Jevin Part Two

I posted Jevin from Alabama a while ago so it's about time for an update. He's an extremely cute Tumblr hottie who is also a lovely person. Enjoy 😘👍🏻😜

Thoughts on the #UCCShooting

#UCCShooting I'm sick & tired of hearing about mass shootings. As some1 who suffers from depression & suicidal impulse & any other number of anxieties I understand about suffering and not knowing what to do at times and wanting to hurt others so that they can know how they have hurt you. Though not innocents. That part is always beyond me and that is why I would never become one of these dickheads. But let me just lay out some statements to all those involved as I will, inevitably over the next few days, become angered by the ridiculous "press" coverage of this event. 

To any future assassins out to murder innocents as a last attempt to get even with the world or whatever else it is you're doing: Stop being fucking cowards and simply shoot yourself in the head before u kill others. This act will not bring you peace. It will not make you a hero.  You will not be remembered. You are simply 1 in a long line of sad fucking assholes who will be forgotten except by the dozen or so people whose lives u have ruined forever. That is not a legacy to be proud of. No one thinks u are powerful. They think u are a sad, sorry excuse for a human being, probably just what u already think about yourself. So you are validating the very thing you do not want people to believe about you. Get help now, before you become a never ending footnote to someone else's misery.

To the asshole gun nuts who will no doubt trot out the same old pathetic lines 

- "If somebody had a gun on that campus there would have been no deaths" (Yea lemme give my Grandma a fuckin AK 47 so she can scare that dickhole who parked in her spot at Stop & Shop. This is a solution: arm everybody so that there are more angry intolerant assholes wandering around. Great fucking plan!)

- "One person does not a legislation change make. This was a lone wolf and you will have to pry my gun from my cold dead hands!" (I love guns. I do. I think they're wonderful for safety, protection, and hunting. And, let's face it, since guns are metaphors for cocks and I am a gay man, hardware can be impressive. I also acknowledge that the only way our country would have gotten off the ground is if common folk had guns. We're founded on an armed, terroristic act. We don't like to think of it in that way. But it's true. So I agree that guns can be a necessary evil. But enough is enough. When u spout this rhetoric you are like Typhoid Mary spitting into everyone's soup at Applebee's. At some point common sense and public safety have to trump your beliefs. You already gave up countless freedoms after 9/11 including the ability to not let some dickbag feel you up at the airport, the ability to not let the government spy on every phone call you make, every email you send, and every dickpic you swap. Why is that more tolerable than saving countless lives in the years to come?

- "This is happening because of equal marriage and gay tolerance." (I'm not even gonna answer this one. If you say shit like this you are JUST AS BAD AS THE SHOOTER, if not more, and you cause more harm to innocents like your children than the shooters.

If you are using any of these arguments or are still clinging to your gun rights blindly: GIVE IT UP. People are dying. There's been 1 mass shooting a week every week so far this year. Australia had 1 mass shooting and banned all guns and violent crime went down astronomically and there hasn't been another incident. America is at best a laughing stock at worst a tragedy to the rest of the world in regards to this issue, and you are the dance band of the Titanic valiantly but failingly trying to continue playing as the fucking ice floes start swirling around you. You need to change your stance and get on a lifeboat cuz right now you're standing in the way of the rest of us assholes.

To the "press" who will no doubt over the coming days try to mine every angle that they can to push their own evil agendas: SHAME ON YOU. You need to do better. You have forgotten in every sense what the word "journalism" means. DO BETTER.

And lastly to the groups which will try to politicize this act, whether they be pro black, anti-gay, pro gun, or whatever: Just stop. The people involved in this were not place cards in a cultural or political revolution. People are dead. Children are dead. Mourn them. Enact positive change on their behalf. And leave it at that. All else is disrespectful to their memory.

These are just the opinions of one angry man, for what they are worth. Sadly, next week they will still be just as relevant if you want to read them again when the next mass shooting occurs. I'll keep my fingers crossed until then 😞

Justin's Complex Cover Shoot: Behind the Scenes

When Fat People (and their supporters) Respond

As with most every person who follows viral trends or watches YouTube, I became aware a few days ago of this "Dear Fat People" video made by a YouTuber named Nicole Arbour. I don't follow her and the only time I've seen her videos is when someone I do follow, Mr. Repzion, does replies to her usually offensive or bigoted diatribes. The few times I have seen her, she comes across as a vapid and terribly unfunny girl trying VERY VERY hard to be edgy. I hate when you can see the hamster wheel turning in somebody's head. If natural talent is not there and you can see someone trying with all of their might to be funny, it shuts me right down. Nevertheless, as everyone was talking about it, I decided to watch the Dear Fat People video. I debated whether or not I should post it in this blog because, as with a historian studying Mein Kampf who must read the book, it helps to know what I'm talking about and placing judgement upon. But I decided against it. She has gotten more than enough publicity already. Should anyone who reads this want to watch the actual video, you can find it very easily by searching the title on YouTube. I just watched it again so I might brush up on the points she made, viewer counts for her be damned. Let me just point out some of the criticisms in her defense that I've seen already.

1) "But she's funny." This one is easy, because she is not AT ALL funny. She's funny in the same sense as the cheerleader girlfriend of the jock douchebag who had just kicked my ass in high school and walked away after calling me a faggot only to have her stay behind and with a smirk that she thinks says "I really care for you" says in all honesty: "You really DO look like a faggot. Can you try not doing that? I'll help you so long as you don't tell anyone." (I'm paraphrasing obviously, but you get the point) There is nothing funny in her video, unless you have anger towards fat people and think they are inherently funny without actually making up any jokes about that. Saying that a fat child sat next to you on an airplane and he was so fat you had to hold his fat away from your body is not amusing, it is cruel.

2) "But she makes some good points." I'll grant you this one. Tucked in between all of her unbridled anger and supposed "humor" about fat people are perfectly valid points and truths that most fat people, myself included, do not want to be reminded of. Yes, many fat people make poor choices. Yes, their health will probably be affected. Yes, fat people should not be placated simply because they are too fat to walk through an airport. I agree with all of these things. I don't agree that simply because she has a few truthful statements in there, we should respect her entire presence or her channel or her "talent". I also find it appalling that our culture often deems it okay to belittle people, whether they be fat, or uneducated, or whatever, simply because they were not "born that way" and can change, whereas these same people will say "We can't criticize black people or gay people because they were born that way." (Yes, I did notice that dear Nicole included us queers on the list of people that it was "okay" not to criticize.) It's a weird sort of Rube Goldberg bigotry, as if you're making your reasoning for being against a certain group of people go through all of these hoops and tunnels just to verify your standpoint. And it doesn't wash with me. I'd respect Nicole a lot more if she didn't couch her arguments in this pseudo-bullshit "But I really care about you and I'll love you no matter what" stance. There is a firm difference between the concept of tough love, or telling your fat friend that he shouldn't buy that pair of budgie smugglers, and pointing at him and exclaiming "Holy shit you're fucking fat what are you insane?"

3) "She has a right to say what she wants." Indeed she does, and this is the 1 argument in defense of her that I stand behind one hundred percent. I don't think she should be banned. I will never support censorship of any kind. No matter how hateful somebody's message is, they have a right to voice it, just as I have a right to listen or not listen and criticize it. It's the beauty of our country. Besides, I'd much rather give people enough rope that they can hang themselves if they so choose and I'd much rather have a hateful message out front and center so I know where I stand with someone instead of it being whispered behind my back.

4) "We are way too sensitive as a culture now." Oddly, I agree with this one halfway as well. The famous comedians I love were always offensive to some degree. George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison. Political correctness can be taken too far in our culture today and I do believe that many of us have knee jerk reactions to things we should really just wave away. However, and especially in comedy, the tone and manner in which you make your jokes can sometimes make all the difference in the world. There is a big, big difference between South Park featuring an episode about a gerbil trying to escape from Mr. Slave's ass and Andrew Dice Clay in his halcyon days referring to "transtesticles" and wondering if bisexuals wake up in the morning and flip a coin. Even that example could be construed as flawed because you could make the point that Dice Clay was playing a "caricature" of the exaggerated straight white Italian homophobic male. Though I'm pretty sure we've all decided as a culture in the ensuing years that no, he really wasn't it was just cruel bigotry wrapped in humor which is why we don't really see Dice Clay doing current bits like that on YouTube anymore (though I haven't looked for them).

Here are some points I want to make about this issue (some of them will be personal to me):

1) I exaggerate when I talk about Nicole Arbour's message a little. She hasn't burned a swastika on Morgan Freeman's lawn or anything. She simply made a video which she thought was funny in which she criticizes fat people. I don't think fat people are above criticism. But I do think every human should be above cruelty. It's okay, in my mind, when somebody wants to make a good but uncomfortable point about fat people and couches it in a very clever joke that laughs WITH us and not AT us. Nicole failed completely on this count.

2) Fat people know they are fat. I guarantee it. We don't need thin supposedly semi-attractive people reminding us with poor attempts at humor. I also take issue with Nicole equating her "love" for fat people with telling them what they already know and hoping that by doing so they stop stuffing their face and get exercise. Know what a thin, attractive person telling me something like this would have done to me in high school? It would have made me cry, and then want to kill myself even more than I already did. Admittedly, I was fucked up already. Still am. But thankfully now I just want to use my talent and write a response instead of cry. At least I've evolved that much.

3) The biggest thing I take issue with is the statement "Fat shaming is not a thing." I know from personal experience that it is. Shame is a thing that can come at any point in your life for any number of things. And most fat people shame themselves far too much already. I certainly do. It should never be okay to shame somebody else for their weight. I've heard this argument "Shame is an emotion, you can choose to feel or not to feel it." And that is absolute bullshit. That's like saying it was okay for the jock douchebag I mentioned earlier in this piece to yell "Faggot!" at me directly in my face because, well, I could simply choose not to feel the emotions his debasement could make me feel. It's BULLSHIT, plain and simple.

4) Just as a simple aside, know what works a lot better than some skinny bitch telling me "Eeeew you're fat!" Some skinny bitch wanting to be my friend and share a salad with me. I eat because of loneliness and self-esteem issues and a whole host of other things, including simply that food is fucking awesome, but I can damn well guarantee that a cruel "tough love" approach would make my situation worse not make me want to "prove you wrong". That is just this man's opinion.

Take these points, and Nicole's video, however you choose. But can we all just agree to love one another a little more often and that said love should be unconditional, or it has no real meaning?. Let's give it a try. In the meantime, I'm including a clip of a certain fat comedian no longer with us who understood the value of laughing WITH us and not AT us. This is talent. Enjoy.

Cheer Louder

I overheard two well-dressed Middle Eastern women talking at a drugstore checkout. The younger woman pointed to a magazine cover of Caitlyn Jenner & said "Have u seen this? This used to be a man. What a sad, scary world we're living in." To which the older woman simply said: "Oh my!" I was angry but kept quiet. They have their beliefs and I have mine and though theirs are based on fear and bigotry, they are entitled to them. But it reminded me why there is a culture divide and why I'm out in front with the rest of the progressive people. Though it is certainly, at times , a sad and scary world, Caitlyn Jenner is not one of the things that makes it so for me but one of the things that gives me hope for the future. When somebody who is unhappy in the body they were born with can finally be made whole by science, that is a beautiful thing. And what's even more beautiful is how a great deal of the world has accepted her and every other person in her position along with gays getting married and having equal rights. Love and acceptance is always beautiful in my opinion, and while it's true that there are some VERY vocal adversaries to equality and diversity (I'm lookin at u and everyone like u Kim Davis and ur cheerleader Huckabee), the trick in these transition years (pun intended) will be to simply cheer louder than them and love each other for our differences. I'm down for that. 

The Problem With Race

In a year when more young unarmed black men are being killed by police than ever before and the hashtag #blacklivesmatter has become a phenomenon, we certainly have to admit that race is a prominent issue in our country. In any country for that matter. Not all of the people killed by police in this or any other year will be black, but there is a frightening disproportion between that and the number of white people killed which bears looking into. Except the entire reason that the hashtag was needed is because people who aren't black sometimes seem unwilling to examine this frightening statistic. Let's face it, nobody LIKES to talk about race in mixed company. It can be uncomfortable or even lead to shouting matches. I don't even like having a confrontation over someone giving me the wrong change why on Earth would I wanna discuss something as possibly volatile as race? Well, simply put, because that is the only way we will move past this issue and grow as a species, something which, right now, we seem very adamant AGAINST doing. Part of the reason behind this trepidation is simple avoidance, as I stated. It's much easier to ignore the problem and continue eating your bag of Doritos and a hell of a lot more peaceful. For you, anyway. Certainly not for the unarmed people being assassinated in the streets of the Land of the Free by people we're supposed to be trusting to protect us. But that's only the most basic reason you and I and most every Joe Blow in the country utilizes. There are many others. Some people simply don't want to discuss the issue of race because they are racist. Sounds quite self explanatory, doesn't it? You've seen them on the news. Usually personified by an old, white politician wearing a Dior suit or an old white blue-haired lady wearing a cardigan with a crucifix over it or a white unshaven redneck in a snapback of any age wearing a Confederate flag belt buckle. These are easy stereotypes I've selected, yes, but let's face it, I'm gay and I love showtunes and disco, some things are stereotypes for a reason. But you've always seen them interviewed after some tragedy or another which involves race in some way. And they almost always denounce the issue completely, falling back on the same old tropes of "This is America the land of dreams anybody can be anything here". Or they blame it on a "few bad apples". Or sometimes, if they're feeling particularly open they might even blame the ghetto, or their lifestyle, not realizing that falling back on this train of thought proves the existence of racism even more. Their comments will almost always be prefaced with a "But I'm not racist!" and end with a "God Bless America". These people refuse to even admit the problem, not out of denial, but because they don't really want to solve the problem. I despise them even more than I would despise a Klu Klux Klan member because at least a KKKer (if he's not covered in a hood) has the balls to admit how he really feels. He knows his opinion is full of bile and hate but he doesn't give a shit. At the very least if I ran into him in the street, I would know where I stand. But so many others cover up their bile with a smile. Call me crazy but I'd rather be stabbed in the chest by somebody I'm expecting it from than stabbed in the back by somebody who was just smiling at me a minute ago. Then other people don't want to talk about racism because they are in denial. They simply don't want to admit that it exists because the prospect is too frightening since it attacks their simplistic views of how society works. It takes courage to admit that our country is not as perfect as they'd like to believe it is, and these people lack that courage.

     Two things brought this issue to a personal level for me recently. And I'm talking beyond simple bigotry directed at me because I'm gay, which almost every queer person can attest to at some point. My brother and his wife and myself were sitting around the dinner table having one of these easygoing but sometimes deep conversations families have when there is time and adequate liquor to loosen our tongues. My sister in-law grew up with countless black friends and her sister married a black man. Race is a non-issue for her on a personal level. But she was curious after meeting our father (who pretty much wears his racism on his sleeve) if we thought we had been raised in a racist household. My brother was sort of horrified at the thought and gave a very adamant "No." But I answered "Yes." immediately and was stymied at how my brother could be so in the dark. After a few minutes of back and forth, I asked him simply "How many times growing up did you hear the word nigger? Or spic? Or faggot?" And the realization washing over my brother's face could have been in Technicolor. He knew it was racist, but I suppose it remained a comfortable kind of racism tucked away in the family living room and he had never really wanted to acknowledge it for what it really was. But I saw his face change in that moment. It was the face of denial being washed away in one swipe. The face of possible change. It gave me hope.

     Recently I asked a friend who lives in a fairly nice condo complex why I never see him using the pool there. At first, he gave me a simple "There's a bad element there.". But we live in white suburbia so my mind wasn't gonna let that fly and I pressed him further. Finally he told me "It's like the ghetto down there. Too many blacks." I was pretty astounded. I called him on it, basically telling him "That's awful and racist." He became horrified. "I'm not racist!" he told me, highly alarmed that I would even think that. "You just said you refuse to use a swimming pool because black people go in it. That's racist!" I explained, kind of flabbergasted that I would even have to back up my statement. We went back and forth like this a few more times, but the conversation ended with us both being disappointed and upset, him because how could anyone possibly think he was racist and me because how could he possibly not realize he was racist. It boggled my mind at the time how thick the denial was. I could literally have cut it with a steak knife. And yet I didn't push the subject, I simply dropped it and took in the notion that my friend was a racist but was in denial about it. A short time later, a young black woman in cornrows posted a picture of herself on Facebook in which she was wiping her ass with the American flag accompanied with the caption: "U mad yet?" The only reason I saw the post was because my friend decided to leave a comment on it. Now, admittedly, the picture would have been offensive to almost anyone. Even taking out the flag, you still had to look at this unattractive chick's ass, which for me was not pleasant. But it didn't make me furious with patriotic fervor. I appreciated that she was exercising one of the great rights that this country affords us, the right to have an opinion and speak up about it. My friend, however, was not so easygoing. He was asking other followers to help him report this jungle bunny and jigaboo bitch so that her picture would get taken down. I wish I had screencapped his rant because I can't remember it word for word, but it was obvious that in the throes of his anti-anti-America rebuttal he forgot all about denying his racism. It should be noted that my friend has a huge heart and has friends of many races, but as I pointed out earlier a smile doesn't always erase some bile. I point this out because I think a lot of white people are just like my friend and like my brother used to be. They deny that there is a racial problem in this country and look for other things to blame while secretly hoping that the issue will go away. But it doesn't go away. And if we don't talk about it, it never will in a peaceful manner. But each day another person of color is killed, or harassed, or discriminated against. And after a while it becomes too difficult to keep pretending. Or at least I hope it does. For me, that moment came a long, long time ago. Let me know when everyone else catches up. Until then, this powder keg we're sitting on just keeps getting bigger.

On Getting Older

Well here we are once again. At one of those days that serves to mutually remind me of the day I was born and that the day I will die looms ever closer. I'm being sarcastic, of course. Even if I follow below average life expectancy I'll still probably live another thirty years. The weird thing about that figure and about today in general is that I never thought I would even get this far. With all of my mental issues I thought for sure I would have taken myself out long ago (I'm choosing to be blunt, hopefully if anyone does read this they are already aware of my ongoing issues). It's a minor miracle, in fact, that I am still alive to wake up, smile halfway at the sunrise over the Barnegat Inlet, and write this half serious blog about lasting another year. I still wish I appreciated the miracle more at times. There is a part of me that really does get supreme joy out of life. But he's not in charge very much.

     

     Most people worry over physical things when it comes to getting older. For better or worse, I've never been a stunning beauty of a man or someone who has a lot to lose in that department so my worries there are limited. Everybody hates wrinkles and stretch marks and bulging veins. My main thing is my hair. I love hair. It's one of the first things I notice in a man. And I've always taken care of mine. Still do. I don't spend hours getting it ready, but it will hopefully always look a certain level of awesome. If I were to start losing it, that would hit me hard. Thankfully, except for one spot at the back of my head, all is well there.

     So what you're left with if you don't worry too much over the physical aspects of aging (and provided you don't have a multitude of medical or mental issues) is this notion of "I'm getting too old for that now." I don't worry about this either. I've always had a Peter Pan complex, if I'm being honest with myself. So worrying over "oh man I'm too old to be seen sitting on a roller coaster" will just never occur to me. Yes, I will probably be that queer senior citizen at the One Direction Reunion Concert (Welcome back, Zayn!) thirty years from now. But I'm kinda proud of that instead of embarrassed by it. Life is too short and too magnificent sometimes to worry about petty bullshit and other people's mores. Perhaps that is why I'm still here writing about this. Sometimes the joy really does eclipse all that negative bullshit inside of me just waiting to simmer to the surface. And taking it day by day helps. Today is young yet, but there are already several loving birthday messages from friends to make me smile. On to the next day...