Essay Fiesta #1

Essay Fiesta, the monthly reading series I co-produce, premiered last night at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. I honestly hoped for 20 people max. We ended up running out of chairs, packing the room with about 50-60 people. It was amazing. I am really touched that so many people would come out to support local artists and Howard Brown Health Center, the organization that the event is benefiting.

We raised a decent amount of money for the organization, though we are going to try some different tactics to raise more. I’m also applying for a grant that might be able to help us secure some more materials to help get the word out about the event.

If you’re reading this and want to help, visit Essay Fiesta on Facebook. We’re always looking for submissions, donations and marketing opportunities.

Once again, thank you everyone who came out last night. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

See you Dec. 21.

 

 

Writing Hurts

I write a lot. In fact, I’m writing right now. Well, probably not right now, while you’re reading this. Though possibly. Actually, probably. Yeah. I’m writing.

I’m a professional writer. People pay me money to write. All kinds of people do this. Large companies that have offices around the globe and are mentioned on the news and have t.v. commercials have me write for them. Tiny companies with people that rent out office space in strip malls and have one co-worker (likely their spouse) have me write for them. Web sites, magazines, video production companies. They all have me write for them.

And you know what? Writing hurts.

It hurts my brain. It hurts my fingers and my hands. It hurts my eyes, staring at this computer monitor most of my days. I’m sure sitting in this chair for hours isn’t good for my butt. And I tend to eat while I work, so who knows what kinds of problems I’m developing internally (these veins aren’t going to unclog themselves).

But writing can also hurt the heart, and I’m speaking of this in a metaphorical sense. The Internet gives people a sense of entitlement. We are all anonymous bits and bytes when you look at things through a WWW lens. There’s no human on the other side, with a life, reading and feeling and thinking and eating and pooping and sexing. It’s just a post, some words, scribbled on a screen that doesn’t exist in any real physical space. But that’s untrue. These are people, and we are alive and we do think and feel and poop and eat and whatever else it is that us people all do.

So sometimes I feel bad writing things. And sometimes I feel bad when I read things. It hurts. But if you don’t stick your neck out and do something, make something, create something that is your own, then you won’t ever really be doing anything. And doing things is what life is all about. So don’t worry about the hurt. Who cares what people say? If it shakes you up, it’s your own doubt, your own inner-voice amplified outside of yourself to hear. If you’re confident, if you’re proud of what you’ve done, then you know it’s not your problem. It is theirs, the ones that write the things that hurt. And you just keep on going.

Maine on the Brain

I have come to the conclusion that despite how far we think we’ve come, the majority of this country still hates us.

I had wanted to believe that we as a country had progressed. I wasn’t about to bite into that post-racism pie, but I thought we were at a watershed moment where people would finally set aside their old-time religions and quaint prejudices.

When DOMA and then the redundant anti-gay amendments swept this country, I thought these would be fads, like mall concerts or leggings. When Iowa’s high court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, I thought we would witness a sea change. And when my hopes were dashed in California, I thought that America wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, ashamed at the giant blemish of hatred it had left on the West Coast, the mess it had made in the voting booth.

But no. I was wrong. There is no stopping the hate machine. No amount of marching or protesting or money funneling. This is most likely going to be a waiting game. A staring contest. Where we fixate eyes on those who don’t have the nerve, the guts, to look at us in the face, despite the fact that we are their neighbors, their co-workers, their sons and daughters. We are the dirt under their rug, the bathroom in the Brady Bunch household. In their minds, to acknowledge us is to acknowledge that there is something impure, something that will break that fragile vision of the Mayberry world they exist in. It will color their view of a white, straight America, transforming it into the calico collage that is reality.

I have straight friends that are naive enough to think that there is a place in this country where I can hold hands with my boyfriend in public without fear of harassment. These friends still believe the myth that urban oases such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York provide some shelter from the bigot storm. I will tell you this is false. I have been to all three cities in the past six months with my boyfriend. In each city, I have been harassed, stared down and made to feel uncomfortable for being who I am. It has been so bad in Chicago that my boyfriend and I have created a game where we guess how many blocks we can walk holding hands without being called faggot. We rarely guess low enough.

But oh yes! I forgot about Boystown. With all the chintzy plastic of Disneyland but void of the charm, Boystown is nothing but a symbol of our oppression, a reminder that the only safe place for us to live and love is a ghetto lined with rainbow columns, which dam us up so we won’t spill over into “their” territory.

So how will us gays win our equality? Are we going to keep fighting, trying in vain to convince people who are obviously unwavering in their narrow-minded beliefs that their religious leaders, their parents, their politicians and their community is wrong in denouncing a sexual orientation that is just as unwavering? Because how do you create that shift when every single institution that touches that person’s life is sending the same message, “Gays are evil, and to support them is evil by proxy.” No amount of megaphone chanting, political funding or hell raising is going to change that. Even when the laws one day tilt the scales back to a position of equality, this hatred and need to feel superior over a subset of people will persist.

Life is hard enough. Can you just let us live it?

Hiatus

My blogging is going to go on hiatus for a bit. I’m juggling a ton of projects and am planning a trip to New York. But I’ll be back, I promise you that.

- K.

Random Things

Because I have no time to write today, here are some random things I’ve been reading/watching:

My Web series, Word Of The Gay:

http://www.outworld.tv/media/435/Word_of_the_Gay_3/

The Wizard of Beck (NYT columnist David Brooks discusses conservative pundits minimal impact on real-world politics):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/opinion/02brooks.html?_r=2&em

Roger Ebert rants about the fringe conservative movement:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_anger_of_the_festering_fri.html

An Open Letter To Guys Singing At Concerts

Dear Guys Singing At Concerts,

I hope you enjoyed the Grizzly Bear show as much as I did. By the sounds of it, you enjoyed it plenty. Too plenty, if you ask me. For you see, I thought there were only four members of Grizzly Bear. But I seemed to be mistaken. For you were screaming in my ear their lyrics to every A-track you knew (You shut up for the B-sides. Why is that? Why?). Did you hurt your hand? Is that why you weren’t on stage with your bandmates, riffing along, shredding on an instrument or bang banging on a drum? Maybe the band planted you in the audience, as some sort of audio experiment. You know, give the audience a feel of surround sound.

Maybe you weren’t a bandmate at all? This would explain your inability to sing on key to ANY, I repeat, ANY fucking song you sang along too. Really. That’s what you think a middle A sounds like? More like middle Ass. A cat on a hot carburetor would be more melodic. I like your heart, I do, but I’d like it more if it just stopped beating.

Do you just come to concerts because you were kicked out of your garage band for huffing all the WD-40 before your gig at John Barlycorn’s? Do they even have live music at John Barlycorn’s? I’m asking you, guy who sings at concerts, because I’m sure that is your favorite bar to feed women lies about your success so that they’ll sleep with you. Or do you come because you are a raving schizophrenic who in any other environment aside from a rock concert would be fingered as the blabbering, unrestrained, yelling ape-man that you are, thus rock concerts being a sort of brotherly sanctuary for you, like a gay bathhouse is to frat boys (There are secrets in the steam).

Is that beard you sport because you are trying to fit an image or are you just lazy…or are you not allowed to use a razor for fear you may cause harm to yourself or others, like your mother who obviously looks after you. Because you seem to be a walking, talking archetype, an embodiment of douche disguised as hipster wrapped up in academic do-nothing. Your button-up shirt, unironed and unremarkable, screams that you put probably as much thought into your fashion sense as you do your social sensibilities. And what a dearth of social sensibilities you have. I’ve mentioned the screaming, the incessant non-stop, in-my-ear screaming. But the head shaking and the spitting! Was that all really necessary? All those theatrics? All that spitting? In my direction? In my ear? On my hair? MY HAIR!!! I thought it was a seizure, and I thought I’d call for help. But then I realized you were just trying to shake the douche off of you, like a dog drying itself. Well let me tell you something, buddy. It don’t wash off.

I thought after the show I should have shaken your hand, gotten your autograph and handed you a Lincoln. It’d be the least I could do for your contribution to my night. I mean, Grizzly Bear was outstanding. But you, you outshined them like a thousand suns exploding into a fiery mess. Whereas the members of Grizzly Bear each have their own parts to sing, you know, so that their voices mesh into beautiful and otherworldly harmonies, you managed to sing each musician’s part while in the process making it sound like chimes, specifically the chiming of vomit striking the inner walls of a prison toilet. Kudos.

But alas, you did not receive your moment in the spotlight. You quickly scurried out, under the cloak of night, like a humble good Samaritan who’d rather let a good deed go left unclaimed. If only I knew where you lived, guy singing at concerts. Then I’d know where to direct my…gratitude. I’ll keep an eye out for you, or rather, an ear.

Blow me,

Keith

I'm singing with Grizzly Bear!

I Am Parsley

I have ten minutes to write something before I receive another e-mail about Essay Fiesta, my new monthly, charitable reading series premiering at the Book Cellar Nov. 16. Become a fan on Facebook. Aaaaaaaand end plug.

Anywho, I was thinking about writing the other day, as I do everyday, so it was really just a day, which nullifies this sentence entirely. Jesus, I’m wasting valuable typing time! TEN MINUTES!

Okay. Breath. I realized the other day how, for me, my perspective on writing has progressed in the same manner as my opinion of parsley has. Yes, I’m trying to tie two unlike things together, making an association that is both humorous and personally true. But this isn’t a forced partnership. No. Parsley and writing really have shared strange and otherworldly connections for me, connections where both began as unsubstantial decor that colored my life and my plate and eventually grew to eclipse my very being and/or palate. But I’m getting ahead of myself. So let me catch up.

When I was young and but a wee lad from the humid plains of the outer-eastside of a little known village known as Dallas, I had large hoop dreams of one day becoming an electrical engineer. “I want to build microchips, Mommie!” I’d say, high on a love for cutting-edge technology and computer cleaner. I would sit and program in C++ until I tired my nerdy little brain out, and it had to sleep (or defragment for you fellow geeks). Why for fun I once made a math tutorial program that, due to incredible foresight on my part, had the added built-in safety of never accidentally dividing a number by 0, a feat that if accomplished could very well suck the Earth into itself like some kind of flexible dog sniffing its own butt. Because I was that uncool, that math-minded, that much of a techno-geek when I was little. But really, none of this was what I ever really wanted.

Writing, that trivial and tedious task, I thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. If masturbation was a way for me to pleasure my body, writing was a way for me to pleasure my brain. But there was no career path, no end goal, no purpose in this thing that required so much sitting still and complaining. To me, it was merely a deviation from Intel Pentium Processor dreams, something I could do on my downtime in between smashing atoms and voyaging to the nether regions of both space and time. It was the garnish to the entree that was my life.

Which brings us to parsley, that green, leafy stuff that they give you with a wedge of lemon that one time a year you swallow your pride and make a trip for Lobster Fest at Red Lobster. By the way, Lobster Fest is NOT a federally recognized holiday (but it should be). Parsley, that close relative of the much tangier and prettier leafy green, cilantro. Cilantro you hot attractive chick who gets asked out by all the bad boys with pompadours and motorcycles. Parsley, that frumpy girl you try to erase from your memory like a dream of a reality of your uncle massaging your shoulders in a sauna. Oh, parsley. I didn’t understand you, and if I ever tried to touch you, to nibble your leafy ends, I’d quickly make a prune face and spit, spit you out upon the table or worse, the floor. But oh, how the times do change.

For where both writing and parsley were always relegated to the sidelines, like me in nearly every sport I ever played ever, I have since realized how central these things can be in my life, if I just learn to understand them and accept them. Writing is not a stupid career choice. In fact, it is admirable, and it is hard. But I love it. And although I’m currently making my money by tap dancing for big corporations, it’s keeping my instincts sharp and my wallet not empty, all of which is allowing me to write what I want to write with the hope that the great literary agent in the sky will one day rain gold deblumes down on me in a sign of complete and sweet validation. Likewise, I have learned to cook with parsley, making such delicious delicacies as tabbouleh and a mustardy potatoe salad that simply is to die for (bacon optional for you sons and daughters of David).

So yes, let it be known, that although you may think something is just for fun or a garnish to your otherwise fulfilling and perfect life, it may actually be the missing piece of the puzzle, that herb that completes the soup. And when you discover that, your life will be that much more flavorful.

It's parsley, mom!

Sorry For My Absence

Forgive me for my absence, but pulling together this Essay Fiesta hooha is taking up a lot of my free time and energy. Not to worry, my lovely friends, for I shall be writing once more…hopefully tomorrow.

In the meantime, THIS!

Call For Artists! EssayFiesta!

Pass this along to anyone you think might be interest, y’all! Ignore the e-mail part. I just copy and pasted this from my inbox.

Hi!

If you are receiving this e-mail, you are something special!

Please read this e-mail and pass it along to anyone you might know that would want to participate in this charitable, comedic, literary event. We’re looking to book December and January now.

EssayFiesta is an hour-long reading series hosted by me and my talented friend Alyson Lyon. Every third Monday of the month, we invite three artists from various fields (e.g., writers, comedians, playwrights, journalists), to read personal essays at the Book Cellar for an evening that not only allows a platform for writers to share their work and for artists from different circles to meet and communicate, but to also benefit an important cause. During the evening, we will have items from local businesses that we are raffling off. 100% of all money made from the raffle and any donations taken at the event go to benefit the Howard Brown Health Center, a medical facility dedicated to helping the health needs of GLBT individuals and those living with HIV and AIDS.

So what do we ask of our artists?

Well, this is an essay show, meaning all artists are to read pieces that are first person and true. Some embellishment due to the use of your artistic license is allowed. But we want to stick to serving two purposes: either anecdotal (like this is what happened to me once) or soap box (like I believe in this and here’s my thoughts). Inspired by David Sedaris and coming from comedy backgrounds, we’d really like it if you could inject some humor into your pieces. But if you want to be serious, that’s fine too. We just want you to tell an engaging story that speaks for you and hopefully connects with others.

Every artists gets about 10-12 minutes to read. You can bring in multiple pieces. You can bring in pieces you’ve read elsewhere. You can bring in excerpts from a larger piece. We don’t care! Just bring work that reflects you because you’re awesome. Oh, and we’ll gladly plug anything you are working on, performing in or whatever.

Finally, we do need all essays to be PG to PG-13-rated at the request of the Book Cellar, which is graciously allowing us to host our event there. So find some clever synonyms for those beep-worthy words.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

Best,

Keith

Word Of The Gay Ep. 1

The name is wrong, but the face is right. Watch and learn.

Word of the Gay Ep. 1