FRIDAY THANKSGIVING

Big huge shout out this week to my Guardian Angel, Susie, who not only sent me a donation but a Care Package of food and treats for Polly as she often does. She sends me food and other things I need. She's the Bestest Ever. I love getting things in the mail.

You are my BFFI, "Susie"!!!!

FIRST LADY

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Presidential Candidate John Edwards, has been diagnosed with cancer. Supposedly "terminal", though you can imagine my questioning to that diagnosis since I've been living with a "terminal" illness for 25 years now.

However, to her credit, she seems to be calling in all her chips. She recently was the first Presidential Associate to attend a GLBT event where she declared she had no problem with Gay Marriage.

Then she called into Chris Matthew's program featuring She-Devil Anne Coultier and confronted her over the phone about her relentless nasty propoganda. You can hear the result here.

I'm not endorsing anyone. I'm just impressed at how quickly Ms. Edwards has grasped her quality of life. May we all be so lucky.

ROMANTICISM AND FABLE

I can easily see how so many minutes of Jesus's life have been, well, extended.

When I first moved to NYC in 1983, one of my only friends there was my friend Leon who I knew fron SF from my disco dance days. Leon was as tall as me. 6'7" and black and wore makeup and at the time ran his own male modeling agency in NYC called McGraw Models. He's the person who got me into the fashion industry and introduced me to many people that would be important to my career there.

Leon got me into all the Hot Clubs for free (until I eventually made a name for my own). We'd go to Area until 4:00 AM then walk to Paradise Garage where we'd dance until 9 or 10. Leon never had money (nor did I). Often we'd go back to his Agency, high from the night before and scrounge through the employee's desks for change to buy food. At one point. we were accosted on the street by a gang of thuga asking for our money and Leon screamed out "DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING ROCKEFELLER?" They scrambled down the street.

Once we decided to go to a movie. "The Terninator" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wondered why but Leon said it was the best movie ever. Being as this was the era before VCR, etc, we went to an old decrepit theater on 53rd Street and were 2 of the 10 people in attendance. The movie was interesting and then, in the middle, was a romantic scene beteen the two main characters (one who had returned from the future). Leon screamed out the lines in the almost empty theater "I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU SARAH. I ALWAYS HAVE". He believed it. I turned to him in astonishment and those words were etched into my heart forever.

FRIDAY THANKSGIVING

Big hippy love-ins to my dear readers Sharon and Micheal for their donations to my small little family this week. Polly licks your face, I put a strand of daisies in your hair and we all send you a big happy hug for your generosity. You have made our life easier.

xxx

SRO RERUN : FOOD

FOOD

She thought selling the house would change everything. She’d leave the wall marks from his chair, the radiator he never fixed but she mentioned every week and mostly she’d leave the grass that never got mowed poking through the leaves that never got raked. “I’ll have a real garden”, she told herself. There’ll be a fence around it to keep her in and nothing out of place.

So her new house had a back yard, an unruly mess whose sheer ugliness would force her to take action. She went to buy garden tools, unsure of what she needed but figured something with a long sharp sickle, letting her slice through bushes like a Native Guide taking explorers deep in the Amazon. She left the store with clippers instead - good, dependable, old-fashioned with wood handles. She could gently trim her way through the tangled vines. She’d watched her mother clip stray strings off her clothes. Snip. It was the sound of appearing immaculate, together and alert. She felt older and responsible when hearing it.

She finally hacked away bramble until she was near the back wall and found a large wood board on the ground, like the floor of a tree house. It was rotting down the middle with a hole in the center like a long black eye. She lifted an edge until it snapped in half and one side flipped atop the other. She found Her Well.

At first she thought it was just a hole. Maybe a bonfire pit where the former home owners, Mr. and Mrs. Oswald Sutton, danced around in nude, orgiastic frenzy, their brittle old bodies silhouetted against the fire. There were no ashes or trodden circles and as she got closer, it was deeper than she expected. Weeds plunged over the edge as if sacrificing themselves to the abyss. Farther down the sides, stones lined the walls and she realized what she’d discovered.

Where was the roof? All wells have a little roof, square plates of wood looking slightly Germanic. Where was the rope coiling perfectly around the Thing In the Middle with a wooden handle like on her clippers? Most importantly, where was the bucket? The prime player, the one we send off with best hopes and look to return with Our Reward. She pictured the Perfect Bucket rising towards her, reflecting the sky in it’s round face like an open angel while birds twittered around her head.

She cleared away more grass though she was terrified of falling into her well. Boys fall in wells. Grown women do not as much, or don’t get as much coverage. Children falling in wells is Accidental. Adult Females falling down a well means suicidal or hormonal or TV Drama. Toddlers = sympathy. Crawlers = pity. She had, after all, saved the well. Why would it harm her now? She stopped expecting it to change shape or move like objects in wizard movies. It was just There, a round hole in the ground, and she finally got close enough to look over the edge.

The afternoon light was fading but she could see the stone side gaining perspective, closing down into some Inner Space, Well Space. She threw a stone, quickly jumping away before the Well could spit it back. She heard the rock hitting rock, hitting rock, hitting rock, like the fading tick of a metronome. It was a mystery and she thought something hiding so long deserved one mystery. In the dimming light, she finally left but went back more and more.

At Her Well, she’d think about him. She’d drop her feelings one by one, listening to them click click click along the stone sides into Well Space. She stopped caring about the bucket. She wanted whatever was at the end of the tunnel to stay and absorb whatever she dropped. Here, she remembered. Outside she forgot everything, all the time. She forgot her name on a phone call with the cable woman, her pause causing her to feel like a fraud, someone who makes up names to cover deceit. Later, at Her Well, she recalled his voice, heard the words echoing up to her. She repeated them like she was speaking a Foreign Language, not knowing what they meant but hoping her effort made sense. Words like “road” and “house” were messy groups of letters needing a leap of faith to accept as things that exist.

Her daydreams fell in the well. Did she remember a Birthday Party or had her memory changed? Colors seemed brighter, conversation cheerier like a TV show she watched as a girl. Balloons, streamers, cardboard horns with mangled crepe paper fringe. She felt obliged to remember the truth but time passed and it became harder to recall Actual Words, the exact Picture on her cake. A ballerina? A bunny? She felt robbed by the replacement she’d conjured.

Once he and she were lying together on her bed reading and she stopped to watch his eyes move back and forth like a metronome in his head. The type peeled itself from the page and rushed into his eyes to deliver a clue, a secret message, a detail. In his brain they all danced around the metronome and told the story of the book. Words to symbols and symbols to sounds, born from movements of our mouths and tongues and ending in the reverberations of our eardrums.

Staring at the drive-through menu at McDonald’s, she forgot what she was doing. The pictures of the food were mutely lit, devoid of enticement, none of them offering mouth formations. Had she come to buying something without sound? She drove through the window and told the bored worker she’d changed her mind. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

Back at her house, she pored over pictures of him, took them to the Well where she lined them on the ground like pictures of hamburgers. The pictures of his face never matched those inside, they were symbols not words. She wanted words and sounds, she wanted it all. She wanted the letters in his brain to come here, to the bonfire, and dance in her head with her.

STUFF

I watched a documentary tonight called "Monterey 40" about the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 which featured the likes of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and The Mommas and The Poppas. According to the testaments of several of the participants and attendees, the crowd was high on pot and LSD. It made me feel so old.

1. Since I lived in San Francisco, I've been to the Haight/Ashbury alot. In fact, only a mere 10 years after this hippie revolution it still had the vague feel of the counterculture icon it once was. I was way young and not so attentative to the history but there was still something in the air.

2. I've taken LSD. Quite a lot, in fact. Granted, the LSD in the late 70s probably wasn't of the quality it was in 1967 but I can still relate to the experience. Before dealers started cutting LSD with speed and other drugs to cheaply increase the buzz, acid was actually a rather placid experience. It was, if not a route to God (Bible Versus connection!), it was a way of expanding one's vision outside of the rather narrow experience our puny human eyes allow us. Imagining those people in the documentary being high on acid and watching and listening to Janis Joplin makes me so so jealous. The last time I took acid was in 1990 and I hated it. It made me too cerebral and thinky and I was too involved in life to be so thinky.

3. I love Janis Joplin.

4. When I come back, I want to be a flower child walking down the street with a chain of daisys in my long flowing hair. Jesus, I'm pretty sure, would have been at the Monterey Festival laying hands on the beautiful heads around him.

SAND VS. ROCKS

I've never built a house. I wish I had. I definately have ideas about what kind of house I'd have. I'd Google how to build a house and not, per the instructions, build a house on sand.

However, Google was not an option to the people listening to Jesus. Therefore. when he suggested them not building a house on sand. they were "astounded at his teaching". Building a house on sand was apparently an option. This isn't a summer house at the beach, this is YOUR HOUSE!!

Houses need a floor, walls and a roof. What is the base of your house? What are the walls that connect your base to the roof, your dreams? What are your dreams?

I think of one as my past, one as my now and one as my future. I don't think my past was built on rock. Having AIDS in the 80s till now made the rocks look like sand. Now that the sand has solidified has made me change my house. The walls are needing to build stronger. Polly sits and watchs how I build. I take the colors of her coat and incorporate them into my roof.

LETTING GO

Julia Sweeney, the former Saturday Night Live cast member and brilliant comedianne/actress has been performing a one woman show (which is also now a book) called "Letting Go of God". Like myself, her journey chronicles her struggle with religion on many levels and her eventual resolution as to what "God" means to her. It's a thoughtful, funny, personal story of how she has come to terms with her spirituality.

Listen to parts from it here.

I've seen her perform twice and have had the pleasure of speaking to her personally on the phone. She's as witty, clever and engaging as you would expect.

Enjoy.

FRIDAY THANKSGIVING

Despite my lack of Bible Posts this week my readers have, as always, been generous with their charity. Big Friday Thanks to Larissa, Doug and Laurie. You have made my small life easier for me and Polly and your generosity shows me that maybe there is something to this whole "God" idea.

Hugs and Air Kissses to all of you - Hugh

SRO RERUN : VALENTINE

Written on Valentine's Day, 2004.

DEAR VALENTINE

So here We are, once again. Valentine’s Day, when Love is reduced to pink and red (the colors of wounds), hearts and apparently naked children holding weapons. It’s an unusual but safe way to categorize what we can’t really describe, replace what we can not or will not express with symbols we can avoid explaining.

You and I, however, are different. Our love is secret. There is apparently no place for this Love, my Love. It does not beg for court intervention nor political gain. It does not need approval from anyone.

This Love is not criticized directly but everywhere one looks are subtle offers to avoid it - Friendster, chat lines, “Reality” shows, ad campaigns. magazines. The message is clear : being alone is to be avoided, usually at all costs. You can be ignorant, you can be cynical, you can be manipulative and manipulated but whatever you do, you must surround yourself with others.

Here is where we’re different. We = I. I like being single and like being alone, in the “human” sense of course since Polly is always with me. I like having my apartment just the way I want. I like watching what I want on TV or not watching anything at all. I can watch the Simpsons three times a day and t’aint nobody’s business if I do. I can buy a giant size container of egg salad from the deli and spread it on Carr’s Wheat Crackers 24/7. I hold out a small piece for Polly on the edge of the butter knife like fine caviar and watch her delicately lean over and pluck it off the edge with the tip of her tongue.

We enjoy it, me and me and me and me. We have good times. People may view me sympathetically when I tell them I spent Saturday night home. Inside I am smiling, thinking of egg salad and the Simpsons. How Polly slept on my shoulder while I was on my computer, looking happy and perfect which is reason enough to adore her. I think about how much I’m in Love with my World and Me in it.

Skip the flowers, skip the chocolates, I’m frankly not a big sweets fan. Skip the gaudy card, if you can’t say it all the time, it probably doesn’t need to be said. Skip the misguided romanticism. All the crap about “The One”, “Forever and Ever”, “Meant to Be”. I am not a Searching Half who dreams of Something or Someone else to come along and complete me like a puzzle. An Incomplete Puzzle is just Incomplete and in itself is Something to Love.

So, I Love you. AIDS, wild eyebrow hairs, Dunhills, quirky glasses, magic, pills. Perfection. The Bomb. I wouldn’t have you any other way because this is how We are. You rock. But you already know that.

xxx

MORE YOUTUBE

I know this might seem like a Youtube Carnival here on Bible Versus this week, but did you see Fantasia on the Tony Awards or were you too busy watching "The Sopranos"? i saw both. The Sopranos had nothing on this:




Wow wow and wow. This is God and I don't give a fuck what you say. This is Spirit. You can not but be humbled, a major indicator that God is in your midst. I've already watched it 5 times.

THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES

The last video Freddy Mercury of "Queen" made before he died from AIDS in 1991:



I would love to go out with such glory and experience. Such energy. It's a Triumph of the human spirit.

Dear God -

Let this be how you see humanity.

love - hugh

TREES AND FRUIT

"Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs fron thistles?"

Once upon a time, long ago, someone told me the first people that would gravitate to you when you moved to a new place would be the bottom of the barrel. The first to cling to you would be those who are the most needy and who want to extract from you what they can.

I always kept this advice in mind and unfortunately it often proved to be true. One is vulnerable someplace new, open to any reception, but it's not you but them. They have some need you cannot fathom. it's a rough rule of life.

Then in the next verse Jesus reaffirms the concept of Act over Talk. "On that day many will say to me 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name..." Those who talk Big but do nothing are those who don't walk the walk but just talk the talk. "I love you" is talking. "I did this for your well-being" is walking.

It's hard not to hear the talk and want to believe. It's Human Nature in many ways. But Walking is something else. It takes an effort to Walk. Walk. Do. Don't just talk around those around you. In the end. talk is cheap and is spent easily.

STUFF

I've gotten a coulple of enquiries about my recents posts. To clarify :

No, they are not about the Bible. They are about me. I wanted an opportunity to express where I'm coming from in terms of my posting. I'm not your typical "Bible Poster". I love Amy Winehouse. I love silly cat LOLs. I am a square peg in a round hole. That's me.

But hopefully that gives you a better idea of where this blog comes from. It's not based on some pre-conceived idea of who reads the Bible. It comes from someplace else, a place where viewpoints of this work of art called the Bible don't usually come from. It's like going to a lecture and knowing more about the background of the speaker.

So I have no PHD in Bible Studies. I have no Seminary Training (hee hee - semen). All I have is a life of expreriences outside of yours and a curiousity about what makes people tick. That's all I got.

FRIDAY THANKSGIVING

Big hugs and fingersnaps to my sassy big-haired donators Charles and Janis. Your support is greatly appreciated and you could be my back-up singers anytime.

xxx - hugh

SKY

From I can has cheezburger

SRO RERUN : LEAPING BUILDINGS

LEAPING BUILDINGS

I want to be a Superhero.

Naturally, I’ll have a Cape. The rare opportunity to wear something goofy without looking inappropriate will not be missed. Tights, masks - we see those all the time. So Last Issue. But a Cape, that’s an outfit. Whenever and wherever I leave, my Cape will flow gracefully behind me like a brief reminder of where I was.

These will be my SuperPowers:

1. I will be able to repair my car with my SuperMechanicBeam. Hands on hips, Cape fluttering patriotically behind me, the SMB will envelop my car and that weird knock will vanish. It ‘s imperative I have a SuperCar to get to my duties and the Dog Park. Humming smoothly down the road, Polly and I proudly posing in the gleaming windows, we’ll pass Citizens asking “Who was that?” Not now! On a Mission! Good ta see ya!

2. I won’t be able to fly but I will hover. Hovering seems vastly underrated for Superheros but that will change. Hovering will be the New SuperPower Black. No bumps to worry about, no mud, no wet grass. I’ll serenely float above the Earth while Polly crisscrosses beneath me, demonstrating my talent like a Magician’s Assistant with a large hoop. I’ll call her and she’ll jump into my arms to hover with me, both of us able to better appreciate the sky due to our new advantage.

3. I will not have to trim my nails. This isn’t important other than the fact I hate doing it. Blech. You do it and then they grow right back! Who thought of that? Perhaps the clippings will have some SuperUse to be determined at a later time.

4. My SuperHands will ooze with patience, compassion, relief, space and yes, Hula Boola. Full strength, all the time. I’ll gently touch someone’s arm or shoulder and they’ll instantly be full of my world and I will see theirs. I’ll leave behind a Band-Aid featuring my cartoon likeness so that even after I’m gone, they’ll have a memento of our meeting.

Of course, I’ll need a SuperName. Buzz Lightloafer. Tall Guy. The Funster. Hula Boola Man. The Hughminator. Hughman.

It’s a good gig for at least twenty years, after all I am only human. One day I’ll pick up the Cape from it’s shelf and feel it’s warmth like a blanket left in the sun or a cotton shirt fresh from the dryer. This time, my SuperHands will not release but absorb all the light and wonder. Polly will rest beside me like she always does while we fondly recall our SuperBehaviour. Thinking about what we have accomplished makes us both very happy.

AIMLESS

"And I said "no, no, no..."

This has been my earworm all day since my post yesterday. It's much better than my earworm last week which was "Jesus loves me this I know...". Having Amy Winehouse's song as an earworm gives you a wiggle in your walk. I smoke my beloved Dunhill's with more authority. It gives me a strange sense of purpose. I toss my imaginary hair over my shoulder and push up my non-existant beehive. I wish I could wear Cleopatra eyeliner just to show how cool I imagine I am. Once was.

Oddly enough, I think of Bible Versus and imagine Jesus walking behind me, smiling and snapping his fingers. He would be proud of someone who flaunts the rules and acts like they don't care about the world's "so-called" beliefs. I have this faith that Christ would embrace the Outsiders. Call me crazy, but it's a faith that I, as an outsider, long to have.

THE GOLDEN RULE

"In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets."

We all know this phrase. It's seen as a cornerstone of the Bible. That's why it's not the Silver Rule or the Bronze Rule. It's the Golden Rule.

Yet I often think the most important word of this phrase is underplayed. That word is "do". Not "think about others" or "hope about others". Do implies action. Make some physical effort. Fortunately this covers alot. Ask someone how they are. I look at the waitresses at my Breakfast Place every morning and find something to compliment them on and comment. "Your hair is so cute!" I'm not lying. Donate some time to charity. Donate to a charity. Make a cassarole for someone who needs food. Pick up change for someone who drops it. Your thoughts, however grand they may be, are nothing without action.

We may persevere in a spiritual realm, and I think we do. However here, on this plain, we exist in a physical world and in this world results are shown by making "things" - ephemeral as they are - move.

Do something. Just do it. It's a law of not only "God" but of our Universe. What makes the Earth and it's particles move is Doing. THAT'S a Golden Rule I can agree on.

BETTY WINEHOUSE

This may be my female alter ego. How much do I love this? The hair. The makeup. The back-up singers in suits and ties. I would have my disciples dress like this all the time. This is almost how I picture "Betty". Maybe not so trashy but def. with the attitude.



"Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal."

- Diana Vreeland

No, no, no.

JUDGEMENT, PEARLS, KNOCK

The chapter about judging others is interesting to me as a gay man because of the number of people who are so ready to judge me. Ted Haggard, for example. The hard turgid log in his eye didn't seem to exempt him from declaiming who I am. I've done a lot of stuff in my life, stuff that might make you blush and turn away (nothing violent or evil), so whenever I hear of another's adventures I'm not one to make a moral assessment. Experience is part of the human adventure and judgement is as well.

I love the infamous phrase "do not throw pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you". There's a famous quote of someone saying before Dorothy Parker as both women approached a door and trying to go first, "Pearls before swine". Ms Parker replied aptly "Age before beauty". (Update : My telling of this story was incorrect. Kind commentor David Goldfarb says - 'Dorothy Parker is spinning in her grave. It was the other woman who said, "Age before beauty" -- i.e., saying that Parker was old and ugly, while she was young and beautiful. And Dorothy cut her dead with, "Pearls before swine". Thanks David!)

Finally, we are told by Jesus to "knock, and the door will be opened to you". Knock. Find out more of the other person's story. There is often an explanation we don't know. If someone is rude to you, ask them what is happening in their life. It's often that easy. Expand your consciousness outside of your world. There is so much happening out there and so little of it has to do with you. Find out so that you can expand your ability to knock and see what's really the truth. It will probably shock you. You could use a good shock.

STUFF

I watched the movie "Pan's Labyrinth" today. It's a pretty thick movie meaning it's not something you skim over and dismiss. Since I'm in BIBLE VERSUS mode, I found it interesting how people (in this case a young girl) depend on fantasy and folklore to get them through hard times. Humans seem to have a penchant for creating an alternative reality to help them escape their dreary days. Does this explain religion? I'm not one to guess. But fairytales and legends are reliable escapes.

In other news, how is it that when you are younger some music captures your mind and seems to encapsulate an era? When you get older, however, not so much. When "The Sundays" came out in 1993 (?) it was ALL about them. 24/7. I was a "Sundays" boy. The other day I heard the group "Blonde Redheads" who are in some ways similar and I was like "Eh... not so much". Here's a vid of the "Blonde Redheads" :



Am I jaded? Spoiled? Have I lost (shivers all around) the ability to appreciate Music? (NOTE TO UNIVERSE : I LOVE AMY WINEHOUSE!! REALLY!) Oh God, I just feel so old. Maybe 33 was the perfect age to go.

SRO RERUN : ADORE

FRIDAY THANKSGIVING

Again, I am humbled and so grateful for those of you who were able to donate to Bible Versus this past week! You have helped make one kooky man and his precious pup happy and fed.

Carole
Albert
Cynthia
Jessica

You ALL ROCK!!!!

xxxx