1.
Mark Carson was a black man and a gay man. He did not have the luxury of invisibility.
When he was shot in the head yesterday, he was already walking away from the man with a gun.
He was killed moments from where Joe and I lived on 13th Street in the West Village, NYC.
He went down fast.
This story is peculiarly American. It includes race, guns and queers.
The narrative is so familiar I am no longer shocked.
In London a white queer couple are walking home arm in arm. They are beaten to the ground.
We can kid ourselves that our ‘visibility’ has somehow made things better, that Glee and Will and Grace have improved LGBTQ functionality but frankly… that’s the lie we tell ourselves to get by.
To walk the streets.
Holding my lovers hand in the street is still an act of rebellion.
2.
The rate of HIV infection is still epidemic, around 45-50,000 new cases every year, 60% of those are gay or bisexual men.
AIDS education has not served to change the attitude in the general GBTQ population to bring those numbers down.
That is the cold hard truth.
No use dragging in references to children in Africa. The causes are preventable here amongst Americans.
The immune defense systems of many people are compromised and therefore vulnerable to deadly viruses such as the new strain of meningitis.
I fully support my GBTQ community, but I must also defend and uphold the bare truth: people in America want what they want when they want it.
They don’t care to understand that they are living off the principal instead of the interest.
3.
When Jake and I were in Paris we sat on the Terrace of the Hotel Mama Shelter. We were dining, holding hands and kissing.
During a tumultuous and difficult relationship it was a moment of tender kindness.
From a window high above where we were lounging a man called out: “Pede!”
Jake didn’t speak French. He, thankfully, did not understand that we were being insulted. “Faggot!”
I expected something to be thrown. A shot to ring out. My life felt threatened.
I wrapped my arms protectively around him. Just in case. I loved him so.
If you are queer. You know what I am talking about.
If you are black, a muslim… anything other than a straight white male. You know what I am talking about.
You know that feeling very well.
4.
They want to march the street tonight. They want to hold a vigil for Mark Carson. They want to fight back. But, what exactly are you fighting when you fight back?
The young men who want to hurt us, to kill us… are just doing what they understand: they are identifying the enemy and bringing it down.
To some they are patriots.
They are heroes from another age.
They do not understand our rarefied world because we have not done enough to explain it to them.
What do they know about us? We may seem like a grandiose secret society… like the Scientologists or The Masonic Order and like any other secret society… we pose a threat.
We have done nothing to make our position clear except demand to oppress by joining historically oppressive institutions: the military and marriage.
They may have every good reason to hate us because they think we have everything and they have nothing.
They think we are rich, successful, they think we are celebrities… or connected to celebrity.
In this TV Quick world they see us living a dream. Why? Because we have sold them this in an attempt to seem ‘normal’.
5.
Dinner at Nobu. What a mess. Had to concentrate solely on my dining companion and not get side tracked by huge black eyebrows drawn onto Botox faces, short men with pony tails and overly developed biceps.
The creamy snow crab was delicious.
The crowd was not.
6.
My friend Benoit Denizet-Lewis has brought down Abercrombie and Fitch… a gay empire.
The morbidly obese, trapped in their mid west homes, are lifting their fat fingers and tapping one key at a time… declaring their outrage.
But, the rest of you… the gays… Mike Jeffries is gay… what did you expect?
Jeffries made a fortune from Bruce Weber’s homoerotic (bordering on pedophilia) A&F ad campaigns and the gays kept their mouths firmly shut.
What did you think that Weimar Nazi imagery was all about?
Did you see those highly collectible A&F catalogues now owned by all my gay friends?
Who complained that there were no fat models, no wheelchair bound kids frolicking in Bear Pond?
Now that Mike Jeffries is old, his face scarred with reconstructive surgery his very common gay obsession with youth and beauty is suddenly in bad taste?
HUH?
Perhaps fat people should stop eating if they want to wear hideous A&F clothing.
As for the guy who gave the stuff to homeless people. WTF? Ha Ha Ha. Not funny or clever or LIBERAL.
7.
Why isn’t the LIBERACE movie being distributed in the USA?
Why can you see this movie in European cinemas and not here?
I am told that very powerful gays here in Hollywood scuppered it.
It was they who described it as ‘too gay’ (camp) and inappropriate for audiences in the USA who might think we were all like Liberace.
In this ghastly straight acting world… we don’t want straight people to get the wrong idea.
God forbid… sportsman might not want to come out of the closet and be heroes.
7.
Today, at Gjelina, we sat next to 3 good-looking, rich, straight Russian boys on vacation from Moscow.
We charmed them. They thought I was so funny and sweet.
As we left I drained the smile off my face. I touched one of them gently on the shoulder.
I said very seriously, “When you go home can you tell your President to stop killing the gays.”
They laughed. They thought I was joking. After all, I had three beautiful women friends for lunch.
“No, I mean it… it’s really got to stop and it’s up to you.”
They looked foolish and embarrassed and that was good because the last thing you need when you are a rich, white Russian on vacation in LA are liberals making fun of your country… your government and you.
Most gays wouldn’t have bothered. But that’s the way you change the world.
Let them know it’s not OK.
8.
The 14-year-old son of state Sen. Brian Hatfield has been charged with four counts of first-degree child rape and four counts of first-degree child molestation in Lewis County.
The boy is accused of assaulting an 11-year-old boy from November 2012 until Feb. 14 of this year, when the younger boy’s mother interrupted an incident.
According to the police report, the mother informed detectives Hatfield told her on several occasions that he was attempting to ‘enter his son into therapy’ and would also be contacting authorities in Lewis County.
The mother stated that she knows that this has ‘not occurred’.
Neither parent called authorities at that time of the alleged incident and the mother said she had not ‘witnessed any physical contact’ between the boys.
Her son informed her some contact had occurred, but the boy later told detectives he didn’t reveal the full extent of the ‘abuse’ at that time.
The two boys had no further contact after the February incident.
Was this the love affair I remember when I was 11?
Is this pubescent messing around or… rape?
Homo sex demonized by frightened parents?
There’s something so wrong about this story and it’s not the sex.
8.
Marriage equality would not have saved Mark Carson’s short life.
The cloak of equality he may have worn later on in life was not his to wear.
Joining the army may have paid for his education… but would not have saved his life.
Marriage equality would not get him to the hospital in time. It would not have paid the hospital bills if he had lived.
Marriage equality would not have stopped the deathly glances of those who disapprove or those who thought he might rob them because he was black.
I am praying that Mark Carson took the bullet intended for this old faggot.
Mark… I shed a tear for you today.
