Is fear the only thing we have to fear?

Happy Wednesday!

The preceeding video is apparently some scare tactic to keep people from using science to explore the nature of the universe. It's an animated demo of what would happen to the earth if the super-collider had created a black hole that in turn swallowed us whole.(not that there's anything wrong with being swallowed whole.) I cannot fathom what could possibly motivate people to live in such fear as those who would stoop to such depths apparently do.

Not that they haven't had help in the last eight years learning that being afraid is their lot in life. Are people so easily influenced as all that?

I was also looking at a new site I found recently called Queertoday.com

Seriously I am thrilled to see that there are people out there who are calling attention to at least some of the many machinations we are suffering at the hands of our own. Someone needs to stand up and make it known.

I'd like them to hire someone to edit though. I"m not going to cite examples, that would be just mean, and that's not my point.

My point is this: It's difficult enough for us to get our issues taken seriously, it just makes it easier for people to dismiss us when they can say: "Well, they can't even write a coherent sentence, why should we even listen to what they have to say?"

A weak argument, but one that works nonetheless.

I've dwelt on this enough. I wish I knew how to help fix it.

And it's with enormous sadness that I am able to announce to the world that the monsters have finally come to Maple Street.

I read this morning that Richard Rothstein at Proceedatyourownrisk.com was almost gaybashed last week. In one of the gayest neighborhoods in the world!

In 2003 when I directed The Laramie Project I tried to explain to the cast that I live with the concern (not usually fear) that I could be bashed at any time.

I'm not the most identifiable gay man ever, but I am obviously gay to most people, and would certainly answer affirmatively were I asked. And though I get through most situations without incident it is certainly conceivable that I've been in many situations where I might not have had it not been for quick thinking, a quick wit, and not a little luck. They looked at me like I was a paranoid old man.

A mere five years later my fears are a reality. The threat is everywhere.

This could change my behavior. It could drive me underground, it could send me to live in "Mecca," (which used to be San Francisco, but now is apparently Toronto) it could scare me into a life of secrecy and denial. It could scare me into the closet.
Yeah, right.

I have to wonder if this will happen to me? If I'll mouth off to the wrong person, or be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and discover that I'm not quite as quick-witted, or as tough, or as fast as I once was. I have to wonder if I should arm myself. If I should carry some form of self-defense. If I truly am becoming a paranoid old man.

I know this could happen to me, and it does concern me. But I cannot live in fear, I won't. I never have before,not even when the odds were stacked well against me. I'm not about to start now.

I'll live the life I envision. Likely in one of the two places I'm currently considering. I'll do the things that matter to me, that make me feel whole, that give me purpose. And if there are consequences, as there always are, I'll face them and see what happens.

Richard says he intends to die of a heart attack during an orgy not on the street where he lives. I intend to die in a rocking chair, on a porch, counting the many instances of good fortune I encountered.