Dude, Where's My Army?

Apparently, NATO was smoking some pretty powerful shit when they came up with the idea for an international reactionary military force. The buzz wore out Thursday, and the idea didn't seem so great...

NATO retreats from establishment of rapid-reaction force - International Herald Tribune: "BERLIN: NATO is backing away from establishing a combat force that would be capable of moving rapidly into conflict areas because it lacks the money, the troops and the equipment, officials said Thursday."

"Oh shit, dude... We can't build an army! We don't have any guns or stuff..."

A circuit board and battery is not a "Fake Bomb"

Why is the mainstream media automatically labeling this poor girl as having a "fake bomb strapped to her chest?" She had a T-shirt on with a circuit board and a few LED lights as decoration. Way to label her as a terrorist right off the bat and ruin her life.

Here's the most fair article I've seen about this.

So again in Boston, the authorities are causing disturbances over a few blinking lights. This was hardly a hoax. This is simply a T-shirt with goofy stuff on it. Why are authorities and media so stupid to automatically equate "circuit board" with "bomb?" I'm sitting in an average room right now that probably has about nine items that use circuit boards. Seven of those have LED lights. None of them are bombs.

Check her out, sure. Maybe even stop her at gunpoint to investigate a threat. But when it's obvious that she meant no harm or hoax, why charge her? Why terrorize her, the airport, and the nation?

"This is a serious offense. We take it very seriously," state police major Scott Pare said.  What offense? She is being charged with disorderly conduct and having a hoax device. Where is the disorderly conduct? She went to the airport with an artistic T-shirt on and asked a question.

If reports are true, she never claimed it was a bomb. She wasn't trying to get attention or make a statement or create performance art. She only wanted to get some technology-related attention on career day, so she wore a tech-related t-shirt. This wasn't related to the airport. She didn't try to sneak anything through security screening. There was no threatening notice on the shirt - in fact the openly-displayed shirt self-identified as being school oriented. The only reason she is being charged is because an airport employee who has seen too many "Lethal Weapon" movies was ignorant enough to assume anything that blinks is a bomb.

This is part of government's continued "assault on reason" as Al Gore might say.

We've passed oppression down so that it not only comes from from the president denigrating whole classes of people to win votes (not to mention torture and secret imprisonment), but also the justice department rigging the vote, political advance men denying the right to assemble, security guards roaming publicly owned city streets forbidding first amendment rights (see: photography in Silver Spring), health care tied to corporate servitude, and the U.S. Senate voting to condemn free speech.

Now that freedom depends on the intelligence of an airport employee or the patience of a few taser-happy university rent-a-cops at a political discussion, we're fucked.

No Tips for Racist Cabbies

Dear cab driver from last night,

Last night on my way home from the DC Shorts VIP Reception, I hopped in your cab and stated my destination and you took off, no questions asked. Thanks! But I had a problem with you about two blocks later when you picked up a young black man along the way (in DC, cab drivers can pick up additional fares).

After he told you his destination, you thought about it, and made sure to ask him if he knew it would be twelve dollars. Why didn't you tell me my fare when I sat down? Is it because I'm white you expect me to pay, but because he was black you had to double-check him first? It wasn't like he was expecting a wild $100 fare; his was only a couple bucks more than my $9 fare. That's bullshit, man.

It just makes me mad and sad, man. Why did you do that to him? Why did you remind him that you don't trust him? Why treat your customer like a criminal? It just makes you look like a racist fool.

Though I suppose it's a step up from leaving him on the street corner waiting, it's still bullshit. That's why I asked you why didn't tell me my fare, and that's why you didn't get a tip.  I don't tip racist or corrupt cabbies.

Will Larry Craig's tap dance bring tearoom cruising back in style?

Will Larry Craig's tap dance bring tearoom cruising back in style?

Decades ago, before gay men began to come out, urinals were designed with no dividers between them. Men weren't afraid of other men checking out their stuff, I guess. But why? Is it because there was no out gay population, so hetero men were oblivious to male desire for dick?  Is it because men were more likely back then to let another man jerk or suck him, as long as they didn't talk about it?

Before you dismiss that as a preposterous position, know that every day in America there are plenty of otherwise straight men out there who will get together with another guy for dick pleasure. Many years ago I had a straight boss who, from behind his office desk with an open fly, outright asked me to be his cocksucker. He hired me because he knew I was gay and was hoping for that kind of arrangement. "Gay men are just really the best at it," he told me. I turned him down, but we were still buddies.

Even Homer Simpson declared his appreciation for the glory hole, a hole found in a wall between two stalls or booths through which you pass your member for service. In cruisy places like parks or restrooms or bookstores, married men (who are not gay and have never been gay) arrive to get a little help from another guy. Quick and simple, one man standing and another on his knees, pleasure is given to another through the glorification of the man's penis - mankind's most celebrated yet feared body part. After an orgasm, a quick zip, and a couple of "thank yous" later, both men are back on the street, ignorant of one another and the world clueless about what just happened.

I think otherwise straight and married men prefer these places to cruising online, because there is no data trail. Online guys want a "pic." Sending a .jpg of your official Senate portrait to an anonymous Craigslist e-mail forwarder will get you a post on Blogactive for sure. And e-mails never die.

Public restrooms with sex are called tearooms, short for "toilet rooms." They've been around probably as long as men have been sharing toilets. They were easier to find until just about the time that gay awareness took hold and dividers began appearing between urinals. They were found by word of mouth, at least until cruisingforsex.com began listing places over ten years ago.

Every man who has cruised in a tearoom has said to himself, "Well I'm not doing anything overt. I'm just waiting here in a stall... occasionally tapping my foot. If a gay guy sees it and makes a return gesture, I've found someone who is up for some cock play. If a straight guy sees it, well, I'm just slowly tapping my foot. If a cop sees it, well how can he prove anything? I'm only tapping my foot." And so Larry Craig finds himself in the loudest tearoom bust in history, testing every cruiser's fantasy defense, the "Whatchu talkin' 'bout?" defense.

For Sen. Craig, this is plan "B." Following direction from his arresting officer, the senator first tried to make it go away like many before him by pleading and hoping it would never be found. Sgt. Dave Karsnia typically used the gay angle of the occurrence to convince the Senator to plead. Karsnia says, "You're gonna get out of here. You're gonna have to pay a fine and that will be it. Okay, I don't call media, I don't do any of that type of crap." Karsnia lays it on even thicker with value judgments. "I expect this from the guy that we get out of the hood. I mean people vote for you," he said. (Apparently, they don't have a problem with guns or narcotics in the Minneapolis 'hood. The problem is all that damn toe tapping and gay cocksucking.)

So now that the secret is out and the codes of tearoom cruising are part of popular mainstream culture, will more people look for the signs? Will more men participate? If it's been weeks since you've felt release and the guy in the stall next to you is tapping his foot, are you going to tap back hoping for a little action? Are more straight men going to discover what my old boss knew about male head? Sen. Larry Craig is leading the legal charge to make cruising signals constitutionally protected. If he wins, tearoom trysts might once again become downright fashionable.

Brandy, You're a Fine Girl

I have a playlist of songs mostly from the 70s that I love. It includes two songs back-to-back that are two of the saddest songs from the 70s: "Brandy" and "Wildfire." Let's talk about lovely Brandy.

Don't let the Jersey Shore frat-party pop sound fool you, "Brandy" is a tale of irony, impossible love, and loneliness. Brandy is a looker. She works in a local tavern in a busy harbor town. She's got beautiful eyes, and hundreds of visiting seamen a day are wooed by her charm. Brandy is so beautiful, any one of these sailors would make landfall permanently to be her man. But Brandy loves someone else...

One summer day a handsome, honorable, rugged sailor came to town and stole Brandy's heart. He fell for this fine girl, too. They had a short but magical time. She would stare into his eyes as he told her stories about his life on the sea, seducing her into lovemaking that was glorious and full of passion, yet laced with melancholy.

You see, Brandy knew she could not be with him. From the start he told her he would leave one day. She held out hope, sure, but she dreaded the day he would go. When the time came, they spent one final night together. He gave her a locket engraved with his name for her to remember him. Brandy cried as he held her in his arms, trying to understand how his true love was the sea.

And now every day late at night when the drunks are passed out on the street, she leaves the tavern at closing time. She survived another day of inebriated men who say they want her, need her, and pledge their devotion to her. As she walks silently through town, gently handling the locket around her neck, she can still hear the words from the one love she lost:

"Brandy, you're a fine girl... but my life, my lover, my lady is the sea..."

Pavarotti: The Passing of an Icon

I am a little surprised how saddened I am to hear of the death of Luciano Pavarotti. I sang opera as a voice major in college, but his recordings had no special place in my studies or listening habits.

Still today when I read the news that he died, I loaded 25 Pavarotti recordings on my iPod and played them all day at work. I especially listened to my favorite, "Caruso." See the video below.

Tonight I plugged the pod to the stereo and cranked up "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's Turandot. His voice was incredibly powerful.

I gave up singing, and maybe because he is an icon of opera, his death reminds me of the death and disappointment of that part of my life. Maybe the loss just reminds me of all the emotion in his voice. I empathize with his fans and the professional classical music community. I'm sure many people are telling their Pavarotti stories tonight.

Below are lyrics written for Caruso, but tonight - they apply to Pavarotti!

Ah si, e' la vita che finisce
ma lui non ci penṣ poi tanto
anzi si sentiva felice
e ricomincị il suo canto:
Te voglio bene assai
ma tanto tanto bene sai...

But, yes, it is life that ends
and he did not think so much about it
on the contrary, he already felt happy
and continued his song:
I love you very much,
very, very much, you know...

"Caruso" [lyrics and translation]

"Nessun dorma:" [video] [lyrics and meaning]