tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62960265670701072552023-06-20T06:37:47.353-07:00How The Times They Are ChangingStarted blogging during the 2004 Republican National Convention. For Stonewall 45 wrote for the first time about personal experiences that infamous night. Profile forgotten Gay Pioneers, unsung heroes of The Movement who were personal friends and died much too young. Also engaging people met living and working in Germany before and after Reunification. Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-53380400511325771952014-06-17T21:55:00.000-07:002014-06-17T23:23:15.698-07:00REMEMBERING STONEWALL: RELUCTANT WITNESS TO GAY HISTORY<span style="color: #222222;">“</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Accidental Participant” best describes my role the night gay history was made on Christopher Street. I happened to be standing outside the Stonewall Inn when all hell broke loose. On the night of The Event launching modern day gay activism my concerns were more focused on the immediate and personal: getting laid.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">In those days the stretch of Christopher Street running pass Stonewall was the first leg of the Gay Miracle Mile continuing over Seventh Avenue and sweeping down to the riverfront collection of trailer truck yards and later the abandoned piers. If you hadn't managed to garner a suitor or two after one lap along "the Street of Broken Dreams", you turned around and retraced your steps back toward Greenwich Avenue—the main drag for an earlier generation of Sodomites.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">That night Stonewall was the prearranged point for me to meet friend and CP –Cruising Partner--Robin Woodhull. Like all good gay friendships we started out tricking together on a one-night stand, ended up close friends and eventually cruising buddies-- never again the two of us dallying between the sheets.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">This time the anticipated outcome of our meetup took a very different turn. Truth be told it was Robin's throbbing libido that got us caught up in those first heady weeks of The Modern Gay Rights Movement. He was hoping to “run into” some horny trick named Marty. A few nights earlier they hooked up at Stonewall. Robin was hoping for a repeat if not a run.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It was late June, weather cool but not uncomfortable; a Friday night when lust dominates a young man's thoughts and actions. Only weeks pass my college graduation making me the first in the family to do so. Hormones peaking and the influx of summer visitors crowding the narrow Village streets made being out and about even more enticing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">As with our protocol, we'd meet-up 11-ish, dance for an hour or two, then going on 2-ish start rounds together-- the “rounds” being assorted bars, all-night coffee dives, side streets, shadowy doorways and recently popular truck yards. Commercial parking lots dotted the West Village especially under the now extinct West Side Highway and High Line rail tracks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">The pitch black interiors of the long distance truck trailers easily accommodated dozens of the sexually liberated. If either Robin or I connected for a stand-up quickie the other stuck around. If the tryst turned into more we parted and talked the next day. Neither of us might be described as wing man to the other so not sure what you'd call our mutual support system. Sisters on the Seek? LOL </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Have I mention that tall, rail-thin, bleached blond, California-born Robin was something of a punk trannie--very much ahead of his time. He often said he felt more like a woman. Only back then he integrated the drag touches into his fetish wardrobe. Wearing full drag after 6 PM would get you arrested in mid-century New York. A reality that makes the uprising doubly significant: drag queens clutching hems, fierce pride and broken bottles took on raiding NYC police.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Just like it had for black civil rights icon Rosa Parks, discrimination had reached the boiling point. This was our Boston Tea Party only instead of throwing the brew overboard, blue coated officers were showered with braking beverage bottles and metal cans. An uprooted parking meter served as a battering ram when cops retreated into the club. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">After years of harassment it was just desserts. Homophobic acts of violence were never counted as crimes as much as they were viewed as 'some faggot getting what's due' for daring to express a love that need not speak out!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Only moments after Robin arrived as we were waiting on line for doorman/bouncer Sasha to let us in, police cars rolled up. No dummies, Robin and I got out of the way, crossing over to the Sheridan Square pocket park fence opposite the bar. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Gradually others gathered (but certainly not the legions that also claim to have been there!). Initially clueless we watched with increasing agitation as events unfolded before incredulous eyes. Little did we fathom that this was soon to become a shriek heard round the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">If truth be told after 45 years specifics of that night have faded, others come and go, while a few remain sharply etched in memory. I made no contemporaneous diary or journal entries. It did not struck home until much later that this was the dawn of a New Day for gay Americans.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">All these years I've hesitated to put uneven memories on the page or share with those seeking still another perspective of that night. Though some of those impressions were fictionalized in my novel "A Brother's Touch" which oddly enough debuted over a decade later at dawn of the HIV crisis. I've always had reservations about making much of this moment witnessing history.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Robin did manage to hook up again with “Marty”--gay activist Marty Robinson as it turns out--in the predawn hour as street rampages briefly quieted. Through Marty's urging we got involved in early planning meetings held at the pioneering Mattachine Society offices on lower West End Ave and a lecture room on the NYU campus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">We helped handout early informational fliers in the immediate days following what was then-called “the Stonewall riots”. The very first demo Marty called a "Hang Out" to keep up a strong gay presence in the area. These were the very first efforts to organize "the community",to take full advantage of this unprecedented spark of rebellion. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">How I found myself among those early pioneers was Robin's crush on Marty. Soon Marty took prominent roles in creating a formal gay political narrative. At the time leadership roles were assumed by those expressing ideas and following through. For a long time there were no official officer designations or elections per say.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Marty encouraged Robin to come to early meetings. Robin was sure it was an invitation to get laid as well, maybe even begin an affair. Robin brought me and we befriended a tall lanky recruit called Ralph. At the time (unbeknownst to us) Ralph was homeless. We were more warm-bodied supporters than political strategists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Though flamboyant in attire, at heart Robin was shy. He felt awkward in group situations. Neither of us were much for speaking in public. We were witnessing something important but didn't think it was going to evolve as quickly or as vociferously as it has. It was the values and prejudices of the times and my upbringing that made me a reluctant participant. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">The anti-gay social sentiment that rubber-stamped discrimination was serious cause for thought—and pause. Not only were gay acts criminally prosecuted but the psychological establishment had declared us deviant and mentally defective.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Still an expanding group of brave pioneers recognizing the significance of the night's potential to give gays political presence, worked assiduously to exploit it . In the first few days we went to strategy meetings, passed around informational handouts at ragtag demos, and watched as our legions grew. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">The more public attention the movement got the more ambivalent I was about my visibility. Print media was coming around and nightly newscasts started filming. If caught on camera—either motion or still, and recognized, there could be serious ramifications for one's future in the homophobia of the times.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">While not truly closeted it was still a time when making a public display of one's gay sexual orientation was not only socially unacceptable, it was illegal and determined to be a mental illness. It didn't seen an opportune time to become a gay rebel. Perhaps cowardly but nonetheless a reality of the time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Yet in those fledgling days there was definitely an opportunity to strike out if one had political ambitions. Disorganized and volatile as various factions and ideologies collided and coalesced. Guys who might otherwise be brainy misfits in majority society, were able to maneuver themselves into positions of relative power. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Others, whose physical idiosyncrasies branded them queer or odd now found themselves on a level playing field. We were all queers and hated by the mainstream. What you brought to the table was more important then what you looked like. If you had a big mouth you ruled.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Later that summer Robin grew disenchanted as he got less attention from Marty. His star rising, Marty stopped dropping by for late night trysts. When he turned up with an obvious "new friend" in tow, Robin couldn't deal. It bummed him out, as we used to say. He was looking for a husband not foot-soldiering a revolution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It was just as well we started drifting away from being active. I had already started a paid job at a federally funded summer program in the hood. No way would awareness of my participation in gay demonstrations benefit the job and might even get me fired.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">While this was definitely a turning point in our history and naturally something I fully supported, it was time to pursue professional interests and turn my energies to learning craft and supporting myself. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">That winter I moved to San Francisco with my first real boyfriend. When I returned the following fall the movement had kaleidoscoped beyond anything I could imagine. The strides being made in recent decades are simply mind-boggling and bewildering but terribly empowering.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I have no regret about how I felt or acted those many years ago. Perhaps one reason I'm reluctant to “dine” on those experiences. So far I have avoided the fatal infection that took so many of my contemporaries. Friends, lovers and acquaintances I might have known a lifetime were taken too early, and horribly, including both Robin and Ralph--and Marty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">In my teens the prospect of two men marrying was inconceivable (but then again so was a Black President). Today's rapidly evolving climate makes all things possible. I can hardly imagine what the Stonewall Revolution has yet to spawn.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>"Say it clear, Say it loud: We're Gay, And we're Proud!"</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">New York City</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">© Owen Levy 2014</span></span><br />
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Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-85426048016362125942012-07-12T23:57:00.000-07:002012-07-12T23:58:42.377-07:00LUTZ VOGEL Survivor of DDR InjusticesFormer East German defector Lutz Vogel’s personal history is a classic story of survival against the bleakest odds in a Divided Germany. As a teenager he was active in youth sports clubs, and showed potential to join one of the country’s prestigious Olympic Teams. Athletes with promise were highly sought after to embellish the DDR’s sports reputation abroad. He did not make the cut. Instead Lutz was recruited into the military, East German equivalent of The Marines.<br />
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Raised in modest circumstances this was a viable route as any to status and financial stability for himself and his family. At boot camp Lutz worked hard. He always wanted to perform at his best. He took pride in perfecting his military training and he took pride in his personal conduct. His single-mindedness did not go unnoticed.<br />
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Lutz was a soldier never a political person. He was loyal to his commanders and to the oath he had sworn to. He held no ideological priorities and took seriously his duty to serve the nation. He was among an elite contingent of East Bloc military ordered to Poland to fight alongside government forces against striking ship workers. Battling in the streets of Gdansk Lutz proved a formidable soldier.
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Decorated for his Polish service he received a Silver Medal recognizing his bravery and loyalty in containing the uprising. Lutz anticipated at some point he would get a promotion and secure a better pay grade. Back in East Germany talk of his valiant service preceded him. This was at a point when he might have used the good standing to leverage favorable connections. But cultivating political ties were of no interest to Lutz. He’d grown accustomed to the soldiering life; it suited him best. He even found a partner and was planning to marry.<br />
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Then the nightmare began.<br />
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His lack of political engagement annoyed some officers. One high-ranking lieutenant started ribbing him unmercifully about the fact he showed no interest in joining The Socialist Party, membership he might easily obtain as a war veteran. Lutz good-naturedly tried to clarify his position to put an end to the harassment. Matters only worsened.<br />
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The officer thought him a fool and dismissed his arguments with disdain. Lutz tried to ignore the insults but they soon grew increasingly vicious and mean-spirited. The stress grew intolerable and one day Lutz lost it. This highly trained and superbly tuned fighting machine had reached breaking point. He beat the officer severely and was promptly arrested.<br />
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He was court marshaled based on perjured testimony and subjected to cruel and inhumane punishment. He was kept in damp isolated cells for years. So low and narrow he could not stand straight but always had to stoop in order to avoid hitting the ceiling--no mean feat for a strapping six footer. He was never allowed out in fair weather but made to stand naked in driving rainstorms. He put up with the treatment until it appeared they had broken him. But Lutz was only planning his escape.<br />
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As soon as he was released he began preparing to defect, a journey that would take him through four countries in the mid-1980s--the only way young men could get out of the DDR at the time. He was under constant surveillance. Relying on his military training he not only managed to elude Stasi but on foot and in deepest night slipped through border crossings into Poland then Hungary and finally into Yugoslavia. It took weeks travelling only at night, sleeping days and foraging for food and handouts.<br />
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In a forest outside Belgrade he was starving and foolishly ate wild mushrooms. He came down with salmonella poisoning and spent an excruciating week alone near death sleeping on the forest floor. He got well enough to continue travel and managed to reach Italy via Trieste. Immediately given asylum at the nearest West Germany consulate and flown back to Germany, West Germany.<br />
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At first West German authorities were suspicious of his motives. He was thoroughly interrogated and then debriefed about his military experience. Just as his communist torturers had feared, he was providing the West German secret service with pertinent details from firsthand experience. As was policy for all East German defectors he was provided with housing, financial support and training opportunities.<br />
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Lutz soon learned his parents had been jailed. They were accused of knowing about his planned escape and not reporting to authorities, something Lutz vehemently denied; they knew nothing of his plans he insisted. (After reunification they learned from Stasi files that Lutz's older brother had made claims that gave cause to jail the parents.)<br />
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The first few years in the West, Lutz was gung ho, eager to test the limits of democratic society and his physical prowess. Always a fitness buff and martial arts fanatic, he went heavily into fight sports, training in Kung Fu, Karate, et al. He used drugs to enhance performance and got so pumped he entered the world of extreme sports.
His career was brief but vivid. He was nearly beaten to death in a cage fight before a roaring crowd. That near death experience was his wake-up call.<br />
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He pulled out of the fight business, became a practicing Buddhist, and operated his own martial arts studio for a while. Picking up occasional jobs as stuntman for Germany’s active movie and TV production industry, he was hoping it might lead to professional acting work.<br />
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I met Lutz in Berlin when he was hired to perform stunts for a master class on Hong Kong action film-making conducted by Tsui Hark and organized by European Film Academy. I was engaged to document the working workshop seminar. During breaks we often chatted. He appeared to be in his late 40s, early 50s, cliche handsome and in great shape.<br />
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Lutz confided he was writing a film treatment based on these events in his life. He was trying to find some way to get it produced. Naturally he hoped to play himself.
We lost touch after the master class ended. I often wonder how close he got to making his dream a reality. Sadly his story echoes the fate of so many forced to flee in the bad old days of East German rule!<br />
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Jemand weisst?Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-24706888838846358652011-07-24T19:35:00.000-07:002011-07-25T00:08:26.818-07:00PEIK JOHANN, Lover, Friend, Son, Brother, WriterThe boys in Berlin won't soon forget him. He left a trail of broken hearts and shattered could-have-beens. I was almost one of them. It was nice while it lasted. I still visit our spot, in the Tiergarten city park, under the tree where we first caressed.<br /><br />I was aloof in the beginning. It tweaked his interest to be put off at first. He followed me deeper into the woods. I led him to the bank along the lake, under the linden that's become 'our' tree. (I wonder if he ever thought of it that way. Probably not; I'm the sentimental one.)<br /><br />Later, getting acquainted we discovered much in common: business acquaintances, similar work experience, literary aspirations -- why I'd even been dealing with somebody in his office. We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet again real soon.<br /> <br />A couple of days later he called. <br /> <br />I suggested a new cafe in the Goltzstrasse. I liked the high ceilings and widely spaced tables, and there was never a crowd in the early evening. He arrived promptly, dashing in bright blue silk tie, tweed jacket, tailored blue jeans and well-buffed cordovan shoes -- a virtual uniform I came to anticipate.<br /><br />(Maybe I should have asked for something of his. The tie, or better, one of his monogrammed shirts, or some jewelry: cuff links, a stickpin. I'd settle for a handkerchief, anything that was his, something to remember him by.)<br /> <br />That was the first of several dates we squeezed in before I was due to depart. He was so attentive: always arriving promptly, and always entertaining to be with. It was fascinating just watching him charm us into a table at crowded restaurants. Or how strangers at other tables would often try to ingratiate themselves. <br /><br />We did make an attractive couple, even if I say so myself. His patrician goodlooks and hoch-deutsch inflection when he spoke made his education and breeding easily apparent. I, in suitable contrast, the exotic companion he lavished so much attention on. <br /> <br />My departure was unavoidable. He prepared a special goodbye envelope. Driving to the airport he presented it to me, first making me promise not to open until I was over the Atlantic. Then at the last minute he bought for me in the terminal gift shop a kitschy bottle marked 'Berliner luft'. The air in Berlin is notoriously bad. <br /> <br />In bits and pieces I learned his history. He grew up in Hamburg, after university jobbed in the film business. He moved to Paris, having always wanted to bask in the breath-taking beauty of the City of Light. He studied French, got occasional freelance work, and become a familiar face in the upscale cafes of Mommartre and in the deep shrubbery edging the Tuillerie Gardens. I believe he had a trust fund but it was never discussed with me.<br /> <br />The years in Paris proved hard professionally as he struggled with the language. He'd always been reluctant to even visit Cold War Berlin. He despised the Wall that enclosed and divided the city, and only traveled in and out by air. He couldn't stand the idea of driving through East Germany, or suffer the humiliation of the infamous passport controls at border crossings. Yet unable to get work that suited him in France when an opening in Berlin came his way, he grabbed it.<br /> <br />Compared to Paris, the Berlin night scene was smaller and easily navigated. He quickly insinuated himself with a succession of casual acquaintances, and just as quickly let them fall by the wayside. He seemed perfect partner material -- attractive, thoughtful and generous -- easy to see why so many fell so fast and so hard.<br /> <br />I guess I could have easily fallen into that category but I intuitively cultivated a friendship rather than make romantic demands. Once he said he didn't believe in flaunting his preferences, and of course he would never want to live with a lover. <br /><br />"Imagine having to see someone every morning before you've brushed your teeth or combed your hair. That's not for me," he said, reaching over to touch my hand after shifting gears. He would sometimes whisper that he loved me. I luxuriated in the glow of his affection.<br /> <br />We never really became lovers in the conventional sense, he wasn't looking to settle down and I wasn't living full time in Europe. But whenever I was in town he was good to me. Then when I finally came for an extended stay he had already decamped back to Paris.<br /> <br />We stayed in touch by letter and the occasional phone call, and planned on spending New Year's together in Paris. I got stuck in New York that winter, but I figured we still had lots of years ahead, and there was time enough for other New Year's Eve celebrations in Paris or wherever we wished.<br /> <br />The phone rang one September morning in New York and it was he. He was in town for a few days on business, would I join him for dinner that evening? Would I!<br /> <br />We had drinks at his hotel and then went on to a restaurant I suggested on the West Side. It proved the perfect choice, just what foreign visitors consider very New York: a French-style bistro featuring live jazz.<br /> <br />We went back to his hotel. I waited in the lobby. He went to his room to freshen up. (Perhaps he'd gone to take medication. I now know he was on AZT.) He came down about fifteen minutes later and we got into his rental car. I wanted to show him my hometown from the standpoint of the places that had meaning for me, and he was game for the whole tour. <br /><br />I showed him how the city sparkled from Brooklyn Heights promonade and the maze of crowded streets that formed Chinatown, Little Italy and Soho. In the wee hours, we walked arm and arm up, down and around Christopher Street spooning out of cups of Hagen-Dazs ice cream and drawing the appreciative smiles of passersby.<br /> <br />It was past four o'clock in the morning when he dropped me off. He gave me a goodnight kiss, nothing lingering -- that wasn't his style -- but not passionless either. I remembered half-hoping he'd want to come up even as I knew he probably wouldn't. I also knew it was pointless to ask him or suggest we try to meet once again before he left town. If he had time I knew he would call. I watched him drive away.<br /> <br />It wasn't until a year later that we saw each other again, this time in his hometown. He picked me up at friends where I was staying and drove me out to see his parents in the suburbs for afternoon tea. His sisters and their husbands joined us. Somehow I saw fledgling status as a significant other in this domestic picture.<br /> <br />His family had other dinner plans so we went to a favorite Italian ristorante not far from the waterfront. We drove across town chattering away. At a stoplight he turned to me and said, "You are very patient, aren't you?"<br /> <br />I was startled by this out of the blue comment but readily agreed, "Yes, I'm willing to wait for something I really want." <br /> <br />He nodded approvingly.<br /><br />"Shall we spend our old age on the French Riviera?" he quipped gamely.<br /> <br />"Sounds divine," I said. "We can trade off gigolos over lunch everyday."<br /> <br />He laughed and readily agreed.<br /> <br />How was I to know this was to be the last time I would see him. The only hint of what was to come would be in a letter he sent the following spring from France. It was just a casual mention, almost a metaphor for life in bohemian Paris. He said he was getting over the flu but couldn't seem to get warm.<br /> <br />I was busy that spring and summer and the months flew. I finally managed to dash off a note to him in early September. I probably even alluded to our standing invitation to spend New Year's in Paris together.<br /> <br />A few weeks later I received a letter that immediately struck me as curious. It had a foreign postmark but no return address. I barely had a foot in the door when I tore the envelope open. At first I thought it was some kind of a wedding announcement. His name, some dates, a black border. <br /><br />Gradually it dawned on me: this was not good news; this was a death notice. He was dead! Even as I thought it I couldn't fully grasp it. I really couldn't believe it. It was just past 7 PM New York time, well after midnight in Central Europe.<br /> <br />Shaking, I retrieved his parents' phone number, and though it was late felt compelled to call. His father answered, obviously in bed, perhaps even asleep. I told him who it was and apologized for calling so late. He said it was okay and not to worry about it. He asked me how I was doing?<br /> <br />"I'm fine, but I wanted to call about the card I received. What's happened?"<br /> <br />"Cancer," his father said quietly. "It was cancer," he repeated more emphatically. "My wife and I are very sad."<br /> <br />"Please give her my condolences. What kind of cancer?" I pressed.<br /> <br />"Cancer," he said and would say no more.<br /> <br />I told him I would stay in touch and asked for their address. "And certainly the next time I'm in Europe, or you're in New York, I hope we can meet." We said goodbye.<br /> <br />At first I was angry that Peik hadn't told me he was sick. That probably had a lot to do with the schoolboy sex we had. On further reflection realized I was better off not knowing while he was still alive. What could I have done except offer to help him anyway I could. There were others more capable and they did for him, as I was later to learn. My memories of him will always be when he was at his best.<br /> <br />A few days later I received another copy of the death notice, this time from Paris with a note from one of his friends who said she had found my last letter to him in the mail, and since it was obvious we cared for each other, it was her sad duty to inform me.<br /> <br />I wrote Michelle back immediately, thanked her, and said that I was hoping to pass through Paris soon and would very much like to meet her. But I didn't get to Paris that winter either and so a few months later she sent me a photograph of him, one that captured him in all his golden glory. He was as I remembered him so vital and disarming.<br /> <br />A year or more passed and finally I had a chance to stop in Paris for two days. As soon as I knew I called and left a message for Michelle. No message for me when I got to Paris. I called her the first morning. She was glad I reached her but unless I could come right then she was afraid there was no other chance to meet. <br /> <br />"If only you'd given me more warning but now I'm afraid its too late to change anything, they're all business appointments and very important." She and Peik were partners in a business venture she was now running alone.<br /> <br />"Why don't we talk now," I suggested.<br /> <br />And we did, for a long time. She sketched in the last eighteen months of his life; beginning with the first time he became seriously ill. She said it began with a case of what appeared to be the flu but it just didn't seem to want to go away. Running a 40 Celsius fever he flew to Germany and was immediately hospitalized. It was then he was diagnosed Positive.<br /> <br />After a hospital stay and home recuperation he was put on regular medication. In a few weeks he felt well enough to return to Paris and did so. The first indication that she had of anything serious was one night they had a date for dinner. As they pulled up to a parking space, he said that he had to go home, that he was too sick to go into the restaurant. She complied immediately, of course.<br /> <br />He was bedridden for several weeks and finally it got so bad his father flew in to bring him home. Once again he recuperated and was soon back in Paris. And then one day in March she returned home late to find a series of desperate messages from him on the answering band. He was at the prefect of police and needed her to come immediately.<br /> <br />As it turned out he'd been picked up wandering the streets barefooted and disoriented. He later explained that he was having an epileptic seizure and afraid of being alone in the apartment rushed out into the street in the hope of finding help. Now it was apparent he was no longer able to take care of himself, so arrangements were made for him to return to Germany.<br /> <br />His health stabilized and in July he accepted an invitation to visit friends in Majorca. They had no idea about his precarious condition. The flight was shaky and it was apparent when the friends came to pick him up at the airport he wasn't well. They insisted he return to Germany. Instead he flew to Paris, his beloved Paris.<br /> <br />Michelle was not prepared for the man she picked up at Orly that sultry summer day. He was thin, emaciated, and his hair, his full dark silky hair was severely thinning. She knew immediately he had to go home. But it was impossible for him to travel alone for at least a few days. His conditioned worsened, and once more his father was summoned to Paris to bring him home.<br /> <br />Last summer I called his parents and his father included me in a family outing. Over the course of the evening I got to see what caring loving people my friend had left behind, leaving a void in their lives that would probably never be filled.<br /> <br />After dinner I asked the sister closest to him in age and expression, where his grave was, and she said she would take me. The next morning we drove to the cemetery, one she'd said they'd chosen because it was small and intimate. <br /> <br />As she led me to the gravesite she talked about his final days. He was hospitalized and the doctors weren't too reassuring. He'd rally for several days and just when it seemed he might be released, he'd relapse and uncertainty would return. And then one afternoon the family gathered at his bedside for the last time.<br /> <br />At the end of a long path beneath shade trees like the ancient linden under which we first encountered each other, stands a imposing grave marker of polished granite carved simply with his full name and dates. <br /> <br />I finally said goodbye. <br /><br />Had he surviced Peik would be late 50s today.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-55004213139538735782011-06-26T20:47:00.000-07:002011-06-26T23:20:39.660-07:00TIMOTHY QUINN<strong>Fledging Artist, Gay Activist, Promiscuous Dreamer, <br />Heroin Addict, O.D. at 24</strong><br /><br />It is hard to believe that Timothy has been dead nearly four decades. His striking presence remains vivid in memory. Like Rebel Owen, I met Timothy via personal ad he ran in the defunct counter-culture weekly <em>East Village Other</em>. Before the Internet (Hehe!), a way to make connections was placing print classifieds and only certain alternative publications took gay ones--this was pre-Stonewall. He described himself as 19, a college student, artistically inclined, and looking for friends and/or lovers. I had just moved to the East Village starting my Junior year and responded. A few days later he called.<br /><br />We had our first meeting in my East Second Street walk-up. He was tall, slim, with pleasant facial features, sparkling green eyes, freckles all over and an unruly shock of coarse red hair—classic Irish looks. He was very verbal and very intense. As we got acquainted I discovered he was sixteen, not nineteen and still in high school. Nevertheless we became fast friends, and soon he insisted we become lovers.<br /><br />I respected his crush on me though I hardly shared the infatuation. He started to visit regularly and began writing poems to me and creating art and sculptures that he gave as gifts. He was a very talented artist in several mediums and I was charmed and impressed. I assumed one day he would fulfill his promise and be hugely successful.<br /><br />Timothy grew up in Queens, in a large very conservative Irish-Catholic family. His father was extremely strict and Timothy was the only son, the youngest child, growing up with several older sisters. He was always having problems with his father for staying out late, not going to classes, skipping church, and just generally not being a good Catholic boy. They had no use for his artistic aspirations and saw it as a detriment. There was no way he could tell his father about his sexual orientation.<br /><br />We remained friends though the contact was not as intense as in the first year. Timothy was very sexual and incessantly cruised subway bathrooms and public parks. Though he had an enormous uncircumcised penis he preferred being the passive partner. He was primarily attracted to men of color. After graduation from high school he enrolled in Parsons School of Design.<br /><br />I clicked with a musician and joined him on an extended trip to San Francisco. When we parted I arranged for him and Timothy to meet; they had a brief affair. Timothy called to tell me first. I was amused. I knew it would never work so it never bothered me. Eventually Timothy met a man, a bus driver on the 14th Street cross-town line, and they became live-in lovers. Ironically, years earlier Timothy had given me a surreal painting dominated by a dark-skinned man with a green bus driving across his open chest. It now seems prophetic: the lover eventually died of a heart condition.<br /><br />Timothy dropped out of Parsons. The relationship ended. To support himself he took retail sales jobs. He moved to a small studio across from the Kips Bay highrises and was soon receiving overtures from men who could see into his bedroom through the un-curtained windows. The attention amused him and he began purposely walking around in states of undress. Some made offers he couldn’t refuse. I had no idea he had become addicted to heroin.<br /> <br />I left the East Village and moved to the Upper West Side. By then we had fallen out of contact. One day I got a call from Marie, one of his female friends whom he had introduced to me when we first met. She told me that some months earlier Timothy had died of an overdose and long buried. I was sad I had missed the last days of his life, and my first thought was what became of his art. <br /><br />I called the family home and spoke to one of his sisters. She filled in the details of his passing and when I asked what the family planned to do with his sculptures, paintings and poems, she told me that the father had destroyed it all. He blamed the artistic inclinations as the cause of his son’s destruction. I was shocked and angry but there was little I could do.<br /><br />I dedicated my first novel <strong>A Brother’s Touch </strong>(www.amazon.com) to Timothy though I only used his initials out of respect for the family’s feelings. I did send one of his sisters a copy but never heard back from her. When the book was reissued, I changed the dedication to include his full name.<br /><br />Sometime after learning of the overdose, I was looking through flyers on a bulletin board at the newly opened Gay Center in the West Village when I spotted a protest announcement illustrated with a picture of Timothy, prominent among participants in one of the first gay pride marches. I immediately took it and put it with the art, writings and pictures I kept in a small archive dedicated to his memory.<br /><br />I always wonder if drugs had not intervened so fatally, if Timothy would have realized the precocious promise he showed so young. It will always be an open consideration. I cherish the pieces of art I retain to this day, including a ceramic rose he made me for Valentine's Day.<br /><br />Even if he survived the scourge of dope addiction, most likely he would not survive the Plague to come!<br /><br />Timothy would be approaching his 60th birthday in the coming year.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-10052028883656146712010-09-23T19:30:00.000-07:002010-09-23T19:36:25.257-07:00Rebel Owen: Dreamer, Late Bloomer, Bondage Sub, Aspiring Writer, Early VictimRebel is the only man with whom I had sustained sexual history lasting more than a decade, though we never had an official relationship. I met him in the fall of 1972 and we had sex well into the 1980's. In the beginning, I had something of a romantic crush on him even though he was muted emotionally but always willing to service me, especially since we shared a quasi-master-slave fantasy. <br /><br />I was the second man with whom Rebel physically connected; but technically his first since the first encounter was brief and tentative; he was already age 28. His lack of sexual experience was doubly amazing considering he had grown up in the pre-chichi Chelsea neighborhood, no less. Fearful of family attitudes and painfully shy, he had lived seriously repressed since his teens when he first recognized his sexual preferences.<br /><br />In desperation, he posted a “male-seeks-male” ad in the East Village Other, a long-gone alternative paper that flourished in the Lower East Side in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was drawn by his physical description—six foot two, blond, inexperienced. He listed his phone number and a post office box. Naturally, I called and got him on the second or third try. He was eager to come right over. We made a date.<br /><br />I recall standing in the window watching him approach my building. He was not a great beauty but had a wholesome masculine quality. He rang the bell and came upstairs. At the time of our first encounter, I had no idea that I was literally the first man he was with sexually. His only other encounter tied up and masturbated him but not to orgasm. We got naked and we jumped into bed. He was eager to try everything, and anything I wanted him to do sexually. We had a very satisfying afternoon that first time. I was eager to see him again.<br /><br />In the coming weeks, we started seeing each other regularly and he began to express his sexual fantasies about submission and bondage. We were soon assembling a toy box of handcuffs, ropes, gags, whips and other leather accessories--all of which he bought or made per my instructions. He was extremely submissive and worked very hard to please me sexually. When we were together, he was in a state of constant arousal. Sex with Rebel was always satisfying.<br /><br />At the time we met he was living in a studio apartment in the soon to be fashionable Soho. It was a crummy walkup, so bug infested he bought a gecko to feed on the roaches. He had built a loft bed and we used the posts to create places to restrain him. We did the same at my apartment with him screwing large bolts into a doorframe to restrain him spread eagle. Our sexual experimentation got more serious and we were seeing each other at least once a week. At the time, he was driving a cab and had a pretty irregular schedule. Like myself, he aspired to write; he kept journals and tried his hand at short fiction, poetry and essays.<br /><br />Rebel had very few friends, and his closest friend was straight. We soon discovered that I not only knew that friend Thom—we ran in the same high school circles-- but I also knew Rebel's older brother Greg. He had married a friend of mine from high school days. I was amazed at the coincidence, since there had been the potential for me to meet Rebel a lot earlier. Over Christmas Rebel drove up to Maine to meet with a guy he had been corresponding with from his ad. I was a bit jealous but there was nothing I could do about it, so didn't say anything. When he returned, he was still mine sexually.<br /><br />As summer approached, Rebel expressed interest in having his “pen pal” from Maine come to New York for the summer. I, on the other hand, wanted to spend the summer in Maine, where I had in previous years work at one of the beach resorts. We made a trade off. Since there would be more room for him and Todd at my place, he would take my apartment for the summer and in exchange, I use his car for the same period in Ogunquit. <br /><br />Nonetheless, I had mixed feelings about leaving for the summer, especially feeling insecure because of his keen interest in Todd. Rebel drove to Maine to pick Todd up, and on the night they were to return, I stayed with an old boyfriend Jon S. (his remembrance to come). He lived in a nearby ground floor apt on East Ninth Street.<br /><br />The next morning I returned to the apt to find Rebel and Todd comfortably ensconced in my bed. My stuff already packed, he gave me the car keys, helped me load the car and I was gone. Still not feeling good leaving Rebel with someone I felt he was more attracted to than me, there was nothing I could do about it. Best to pretend I was all in favor of him seeing other people, as long as the special relationship we shared was unaffected. And to that end, I tasked him to write me regularly describing the kinds of bondage and S & M activity we might try upon my return.<br /><br />As usual, summer in Maine was a prefect break. Hanging with friends from earlier summers and making new ones. I got a weekend wait job at one of the high-end restaurants in Ogunquit. It gave me enough spending money to get by. And since the beach in Ogunquit is very cruisy, I managed occasional moon lit trysts.<br /><br />When I got back to New York in the fall, it soon became clear that nothing with Rebel had changed. As agreed, he had sent me periodic letters describing fantasies of bondage and submission. He drove Todd back up to Maine, and when he came back, we resumed our intense sexual relations. I eventually learned that he and Todd had not hit it off physically.<br /><br />The affair with Rebel went on and off for years. He eventually moved to Brooklyn to share a place with his friend Thom. We didn't see each other as much as when he lived closer, we still got together every few weeks. Even after we took other life partners-- I moved to the Upper West Side with mine, he met a Daddy Dom in Chelsea-- we still periodically met for primal encounters.<br /><br />Eventually Rebel met a Puerto Rican leather twink and he became his first real lover. They moved into a tenement on East 17th Street. We tried a threesome, but I was ultimately not attracted to his friend. I made a point of coming by to see Rebel when his friend wasn't home. They were very much into the leather lifestyle, and I think Rebel was content with the relationship though we continued to have sex intermittently. After all I was his initial partner, so there was a strong attachment there. <br /><br />On the night of the 1977 NYC Blackout I ran into them in the Far West Village. We went back to a friend’s apartment nearby I was house-sitting and had sex. The boys left. I fell asleep, instead of returning to the streets, where later I learned I missed one of the all time great street orgies at the end of Christopher Street.<br /><br />By the late 1970s my Upper Westside partnership was floundering. We broke up. I eventually found my own apt and moved. Rebel and I reconnected. He started coming over. We continued as if it was the first time. But by the mid-1980s, things between us waned. The last few encounters had not been particularly satisfying. We finally stopped seeing each other. <br /><br />I ran into him on the street a couple of years later. The AIDS epidemic was accelerating. He told me he had been sick but was doing okay. At the time, I made no direct connection between his remarks and the AIDS plague. He said he was living somewhere in the Village. We didn't exchange numbers. As far as I could tell he was still driving a cab.<br /><br />The summer of 1988, the famous AIDS memorial quilt was on display in Central Park. I had a visitor from Germany. We spent an afternoon walking amidst the handmade squares reading the names of those who had succumb to the illness. I was shocked to discover two quilts laid side by side embroidered with the name of Rebel Owen indicating he had died in 1987. <br /><br />I got tested and my results were negative.<br /><br />This past August he would have turned 65 years old.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-52075438801108061392010-04-19T23:45:00.000-07:002011-06-26T18:43:42.775-07:00Thurman Hedgepeth, Artist, Fashionista, Dealer, Traveler, NetworkerThe first time I laid eyes on Thurman he was working behind the books and prints concession at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, hired specifically to work at the groundbreaking 1968 photo exhibition Harlem on My Mind. Thurman definitely stood out. Tall, maybe 6' 3”, and rail thin, with an elegant aristocratic manner. He had the brightest smile and biggest brown eyes that when they zeroed in on you made you feel like you were his entire focus. His fashionably baggy outfit of carefully edited secondhand finds emphasized his willowy figure. <br /><br />I approached the counter to look over the offerings. We quickly fell into easy conversation. We talked about the exhibition, the museum and the fact that he was a visual artist recently arrived in the city. A few days later, I ran into him on the street in the East Village and discovered we were neighbors. I lived on East Second Street; he on East Third.<br /><br />The first time I dropped by to visit Thurman unannounced almost got me mugged. Coming from a nearby supermarket with groceries and passing his building, I thought I would stop in and see if he was home. When I opened the street door, a hulking Hispanic man lingered in the vestibule. He eyed me and moved aside. I took about three steps through the doorway but something told me to turn around and leave.<br /> <br />Following my instincts, I did exactly that: my abrupt about-face caught the would-be mugger off guard. He recovered quickly and came toward me. I managed to clear the door and walk quickly away. I wasn't a hundred percent sure of what had happened until I was well up the street.<br /><br />At any rate, Thurman and I eventually got into contact. After the Met exhibition closed, Thurman worked as assistant to several established artists, and as such had keys to some spectacular lofts in the neighborhood. He was always moving around, going from one incredible space to another. Once he took me to a building on Lafayette Street where he was staying owned by wealthy artist Robert Rauschenberg.<br /> <br />I followed Thurman up to the third floor where the living quarters were. There was no one else home. He showed me a deck of homemade playing cards that Rauschenberg had quickly created for them to use. They were out at his beach place in the Hamptons the previous weekend and it rained. Behind the building was a small private chapel. Somehow, Thurman had swiftly ingratiated himself with the New York art scene. He was always going to gallery openings or loft parties.<br /> <br />Eventually Thurman got his own loft on East 12th Street off Fourth Avenue. It was the top floor of a four-story walkup and from the rear windows an impressive view of the top of the Empire State Building. At the time, Thurman both painted and made custom clothing. He briefly strutted down catwalks for top designers’ runway shows in Paris.<br /><br />At his new loft, he had taken a lover. I vaguely remember a striking black hunk who didn’t say much. Thurman showed me a series of oversized abstracts canvases he was getting ready to show to gallery owners and art collectors like Henry Van Zeldgelder, who at the time was a MOMA curator and later city cultural commissioner. Henry was famous for finding his way to obscure lofts and apartments to ferret out promising artists. <br /><br />Thurman originally came from North Carolina, a small farming town where his extended family was prominent. Their local history went back several generations. His father or grandfather was in the clergy I believe. He was the family black sheep being both an artist and gay. I once shot some 8mm film of Thurman trekking around the East Village but never did have it developed.<br /><br />My mother gave me some lambskin fabric. I asked Thurman to make me a jacket. He cut, styled, fitted and sewed a high concept jacket I still have in the closet though it no longer fits, I hold on to for sentimental reasons.<br /><br />One day I learned Thurman was falling behind on his rent and soon evicted for non-payment. That didn't stop Thurman. A few weeks later, he invited me over to new digs: a white shingled cottage sitting atop a commercial building in midtown. Literally, a small two-bedroom unit built on the roof. There was a generous terrace but not great views: surrounding buildings were taller. <br /><br />Around this time, Thurman began dealing vintage photographs. He was going to Europe to find buyers. I moved uptown and from time to time let Thurman stay with my partner and me when he was between apartments, which seemed to be happening more and more. I noticed after one visit my piggy bank was considerably lighter and realized Thurman was pilfering the small change. I put the bank in a more secure location for his next stay.<br /><br />Clearly, Thurman had a gift as an artist and art world hustler. He was always creating new work, or discovering work that he could exploit for financial gain. We both moved in the gay scene in the East and West Villages, and knew many of the same people. We both gradually gravitated uptown.<br /> <br />When I moved to a flat in Harlem Thurman became a frequent visitor. I stored some of his belongings, including a huge partners’ desk that I used for a while. He had new lovers all the time, one in particular that he brought by was a medical doctor from Munich, who in later years I met up with briefly in Germany.<br /><br />Thurman started spending more time in Europe, and his international lifestyle inspired me to go abroad for extended stays, something I had been plotting to do for years. The first time I went to Europe, I let Thurman stay in the apt. When I came back, I discovered irregularities, which educated me about letting people use the apt while I was traveling especially when it pertained to personal bedding, etc. A good set of sheets disappeared after one of Thurman's visits, as well as cutlery and other small items. I finally had to accept the fact that Thurman was in the habit of adopting people's belongings, so I needed to be more vigilant if I were going to let him use the apartment while I traveled. <br /><br />Thurman stayed in contact as he moved around the city. At one point, he was living nearby in Harlem. He eventually moved all of his belongings from my apt into a place he shared with a cousin. <br /><br />One day as we chatted, I noticed how foul his breath smelled. It seemed to be more than just rotting teeth but I never suspected for a moment he was infected. He was fairly promiscuous--but weren't we all in the 1970s--though he and I were never intimate. <br /><br />I found some vintage fashion photos left behind in a Harlem apt my super let me have. I gave them to Thurman on consignment. I started going off to Europe myself with more frequency. Thurman gave me a nice list of people to look up in London, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin--all of whom were gracious and hospitable.<br /><br />Thurman began going back down to North Carolina to see his family. We lost track of each other for a few months. One spring day the phone rang--for some reason I was sitting at the dining room table. It was a woman who introduced herself as Thurman's sister.<br /> <br />She told me that in the previous weeks he passed away, the cause, unspoken, but clearly HIV related. She said that she was calling all the people listed in his phone book. I thanked her for the acknowledgement. The unexpected news floored me. It seemed like everything happened much too quickly.<br /><br /> What became of Thurman’s art or belongings remains a mystery. We had no real mutual friends, and I forget to get his sister’s number. I imagine that wherever he last left his possessions was inheritor by default.<br /> <br />Thurman would be in his early 60’s today.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-11262402486374801182010-04-15T01:26:00.000-07:002010-04-15T22:25:32.269-07:00Robin Woodhull (born Robert Wortman) Wit, Wiz, WingmanLike many people I tricked with in the Sixties, Robin became a fast friend. We met at a New Year's Eve party hosted by then Metropolitan Opera ballet soloist Jan Mickens, who at the time lived in a walkup on 96th Street off Broadway. A tall gangly bleached blond, Robin’s features had a sharp hawkish quality. We had instant verbal rapport. As it turned out, we lived around the corner from each other in the East Village so it was convenient to share a cab downtown.<br /><br />When we got to The Bowery, I invited Robin over to my place. I was very impressed when told me he was about to self-publish a book of poetry. We had sex before going to sleep and again when we got up the next afternoon. That was really the only time we ever slept together carnally. We made better friends than lovers. This was 1969, that spring I graduated from college and over the summer dated a fresh-faced aspiring actor from Maryland named Geoffrey.<br /><br />Everyday at cocktail time, Geoffrey and I headed over to Robin's to smoke a couple of bowls of excellent blond hashish he hoarded and strictly doled out. His straight college friend Lenny from San Francisco was visiting at the time. I fondly remember those lazy late summer afternoons as we chatted and joked. It was the beginning of my adult life. Up until then I had not really smoked very much cannabis.<br /><br />Robin’s apartment was across the street from the infamous city-run Men’s Homeless Shelter. He probably paid about fifty bucks for the third floor four-room railroad flat. I never saw him prepare a proper meal in the grungy kitchen and his bedroom was a total disaster. To support themselves that summer Robin and Lenny handcrafted extravagantly studded rhinestone belts and peddled them on the streets of The Village.<br /><br />The four of us regularly sat around the sparsely furnished front room, turning on in the fiery glow of summer sunsets streaming through bare open windows. I can still visualize Robin's common room: ratty mattress half leaning against the wall doubling as couch, odd rickety chairs missing spindles or backs, and milk cartons repurposed as side tables, all scavenged from neighborhood trash. Our mental state sufficiently altered after several rounds of the pipe we might go out for something to eat or walk over to the West Village and hangout on Christopher Street.<br /><br />I took some samples of Robin’s gold and silver lame belts to show a young accessories editor at Women’s Wear Daily named Rosemary whom I heard was looking for leads. She like the belts but suggested they design coordinated armbands to create a ‘look’; something someone might wear out to a club. In that case, she might give up some ink. Robin didn’t like the idea complaining it was too much work and vetoed it out of hand. "Nobody’s going to wear them anyway," he snorted. Not the last time he would blow a chance to get his Fifteen Minutes.<br /><br />When things with Geoffrey and me cooled that fall, Robin and I became cruising pals, going out together looking for casual partners. Robin liked to dress in punk-ish drag that verged on transvestitism. He wore his thinning blond hair long and shaggy. He favored glitzy rhinestone broaches and attached big chrome numbers to the back of a leather jacket advertising his phone number. (I don’t believe he ever got a date that way.) Sometimes street toughs harassed him or tried to grab his jewels. I provided something of an escort.<br /><br />Mostly we hung out in the West Village—the East Village as far as bars went hadn’t really happened yet except for Stanley’s on East Fourth maybe. We also took occasional excursions to check out action in bars on the Upper East-and-West Sides. We never had differences over potential tricks, since we were looking for different types. Though given Robin’s generous endowment he was often better equipped than his topping partners.<br /><br />As fate would have it, we were rendezvousing across from the Stonewall Inn the night a police raid on the dingy hangout changed gay life forever. We were in the early crowd gathered along the edge of the pocket park directly across from the club, eventually spilling into the gutter and blocking the street. We moved back and forth in waves as the series of events that marked the historic moment unfurled.<br /><br />Though today thousands claim to have been there, if memory serves, we were no more that a couple of hundred hardcore curiosity seekers, cheerleaders, campy wisecrackers, fed-ups, opportunist and trouble-makers all rolled into an angry mincing mob. Our numbers definitely grew as word spread and the unrest escalated. We were one of the relative few there from the very start. Robin’s romantic interest in one of the activists who evolved into a leader got us participating in early organizing meetings and some of the first demonstrations following that momentous night.<br /><br />In mid-January 1970, I went off to San Francisco with my first serious boyfriend. It turned into a nine-month adventure. When I got back in the fall—another youthful romance no more—Robin was making plans to spend a week on Fire Island. Since he had to pay for a double room, why don’t I come along? It was our first visit to the legendary lavender resort. Need I confess, a week in Sodom put the finishing touches on our extensive field work.<br /><br />Robin started seeing a handsome Jewish college student from the Bronx. As a teenager, the boy reluctantly testified against a pedophile that sodomized him. He hit it off with Robin and they started spending weekends shooting meth and having lengthy discussions on arcane topics. Robin used speed on and off for years starting long before we met. He claimed superstar Nico from the Any Warhol stable was his connection for a time. She, and another acquaintance Ondine, were names he occasionally dropped.<br /><br />The following summer we thumbed up to Provincetown to visit Robin's boyfriend. He was doing kitchen work for the high tourist season. It was the year Rollin Stones' Brown Sugar was the dance floor anthem. Robin and I boogied nights away in one of P-towns popular bars all the while scouting conquests.<br /><br />I still recall and am not at all amazed by the countless evenings we spent cruising smoky bar rooms or trolling in and out long-haul truck trailers parked along the waterfront. We'd take breaks together, give progress reports, mostly complaining about lack of prospects. We were very close during this time. We shared a casual intimacy I experienced with few others. Robin could be bitchy and crabby—but he could also deliver delicious bon mots both witticisms and put-downs.<br /><br />Robin had a relationship with Off-Off playwright Robert Patrick. They lived in the same tenement building on East 3rd Street and knew each other casually for years. One day, out of the blue, Robin announced they were lovers. I could hardly believe it and teased him for being a celebrity-fucker since at the time Patrick was enjoying attention as an emerging theatrical voice. I have a watercolor that Patrick made of himself, Robin, Lenny and Mack, Robin's other very close friend, sprawling around Robin's disheveled living space.<br /><br />Throughout the 1970s we stayed in touch though professional obligations and long-term live-in partners somewhat curtailed regular nocturnal activities. Robin moved to the West Village in the early 1970's, to Perry Street. Shortly into his occupancy he was awaken early one morning by the doorbell. On the threshold stood a pair of city sanitation workers looking for the previous tenant. Seems he had been providing oral service to half the down-low men in the neighborhood. Robin decided not to let a good tradition die and took over the franchise.<br /><br />After years in market research working up to supervisor, Robin went to computer programming school and got better jobs as a programmer. Some projects would take him long hours to complete and he had to work weekends. I moved uptown with a new lover and a fulltime job, also reducing our time together as the 1970's wore on.<br /><br />With better economic stability, Robin could afford a car and indulge his whim for collecting rhinestone jewelry and little boxes for storing various stashes. He got into gourmet cooking and on a four-burner tenement stove tried his hand preparing complicated dishes from the Rombauer and Child tomes. He soon equipped the kitchen with better utensils. He invited me to an occasional meal, served haphazardly with mismatched plates nestled on our laps sitting on the not too tidy floor, but tasty nonetheless.<br /><br />As we saw less and less of each other physically, we telephoned and stayed in touch a lot through a mutual friend Bruce, who when I originally introduced them, took an instant dislike to each other that later mellowed into a deeper friendship through the years.<br /><br />Robin bought a little getaway shack in the Princeton area and started spending weekends. I never managed to get out there since I didn't trust my car to make the trip the one or two times I was about to go out for a visit.<br /><br />One of the last evenings I spent with Robin in the early 1980s, he wasn't feeling well. We watched one of the first dramas about AIDS broadcast on national television, An Early Frost. I had come downtown especially to watch with him because I didn't feel up to watching alone. At the time, every gay man in America was concerned about infection with the virus. Little did I realize that at this point Robin suspected he was infected, though it never dawned on me at the time to make much of his symptoms like a persistent cough and swollen glands.<br /><br />Soon brief hospitalizations for various ailments plagued Robin. I remember once he had to check into St Vincent's Hospital and was made to wait in the emergency room where cigarette smoking was allowed (can you imagine?). One chain smoker's fog was making him nauseous and he asked the reception nurse if someone could ask the man not to smoke.<br /><br />Her response there was nothing they could do about it. The next day I called one of the nun directors and complained about the smoking issue in the waiting room. She told me current provisions allow smoking. Unimaginable today but that was around 1983.<br /><br />Robin Woodhull was born Robert Wortman in July of 1945, a Cancer, in a posh old money suburb of San Francisco. He found his naming prosaic and renamed himself, at least socially. His businessman father was a World War II veteran and came from a prominent West Coast family with a solidly upper middleclass pedigree. Late to marry, he met Robin’s mother during the war —young, pretty—working as a sales clerk in the base PX. It was a May-December coupling, Robin's father considerably older, his mother’s background not so upper crust. Robin was their first-born and a younger sister followed, who, as fate would have it, turned out lesbian.<br /><br />Robin always stressed his difficult childhood. His father was already in his 60's when Robin entered puberty. He didn't really have much time for Robin either. Robin’s outsider fashion sense made him a misfit in the conservative upscale community. He longed for the raunchy street life of San Francisco, and by his mid teens found his way to the then burgeoning center of alternative culture Haight-Ashbury, and began drugging, rocking and sexing.<br /><br />He dropped out of college, hitched back and forth to New York with a woman friend. Eventually they stayed on the East Coast. He endured classic street urchin life for long periods. Sleeping on park benches, in shady crash pads, living by his wits, using his body to get by when he had to, and doing drugs whenever he cold get them. When we met, he was starting to stabilize his life by having an apartment lease and finding enough paying jobs to enable periods of respite when he collects unemployment benefits and ponders what kind of artist he was going to be.<br /><br />When I returned from a trip in the fall of 1987, I got a call from Bruce. Earlier in the week Robin had succumb. I was shocked. I knew he had not been well but I had no idea it had progressed so far. I don't think he had started AZT. At the time, the drug therapy was prescribed selectively.<br /><br />Bruce, myself, and some of Robin's other friends had a small memorial party in his Perry Street apartment. We reminisced about our connections to Robin. I read a short story I wrote inspired by his antics.<br /><br />It was left to Bruce and me to decide the fate of Robin's possessions. His sister and mother had flown in from California and were at his bedside when he breathed his last, but they soon left town. Robin had accumulated quite a haul of stuff and his studio apt was crammed full.<br /><br />What we didn't take for ourselves or give away to others, we had to throw away--literally hundreds of books, record albums, clothes, kitchen utensils and household goods, all out to the trash. At the time, there were similar piles around the West Village trash stacked with the possessions of other gay men who had succumbed to what we were still calling "the gay disease".<br /><br />The year before Robin arranged to sit for a professional photographer. He gave each friend prints. He said he wanted us to have a picture while he still looked reasonably well. At the time, I didn't think much of it but now deeply appreciate the gesture. My copies still have prominent place over my bureau along with a high school graduation picture I’d found among his things. And one of those outrageous gold belts with a rhinestone studded star-shaped buckle hangs nearby.<br /><br />Robin left rich memories. We spent a significant period of our formative lives as friends and co-conspirators. In many ways, I’ve never had quite the same relationship with anyone else. Even after nearly twenty-five years, I still miss him. I find myself laughing at remembered wisecracks or second-guessing what he might say in a particular situation.<br /><br />He was a great fan of Marcel Proust and really wanted to be a writer. In some ways, he patterned his lifestyle after the French novelist by lounging much of the day in bed, even staying put to receive visitors. I don’t think he ever owned a proper chair.<br /><br />Robin would have been 65 years old this coming July.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-51398756856885717762010-03-26T12:41:00.000-07:002010-03-29T05:10:36.449-07:00HEALTH CARE HERETICS MUST BE STOPPEDHealth Care Heretics<br /><br />‘Outrageous’ is too tame a sentiment to express feelings generated by outbreaks of violence and hate precipitated by passage as something so benign as health care legislation.<br /><br />You would think war was declared on a sovereign nation with no real proof that they were preparing to harm us. Oh yes, we did that, didn’t we? But I don’t recall anti-war liberals throwing bricks through politicians’ storefronts or threatening other acts of violence to express anger at those who supported the Bush motion.<br /><br />We held protest marches and vigils though the media did little to cover the events, fearful of Bush administration retribution for not toeing the party line and being marginalized at White House press briefings—few though they were.<br /><br />But to equate cutting gas lines to a family home; throwing bricks through democratic representatives’ office windows; spewing racist and/or homophobic slurs at members of Congress, et al., to a Republican Congresswoman receiving a heated voicemail accusing the party of being racist and wishing her a medical condition that thousands of Americans might suffer slipping in a bathtub, is ridiculous.<br /><br />Perhaps the language used by her constituent was a bit strong but certainly accusing Republicans of being racist is not so far from the mark that it warrants serious debate.<br /><br />And if such expletives are so disturbing to the Ohio Congresswoman, who no doubt hears such language on a regular basis in the halls of Congress, given the previous and current Vice Presidents use of the F word, though with distinctly different inferences—Cheney in anger, Biden congratulatory—she has perhaps had little use for the F word in her own personal life where no doubt it was once used to describe an act that perhaps last occurred on her wedding night.<br /><br />(Rep. Schmidt, please feel free to correct me if my speculation is astray. It would certainly dispel a lot of the caricatures about Republican wives not getting at home what their husbands so liberally give their mistresses—and occasional boyfriends.)<br /><br />It is fair to remind Rep. Schmidt that she represents one of the most economically stressed states in the nation and the provisions of the health care legislation is a very welcome thing for the majority of her constituents. With her patrician grooming she unabashedly mouths her party's baseless arguments. Do you really believe this woman is in touch with the citizens of hardscrabble Cincinnati?<br /><br />I’m sure the frustrated gentleman that called was expressing what many of his friends and neighbors had surmised of Republican motives for attempting to kill a health care bill while fighting to maintain Bush-era tax cuts, blatant attempts to slip in new ones and diluting bank restrictions meant to protect consumers.<br /><br />The rich benefit from tax cuts, while doling out medical insurance to poor people, predominantly minorities, is not the role of government. Government in capitalism is there to keep the fat cats fat and everybody else dependent on their largess. Something called trickle-down economics.<br /><br />The attacks upon the resilient President and the forward-thinking Congressmen and women who had the courage to make health care a priority should be lauded, not the focus of violence and threats of revenge.<br /><br />But given the Republican platitudes in light of the attacks—'bonehead' Boehmer with veiled pieties that continue to send the same message, as recently elected NYS Rep Perriello pointed out in a NYT (3-26-10) interview, or <em>wanna-be-something</em> Sarah Palin using crosshairs on a map marking democratic districts vulnerable to reelection or using such charged language as “RELOAD” in her message--what else are we to believe?<br /><br />The same kind of idiot brain trusts that brought us the civil war are once again attempting to divide the country violently.<br /><br />The criminals who committed these acts need to be hunted, apprehended and prosecuted to fullest extent of law. This is the only way to nip such craziness in the bud. These are dangerous times when so many lose cannons are given public forum.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-16006844385506762482008-11-03T17:21:00.000-08:002008-11-03T17:23:20.419-08:00Barack Obama Is The New Teflon President!Ronald Reagan was famously able to deflect the attacks of his detractors until they wisely gave up or jumped on his bandwagon.<br /><br />Mr. Obama has cleverly taken a page from that playbook and adopted it to his personal style. The barrage of lies, accusations, innuendo, direct attacks, etc. spewing from the McCain camp has been appalling. Yet nothing seems to ruffle Mr. Obama’s focus. If any thing he seems to flourish under such scurrilous maneuvers to demean his credibility and besmirch his character because no matter what they sling, nothing sticks.<br /><br />Instead of platforms and policies, McCain pours meager campaign resources into negative disseminations—and expensive duds for his running mate. Often the desperation to win is palpable. It must really gall them when Obama’s responses are so measured, even respectful. As he has said repeatedly, this is not a time to trash talk the opponent when there are so many terrible things hitting the American people.<br /><br />This contrast in substance gives one a sense of the candidates’ priorities. Obama is offering solutions and clarifications to the nation’s downturn. McCain wants to win and to do so he will go as low as necessary, blithely resorting to the kinds of dirty tricks that sabotaged his own 2000 run against George Bush.<br /><br />Senator Obama best demonstrated confidence and supreme coolness in the 30-minute infomercial televised on several national stations days before the election. The name John McCain or references to his campaign never once come up. Mr. Obama focused on getting his core message out, demonstrating to American voters that he is above petty partisanship and ready to lead. The health of the country is more pressing than taking swipes at a recalcitrant opponent.<br /><br />McCain periodically revives the fact that Senator Obama flipped on an earlier agreement to accept only public campaign financing. Obama realized he needed a much bigger war chest if he was to have a fair shot at winning. The truth of the matter for McCain was his campaign never raised the kind of money Obama has, and short of hitting wife Cindy’s bankroll, taking public money was a way to save face. Let’s face it, before the Palin surprise, McCain’s public appearances were Spartan affairs. Palin brought the kind of star power to the McCain bid he had earlier derided Obama for fostering.<br /><br />Barack Hussein Obama is a phenomenon the likes of which this country and the world has never seen before. His words have given me goose bumps and moved me to tears. The synthesis of his mixed racial heritage is a legitimate reflection of America’s unique legacy of miscegenation. Somehow, given this truth, it seems fitting that the offspring of a Kansan woman of European descent and a native-born African should one day rule the most powerful democracy on Earth. It might also be a first step in resolving the two continents’ shared history.<br /><br />Perhaps four hundred years of bad karma resulting from this country’s bloody, treacherous rise to prominence and prosperity is absolved by the popular election of an unlikely favorite son to the pinnacle of power and influence.<br /><br />Barack Obama freely admits that the United States of America is the only place where his story would be possible. For me, and so many others, the prospect of his taking office as the 44th President is exhilarating!Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-32671203546841614082008-10-29T00:08:00.000-07:002008-10-29T00:19:14.423-07:00Just Say No to Jessie JacksonPoor Jessie Jackson—the civil rights activist everybody loves to hate! Every time he opens his mouth these days, his foot lands in it.<br /><br />First, at a TV taping he’s overheard on an open microphone using the “N” word in referring to Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Jackson expresses disagreement with Mr. Obama’s strong criticism of paternal irresponsibility in the African American community. For a one-time presidential candidate himself, the slur is especially unsettling.<br /><br />The Obama camp swiftly distances Mr. Jackson—even further, which probably didn’t sit well with the aging activist. He made a public apology for his inappropriate remarks but the tone was a little like Hillary’s conceding the nomination—not all that convincing.<br /><br />Lately, he’s sprouting Obama foreign policy on the Middle East without any sort of authorization from the campaign. Naturally, any less than lauding mention of Israel and you are in big trouble when it gets out. So what does Jackson tell a conference on Middle East affairs? Under an Obama’s Administration Israel's favored nations status would no longer be so secure a given.<br /><br />Naturally a rightwing columnist from Rupert Murdoch’s New York rag is among the conferencees at which Jackson pontificates at length on Obama foreign policy initiatives as it he were an advisor or a member of Obama’s inner-circle, which the Obama camp is swift to deny.<br /><br />Mr. Jackson is savvy enough to know that he would be upsetting two camps with those remarks: the Israelis and the Obama campaign but he obviously didn’t care. He could not spend another moment in the odious exile his earlier remarks had cast him.<br /><br />He didn’t like feeling impotent in such a dynamic political season, and maybe feeling slight pangs of resentment over Obama’s resounding success as his own try to win the White House came to mind. While Jackson’s run was more pie in the sky than any thing, Mr. Obama is making serious inroads and short of some major catastrophe, he may very well be the first non-white American president. A reality that so many black Americans never thought they would live to see.<br /><br />Of course, it is with good reason that Mr. Jackson might take exception to Mr. Obama’s charges about the growing number of black men fathering children out of wedlock and taking no responsibility for them. It may have hit a little too close to home. Rev. Jackson’s fall from grace a few years ago centered around fathering a child with a female staffer.<br /><br />Jackson’s relations with the Jewish community has always been on shaky ground. His infamous Hymietown comment about New York City took years to repair and is still alive in many memories. His unauthorized Obama comments served only to increase suspicions about Obama’s commitment to Israeli interests.<br /><br />One fear expressed by undecideds and Republicans is that Mr. Jackson would play a prominent role in an Obama Administration. To date there is no clear reason to believe that when just the opposite seems more likely.<br /><br />Oddly enough, Jackson and John McCann share similarities: two mature warriors looking for a last hurrah and finding it hard to accept the fact that the time has passed.<br /><br />Since his 1960’s debut, Jackson always comes-off as something of an opportunist. Who could argue that as MLK’s fortunes took a fatal turn, Jackson improved decidedly? He stepped into the media glare an eyewitness to the King assassination at the Lorraine motel in Memphis.<br /><br />Soon his Afro hairstyling and dashiki attire became a media icon. His comments are often incendiary as he ratchets up the civil rights rhetoric a notch or two. Even Operation PUSH, the organization, which forms his political base, has had its own media embarrassments from time to time.<br /><br />Now his own son, an Illinois Congressman, has had to repudiate some of his father’s less than diplomatic outbursts. For Jessie Jackson it must be hard being pushed out of the loop and accepting the role of senior eminence, expected to stay above the fray. Let’s hope he can curb grabs for attention, at least until the election is over.<br /><br />Anything that can be used to humiliate Barack Obama is immediately amplified all out of proportion. But its politics as usual, and by now Mr. Jackson should be a champ at the game.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-14842810146502710562008-10-18T00:04:00.000-07:002008-10-18T00:29:03.681-07:00The Great Gasoline Hoax of the 2008 ElectionHas any one else noticed that as Barack Obama’s numbers go up, the price of gas is coming down? Could there be a connection? Or is it just a coincidence?<br /><br />According to the US Government travel office statistics, as quoted by Reuters, gas demand is declining because Americans are driving less. Driving less? Are you driving less? I’m not. Take one look at the traffic-choked arteries of any major city and it seems nobody else is either.<br /><br />True, escalating gas prices reduced summer vacation travel to some extent but it seems with the costly add-ons and personal inconvenience of air travel more people are opting to drive reasonably long distances rather than fly anyway. Amtrak fares are no bargain and the bus lines have initiated security measures comparable to the airlines. Still it didn’t prevent an irritated whacko from knifing to death a fellow bus passenger in Canada not too long ago.<br /><br />I don’t know what part of the country they did their study but here in the Northeast-New York area when the price started going up last spring I saw little reduction of cars on the interstates, highways and city roads I use especially in so-called off-peak hours when I do most of my driving. Sometimes I saw definite increase.<br /><br /> I automatically question any research that comes from the oil lobby—I mean, the Bush Administration. One knows how short on truth and expansive with facts their interpretations run. “Global warning is over-rated” and “The economy is doing fine” are two recent claims that come immediately to mind.<br /><br />Here are two unscientific studies from my own driving experience.<br /><br />Three years ago, I started driving to Central New York on a regular basis to work on a project. I’d try to leave Manhattan mid-afternoon Thursday or before 11 AM Friday at the latest and return Monday mid-afternoon or Tuesday morning, figuring I was avoiding the up-Friday-night-back-Sunday-night weekend crowd. During the fall and winter months, I kept the same routine, sometimes skipping a weekend and staying an extra day the following. For two years the traffic—and gas prices—except for the hurricane Katrina interlude--remained about the same--manageable.<br /><br />Late morning-early afternoon along 87 North, barreling tractor trucks were plentiful compared to the number of passenger cars whisking past. Rarely delays, except for occasional roadwork or rubbernecking at an accident across the median. Connecting to 90W outside Albany, the 50-mile stretch to my final destination was practically emissions-free anytime I used it a little before the Albany-area rush hour. It was so lonely at times in the middle of the day I wondered if NY State taxpayers were getting their money’s worth.<br /><br />Then last spring the roads suddenly got busier. As the price of gas started rising precipitously I started to see a lot more cars on the 87N heading to Albany. Some of them were other weekenders getting an early start. Yet, there was a noticeable blip in motorists, especially along the 90 corridor. Traffic seemed to have doubled over the previous year but still relatively easy traveling.<br /><br />Another thing that nobody is talking about is the fact that we are driving a lot faster on these roads, which increases consumption. The posted 65mph speed limit is pretty much ignored, and enforcement seems to target real excessive speeders: drivers doing 85mph or better. Cruising along conservatively between 75 and 80mph seems not to draw flashing lights and a costly fine.<br /><br />What is even more amazing is the number of gas guzzling SUVs that fly past my economical Honda Civic chugging along a little above 70mph when I’m feeling thrifty and just below 80 when I’m not. Even at those speeds, driving in the changing lane cars come up behind me fast and speed past as soon as I get out of the way. None appears worried about increases at the pump. Drive 65mph and you feel you are practically standing still.<br /><br />My second case study is driving in the city.<br /><br />My mother lives in downtown Brooklyn and when I go over during the week I try to leave the latest around 1 PM. Any later and I run into backups on the FDR Drive approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. Depending on the purpose of my visit, I either stay a couple of hours and on my way before 4 PM or wait until after 7 PM to head back to Manhattan to avoid the daily traffic jam that overwhelms my mother’s Fort Greene neighborhood.<br /><br />Usually the three arteries of traffic feeding the Brooklyn Bridge are running smoothly though the BQE often has backups pushing drivers into neighborhood streets to use other approaches. Usually the bridge is slow going until reaching the ramp onto the northbound lanes of FDR Drive. Inevitably, cars approaching the bridge in the southbound lanes are backed up, sometimes as far back as the exit for the Williamsburg Bridge.<br /><br />In the past few months, it’s gotten worst. I have to leave earlier, and be on my way back into the city by 3 PM or so if I want to avoid slowdowns and congestion at key interchanges. I hate to imagine what the scene will be like when Ratner builds his basketball stadium and apartment towers over the Atlantic track yards.<br /><br />I’m not seeing less cars on the road but more. Friends I speak to in LA say the same. So, where exactly is it are folks driving less--or slower? Why is the price dropping? Especially if only weeks ago there were refinery closings in the Gulf due to hurricanes and severe shortages reported in the Southeast? Isn’t that when the prices usually goes up?<br /><br />Apparently, the source for the government study is an industry friendly marketing company. I’ve heard some mumbo-jumbo about how speculators are playing with oil futures now that practically everything else on Wall Street is going south and that's causing prices to fall. On that I don’t feel able to comment. (One knowledgeable friend assures me this is the case but as you can see I have my own empirical testimony.) All things being equal I think, if anything, the oil companies encourages whatever works to their benefit.<br /><br />One thing is certain: the apparent election of Barack Obama is going to be apocalyptic. His middle class-centric policies scare the corporate giants. The cozy relationship the oil lobby enjoys with Congress and especially the two oilmen in the White House is moving to a new era. Because if Mr. Obama gets the job, big business knows, it will be no longer business as usual.<br /><br />Could the sudden price drops mean the energy industry is bending over to grease the chances of an oil-friendly Westerner’s grab for the Oval Office? If consumers can still be lulled into believing that low gas prices are coming back because of market forces, I have a bridge I want to sell. (Ouch!)<br /><br />I'm going to need more than a Bush Administration press release to believe otherwise.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6296026567070107255.post-76504180495024596672008-10-11T22:45:00.000-07:002008-11-03T17:19:10.888-08:00Me Thinks McCain Protests Too MuchWhat makes John McCain’s negative outbursts against his opponent Barack Obama so disgusting is the naked ambition so crudely on display. Sadly he comes off as someone desperate to put one more professional feather in his cap, to crown his long and some say distinguished military and political careers, by attaining the pinnacle of American success, the US presidency. It is a sense of entitlement that high achievers take for granted. Yet as evidenced by his increasingly erratic campaign behavior questions of his suitability for the job are raised, especially along side the near unflappable and (dare I say) elegant Mr. Obama.<br /><br />McCain takes little pain to disguise contempt for his opponent, a man he clearly deems unworthy to contend with for the highest office in the land--no matter what he says to the contrary, his body language says it all. He seems intent on advancing his fortunes by exaggerated charges over Obama's early associations and inneundo about some secret anti-American agenda. Though both senators earn a certain respect for their achievement, Mr. McCain felt comfortable enough at one point during their second nationally televised sparing match to refer dismissively to Mr. Obama as “That one!” Not unlike the Kentucky politician who publicly chastised Mr. Obama as 'That boy".<br /><br />Also jarring during the town hall Q&A was Mr. McCain’s nervous pacing even as Mr. Obama took his turn presenting carefully measured answers and rebuttals to moderator Tom Brokaw’s entreaties. There was something decidedly petulant and deliberately distracting in McCain's behavior.<br /><br />Pulling Sara Palin out of a hat—or is ‘kennel’ a more appropriate metaphor?-- will no doubt go down as one the of the century’s neatest political sleights of hand. Over night her surprise selection energized the Republican base and the added sex appeal was like a hit of Viagra for a near moribund party. Her immediate and overwhelming acceptance though there was little known about her was a sure indication of the Republicans’ state of desperation.<br /><br /><br />A political noviceand relatively inexperienced governor representing one of the nation's smallest constituencies is being positioned to potentally succeed the country’s top executive, if god forbid something awful happened, was especially startling given McCain’s shaky health issues. Not to be insensitive, cancer survivors to a large statistical extent relapse. At age 72, there are myriad medical concern for an elder statesman given the stressful campaign schedule and his apoplexy temperament. There was probably good reason McCain let selected reporters scan his health records under stringent conditions.<br /><br />What this election really comes down to for Republicans is the overriding yet muffled fear that having a Democrat in the White House presents the very real possibility of incriminating revelations coming to light about what sort of a criminal enterprise was conducted during the eight-year Bush term. The list of indictable crimes from illegal wiretapping of citizens, politically-motivated removal of federal attorneys, torture and detention without due process of ‘enemy combatants’ at Guantanamo, and the real cost in tax dollars of the Administrations many blunders and missteps, only skims the tip of the iceberg.<br /><br />No doubt, revelations about how the nation’s business and the wars were conducted under Bush 43 will be overwhelming and provide the kind of media sensation that capture’s the nation’s collective appetite for revenge. No longer immune from the justice system are we to have high profile prosecutions and lengthy sentences doled out to disgraced powerbrokers—Gonzales, Card, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, et al? Can Bush pardon himself--and them-- before leaving office? I wouldn’t put it past Cheney to have already explored such a maneuver since he will no doubt need one as well. However, if McCain manages to pulls off the election, the crooks can rest easy.<br /><br />Yet John McCain’s miscalculations and Barack Obama’s magnificently executed game plan should make it abundantly clean who is better able to deal with the crushing economic mess plunging the nation and our trading partners into despair and a possible second Depression. It doesn’t take much to recognize what a competent operation Mr. Obama has put together. The organization appears to run consistently cool and efficient. As a Harvard trained lawyer who was at the top of his class Mr. Obama shrewdly augments ‘book learning’ and practice with natural leadership assets. The potential good that his Presidency might bring to the country—the world even-- is tremendously inspiring.<br /><br />Prior to recent revelation about his character, I personally had neutral feelings about John McCain. He survived horrific imprisonment and still managed to distinguish himself with a long second career of political service in both Houses of Congress. He and his beer heiress spouse Cindy even adopted a child of color. But in an earlier skirmish between McCain and Obama long before the latter was in the running, I wrote an email criticizing McCain for his behavior. He responded by snail mail with what looks like a letter he personally dictated and signed. Clearly, he was sensitive enough to the implications of racism and disrespect I brought up to respond with a congenial defense of his intent. As Obama climbs in the polls, McCain becomes more dangerous and pernicious. Winning at all costs seems to have become his mantra.<br /><br />At the same there is no missing the irony of a former POW, who may or may not have sold his country upriver in captivity, trying to succeed an administration with an egregious record of abuse and torture of such captives held at the Gauntanamo gulag, tactics Bushies defend as necessary for speeding up intel. McCain taking office might be a kind of poetic justice.<br /><br />Perhaps the passage of years and wider achievements have not completely deadened Mr. McCain's POW experience. Recently, he inadvertently referred to a crowd of supporter as “fellow prisoners” when he meant ‘citizens’. I don’t believe the ramifications of the slip have been adequately explored given the plausibility of such popular fiction as the Manchurian Candidate.<br /><br />I would hate to think that Mr. McCain was experiencing some kind of brainwash-induced flashback, one the Viet Cong meticulously programmed during all those years of imprisonment and interrogation at the so-called 'Hanoi Hilton' prison. This dark area of McCann's resume demands closer scrutiny, by pundits and POW experts alike.<br /><br />We live in times when anything is possible.Owen Levy Gives A Damnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045743854152483170noreply@blogger.com0