Shake The Etch-a-Sketch: Our Ten-and-Twenty-Four Anniversary

Here we are, ten years legally married and twenty-four years together; my how the time flies … so sit back, and let me tell the tale …

We all do it to an extent; follow a line or path that we set up for ourselves. We plod a course, the straight and narrow some might say, and then walk that line toward a particular destination we've imagined we want. And every so often we twist the knobs on the Etch-a-Sketch of our lives  and a new course is charted, moving in a direction we hadn't thought of before. But it’s a slow curve most of the time, not dangerous and you can still see where you're going and can always go back if we don’t like the destination.

But what about shaking the Etch-a-Sketch? What about saying, screw that line, damn that curve. Let me hold on tight, both hands, and shake things up. See, I was an Etch-a-Sketch person, following the easy line, the one I thought I was meant to follow. I didn't stray too far off the path; who am I kidding, I never strayed off the path. But then it hit me, following the path, that straight line or that gentle curve, and where are you going? Toward another straight line, one more gentle curve? What was that all about?

My first shake was telling my parents I was gay. That was a big shake at the time, although now it seems more of a 'so what.' But I thought it was a big deal because I didn't have a real-life reference point on what it meant to be gay. What were the rules? Was there a uniform? Did I have to pay dues? What was it? See, in my family there were no 'funny uncles' or 'aunts in plaid' that I could see; that I could say, "Hey, I'm like that, so it must be okay." The only gay men I knew were the limp-wristed types on TV shows and in the movies. They wore ascots and paisley jackets, were sarcastic and alone. Terry-Thomas? No, not me. Uncle Arthur, I was not....at least I didn't think so.

So I shook the Etch-a-Sketch and came out and no one died and no one fainted and my family didn't disown me; my parents’ response was, “We love you.” Now, I lost a few friends, but maybe they weren't really friends to begin with if "I'm gay" causes them to disappear. I'm gay … Poof … you’re gone. It's like a homo David Copperfield.

I was out, and yet the Etch-a-Sketch was still giving me straight lines—I’ll save you the horror of joking about me following a 'straight' line because it’s already been done—and gentle curves. But then in 1999—so last century—I decided to give Etch-a-Sketch another nudge and I got a computer. Yes, I was late to the game, again, but I began looking around the Internet and found AOL and the series of chat rooms they had. I found one called Gay Lifestyles, and it was a fun chatty room where you could be gay, where you could step off the line a bit because no one really knew you.

I met Carlos in that chat room. The Etch-a-Sketch bumped a little and we started to online chat; another turn of the knobs and we took to the phones, and the mail. He was in Miami, I was in California, but then I took a leap and told him I wanted to meet him . He was thrilled and plans were made for me to fly to Miami in July.

JULY? IN MIAMI? Oy! What was I thinking?

I bought plane tickets and readied myself to take a sharp turn. I realize now that my life had been split into Old Bob and New Bob. See, Old Bob would have bought the tickets to Miami, told everyone he was going, and gotten on the plane, but when it made a stop in Houston, Old Bob would get off the plane, find a Motel 6, and spend the week there. Then he'd return home and tell everyone that Carlos was 'okay' and the trip was 'fine.' I'd ignore Carlos' phone calls … I almost invented ghosting y’all … and stay off the computer. I'd go back to following that line.

New Bob didn't do that. New Bob flew to Miami and met Carlos and spent a wonderful week in Florida. New Bob fell in love with Carlos and cried at the airport when he had to go home. New Bob's Etch-a-Sketch was shaking. And it was okay; twists and jogs in the path weren't anything to fear.

A month after I came home, Carlos came to California and met my family. I was so happy to have him there; so happy that my family liked him; my friends, too. But then he was gone, back to his home again and I wondered what would happen next.

It wasn't but a few weeks before I hurled the Etch-a-Sketch across the room and chose to follow the path I chose, not one that was arbitrarily set out for me. Carlos and I made plans for me to move to Miami. I sold a car, some furniture, some knickknacks; I got rid of my apartment and quit my job.

Every once in a while, you gotta Shake the Etch-a-Sketch … or toss it out altogether.

So, where does this all lead? It leads to today, twenty-four years after I stepped off another plane in Florida, though this time I was staying for good. We started our life together, all the good times and the bumpy times, and are still here.

We moved, to South Carolina of all places, but made a wonderful family out of our circle of friends who celebrated with us when we chose to get married in October of 2014. Marriage equality was happening, even in South Carolina of all places, and since we had longed talked about being married, and having our friends and family, coworkers, strangers, the check-out girl at the Food Lion, the waiter who brought me another cocktail, and the world, or at least our corner of the world, to know that we weren’t just a couple, we weren’t close friends, we weren’t partners—though those are all good things—we wanted to be Mister and Mister.

On October 17, 2014—fourteen years to the day that I moved to Miami—we were back across the country in Bellingham, Washington, to be married with my father as a witness.

And pause … y’all know that this year I lost my Dad and so this will be our first anniversary without a Dad card and phone wishing us more love and happiness. That was a Shake the Etch-a-Sketch moment I hadn’t thought about.

So, we’re back …  I seriously never thought I would see the day that I would ... that I could ... marry Carlos,  but we did just that. I remember as a kid—a not-yet-out-but-knowing-I-was-different kid—telling my mother that I would never get married, but I would have a maid to take care of my kids. I remember that story and realize now that might have been my first shot at coming out—as a six-year-old, I think—because, even then, I never thought I could get married, never thought I’d be allowed to get married and create my own version of family and home.

And so we did it, and while it has been lovely, raucous, and fun, and there have been down times and sad times and bad times, but, as Elaine Stritch would say—and god am I gay … Elaine Stritch!—we’re still here.

And looking forward, always forward, and while I didn’t say this myself—Charlotte said it in one of those Sex and the City movies … again, god I’m gay—I like to say that I am happy every single day with Carlos. Not all day, every day, because that’s life, but every single day for the last twenty-four years, for some small or large part of the day, I have realized how happy I am and how happy he makes me, and that I am still crazy in love with him.

And that’s something to celebrate!

Happy Anniversary, baby. I love you, always, ever.

Bobservations: Fifty-Five Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009

It was fifty-five years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for what would become the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t the first time our community fought back—there was the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959,  the Dewey's Restaurant protest in 1965,  the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966, the Black Cat Tavern and New Faces, The Patch in 1968, among other—but Stonewall marked one of the loudest times that gay men and trans women stood up en masse and said, ‘No. We will not be treated like this any longer!’

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern-day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact that we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBTQ+ community today, as we continue the march toward equality in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of America.

Friday, June 27, 1969: the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night, but it was also hot in New York that night, and some say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. I think maybe it was both, Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, as they had done on other occasions. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons—the queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black—were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine—a sign of police corruption and collusion between bar owners and police—allowing them to reopen for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons. Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however, was too angry, and was not going to be pushed around, or down, any longer; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City—and all over the world—every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall, while not the first protest, is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

As I said, no one really knows who started the riot, or how it all started, but we do know that a great deal of the credit goes to Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen who frequented the Stonewall Inn, and fought back and fought for our community before some of us were even born.

Fifty-five years ago today.

As we have seen this past year, in states around the nation, and in the Supreme Court, no rights, no laws, are safe with this radical rightwing GOP. And while the Supreme Court justices say they won’t come for LGBTQ+ rights, or marriage equality, we know them to be deceitful. What we once thought was settled law could be lost to us unless we stand up, speak up, shout out, show up and CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The march goes on …

Shake The Etch-a-Sketch: Our Nine-and-Twenty-Three Anniversary

Here we are, nine years legally married and twenty-three years together; my how the time flies … so sit back, and let me tell the tale …

We all do it to an extent; we follow that line we set up for ourselves. We plod a course, the straight and narrow some might say, and then walk that line toward a particular destination we've imagined we want. And every so often we twist the knobs on the Etch-a-Sketch of our lives,  and a new course is charted, moving in a direction we hadn't thought of before. But it’s a slow curve most of the time, not dangerous and you can still see where you're going and can always go back if we don’t like the destination.

But what about shaking the Etch-a-Sketch? What about saying, screw that line, damn that curve. Let me hold on tight, both hands, and shake things up. See, I was an Etch-a-Sketch person, following the easy line, the one I thought I was meant to follow. I didn't stray too far off the path; who am I kidding, I never strayed off the path. But then it hit me, following the path, that straight line or that gentle curve, and where are you going? Toward another straight line, one more gentle curve? What was that all about?

My first shake was telling my parents I was gay. That was a big shake at the time, although now it seems more of a 'so what.' But I thought it was a big deal because I didn't have a real-life reference point on what it meant to be gay. What were the rules? Was there a uniform? Did I have to pay dues? What was it? See, in my family there were no 'funny uncles' or 'aunts in plaid' that I could see; that I could say, "Hey, I'm like that, so it must be okay." The only gay men I knew were the limp-wristed types on TV shows and in the movies. They wore ascots and paisley jackets, were sarcastic and alone. Terry-Thomas? No, not me. Uncle Arthur, I was not....at least I didn't think so.

So I shook the Etch-a-Sketch and came out and no one died and no one fainted and my family didn't disown me; my parents’ response was, “We love you.” Now, I lost a few friends, but maybe they weren't really friends to begin with if "I'm gay" causes them to disappear. I'm gay.....Poof.....you're gone. It's like a homo David Copperfield.

I was out, and yet the Etch-a-Sketch was still giving me straight lines—I’ll save you the horror of joking about me following a 'straight' line because it’s already been done—and gentle curves. But then in 1999—so last century—I decided to give Etch-a-Sketch another nudge and I got a computer. Yes, I was late to the game, again, but I began looking around the Internet and found AOL and the series of chat rooms they had. I found one called Gay Lifestyles, and it was a fun chatty room where you could be gay, where you could step off the line a bit because no one really knew you.

I met Carlos in that chat room. The Etch-a-Sketch bumped a little and we started to online chat; another turn of the knobs and we took to the phones, and the mail. He was in Miami, I was in California, but then I took a leap and told him I wanted to meet him . He was thrilled and plans were made for me to fly to Miami in July.

JULY? IN MIAMI? Oy! What was I thinking?

I bought plane tickets and readied myself to take a sharp turn. I realize now that my life had been split into Old Bob and New Bob. See, Old Bob would have bought the tickets to Miami, told everyone he was going, and got on the plane, but when it made a stop in Houston, Old Bob would get off the plane, find a Motel 6, and spend the week there. Then he'd return home and tell everyone that Carlos was 'okay' and the trip was 'fine.' I'd ignore Carlos' phone calls and stay off the computer. I'd go back to following that line.

New Bob didn't do that. New Bob flew to Miami and met Carlos and spent a wonderful week in Florida. New Bob fell in love with Carlos and cried at the airport when he had to go home. New Bob's Etch-a-Sketch was shaking. And it was okay; twists and jogs in the path weren't anything to fear.

A month after I came home, Carlos came to California and met my family. I was so happy to have him there; so happy that my family liked him; my friends, too. But then he was gone home again and I wondered what would happen next.

It wasn't but a few weeks before I hurled the Etch-a-Sketch across the room and chose to follow the path I chose, not one that was arbitrarily set out for me. Carlos and I made plans for me to move to Miami. I sold a car, some furniture, some knickknacks; I got rid of my apartment and quit my job.

Every once in a while, you gotta Shake the Etch-a-Sketch … or toss it out altogether.

So, where does this all lead? It leads to today, twenty-two years after I stepped off another plane in Florida, though this time staying for good. We started our life together, all the good times and the bumpy times, and are still here.

We moved, to South Carolina of all places, but made a wonderful family out of our circle of friends who celebrated with us when we chose to get married in October of 2014. Marriage equality was happening, even in South Carolina of all places, and since we had longed talked about being married, and having our friends and family, coworkers, strangers, the check-out girl at the Food Lion, the waiter who brought me another cocktail, and the world, or at least our corner of the world, to know that we weren’t just a couple, we weren’t close friends, we weren’t partners—though those are all good things—we wanted to be Mister and Mister.

On October 17, 2014—fourteen years to the day that I moved to Miami—we were back across the country in Bellingham, Washington, to be married with my father as a witness. I seriously never thought I would see the day that I would ... that I could ... marry Carlos,  but we did just that. I remember as a kid—a not-yet-out-but-knowing-I-was-different kid—telling my mother that I would never get married, but I would have a maid to take care of my kids. I remember that story and realize now that might have been my first shot at coming out—as a six-year-old, I think—because, even then, I never thought I could get married, never thought I’d be allowed to get married and create my own version of family and home.

And so we did it, and while it has been lovely, raucous, and fun, and there have been down times and sad times and bad times, but, as Elaine Stritch would say—and god am I gay … Elaine Stritch!—we’re still here.

And looking forward, always forward, and while I didn’t say this myself—Charlotte said it in one of those Sex and the City movies … again, god I’m gay—I like to say that I am happy every single day with Carlos. Not all day, every day, because that’s life, but every single day for the last twenty-two years, for some small or large part of the day, I have realized how happy I am and how happy he makes me, and that I am still crazy in love with him.

And that’s something to celebrate!

Happy Anniversary, baby. I love you, always, ever.

Fifty-Four Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009

It was fifty-four years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for what would become the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t the first time our community fought back—there was the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959,  the Dewey's Restaurant protest in 1965,  the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966, the Black Cat Tavern and New Faces, The Patch in 1968, among other—but Stonewall marked one of the loudest times that gay men and trans women stood up en masse and said, ‘No. We will not be treated like this any longer!’

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern-day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact that we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBTQ+ community today, as we continue the march toward equality in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of America.

Friday, June 27, 1969: the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night, but it was also hot in New York that night, and some say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. I think maybe it was both, Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, as they had done on other occasions. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons—the queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black—were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine—a sign of police corruption and collusion between bar owners and police—allowing them to reopen for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons. Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however, was too angry, and was not going to be pushed around, or down, any longer; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City—and all over the world—every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall, while not the first protest, is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

As I said, no one really knows who started the riot, or how it all started, but we do know that a great deal of the credit goes to Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen who frequented the Stonewall Inn, and fought back and fought for our community before some of us were even born.

Fifty-four years ago today.

As we have seen this past year, in states around the nation, and in the Supreme Court, no rights, no laws, are safe with this radical rightwing GOP. And while the Supreme Court justices say they won’t come for LGBTQ+ rights, or marriage equality, we know them to be deceitful. What we once thought was settled law could be lost to us unless we stand up, speak up, shout out, show up and CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The march goes on …

Shake The Etch-a-Sketch: Our Eight-and-Twenty-Two Anniversary

Here we are, eight years legally married and twenty-two years together; my how the time flies … so sit back, and let me tell the tale …

We all do it to an extent; we follow that line we set up for ourselves. We plod a course, the straight and narrow some might say, and then walk that line toward a particular destination we've imagined we want. And every so often we twist the knobs on the Etch-a-Sketch of our lives,  and a new course is charted, moving in a direction we hadn't thought of before. But it’s a slow curve most of the time, not dangerous and you can still see where you're going and can always go back if we don’t like the destination.

But what about shaking the Etch-a-Sketch? What about saying, screw that line, damn that curve. Let me hold on tight, both hands, and shake things up. See, I was an Etch-a-Sketch person, following the easy line, the one I thought I was meant to follow. I didn't stray too far off the path; who am I kidding, I never strayed off the path. But then it hit me, following the path, that straight line or that gentle curve, and where are you going? Toward another straight line, one more gentle curve? What was that all about?

My first shake was telling my parents I was gay. That was a big shake at the time, although now it seems more of a 'so what.' But I thought it was a big deal because I didn't have a real-life reference point on what it meant to be gay. What were the rules? Was there a uniform? Did I have to pay dues? What was it? See, in my family there were no 'funny uncles' or 'aunts in plaid' that I could see; that I could say, "Hey, I'm like that, so it must be okay." The only gay men I knew were the limp-wristed types on TV shows and in the movies. They wore ascots and paisley jackets, were sarcastic and alone. Terry-Thomas? No, not me. Uncle Arthur, I was not....at least I didn't think so.

So I shook the Etch-a-Sketch and came out and no one died and no one fainted and my family didn't disown me; my parents’ response was, “We love you.” Now, I lost a few friends, but maybe they weren't really friends to begin with if "I'm gay" causes them to disappear. I'm gay.....Poof.....you're gone. It's like a homo David Copperfield.

I was out, and yet the Etch-a-Sketch was still giving me straight lines—I’ll save you the horror of joking about me following a 'straight' line because it’s already been done—and gentle curves. But then in 1999—so last century—I decided to give Etch-a-Sketch another nudge and I got a computer. Yes, I was late to the game, again, but I began looking around the Internet and found AOL and the series of chat rooms they had. I found one called Gay Lifestyles, and it was a fun chatty room where you could be gay, where you could step off the line a bit because no one really knew you.

I met Carlos in that chat room. The Etch-a-Sketch bumped a little and we started to online chat; another turn of the knobs and we took to the phones, and the mail. He was in Miami, I was in California, but then I took a leap and told him I wanted to meet him . He was thrilled and plans were made for me to fly to Miami in July.

JULY? IN MIAMI? Oy! What was I thinking?

I bought plane tickets and readied myself to take a sharp turn. I realize now that my life had been split into Old Bob and New Bob. See, Old Bob would have bought the tickets to Miami, told everyone he was going, and got on the plane, but when it made a stop in Houston, Old Bob would get off the plane, find a Motel 6, and spend the week there. Then he'd return home and tell everyone that Carlos was 'okay' and the trip was 'fine.' I'd ignore Carlos' phone calls and stay off the computer. I'd go back to following that line.

New Bob didn't do that. New Bob flew to Miami and met Carlos and spent a wonderful week in Florida. New Bob fell in love with Carlos and cried at the airport when he had to go home. New Bob's Etch-a-Sketch was shaking. And it was okay; twists and jogs in the path weren't anything to fear.

A month after I came home, Carlos came to California and met my family. I was so happy to have him there; so happy that my family liked him; my friends, too. But then he was gone home again and I wondered what would happen next.

It wasn't but a few weeks before I hurled the Etch-a-Sketch across the room and chose to follow the path I chose, not one that was arbitrarily set out for me. Carlos and I made plans for me to move to Miami. I sold a car, some furniture, some knickknacks; I got rid of my apartment and quit my job.

Every once in a while, you gotta Shake the Etch-a-Sketch … or toss it out altogether.

So, where does this all lead? It leads to today, twenty-two years after I stepped off another plane in Florida, though this time staying for good. We started our life together, all the good times and the bumpy times, and are still here.

We moved, to South Carolina of all places, but made a wonderful family out of our circle of friends who celebrated with us when we chose to get married in October of 2014. Marriage equality was happening, even in South Carolina of all places, and since we had longed talked about being married, and having our friends and family, coworkers, strangers, the check-out girl at the Food Lion, the waiter who brought me another cocktail, and the world, or at least our corner of the world, to know that we weren’t just a couple, we weren’t close friends, we weren’t partners—though those are all good things—we wanted to be Mister and Mister.

On October 17, 2014—fourteen years to the day that I moved to Miami—we were back across the country in Bellingham, Washington, to be married with my father as a witness. I seriously never thought I would see the day that I would ... that I could ... marry Carlos,  but we did just that. I remember as a kid—a not-yet-out-but-knowing-I-was-different kid—telling my mother that I would never get married, but I would have a maid to take care of my kids. I remember that story and realize now that might have been my first shot at coming out—as a six-year-old, I think—because, even then, I never thought I could get married, never thought I’d be allowed to get married and create my own version of family and home.

And so we did it, and while it has been lovely, raucous, and fun, and there have been down times and sad times and bad times, but, as Elaine Stritch would say—and god am I gay … Elaine Stritch!—we’re still here.

And looking forward, always forward, and while I didn’t say this myself—Charlotte said it in one of those Sex and the City movies … again, god I’m gay—I like to say that I am happy every single day with Carlos. Not all day, every day, because that’s life, but every single day for the last twenty-two years, for some small or large part of the day, I have realized how happy I am and how happy he makes me, and that I am still crazy in love with him.

And that’s something to celebrate!

Happy Anniversary, baby. I love you, always, ever.

Shake The Etch-a-Sketch

Our Seven-and-Twenty-One Anniversary

Fifty-Three Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009

It was fifty-three years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for what would become the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t the first time our community fought back—there was the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959,  the Dewey's Restaurant protest in 1965,  the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966, the Black Cat Tavern and New Faces, The Patch in 1968, among other—but Stonewall marked one of the loudest, times that gay men and trans women stood up en masse and said, ‘No. We will not be treated like this any longer!’

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern-day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact that we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBTQ+ community today, as we continue the march toward equality in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of America.

Friday, June 27, 1969: the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night, but it was also hot in New York that night, and some say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. I think maybe it was both, Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, as they had done on other occasions. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons—the queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black—were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine—a sign of police corruption and collusion between bar owners and police—allowing them to reopen for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside the Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons. Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however, was too angry, and was not going to be pushed around, or down, any longer; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

 

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

 That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City—and all over the world—every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall, while not the first protest, is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

As I said, no one really knows who started the riot, or how it all started, but we do know that a great deal of the credit goes to Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen who frequented the Stonewall Inn, and fought back and fought for our community before some of us were even born.

Fifty-three years ago today.

As we saw last week, no rights, no laws, are safe with this radical rightwing Supreme Court. While the justices say they won’t come for LGBTQ+ rights, or marriage equality, we know them to be deceitful. What we once thought was settled could be lost to us unless we stand up, speak up, shout out, show up and CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The march goes on …

Our Seven-and-Twenty-one Anniversary ... Set To Music

I say ‘Seven Twenty-one’ because it’s been six years legally wed and twenty-one years, um, illegally married? 

And that’s quite a milestone for someone who never thought this would happen to him. But I was fine with that; I had a nice life, good friends, I dated, I had a home I loved, a job I loved, but that all changed when I got a computer and went into one of those old AOL—show of hands, who remembers AOL—chatrooms and suddenly there was someone talking to me.

It was not the way I’d expected it to go, and I was certain it would amount to nothing, but what are a few private messages and some emails? Right? What could go wrong, or right. So, there were phone and actual handwritten letters and cards, and pictures exchanged and life-stories told. He wanted to meet, but he lived in Miami and I lived in California, and couldn’t be much further apart; so, I flew to Miami but …

Quick aside: I used to be the kind of person that didn’t bold chances like flying 3,000 miles to meet a perfect …and oy, did he sound perfect … stranger in a city I’d never been to before, and, as the day approached for my flight, I actually created a story in my head that I would take the flight, but get off the plane when we had a stopover on Houston., spend the week in some cheeseball hotel in Houston, and then fly back home and tell everyone that Carlos was nice but he wasn’t the one for me; and then I would ignore him online and by phone—did I invent “ghosting”—but I decided to, as I told in another post, Shake the Etch-a-Sketch and go.

I stayed on the plane and in Ft. Lauderdale, there he was, in a  freaking bowtie no less, with a bouquet of roses. He looked exactly like his pictures, but much more handsome and adorable. We spent eleven days together … in Miami …in July! We went to Key West and watched the sunset and … yeah … and we went to South Beach and swam in the ocean and … yeah … we stayed at his house and I met his Aunt Gloria and … yeah, only a lot quieter because she’s a light sleeper. 

Then it was over, and I was flying home and what in the hell was this? Was it a 3,000-mile-long distance relationship? A 3,000-mile-long distance booty call?

It was more, and we both knew it because the next month Carlos was on the West Coast, meeting my friends and my parents and … yeah … in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe and … yeah … in my parents’ house though we were much quieter because they were right downstairs! 

Then that was over; what next? We called and emailed still; he spoke with my parents and friends and I spoke with his, until it became clear that I would move to Miami. I had a job that would transfer well to Florida and, well, since that leap to Florida to meet him turned out so well, how hard would a leap to Florida to live with him be?

So, where does this all lead? It leads to today, twenty-one years after I stepped off another plane in Florida, though this time I wouldn't be staying a week or so. Twenty-one years ago today Carlos and I started our life together and there was no looking back; only forward.

Fast forward to 2014 and the reality that marriage equality was happening, and we had longed talked about being married; we wanted that; we wanted the world, our friends and family, coworkers, strangers, the check-out girl at the Food Lion, the waiter who brought me another cocktail, to know that we weren’t just a couple, we weren’t close friends, we weren’t partners—though those are all good things—we wanted everyone to know that we are Mister and Mister.

On October 17, 2014—fourteen years to the day that I moved to Miami—we were back across the country in Bellingham, Washington, to be married with my father as a witness. I seriously never thought I would see the day that I would ... that I could ... marry Carlos,  but we did just that. I remember as a kid—a not-yet-out-but-knowing-I-was-different kid—telling my mother that I would never get married, but I would have a maid to take care of my kids. I remember that story and realize now that might have been my first shot at coming out—as a six-year-old, I think—because, even then, I never thought I could get married, never thought I’d be allowed to get married and create my own version of family and home.

And so we did it, and it’s been seven-and-twenty-one years. And while it has been lovely, raucous, and fun, and there have been down times and sad times and bad times, but, as Elaine Stritch would say—and god am I gay … Elaine Stritch!—we’re still here.

And looking forward, always forward, and while I didn’t say this myself—Charlotte said it in one of those Sex and the City movies … again, god I’m gay—I like to say that I am happy every single day with Carlos. Oh, not all day, every day, because that’s life, but every single day for the last twenty-one years, for some small or large part of the day, I have realized how happy I am and how happy he makes me, and that I am still crazy in love with him.

And that’s something to celebrate!