Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Born On This Day- May 31st... Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë


Bertrand Delanoë


My very own Sam Adams


Portland has an out of the closet gay mayor- Sam Adams, who lives in my neighborhood & with whom I enjoy an acquinatence. I get a thrill when he calls me by name at city meetings or just around town. My friends & co-workers are impressed & they should be. I once had my eye on a chance to be the first lady of Portland. I served on a committee- Keep Portland Moving, regarding transpotation issues, & I would always arrive early enough to be seated besides hiz honor. I would later learn that I was born in decade much too early to catch the mayor’s interest. He is a fine man & a good mayor.


Adams is not the only gay mayor of a major city: Klause Wowereit of Berlin, Ole von Beust of Hamburg, Glen Murray of Winnipeg, & the recently elected mayor of Houston- Annise Parker. Progress.


Bertrand Delanoë has been mayor of Paris since 18 March 2001, when control of the city council was won by a left-wing alliance for the first time since the Paris Commune of 1871.

Delanoë won the election for mayor of Paris, with a coilition of Greens & Socialists over Conservitives. This success in a city which has traditionally been a stronghold of the right wing was striking since setbacks to the Left across France since 2001 elections have been attributed with the weariness of the Parisian public of corruption, graft & a series of scandals of the previous administrations.


Delanoë was virtually unknown before the election of 2001, but soon gained fame for organising new & unusual events in Paris: the Paris Plages, a manufactured beach on the banks of the Sein. Built every summer to give Parisians who could not take a regular vacation a chance to relax, tan & enjoy the beach in the center of Paris. The popular program program has been in place since 2002, & has been copied by other international cities.

He also gave birth to Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night), a dawn to dusk festival of parties around the city, with museums, galleries, & public spaces open all night.


During a Nuit Blanche in October 2002, Delanoë was stabbed, while mingling with the public, by a Muslim immigrant,-Azedine Berkane, who told police: "I hated politicians, the Socialist Party, & homosexuals." A real fun party guest. Before being taken to a hospital, Delanoë asked that the festivities continue. Delanoë's wound was thought to be minor, but he was in the hospital  for 2 weeks.


Berkane was permitted to leave treatment in a psychiatric hospital after his doctors no longer considered him a threat. He has not been seen since.


As Mayor, Delanoë has worked to improve the quality of life for Parisians: reduce pollution, cut down on vehicles in the city center, a plan to build a non-polluting tram, & closing streets to become pedestrian malls. He introduced a program of giving citizens cheap rental bicycles available in stations all around Paris. The program has been enormously successful. He has outlined a plan for Autolib, where small cars would be shared. He was reelected in 2008 with 57.7% of the vote. His term is up in 2014.


Delanoë strongly criticized Benedict XVI for a statement that condom use was unhelpful & even counter-productive in the fight against HIV. Delanoë is known to be on the Al Qaeda hit list. His name is often mentioned as possible candiate for President of France in the next election.

 

Considering Walt Whitman On His 192nd Birthday


When I write about individuals from history that were homosexual, I avoid using the term- GAY, because for me, there was no GAY before the 20th century, until I consider Walt Whitman on this, the day of his birth. Whitman was GAY, using the 20th/21st century definition.
Has there ever been a poet so thoroughly a man of this nation than Walt Whitman?  Whitman’s book of poetry- Leaves of Grass, holds the essence of being an American. It also reflects the ways in which America ideals have been sacrificed. Walt Whitman's personal life suffered much at the hands of the American taboo against sex.

Whitman is this country’s greatest embarrassment, if what he says about democracy is true, the American ideal of universal equality must embrace homosexuals, & same sex love. Whitman is a subversive & radical poet & American school children for the past 50 years have been carefully protected from exposure to America's greatest poet. I have always been an avid reader, & I did not read Whitman until I was finished with college, when my mother, of all people, gave me a volume of Leaves Of Grass as a gift.

A leaf for hand in hand;
You natural persons old and young!
You on the Mississippi and on all the branches & bayous of the Mississippi!

You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs!
You twain! & all processions moving along the streets!

I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand.

Walt Whitman was a true bohemian. He never gave into having a regular job occupation, & he was a singularly solitary man, probably not by choice. In 1819, Whitman was born in Long Island, NY. He did the usual things until he was 11, when he quit school. He ran errands for a lawyer & doctor, & then became an apprentice typesetter for a Brooklyn paper.

He taught school in several small villages in NY, & contributed articles to newspapers. In 1841 he left country life for the big city. In NYC he worked for newspapers as typesetter, reporter, feature writer & editor. Whitman took a life of theatre, cafes & nightclubs.

He went to art exhibitions, museums, the opera, watch the ships, & walked among the masses in the great city. His favorite activity was to sit near the hot, young, rugged carriage drivers, & cross back & forth on the Brooklyn ferry to mingle with the rough deck hands.  Because he was repressing his sexuality, he was a loner in a crowd, a spectator rather than a participant.

Sometime after 1855, when Leaves of Grass was first published, he experienced some sort of emotional crisis that transformed him from journalist to poet. In the manner so many gay men in NYC & San Francisco of late 1970s, he gave up being a dandy & became a hyper masculine clone.

Crowds of men & women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me.
  On the ferry-boats the hundreds & hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose
 
& you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, & more in my meditations, than you might suppose . . .

I was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,

Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word.
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, tradition,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met there who detained me for love of me,
 
Day by day & night by night we were together — all else has long been forgotten by me,

I remember I saw only that man who passionately clung to me,
 Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
 
Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,

I see him close beside me with silent lips sad & tremulous.
Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City


Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking & breeding,

No sentimentalist, no stander above men & women or apart from them,

No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
 
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me,
& whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
 
Through me the afflatus surging & surging, through me the current & index.

I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the song of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
Song Of Myself

When Whitman is taught in school as part of the canon of American literature, there is still much resistance to identifying him as gay, despite some fairly well documented evidence.

I share the midnight orgies of young men . . .
I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,

He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be condemned by others for deeds done,

I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?

Whitman's notebooks of this period are filled with descriptions of bus drivers, boat men, & other "rude, illiterate" men that he picked up is really in the streets of Manhattan, & "slept with," often keeping notes of their home addresses. Excerpts from his Notebooks have been collected in Charley Shively's Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados:

Peter — large, strong-boned young fellow, driver. . . . I liked his refreshing wickedness, as it would be called by the orthodox.

George Fitch — Yankee boy — Driver . . . Good looking, tall, curly haired, black-eyed fellow

Saturday night Mike Ellis — wandering at the corner of Lexington av. & 32d st. — took him home to 150 37th street, — 4th story back room — bitter cold night

Wm Culver, boy in bath, aged 18

Dan'l Spencer . . . somewhat feminine . . . slept with me Sept 3d

Theodore M Carr — came to the house with me

James Sloan (night of Sept 18 '62) 23rd year of age — plain homely, American

John McNelly night Oct 7 young man, drunk, walk'd up Fulton & High st. home

David Wilson — night of Oct. 11 '62, walking up from Middagh — slept with me

Horace Ostrander Oct. 22 '62 — about 28 yr's of age — slept with him Dec 4th '62

October 9, 1863, Jerry Taylor, (NJ.) of 2d dist reg't slept with me last night weather soft, cool enough, warm enough, heavenly.
This is the 19th century version of John Rechy’s Numbers!

As I have been noting the protests of the right wing & religious fundamentalists to the recent legislation adding references to gay people in history to the curriculum in public schools of California, I consider how liberating it will be for young gay people to acknowledge that the most American of poets was not just a homosexual, he was gay.

I recommend the excellent & very readable- Walt Whitman: A Gay Life by Gary Schmidgall

ROB ROGERS IN THE PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

THE CUSPS OF MAY/JUNE











June Birthdays

I deleted the blog I had previously pertaining to birthdays and I'm doing this one now because it's actually closer to June than when I originally did it, so I'm giving a big Happy Birthday shout out to the following people:

Ronnie Wood, 63

  • DOB: June 1, 1947, Hillingdon, Middlesex, England
  • Birth name: Ronald David Wood
  • Height: 5'9''
  • Nickname: The New Kid, Woody, Ronnie
  • Spouse:
    • Jo Wood- Jan. 2, 1985- Jan. 25, 2011(divorced) 2 children
    • Krissy Findlay- (1971-1978) (divorced) 1 child
  • Trivia
    • Guitarist with The Faces and The Rolling Stones
    • Also plays lap and pedal steel guitar
    • His music career started with a band in 1964 called the Birds
    • In February 1976, Ronnie was considered an official member of The Rolling Stones. It wasn't until 1990 when Ronnie was made a full fledged member of The Stones, nearly 20 years after he joined the band
    • In March 2004, doctors found traces of emphysema in his lungs and ordered him to quit his 30 a day smoking habit. Because during the band's 2003 Forty Licks tour, Ronnie had been downing a bottle and a half of vodka a day
    • Added guitar, bass, saxophone, keyboards and back-up vocals to Ringo Starr's Stop and Smell the Roses
    • As a guest on BBC's Top Gear in 2007, he completed the Celebrity Speed Lap in 1:49.4
    • A very respected and accomplished artist whose art is displayed in galleries all over the world
  • http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0939976/bio
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wood



John Cusack, 44



Johnny Depp

  • DOB: June 9, 1963, Owensboro, Kentucky
  • Birth name: John Christopher Depp II
  • Height: 5'10''
  • Trademark:
    • his highly defined cheekbones
    • Frequently plays freakish, outlandish characters
    • Frequently works with director Tim Burton
    • Frequently bases his performance on rock stars
  • Trivia:
    • Arrested in London for getting into a fight with paparazzis in Jan. 1999
    • Arrested for supposedly trashing a New York hotel room. The one who called the cops was none other than Who front man Roger Daltrey
    • Has a tattoo on his arm that once said Winona Forever because of his relationship with actress Winona Ryder. but now says Wino Forever because of a love of wine
    • Best friends with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards
    • Has a huge interest in Jack the Ripper
    • Says the character of Capt. Jack Sparrow is strongly based on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, from his voice and aspects of his appearance to his personality and mannerisms. Keith would appear in the 3rd Pirates movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, playing Jack's father, Capt. Teague
    • Big fan of The Rolling Stones
    • Big fan of the 1963 show Doctor Who
    • http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000136/bio
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_depp
    • For some reason, my sister goes head over heels for him, every time she sees him on TV she loses all self control!


Anne Frank

  • DOB: June 12, 1929
  • DOD: early March 1945(15 years old)
  • Birth name: Annelies Marie Frank
  • Anne and her sister Margot and her family were discovered by the Germans and her and her sister Margot were taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they both died of typhus
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank


Liam Neeson

  • DOB:  June 7, 1952, Ballymena, Northern Ireland
  • Birth name: William John Neeson
  • Height: 6'4''
  • Trivia
    • Brother in law of actress Joely Richardson
    • His role as a high Nazi party official in the 1992 movie Shining Through is what got him the role as Oskar Schindler in the 1993 movie Schindler's List

  • http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000553/bio


Charlie Watts

  • DOB: June 2, 1941, Bloomsbury, London, England
  • Birth name: Charles Robert Watts
  • Height: 5'8''
  • Nickname: The Wembley Whammer
  • Spouse: Shirley Shepard-Watts(October 14, 1964-present, 1 child)
  • Trivia:
    • Drummer for The Rolling Stones
    • Has many jazz projects outside the Rolling Stones
    • Considered to be the most quiet, most reticent and least wild member of the Stones
    • Has one daughter, Seraphina, born in 1967
    • In June 2004, was diagnosed with throat cancer. even after he quit smoking 15 years before. But in October 2004 it was announced that his cancer had gone into remission after aggressive chemo treatments.
    • Lives in Dolton, Devon, United Kingdom
  • http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0915115/bio

Where is the food???

Normally our fridge is stuffed with food but not this morning...and after last night alcohol is the least thing I want. My throat is all sore. :(

Monday, May 30, 2011

SONS OF THE WABASH/RED RIVER RANGERS 1938-1949
















Train Tales #3

 



I enjoy riding the MAX train. The bus always seems to have the odor of diesel, sweat & a slight hint of wet wool, & the MAX train is electrically powered & clean. I find the sound of the train pleasing. There is an on-going fantasy that I live in Westchester County & work in Manhattan, with the wife & kids picking me up at the station, in reality the wife is a husband & the kids are canine & my life is not Mad Men.

Living a life with low grade Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is not for the faint hearted. I feel a driving need to have “my seat” on the MAX: right hand side, very front behind the driver, the only single seat on the train. If I don’t get this spot I can become grouchier than usual. I start my trip in either direction just one stop from the beginning of the line; I stand a good chance of securing my favorite place. 

On a cool, rainy, spring weekday, I boarded the train & found my seat occupied by a hipster. I took a moment to center myself & breath, & then sat close to my favorite place in case it should become vacant.  I was joined in my seat at the next stop by a beautiful African-American woman of an indecipherable age, chic in her hat & gloves. 

With my nose in my book so that I would not have to engage in conversation, this woman dared to ask me: “What is that you are reading?”  I showed her the cover of Just Kids by Patti Smith & prayed that this elegant lady would not ask me to explain Robert Mapplethorpe & Patti Smith.

I have always held that everyone’s story is interesting if you can get them to open up. I told my seat partner how lovely she looked. She introduced herself as Coral.

10 year old Coral moved to Portland, from Texas, with her parents in 1945. They lived in Vanport, at the time, the largest public housing project in the USA. It was home to 40,000 people, mostly African-American, who worked in the Kaiser Shipyards. In a dramatic parallel to Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans, on May 30, 1948, at 4:05pm, a dike holding back the Columbia River collapsed during a flood, killing 15. The city was underwater by nightfall leaving its inhabitants homeless. Like Katrina, the government misled the population into believing that the damage would be slight. Many have attributed the poor response, in both cases, to the racist attitudes of officials, who neglected to respond appropriately to the destruction of a mostly black community. Amazingly, I now live in walking distance of what was once Vanport, now named Delta Park. 


Vanport before & after the flood

Coral spent 4 days searching for her parents. She was eventually reunited with her mother & father at a church shelter in NE Portland's Mississippi neighborhood. They settled in that part of Portland,  still a stubbornly segregated city. 

Coral would eventually graduate from high school & attend beauty college. She found employment at a downtown Portland salon that catered to colored ladies. She worked her way up to manager & when the owner retired in 1965, Coral bought the place & gave it the name- Coral’s House Of Hair 

Even more impressive in racist Portland of the late 1960s, Coral & The House Of Hair became illustrious enough that she was approached to have her own 15 minute local TV show giving beauty tips to women of color. True Colors Of Beauty aired at 3:15pm, Monday- Thursday on KPTV. The show lasted 5 years. 

I was close to my stop. I told Coral that I had not expected to have such an enchanting & engaging ride into downtown. I gave her my card & offered to buy her lunch sometime. She has yet to take me up on the offer, but on the Max train yesterday, I glanced up from my book & outside of the window, & there was Coral, chic in hat & gloves. She smiled & gave me a wave. 

Memorial Day 2011


My husband is named for his uncle, his father's brother, who was killed in WW2. There is a beautiful & stark memorial to the citizens of Washington State that gave their lives while defending our country. The Garden of Remembrance is a half-acre, L-shaped garden along the sides of Benaroya Hall (home of the Seattle Symphony). Memorial walls of granite, lined by slender reflecting pools, are oriented so that the names face the western sun. In addition to the walls, a poem honors veterans who died in World War I; a reflecting pool honors those missing in action; & a fountain honors those who died in peacetime service. The memorial was designed by Robert Murase, a noted landscape architect. The Garden was dedicated on July 4, 1998.

Not long after the memorial was completed, the Husband was walking in front Benaroya Hall & glanced up & immediately (not knowing that it even existed) saw his own name engraved with the date of his death in England in 1944. He claims that his eyes went directly to it, although the memorial had thousands of names. The Husband said it was a Twilight Zone Moment.


The Husband served in the US Army during the Vietnam War Era (1971-77). I feel blessed that he is with me today & not a name on a War Memorial.

The Husband learned at his father's funeral, summer 2010, his uncle was mostly likely gay. He was a theatre & dance major before going to war & he wrote home to his brother about how cute the other service men were. The letters were destroyed, but the Husband believes it to be true & his namesake messy personal life explains many things about his family dynamics.

Police top

The party outfit for tonight will be my new police top from Turkey. You might think it's weird that I haven't used it yet since the Turkey trip was last September, but that's just typically me. I have loads of stuff I've bought but never had time to use...yet! :p

Agradecimentos, Dieta Coletiva e outras coisitas mais.

Olá meninas!
Quero agradecer todas que deixaram recadinhos carinhosos e também aquelas que não escreveram, mas pensaram em mim. Cada vez que eu entrava aqui era uma verdadeira sessão terapêutica.
Com o tempo agora vou colocando minhas visitas em ordem, então me espera com uma Coca gelada (Diet, com limão por favor) que qualquer hora eu tô chegando.
E como não há mal humor que resista a um bom fim de semana, não seria o meu que quebraria essa regra.

Após uma semana pesada e mal humorada , minha dica para a Dieta Coletiva é:
FIQUE DE OLHO NAS SUAS EMOÇÕES. 
Pouquíssimas vezes na minha vida tive crises compulsivas. Essa semana tive uma. A sensação é horrível! Sinceramente, imagino o terror que deve ser para quem tem crises constantes. Minha compulsão é por doces, especialmente o chocolate, coisa que normalmente não me atrai tanto.
Em uma das minhas observações, pedidas pela minha endocrinologista, ficou claríssimo que as minhas emoções interferiam rápida e diretamente no meu peso. Principalmente a raiva. Um dia com raiva é um dia ganhando peso.
Então, se você já está fazendo o Diário Alimentar, preste uma atenção especial à relação sentimentos x peso.

E pra começar bem a semana, nada melhor que uma boa dose de inspiração para o dia dos namorados:

Que tal um belo pique-nique?











E vocês o que andam pensando fazer no dia dos namorados?

Beijos e boa semana!

Agradecimentos, Dieta Coletiva e outras coisitas mais.

Olá meninas!
Quero agradecer todas que deixaram recadinhos carinhosos e também aquelas que não escreveram, mas pensaram em mim. Cada vez que eu entrava aqui era uma verdadeira sessão terapêutica.
Com o tempo agora vou colocando minhas visitas em ordem, então me espera com uma Coca gelada (Diet, com limão por favor) que qualquer hora eu tô chegando.
E como não há mal humor que resista a um bom fim de semana, não seria o meu que quebraria essa regra.

Após uma semana pesada e mal humorada , minha dica para a Dieta Coletiva é:
FIQUE DE OLHO NAS SUAS EMOÇÕES. 
Pouquíssimas vezes na minha vida tive crises compulsivas. Essa semana tive uma. A sensação é horrível! Sinceramente, imagino o terror que deve ser para quem tem crises constantes. Minha compulsão é por doces, especialmente o chocolate, coisa que normalmente não me atrai tanto.
Em uma das minhas observações, pedidas pela minha endocrinologista, ficou claríssimo que as minhas emoções interferiam rápida e diretamente no meu peso. Principalmente a raiva. Um dia com raiva é um dia ganhando peso.
Então, se você já está fazendo o Diário Alimentar, preste uma atenção especial à relação sentimentos x peso.

E pra começar bem a semana, nada melhor que uma boa dose de inspiração para o dia dos namorados:

Que tal um belo pique-nique?











E vocês o que andam pensando fazer no dia dos namorados?

Beijos e boa semana!