Word of the day: a cappella\ah-kuh-PEL-uh\ adverb or adjective: without instrumental accompaniment.
"Only you can be yourself. No one else is qualified for the job." Unknown
I try to make sure that I write at least one entry into my blog every day. From time to time, I miss a day or so here and there either because of my schedule, or being generally sidetracked in the immediate time being and wind up forgetting, being too tired, or simply neglecting; to write. However, today is a different kind of day. Today, I have to write. Today, I MUST write. I have to try to make right this personal inner wrong I feel through an artistically abstract association type of writing.
At 12:46pm today, I drove by the [OMG, this is so painful I'm having difficulty writing, pain, aches, tears, anxiety, depression, sadness, death, etc]; the clubs in SE. They're ALL gone. They're closed. They've ceased operation. They no longer exist. The spray painted messages on the wall of Secrets conveyed love in every aspect you can imagine. There were two guys there covering the windows & doors with plywood. I witnessed the stroke of their hammer drive the nail to affix the plywood to the windows. I only seen 1 stroke of that hammer. That image to me was the bombs over Baghdad in Operation Desert Freedom of gay life in Washington, DC and how it pertains to many of us.
When I witnessed those boarded up businesses, the two workers, the power and force in the stroke of that hammer; these are the things I lugubriously felt.
I'm helpless.
I screamed silent screams
My body crushed.
I choked.
I gagged.
I gasped.
I suffocated.
I tingled.
I burned.
I ached.
I chilled.
I shivered.
I trembled.
My face drooped.
My voice moaned.
I itched.
The skin of my life peeled.
The flesh of my being gay melted as quick as beurre in a micowave.
I cried.
I lost.
I seen a photo of myself on Life magazine as if I were running in terror for cover from Agent Orange or Napalm.
Where's my gay family?
There's destruction everywhere.
No one is around.
Is everyone dead or alive - Which am I?
An airliner crashed into the tower of our gay lives. Me and my gay families lives.
Why is Anthony Williams a President who'd do this kind of destruction?
Melosovic, Tutu, Pol Pot, Hitler, Hussein, Bush.
Is this the first social war on being gay?
Is this war for gay money?
Is there a tribunal?
Is there a forum?
Is there a court of gay social justice?
Is there a Red Cross for gay people?
Is there....?
A prayer can't, and won't help!
A far as being gay, I felt; my soul confined, imprisionment, dying.
As possibile, I like to add photos to my entries. However, I don't know if I'll be able to return back to Southeast and drive down the Unit Block of O St., SE by myself to take photos. Maybe I can find someone to go with me to help me out with this.
3 comments:
It's painfully obvious how the rest of the world views us. Push the fags aside, we need their social center for something else. Don't give the queers a place to congregate, just push them out and pat ourselves on the back for removing a "problem". Apparently the queer tax base is easily overlooked.
Joe
Even though I haven’t been to SE DC in years, I certainly had a full range of connections. There are the most obvious ones, and there are others. After my partner Jim died in 1990, I joined a bereavement group that actually functioned the way it should – something I’m told is rare. (I was so, so young! To think how young I was and how it still affects my life is almost frightening.) Weekends could be empty and terrible. During that period of life, I remember many Sunday afternoons at the Lost and Found (you may not remember that club) where they had a back bar with a big screen TV and a pool table. I would get together with two or three others from my group and we would go there to pass a Sunday afternoon sitting at the bar watching whatever football game was on TV, playing a game of pool, or wandering into the other section where there was a dance floor and a drag show. The Sunday afternoon drag show wasn’t very good, but it brought a smile to my face to see a bunch of really ugly drag queens lip sinc to Nancy Sinatra’s, “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’.” The desperation of my life in those days was made much easier.
The back bar of Lost and Found became Wet. The disco and other areas became the club next door which I never frequented. Years later I had a friend who liked to go to Wet to watch the dancing boys. I’d go with him from time to time. I usually found the boys amusing for a minute or two, but mostly I still saw that back bar and remembered those Sunday afternoons.
Please share at least one important memory of SE with anyone who will listen. It keeps the community alive in our minds and hearts, and it perpetuates the idea of geographical community while we struggle to reinvent ourselves.
That is so sad.
It's hard to imagine that block without masses of cars around, and lots of foot traffic.
I wonder how it will work out economically. A stadium could be a cash cow, or a total money loser, depending on the fortunes of the team. DC is putting itself deep into a hole to finance this operation, and it may be in the end that the ongoing tax revenues from a handful of gay businesses may be sorely missed.
Joe
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