068: From Larry

This is my very first attempt at a meme. I have to confess that I don't particularly enjoy reading memes on other people's blog, but I really like the concept of this one. Mainly because it's voluntary! Rather than having someone tag you to do a meme, you ask to be tagged. How perfect is it for an unpopular kid to join in on the soirée of spamming the blogosphere?! It's like the kid who gets picked last in gym, going up to the captain to request beg grovel to get picked. But this time around, the captain has to pick you first. Fantastic, innit? This kid can't wait to have it a go.

...

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Doo-do-doo doo-do-doo...

...

...

Giggles, I said "doo doo."

God, I'm a riot!

So, without further a-do, this is from Larry, who called me "Little Cutey Jakey K." Um... Larry, How Could You?! I told you about my stereotypically small Asian sausage in confidence, and you had to call me "little" in public! Now, I've agita.

Okay, no more deflections; no more fooleries. Here I go, but first, to the loo...

I'm back. Where was I? Oh, yes. The questions. You know, sometimes, I think I go out of my way to ward off people from me, using my sorry ass humor to make people feel a little uncomfortable. It's ironic really that, although a common leitmotif in my blog has been about struggling with loneliness, I still continue to put up walls, finding ways to disentangle myself from life's web, of which I so want to be in the center, or at least, a part. So…

1) Why do you blog?

…you ask. Yeah, that’s one reason why I blog. When I first started this blog, I wrote this. I still stand by it. But more and more, I’m realizing that to “stand naked,” insomuch as to reveal the “splendor of my life,” I need to… To tear down the battlements and the high walls I’ve erected around me, to tether myself to the human experience. Too long I have sought annihilation of me, believing more I denied me, greater the rewards awaiting me in the life-after. “Christ in me is to live; to die is to gain,” it’s a verse that I’ve always taken to heart, an overwhelmingly heavy shackle, pulling me, holding me…oppressively down—believing, ‘If I continue to work hard at being straight, battling my true nature, then I’ll be okay.’ But I wasn’t. Now, I’m awakening from a slumber of misinterpretation, discovering in that same verse empowerment, one that teaches: live to Love as Christ Loves ALL; and gain the Kingdom of Heaven by letting die self-hatred. I’m defying gravity.

But then, whatever! What I’ve written thus far may all be just potpourri, fragrant but ephemeral. Better yet, it may just be diarrhea. No modifiers needed.

Or maybe, I’m just bloggin’ to get laid.

2) Are you more attracted to intelligent men or beauty?

That’s an easy one. I’m a guy and I’m gay. Give me a hot, muscular beauty with an ass that makes you go…(controlling myself) breathless. Mostly during these sweltering summer days, I must confess, I’m surprised I still have my eyes in their sockets, because, you know, of their uncontrollable saccades, moving from one hot guy to the next—in the subway, on the streets, in the restrooms… I mean, c’mon.

But seriously though, I don’t think intelligence and beauty are mutually exclusive. Take the blogosphere as an example, or rather my experience in it: for a closeted guy, the internet is a… well, a great resource for… um, let me just quote a few lines from Avenue Q…

Kate (K): I’m glad we have this new technology,
Trekkie (T): For porn.
K: Which gives us untold opportunity,
T: For por—oops, sorry.
K: Right from your own desktop,
T: For ---
K: You can research, browse, and shop, until you’ve had enough and you’re ready to stop,
T: FOR PORN!!
K: Trekkie!
T: The internet is for porn!
K: Noooo.
T: The internet if for porn!
K: Trekkie!
T: Me up all night honking me horn to porn, porn, porn!

So naturally my web surfing takes me to him (It’s totally work appropriate, so click away). (I shouldn’t say that—no; I wasn’t looking for his blog, I just happened on it.) Well, the thing is I’ve been very good at compartmentalizing my emotions—the physiological reactions I had towards men on the internet did not necessarily define me—having lustful feelings for men did not make me gay, or rather, it did not give me the needed push to out myself. I needed more. Finding DOGPOET, then a community of men who’ve come before me, and reading their lives… I know it’s cheesy and nonsensical this line of reasoning, but reading their lives connected all the dots for me. If I hadn’t these men nourishing my mind with their thoughts, experiences, and stories, I wouldn’t be the person I am. So, for me, to be attracted to an individual, the beauty of body can only go so far. I need to see the beauty of mind, soul, and spirit.

But then again, if a beautiful bodied boy offered to “play” with me… well (grinning slyly)…

3) Name one animal that you would not like to be?

I don’t want to be any animals that are described as a parasite. My large extended family, the K. clan, if you will, has some who "have" and some who "have not," and my nuclear family belonged with the "have-not’s." When we first moved to this country, we’ve relied on the kindness of the "have’s." But we’ve never asked nor begged. If they offered assistance, we gratefully accepted with the full intent of repaying them. Yet a few, who’ve never offered help, tended to, and still do, look at us with not-so-subtle disdain, like we are some annoying mosquitoes or leeches feeding on their blood. Well, fuck them, I say. Oh, by the way, I’m not bitter. No, not an ounce of it inhabits me.

4) What is your earliest memory?

Actually all my early memories are blurry: some events have even bled together into one trippy narrative. Like the time, I was coming home from my art class—I was, like, 5, I think—and it was, like, pouring, because it was, like, the monsoon season in Korea, and like, I was wearing these yellow boots, and I pooped my pants.

Okay, I have nothing. I tried. But there’s just nothing. Sorry.

5) If tomorrow was the end of the world, how would you spend today?

One side of me would want to have a wild time, trying all sorts of things I haven’t tried, pure debauchery and hedonistic abandonment. The other side of me would want to share my last moment with the man I love, in a Zen-like contemplated solitude, just us, feeling our hearts beat, hearing each other breathe, and gazing into each others’ eyes to find our souls intertwined as one. Then the veil of Heaven rips open, and the Father calls us both. “Come,” He says, “you have done good.”

But then again, I'm single, so sinfully decadent partying anyone?

Instructions:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “Interview me.” (”Blow me” or “Eat me” are not acceptable substitutes.)
(Actually for me, I'll accept "blow me" or "eat me," just leave me your address, and I'll be there to fulfill your requests.)

2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different. I’ll post the questions in the comments section of this post.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

067: An Acknowledgement

I want to take a moment and acknowledge those of you bloggers who've graciously linked/blogrolled me. Because of you, I no longer get, in a day, three, two, okay fine, ONE consistent hit—and that one would be from me. So, thank you very much...

Rich of I Will Write With My Right Hand
Michael of Kracked Reality
Simon of Secret Simon
Seth of Seth Carson
ChadFox of Stop Touching My Food.
Larry of The Love Lemming
Sean of The Sean Show
Eric of We, Like Sheep
Mark of Zeitzeuge

I hope I did not miss anyone. If I did, you have my sincerest apology and please let me know so that I can amend the list.

Addendum: The list continues. Thank you...

Kip of A Stitch in Haste

UPDATES: ...Now, Anyone? Good...

019: I Live in the Now
This is my final update. (All the entry gaps in my blog are filled up—yeah! Although I still haven't finished Part 2 of hyphenated non-IDentity... Hmm... Oh, well,) I started this one out as an essay, but I gave up writing it. Because I have a nasty habit of starting something but never seeing it to its natural conclusion. Well, anyways, I reworked this failed essay into something poetic. And also I didn't feel like doing work... [Aside] God, why am I so unproductive these days?!

Well, whatever, please enjoy.

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015: Anyone?
Well, I posted this one for about a second and took it back. But I realized that there shouldn't be any take-backs. So, enjoy.

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013: Good Friday
Read it and let me know what you think.

It was on a Good Friday. It happened not quite fifteen years ago … See, it wasn’t exactly fifteen years ago because in that year, unlike this year, Good Friday was in April and fell on the Thirteenth. It was on that Good Friday…

“It’s the first room to your left, and here you go,” and I get handed a plastic bag.

Continued here...

066: Confession #2 & Currently Loving, Part 5

Yours truly (ME): Father, bless me for I have sinned.
Priest (PR): Tell me, my son, what have you done?
ME: I have lusted, Father.
PR: Ah… (Chortles) I see.
ME: No, Father, you don’t see.
PR: My son, it’s normal for a boy to look at a girl…
ME: (Interrupts) No, it’s not a girl.
PR: Surely, it can’t be a…
ME: No, it’s not a boy, either.
PR: …
ME: Sir, it’s…
PR: Yes?
ME: It’s… it’s the Great White Way.

Cue music: On Broadway

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway
They say there’s always magic in the air

Okay, you all can stop wincing. If you can agree that there are certain traits that can clue you in to a man’s faggotry, an OGT (Obviously Gay Trait), if you will—and thank you to the Broken Hearts Club—then mine would be a love for musicals. In fact, I take pride in knowing that I’ve managed to turn so many people off from musical theatre, especially when my friend/girl and I spent many nights spontaneously combusting out tunes from Miss Saigon, Phantom, and Les Miz. No, no, it’s not that I have a horrible singing voice; it’s just that, unlike in classical musicals where a male lead didn’t necessarily need to sing absurdly high notes, where a baritone can be the love interest to the heroine, these aforementioned titles and many recent ones love for their actors to go beyond the realm of human possibility. And I just can’t belt and sustain notes higher than a high F. Okay, on a good day, I can reach a high G. But that’s neither here nor there.

What was I saying?

Oh, yes, I love musicals. Even though I can’t sing most of the songs (without changing octaves a few times) that are coming out from Broadway, I love musicals.


Currently, I’m loving Wicked. True, it’s so two years ago, but I don’t care. I haven’t even seen it, yet I’m borderline obsessed with it. I can go on and on listening to “What Is This Feeling” and “Popular” and loath all those popular people who didn’t befriend me in high school; “Defying Gravity” and together with Elphaba sing, “Something has changed inside of me, something is not the same… Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love I guess I’ve lost. Well, if that’s love, it comes at much too high a cost!” I vow as well to defy gravity; and “For Good” and weep, not out of sadness, but for the beauty of friendship, believing that “I’m who I am today because I knew you.”

***


Now, as you know, a while ago, I mentioned that Rent was coming out in the big screen with most of the original Broadway cast intact. I had listened to the cast recording over and over again before I actually got to see it. The one part I love and had looked forward to seeing was “Over the Moon,” because each time I had listened to it the singer on the recording always made me “moo” and I wanted to experience that live. Unfortunately all the original cast members were gone by the time I visited the Nederlander Theatre, but the second strings did an amazing job. The girl who played Maureen did make me “moo.”

Across the Atlantic, when I found myself trekking across Europe and landed on London, having heard that some of the original Broadway cast members were performing in the West End production, I ditched my friends to catch the show, hoping against hope to see my Maureen. But alas, it wasn’t to be. I was angry at the girl who played Maureen, because she SUCKED! When she enjoined us to "moo" along, I blurted out a big "Noooooo!" The only redeeming quality of the London production was that it had Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Jesse L. Martin, and Wilson Jermaine Heredia, the original Roger, Mark, Collins, and Angel.

So far, I have been babbling about Rent, even though I started out talking about Wicked. Well, it’ll make sense, hopefully… Or by now, you should see what I’m attempting to do. Anyway, continuing on…


A few months later, back in NY, I heard that Anthony Rapp had returned to the Great White Way, in a revival production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. In that production, only two names were familiar to me, Anthony and B.D. Wong. Let me tell you, these two were absolutely awesome as Charlie Brown and Linus. But, there was this tiny gal, who practically stole the show, with her powerful voice and her impeccable comic timing, and her name, Kristin Chenoweth, who later won a Tony for her role as Sally Brown. Then from 2000 to 2004, I had entered a Broadway blackhole. But on the small screen, last year, I saw on my favoritest show, the West Wing, a blond gal, who I swear looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out where I had seen her. Until just recently. Yes, it was the Sally Brown; I had seen Kristin at You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and rediscovered her in the Wicked soundtrack. She played Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

Indeed, Wicked had reintroduced me to my two favorite Broadway divas. Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, who made me “moo” and who became my hero as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Maybe one day, I’ll actually get to see Idina perform. But again, I can’t wait to see her on the large screen.

Finally, in the Wicked soundtrack, the love interest for both these witches is a character named Fiyero. He is played by Norbert Leo Butz, who won this year’s Tony for his role as Freddy in Dirty Rotten Scoundrel; and I’m proud to say, whom I saw perform in Rent as Roger. In one scene, he banged his hand hard into a table, leaving him with a bloody gash. But like a consummate actor, he carried on as if nothing happened and continued to entertain us. He was awesome. He made me want to act… But that’s a whole different story.

There you have it, my version of six degrees of separation.

065: Let's Go Camping

It's summer, and what's more fun than going camping? Yes, tomorrow I shall head over the P.S.122 to go camping. Anyone else?

064: Mr. UPS Man

I'm still waiting.

It's 10:59 AM and still there is no sign of you. You are carrying a very important package; and I need it. I really need it. Hurry, please, and get your arse over here with the package!

I need my Harry Potter.

Um... Addendum: It's now 2:55 PM; it would have been faster had I gone out to Barnes & Noble to buy me a copy rather than have had pre-ordered it from Amazon. I'm still waiting.

5:58 PM Still waiting...

7:13 PM I contacted Amazon's customer service. To diplomatically complain, of course.

8:01 PM They wrote back. As promised, they've given me a refund. I don't know what it is, but somehow, UPS, FedEx, and even the USPS don't like making deliveries to my neighborhood. Or more specifically my apartment building. I shall not rant. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. That's it.

063: Let's Play!

Acceptance, belonging, being rooted, stability, friendship, relationship, companionship, lasting, union, love… rejection, drifting, loneliness, longing, yearning, searching, hoping, wishing… wasting, resigning… dying.

These are some of the words that have been coming and going in my consciousness.

As I write this, my iPod is playing a song from Camp, Century Plant:

Hey! Do you wanna come out,
and play the game?
It's never too late.

It was so easy as a wee child relating to people: I’m playing with a toy; entranced by its shapes and colors, I'm full of joy. But out of nowhere a playmate waddles over, grabbing hold of my toy and yanking it away from my hand. A fight ensues, resulting in either one of us, or both of us, left with tears streaming down our plump cheeks. But usually, the wailing loser is me. I cry out for Mommy to come and arbitrate a fair and equitable deal, one that favors me. Mommy, with her consoling words, calms my wronged soul. And she gently nudges both of us to share. After a few sniffles followed with a gleeful squeal and a robust belly laugh, the battle, the battered soul, the bitter rivalry, they are all a long lost history. Together, the games are played again; together, the playtime is enjoyed. That is, until our mommies swoop us up to take us home. How easy it was to make friends with your former enemies… Maybe it was just easy making friends in general.

But can a childhood spent being uprooted, shuffled from one place to another, from one guardian to the next, to be separated from the familiar, can that kind of childhood change your whole disposition in how you relate to people?

Hey! Do you wanna come out,
And play the game?

How difficult it is for me to say that.
How difficult it is for me to respond to that.

In college, while I was fully entrenched in my religion, I sought like-minded individuals to associate with, and possibly to befriend. You see it was easier that way. To be among a group of people who constantly speak of God's Love, who strive to be loving… It’s natural to conclude that they’d be less willing to totally reject you, especially when you profess to be one of them and mainly when they feel obligated to live a life God wants them to live. The downside of being a part of that is that most of them are guarded, unwilling to show any signs of weaknesses, that they might be less than perfect, that it is difficult for them to live up to the strictures supposedly prescribed by the Scriptures. I admit that I was the same way.

As a member of that community, did I feel accepted or was I as accepting of others as I should have been? Honestly, no and no. But I faked it real good. I lived to live with the façade. But even with the air of superficiality permeating our lives, I did manage to find some people completely genuine in their love for God and in their love for people. They were refreshingly open and flawed, totally receptive of God’s grace, utterly gracious as well. They befriended me and I befriended them. They were my true brothers and sisters.

Regretably, time and distance can change the dynamics of a relationship. Inevitably many of my friendships have altered. My living abroad has cost me some little joys, like witnessing my friends, having found love, profess their lasting love, at the alter, in front of family and friends, for their beloved, sealing their lives together with a kiss. And like, the weekly email communications shrinking down to once a month event; then before you know it, seasons change, and you find the lines of communication have been muted. Now, we lead different lives...we've changed. We've grown up.

Slowly I'm reconnecting with them, but what once was can't ever be regained. I've changed. For the better? I can't really say. But I've changed, or rather I've finally given myself permission to be "me." But still, I keep a part of me hidden from my friends.

Would they accept me as they've done in the past? Could they free themselves from the hateful messages that have been spreading within the Christian circle? Yes, I still and always will fear rejection. And I may drift through this life in loneliness, longing and yearning for love. All the time spent on my searches, hoping and wishing, it may all be a big waste. I may resign myself a failure and die miserably. But I may not. No, I will not. I can not.

So...

Hey! Do you wanna come out,
and play the game?
It's never too late.

Will I? Can I?

062: Confession #1

I've been alone for such a long time, I don't think I'll ever know how to be with someone. Maybe it's because I've hated myself for so long that I lost the capacity to love. Or maybe it's because I believe I don't deserve to be loved.

(After having confessed that, I can't believe how utterly cliché my fear really is.)

Well, watching Logo's First Comes Love didn't help at all. Yes, I was happy for Rob and Greg. But I don't know if I'll ever be a groom. I mean, I can't see myself as one. I so want to though, you know? So, I'm just sad.

(After having confessed that, I can't believe how utterly cliché my life really is.)



Maybe I need a makeover. Dear Fairy Godmothers, come and save me.

(I think that's the gayest thing I've ever said. Damn I feel proud.)

061: Sodom and Gomorrah

The story about Sodom and Gomorrah has been on my mine for a few days now. Well, partly because I saw this (via the good doctor). But it hadn’t managed to consume (not really, but let’s be dramatic and just say ‘consume’) my recent thoughts until this past Sunday. And today’s event didn’t help lessen my current preoccupation.

Let me set up a scene for you. It’s the day before the 4th, a beautifully brilliant, sunny Sunday. It’s a day when families, with their barbecue set and a soccer ball or football in hand, come out to play. Our hero of the story (a.k.a. Yours Truly), well, he likes to waste an amazing day like this and spend his idle time by going to the movies, alone. But not just any movie—he goes to see Batman Begins. In IMAX. So it’s okay to waste a day cloistered indoors with a humungous screen reflecting the only source of light in a darkened chamber. Unfortunately…? maybe, fortunately, the 4:00 showing is sold out. What shall he do? Why, of course, he’ll buy for the next showing. After the purchase, he does what he does well when he is killing time and is without the option of a movie—he takes a walk.

I’ve lived in New York for most of my life, yet there are still places in the city I have yet to visit, Riverside Park being one of them—I never knew how awesome the park is. It’s a constant surprise to re-discover my city anew. But the funny thing is… Well, walking alongside the Hudson, I was reminded of my high school years. Then, the all consuming thought was how much I wanted to get away from the city, to leave behind a school where feelings of “I don’t belong” was like a constant base line, to fly far away from a church where my so called “brothers and sisters in Christ” readily passed judgments, deeming me worthy to be shunned, and to escape the clutches of my family whose unbridled pleasure was to pressure me to fit into their image of what success is; New York had given me more coals than honey. If heaven had seen fit to rain down fire and brimstone on this city, well, it would not have found a dissenter in me. And now, I was headed up to Columbia—a source of conflict between Mom and me: she wanted me to attend there, whereas I… well, let’s just say that I royally wrecked my already slim chances of getting in by making myself seem like a fanatically crazy Christian, saying to a Jewish interviewer stuff like, I don’t know, had Moses been a contemporary of Jesus, he would have been an apostle, who’d’ve readily wiped his ass with the Torah. Okay, maybe what I said then was not that offensive, but it came very close. Well, you get the picture. But even as I was reminded of all that, while walking alongside the Hudson, towards Columbia, with the gentle sunrays showering me, I smiled, because, now, I couldn’t think of any other places where I’d rather be. An as the Riverside Church’s tall gothic tower came into view, I was thankful for the goodness of Gotham City.

In a blink of an eye, it was 7:30, and the lights darkened and the giant screen filled with beautiful, dark images of Batman’s Gotham City. (By the way, if Batman Begins doesn’t garner at least a nomination nod for Art Direction, it’s nothing less than a tragic travesty and an outrageous oversight on the Academy’s part.) Anyways, I should get back to the point why I was reminded of Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, first of all, it’s not my intent to ruin the plot, but since the movie has been running for a quite a while, I think I can be forgiven if I were to disclose a certain important storyline. As you all know, the premise of Batman Begins is Batman’s origin story, retelling how Bruce Wayne becomes Gotham’s Dark Knight, a force of good. Obviously, there is more to the plot than that: one point I was struck with was Bruce Wayne coming into terms with Justice. For young Bruce, he was not able to separate vengeance from justice. With an unsavory end to his parents’ murderer by the hands of a minion of Gotham’s criminal lord, Bruce goes into a tailspin, unsatisfied and still hungering for vengeance disguised as justice. He leaves Gotham, later finding himself with the League of Shadows, a vigilante group that see themselves as law enforcer, judge, jury, and executioner. They train him to become a warrior, to fight for their cause. But when their views on how justice should be dispensed to Gotham diverge, Bruce leaves them in a violent, explosive way. Like Abraham pleading for Sodom’s salvation, Bruce pleads that, however corrupt Gotham has become, there is still goodness left in it that’s worth saving; but unlike Abraham leaving the fate of Sodom in the hands of the three heavenly guests, Bruce fights for Gotham’s salvation.

Now we all know what this beautifully flawed city experienced on September 11, 2001. A few bunch of religious zealots, thinking they know well the will of God, decided to dispense their judgment. And today, again, we saw a similar and no less horrific act perpetuated on London’s Underground, reminiscent of the monorail usage in Batman Begins. I want to change the tone of this post a little by addressing the idiots who tarnish the good name of Islam:

Who the fuck do you think you are? The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is justified in that in was the very hand of God that had smitten the city with fire and brimstone. Your desire to destroy New York and London with your own hand, while abusing the good name of God, for your own, selfish end is not justified. It was God who saw it fit to punish and destroy Sodom. Are you God? How dare you claim to know God’s mind and his judgment for us? I hope the law of Man will find you and it will dispense the harshest judgment on you. As for God’s judgment, I can’t claim to know how He’ll judge you, but I pray that His Justice will be enough to assuage my desire for vengeance.

Also, I would like to address the idiots who tarnish the good name of Christianity:

You also claim to know God’s mind, claiming Sodom’s destruction was due to its people’s faggotry. You use this incident in the Bible as an example of God’s condemnation on homosexuality.

Well, what if I propose to you otherwise?

The customs and traditions of nomads, as some scholars have supposed, dictate that when a guest, even a stranger, arrives in front of your tent, you go beyond the call of duty to meet the guest’s needs. Chapter 18 of Genesis begins with three heavenly guests appearing before Abraham. Abraham says to them, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.” He then prepares a feast for them, telling his wife, Sarah, to make some break, going to the herd to choose the best calf, and giving it to his servant to prepare. After the meal, and as the men got up to leave, the Lord reveals to Abraham his plans to destroy Sodom, saying, “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” He continues, “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.”

Now compare the events in chapter 18 with those in chapter 19. The heavenly guests arrive at Sodom and are greeted by Lot, whose hospitality echoes that of Abraham, but they also are met with people of Sodom, who have placed their needs first to those of the guests, demanding Lot “bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Now, this verse has been, in my opinion, misinterpreted.

If we can agree that the two greatest commandments are “Love Your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; and Love your neighbor as yourself,” and that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments,” then the greatest sin people of Sodom have committed is that they failed to love their neighbor and the two guests by showing the appropriate hospitality customs and traditions demanded. Unlike Abraham and Lot, they have not done what is right and just. The discourtesy shown to the guests is what they have done “bad.” Those who had come prior to the two guests, those who had come to Sodom seeking shelter and food, those who were wronged—they cried out to the Lord; and it was their outcries that reached the Lord’s ear. Non-consensual sex, whether it is a heterosexual or homosexual one, is a good example as any of failing to follow God’s commandments. The passage does not condemn gays in any way at all!

So, whose interpretation is correct? The operative word being “interpretation.” And so I ask you, my idiotic brothers and sisters, as I have asked my idiotic Muslim brethrens, who the fuck do you think you are? Are you God? Can you tell me with absolute certainty that your interpretation is without a doubt God’s will? My only certainty is my relationship with God. I can’t claim to know how your relationship with God is, whether you are going to heaven or hell. Therefore, “do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured with you.” Unless you want to be no different from those terrorists who flew planes into buildings or unloaded explosives into packed subway cars, continue to spread your hate.

Yeah, so the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has been on my mind…

Finally, to the good people of London—Christians and Muslims, atheists and theists, rich and poor, to everyone—my prayers are with you. You will rise above this terror, as you have risen from the ashes of World War II, and you will be stronger for it. Shalom.

060: Re-evaluation

I must confess, I've strayed away from the reasons why I started this blog in the first place.

I wrote: "...this little blog of mind...must be just for me." Believing that this is a medium where, like "Reinaldo Arenas who, in his memoir, wrote about the 'splendor of (his) life,'" I had hoped to do the same, "to ingrain in me a joy that celebrates my heart beating, my lungs expanding and contracting, my existence, my life; ...to implant in me a wisdom that teaches, even though I am allotted only an infinitesimal space in this vast universe of ours, even though I may affect no one, even though I feel alone and insignificant..." I wanted to stand naked before all in a spirit of celebration of my life...

Yet still I avoid the many skeletons in my closet. However cathartic it might be, I'm still a creature of habit, unwilling to tear down the walls, paralyzed by irrational fear. The splendor of my life is left undisclosed... Sigh. (You see, I'm still doing it: I'm guilty of hiding behind a superfluous writing style and overused clichés, never getting to the point of what's in my heart. Double sigh.)

During my senior year in college, tired of following the path my family had set, I rebelled to revel at a feast of creativity, taking courses in sculpture and acting. In my acting class, as our final assignment, each team was to perform a short scene. Our acting coach selected for my partner and me a scene from Tony Kushner's landmark play, Angels in America, Millennium Approaches. She also selected for me to play Joe Pitt, the closeted gay Mormon lawyer. Already, even before my acting career had a chance to splutter into existence, I was typecasted! But the fascinating aspect for me is that, looking back, I think my coach saw me-her gaydar was so well tuned that even before I knew myself she saw me.

The scene's setup, as written in the play, is described:

On the granite steps outside the Hall of Justice, Brooklyn. It is cold and sunny. A Sabrett wagon is selling hot dogs. Louis, in a shabby overcoat, is sitting on the steps contemplatively eating one. Joe enters with three hot dogs and a can of Coke.

Joe: Can I...?

It's a scene where Joe realizing that, all his life, he has been wearing a false skin, albeit his own, he wants "to shed (his) skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unencumbered, into the morning."

He takes a swig of Pepto-Bismol.

After having some bites of the hot dog and sipping the Coke, I also follow suit with the Pepto-Bismol, grimacing, "I can't be this anymore. I need...a change, I should just..."

And here I am today, still uttering the same words, still feeling the same sentiments. I can't be this anymore.