Tag: Ray S

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Pack Rat, by Ray S

As long as I can remember saving bits and scraps of memories, Christmas and birthday cards, grade school report cards, birth announcements, baby books, funeral memorials, and anything else that was too important to discard in good conscience.

Like the bad penny, no matter how deeply buried all of that one-time vitally important stuff comes to the surface—no pennies don’t float, but you know what I mean.

Then there are the material things acquired over the years. For me just about all of that stuff can tell a story and the prospect of sentencing it to a new life at ARC or Goodwill can be like divorce or a death in the family. So much for untold years of materialism.

Just don’t give a damn and announce an estate sale, but be warned: what happens if no one shows. There is always the Salvation Army. That might save the day as well as you too.

This one is a lot of work but it might work.

Label with history tags all of the stuff you’ve saved since World War II so the recipient will know its provenance. Then gather family and close friends for a Free for All.

Again you run the risk like “Smarty, Smarty had a party” and nobody came. No matter how hard you try to cut the “silver cord”—like even the rest of your life, it’s been one more blinking choice you have to chance it.

You know, trying to get rid of that self nurtured rot leads to this solution: just get up from your easy chair, leave all of that clutter on the floor, open the door, lock it, and go out to the bar with a friend. Tomorrow is another life!

© 24 October 2016

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Choices, by Ray S.

Never had to make a choice or decision because my mother always did that for me. That’s what mothers do.

The US government decided I was draftable like all the other boys my age in 1943. Faced with making a choice as to what branch of the service would want me, it resulted in a trip to the US Army Air Force office and enlisting in their air cadet program. It seemed the best choice of all evils and besides I didn’t think I’d fit nicely into a tight white sailor suit.

Footnote here: Can you imagine me flying an airplane? I couldn’t even drive a car then.

The air corps was making all of our choices now having replaced Mama. As good fortune would have it, the cadet program was oversubscribed, so the powers that be (or were) scattered all of this wet behind the ears pubescent material to the winds. The talented ones went to aircraft mechanics school. The rest of the class members, having finished basic training in the wilds of Gulfport, were shipped off to a military police contingent where they were assigned to 11 pm to 7 am guard duty. Here we could reflect on our recently basic training that had taught all of the little boys how to be good little soldiers, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, strip down and reassemble a carbine, report on parade grounds at 6 am dressed only in your issue raincoat for “short arm” VD inspection (and he wouldn’t show us his), learn the intricacies of KP duty, and checking the scenery in the barracks shower.

Eventually through discovery, familiarity, or unknowing choices, the appearance of latent libidos or the right time and the right place, this boy found out what people meant by the pejoratives “queer” and “fairy.” However there was a conscious effort called ‘in denial’ to not own those words openly for some thirty to forty years hence.

Dating and girls:

It was a blind date that never ended until she delivered an ultimatum. The morning of the wedding the butterflies kept saying, “Do you really want this?” But, the die was cast, no choice, just make the best of it … for fifty-five years. And there were many good times and some not so good.

Is chance a choice or is choice a chance? A sunny day in June, crowds gathered at Civic Center Plaza, and I chose to hang out on the perimeter of all the action observing what PRIDE was all about.

Another CHOICE, after all of this time it was becoming easier—attending a SAGE of the Rockies conference. Meeting and learning to know there was a place for me in this beautiful tribe; and I belonged. Knowing I could reach out and love freely and openly. Finding I finally could come out of a closet I had lived in all of these years. I realize now that I might be the only person that didn’t know or suspect I was and am queer—in the most positive sense. My closet like many others suffered from structural transparency.

Now I am faced with another CHOICE. Trying to determine is this ‘indiscriminate love’ or ‘unconditional love’ that I feel for all of you; and is there really that much of a difference?

© 11 July 2016

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Hunting, by Ray S

Here is my
pathetic hunting story. I have told you all several stories before of my states
of extreme self pity. I was so very sure I must have been an unwanted adopted
child. This attitude became most evident when members of the family realized
that their social or vacation plans became complicated by the need to figure
out what to do with the Boy Child.
Everyone’s
Saturday night plans were such that the low man on the totem pole turned out to
be the Big Brother who had plans to spend the evening with a lady friend,
evidently deemed of great romantic potential. Could anything dampen one’s plans
better than having to take the Little Brother along on the date of a maybe
lifetime? But the parents had plans for that night too, and they took seniority
precedence.
After
arriving at the home of Brother’s amore, they settled the child in with
necessary coloring books (this story predates TV) and the funny papers, and
warned him to stay put while they stepped out for a brief journey to a local
ice cream parlor, or so they said.
As I
previously described to you the glorious degree of ‘poor me’ took command.
After obediently wearing out the box of Crayolas and memorizing the Tribune’s
comics, a decision was arrived at by His Nibs: “I will show them. I’ll run away
and they will find me never, never, never!” In this instance the open road
consisted of several neighborhood blocks dimly lit by an occasional street
lamp.
Eventually
the spirit of revolt lost some of its motivation and maybe it was time to
return to the frenzied desperate arms of the would-be guardians. Only then did
the forsaken one realize that after searching and hunting for Young Lady’s
house, His Nibs was lost.
Sitting on
the street curb, two fists rubbing away the tears from two sad and maybe
repentant eyes, he looked up to his side at a tall blue-uniformed man. The man
reached down for a little arm and softly said, “Come with me, I’ll take you
home.”
© 26 September 2016  
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Help, by Ray S

It is the darkest of nights. As though the universe
were an endlessness bereft of all of its stars and planets. On a hilltop he
stands naked, nothing to hide himself with. Slowly he stands astride raising
outstretched arms, takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and from the depths of
his lungs screams HELP!
At another time in a small square room—floor, walls,
ceiling thickly padded no discernible openings, absent of any light, the
blackness surrounding him like a smothering blanket—again the cry HELP!
A blazing sun scorches the desert plain blinding the
drop off the edge of space. Visions of the climax scene from an old movie where
the protagonist speeds the car over the cliff. Could he will this kind of an
ending? Would he be brave enough to follow through and end it all? Or would he
chicken out before he accelerated the gas pedal, or maybe go over the cliff
before he could change his confused mind? That perhaps a stroke of good
fortune—speeding away to the end screaming HELP!
He has arrived at NOW. The same hilltop but the
universe enveloping it is a deep midnight blue with stars sparkling like
diamonds scattered forever. He stands up tall and steady, still naked to his
world and yet clothed with a garment of gratitude and love for the NOW that has
brought him so very many beautiful friendships and blessings.
HELP is here NOW!
©19 Sep 2016 
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Greens, by Ray S

“Greens” is the color of my green bucks. Last Friday in a fit of self indulgence I took some eight and a half of them and went to the movies.

Alright, I got around that subject matter and now with your indulgence, you get to try to survive some more of the results of my attempting to keep up with the rest of you, my storytellers. Not hardly literature, just the incidental “off the wall” stuff I usually come to this séance with.

I bet you’ve guessed already—a movie review instead of my favorite recipe for Caesar salad.

First, I will certainly understand should you wish to close your ears and eyes while I get on with this little essay. It won’t take long and not likely to enlighten you, unless you’re a Woody Allen movie freak. Yes, the local Esquire movie palace (somewhat diminished) is showing his latest effort CAFÉ SOCIETY. If you have followed Allen’s cinema career you might recognize his timeless and sometimes tired themes—but soldier on and you will discover a new and magic story-line with each of his many films.

Of course, he has continued to mine the nostalgia store with Café’s pre-WWII setting. Most of you are too young to relate to this time and will see this aspect as quaint and maybe “Was it really like that then?” Well, yes, only Hollywood always goes them one better. You know, bigger than life.

That said about the book drop, Allen has written a charmingly witty story that will catch your imagination and keep you waiting for the next curveball which he so adept at throwing or tossing in this case.

The ethnicity of the players, the reality of human nature and how it molds each of us in so many different ways is well portrayed. The voice-over, if not read by the author-director himself, could easily pass for him, as well as the actor who plays the lead. A 20-something mensch from New York turned loose in 1939 Hollywood.

Enough already! If you want some escape that isn’t mind-numbing violence or sci-fi, take the afternoon off for some off-the-wall Woody Allen time.

© 8 August 2016

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Eavesdrop Follow Up, by Ray S

At lunch the other day I was concentrating on my ham on rye when I couldn’t avoid overhearing two men on the adjoining bar stools. Maybe their two-martini lunches encouraged their animated conversation when one exclaimed to the other, “But I don’t understand, how after all these years she could do that to Harry? What about the business? What about the children?”

His friend responded, “She’s been that way all her life—so they say.” I wonder who ‘they’ were and why Harry didn’t have a clue.

“Guess not, be damned if the two of them aren’t friendly with each other, all three of them, that is.”

The next response was something like: “Look, you ought to know. You’re married. Women are so flighty and unpredictable, like lovey dovey and then ‘Not tonight, I’ve got a headache,’ or ‘We did it last Wednesday.’”

I’ve got experience, what with a wife and two daughters. I can’t figure them out. So I just grin and bear it. The other guy followed with something like, “I’d throw the bitch out—after marriage counseling. Ha!”

By this time the ham on rye was finished and so was I. I felt like an intruder, unwanted guest, and personally imposed upon by their noise. I picked up my check and headed for the cashier, and back to the office. Somehow the experience at lunch hung over my thoughts all afternoon—so much so that that evening I called a longtime friend who is a counselor at the GLBT Center here in town. She and her partner were the first lesbians I ever met and a real eye opening pleasure for a straight man.

We talked for quite awhile. The over-heard story at lunch time made me wonder too about their question—idle curiosity I guess, because when I met Nel and Liz I simply accepted them as another new couple of acquaintances to add to my list of good friends.

Nel was quite open in her reply—after she regained her composure from smiling knowingly and a controlled laugh. “Jim,” she replied, “It isn’t that complicated, just a lifetime of misguided, badly twisted, confusing thoughts about who you really are. And that condition isn’t exclusively homosexual information. From our previous talks about you and Doris, it is something that comes early or sometimes late in life. It’s the relationship between two people who have discovered how much they mean to each other, not how much they need each other. Being needy isn’t being in love, so perhaps the woman who was the subject of your accidental eavesdropping had that epiphany and started to live honestly and authentically with her new wife.”

“Nel, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and with that same heart wish that your thoughts could penetrate the alcohol hanging over those two guys’ heads. And maybe filter through to their unfortunate wives.”

Next time I’ll pass on lunch at the bar. Think I’ll take Doris to lunch. The company will be superior, and I’ll be with my most-loved one.

© 18 July 2016

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Families, by Ray S

A very long time ago I was the youngest in my immediate family. Somehow I have survived all of these years in spite of knowing “I must have been adopted” (sound familiar?) or the result of a moment of reckless passion. As you can guess already I knew I was the “unwanted child.” They had produced the magical Golden Boy seven years before I slipped into the scene.

Fortunately, the family reread the book covering the arrival of a baby, now about the Stork’s tardy gift. It was a refresher course to bone up on what they might have forgotten from the advent of the Son and heir.

Everyone soldiered on as best they could. Daddy continued to work and support his progeny. Golden Boy succeeded in defending his territory and ignored the new arrival. Looking back I believe he didn’t quite know how to handle the situation. Besides, he was only seven-plus and probably wouldn’t be able to read “How to Cope with an Unexpected Baby Brother.”

Mommy, having put up with all of the necessities and inconvenience of child bearing depending on how you spell baring, decided that if she was going to deliver another bundle of joy, the child would be named “Doris.” Unfortunately for Mommy and Doris, baby arrived with the plumbing she did not order.

No matter Baby soon learned how to dress his “Patsy Ann” doll in a wardrobe lovingly stitched by his mother. When old enough scissors were allowed and a whole collection of paper dolls appeared.

The die was cast and pansy was in bloom. Daddy did see to it that his second son knew how to recognize male anatomy, no matter how modest, from that of the little girl next door, who was busying herself and Baby Boy with their own anatomy lessons.

Sometime later, the boy graduated to being in boy’s knickers and then the first pair of long pants. The family had succeeded in establishing their second son’s gender identity to their satisfaction, and everyone lived happily ever after!

Little did they know, or did they?

© 5 September 2016

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Blue Skies, by Ray S

Good
afternoon, Class. Our subject word for today is innuendo. I trust you’ve done
your homework, thus you’re cognizant of how to employ this word. Just tickle
your prurient mind department and chuckle away.
First
off, “Blue Skies” is the title of an old song which prompts a visit to Tin Pan
Alley. You recall the next line—“Smiling at me, nothing but Blue Skies do I
see.”
Now,
see what these titles can do with a little alteration, interpretation, and
innuendo, a la GLBTQ.
Pack up your troubles in your old kit
bag and smile, smile, smile
It’s a long way to Tipperary
Over there, over there
Blow, Gabriel, Blow
Over the rainbow
I’m always chasing rainbows
The boy next door or the girl next
door
I’d like to hate myself in the
morning
This can’t be love
Me and my shadow
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Someone to watch over me
The man I love (or woman)
How long has this been going on?
Sweet and low down
Who cares?
I’ve got a crush on you
Bess, you are my woman, now
I got it bad and that ain’t good
I loves you Porgy
My blue heaven (you fill in the name
of your choice)
Happy days are here again
I’m young and healthy
Over there
The varsity drag
Ain’t we got fun
Little girl
Change partners
What’ll I do?
How deep is the ocean?
Let’s have another cup of coffee
Say it isn’t so
Don’t lie under the apple tree
I hate men
He needs me
After I say I’m sorry
Somebody loves me
Hard hearted Hannah
I never knew
Frankie and Johnnie
I can’t give you anything but love
How come you do me like you do, do,
do?
I wish I could shimmy like my sister
Kate
After you’ve gone
Minnie the moocher
Willow weep for me
There’s a small hotel
The lady is a tramp
I enjoy being a girl
This can’t be love
I’ve got you under my skin
Why can’t you behave?
They say it’s wonderful
The girl (boy) that I marry
You go to my head
That old feeling
When I’m not near the girl (boy) I
love,
          I’m in love with the girl (boy) I’m
near
Don’t worry about me
All of me
You make me feel so young
Anything goes
Oh, look at me now.
         Sing along now and “Get Happy.”
© 27 June 2016 

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Choices, by Ray S

  
Never had
to make a choice or decision because my mother always did that for me. That’s
what mothers do.
The US
government decided I was draftable like all the other boys my age in 1943.
Faced with making a choice as to what branch of the service would want me, it
resulted in a trip to the US Army Air Corps office and enlisting in their air
cadet program. It seemed the best choice of all evils and besides I didn’t think
I’d fit nicely into a tight white sailor suit.
Footnote
here: Can you imagine me flying an airplane? I couldn’t even drive a car then.
The Air Corps was making all of our choices now having replaced Mama. As good fortune
would have it, the cadet program was oversubscribed, so the powers that be (or
were) scattered all of this wet behind the ears pubescent material to the
winds. The talented ones went to aircraft mechanics school.  The rest of the class members, having
finished basic training in the wilds of Gulfport, were shipped off to a
military police contingent where they were assigned to 11 pm to 7 am guard
duty. Here we could reflect on our recently basic training that had taught all
of the little boys how to be good little soldiers, drink beer, smoke
cigarettes, strip down and reassemble a carbine, report on parade grounds at 6
am dressed only in your issue raincoat for “short arm” VD inspection (and he
wouldn’t show us his), learn the intricacies of KP duty, and checking the
scenery in the barracks shower.
Eventually
through discovery, familiarity, or unknowing choices, the appearance of latent
libidos or the right time and the right place, this boy found out what people meant
by the pejoratives “queer” and “fairy.” However there was a conscious effort
called ‘in denial’ to not own those words openly for some thirty to forty years
hence.
Dating and
girls:
It was a
blind date that never ended until she delivered an ultimatum. The morning of
the wedding the butterflies kept saying, “Do you really want this?” But, the
die was cast, no choice, just make the best of it — for fifty-five years. And there
were many good times and some not so good.
Is chance a
choice or is choice a chance? A sunny day in June, crowds gathered at Civic
Center Plaza, and I chose to hang out on the perimeter of all the action
observing what PRIDE was all about.
Another
CHOICE, after all of this time it was becoming easier—attending a SAGE of the
Rockies conference. Meeting and learning to know there was a place for me in
this beautiful tribe; and I belonged. Knowing I could reach out and love freely
and openly. Finding I finally could come out of a closet I had lived in all of
these years. I realize now that I might be the only person that didn’t know or
suspect I was and am queer—in the most positive sense. My closet like many
others suffered from structural transparency.
Now I am
faced with another CHOICE. Trying to determine is this ‘indiscriminate love’ or
‘unconditional love’ that I feel for all of you; and is there really that much
of a difference?
© 11 July 2016 
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Hysteria, by Ray S

I wonder how many of my friends here resorted to the same tactic as I have done? That is to look into what Mr. Webster had to tell me about today’s topic, Hysteria. 

HYSTERIA, Noun [Greek, hustera, uterus, orig. Thought to occur more often in women than in men] 1. A psychiatric condition characterized by excitability, anxiety, the simulation of organic disorders, etc. 2. Any outbreak of wild, uncontrolled feeling: also hysterics, hysterical, or hysteric, adj.,–hysterically adv.

After some pondering those defining words I had a “Eureka moment” and determined how I wear this hysteria word garment.

My thoughts and studies about who and what I am as a so-called QUEER concluded: an in-between creature, a genderless in-between combining masculine and feminine energies.

Permit me to subject you to another stolen quote lifted from the pages of an old copy of R.F.D., the magazine of the Radical Faeries:

“We embody masculine and feminine energies in a unique way… the unconscious regenerative Earth Mother and the conscious constructive Sky Father…. Our work as fairies is to bring harmony between the two—to take the gifts of the Father back to the Mother.”

With this new knowledge I now can continue my life’s journey, realizing that my feminine side is simply experiencing a fit of hysteria.

#

Let’s hear it for some uncontrolled feeling—more power to you!

© August 2016

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