In memorandum

I've had a lot of thoughts and emotions since I woke up at 10am yesterday to a text message informing me of Jack Laytons passing. I find it surreal that due to my inconsistency as a blogger only four posts ago I explained why I voted for him. On many levels Laytons death feels like a death in the family, as a person who came of age in the new millennium it feels as though he's always been around. He expanded his party's relevance within the nation exponentially without compromising any of the things it stood for. He helped Canadians across the nation to see that a country is only as successful as it's least successful person, that a nations survival depends on the ability for all it's people to survive. He was a populist and a pragmatist who seemed as approachable as that teacher you had who always had the classroom in stitches and who always came across as more of a friend than an authority. With Layton you felt if you saw him you could just go say hello and start a conversation. He was a multi linguist and brilliant mind who never lost touch with the people he came from. In the eighties as a city councilor while everyone else was trying to make sense of the new gay cancer he was doing everything he could to help it's victims. Down in the states meanwhile Reagan hadn't yet acknowledged it's existence. Layton was pragmatic, he knew tax cuts to the rich would hurt the poor more so than services to the poor could hurt the rich. He believed that no matter your income you deserved access to the highest quality healthcare and education the country could offer you, that no one deserved to go hungry or cold. He believed women, gay, transgender people, ethnic and religious minorities were not something for the country to tolerate but rather what makes the country's heart beat. He wasn't a perfect man but he tried with everything he had in him to stand up for the mandates he was given. He was relentless in fighting for what he knew to be right. He had integrity, a quality rare in humanity and almost non existent in politics. The world lost one of it's strongest voices of reason, may his voice never be forgotten. May his party carry the orange torch high in his memory.

A month to the wedding

With all the political activism in new York complete I find myself about a month away from my wedding. My nuptial hour draws on apace/ but oh how slow the old moon wanes. Don't get me wrong we have plenty to do (and spend on) between now and then. We severely limited our guest list so that we could afford to do something nice for those we did invite. We focused only on those who have been firm supporters since we came out in our families and friends we've known for several years. This means our wedding will be intimate and full of support. We are having an eleven am church service at the metropolitan comunity church presided over by reverend Pat Bumgardner. Reverend Pat has been performing spiritual ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples since the seventies and has been at every protest for marriage equality in new York she could possibly make. Shes a rockstar in the movement and she's marrying us. We will exchange rings designed by a close friend Ashley Stevens, shes brilliant and you need to look her up on etsy. We will also go through the Greek Orthodox tradition of Stefana, a ritual crowning involving two crowns tied by a ribbon. The crowns are blessed then placed on the couples heads crowning them as joined by god the crowns are then interchanged over their heads by an attendant and they are led on a procession around the alter. It is the (pardon the pun) crowning moment of an orthodox ceremony. After the service were going to a French bistro for a private brunch. A friend Jennie Mouio is making our cake. In the evening were having a very casual ( read plastic cups) cocktail party which will be broader, all our local friends who we wanted at the brunch but had to be pragmatic can come wish us well and have a drink or two. Us, my uncle and mother mother will make food to put out. Researching weddings it was very herd to find advice that wasn't bride centric and or, from our perspective overblown. For us the wedding is about being with loved ones, and joining our lives,everything else is secondary. I can't wait to be married. Then it will be time to work on DOMA so our marriage will still exist when we leave the state.

a video of the efforts to marriage equality

I fell in love with Robert right at the beginning, I knew he was the one. He made me laugh like I'd never laughed, he was never predictable and to this day constantly surprising me and showing me there is even more to him. I love this man. On September twenty fourth of this year about sixty of our closest family and friends will sit in the pews of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York where I attend service and watch as Robert and I promise to love honour and obey eachother until death do us part. Then if the senate does the right thing we will sign our marriage license issued by New York City and the reverend Pat Bumgardner will submit it. We will then be introduced by her as married to these same family and friends. Both of us had complex journeys in our lives we come from faith traditions that would not perform same sex marriage. We were taught homosexuality was a sin. Our journeys to self acceptance and self love were also complex so being able to stand before everyone in our adopted home and has tremendous meaning for me.

I have therefore spent every moment I had spare in Adabbos Queens district talking to the people there about what same sex marriage means to the gay and lesbian new yielded who so desperately crave it. I literally implored people supportive of my rights who felt they were too busy to ca Adabbo to call him. I used my cell so they didmt have to use their minutes. Call him they did. When he declared his support for marriage equality he cited 4800 calls in favour of marriage equality compared to 1200 against it. His people spoke and he's going to represent their voices. When he made his announcement I cried, I laughed, I danced and I came to a sense of hope I can only call euphoria. Tommorow I go to Staren Island to talk to Andrew Lanzas constituents, I know they too will stand for justice, I pray for our love to be recognized as valid and beautiful by the state of New York

Why I'm voting for Layton

Ideologically I have always loved Jack Layton. I find him to be the most earnest politician I've ever encountered. It sounds like a contradiction, earnest and politician. He stands for something though and always has. It would be good politics to merge the NDP and liberals but the NDP under Layton understands that the canadian people need a true progressive voice in parliament.

Having said this, this was going to be my first election not voting NDP. I think Harper is worse for Canada then Layton is good for it. I was ready to vote for Ignatieff as a strategic vote against Harper. I told myself the debate would cement it. I would watch the debate ready for Ignatieff to impress me, I wanted him to convince me I could feel good about him as prime minister.

As the debate began I consciously chose to take my beloved Layton out of the running and focus on the Harvard professor. Something interesting happened though, as Harper and Ignatieff did dances around their questions and acted smug and Duceppe behaved like a crazy uncle this little figure with a moustache actually answered questions being asked, offered real solutions to problems, spoke out against the broken senate. He spoke with a respect for Canadians.

I'm not voting for Ignatieff, if I'm throwing away a vote and handing Harper another government that's the risk I have to take, because whether we get a conservative or liberal government I will feel better knowing we at least have a strong new democratic presence. And crazy things have happened maybe this year will mark the first new democratic government of Canada, it will never happen though unless we learn to vote for who we want not against who we don't.

On God

This is a story about God, or at least my own understanding of God. I swear to God that every word I am about to tell you is the truth, or at least truth as I see it. I have come to realize that anyone who claims to know anything as an absolute is a liar and a bigot. I am fully aware that I just stated that as an absolute and am thus not above throwing myself into the lying bigots category. One thing I endeavour never to be is a hypocrite.  I was baptised in the Greek Orthodox church at two years old. had I died before then many Greeks believe I would have gone to Hell, my parents anticipated a second though and they knew that a Greek Orthodox baptism was not about a child coming to belong to God, no it was about the amount they would spend on the party afterwards and the quality of the liquor they intended to serve. Being of modest means they could only afford to go into foreclosure for this end once, thus my sister and I were jointly baptised.

Ironically despite the thousands they had spent to initiate us into this new incense laden club, only on Easter and random Sundays did we ever attend Peterborough's Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. My mother was not Greek and she had come to prefer guilt in the Pentescotal variety, as my father couldnt stand anyone in the Greek community anyway, except when he could, we as children more often went to the evangelical and charismatic Calvary Pentecostal Church.  To further convolute our upbringing my mother was horrified at the lack of prayer in public school and unable to afford private schooling opted instead to put us in the government funded Canadian Catholic School Board. So there you have it I was raised as Greek Orthodox, Pentescostal, and Catholic and told by my mother that all I was was a christian and denomination didn't matter. When I asked her if this logic extended to Jews, Muslims, Hindu etcetera, she prayed vigourously and told me dear God no, Jesus is THE only way to heaven. The Bible is THE only divine word of God and it is infallible, and whether lighting incense, getting spanked by nuns (this never happened in my day but its a great image n'est pas) or watching people speak in tongues ultimately the only thing that mattered was the bible. Thats what I came to believe, and so as a child I believed the bible to be a bearer of absolute wisdom.

As a child I was also ostracised, I was an outsider. This was especially true during the sacraments, imagine as a child being in grade two and having all the other kids go to their first communion classes and you and the one united kid got to colour pictures of Jesus instead. ( The Catholic Jesus didnt look like the Orthodox Jesus by the way) I was also not interested in sports and loved musicals, I know cliches abound. I cried easily was scrawny as hell and I let my mother part my hair and put me in overalls. Until my voice broke I squealed when I spoke, and I had one volume loud, if I needed to whisper I simply yelled with a hoarse voice directly into someones ear. I believed in God though and I prayed he make the other kids like me.

As high school approached it came to my attention that the evil public school board (the one that didnt have prayer) had a local school for the arts. The program made so much sense for me and I asked my mother to let me go. Shockingly she said yes without a fuss. I went through the application process, was accepted and was off to create a new life. It was within the first week that I met my first pagan, and my first homosexual, I also got more involved in community theatre at this time too, so all of a sudden they were everywhere. I also met another first, an atheist. Not only that but I found out they too were everywhere. Naturally I didnt tell my mother lest she send me back to the Catholics who hated me but I needed to pray and pray hard.

I also had questioned my own sexuality for awhile already, as the bible was the absolute truth I knew God didnt make gays and that with enough prayer he would help me. I set myself apart in high school and became the holier than thou kid who tried to save everyone. I did that until I didnt. Eventually I realized God wasnt making me crave the men any less and that the gay people, atheists and pagans I knew seemed like decent, moral people. How could this be? They were intrinsically evil! Werent they? This is when I came out at school, I also denounced God. Eventually I told my mother who called every pastor at Calvary one by one. Eventually she figured one of them would get through to me. So there was pastor Victoria (name changed), a mother of three who admitted that as a woman she should only ever be an associate pastor, pastor Dave (name made up, dont even remember the real one) a father of twin toddlers who was really cute and hipsterish, he was supposed to win me over by peerish coolness, this too failed, I also got the intellectual guy, who came to Jesus after a lifetime as an atheist, and ultimately the big guns I got to meet an ex-gay who told me he was engaged to a woman and was almost into her. All these people ironically only made me feel more confident in that I was gay and God was BS.

I dont believe God is BS anymore. Through conversations with progressive Christians and other faith leaders and through a recommitment to prayer in my own life, I have come to take on a different view of God. My current view of God is very much shaped by my muddled religious upbringing. I have come to believe God meant for me to be gay and that he did that to take the blinders my mother had installed off, perhaps it was for her too. God is the force that drives life. Throughout history we as humans have struggled to understand him, her or it. We all created narratives for God, this is something that connects all cultures and why I find denying God to be so difficult. A belief in the higher seems to be in our DNA.

I do believe though that ultimately what ever narrative we are most comfortable with, they all lead to the same God. God is too large to be explained by a Bible, a Torah, A Rumi, or a Qu'Ran. God is personal and through meditation, prayer and an open mind we can come to understand only a small piece of this awesome power. All of these faiths understand some piece of God but none of them completely have it. Whats more I believe if we put them all together into one giant faith we may but graze the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I guess my point and I do have one is that we need to adjust our conversation and language in discussing God. We need to stop compartmentalizing ourselves as people of faith and we should all come and worship and explore together. We should drop what divides us and embrace the fact that we are all ultimately searching for the same thing. Hell even the atheists. I spoke the truth as I see it, nothing I have said is an absolute.

Blogs all over the World

The river

The river is always there
the same one
but it is never
the same
for even a second
never will a moment repeat
no boundaries to the patterns
it can create
none
its relationship with the coast never exact
the people, insects, dog shits, trees along the way
constantly in flux
it flows into an ocean
that constantly moves
towards ever shifting continents
on a spinning earth
the earths relation to the heavens
though it can come close will never exactly mimic now
this moment is it
are you enjoying it?

A mothers tears

The rain falls on the AC
Tapping out morse code for all
The soft pitterpat of desperation
The cry for help
For mother natures tears
Formulate the rain
And she is in danger of the gravest sort
Sadly she cries out to her oppressors
Who in a twist of fate
Will die if they finish the deed

He took me to the show

He took me to the show
The speudo Artists sang
By this point it was cast umpteen
Featuring the D lister du jour
I felt their village pain
I lived in the suburbs
But I knew how they felt
As they died of AIDS
He took me cause I asked
His english not so great
He asked me why a guy was playing Angel
He assumed the character a girl
His boredom palpable he tolerated the show
He'd just learned I was gay
He wanted a weekend
A weekend to fulfill the failures
That caused my fruity state
I took him to the Larson show
My point resolute

Think Happy Thoughts Part II

My early childhood pre going to school was idyllic. I had three really close friends, two boys who lived next door Matthew and Justin and then a friend of my parents daughter Antigone. Matthew and Justin were athletic kids and I would play sports with them and they didn't even make fun of me. They were typical boys boys, and that would be the last time in my life I would ever be comfortable in that crowd. We would play for hours on end until the sun came down. Antigone did not live next door but wed visit her so much she might as well have. As kids the two of us were joined at the hip. Her mother used to joke that one day we would get married. I clung to that joke as fact because at four/five playing with Antigone my whole life sounded really appealing. We used to harass our younger siblings together and when we weren't doing that I would make her take on roles and create little dramas with me. When I entered school I didnt see Matthew and Justin as much, soon afterwards, they moved out of the neighbourhood.

School was different the idyllic view of people that I had had was starting to wear down. For whatever reason I was immediately targeted and within weeks of starting elementary school my role at the bottom of the social chain had been cemented. I still don't know why I was targeted at that point, i don't know if I was seen as faggy or what I mean I was six so I don't see how I could have been. Regardless I was informed that I spread Kosta germs and was avoided because they make people sick.

Just about every evening though after school I would see Antigone my future wife, she went to a different school so hadn't been warned about Kosta germs, I hope I never made her sick. I never told her they didn't like me at school, we just played.

When I got the news it hit me like a pound of bricks. I was being abandoned. Antigone's father had gotten a job in Greece and their whole family would be moving to the other end of the world. My comprehension of Greece was at that point this magical fantastical land where a lot of my family lived and where people who loved me lived but that was too expensive for us to go to. Seeing Antigone in Greece at the time seemed at the time as fantastical as the idea of one day seeing my Grandfather in heaven.

Matthew, Justin and Antigone had all left my life, in their place was six hours a day of being run away from. From that point on it would be about ten years before I would receive a sense of being wanted by someone my own age again.

My High School Best Friend

He was the smartest
most counter culture, craziest
articulate
profound
his pants made of a sofa from
the seventies
the material necessary to rival Dolce and Gabbanna
his filthy beard
truly a kings mane
his energy on the dance floor
the movement of his hips
a religious experience
mom said he smelled
dad said he was a freak
this made him more thrilling still
he taught me to question
he taught me to think
he taught me to argue
perhaps mom and dad were right
perhaps he lived in the suburbs
perhaps there was irony in his cell phone
but what he gave me will never cease
to be a part of me

A Village of Artists

A village of artists,
collectively and individually creating,
worlds, ideas, social movements
condemning all things mainstream
fighting to prove they are the weirdest
amongst the strange
taking pride in every old lady they intimidate
these are now the hippies of my generation
someone I recall
someone I once was
someone I still know
but someone from the past
they raised the rent

the lost paddle

I lost my paddle
lost it a time ago
and the further down stream I went the more lost I became
Somehow though I managed to use my arms
to claw at the few stray branches along the river
and thusly pull myself upstream
through the torrent rain
and all extremes
I found my bearings and momentum grew
I knew I would survive and find my way
home
But every moment passing now and then
another wave sets me back towards where I began
but never do I allow a wave
to send me back fully from whence I came

Greyhound to the Garden

David had seen it all before, the greyhound station on George to the YMCA next door. In high school he had friends who went to the thrift store there. He knew the trees and he knew the smell of the Quaker Oats factory. This smell meant he was within minutes of his family. Despite the familiarity though it felt strange for him to be here. He had fought so hard to escape this place. He had saved so much for his move to New York two years prior, he had managed to avoid returning up until now, and the sight of everything though warm and nostalgic reminded him of all the tension he left behind.

His bus was early and he knew his father who had agreed to pick him up would come now if he called but he chose not to. Instead he resolutely reached into his overly worn messenger bag (he had paid a lot of money for it once though one would never know it) and he found at the bottom, below all the paper work he had "filed" a metallic cigarette case with an image of the Beatles adorning the cover. He bought it with a gift certificate from an ex who hated that he smoked after their relationship ended. He loved little bits of irony like this and went to large extremes for them.

Calmly David lit a cigarette and began to inhale, his father would be there soon but for now David was happy to just stand next to the greyhound station alone. An elderly woman got off the same bus. She had flaming red hair, which was in no way natural, and lipstick that had been applied far more liberally to her teeth then any other place. She approached David and let out a shriek.

"David" said the woman "Davy Pappas".
 
David had been found his anonymity shattered.

"How are you Mrs. O'Hara" he said to his third grade English teacher who had unfortunately recognized him. He had always been her favourite though he never understood why and the way she favoured him led the other kids to be so cruel. He had always wished she would be as mean to him as she was to everyone else.

"Are you living in Toronto now" she asked, it made sense that was where he last transferred buses.

-No New York actually
-Oh
-Yeah I moved there two years ago, right after I finished at Trent
-Well that's wonderful, I always knew you would do great things
-Thank you Mrs. O'Hara

David did not hate people, nor did he hate his town, If you asked David about Peterborough in New York he would tell you romantic, wonderful things about it, but being here at this time alone for him brought great strain.



A black lexis pulled into the greyhound parking lot, in nineteen eighty five it was a beautiful car but this was two thousand and one. In the drivers seat sat a man, This was David's father John. John was not a very tall man, he had a grey moustache and little hair. He also had about him though a quiet, stoic, dignity that David had always admired as a child.

John was proud, he was proud of his courage to leave home for Canada in the late seventies, he was proud to own both his house and restaurant, mortgaged as they were. He was proud of his family and all that he had achieved. David saw this and was inspired, he would not have come out had it not been for John, nor would he have gone to New York or pursued screenwriting. John taught him that whatever you want is attainable and that you need to control your life.

John didn't exit the car, instead he honked. He loved to honk.

David opened the door and sat in the seat next to John.

-How are you

John asked

-I'm fine

David replied

-mana mou

said John. They didn't say another word the rest of the way home.

Ellen was David's mother, she was tall and strong, but also very youthful and pretty. The perfect word to describe Ellen was grace. As John and David pulled into the driveway Ellen was folding laundry in the living room window as she always did. David sometimes got the image that she was always there waiting for her children to return like a light house keeper waiting for the boats. When they walked in the door she immediately dropped the socks she had been working on and leapt to embrace her son.

David was emphatic in the way he hugged his mother. He truly was so happy to be there with her. This trip would be good, thought David, he had his stresses but it would be good.

David placed his bags in his old bedroom. The suit of armour his aunt Jane had bought him for his eleventh birthday still stood guarding his bed. The king Arthur poster giving a detailed bio of every round table warrior still hung above it. Something was missing though, the bed was made and there was no clothing scattered across the room. This gave the room a haunted quality for David, that is the only way he could describe it.


Once Mary his sister had gotten back they all got together around a table.  On the table was all the evidence of Ellen's immense talent in the kitchen. There was spanakopita, calamari, shrinp,  chicken stefado, lamb, and rice. It didn't matter that none of these things were part of the same meal but they were all David's favourites. God forbid she spread them over the weekend. Mary was asked to say grace. She rolled her eyes. Ellen was not impressed.

-Mary, okay I'll say them

and then she did.

-Oh heavenly father, we thank you for this food we are about to receive and for the hands that have prepared it. We thank you for this fellowship, for bringing all three of my children together this night after two years. We thank you for David and pray that he will find his way back to you.

Amen

He

I don't want to hear about it, I want to know that you are working. That's it, I don't give a shit about your relationship. I don't give a shit. I just want you to stop being embarrassment for your family. I will never be okay, it never happens. I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you. It hurting me he said. This is no normal. How is my gene this.  My gene is no this. He said.

Unlike before this time he was cold, he could find no warmth and when he went through his memory all he could think of was how he was always made to feel like he failed to deliver.

ADDICTION

It's an addiction she said. You will never have children and never know the love I feel, you will get aids and die, you can never be happy. You are going to kill your father, you are selfish and don't even care how your choices affect others. She said all these things and more. She also told him how much she loved him and how she was sure Robert was a good person. She told him that her love for him was unconditional.

He remembered every play she attended, every recital she sat through and rehearsal she drove him to. He did not question her love, in fact he reciprocated all of that, when he told her about the engagement the pain it brought her brought him more pain than anyone could imagine. The knowledge that he would never find joy without bringing her pain was too much for him. He wished he was five years old and believed in god again.

Think happy thoughts

When I was four I used to wear out the tape of three different video cassettes, The first was Mary Poppins, the second was Peter Pan and the third was Hook. The amount I would watch these movies was to my fathers chagrin. We had the entire disney collection up to that point and my mother, was constantly adding to it. For whatever reason though my energy was fixated on those three films. I too wanted to fly, I wanted to soar and it was no mistake that all three films featured a true free spirit who comes in to change and free those around them. Mary Poppins was an angel thats what I believed, she came to free the Banks children from the box that was stifling their childhood. Peter was the same he was also a figure who existed to deliver childhood to children being raised without it. In Hook it is Neverland that teaches Peter Banning to stop and see wonder in his life again.

    My father wanting me to stop driving him crazy with these films one day sat me down. He was Greek, and still is. When he speaks his words are spare and to the point. I clearly did not get this characteristic. He sat me down and with his thick accent said.

Kosta
Peter Pan and Mary Poppins are no real,
It is pretend, his name is Robin Williams and her name is Julia.... it does no matter.
They is no real, it is called acting they are pretending

I was crushed, and then my little four year old brain started to spin and I realized something, I too could never grow up, I could be an actor. My mind never wavered on the concept.

Peterborough, Ontario was a fascinating place to be a young actor. Every suburban inch of it. Peterborough was founded by the Algonquin and Missisauga Nations but its white history came when politician Peter Robinson from York(Toronto) formed an ambitious plan to bring poor Irish workers in from Britain to work the land in Peterborough. It has remained very Irish, very protestant and very blue collar. I grew up smelling the oats baking at the Quaker factory and hearing people at my parents restaurant, at the time a Pizzeria complain about paying union dues. I saw this simple Norman Rockwell town of at the time 64000 its now at nearly 90 as a place Peter Pan would come take you away from so you could see what existed beyond it.

Peter never came, but that just made me improvise, I asked my Aunt  Jaqueline who was the best seamstress I knew to make me a Peter Pan costume. She made me a hunter green felt tunic and bought a pair of green ballet tights. I was in heaven. I would put the costume on and tell my family that Kosta had gone to never land and I was here in his place. And I did I went to Neverland, I met the lost boys, I had friends and adventures with other kids and it didnt matter that in my real life I was in Peterborough.

The garden

As the bus approaches the grounds on which I grew
The garden in which I spawned
Before I shed the roots
I suddenly have a realization
A knowledge
An awakening
I see that my roots simply grew longer
I know that I will now be forced to answer
For a life lived in a way that fulfills me
I will be made to feel guilt for my happiness
They ask me why I return so rarely

She

She was free
Free of her generation
Free of preconceptions
Free of convention
She dressed in gowns and sheared her hair
She never assumed a person was straight
She never assumed an individual with an Adams apple was male
Or one with breasts female
She left it to them to tell her what they were
The only thing she found intolerable was intolerance.

Value

I used to feel value
As though I somehow had something to offer
Someone
Equating value with money
Leaves me in the bargain bin
I am the marked down item no one needs for free
Worse still I am a leach sucking the blood out of those
Who give value to my dreams
I am a nothing carrying nothing
A burden never asked for
Sitting on a park step
Dreaming of the day I'll deserve
The time to dream
The man who loves me
And all the oppurtunities my parents gave me