So reality cannot destroy you

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."

— Ray Bradbury (b. 1920), novelist and visionary.

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Such people rarely read

"One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read."

— John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006), economist and author.

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Independence

[Image © AMERICAblog.]

The last page of the first draft.

"Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It's one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period."

— Nicholas Sparks (b. 1965), author.

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Weeds

Yesterday was my 14th anniversary in my current apartment. Fourteen years in a bachelor apartment with a separate kitchen and a small walk-in closet. I love my neighborhood in West Hollywood, and the apartment managers are great. Most of the neighbors are quiet and keep to themselves. It's a nice little building on a quiet little street.

But at the same time it's kind of hit me that I've spent 14 years staring out my window at a stucco wall. I have no cross-ventilation or direct sunlight, and the entire building has to share just two washer/dryers. These are not serious problems, god knows. I'm not complaining. Stuff gets fixed when you ask and I have a parking spot.

But this was supposed to be a stop-gap place, a temporary solution. My previous apartment was a one-bedroom with an air conditioner I never used because it faced a small, lush green park in Hollywood — I had my own natural air-conditioning system. I remember the very day I moved in; this was supposed to be temporary. It's dizzying how 14 years crackle past in a trice.

Oh, and Jesus, the best part is that my apartment is rent-controlled. West Hollywood has essentially eliminated rent control nowadays and my rent now regularly goes up about $50 or $60 bucks a year — the maximum amount allowed by law — but they can't raise it drastically until I move out. I probably could not afford to live in this neighborhood otherwise, given the current $tate of financial affair$ for this freelance writer.

So, yeah, I'm not complaining. But I am thinking a lot these days about home in the abstract sense and how it reflects my current state of mind. Is there a part of me that holds onto a one-room place with no direct sunlight out of fear that I couldn't possibly find anything comparable — or better? Perhaps so. And if it's there, manifesting itself as a particularly deep-rooted and unobtrusive fear of loss of living space — and perhaps therefore a loss of creative freedom and artistic expression — where else has this damned weed sprouted?

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More admirable for skill than virtue

"Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue."

— Robert Wright (b. 1957), journalist and science writer.

What does that say about us?

"If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?"

— Lois McMaster Bujold (b. 1949), writer.

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Stand up

"A man can't ride on your back unless it's bent."

— Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), activist.

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Stupid

"Stupidity gets up early."

— Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian author and satirist.

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Second-class citizens

"The younger gay men — and scattered women — who acted up at the Stonewall on those early summer nights in 1969 had little in common with their contemporaries in the front-page political movements of the time. They often lived on the streets, having been thrown out of their blue-collar homes by their families before they finished high school. They migrated to the Village because they’d heard it was one American neighborhood where it was safe to be who they were.

Stonewall 'wasn’t a 1960s student riot,' wrote one of them, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, in a poignant handwritten flier on display at the New York Public Library in the exhibition '1969: The Year of Gay Liberation.' They had 'no nice dorms for sleeping,' 'no school cafeteria for certain food' and 'no affluent parents' to send checks. They had no powerful allies of any kind, no rights, no future. But they were brave. They risked their necks to prove, as Lanigan-Schmidt put it, that 'the mystery of history' could happen 'in the least likely of places.'

[...]

"No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness. The Justice Department brief defending DOMA has spoken louder for this president than any of his own words on the subject. [Jennifer Chrisler of the Family Equality Council] noted that he has given major speeches on race, on abortion and to the Muslim world. 'People are waiting for that passionate speech from him on equal rights,' she said, 'and the time is now.'

"Action would be even better. It’s a press cliché that 'gay supporters' are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren't just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places."

— Op-ed columnist Frank Rich, "40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans" (NYT, June 28, 2009)

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Never Forget: Stonewall at 40

Forty years ago this weekend, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, a group of gay men, drag queens and other patrons of the Stonewall Inn, fed up with systematic police harassment, fought back. The Stonewall Riots over the next several days birthed the modern gay rights movement.

You can draw a direct line between my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and straight allies, sparking the Stonewall Riots in 1969 and the Prop. 8 protests in November 2008 and this spring when thousands of us stormed down Sunset Boulevard and shut down Hollywood Boulevard and wreathed the Mormon Temple with rage. We were fed up then and we're fed up now.

CLICK HERE to read about Stonewall on Wikipedia.

CLICK HERE for some riveting details contained in newly released police reports filed the events unfolded.

The photo seen here — credited to photographer Joseph Ambrosini — is one of the few known existing photos depicting the riots. It was taken during the first night of the rebellion as police sought and failed to disperse the angry demonstrators.

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