So, my computer is slowly crashing and burning in front of my eyes. Crash warnings. Can't start Task Manager. And I haven't even been looking at porn. I'll get over it.
And now...a week and a half later...Pridefest Part II
So, yet again, I was disappointed to arrive for my 12 noon - 12 am shift at the Bella coffee booth to find...no protesters. I would imagine that, you know, it being Sunday morning they were at church. Probably all, you know, carpooling to help save the environment on their way to let the homosexuals know they're going to hell and to ask not to take their children with them. I was fresh out of my "God save us from your followers" stickers, having passed them all out on Saturday, so I guess, you know, post hoc ergo propter hoc, it was my fault they weren't there to greet my arrival. My bad.
As soon as I arrived, I figured I'd need a drink. Considering I had 2 beers the entire day before (figured showing up at work drunk was not a good thing), I was aching for a drink. I sidled up to the "get your over 21 bracelet" booth, handed over my credit card and waited for my drink tickets. As I was standing there, I heard a voice that sounded vaguely familiar...then a throaty half-laugh that I couldn't quite place... Sarah Jessica Parker Broderick!!!! Could it be? Maybe? Really? Yes. It was one of my pledge brothers from the U of Illinois. Actually, a deactivated ex-pledge brother, but, whatever...details are usually soaked in suck-age. I had already known that, you know, he is 'da gay although hardly doing the parade all by himself. I would imagine, long before I even allowed myself to consider it, he knew more than he ever said about more than a few people in the circles we shared.
It's kind of ironical actually...in a potato-e-s kind of way. We were the only two guys since the refounding of the fraternity that were members of U of I sports club teams. Two of the most successful sports club teams at the whole damn school...but that's just ego.
So anyway we talked and caught up a bit. He being really happy in Chicago. Me being really happy in Milwaukee. He not at all surprised to see me there. Me not at all suprised to see him there. Both of us a little surprised not to see other people we knew there. Overall a cordial, but still distant, conversation. I really missed him not being around the last year and a half I was still in the house; he was one of those people who was just unapologetically himself without the need to be an utter ass--le. Good people. Good people.
Ok, so back to the kids. RuPaul preached taking care of the kids. Pride is thought by a lot of people to be a visible celebration benefitting the kids. Kodomo no tame ni (For the sake of the children).
The kids are doing pretty damn well. Better, it seems, than most of us had it. There are LGBT youth support groups at gay community centers. Gay-Straight Alliances at high schools. Gay and lesbian proms in virtually every sizable city in the country. Will& Grace and Ellen and Boy Meats Boy and Queer Eye and well...everything on Bravo and NBC and HBO and Showtime...well, maybe we should leave Showtime out of this for now...
This all came to me as I watched boy after girl after boy after girl, looking no more than 14 or 15, walk past the coffee booth holding hands with their boyfriend or girlfriend...and in some cases with their opposite-sex boyfriend and girlfriend, surrounded by their entourage of future Wills and Graces. Wow. They seemed as comfortable with themselves as I've ever been in my life. I'm sure it's still not a fabulous world that they live in, but they're working whatever world they're living in as well as anyone who grew up gay before 1990 ever thought life could be. And they're doing it in half the time. Is this what progress, whatever that means, looks like? Maybe. Maybe not. But, who the hell cares? Good for them.
So maybe it's more the kids, regardless of their sexual orientation, inspiring the rest of us older folk. Take Corey Johnson, captain of the high school football team (almost a half dozen years ago now), who stood and declared that gay boys lived and loved and played. Take Steven Cozza, Eagle scout activist, who stood and declared that, you know, the Boy Scouts were wrong, long before the post BSA v Dale Supreme Court backlash. Take Brad and Robby, two guys from that little known PBS series American High, who stood and declared that they define the roles that sexual orientation plays in their lives. Take Kelli Peterson (all the way back in the 90s), that Salt Lake City young lesbian, who stood and declared to whatever image of Mormon country that comes to mind, that gay kids can't be wished away. Take all the high school freshmen and sophomore boys and girls that stared down their principles and school boards and sometimes even city councils and state legislatures, standing and declaring that high schools are exactly the place where safe spaces, open discussions and GSA clubs belong.
So, what's the point to all this rambling?
Although progress can rarely be charted as the straight line x = 2y on a graph and more like, say John D'Emilio's idea of "leaping and creaping" or Kevin Jenning's idea of "progress ergo backlash ergo progress ergo backlash repeated," progress (whatever that means) has happened. Certainly its opposite, or more accurately its counterpart, has been proven true by good ole G.W. and the Religious Right (I'll give you a tow-pic...the Religious Right is neither religious nor right) and the whole marriage amendment movement. But progress seems, upon reflection, to have happened across time and space. Take three memories.
1994. Punahou School; Honolulu, Hawaii. Camp Paumalu: a four day camp up in the secluded wilderness for about 100 10th-12th graders led by the Peer Counseling/Peer Educating staff and teams. Self-exploration, touchy-feely, very Enya/Bob Marley-always-in-the-background kind of experience. Lots of hugging, lots of tears, lots of self-revelation, lots of honesty-and- emotion-as-a-result-of-sheer-exhaustion. During one process, far into the camp experience, people are seated in a huge "Truth Circle." It starts slowly, "Stand and walk across the circle to an open seat if...you have ever shoplifted...you have ever cheated on a test...if you have ever been in love...if you have ever..." Then it opens up and people stand and declare; others who share that experience walk across the circle to an open seat. It gets heavy. Really heavy. Really really heavy. So heavy it scares me to this day. In a post-camp staff debrief, the question is asked: "With all of the things that are shared in the truth circle...why has no one ever talked about being gay...or maybe being gay...or wondering if they maybe, you know, could be bi?" Blank faces. Shaking heads and shrugged shoulders. "No idea." Agreement. "Is it something we're doing wrong?" Blank faces. Shaking heads and shrugged shoulders. "Don't think so." Agreement. How many of those people sitting in that post-camp debrief room would stand and declare now? More than each of us could have imagined.
2001. Corner of Roscoe and Halsted. Chicago Pride Parade. Having worked with and recruited from GLSEN for our Americorps program, City Year, a group of us were invited to march. It started small, maybe 20 people gathering at Diversey and Halsted...the starting point. 95% high school students. 5% teachers. The students are mulling around, not really saying much, just looking around in awe. "How many people are there...out (pointing toward Boystown)...there?" asks a pink-streaked pony-tailed high school lesbian. "About 200,000, I think...along the whole route," I hear from our fearless leader. The word passes through the group. The teachers look resolute. The high schoolers a little less sure of it all. We pass the starting mark, Belmont and Halsted, and the crowd (a bit subdued for all the pride abounding about) begins to cheer...louder...louder...louder. I throw out GLSEN and City Year stickers and pins. "Thank you....thank you...thank you," yells a (really cute) 20ish guy in an Abercrombie sleaveless. "Hey guys, look, it's the gay teachers." More 20ish guys in Abercrombie sleavelesses tiptoe over or push through to the curb. "Thank you!" Did I see a tear? I might have been more emotional if it hadn't happened in front of the bathhouse. I look behind me at the high schoolers, huddled together a bit, waving cautiously, smiling a bit more, looking at each other a bit surprised but more...curious. It happens again and again. As the GLSEN banner I'm holding comes into view, the crowd on both sides of the street perk up, the cheering and the hooting and the hollering crescendos. The cameras snap pictures. People start waving. "Thank you...thank you...thank you." More than a few people wipe away tears. Somewhere around Broadway and Aldine, just in front of my very favorite Unabridged Bookstore, I turn around to check on the high schoolers. I nearly drop the banner. Our group numbers nearly 100. High schoolers, 20-somethings, 30-somethings. "It happens every year," says our fearless leader marching next to me. "They just walk off the sidewalks into our part of the parade. Not supposed to, I think. But, who cares?"
2005. Milwaukee Pridefest. "Can I get a lemonade?" asks a quite youngish looking boy with wavey blondish hair. "Three dollars," I reply. He pulls his left hand out of the grip of the quite youngish looking boy with spikey blackish hair standing next to him and reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. "Do you want one too?" he asks spikey black hair. Ummm...no, we'll share yours," replies spikey black hair. "Okay." They lean in together for a quick peck on the lips. I do a double-take. "There you go," I say as I hand the over-priced lemonade across the counter. "How long have you two been together?" "Three and a half months," replies wavey blonde hair. "Wow, that's cool," I reply, not really knowing what else to say. "Where do you guys go to school?" Spikey black hair takes a sip of the lemo-nada, then walks to the end of the table to pour in packets of sugar. "He goes to Nicolet, but I go to Shorewood," replies wavey blonde hair. "How old are you guys?" I ask, curious and a bit confused. "He's fourteen and I'm sixteen," says wavey blonde hair. "It's all very scandalous. His parents think I'm too old for him." Spikey black hair returns and wavey blonde hair reattaches the lid and takes a sip. "Thanks," he says to spikey black hair. They lean in for another peck on the lips before walking away.
So maybe the kids ultimately show everyone what progress is. I don't mean "progress" as it's defined in sociology and history classes on college campuses. I mean progress as it's felt when taking a step back and thinking about...then and now...there and here. It's not linear. It's not cruise-controlled. It's rarely obvious.
And Sophie B. Hawkins rocked.
