GAY Secrets?

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Couple of fools

Have you ever been to gay suburbia? It is like Menjo’s on a Thursday night, only people skip over the drink mixers and go straight to the shots, and the smell of desperation is masked with Pine-Sol.  

There is premade ham in a box, cheese bites, red and green gummybears filled with vodka, home rolled bread, red and green floral arrangements, literal gay gag gifts, biggest bulge raffles (for charity of course), name tags, and me; the black Grinch doing Jager shots in the kitchen corner.

Couples parties was one of the few obligations I had to endure after “dating” Franco for a whole seven days and this week it was all about the holiday party.  

Not wanting to show up empty handed, I brought a moderately priced red wine that I left in Franco’s car because he assured me they did not care what I brought. (I would have re-gifted that wine to one of my best friends for her birthday if I had not broken it in my driveway in a drunken stupor; I guess the universe frowns on re-gifting, too.)

Inside Michael’s (the host) tidy Port Huron home, it was an archeological dig site. Every man I met had the muscular remains of someone who was very gorgeous in their hay day. Now they were middle aged and in the closest thing to marriage the state of Michigan allows for two gay men. If anyone at all still sat on their laps, it would be to read their Christmas list.

This was my first official couples mixer and was it cold. It turns out, if you were not in a relationship, you were supposed to talk to the single guys at these events. While Franco texted in the corner, I went to network, which was easy because we were required to wear name tags.

Tim, who was just getting into the marketing company he worked for, was pulled away by his boyfriend and given the, you-should-not-be-talking-to-this-guy look. To avoid another Tim-like situation, I talked to pairs: James and Rob were all about the power of two.

“We” love this, “we” don’t do that, “our” future, and “our” friends; I could never get used to speaking for two, and some say this is why I should not be in a relationship. It always felt like I was talking to the same person. Do my friends really have to become “our” friends? Is this how a successful relationship works or were they foolish?

So I had to wonder, is being a couple about two people coming together to work as a couple, or is it about two people working to become the same person?

A message from Michael Song Lim

So I woke up to this message in my inbox, and I thought: Great! He gets it! This message saves me the trouble of blogging about it. Tell me if you get it, too below:

So there we have it, a policeman pepper-sprays seated protesters at close range, not with a small device, but essentially empties an extinguisher-sized canister of chemicals into young, upturned faces. Now, the sprayer, UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike. knew full well that the cameras were running. He brandished the canister, slowly raised it, and opened fire. Lieutenant Pike must have known that his full name and phone number would be tweeted all over the blogosphere before he wiped his hands and holstered his weapon, and must have predicted that his telephone message machine would be filled with inquiries, probably before his victims were triaged and admitted to the hospital. He must, therefore have figured that the UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi would have his back. And, I’m sure that both Generalissimo Katehi and her sidekick believed that it's high time to draw the line against the Occupy movement. Both figured that, although the public may sympathize with the protester’s demands, most would agree these spoiled children need to be taken to the woodshed for a good whippin’.

Why is that? Why is it that busloads of Tea Party activists can invade the halls of Congress with sticks and signs to protest Obama’s health care plan, and be considered a savvy political force, while seated student protesters are considered legitimate targets for cops? The main reason is that the Tea Party preaches privatization of all public institutions, and thus, has the support of billionaires everywhere, whereas the Occupiers demand oversight of same moneymaking machines that create such billionaires. No mystery there.

But here’s the real reason why many people disdain uppity college students: A general consensus that a university education is overrated. Many people believe that university students are being treated to an extended pre-employment luxury cruise of useless learning, learning that has little to do with future employment. Wealthy media figures enforce this notion with stories about growing rich using simple money-tricks. Parents look at the outlandish cost of a university education, and dearly wish it were so.

College students, coddled as we may be, see reality a bit more clearly. We’re aware that the ideas of inventors like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are useless unless you have an educated class that can develop them. New disease aren’t cured by brilliant flashes of genius, but by teams of scientists who make those findings practical. An American-developed Prius won’t be made possible by a few savvy inventors, but by the work of many engineers. Thomas Edison might get history’s credit for all those inventions, but it was those teams of scientists at Menlo Park that did the real work. Wanna have breathable air a hundred years from now? If we have it, it will be the result of a bunch of really educated people, not because of a couple wise guys with big wallets.

Most Occupy protesters have followed the same course well-travelled by millions of other Americans: Get fired from a good job, resolve to find something in a similar field, spend months, then years posting resumes, knock on lots of doors, and eventually, feel damn lucky to be offered a job at Target. And it is these educated job-seekers that most clearly see the new line being drawn in America. They see what companies are looking for these days, what the lauded “job creators” value: More burger-flippers, more checkout girls, more service-sector employees all around. That’s the “job creators’” idea of the future. Now, it’s not that America doesn’t need other things. But the billionaires tell us: “There’s no money in it.” Can’t save the future ‘cause there’s no money in it. Can’t develop an energy-efficient type of housing because there’s no money in it. Can’t make solar panels as cheap as the Chinese do, so why bother? And most importantly, can’t understand the irony of a wealthy Chinese businessman taking a high-speed bullet train to work while reading a newspaper article about South Dakota having to un-pave their roads because they have no maintenance funds.

But for the mega-rich, that’s the point of creating a nation of burger-flippers. If you are overworked and underpaid and trying to raise a family, you'd have no time to read such a newspaper article; much less have time to reflect on its implications. A nation of minimally educated workers might grumble about having to work two jobs to get by, might grumble about China getting the better of us, but there wouldn’t be enough hours of the day to turn grumbling into action.

But in order to create a nation of pacified serfs, you have to first do something about the smart kids, and it begins by spraying mace in their faces, spraying it at close range, and seeing if you get away with it. During the 1960’s, when violence rocked America’s college campuses, few Republicans questioned the value of education in general. Nixon-era Republicans wouldn’t care for the likes of Herman Cain, who brags that he knows nothing about foreign policy. Perhaps Republicans in the 1960's didn’t seek to dumb down everyone and take over. But the NYPD, under the order of their billionaire-mayor Michael Bloomberg, knew exactly what to do. A week ago, they descended upon Occupy Wall Street under cover of darkness, took down everything, went straight to OWS Library and destroyed 5000 books. That’s what you gotta do. Always burn the books. And pepper-spray the kids who read them.

-Michael Song Lim

Hello?....Anyone there?....

I know. I know. I did it and I am sorry. I did what I hate, and I did what you probably hate, too.

I am sorry. Can you please forgive me? Friends? Boyfriends? Ok ok friends is fine. I know I have not kept in touch but I promise it is for good reason.

Why?

Well, it doesn't matter now does it?

Only thing that matters now is that I am back, and I am here for you. I promise this time. I swear.

So, welcome me back already.

xoxo Mell