"Showing Off"

Okay I feel like showing off. I posted this a few years ago,...I think. The top image is a drawing by French artist Jean Giraud aka Moebius.  The Angel is by your esteemed Editor. I met Mr. Giraud at the former "Science Fiction Shop" in downtown Manhattan in the early 1990's.

He was a seriously swell guy. Funny kind generous all the good stuff. I shoved one of my small books of Queer Angel porn at him. He was delighted!

(Name dropping ahead.)

I did the same to Quentin Crisp whom I got to know from his visits to that radio station I wasted 30 years at. Anyway he dug my crap too. "...delightfully naughty." said the Queen of the Lower East-side!  

However to Moebius.

He was in town pushing his latest books, and a show of his stuff uptown. However he had a reputation of encouraging new artists of which I was one at the time. Hey I had no shame so like I sez I shoves my stuff right at 'em.

To the annoyance of the big shots around him, but to my delight Mr. Giraud dug my winged scratches. Though he said I needed to study more see the works others, and try different mediums.

I was just doing pen, and ink at the time.

He gave pointers about the variability of line the brevity of content neat jazz like that. He also spoke of the tools of the trade. Types of pens inks brushes assorted kinds of paper board canvas, and such.

He even,...get this. 

He even said the he noticed that I liked the "boyish form". To which I heartfully agreed. He said there were,...at that time anyway, a number of artists in Europe exploring the same subject.

He actually wrote down, and gave me the addresses of a few. One of whom remains a dear friend to this day. (...I lost that note sadly.)

Well that's pretty much the story of my "Moebius" encounter. The store guys, and Mr. Giraud's handler gave me a polite bums rush...fuck'em, but never mind. Before I was shoved aside Mr. Giraud made a personal drawing for me, see top illustration, wow! It was cool to hang, and get an impromptu art lesson from a Master.

Ain't life Something.


Stay tuned.

"Taste like Chicken"

"Remember Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!"

(...uh you younger folks will have to Google this "Soylent Green" stuff.)


Stay Tuned.

"Ode to Joy"

Cвобода!

I noticed that our Russian readers are with us. Where the hell did  all you guys go. One minute you're here like bees in a honey jar,...then gone.

Poof!

 Well welcome back I missed you pirogi eating folks!


Stay Tuned.

"The Lights you Bare"

 ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Police in St. Petersburg on Sunday, August 2nd, 2015 detained several gay activists who have held pickets in defense of gay rights on a Russian military holiday.

 Yuri Gavrikov, the leader of a gay rights group, was detained by police as he left his home to hold a one-man picket in front of the Hermitage Museum.

Police accused him of cursing on the street, which he denied. Gavrikov was held at a police station
 pending a court hearing.

 Veterans of Russian Airborne Forces confronted several other gay activists, who held individual pickets near the Hermitage, and tore up their posters.

 

Police quickly took the gay activists away, even though the law allows one-person pickets without permission from authorities.

(I like Airborne, but not these particular troops.  Eh my late Brother was Airborne.)

"Yes, I'm gay, and I have similar rights to other people," said one activist, Alexei Nazarov, who traveled from Moscow to stage a picket.

Paratroopers gathered in many Russian cities to mark the Airborne Forces Day on Sunday.

"What they do here is not right, it's terrible," said one veteran paratrooper, Alexander Fadeyev, who tried to tear the slogans from protesters' hands. "We're in Russia and not in America. Let them do what they want in America, but not in Russia."

Russia has been widely criticized for infringement on gay rights following the passage of a law that prohibits vaguely defined "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" to minors.

******************************************************************************

 "Let them do what they want in America, but not in Russia."

Odd that these comrades still think that the U.S. of A. is a bastion of freedom. Well in context of the madness of the world we may seem to be that from the outside. It's another thing on the street level inside.

Russia had a short post-Cold War bloom of relative freedom. The breaks are on now. Indeed this very blog according to the current Russian Law would be illegal.  It would be deleted, and I'd be detained...for questioning. 

I think I'd be outright shot if the ever found my Queer page...see link on lower right "Dragonfly".  (See how hard it is to find.)

Anyway,..."Questioning." Shades of the "NKVD" during Uncle Joe's watch on things. I guess in for some of the more basic Freedoms the states, at the moment, and parts of Europe are a refuge.

Okay Australia, and New Zealand too. Though they aren't good to refugees...not one bit.  Well if you're white, and have money...maybe. Otherwise I see that they toss them back to the sharks. Sort of like we do to Mexicans, and Haitians.

From the general Gay Press when I bother to look,...they're so reactionary, and frankly boring. (Quentin Crisp had something to say about that when he was still breathing.) Things are seriously bad for Queers over there.

Community Centers attacked or shut down by the cops, and vigilantes. Individual Queers assauted, and police standby, and do nothing. Saw some of this on the BBC recently. They don't care if the world sees what they do...they're proud of it.

 I shudder to think what's happening to Queer young boys, and girls.

The Russian Queer media magazine newspapers videos films books once a growing institution are now criminal. Nothing can be printed or recorded that is sympathetic to Queerdom.

This to protect the children.

Of course. Just as it was here, and still is for the tattered heroic remains of the "BL" community.  

Yeah that "Dark Age" again. The triumph of the Bullies, and Alpha Males once again. Still as I've said keep the lights burning like some few did during the last era of darkness.

Nurture Hope, and keep your light alive comrades. that's our main job now keep the lights going so the darkness will never be complete. So one day it will be beaten back

Bless all you good comrades out there.

Bless you, and the lights you bare. 

Stay Tuned. 

"Space the Last Investment!"

 I just read another article about how we should abolish the Space program, and assorted science projects. This because they are of little value, and too expensive. "Been hearing this from the science illiterate, and assorted Luddites for years.

Look gang the world's various Space Programs are important. 

These are 'long term' projects lasting centuries if we last. The idea is to spread the demented lot of us around this Solar System. Set up thriving biospheres on the many moons some planets, and assorted likely asteroids. 

The Stars may be beyond us...but ya never know. This System first then we'll see.

However for the rest of this millennium we need to get ourselves into as many other baskets as possible.  I mean just from a self preservation point of view it makes sense.

 Also think of all the fun we'll have fighting interplanetary wars with each other. Heck it's worth it for that alone! So let's hear it for the Space Cadets, and scary Dark Projects!

(Sorry 'keep forgetting to put shit in larger fonts...sue me.)


Stay Tuned.

On the Bright Side,...in a way"

I've been thinking about my life, and mortality. I mean what with being officially an "Old Guy" now'n all. What I've been, and will be. Yeah I've gone over this here, and elsewhere a few times, but I'm thinking about it again.

I used to have very strong faith. In fact to the degree of wanting to enter the priesthood. Fortunately the Church back then was profoundly racist..eh in a polite condescending way.

They didn't mind us at Mass too much, but being part of the Holy Corporation was out of the question. It's similar of their current on the ground attitude towards Queer Priests, and Queers in general.

Pope Francis can go bleep himself on this one they feel. 

So I was spared going through all that trouble just to eventually walk away from all that sad noise.

So I just lived a life of a gleeful artist broadcast engineer more or less nice guy, and general trouble maker. Only now I see the last reel being installed.

Bleep it that's cool.

So what was the point?  Who da hell knows. There's folks that make a nice living on film-flaming people about all that. Various gurus, and assorted "I gots the Answer" crooks.

Heck with all my double talk mojo I could easily do it too.

Aw, but that's  too much trouble, and besides the real deal is far more interesting. Ya see gang them old religions wasn't that far off when they said that on death we'd all go up into the sky.

Turns out we 'actually do',...eventually.

If you have any level of scientific literacy or at least watched the old or current versions of "Cosmos" you know the deal. We that is our actual personal bodies are made up of atoms that were once in the Heart of Stars.

No bleep for real.

'And not once or twice, but endless times, and will again. Cool that. Heck of a pre, and afterlife.

We had a Bright, and Holy beginning, and will continue to have it. For we will be reborn time, after time after time into the infinity of the Multiverse.

That makes each of us from Virus to Ancient Oaks to Great Whales part of something Great Vast, and Wonderful.

Not bad that.

Try to keep this in mind when you're on the subway stuck between stations during a heatwave, and the air conditioner has crapped out. That or ya scrambling to pay the damned bills or dealing with a bleeped up relationship. 

'Or perhaps like me trying to figure out what the bleeping hell them last 65 years was all about.

So class to sum up,...bleeping chill will you.

You're about as special as "Special" can get. Maybe there's a reason that we ended up calling them we think cool,..."STARS".

Because we 'are'.  All of us are actually "STARS"

Not bad that.

Amen.


Stay Tuned.