Tag: Jon Krey

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Patriotism by Jon Krey

THE 14 CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM or 
WHAT CANNOT HAPPEN IN THE USA

Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt (“Fascism anyone?” Free Inquiry Magazine, Spring 2003, page 20) has studied the fascist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile) and found they all had 14 elements in common. I believe any country can fall into such an abyss, often unaware, especially when in a crisis of magnitude. We are not there at this point but we must be aware that making ourselves vulnerable through lack of present awareness and overlooking history could provide a dangerous precedent through which democracy could fall. Those of us who are aware should begin educational processes to prevent such. The characteristics listed below are a warning only. Let us be ever mindful as a nation to stave off such a calamity.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for Recognition of Human Rights

Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/ Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe; racial, ethnic, or religious minorities; liberals; communists, socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism

The government of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media

Sometimes, the media is directly controlled by the government. But in other cases the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war-time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security

Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are intertwined

Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the governments policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected

The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation, often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/ government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed

Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even out-right stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections

Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

REMEMBER, GEORGE- GOD DON’T LIKE UGLY

“There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to Him:

1. Haughty eyes

2. A lying tongue

3. Hands that shed innocent blood.

4. A heart that devises wicked plans

5. Feet that make haste to run to evil

6. A false witness who breathes out lies.

7. A man who sows discord among brothers.”

–The Book of Proverbs—

© 13 November 2013

About
the Author

“I’m just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”

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Hospitality – A Gay Youth, Remembering Earlier Times by Jon Krey

Back when I was an early youth, somewhere around the age of 8, 9, or 10, I began to recognize a difference between my emotional and sexual needs and those of my peers. I had no concrete idea what it meant since I’d always thought there was nothing odd or strange about mine. I just wasn’t very “into the regular scene.” It was hard to associate with most kids, any kids, male or female. I became emotionally secluded. Sports weren’t of interest and my physical self wasn’t up to snuff anyway being a scrawny kid. My self isolation haunted me, forever being an outsider always looking in at those I longed to play with. As this continued over the years, and it did, the more it became true. There came a short time of inclusion during the late Junior High and Senior High years. I made contact with the neighborhood duck-tail squad, the greasers, those so omnipresent in the ‘50’s. My interest in motorcycles and cars had always been, and that’s why they accepted me.
Cars and motorcycles were the “the thing” with them. It changed my acceptability, obscured any oddities of mine at least for that brief moment in time. A too brief period of hospitality was handed me. Then it all began changing. Girls were becoming an object of interest and then an obsession for the guys but for not me.

Inside I wasn’t at all like the grease covered duck-tailed guys with their leather motorcycle jackets and tight Levi’s. I desperately wanted to own a jacket and Levi’s like theirs but mom wouldn’t permit it because they were “just plain nasty.” Finally the critical age of puberty with it’s attendant emotional change for everyone arrived accompanied by an avalanche of total upheaval. The guys were becoming men; taller than me, frequently muscular, hairy, crew-cuts, ducktails had begun disappearing in town, “T” shirts the rage. How they loved showing impressions of their new manhood, through their tight Levi’s. That made me sweat, a lot! I had interesting, moist, dreams at night.

Guys were obsessed with the possibility of finding and seducing girls, while I dreamt of the same but with one of them. I got to be close to these young studs only in school occasionally but nothing more. They looked good, smelled good and when I had a very limited chance to just touch one, they felt good…heavenly! Needless to say I embarrassed myself with an erection from time to time. Too soon I was classified a social outcast, known as a weirdo, an object of scorn. There were others who like me weren’t accepted, straight and not, but it still hurt. Any hospitality accomplished by me had been rescinded, permanently.

I came to understand what the words some used to call me in my earlier years meant. Their use became much more frequent. I was a homo, a fruit, a faggot, a queer, something to be avoided at all cost. Back then that was all there was. I was a monster, loathed by God and man. The church and bible told me so, again and again! Wanting these beautiful young men romantically and sexually was just wrong, sinful and evil…end of story!

There was no hospitality left for me. I was shoved out of the box.

OK, that was then. Many years of fear, self rejection and self hatred have passed. But over those years, now, a new dawn seems on the horizon. I’m far, far better at being me now.

The word “gay” always puzzled me! The acronym LGBT doesn’t, but that word “gay” still seems odd. It meant and still means “full of energy, happy, of glee, a sense of being carefree. In a world where we’re still tormented by too many it doesn’t make too much sense.

It’s now in the press, heard in the media around the world. The Gay Community. Gay Pride Month with parades and parties. Pride is displayed or at least attempted around the globe. But the word “gay” was and can still be mentioned with contempt. A “gay” is a “self avowed homosexual,” some still interpret it that way. Yes it’s true we are, but that one nasty-assed statement always made me cringe and shrivel as it still can.

It’s a new day now. Countless others are like me. The old scars still exist in me and won’t disappear completely but in this day and age us LGBTQ’ers are becoming ever more in the public venue what with Gay Marriage. There is an opportunity of hospitality for me in my quickly approaching old age! “Just forget the past and reach out “get over it already”. I hear it too often.

Inclusion! Now! Something I never thought possible in my lifetime is happening right under my nose! I accept myself today with much less trepidation. I’m part of a growing community of people who are learning to live without shame, without so much fear although there are monsters out there that can and do haunt our lives. Every single time I hear the hateful rhetoric of yesteryear in this day and age I shake inside.

Damn it to hell, all I ever wanted was a boyfriend, someone to be with, to call my own; to be his in the same way. Though three long term partnerships have come and gone I’ve never achieved that most primitive of goals from early childhood. I’m still very much that smallish eighteen to “twenty something” year old boy, still looking, at the exalted age of 73. Will I be lucky before I finally fall over? I wonder and still hope.

I also wonder if any of us have really found that one special man or woman. If some of us have we should thank the same God our loyal opposition uses to condemn us.

About the Author

“I’m just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”

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All About the Wonderful World of Fact(s) by Jon Krey

To begin
with I’ve never seen a fact that is, in fact, a fact. Factually there are
always questions about facts and that’s a fact.

As a matter of fact I dealt with facts back when I was
working. Facts are a necessity in my former fact laced field.
However, I’m never sure about the facts either. Once while
depending on some facts to be sent by fax I found that the fax didn’t get…
the…facts….to me in time to present the… uhh…facts… printed by the fax. This
didn’t sit well with the court who needed the facts from the fax factually so I
could present these….same …facts….to the court since those…. facts …which determined
the factual decision made by the  judge…who…would…judge
the…facts…

He already knew that most facts are NOT factual anyway and
so when the fax failed to submit…these….facts for me he’d already made up his
mind based on what he knew about…the… facts…and made the proper decision based
on the facts, or lack of facts as he knew those… facts… to… be?!

Therefore, in the end not having the facts because the damned
fax machine didn’t work…was, was …….faxually…nonfactual…….


Oh, factity factity,
factity, fax! I’m losing my faxing mind so JUST FACT or FAX IT! I don’t care!!!!! I’m sick to death of
“facts” sent by fax and nothing but the….f,f,f,f,f.


Forget it! I already
have.  Shit!
© 29 April 2013

About the Author



“I’m just a guy from
Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”











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Choiring and Singing; God Help Us All by Jon Krey

Yes,
I remember this subject from childhood.  As
I recall the songs they would sing usually had nothing whatsoever to do with my
need to hurry up and head home to the locked bathroom so I could play with my…uh…”Tinker
Toys.”  I was far better off “practicing”
there anyway rather than with the choir with all their screeching and hollering.  But too often sitting in the congregation
with Mom she would occasionally find me dealing with a very prominent stiff condition over which I had virtually
no control.  She’d grit her teeth, slap
me silly right there in front of other fine Christians and make me sit down.  Her slap never helped anyway though it did
occasionally make the situation more
rigid!  What was she to expect, I was
only 13 ½; a wet-with-sweat, tender and questioning youth. In the choir there
was one magnificent specimen, a muscular
tall blond football player from Junior High who sang a prominent tenor in the
choir and who, once in a while, looked in my direction…at me! Maybe that was the
basic cause of all my turgid grief. 
Otherwise, all the rest of that “music” coupled with the Hammond Organ’s
bass speaker right in front had a really bad effect on my auditory nerves.
Later
as an adult my ears were set to overload by disco music since I usually stood
in front of the bass speakers at dance bars trying my very best to look like
wallpaper.  I also lost some hearing due
to the fat kid next door’s Harley Davidson motorcycle with its “glorious” cacophony
of thunder which he referred to as “music to his ears.”  It wasn’t helped either when I was attempting
to qualify on the firing range without ear protection in ROTC.  The range officer didn’t particularly like me since
he probably knew my target wasn’t in front of me but usually right beside me
with his own large 45.  Ooooh! 
Consequently neither checked to see if I was…well…ready.  I was
but not for that paper target in front.
As
a result of all this, later in life, I probably couldn’t have “heard” the
difference between someone praising my magnificent high belted jeans from
Montgomery Wards and someone about to knock my “faggot block off.”
I
suppose lesser hearing may benefit me today in that I don’t have to hear most
of the harangue going on around me in “necessary” meetings, lectures, sirens in
traffic??, introductions to people I didn’t want to meet and/or  people
singing off key during a choir
practice.  So today, I find it much more
practical to just read lips and look at facial expressions.  It also helps me avoid something others tend
to refer to clandestinely as their “state wide prized choir.”  Besides, I can’t sing anyway and am too busy
listening to the ringing in my ears.

About the Author

“I’m just a guy from
Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”
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Remembering by Jon Krey

The past is the past and therefore is forgotten since it IS the past. Forgetting it well may be assisted with electro-shock therapy. I once plugged myself into an outlet thinking it was a key hole. Now I’m so very glad about forgetting… something, I can’t remember what.

Besides, when meditating, I’m supposed to “go” someplace in my mind where I was happy and life was fine. Some place by a babbling brook, in the grass, holding some stupid rock, onto which I would place all my bad memories. Trouble is I don’t remember any such place. I don’t remember anything. Maybe ’cause I plugged myself in too much thinking it was a car thingy where you stick something to make it move… uhhh. I’m not sure it was a key hole and not some other kind of hole. Then there was… uhh… uhh…. I forgot.

But what sweet remembrances; remembering all those things not remembered. All those wonderful times back when I was remembering. I remembered so many things… I think. Not sure since I don’t remember remembrances. But then I’m not sure these days. Did I put toast or something else in the toaster? Why is the water running? Why is water boiling in the oven. I found my pants in the frig after I’d already put my shirt on over my underwear which I finally found on my cat. She should know how to dress herself! But I only found my socks in the microwave. Where are my shoes? That’s silly. They belong in the bathtub. Not sure though the fire bell is ringing. Klang klang klang goes the trolley. It’s hurting my ears and they’re already ringing. Why has the fire department shown up? What pretty lights they have…. Oh I know. It’s Christmas time! I wish they’d do something about the smoke in the hall. It smells like something’s burning… besides there’s smoke in the hall… uhh… something… like when… where was that now… and… I think so clearly these days! Did you know there’s smoke in the hall? Was that today or last week? I do remember plugging something into something or someone… uhh… where there was…. Is that smoke in the hall.? Once… in nineteen ninety… or 2000 something. Oh that damned water on the floor is so messy and running somewhere and the floor is all wet and making my feet cold. Why is that? Why is the bathtub running water over on the floor? The cat litter is all in the toilet too. How can I sit on it if she’s using it? I finally found my jeans in the frig but it’s too late. I already have my shirt buckled around my waist and on my legs. I didn’t mention that. I’ll call someone… on… the… uhh…. Maybe I should get dressed now. The door is being knocked on my door. Knock, knock, knocking. Nevermore. What’s there? Oh God he is cute whoever they are and I don’t know but I’m not going out there where it’s foggy… outside. Besides he’s all yellow and there’s smoke in the hall. Liver problems. I ‘member that.

No I don’t think I’ll put on shoes. What was it again I was supposed to do? I ‘member a lot. I ‘MEMBER MOMMA. Some dismembered Mommas. Others dist… well they…. Oh what difference does it make? I dismember my socks in the microwave.

I ‘member tying my hateful cousin to railroad tracks when I was… ummmm… back when gas… was… cheaper. That’s why I can’t remember dismember.

Dismembered chicken heads! Dad was good and the dog gave him head or a head? Don’t remember that too… much Then we ate my favorite….

Now, I should remind myself to remember, but I forgot what to write I… wrote was… to… find that thing I wrote on? Where is… what I can’t remember?

All this seems so distant now whatever that… was. These yellow men are taking me away. “Ho, Ho, He, He, Ha, Ha,” to some kind of a “funny farm where life is fine.” What I don’t remember was that I should think about winding the electric clock! That’s it!
Who are you? Who are these people? I feel like I’m really tied down. Feels good. Not since…. Whoa. Whoopti-du! Off to see some wizard! There’s smoke in the hall too. Did I tell you that? Fire’s warm and bright. I like fire, do you like fire too?

Oh well it’s just a well but not too far down. Remembering things is some…. Times are good but more frequently or are just downright. I’m a frustrated romantic. Lot of good that’s done. Roman, Roaming, Romer, Romance is a word I remember like words from a thing I had sex with, I think. I kissed the wrong correct end which was good since I’d just brushed my hair….

I like clocks, do you like clocks too?
Here I sit thinking about what I was supposed to think about. Thinking is hard on me. My meds are somewhere… but where is… them. Oh, on my table. Who put them there?

Next time… I think I heard… drilling holes in my head, sticking a computer… chip in something… somewhere. It’s all perfectly clear to me now! Yes clearly perfect.

That’s it.! Whatever it was anyway. I can care less what they want.

I don’t do prose… or… cons. I don’t… forget it, I already have.

Alzheimers is a bitch and then you forget it… all. ‘Specially if you have to think really fast’n hard like… me or someone I knew once. Take vitamin C…. A little dab’ll do ya. Yeah Viagra! Someone said that… next…???????

Bye.

© 26 April 2013

About the Author


“I’m just a guy from
Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”







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Christmas Details to Remember by Jon Krey

Details: What?
          I won’t get into what that word means because
I’m never sure. However I’ll give an example as I may have seen… it??? At least
I think I’ve seen it. Enough Thorazine helps clear the mind.
          A couple of
nights ago when it all began, it was getting ever more chilly with an early
winter approaching, my friend and I decided to take our “high tea”
inundated with some good ol’ pot and other pharmaceutical “party favorites.”
          On that evening
we lit the seriously tilted candles above my fireplace with difficulty, put on
some appropriate Christmas music and sat down. At least I think we sat down
though I’m not sure.
          Anyway I think
time passed though I’m not sure about that either. We talked incessantly about
the nature of trees, gay dogs and cats, clocks, the Eiffel Tower, room
carpeting, smoke and flowers encased in glass enclosures. Talking about glass
led to other related topics including windows, windshields, wind instruments or
just plain wind. I began feeling an increasingly hot breeze someplace on my
body from some source. Shortly we began to notice the room temperature
apparently rising though I’m sure I’d turned the thermostat down. The candle
light also seemed brighter in the darkening evening. The wafting odor of
wonderful burning Christmas Wax incense pervaded everything as an increasingly
warm feeling crept over our bodies. I was certain our physical passion was
producing the extra warmth. The fireplace was just fine, seemingly ablaze… with
beautiful golden light which grew in intensity. How beautiful that seemed on
such a cold evening outside. The strong odor of pine smoke joining the
Christmas Wax incense. The temperature of our passion rose to such an extent it
caused us to discard our clothes which in turn incited further sexual arousal… greatly.
Momentarily I was pissed that the maintenance crew had failed to fix the
thermostat only allowing our passion to heat us up, or… whatever. We became
deeply fascinated with each others body, the ensuing sweat had become so
intense we decided to move to the balcony where our love making immediately
became interrupted by the serene and melodic sound of sirens below. People
across the street began pointing at us (which added to our heightening
arousal). Their delightful shouting made us feel like real porn stars. I
wondered if we might have been a little too exhibitionist, or, not enough?
Meanwhile the smell of candle wax and accompanied smoke, fog or whatever it was
had raised to such a level that we decided to lower our rope ladder and leave,
having forgotten about the hallway door, elevator and stairwell. Additionally,
all the joyous celebratory shouting was getting on our nerves interrupting our
pulsating rhythm. We tried to overlook all the falderal as just other people
overcome with zealousness at a private building party. In our sexual excitement
we laid down on the grass writhing in ecstasy as the area became covered with
snowy flakes that smelled like burning wood. We both found that ridiculous but
began noticing several very large gray featureless Christmas garlands now
encircling us from several sides. They were wet too. The whole thing was
ridiculous.  For some reason no one was
paying much attention to us anymore either. They kept staring up at the enormous
brilliantly lit Christmas tree and it’s much heavier than usual smoky Christmas
Wax incense. Additional strains of lovely musical siren sounds were accompanied
by increasing screams of delight from observers and more seasonal gleeful
shouting and frivolity. Additionally all the excitement of the huge Christmas
tree light and the Christmas Wax incense had become too much for other
occupants and many were running out of the building. The more elderly were
either crawling or violently shoving their walkers out of the front door while
others pushed their own beds outside. Some were assisted by several studs from
the leather community dressed in cute dark blue and yellow clothes that looked
like uniforms… hahaha. All this for a Christmas show.
          We crawled
further away from the gigantic Christmas tree and all the shouting and strange
siren like singing. Suddenly I noticed I’d forgotten to bring my door keys!!!
But I don’t suppose it mattered too much because the heat from the tree had
become unbearable anyway. Boy did someone in the building know how to throw a
party. Now the handsome leather men insisted we crawl into some kind of party
RV, nude, dildos and all. Fun was on the way!!! 
The short ride to another party bar or bath house had people we didn’t
know who surrounded us staring but not engaging in any affectionate embraces as
we were. I couldn’t stop thinking I needed to get back home and find my damned
keys. It was becoming a real hassle with all these leather guys preventing us
from leaving the party. The bouncer was BIG and held us in!! Hell he even took
our dildos away!
          Whatever!
Eventually after much ado and sexual boredom we snuck away and began the trek
home clothed in some kind of orange numbered shirts and matching pants. Guess
they were some new kink outfits since they didn’t fit well.
          Where was our
building? We couldn’t see since the incense smoke was still super thick in
front of us.
          Altogether, what
a wild holiday evening but a real pisser since I’d forgotten my keys. Besides,
who were these leather guys who kept insisting we go back to the up-tight
party. I didn’t recognize any of them and not one made any physical overtures
though they did engage us in some fun BDSM stuff with leather restrains and
handcuffs. Honestly, some people can be so rude and aloof even when playing.
They didn’t even bother exchanging names or phone numbers but insisted we give
them ours. 
          Whatever! At
least we now share a much smaller apartment with a hunky uniformed valet at a
lovely metal front door equipped with a small viewing window separating us from
uninvited guests. I wondered if it might be too forward to ask for a gilded
chandelier to be put in place of the single naked bulb.
          I guess the moral
of this story is never get loaded and forget where you left your keys. Anyway
it doesn’t matter now ’cause with this smaller home we have all the goodies we
need; new friends, lots of exercise, sex, daily meals, a roof over our heads,
no taxes, all fresh clean clothes plus other amenities AND we get it all for
free!!! I don’t think we’ve ever been happier.

          So Merry Christmas
and have a Happy New Year.

About the Author

“I’m just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”

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Breaking into Gay Culture by Jon Krey

BREAKING INTO GAY CULTURE:  But first a little history.
Gay Culture? SEX was gay culture! It was found in public bathrooms (called tea rooms), dark allies, parked cars on out of town dirt roads,  money paid to hitchhikers for services rendered,  raided bars with entrapment, jail terms, fines, well enforced sodomy laws,  media exposure both in newspaper and TV many times. That was Gay Culture as far as I could see. There were some deviations with similar trappings, like the drunken gay Osage Indians I knew, suicides, gay bashing, murders and disease. I should also mention the guy who “blew” me out of the closet. He was as suggested in “Boys in the Band” one of the many “unhappy homosexuals”.
It might have been different if I had lived on either of the coasts but I didn’t.
I know this is dark but truth is truth and that was the truth then!
I suppose in reality homosexuality did exist in the arts as it always had throughout the world but that’s not what I learned in Tulsa in the late 50s and I wasn’t looking in the arts. No at least initially.
Still my late teen hormones roared; commanded my body to get it on but where and with whom? Danger was foremost in my mind and good ole’ Christian teaching. I wasn’t into sex alone and had a deep seated need for a boy-friend. All the other kids in High School had girl friends, why couldn’t I have a boy friend? Still where could I go, where to find others like myself? I fell for Tab Hunter, after reading the expose’ in “Confidential Magazine. He was one of my early crushes in life and himself a gay icon, I had to do something. I had to find “my people”. But where? Tab was an actor so I thought of the theater scene and found the “Tulsa Little Theater.”I certainly was no actor but thought it a possibility. I joined the fledgling theater; saw a few really effeminate flippant men running around mostly dishing one another; found out by hear-shot who’d blown whom and where. They certainly did notice me, at least physically, in particular a specific bodily area. None had enough interest to really become acquainted with me. I became terrified. I had made my connection but these men were nothing like boyfriend material. Sex, when I engaged in it, was so amateurish it was a constant disappointment. Socially, the theater group, an aloof group with few ties outside and with little interest other than physically.
I officially broke into the physical aspect of gay society when a gay man from the theater group put the make on me, but I never felt any commonality with him or the others. No sense of community existed then that I could identify with. Most were hidden from their families, non-gay friends and themselves! Yes they were gay but it was just for mere sexual expression or better exploitation.  I became disgusted, frightened, disheartened, terrified, filled with guilt and fell into my own internalized homophobia. Being gay wasn’t anything I had dreamed of. No boy-friends’ anywhere to grant me my authenticity, no real friends. Only a few sexual alliances. Most of them highly unsatisfactory. Tulsa gays were marginalized much worse than today. They stood alone, did whatever was necessary then to find, well, sex. It was a get it up, get it on, get off and GET OUT society!! Downright awful. I never participated in any of this, at least as an initiator, and was deeply isolated and lonely.
In the early ’60’s I had one thoroughly devastating LTR, a very bland and abusive scene which prevailed emotionally in me for many years! With all the familial pressure at home, gay bar plus other social exclusion I developed a continuous problem with alcohol.
Eventually around 1974 I left Tulsa for good but here in Denver but found the same. Small splinter groups of exclusionary people. Not many connections for basic sex even if that took place. Certainly no sense of belonging, no love, no acceptance on most levels and certainly no culture. I must have been looking in all the wrong places.
So where was this gay culture of lore? Where was this elusive thing I’d needed for so many years?  For me over five decades had passed, devoid of genuine gay socialization, emotionality and sensuality. I was closeted within; bound by internalized homophobia, feeling forgotten, overlooked, outside of a world I’d never understood nor fully participated in. I didn’t want their two dimensional reality I wanted and needed a three dimensional one. One that celebrated gay life. 
Then came the birth of the first organized gay center in Denver. Still it was exclusionary. Made up of young professionals and activists, and I wasn’t one. But then after some time it all changed. When moved and reopened at 1301 E. Colfax, The Center gave me a sense of ownership of myself, a feeling of pride, of belonging, of comradeship of meeting people like myself as I’d always hoped for.  I was home at last. Thank God Almighty I was home at last. Over 50 years later I was reborn. Though much has still to be I have hope for the future now. Maybe in this new form of Zeitgeist and true friendships a mature loving partnership may still be possible. I certainly hope so against even now in my seventy-second year. At least I’m among my own kind and have a strong degree of completeness. Men and women who do care about me. People like myself in so many ways. People I feel included with, not excluded as in the past. So it’s time to get on with life and bury the past in some other dimension.
I’M FREE AT LAST.

About the Author

“I’m just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”
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The Little Things in Life by Jon Krey

Little doesn’t necessary mean little as in small but much more. When a parent or grandparent gives you a hug. My first crush or rather crushes. My first car, second car, anything but my present car. It needs to give way to something more recent. Something within the past 20 years??

I remember TV shows as a kid. “I Love Lucy”. The Jack Benny Show, The Twilight shows, Dragnet, One Step Beyond. I remember the TV’s that came before these. My next door neighbor had the first in our neck of the woods. My whole family and theirs gathered around it waiting for the station to begin its broadcast day (of about 5 hours). It had a small 8” screen with an enclosure as large as a small fridge. When it began we could barely see much other than a guy with some ad and the local news. We sat there entranced by this quasi lucid picture with lines angling through it. My neighbor got up and continually adjusted the picture and the rabbit ears antenna. He finally gave up and we went home… My dad said TV would never amount to anything.

I remember Christmas in the late Forties. One Christmas at Dad’s parents in Hyattville, KS.  We’d come up from Tulsa for Christmas. It was snowing hard and my grandparents little house was empty on arrival. Mom said they probably went to church.  It was a small Methodist church just about 4 city blocks from the house. We drove there and Dad got out to go inside while I and my sister remained in the car. Oh, the beautiful Christmas music. The 8 person choir and congregation sang alongside of a church reed organ. The church windows bright with candlelight. So there we sat among the heavy snow drifts waiting. I felt so good with all this magical music, light and snow falling. I thought “so this is what Christmas is all about”.

Times go on though through other Christmas’s not so good but there were other “little things”. My first crushes. It seemed there was always one if not two in every grade up through graduation from High School. It was always love at first sight. No they never knew but I did. Such male beauty. I always thought I’d be with one of them one day. That never happened but I did find others though never quite the same.

Then there was Aunt Martha, a Pennsylvania Dutch woman who denied any German ancestry. That wasn’t the point though. She and her husband back then were for me and my sister a second mom and dad. They loved us so much. In 1949 she and her husband were to visit us in Tulsa. Again there was copious snow on Christmas Eve. Before their arrival the door bell rang. Mom answered and it was UPS or whomever back then, holding a big rectangle box which had MY name on it. She brought it inside but said I couldn’t open it yet. It seemed like eternity but Aunt Martha and Uncle Paul finally arrived. I tore the box open and found an electric train! OH MY GOD! Wonderful!! Mom and Dad couldn’t have afforded it but they weren’t poor. What a gift, what a time of memories.

So much over the years of little things have now past. My first bicycle, my first motorcycle, my first car. My first sexual connection.

Maybe some of the happiest memories of the past would also include two additional things. At Mom’s parent’s farmhouse at two in the morning hearing the night train chug out of downtown Ft. Scott. Watching it as its dim headlight moved slowly upward on the inclining grade. What a trip!

The other at Dad’s parents again. Early on one morning during a visit from Tulsa I awakened from the night on their old feather bed in their two room home. I heard their windup WESTCLOX alarm clock tick/tacking away while Grandma and Grandpa still slept soundly . I loved listening to it run. Just minutes later that morning, only one block away, came the slow chug, chug, chug of another train, this time a passenger one. It stopped very briefly to dislodge a couple of locals then headed on its way north.

Lastly, since I’m into this sort of thing, I inadvisably was plowing through my Grandma’s wallboard once and found Granddad’s ancient Elgin pocket watch. WOW! I HAD to WIND it and listen to it tick. But, Mom saw me and that was it! The watch was taken away and hidden. Shit!! I hadn’t even gotten to take the back off it yet! Still what a discovery, and equal to the time Granddad caught me play driving in his 1936 Dodge in the garage. That watch, not the car, represented so much  to me then as it still does today. I finally inherited it around 15 years ago, where it now holds a very special place in my watch collection but much to the chagrin and displeasure of my cousins who believed they should have been its heir.   

Yes, little things in life; little things do mean a lot. But until the day I finally fall over, my spring unwound, these are just a very few of the best of my memories. For in the great eternity within the universe it’s little things that do mean a lot.

About the Author

“I’m just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”

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Place of Origin by Jon Krey

All of my family was born in
the U.S. except for one elderly female cousin to my mother. Aunt Berta. She was
born before WWI in Bavaria. My relatives and parents were of German and English
descent or Pennsylvania Dutch as they insist on calling it. This mixture could
occasionally cause all kinds of ruckus though generally they were kind folk of
humble origins having migrated here well over a century before. None were
wealthy save one uncle on my mother’s side who used his considerable talent and
influence to climb the ladder of success at Allis Chalmers all the way to
president!  He was accorded the rank of
family hero and the one and only person of means. Others were just ordinary folk
tending the land as they had for generations. They came down into Kansas from
Pennsylvania Dutch country sometime around the beginning of the 20th
century living in or around the small farming community of Fort Scott
Kansas.  My how that little town of
memories has changed. Gone are the cobble stone streets now covered with asphalt.
Gone are the sidewalks of the Great Depression. Gone are the great and small
Victorian homes that dotted the narrow streets in the 1940’s. It’s sad that so
much history is buried; too often forgotten now-a-days. None of the young
generation of Ft. Scott seem to care much though many landmarks have been
preserved thanks in great part to my Dad‘s siblings.

But to go on:
With the Great Depression
still breathing down everyone’s neck my parents left the “security” of Ft.
Scott in 1939 hoping Dad could find a more lucrative job in the great
metropolis of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had no trouble leaving the farming community
behind. Mom bore me at St. John’s Hospital’s “Lying In”, in Tulsa in 1940, not
on the 4th of July but 3 days advanced; the whole world soon to be
toppling on the brink of WWII. 

Our home was a duplex on the
east side of town, across the tracks. Simply called EAST TULSA./ WHITTIER
SQUARE, in particular.   Certainly not
the best place in Tulsa. Some 5 years later my baby sister Barbara was born on
August 1945 on the same date, the 7th as I.  Before and during the war Dad’s job had
protected him ( and his small family) from the draft, staving off destitution .
Luck wasn’t with us, his job in Tulsa came to a screeching halt with the war’s
end leaving my family virtually out of a home. His brother found him work in
Ft. Scott and a subsequent move provided menial work for him as a machinist.
The company had held a government contract which expired suddenly, without
notice, at wars end. Dad was a proud man and refused to live with our relatives
there. He‘d maintained contact with fellow former employees in Tulsa.  New work opened for him in Tulsa with an up
and coming firm known then as Tulsa Winch which as of the mid 1980’s
evolved into the Sperry/Rand Corporation.  Though conditionally accepted, with the return
of GI’s in 1946/1947 it became months before he was gainfully employed. He was
able to find acceptable shelter for us with Aunt Berta in her dilapidated one
bedroom apartment above the Tulsa train station. Crowded was an understatement.
It was late fall, then a cruel winter. The only heat in the entire apartment
was a small gas fired stove on the floor. I remember being hypnotized by the
blue flame, orange glow of the radiant elements and “hush” of gas. Dad was
exhausted. Nothing during that time worked out for him. He had worked as a
house painter in the past as a young man but no work was available. Eventually,
having tried so desperately to support us he had something like a nervous
breakdown. Mom consoled him as best she could. He too often spent days with minimal
sleep, frequently crying. I remember continuous fighting between them. It
certainly didn’t help any of us and did nothing but scare me silly. I thought
Aunt Berta was going to call the police and haul Dad off to…where? It didn’t
help Barbara either though today she doesn’t remember it as I do. There was no
money for a doctor. No work, no medication, no alcohol, nothing! Not even money
for cigarettes. I heard years later there had been a family rumor of her
leaving him for one of his old single friends. Barbara was around 1 year old
then and definitely affected by the discord. 
As with many that age she would break into shrieking crying jags. It
might have been the arguing but Mom’s consistently bad temperament only
exacerbated the situation. I hid in the corners of our room, my heart pounded,
my own anxiety grew. 

In time, after around four
months he finally was back at work; his mood greatly improved.

Both sides of the family
were of Pennsylvania Dutch farming stock, a fact that many in my extended
family hated and never talked about. The ties with a German heritage weren‘t
something of pride then. I later learned that no one admitted any German
connection without being ostracized. Little was ever spoken of our European origins
but I did ultimately find out more. That’s another story.

These 4 wheeled vehicles are
forever changing  my place, my
“origin”! Years of family automobiles changed over time. We had a 1937
Plymouth for many years. Others had different sometimes bigger ones. All were
hugely interesting. Space-ships like cars; Buicks,Oldsmobiles, Fords, Hudsons,
Studebakers, Chevrolets, Packards. They’re all trasnport mechanisms.  Take you from one place in Space Time from
one party of ORIGIN TO another. Not many of my relatives had new
post war cars but those that did had things of pure beauty! I loved to pretend
driving them. One aunt on my Mom’s side actually let me “drive” hers with me
hanging onto the steering wheel. WOW what fun!  I WAS THERE, WHEREVER “THERE” IS. HEY LET’S
TAKE A TRIP. AN ORIGINAL TRIP.  THROUGH
SPACE TIME FROM AN ORIGINALLY, ORIGINAL PLACE.

Telephones with private
lines were unheard of in Ft. Scott or Tulsa and 
frequently used years-old wooden crank wall phones up in Ft. Scott to
summon the operator. I still remember the phone number of my favorite male cousin
I had a crush on (1558J). AM radio was all there was. FM was yet to be. Buicks
had radios that thundered with bass and I was hooked and still am.

We all had a large console
type radio with consistently bad tubes. It doesn’t matter where we lived or
live. Most of us had a dad who was the repairman and found new tubes at Rex-All
Drugs, Safeway, or in this day and age; 
RadioShack or Walmart (I doubt any of them still have vacuum tubes
though).. Among the many thingsJoplin. Joplin. Missouri was a Summer
Place of Origin and of discovery for me in my youth. Back then in 1953  I finally did get to leave Earth, at
least for 45 minutes.  Who knows, maybe
next time it’ll be to Mars, lol. After all when I was a school kid and into
space travel, my classmates called me MARS MAN!

Maybe my truest place of
origin is WITHIN MY OWN MIND. I’m something of a traveler though.
Always wanted to go from one PLACE OF ORIGIN to another PLACE OF ORIGIN
wondering how to get there from here. 
Wondering what’s just around that corner for me once there.

 Give me liberty or death but first give
me a flying saucer so I can find new places and globs in space from which to
originate. But first I have to get someone to loan me the money to by the
damned saucer  at which time I have no
idea where my origin will be.

So from Germany, England,
Ft. Scott, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma and now Denver, Colorado; all is history but
history moves toward the present. So here I am and where I was and where from
here I will go next. No one origin but many. No one place to live but many.

About the Author

“I’m
just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an
illusion.”