What happened to gay creativity?

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As happy as I am that gay men (and lesbians and the transgendered) are being more widely accepted, I feel like the gay community has lost something in the process. That our assimilation into mainstream culture has made us more ordinary.

I was just a kid in the 70s and my parents were big fans of Jerry Falwell. I remember going to Thomas Road Baptist Church one Sunday and having gay men protesting on a picket line outside, so my experience with the gay community in the 70s isn’t first hand…

But looking back at pictures and videos from the era there was a level of creativity that you don’t see anymore. Sure they have the obligatory gay guy on every design/make-over show, but how did the creativity of gay men go from the outrageous antics of groups like The Radical Faeries and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (both founded in 1979) to making picture perfect apartments and making straight guys into metrosexuals?

I mean think The Radical Faeries are all about rejecting heterosexual norms and finding our own way – of not being afraid to blend masculine and feminine – of not being limited by norms of acceptable creativity… Here are some pics I’ve “borrowed” from LifeLube’s blog – they have a weekly Friday is for Faeries blog post which is inspiring to see that while the Faerie movement is small, it’s still very much alive…

Radical Faerie with a beard and a tiara

Radical Faerie in Indian garb

Radical Faerie - Just a regular guy

As you can see – they range the gamut – some can be wonderfully creative, others just enjoying themselves and having fun, while others are just normal guys who seem genuinely well-adjusted.

Then you have The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence… They take more of an in-your-face, over-the-top, “shock and awe” sort of approach to their creativity…

Needless to say whether it’s the Radical Faeries or The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, these are the sorts of gay guys who really push creative boundaries in our society. With the commercialization of gay creativity on reality TV shows, it just feels like gay creativity is less than it used to be – more mainstream, more homogenous.

Or maybe there are just as many as there were in the 70s, but they’re less visible because they’re now a smaller percentage of our community since all the people who had no problem “blending in” have now come out of the closet.

Still, it’s wonderful when you see crazy creative minds at work. One of the latest that I’ve come across is François Sagat who’s best known for being a big name porn star, but when you look at his his blog and his YouTube channel you realize how much more he is – how wonderfully creative he is. He is a porn star and a lot of his creativity is centered around his body (his ass in particular), but he takes it way beyond the vulgarities of porn and makes it into something fascinating and edgy…

One of his more recent videos is a music video of sorts with him, a drag queen (playing his girlfriend), and another guy who he’s got the hots for…

Yes, I like the fact that HIV/AIDS isn’t killing off gay creative talent like it was in the ’80s and early ’90s. I like the fact that gay men are back in the saddle creatively – even if that’s making straight guys into metrosexuals, or helping women chose better outfits, or decorating a home. But I’ve got a special place in my heart for the guys who are “out there” and push the limits of what’s acceptable. I’m a geek – I’ll never be one of those people, but I know they’re special – very special…

The Downside Of In-Car Navigation Systems

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We love the 2008 VW R32 we got back in August. And one of the things we like the most is the nav system. I’ve read reviews that say it’s not the best navigation system, but it does the job pretty well. The most important thing is we never argue about directions…  I was raised in a family where the answer to “are we there yet” was to pass you a map and tell you to find where we were, where we were going and calculate the distance and divide by the speed. Dan has improved his navigation skills considerably since we first met, but before the nav system there were still times I’d have to either grab the map and look at it while I was driving, or pull over to look at the map… Now with “Mildred” (the name we’ve given our nav system) – none of that is necessary.

You’d think the nav system is completely wonderful, but I’m on a trip right now in Chicago and I gotta say there are times I love the nav system, and times I wish I had a map on me. What you lose with navigation systems is a sense of place and location. With a map you get a big picture and see things in relation to each other. Coming into a new city I feel a bit lost using a nav system to get me around. Sure it does a good job, but I don’t really have a clue where I am, and I miss that. I want to understand the city and the nav system doesn’t do that for me. I tried Google Maps and that helps a little, but for really getting and understanding a big map with lots of information density will beat Google Maps any day.

Why Scott Luckow (Broadway Animal Hospital) Is No Longer Our Vet

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A couple years ago our dog Buddy was having problems with his eyes. We went to see our vet, Scott Luckow at Broadway Animal Hospital in Riverdale (Bronx, NY) and he referred us to an ophthalmologist. He told us to get a diagnoses from her, and then he could provide ongoing treatment.

Buddy, a beagle, on our sailboat TrollIt’s now two years later and Buddy’s condition is clearly chronic, but well managed by the drops the ophthalmologist prescribed for us to give him each day. A couple weeks ago Dan realized he was running out of the drops for Buddy and called the ophthalmologist for another prescription. The ophthalmologist wanted Dan to bring in Buddy since it had been a while since she had seen him. That was understandable, but since the condition is chronic, Dan wanted to have our regular vet, Scott Luckow take over the ongoing care and only go see the ophthalmologist if something changed.

So Dan called Luckow’s office, explained the situation to them (that he wanted Luckow to take over ongoing care for Buddy’s eyes as Luckow said he would), and scheduled an appointment. I took the dogs in for their annual checkup on Saturday. That’s when the problems started…

Let’s just say that they were familiar enough with what was going on that when I went in the receptionist asked how Buddy’s eyes were. They knew dealing with that issue was the primary reason for the visit. However Luckow refused to give me the prescription saying he wanted to talk to Dan first, and that Dan should call him on Monday during his authorized time for calls (it’s often difficult to actually get through at the designated times). He also indicated that he wanted Buddy seen by the ophthalmologist again.

The problem was we’d been close to running out of the drops for a week and a half and we needed at least a stop gap prescription to tide us over until we could have the issue resolved. When I got home and told Dan, he called his office and waited for a callback. Finally he figured he’d just drive up there and talk to Luckow in person. While he was in the car they returned his call and said, “no” – they wouldn’t give a stop gap prescription. Since Dan was already on his way, he continued up. In our eyes this was an urgent matter. If Buddy doesn’t get his drops, the next day his eyes are all red, and the day after that they’re oozing puss and he can’t open them fully. Running out of drops wasn’t OK with us.

When Dan got there the receptionist (Luckow’s wife) told him to wait – that Dr. Luckow was “reviewing labs”. He made Dan wait a full hour. It would be one thing if he were in the middle of seeing a patient, or if he were in the middle of surgery, but the fact that he wouldn’t step away from paperwork to talk to a customer for a couple minutes made Dan even more livid than he already was.

When Luckow came out he wanted Dan to sign a piece of paper saying Dan was not getting the proper medical care for Buddy and that Luckow would not be held responsible for anything that happened. This was completely baffling to Dan… We had gone to see the ophthalmologist Luckow told us to go see and now he wouldn’t take over the ongoing treatment when he had all of the paperwork with the diagnosis in his files.

Scott Luckow talks about being a country vet in the city, but when push comes to shove he apparently won’t do anything outside his narrow credentials. All he had to do when we called and explained the situation initially was make a call to the ophthalmologist (he told us to go to in the first place) to coordinate the handover of care. But he didn’t do that. He knew we had been trying for a week and a half to get the situation resolved and that we were running out of medication, and he knew how quickly bad things happen when we did run out of medication. Yet he played a game of telling us to call in, then saying “no” over the phone, and when pushed to the wall by an in-person visit he pulls out a liability waver form to give even a single stop gap prescription when he knows the diagnosis and knows what we’re asking for is an accepted treatment for the problem.

We have heard of other people who have had issues with Dr. Luckow. We knew he was a bit quirky and could be “opinionated” at times, but he seemed generally competent. However this puts a completely different perspective on things. When you really need him – he just won’t be there for you. That’s just not acceptable.

And how can a vet deny a stop gap prescription for a chronic condition and then blame the owner for not taking proper care of the dog when the owner’s been trying for a week and a half to deal with the issue? In a letter I received from him today he said Dan “made it perfectly clear that Buddy was ‘just a dog’ to him”. If Buddy were “just a dog” to Dan, do you honestly think he’d have tried so hard to get Luckow to write a stop gap prescription? IMHO, it’s Luckow who didn’t properly care for Buddy…

Dan considered a number of other vets that neighbors suggested, but in the end he took my advice and went back to the vets I had gone to for years with my previous dog, Sherlock – West Chelsea Veterinary Hospital. The vet at West Chelsea was wonderful. She took a look at the reports from the ophthalmologist and wrote the prescription without hesitation. They’re a bit more expensive and somewhat inconvenient for us to get to, but they’re good, competent, no-hassle vets and that’s worth the extra cost and hassle getting there.

UPDATE: I’ve gotten some feedback on the post and want to clarify a couple of points…

 

First, this isn’t about money. The vet we’re going back to costs about 50% more than Luckow. Had Luckow given us a stop gap prescription we would have spent the money and gone back to see the ophthalmologist. The issue was his refusal to give us medication when we were running out and needed it urgently. And the secondary issue was his poor customer service.

Second, Luckow’s final claim that there were liability issues is ridiculous. The vet Dan went to see today did what we asked Luckow to do and did it without hesitation. Both are experienced vets in established practices. We simply can’t fathom why Luckow didn’t give us the same level of service as the other vet.

One LGBT Person Being Killed Every Eight Days

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Here’s a sobering video from FightOutLoud.org… Just in the United States, one LGBT person is being killed every 8 days so far this year. Yes, they’re often people of color and often femmy, drag queens, or transsexuals, but things like this just shouldn’t happen.

Ellen DeGeneris did a wonderful segment on her show recently about the killing of Larry (Lawrence) King. He was a kid who wanted one of his male classmates to be his valentine and the kid shot and killed him two days later…

It seems like whenever its an election year and gay marriage is being discussed the attacks worsen. But that only goes to show how important these issues are…

Please talk to your friends and family about these issues, and consider whether the politicians you vote for would work hard to end these killings…

Lawrence King – The Next Matthew Sheppard

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This is just simply horrible… An effeminate, gay, 15 year old teen in Oxnard California named Lawrence King was shot in his first period English class and later died in the hospital as the result of his injuries. Apparently, a classmate didn’t like the fact that he was gay.

While some gay teens are able to “pass” the ones who are effeminate just can’t hide who they are. It’s hard enough for them going to school every day and being ridiculed for being the way they are (Lawrence King apparently had been harassed for a while before the shooting), but for them to now have to deal with the prospect of being killed while attending school is just too much.

This case points out a number of things. First, it is urgent that we pass hate crimes legislation that protects gay men, lesbians, transsexuals (and a few straight people who appear gay). Ironically the people who are most vocal in their opposition to gay hate crime legislation are themselves protected by hate crime legislation (for their religious beliefs).

And second, school administrators and teachers need to do a better job of protecting gay youth. The ones who come out in the hostile environment of high school usually don’t have an option, and they’re the most vulnerable to attack. This incident could have been handled while it was still teasing and taunting. If it had Lawrence King would still be alive.

With elections coming up I urge you to vote for candidates who understand that we are all created equal and we all deserve protection from hateful attacks.