"Go The Fuck Back to The Middle East" Hate Crime?

Last week I woke up early last week to take a nice long walk before heading to work. As soon as I stepped out on the street I hear this women yelling,


"Go The Fuck Back To The Middle East You Mutha Fucker!!",


over and over and over and over and over again.


It was almost like she had the hate speech form of Tourettes.


Every time she yelled I felt like I was being shot in the back. I was standing on the same block that I spent September 12th, 2001 through the 17th with friends. Some of them muslim, me including, consoling each other and lifting our spirits. 


I couldn't see who she was screaming at till I turned the corner and saw a dog walker. walking about 10 dogs and he could have been Dominican, Indian, America, Canadian, I thing you get the point.


I know that as they say in "Avenue Q",


"We're all a little bit racist"!


But GD woman you are so in the wrong!


Part of me wanted to fight fire with fire and beat her down with my umbrella yelling,


"Bitch go back to the uneducated rock your crawlled out from under and stick a (*&$(*) in it!"


But as we New Yorkers tend to do in these situations I, Holding my composure trying not to whip her ass, I walked by and minded my own business.


It's becoming more and more difficult for me to walk by such hate with out getting involved. I mean if she were yelling Gay hate speech at a child I think I couldn't stop my self from getting involved but is this any different?


Looking back, maybe calling the police would have been the best thing. I don't know if yelling racist slurs is a crime, (freedom of speech) but, it seemed like she was disrespecting the person she was screaming at, me, the dogs, the human race and herself.


I feel ill just remembering this low point in my life experience.


What would you have done? 

"Go The Fuck Back to The Middle East" Hate Crime?

Last week I woke up early last week to take a nice long walk before heading to work. As soon as I stepped out on the street I hear this women yelling,


"Go The Fuck Back To The Middle East You Mutha Fucker!!",


over and over and over and over and over again.


It was almost like she had the hate speech form of Tourettes.


Every time she yelled I felt like I was being shot in the back. I was standing on the same block that I spent September 12th, 2001 through the 17th with friends. Some of them muslim, me including, consoling each other and lifting our spirits. 


I couldn't see who she was screaming at till I turned the corner and saw a dog walker. walking about 10 dogs and he could have been Dominican, Indian, America, Canadian, I thing you get the point.


I know that as they say in "Avenue Q",


"We're all a little bit racist"!


But GD woman you are so in the wrong!


Part of me wanted to fight fire with fire and beat her down with my umbrella yelling,


"Bitch go back to the uneducated rock your crawlled out from under and stick a (*&$(*) in it!"


But as we New Yorkers tend to do in these situations I, Holding my composure trying not to whip her ass, I walked by and minded my own business.


It's becoming more and more difficult for me to walk by such hate with out getting involved. I mean if she were yelling Gay hate speech at a child I think I couldn't stop my self from getting involved but is this any different?


Looking back, maybe calling the police would have been the best thing. I don't know if yelling racist slurs is a crime, (freedom of speech) but, it seemed like she was disrespecting the person she was screaming at, me, the dogs, the human race and herself.


I feel ill just remembering this low point in my life experience.


What would you have done? 

Rick Santorum Interviews With CaffeinatedThoughts.com

Shoot em' Up Bang Bang

It's becoming more and more clear to me that I live and always have lived in a dangerous world. People with in a block of where I lay my head down are being killed every night.

For the past month I've heard gunfights starting at 3am, going off and on till 4am, no cops, no news articles the next day, no break in this new alarming alarm system.

I've been staying in the Bronx, a place that seems to have a reputation of danger, gang violence, and over population. But I've lived in three separate parts of the Bronx, and two of these places I've never seen cops. It almost seems as if some one came into the Bronx with a boat load of guns and semi-automatics and said, "Here Have fun"!

Now if I just didn't experience a gun fight in Brooklyn near Prospect Park/Lefforts Garden, I'd think this was just a Bronx thing.

Crime is New York is up 17% from last year. Every weekend a "reported" 20 people have been shot and killed in the past month. "Reported" means they made the news, they were in neighborhoods, like the West Village, Chelsea, Harlem, Downtown Brooklyn, middle class Queens neighborhoods, or that they happen to an upper middle class family or were caused by a drunk or out of line policeman.

But what about the shootings we don't hear about. I mean as I sit here typing this article bullets are flying not two blocks away and this has been every night, but I have yet to hear it in the news. I have yet to hear Police Cars speeding in to save the day.

So how do we fix this?

Do we even care to?

If you think this doesn't effect you, think about this.....

 As this country looses more jobs, and the poor get poorer, and the middle class become homeless

more women get rapped,

more stores get robbed,

more children have nothing to do,

more shootings at night,

and if you think its just going to stay in one neighborhood ....

Your in for a rude awakening!

Life or Death?

All summer long I was fighting off an illness, that if left untreated would have drastically shortened my life. I was on a strick painfull, anemic causing treatment, that had me in a bed, in a room, alone, for three months straight. During this time besides watching ten seasons of Dallas and the whole series' of Stargate SG1, and Universe, I often spent the day staring at the wall and lots of vomiting.

I also came to the conclusion after the first 30 days that I couldn't take it any more and I knew I had to press on. My doctor warned me that the affects from this treatment have caused such depression in his patients that some have committed suicide or at least attempted too.

"I could never be one of those people", or so I thought.

After the first 30 days I understood exactly what he meant. Being alone in the same room for more than 7 days for me feels like a jail cell. So after 30 days in the same room and being to weak to go anywhere I was beyond cabin fever.

I started to believe that this weakness, that the pain I had to go through, that the poison I had to put in my body, would never end. Think about chemotherapy. If you ever had to watch some one fight for their life, their need to live, fight to come back from a place that is dark and lonely and close to the end, than you may have a glimpse of what I'm describing.

Hopelessness was setting in and I was holding on to one thought, "I know that I have felt that my best life is better than this, and even though I don't feel it now, I know it is possible"

It's fall now and the treatment is over.

I'm 100% cured even after stopping the treatment 3 months early because I just couldn't live a life where the only voice besides mine came from the flat screen.

I couldn't live a life of throwing up constantly even though I haven't eaten all day.

I couldn't live anymore with thoughts of hopelessness, with thoughts of suicide lingering about.

I'm cured, I'm alive and I do thank God and appreciate my life, but this appreciation didn't come so easily. Even though I've been off treatment for almost two months, there have been lingering side affects. The depression is not as bad as it was but I'm no where near as that zest for life for what the future holds as I use to be.

I must admit everyday I find that I'm more grateful than the last.

But it took an event to jolt me back into the realization that life is worth living.

I spent the night with my best friend and her son, whom I lived with for the first 5 years of his life, (hes now 10) and around 3am, Gunshots!

I woke up thinking it was a dream, but the loud POP and POWs were not stopping at all, in fact, the noise was getting louder and louder, closer and closer, we all huddled together on the floor incase any bullets came through the window and then the noise just stopped, but the silence was deafening.

I was in complete shock, I mean living in the bronx for years I've heard a gun go off once or twice, but it never sounded as if it was happening less than 100 feet from where I was sleeping, and this sounded even closer than that.

After about 10 minutes we were still on the floor and just as we were about to get up we heard about ten minutes of none stop shooting, bullets hitting brick, louder and louder as the the shooting went on.

Ten minutes is more than enough time in this situation to realize how valuable life is, even if its as "Dramatic" as my ex would say, as mine. (If I didn't live it, I wouldn't believe it lol)

It took seconds for me to know that even if I don't feel that drive for life, there could be no gift as precious as life.

I was with the closest people in my life in New York, and I prayed that we get through this, and that I want to live, and deal with the fact that it was a hard year, and deal with the feelings that may not be any where close to joy, but as Ms. Jackson if your nasty says,

"Sometimes, you have to experience the pain to get to the joy"

And so I sit here today, healthy, alive, and ready to keep on keepen on!,

Appreciating the gift of life, appreciating my friends and family who's support has help me feel beter and better day by day. I even appreciate lesson's learned from mistakes that I've made and the things I've lost from making them, because it's all brought me to this point here,

and that is the knowledge that life may not always be a pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Toffe Crunch (mmmmm my favorite) but there will be many pints in my future as long as I am here to enjoy them, and if you know me you know that I love love love Ben and Jerry (a little too much)

I think I feel a smile coming on! Yep there it is!

Starr Fucking

So I'm sitting on the D train heading up to the place where all the boys are hot but the place I'm staying is a shit hole and I notice this woman is staring at me in my denim jeans white v-neck and electric blue with lime green trim Jacket ( got at this AMAZINGLY LOW PRICED store in east Willy's burg!)

And she gets out of her seat and sits next to me, we smile at each other and I ask her if she has enough room and she says she's fine she's getting off in Harlem and I start to wonder where have I seen this Gay loving curly/somewhat dreaded haired black woman before, and I thought what Oprah, but what Gay loving black famous woman was on Oprah???

So I figured out who she was, and after pulling out my notebook and free writing session totally for her benefit, (and she was reading it out the corner of her eye too) She stood up at 125th street and said, keep it, honey if I can make it on my shitty writing you will go way farther she winked and swing her big ass round almos clocking me in my fore head and got off the train

The Wedding of a lifetime part II

As the world gets ready to witness Princess Diana's Legacy become a Husband. I think about my current relationship and how committed I am to it.

Of course my relationship consist of me and myself, and the willingness to accept who I am.

As I listen to the chatter of Celebrity wedding advice, people on the street talking about the love of their partners or lack there of I must remind myself :

No Matter What!

For richer or for poorer

For better or worse

in sickness and in health

I am committed to living my best life,

I am committed to the principals of

honesty, humility, compassion, and the

willingness to arrest behaviors that contradict this value

system I aspire to.

Now, I grew up in a small town with a mother who treated Christianity how junkies treat crack (So I believed at the time), and a father who's lessons always invoked TheHoly Qu'ran.

As a gay kid the message of my parents beliefs got lost in their inability to deal with a gay child

(I dont blame them at all)

But what I didn't realized is through all the whining about church, and the praying five times a day a foundation was laid, and

it doesn't mean I have to adopt either of my parents religions

but after living a life without the chore principals that were bred in me as a child I realize that they living a life with

Honesty

Humility

Compassion

Willingness

Openness

Acceptance

gives my relation ship with my self a chance!

I've lived a life divorced from myself, hiding from my true feelings believing I wasn't worth it.

Today I know that I'm worth it, and I believe you are too and I hope that you can/do learn to actively love yourself too.

Life for the past month hasn't been easy for me, and the whole time I've been wallowing in self pity repeating words like

I can't

What's the point

And I got side tracked from My true self!

I was forgetting that no matter how I feel,

especially when I don't feel like it

I must remember to get up and go for it.

To remember how I want to live and do it.

That's the best way to love me for me.

I think that would be my advice to Will and Kate! any couple. like Ru says,

"If you can't love your self................"

Cold hearts Hot topics

The funny thing is this is only the second assault on my senses of the day!

I woke up at three o'clock this morning and couldn't sleep. I forced myself not to get up and eat or start reading a book because I knew I needed more sleep to function in the morning!

I woke up two hours late! I took a breath and decided to let go of any discomfort that would manifest itself in me yelling at anyone who walks to slow or cuts me off or stands in front of the entrance to the subway on their Gosh Darn Cell phone.

I breathed got dressed and walked to the subway. Noticing my tension and low tolerance for the irritating I reminded myself that the "MORNING RUSH" is an explosive place and any sudden movements breezes or touches could set more than just me off!

So I went to switch trains accidentally stepping on the back of this man's shoe making it come off and I saw him clench his fist and scream "GOD DAMB!"

I was already past him racing to the A train on the other side of the platform about to say sorry (I did loud enough for anyone only a centimeter away to hear) and he looked back wondering who was the culprit! So now I'm on the packed A train Sardine's over stuffed in Tin and not 30 seconds after grabbing one of three seats eyed by those on the platform before the train doors even open, This women in dreads explodes on this (please dont fight back) tall scrawney man in a business suit.

"DONT TOUCH ME! DONT TOUCH MY PERSONAL THINGS! DONT TOUCH ME

"WELL MOVE LADY"

"DONT TALK TO ME DONT TOUCH ME! I WILL NOT MOVE, IF YOUR UNCOMFORTABLE THEN GET YOUR ASS UP"

"YOU MOVE'

his hand comes up up up

"Mr. If you touch me or my clothes or the air one foot in front of me I'm gonna SMACK YOU UPSIDE YOUR HEAD"

The air was sooooo think and people were soooo uncomfortable that no one knew what to do!

I thought this was the perfect time for those people who sing for money to just break out in song to cut the tension but instead we were all stuck together.

The Her still next to him, hoping that that was the end of it. hoping that he would just let her get out her yell and not respond and help with the escalation.

Hoping that the ignorant people who keep talking about the situation like the two people can't here them would shut up.

I was behind the women taking a stand only after hearing the man comment on how much space she was taking.

Its Rush hour dude get over it!

And after that thought shoot she should get over it too!

But mostly I was reflecting.

In her

" loud assaulting, confrontational,

"Don't fuck with me today cause I am not the one" attitude"

I felt assaulted, I felt her irritability on top of my own and it completely diffused mine and brought me to a place that made me feel helpless and fear wondering if we would all make it off the train with out the cops or a beat down or a race riot.

And that was only the first hour of being awake this morning!

I get the paper when I get off the train and the photo of a SoHo Billboard

"The Most Dangerous Place for and African American is in the womb"

Is the womb the number one killer of African Americans?

Do they have a horrible education system in the womb?

Is SoHo the most African American fluent neighborhood in New york?

Is there an Abortion clinic in SoHo that only aborts African Americans from all over America every time one gets pregnant so that we finally kill those runaway slaves once and for all heheheh!

Am I going insane!!!!!!!!

if you have a chance to click here

The PATH to Friendship!

My good friend Frank has introduced me to a Secret Society!

PATH (application on my IPhone)

Path is somewhat like twitter, the difference is its pictures!

first you take a picture, you say what it is (THing), then where you are (Place) and it shows your pic time place and thing on a grid with your friends shared pics, thing and place. So through out the day where ever are in the world you can share a joke, or a drink or a

"Did you see Miss thing with the Silver Red and Shit green Hair holding 300 barbie dolls on the train?"

The thing is I only have ten to fifteen friends. So you may ask what's the point?

Well, I think it's nice to be on a social network where I'm not overwhelmed by so much chatter, or friends who aren't really friends, which I don't mind, but with in one day in New York one can accrue ten new facebook friends and there is sooooo much info on a facebook page that going to see what my friends are doing on PATH

My ten friends is so much more fun and relaxing and I feel like its a twitcation!

And so now I love it so much I'm ready to share my Path'ology with the rest of my friends!

It's FUN! so if you have or dont have an IPhone, cause you can join Path online at Path.com

join put my name in and join the party!

Do You have Lumbar Support?

My friends Vicki and Frank owned a VW Bug once and they use to always comment on how it had Lower back support Aka "Lumbar" Support!

Ever Since then Lumbar has been the code word for I got your back among my friends.

Today marks a very important day in Lumbar Support! I say to the idiots, and yes I judge you as idiots who don't realize that just like Valentines Day is a made up holiday so is your every holiday that exist, so is your religion so is the word "Monday"!

Instead of saying "Fuck Valentine's day" just because your alone, or fighting with your partner or don't want to admit your feelings to yourself.....

How about give yourself some Lumbar Support!

If you haven't figured it out by now, YOU are the Best Valentine your ever gonna get!

And If you aint lovin you No one else will!

Love & Peace

HIV Trials-and tribulation vaccinations

Last night I was approached by a man in a bar

(I was there for a drag show)

about a clinical trial for an HIV negative healthy men 30-51 trail vaccination study. When I discovered the aim was to find HIV negative men for this study I told him to look for the U-Haul trucks for the kids who just moved here yesterday.

Of course I exaggerate on the amount of gay men who are living with HIV in New York City, but I do have personal experience to shed light on my thought process no matter how close or unclose it is to reality.

When I moved to New York City eleven years ago I was a kid with a goal! To find myself! and I tried to find myself in a different person each night (for the first year anyway)!

I don't ever remember asking any trick I brought home if he knew weather or not he was HIV positive or not. I would just go into a bar pick the Ten hottest guys in the room and work my way down the list until someone was drunk enough, picked me as one of their ten, and was willing to take/come home with me.

Once or twice in my first year of

"dating-emotion=sex-with a 10% chance of a friendship

or remembering the guys name",

A person would tell me that they were HIV positive. I would say ok lets where a condom or ok then I'll be the top/giver/"the male sexual role" and we wont have to worry about it

(NOTE:You can get HIV from being a Top!!!!)

After awhile I started to notice that;

A. I wasn't using condoms all of the time.

B. When ever HIV status was brought up it was by a guy who didn't want to use condoms but wanted to make sure that I was negative and usually the person would let me know that they get fucked on a regular basis,

C. People who have a high number of partners ejaculate inside of them have a higher chance of contracted HIV

D. I was meeting more and more HIV positive sexual partners from ages of 18 on up in New York City, to the point that they let me know that they assumed every one was HIV positive as did I eventually

E. It became apparent to me that after living in NYC for two years It was rare to meet some one that was HIV negative that has lived here for more than two years.

This just represents my experience.

My early years were very high risk and I must acknowledge people like my cousin who just moved here from The Down South! He and his group of friends live and support each other in using protection keeping themselves save free of disease and they discuss topics of relationships/sex passions and beliefs on a regular basis living a Healthier New York life than I knew how when I first got here.

(Having friends to talk openly with about sex risks and relationships is a very Healthy Choice)

In my sixth year here I became HIV positive, though I told the guy who was promoting the study that I was not eligible because I was 51 years old and the cut off point was 50. And I totally thought that this was inevitable! I thought to myself that there is so much risky behavior and I was the best example of that, that I didn't know what it meant to not live in the shame that I was brought up to feel around sex and my sexuality.

JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKE TO BARE BACK

DOESNT MEAN YOU CANT PROTECT YOURSELF

WITH

QUESTIONS,

DISCUSSIONS WITH YOUR SEX PARTNER,

AND LEARNING HOW TO HAVE

FEEL GOOD SAFER SEX!

I like other young gays, even those who were brought up with accepting parents still grew up in a world where being gay was a shameful thing that was suppose to be hidden and exercised out of ones self and behavior and many of us acted out using sex as a way to be free.

Some of us had an early sexual education that made us confused or boundariless when it comes to sex on top of being gay and we learn to hid who we are and or go to the other extreme and in our pride/anger at the world we in every way we can figure out FUCK the world.

With all of the teen suicides and the cyber bullying I hope that there is a way for my generation to reach out to the kids who even after Tyler Climente and the, "IT GETS BETTER" campaign still have no concept of support or the idea that life can go on beyond the closed minded ness of your family or your town,

beyond the abuses your friends and worst of all family,

it truly does get better and in most cases family and friends will be exposed to more and will come around.

(we can hope)

Love & Peace