as i look back on the last ten years is the complete lack of vision on the parts of our political class. On September 12th George W. Bush squandered the opportunity to unify not just the people of the United States, but the whole world. He could have rallied the American people to new era of civil service and self-sacrifice. He could have stood behind that podium and said "We have to go to Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban, and afterwords we are going to build a proper nation there so this never happens again. Go out there and join the military or join the peace corps." Instead he told us to go shopping.

It wasn't just domestically where we dropped the ball. A crisis is also an opportunity, and Dubya had the opportunity to clean house in the Middle East. He could have not only brought Afghanistan out of the Dark Ages, and perhaps brought Iran into the American Hegemony (if Nixon can go to Beijing, Bush could have gone to Tehran). But most importantly the immediate aftermath of Sept 11th was the perfect moment for Bush to put real pressure on the Palestinians and Israelis to settle their borders and create a lasting peace.

I know, I know. Peace in the Middle East? Maybe I'm a dreamer, but he could have done more. Obama is no better. The economic melt-down was an opportunity to right our economy and revitalize the middle class.  He opted to put band-aides on the healthcare system.  These last ten years have been the very definition of extraordinary times, and our current political leaders aren't adequate to the task. We are a great people, and we can sense that greatness slipping away. But it doesn't have to. If we want to make America great again we need leadership big ideas and the courage and vision to make them a reality. That's not asking for too much, is it?

To The Debt Deal and American Jobs

The Debt Crisis has been resolved (though not before the manufactured melodrama was able to decrease the value of US debt) and now the Obama says he is planning a 'pivot to jobs.' Lets leave aside for the moment that the president pivots to jobs so often he must be doing pirouettes in the Oval Office. Instead lets focus on the kinds of jobs the president plans to create. What kind of jobs could the president create? If he really wanted to i'm sure he could resurrect the WPA and start churning out high speed rail lines and plays about how awesome america is, which would be awesome. This nation needs renewed infrastructure, and people need employment. Of course President Obama would never do anything this bold, when he talks about job creation all he's really talking about is tinkering with the tax codes and offering subsides for solar panels (i'm guessing.) But even if he did bring back the WPA, eventually all the bridges and parks would get built and then what? I don't believe that any amount of works projects or tax cuts will bring back the long term middle class jobs that the United States has been hemorrhaging since the 90s.

Republicans have cleverly re-branded rich people as "job creators," but "Creating Jobs" does not automatically mean creating the middle class jobs that are the ballast of this nation, and the engine of true economic growth.  Dan Carlin has a great podcast about jobs and the middle class where he quotes Henry Ford. When asked why he paid his workers such a high wage he replied, "so they can afford to buy my automobiles," and that right there is the key to maintaining our national power and prestige. The wealthy used to understand that it was in their best interest to maintain a thriving middle class, who could provide both the talent pool for creating first rate goods and services, and a market for their consumption.

But with globalization today's super rich have become divested from the American system. The fate of the huge multinationals in no longer tied to that of the American worker. Indians and Chinese workers are as well educated (mostly in American schools) and are willing to work for far less. Growing middle classes in Asia and Latin America means US and European markets are no longer the only place for these corporations to hock their wares. But if we can find a way to once again marry their fortunes to those of the United States we will ensure our continued greatness for 100 generations.

Bug Chaser: Coming Soon

to Grief

I wasn't expecting to find Grief yesterday; but when i logged on to the internet she was there waiting. My Facebook, Twitter, and G+ feeds were already awash in the stories of madness descended on a land of peace and order, and of a young woman dead before her time, her potential never to be fulfilled.

I spent the morning perusing stories about Amy Winehouse concerts and watching videos of live her performances, and to a lesser extent reading anecdotes about trips to Oslo and participating in conversations about the Nature of Evil. It was a somber morning, bittersweet. The joy of remembering good times gone by, and the ache of knowing that for some there will be no more times, good or bad. It was a sad morning, but the comfort of a Grief shared bouyed me up. And I wondered at the power of the Internet to unify.

But this was not to last. By the late morning/early afternoon the inevitable backlash had set in and folks all over the web were chastising others for their displays of sorrow for the passing of Ms. Winehouse. The Backlashers seemed to fall into three camps.

1: "She wasn't that great./She only made one album."

Which i'll deal with first because it is the line of reasoning that makes me the most uncomfortable. Are only the very talented or the very prolific worthy of our tears? Even if she she only made one album, even if she only had one song and she only sang it one time; if there was a moment where she impacted someone and made them feel understood and connected even for an instant, she is deserving of that person's mourning.

(and for the record, she made two albums.)


2: "Why are you wasting your grief on Amy Winehouse when she brought this upon herself?"


There is a lot of anger in this question, and I get it. She had so much talent, so much potential and she pissed it away. She could have stopped, pulled back from the abyss, but she chose to keep going. I don't know why she couldn't get her shit together. She had some pain she was trying to numb, or some hole she was trying to fill, or maybe she just loved to get effing wasted. I don't know. She's not the first star to do this to herself, she wont be the last. But the knowledge that there is no one to blame but her for her own death doesn't make it any less sad. What if it wasn't a drug overdose, but a suicide? Or what if she was mountain climbing and got her arm trapped under a bolder, but she didn't have the will to cut off her own arm to escape? Does weakness make you unworthy of grief?




3: "Why you wasting your grief on Amy Winehouse when you should be spending it on Norway?"


With the implication that the Norwegian tragedies vastly outweigh the death of one drugged out pop star and any sorrow shown on her behalf is a sign of cultural bankruptcy. This is the line of reasoning that makes the most sense on the surface. It seems common sense that many deaths are a greater tragedy than one death, that capricious murder is more horrific than self destruction. And as an abstract that logic is unassailable. But grief isn't about logic, and it can't be reduced to math. If my mom died the same day a meteor fell from the sky and made a crater out of New York City I would not shed a single tear for the citizens of the Big Apple. It's not as though the people who mourn the passing of Ms. Winehouse don't care about the events in Norway. Of course they care. We know, maybe more acutely than the peoples of any other nation, what it's like to see our children slain by madmen wielding guns. But it is somehow easier to process the loss of an artist who work moved you  (a person one might feel a very tangible connection with, despite not knowing them), it's more personal than it is the death of many strangers living in country you've probably never given much thought to.

But ultimately none of the above arguments i've laid out above really mater. Because when you get right down to it, a person's grief is their own, to feel and to express. And it is the height of unbelievable arrogance to presume to chastise another human being for feeling the feelings they feel.

Amy Winehouse, RIP

The infinitely talented and troubled songstress is dead at 27.

Amy, you will be missed.

Commissioner Anna Conda

A few weeks ago i had the opportunity to speak before the Rules Committee (about an hour and 10 minutes in) of the Board of Supervisors in favor of Anna Conda's bid for a spot on the Entertainment Commission (the body in charge of regulating and promoting Entertainment is San Francisco)

(as you can tell from my voice, i'm insanely nervous)

I'm happy to report that yesterday the Board chose Anna over D. Gill Sperlein (the moderate choice) and outgoing commissioner Jim Meko (who can be charitably described as 'cranky'). This was not a choice without controversy. The Seat in question is the 'community/neighborhood' seat, and there are some who feel that Anna, being a drag queen, would be "too close to Entertainment" (whatever that means) to effectively fulfill  that role. But as i said before the Rules Committee; The Anna Conda i know is a tireless community advocate and consensus builder, and i believe she will be a valuable addition to the Commission.

Bren-DUH Palmer

Last night was Tori Amos vs. PJ Harvey at Cocktailgate, and i performed. That's right, it was my drag debut. I performed PJ Harvey's 'Rid of Me,' as a bound and blindfolded Laura Palmer begging my abuser to come back and abuse me more.

It was so much fun, but so much work, and i couldn't hang all night. I ended up washing her off in the lady's room at Honey.

to Civic Engagement

(Squirrel in repose, Dolores Park)

I'm getting older. I don't say that because almost two weeks after Pride i'm still shuffling around my house like a member of AARP, or because increasingly waking up at seven sounds like a lot more fun than falling asleep at seven. No. I know i'm getting older because unexpectedly i find myself getting my Civic Engagement on.

Civic Engagement is a strange creature, strange to me any way. It's not the same thing as Politics; a rallying of people to your cause, building alliances with rhetoric and charisma until it all comes to a head in a final contest of words and ideals. I get politics. Civic Engagement on the other hand isn't really about teams, or ideals, or rhetoric. Civic Engagement is all about getting all of your neighbors together in one room to agree on one thing, in comparison Politics is very straight forward.

I got pulled into this strange and terrifying land by the looming  Dolores Park Renovation. You have to understand, Dolores Park is like a second home to me; you'll find my friends and i there on any sunny day that i'm not forced to toil away in salt-mine somewhere. And when it was decided the park was getting renovated (to the tune of 7.9 million dollars) my buddy Squirrel and i realized if someone was going to look after our interests, it was going to have to be us. So for two months in a row now we have trekked down to the cafeteria at Mission High to do our part in overseeing a project we both believe in passionately.

And strangely enough, it's kind of awesome. First of all, there are snacks and coffee (they don't tell you that in civics class). Second, the people who show up for these meetings care about the park. While they might use it in different ways than i do, or have a different vision for the Park's future, they love it just as much as i do. Third, i'm meeting people i would rarely encounter in my day to day life; soccer moms, grandfathers, podiatrists, mimes (all my years throwing parties, and i have never met a mime until now. i think that's hilarious).

But it's also kind of excruciating. The constant struggle of trying to achieve consensus will ensure that very little changes. There will be better irrigation, and better lighting, but beyond that...

Great works of art can never be created by committee.

Summer; Welcome Home

"In summer, the song sings itself." ~William Carlos Williams

The days have grown long, and the nights kissed by gentle mists. Our days are spent basking in Dolores Park or playing where the sky meets the shore meets the sea, and our nights are filled with laughter and love. The there is only one possible explanation, Summer has returned to San Francisco. It seems like years have passed since Summer last stalked the streets of Our Fair City, and the Bright Young Gentleman's Adventuring Society would like to cordially invite you to a welcome home celebration for everybody's favorite season.

Resident DJ Taco Tuesday
&
Our Esteemed Guest DJ Sidekick (Beat Pig)

Will be coaxing you on to the dance floor with their sultry beats

Manicured MC Brenden Shucart

will oversee the competition to find the evenings Dirtiest Gentleman

While those Dapper Dandies

Kevin Cheeseman 
Charles Hemphill
&
Danimal Oh,

charm your pants off!

Graphic Design by noted carnal currator...

Stephen Quinones

Flier Image created for the BYGAS by Artistic Impresario

Felix d'Eon (felixdeon.com)