Turn the lights on!

I'm hoping this will be my last post on this Bishop Eddie Long fuckry...

This video has me emotionally confused. I don't think I've ever witnessed denial and naivety on this level before. I didn't expect them to come on TV and blast the leader of their flock, but neither did I expect them to sit there like a deer in headlights when the (circumstantial) evidence of their prophet's proclivities was revealed.

I didn't once see a light bulb go off in their brains to say "You know what? This summ bullshit! Chirrun, New Birth aint the place for us!"

Even after Don Lemon's powerful and shocking revelation (breaking his journalistic ethics) these thick skulls were still unmoved.

All I saw were vapid sheeple, longingly clinging to the fantasy of an incorruptible, messianic apostle.

I really hope they did some serious reflection after the show aired.

I was longing for some balanced, critical thinking to emerge from the black evangelical movement; especially since they believe CNN has an agenda to castigate and demonize them.

I was so pleased to find the following clip:

This renewed my faith in persons of the christian persuasion and is helping me to see this scandal in a positive light. The church needs to be purged of evil and hypocrisy and as the gentleman in the clip said "the universe is setting itself right".

Then came this footage of one of Long's alleged victims speaking out.

I believe him.

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Seeing what we want to see...

I once heard an anecdote about a group of police officers in the southern United States in the 1960s that came upon the body of a black man in a river. The corpse was wrapped in chains, bloody and badly bruised.

Their expert opinion: Serves him right for stealing those chains and trying to swim away with them.

This story is one that I must never forget for even when I believe I am being objective, I must be aware of the lens I am seeing my objectivity through.

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Contorting theology, twisted minds...

After watching this interview I was in complete disbelief that Ted Haggard could ever say to another living human being: "This is America! You can't use your religion to tyrannize others!".... this was uttered by Ted Haggard, who even after his own embarrassingly scandalous expulsion from the mega-church he founded after it was revealed that he liked to snort meth and swallow cum (from his hired boy-toy) right before he went on his nation-wide homophobic campaigns, still has not been able to find within himself the humility and spiritual clarity to realize the reprehensible nature of his theology and actions. Instead he blames the whistle blowers for being unhelpful.

If he had not been outed in a firestorm of scandal he would still be sucking cock and praising Yahweh, until he was discovered overdosed and castrated, with a dildo up his rear and a bible on his chest.

Then there's Sister Donnie one of the biggest closet queens I have ever beheld. This man has done so much damage to so many young gay christians that he might as well have sexually molested them. His spiritual assault is so much more sinister.

This is a man that when asked to explain his definition of "deliverance from homosexuality" used the following metaphor:

"I’m a diabetic now and I don’t eat sugar, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want sugar. The more I don’t eat the sugar, the more I lose the taste for sugar and the more my diet starts to change permanently – I can’t stand a regular soda now because it’s too much sugar. So, the more I don’t intake the sugar, the more it leaves out of my desire."

le fuq?

What is so insidious about his rhetoric is that on the face of it, it's enough to illicit a head-nod from even the staunchest of his critics. It appears to be reasonable. However it is truly a self-flagellating, theological contortion, that likens same-sex attraction to a chronic medical condition that can be cured, or at least diminished if one lives a life as prescribed by Doctor Donnie.

I often wonder just how many of the women in these churches clapping, shouting and screaming hallelujah when Donnie speaks of the transformative power of Christ, and the redemptive philosophy of his particular evangelical mission, would actually marry an ex-gay, or "struggling" man such as Donnie. How many would even date a man that admits to having those proclivities?

How many truly believe in redemption or is it just lip-service?

This is my major problem with evangelicals. They pump themselves up so much, are so charismatic, are so believable, that they almost always appear to be over-compensating for latent guilt or regret. They try so hard to convince themselves first, then those around them, that they are pious, righteous and on the godly path and then insert the almost obligatory addendum, "But, I am of the flesh". That is the exit clause they conveniently use to humanize themselves in order to automatically excuse their inevitable hypocrisy.

Watching Ted Haggard, even after all he has been through, look bare faced at the world and appear unmoved by the impetus to purge and reflect that his own scandal signified, makes me angry yet deeply sympathetic. He is such a twisted product of a hateful belief system that I can't help but feel sorry for him. The vitriol spewed by persons of his ilk makes me wish for their demise.

I want there to be more scandals such as this so that the hypocrites may be exposed for the world to see that the types of persons they so vilify, they also personify.

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While I await the Buju Banton verdict...

I need to know:

If I met a guy on a plane and started talking about making a bomb to blow up the White House, then met up with him again to iron out the details. Then he takes me to meet his supplier and see the bomb and I inspect and approve it; then suddenly back out of the deal while my friends decide to go ahead...am I still a conspirator if I'm arrested in a sting? Or do I just chat too much?

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Those poor, unfortunate souls....

Another evangelical cleric has been accused of sexual misconduct with male members of his flock. This time it's the charismatic Atlantian, Bishop Eddie Long.

He is accused of being the sugar daddy of the Baptist faith. Using his tremendous wealth and influence as the head of one of the largest mega-churches in the nation to coerce carefully selected young gays into sexual liaisons with him in exotic locations (at the church's expense). They checked into hotels under "Dick Tracy" (an alias I presume >_<) and proceeded to engage in all manner of debauchery that only the sexually repressed christian mind could concoct.

After he gave them cars, paid their college tuition and introduced them to celebrities, they were summarily dismissed as their youth had expired. So naturally, in true cunt-queen fashion, the next step would be to sue. Even if the case is dismissed, the house would have already burnt to the ground.

That this is the first black evangelical (to my recollection) to get caught up in a gay sex scandal is enough to make me salivate then break out into vulgar guffaws.

I'm sure sisters Donnie McKlurkin and Tyler Perry are beside themselves with grief and T.D. Jakes is looking over at his son Jermaine and shaking his head disapprovingly.

The black christian gay-not-gay facade is crumbling.

Black evangelicals have long been immune to criticism about the virulent homophobia they spew from the pulpits of their gaudy mega-churches. Black Americans have apparently been given license to be discriminatory and prejudiced as some sort of reparations for slavery and consolation prize for Jim Crow. But recent revelations of hypocrisy in the black church are particularly gratifying to many (myself included).

That Long used church resources to pay hush-money for his trysts is not THAT disturbing. That is the kind of activity I expect from reprobate minds such as his. That he penned some of the most hateful diatribes, sermons, and chapters; and uttered some of the most damning rhetoric relating to homosexuality from his tongue (the same tongue used to polish the sausages of young parishioners) is what really irks me.

Whether or not the cases amount to anything is at this point immaterial. The damage has already been done.

As we say in Jamaica: "If it no go so, it nearly go so". That is not the apologist rhetoric of a gossip monger per se: it is useful advice after centuries of scandal.

Here's the perspective I'm too shy to share....

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Release the safety on your glowstick twirlers!

So Rihanna will be releasing a new dance album....let the queens rejoice!

She has already released one official single, the new unofficial theme song for my life: "Only Girl (in the world)", produced by the pied piper of euro-twinks, saviour of limping careers, and Kelly Rowland's new demi-god, David Guetta.

But wait, there's more!

This cloyingly campy video for "Who's that Chick" leaked last week....

The verdict is still out on how I feel about the video and the song but so far it reminds me of the ballroom scene from The Wiz.

That's not necessarily a good thing but I'm sure I'll be singing the melody incessantly within the next 15 minutes.

It seems Barbados' Next Top Model Siren (emphasis on the sound) is on a roll and will soon be wailing and grimacing on a TV screen near you in the plethora of new music videos sure to emerge designed to show off the range of emotions she has mastered since taking classes at the Anna Nicole Smith school of acting.

Personally, I'm uber excited as this will be a welcome distraction from the garbage currently out (see Ke$ha).

Rihanna's brand of light pop subliminal cocaine will be a welcome distraction until La Creola returns... Bey prepared!

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Fanatical Delusions

For two days this week local papers have run stories in relation to Buju Banton's Cocaine charges, interesting developments in his case, and his stalled trial that continues to be delayed as evidence against him continues to mount.

Surprisingly the reaction of his supporters has been to hurl venom at the anonymous "Babylon System" for ensnaring the "righteous messenger" and more specifically to incite a war against the Gay community for snaring its long-time rival through a supposed conspiracy of entrapment, collusion, and corruption of the US justice system.

This reaction is nothing short of absurd if one is to examine the facts as presented by the prosecution with a critical mind but it is not my place to decide on Buju's innocence or guilt. That will soon be decided before a court of law. His fans should know that there are no powerful "Gay-liens" in the sky wielding incredible influence on those below, and neither is there a "Gay-luminati", or secret enclave of powerful homosexuals that is changing the course of history. All there is are people fighting to be left alone, as paradoxical as it may sound.

The principle of Occam's Razor is typically expressed as "the simplest explanation is usually the best one". This concept is very appropriate and applicable to this Buju Banton quagmire as it is far-fetched to believe that he is the victim of some grand conspiracy executed by his enemies and not simply the victim of his own greed and stupidity just like the countless other (less famous) Jamaicans facing serious jail time for drug charges all over the world.

This same nonsensical fanaticism which takes its subscribers on intellectual flights of fancy to never-never land was seen with the fervent support of Jah Cure while he was incarcerated (for the record he has never declared his innocence in the rape incident he was convicted of) and more recently Deejay Bounty Killer whose misogyny has now apparently peaked with case after case of alleged spousal abuse being brought before the courts; more recently with one young woman turning up at the Constant Spring Police Station bloody and bruised after allegedly being beaten with a hammer by the Deejay!

Since everyone is so righteous with a functioning moral compass, where are the calls for a boycott of their music or for them to be banned from concerts?

I recall when Chris Brown was booked to perform at Reggae Sumfest 2010 there were calls for his removal from the show on the grounds that his famous domestic abuse scandal with former partner Rihanna placed a dark cloud over his head and his appearance would send the wrong message to those for whom he is a role model. Basically the sentiment was "those are not the types of persons we want here on this fair isle". Apparently we only support home-grown terrorists.

Redemption, as defined in the Jamaican context, is a concept that continues to elude me. Our moral selectivity is both puzzling and problematic. Unless we can take a critical look at ourselves as a people and examine these idiosyncratic liberties we take with morality, we will continue to be seen as hypocrites struggling to progress while hindered in the bog of lies, both to self and to nation.

I am sincerely,

Brian-Paul N. Welsh

brianpaul.welsh@gmail.com

This is a letter I sent off to the Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaica Observer just now....let's see if it will be published.

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le fuq?

1/ Why does campiness need to be so impractical?

2/ Isn't the point of wearing less clothes so that you can breeze through security?

3/ Is the fact that it takes so much effort to wear so little part of the irony in her artistic statement?

4/ Is she an artist or a drug addict calling out for help? (or both?)

5/ Is she channeling Yoko Ono and Cher at the same time?

6/ Is she trapped within the monster she created: her fame?

7/ What the fuck is on her feet?

8/ Will this be a new trend for drag queens?

9/ What will the GaGa Barbie look like?

10/ Is this a preview of the future of music?

I need to know!

I know when I wear my cock sock on a quick flight it's to shorten my time spent at security check-points. Clearly she enjoys the time she spends being scanned, and re-scanned, and prodded, and poked, and having her prostate milked to ensure she's neither a mule, nor an extra-terrestrial.

Yahweh bless you GaGa! I can't......

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One Love

In this binary world of wrong or right, black or white, man or woman, top or bottom, naturally we are often confronted with something that just doesn't quite fit into this limited notion of how things (ought to) work.

As far as sexuality is concerned, this is perhaps the strictest of all the binary concepts: Man is the dominant provider and woman is the submissive receiver. This concise notion of masculinity and femininity is one that persists despite the progression of the evolution of knowledge in the past few generations that tries to convince us that there are more layers to this relationship between the genders, with each being equally capable of dominance and submission. On some level I believe most men naturally see themselves fitting within the ambit of provider and women as entitled to their care.

Following that reasoning, it should come as no surprise that partners in same-sex relationships see the world through this lens: A dichotomy of power, or an expression of different types of power, with both partners having certain specific expectations for themselves and of their other half by virtue of the role they adopt as part of their own identity.

That same-sex couples mirror general society should not be seen as a novelty. In fact, being products of society and being indoctrinated by the same moral code for survival in a hegemonic world, same-sex couples operate exactly as they are expected to, abiding by the same societal rules as everyone else.

Therefore, infidelity, adultery, spousal abuse and other such phenomena should not be seen as peculiarities of an iniquitous population especially when everyone else is doing it!

We are all bubbling in the soup of our culture and while individual ingredients have unique flavours, it's still soup!

So after all that fluff what am I getting at?

Very often same-sex couples are placed on a pedestal of peculiarity. Breeders think it's all an act with one (or both) of the persons involved putting on a great show to convince themselves, and their partner, that they are the personification of the sex role they prefer. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman even if the partners are two men and two women respectively.

All the positive and negative aspects of the definitions of masculinity and femininity are adopted by the partners and their lives play out as echoes of how it is expressed within the broader society in which they operate.

Men are entitled to be promiscuous, Women are obligated to be chaste; Men don't necessarily have to provide as much as be a figurehead (within the Jamaican context), while women are head cook and bottle washer; Men have inherited the patriarchal right to physically discipline their subordinate female partner(s) while Women are expected not to provoke him to wrath.

These are not that unusual within the heterosexual context but for some reason it is amplified as evidence of intrinsic disorder when one is dealing with the homos.

Why is this?

I believe it is an expression of a latent hatred that is so often repressed in this faux politically correct world. People harbour these feelings and just need the right opportunity to say "I told you so!"

Should sexual minorities be pressured not to fulfill this prophecy and not to dwell in the stereotypes ascribed by those that would wish for our demise?

Is it fair to ask that persons live their lives constantly concerned that they must be shining examples of perfection for an infinitely diverse population?

How can we ask that gay people stop cursing, fighting, abusing, and killing each other when the society that they emerge from is already murderous and abusive?

People are people no matter where they fall in the rainbow spectrum.

What we need to teach is universal love, both for self and for one's fellow man, and to abolish impractical notions of identity.

We need to understand that we are one and no different in the eyes of the creator.

Maybe then will we truly understand Bob Marley's "One Love" concept.

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The uselessness of reticence

I am an observer of the daily struggle for identity in a place borne of exploitation and mis-education.

I struggle to shake the demonic grip of colonialism with its dogma and hegemonic indoctrination yet daily I wonder how much I am a result of this experience I so abhor.

I reject the piousness of the self-righteous; silently de-constructing their blindness.
I witness their hypocrisy: idiosyncratic moral liberties ingrained into their psyches.
Yet I don’t speak up for fear of confrontation.

I examine their moral fabric,
Jokingly questioning its integrity while silently laughing at its filth.
For kicks I poke holes in it with witticisms,
Yet I do not tell them about their dirty cloth for fear of offending.

I smirk when I notice the Orwellian nature of the keepers of this zoo.
Lumbering along the same path as the herds; never brave enough to make a new one.
I hear them parroting their teachers; oblivious that their gibberish creates amusement and embarrassment,
Yet I get the joke and do not share it.

I smile to myself when I see their house is not in order.
How their compulsively homogeneous furniture is dissimilar and I can see the difference.
But I do not tell them for fear of shattering their façade.

I hear the names that I am called and answer to most inside.
Within I am defiant, exuberant and bold yet on the surface I am stoic, terse, and cold.
This useless pride behind a mask, veiled by a pseudonym is a betrayal of the majesty kept trapped within.

The magic we all possess but is yoked by fear.
Fear of rejection, fear of offending, fear of isolation.

We second-guess our instincts and rely on convention.
Slaves to a normative orientation; afraid to stand out.

Limiting the flights of the imagination by caging our thoughts.

To what end?

Must we be trapped in mediocrity because we are afraid to speak up?

Afraid to go against the grain and stand alone in defiance?

This demonstrates the uselessness of reticence.

Dwelling in the mind we are impotent in this insulated abode.


© 2008 Brian-Paul Welsh

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Circular reasoning, infectious disease vectors, and personal responsibility.

The crux of the human rights approach to HIV/AIDS advocacy has always been that prohibitive laws turn already vulnerable people into un-apprehended criminals and thus seemingly compel them to take great risks as they are fugitives living on the fringes of hostile societies. Therefore HIV infection is almost inevitable, directly as a result of this unsupportive environment.

I've sold this idea for years with increasing discomfort each time I repeat it.

The connection between prohibitive laws such as the buggery law and a disproportionate rate of HIV infection in the demographic such a law affects, I feel, has not been sufficiently explored or articulated. I do not believe it can or should be accepted at face value.

If it is that we say gay men are 3 times more likely to contract HIV than the general population and a law exists to restrict the sexual activity of this group, is it not illogical to ask that this law be repealed? Wouldn't this law, in principle, represent a barrier between this vulnerable population and the rest of society?

Before you attack me with blind rage, think about it for a second.

It is intellectually dishonest to present this causal relationship between sodomy laws and high levels of HIV to a critical mind as it will immediately be rejected for being paradoxical.

Unfortunately what has happened in HIV/AIDS advocacy has been a deliberate obfuscation of the facts in the argument in order to advance what I feel was a poorly thought out strategy to advance LGBT rights under the HIV banner. Nothing may be entirely wrong with that as I reflect on it, especially in light of the hostility with which the mere mention of LGBT advocacy is received, but at the same time the argument is circular at best, and illogical at worst.

A true human rights approach to LGBT advocacy would speak to the universal rights to protection from harm to which every human being is entitled. Within such a philosophy sodomy laws are anathema as they unfairly highlight and persecute those that need the most protection. Perhaps it is a little naïve and idealistic to believe that we could ever exist in such a Nirvana where people no longer cling to superstitious mumbo-jumbo about Sodom and Gomorrah and Gayliens in the sky bent on global conquest, and respect people for who they are, and not who they sleep with, but that desire is certainly grounded in facts and there is indeed a legal precedence for such a challenge to be made. Lawrence v Texas et al have demonstrated that sodomy laws are unconstitutional and not in keeping with the general spirit of democracy and as such have been on the chopping block in successive civilized societies for the better part of the past 2 decades and yet, rates of infection among gay men continue to rise not just in the developing world but also in countries where sodomy laws have not been on the books for over a century!

Whereas I resent the notion that gay men would be presented as infectious disease vectors should the veil of the Human Rights Approach to advocacy be lifted, especially since this prejudice has led to innumerable instances of victimization, science has proven that the function of the colon and rectum in removing moisture from faeces and absorbing it into the body (like a sponge) makes the anus particularly susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV simply because of its biological function.

This fact in combination with the hedonistic and often fatalistic culture that has typified gay men for centuries is the real cause for gay men's vulnerability to HIV and unless this is dealt with all forms of advocacy will continue to be fruitless, merely perpetuating the existence of career advocates, well aware of the views and facts I have just shared, yet still focused on securing the next grant, planning the next prevention workshop, street protest or multi-million dollar conference knowing that the strategies will fail.

Throwing money at HIV has not stopped people from getting infected despite all the information out there.

It is up to the non-infected to remain that way, and the infected to stop giving it to other people. It is in fact a two-way street despite the rhetoric of one notable advocate (still being accused of carelessly spreading the bug) that tried to convince me that the onus is only on the non-infected to stay that way.

Gay men must take responsibility for their actions and stop living lives perpetually evading sexual diseases or passing them on carelessly.

Unless we take heed the HIV- gay man will be a rarity (arguably this is already true in some places) and there will be nothing left to fight for.

Calling all Lunatics!

So, some kook wants to burn copies of the Quran on the 9/11 anniversary.

Forgive my flair for the dramatic. My initial reaction was more like.....

Here we go again....

This kind of provocation is typical of the uber right-wing Jesus Freaks who are so mis-educated about the belief system they espouse that they do not even understand where they fit within the context of the Abrahamic religions. They don't understand that their story is same as those they so despise and that they all suffer from the same affliction of affection for a figment of their collective imaginations.

For the average Christian the world began a couple thousand years ago when God (capital patriarchal G) said "Let there be light!", made a man from clay, took his rib and formed a clitoris, then put Polar Bears and Gazelle on the Love Boat for a Mediterranean Cruise before cursing black people to servitude, cumming inside a virgin and producing a telekinetic alien called Zeus that challenged the status quo before this E.T. phoned home.

If that offended you to the core of your beliefs then I'm pleased. It was intentional.

That is the very self-righteous, disrespectful, and dismissive attitude that evangelical Christian clerics use to mislead their flock and whip them into Islamophobic frenzies and it is exactly the kind of sentiment that subconsciously the gatekeepers of the American Media seem to agree with which is why a church with a congregation of just 50 Baboons can be on all the major network news channels and cause protests in Aghanistan over a publicity stunt that is at the face of it absolutely absurd. If they wanted to really send a message then a mere book burning is sooooooo passe! The KKK has been doing it for decades it and the niggers and jews just go out and buy new books, apartment buildings and spinning rims. If they REALLY wanted to drive the point home then they'd all take a collective shit on a giant pile of Muslim holy books, have a coprophilic orgy in honour of Beelzebub, videotape it and let it go viral like 2 Girls, One Cup.

This is exactly why we're still talking about the "Ground Zero Mosque" when in fact it was never intended to be a Mosque and definitely will not be located on or near ground zero.

This is the veiled form of discrimination the American media has perfected in this politically correct world. I prefer my bigots undiluted.

Yeh, Fuck you too Pat.

There is no way this can end well. Extremists on both sides are gearing up for battle, all for naught.

This is why I stay far from organized religion and stick to my barefoot spiritual trod.

That way I can sit from the sidelines and watch them squabble over imaginary lines in the sand and blow each other to pieces because of it.

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Fucking into Oblivion

I often wonder, both privately and aloud, whether mankind is on a collision course with armageddon. Not the biblical armageddon or even the Mayan end of days, but a man-made cessation of life.

That man has self-destructive inclinations is self-evident. The path to modernity has corpses strewn about it: macabre speed bumps along a dusty road like that memorable scene in Hotel Rwanda. Yet we continue our lives peering upwards toward the heavens waiting for a meteor to fall, not realizing that the cause for our demise will be terrestrial and within each of us.

Today's thoughts come from an article I read this morning relating to the increasing Sero-Prevalence of gay men (or Men who have Sex with Men: MSM) in a recently concluded decade long European study. As I have come to expect from studies of this nature it has revealed that after close to 3 decades of the AIDS epidemic and billions of dollars spent on prevention and treatment, with a now ubiquitous message reaching all corners of the globe, new HIV infections among gay men are increasing annually.

This paradoxical fact is but one of my frustrations with the AIDS prevention strategies of the past 30 years.

(I don't have any new ideas to pitch, no new programmes to write, and no new proposals to sell so don't be so quick to ask for my contribution as a qualification for me to criticize.)
I'm not even really that interested in prevention anymore as I'm at the point where I am beginning to wonder if those newly infected (with exceptions of course) were ever truly interested in prevention themselves.

I had a conversation a few years ago while at the Eastern Caribbean home of a very senior and influential advocate in the region that I will never forget, even if only for the irony of it all. As we sipped wine and bullshitted he shared that sometimes even he questioned the very message he was sending from his elevated platform of influence. He shared an anecdote of how much he and other senior advisers of his ilk despised the use of condoms for oral sex and how they knew when they looked into the eyes of the average Joe Blow street hustler on the Malecon in Santo Domingo while spreading the prevention message, that he knew they were hypocrites (probably because he might have sucked one of them off the night before).

He questioned just how effective and relevant the prevention campaigns can be in a world where sex, no matter where you are in the world, is just a click away. You can be in Timbuktu and once you have an internet connection you'll have a boy in your hotel lobby within 15 minutes.

This boy knows that a condom can save his life but for the promise of elevation from his current misery (ie the right price) he'll take that risk.

What does that say about the success that prevention advocates hope to achieve?

What is the point of it all?

I am sure the message sticks to most that hear it, but in that passionate moment when the satisfaction of sex becomes the motivation, the relevance of it is lost.

Is mankind to be left to its own devices to fuck itself into oblivion?

What is the purpose of advocacy in this environment of general awareness but infrequent compliance?

I'm sure I'll come to this point again and again. Perhaps a cure for AIDS will even exacerbate the problem as death will no longer be the ultimate penalty for risky behaviour.

At this moment however part of me is content to resign to the sidelines and watch what people do with the privilege that is the freedom to choose.

Perhaps that is the same frustration the creator has with mankind which is why he/she is not as physically present as in biblical tales.

When all else fails...sell it to the gays!

There's this interesting phenomenon I've been observing in pop music for the past decade or so that I now realize is a vulgar strategy to boost record sales.

The emancipation of gay men from heterosexual subjugation (allow me this poetic license) has made them a formidable economic force and an important capitalist demographic. The pink dollar is a prize catch the world over and it is courted with increasing frequency and ferocity. From a subliminal, nuanced heads-up in advertising campaigns, to a rainbow beacon beaming above a mauve carpet with scantily clad men in angel wings: the corporate world wants queens to spend lavishly (the only way they know how!).

With that said, and in full awareness of the honorary glitterati status of some female artistes, namely the older divas of R&B (like Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, and Tina Turner) and their contemporary counterparts (like Whitney Houston, Deborah Cox, Madonna and Janet Jackson) I am intrigued to see other artistes going fruity for favour.

Kelis spoke fluent fag long before it was in vogue (pun intended) and she was subsequently swagger-jacked by Queen Creole Bey-Yaki, and RiRi. La Creola is now the official siren of the urban glow stick twirlers whereas the mainstream twinks are governed by Queen GaGa from Plavalaguna.

Think I'm making this up?

Look at Bey's pose (above) from her performance at the 2009 American Music Awards....watch this video of the incomparable Leyomi Mizrahi.

Now I know this is the doing of Bey's choreographer Jonte Moaning who has been liberally throwing the glitter Bey's way since her "BDay" album so I guess I shouldn't be that mad as it wasn't exactly a covert operation by Bey's people to go into the inner sanctum of punkdom to steal some moves and make it blow up like the macarena. Jonte knew this style would be fresh and appeal to her core audience: Gay black men. Her "Single Ladies" video is basically a homage to Benny Ninja. Sasha Fierce would be her drag name if she were a boy. Should I go on?

Lady GaGa has been hawking her wares (very literally to include what she wears) to the gays since she sold her soul to mammon circa 2008 and began her campy ascent into pop music history. She has embraced (and fanned the flames of) the rumours about her sexuality and gender since she first stepped out and this brilliant balls out (pun intended) strategy has worked to her advantage.

Kelly Rowland stepped out (suicide dip well rehearsed) after relocating to the UK and teaming up with David Guetta for hit after hit of euro-queen-mating-calls and now she's making a whole album of it! I can't hate. If this is how she's going to step out of the shadow cast off from La Creola's wigs (hips, and ego) then more power to her. But this is where my cynicism starts to grow. In the era of blacksploitation films Pam Grier made a career out of coonery and Kelly Rowland seemingly intends to make a career out of pandering to the club queens from Party Monster.

I mean, her latest video is basically an instruction manual on how to rid yourself of that pesky tranny that's throwing shade!

And this brings me to what I feel is the most brazen attempt by an artiste to revive an already limping career by dancing before the god of 6 packs and enemas. Mya will be releasing a dance album! Yes, chil'ren. Ms. Harrison wants you to twirl to her musack!

Here she is performing at club Haze:

Someone needs to tell this chick that just because the kids gave her 2 glow sticks up for her performances in Chicago and Dancing with the Stars does not mean that she needs to do an album in their honour!

I've had enough...I'm all gayed out.

If Ashanti covers Harmonica Sunbeam's "I'm Here to Work" I'm signing out of life!

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Bridging the planes of existence...

So nightly I'm being haunted by a bat. Weird, repulsive, scary, yet strangely humourous.

This fruit bat insists on either sleeping on my back or on my pillow. After I wake up, shit my pants, go into shock, and laugh hysterically (almost simultaneously) I shoo the intruder and return to REM sleep only to feel the leathery hands of a mystery man sliding down my back as he shrieks an ancient unknown language into my ear: the fucking bat is back!

Spare me the battyman jokes, I thought of them first.

Now, I'm not one to dismiss daily occurrences as mere coincidence. Happenstance is something I don't understand as almost every seemingly odd incident is serendipitous in my mind: it was meant to be, as part of a process of revelation of the invisible hand at work in my life.

But this bat saga is tripping me out! As much as I try to dismiss it as just one of those things that results from man encroaching on the natural habitat of animals I am taken aback by just how strange it is. Why me? Why now? What if I was having sex?

My initial programmed response was one of fear. Bats are freakish little imps with fangs, that fly silently and are usually associated with death. Who wants the grim reaper resting on their back nightly? Certainly not I!

Upon investigation I learnt of the symbolism that the bat had in ancient cultures and with the native americans in particular. Bats essentially were symbols of extra sensory perception. They were seen as spiritual guides to the realm of dreams and psychic ability. Fascinating!

I've never been much of a dreamer but on the odd occasion that I had a dream I could remember it was usually associated with a feeling of deja vu at some point later on in the day.

One strange dream I had recently was of a phone call I made to my dearest friend's mother to ask if she had heard from him. Her response was confirmation of one of my worst fears: the death of a close friend or family member. After awaking at my regular time, I checked my blackberry to see what tidbits of raunch and slackness I had missed from my facebook or bbm while I slept and the first thing I saw was a GPS locator tag and emergency message from my friend. He has a panic button installed on his phone that alerts me and his mom if something has happened to him.

The same phone call I dreamt I had made hours earlier was the first thing I did on this Sunday morning. Needless to say I feared the fruition of my premonition. I shook uncontrollably as I called his parents with no response until his father finally answered and informed me that they didn't know where he was. Of course, I already knew this (but secretly hoped it wouldn't turn out that way) and the GPS locator showed me he was over 100 miles from where he was supposed to be. My vivid imagination saw every conceivable scenario, all involving the abduction and murder of my friend.

I planned his funeral, my tribute, and transported myself forward about 5 years into the future to visit his broken mother... all within 45 seconds of real time.

After 2 hours of pacing, bawling, and irritability, my friend's corpse removed his blackberry from his fat lazy ass and informed me that his soul had not yet left this plane and was still resident within a lumpy nymphomaniac that fell asleep on his phone, setting off the panic button and muffling the sound of my panicked phone calls the following morning.

What I suspect really happened was that he was being bent into a pretzel by his yoga teacher cum drill sergeant (pun and spelling intended) and in the midst of the daggering in the throes of ecstasy while destroying the flimsy furniture in the fuck shop where he chose to lay his head that night, he accidentally set off the panic button on the phone he had already placed on silent so as not to be disturbed by the phone calls of the backup booty calls he had pre-arranged.

I went from relief, to annoyance, to complete marvel at the power of the mind and how the real world and dream/spirit world often intersect.

If, as my research is revealing, this insistent bat is neither an omen of death nor an annoying upper St Andrew neighbour, but rather an invitation to learn more about the world not seen with virgin eyes then what do I do about that?

If I choose to accept this could either be a fascinating and scary journey into realms unknown for spiritual growth beyond measure or a first class ticket to Timbuktu for tea with Puff the Magic Dragon.

Stay tuned to see where I end up.

The Circus of Politics in Jamaica regenerates itself

I won't even bother to comment on the big ring cricus this time around. That is one poppy show that is inexhaustibly ridiculous.

My concern is the smaller, up and coming tent of baboons, buffoons, and vampires that are waiting in the wings for their chance to hop onto the main political stage and dance their silly jig.

Generation 2000 (G2K), PNP Youth Organization (PNPYO), and to some extent the Young Professional Caucus of the People's National Party (The PNP Patriots) have arguably contributed nothing of any major significance to the political discourse other than to parrot the rhetoric of their seniors.

Many view them as incoherent lackeys bent on the acquisition of power and political favour by any means necessary. Others view them as pawns in a game of oneupmanship to prove which party has the more vocal base.

I largely view them as a teaming barrel of crabs. None necessarily brighter than the other, but all scrambling upward, tripping over each other to get there. Most will be left behind and disappear into the darkness at the bottom of the barrel (where they largely belong: I know, I went to University and High School with some of these simple creatures) and a few, having perfected the art of analingus, bullshittery, and duplicity, finally emerge form the barrel as MPs (Morally Perverse).

Where are the fresh young voices whose tongues have not been tainted brown?

Where are the bright young minds that are unafraid to challenge the status quo?

Where are the fearless young people that want real change in their country and that are willing to elevate the level of political discourse above sophomoric tit for tats?

Clearly not present.

Still waiting to be inspired....

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This week in escapism....

Parisite, Souljah Boy (Tell em ), and T.I. (along with his stunning wife Tiny ) were recently either arrested and charged or outed to the media porque les gustan la cocaina (read: They are dumbasses).

Souljah Boy, cantor of the church of our lord Timmy (TIMAAAAH!), and writer/performer of such riveting ditties as "Girl you stank (take a bath)" and "Doo Doo Head" [Red Pill/Blue Pill for reference] was recently outed as a fan of nose candy by the vacuous vagina that is Katt Stacks who reported live from vacation below his scrotal sack. To get up to date on this fuckry please click here. That his sinuses crave baking soda does not surprise me in the least as I believe he ingested several other household chemicals in the not so distant past as part of his "creative journey", but that his peen (in varying states of arousal apparently) found comfort in the dilapidating casa de Herpés that this svelte "beauty" had to offer is disturbing considering that he knows exactly what she does!

This must be a very bad dream. No one can be so stupid. Somewhere Curtis is laughing his ass off!

In other brain dead news, le Parisite was recently arrested in Las Vegas for Cocaine possession. In her defense she said she thought the substance in the little white plastic bag in her purse was chewing gum...let that sink in for a moment.

The finale of this week's trifecta of fuckry was the arrest of Gumby and Falcor on possession of a controlled substance (translation: stuff from the backyard pharmacist). The odd couple was cruising in their Maybach along the strip when po po caught a whiff of an island breeze as they rode by. The benz was stopped, the meth popped out, and it all came crumbling down.

TI has seen the inside of a jail cell more times than Bounty Killer's girlfriends have seen his fists barreling towards their faces. Therefore we already know this can't end pretty.

Antoine, you take this one...I can't.

Now I'm not one to judge what you choose to place in whatever orifice you may desire. I however have a problem with the granulated stuff (if it was viscous it wouldn't be so bad).

Why are all these recreational drug users being exposed all at once? This is fascinating for me just as much as it is embarrassing for them.

Is anyone in Hollywood sober? Is cocaine like chicken soup for the soul? Is Tiny's contorted mouth a storage space for heroin?

I need answers!

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Cuntyness starts in diapers

"That aint it bish!"

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Shine Fluffy Shine!

Chiiiiiiiiiiiiiile.....

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Que sera sera...

In this thing called advocacy, especially in a repressive regime such as Jamaica, very often one is met with the kind of nonsense that not just puzzles your brain but disrupts your whole spirit. Perfectly sensible people that in another context would have garnered immense respect suddenly morph into illogical fear-mongers, spewing venom as they seek to push their agenda of exclusion.

This Letter to the editor ordinarily wouldn't move me as I'd simply roll my eyes as far back into my skull as humanly possible and fire off a scathing response that would be sure to make this nutjob look as silly as he sounds and also generate a slew of death threats, negative mumblings among my hypocritical associates, and faux praise from "colleagues" and "friends". I think my true friends and genuine sympathizers are now as fed up with our approach to advocacy and results from the "movement" as I am, and as such this kind of cynicism is spreading.

I take my hat off to persons like Maurice Tomlinson who despite the lack of gumption consistently displayed by the gatekeepers continue to press forward and challenge the ignorance of the seeming majority. That kind of fearlessness has not been seen since the late Brian Williamson penned his final letter and yet I am unmoved.

I am beginning to wonder whether all this talk really amounts to naught.

Forgive me, I'm a little apathetic this time of year and it's high season for my cynical nature so I'm having a hard time perceiving the motivation of others as genuine but no amount of convincing is going to make people decide to like gays any more than they already do (not). That is a process of self-realization that no one can force.

This is said not to discredit the work of brilliant advocates the world over and neither is it said to make light of the impact of persons such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X on the perception of their own constituents and the resultant changes in the broader global society. What I am saying is that there will always be opposition to whatever position one holds to be true (especially something as titillating as human sexuality) and not every utterance of opposition is worthy of a response other than my trusty side eye.

Jamaican people will have to come to the realization, of their own volition, that violent homophobia is silly and accomplishes nothing. I think to a great extent we as advocates underestimate the sophistication of the average dutty foot Jamaican, as these debates only occur among the intelligentsia in newspapers that the common Jamaican does not (or cannot) read, or fora that ordinary people cannot (or don't want to) attend.

Gay rights is anathema to ordinary Jamaicans because gays are pariahs that are tolerated as long as they keep themselves to themselves. Gay rights is framed within the minds of those that are sufficiently exposed (read anyone with Cable television) as prancing queens, leather bears, and kissing dykes on bikes...none of which relate to the Jamaican context as as such are seen as a foreign imposition. In recent times the major push for inclusion comes not from the desks of advocates, but the loins of young people as their hips sashay through the streets of Kingston, or kin puppa lick on the theatre stage: unapologetically fabulous.

I am optimistic about the progress made thus far, cynical about the results of those at the forefront of advocacy, and curiously observing the grassroots movement of the new generation of gays.

Let us see what will be...

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