SUMMER 1970! Stuck in Traffic…

There was nothing like it…. Cars in rush-hour traffic clogged back-to-back on the Belt Parkway headed out to Long Island on a week day afternoon after getting my fortnightly allergy shots in “the city.”

The car windows were all wide open… traffic just didn’t move…. The temperature was “sizzling hot.”

It didn’t matter: We all were tuned to 77AM WABC on our car radios — and in all the cars we sang in unison to “Ohhh Child” by the Five Stairsteps, “Spill the Wine” by Eric Burdon, “Love on a Two-Way Street” by the Moments, etc. Singing, smiling, and nodding heads with complete strangers.

John Vliet Lindsay was mayor and it was the summer between fifth and sixth grades.

That is why I would NEVER trade being a BOOMER for anything!

Seriously!

Preparing My Escape to NYC

SITE: FORMER METROPOLITAN SAVINGS BANK
THE VILLAGE
FIFTH AVENUE & 8TH STREET
Thursday PM, June 29, 2017

Late spring 1983… Nearly one year after graduating from Michigan State University and two months after the melanoma surgery that aborted my Peace Corps enrollment process, I was desperate to leave Grand Haven, Michigan and the period’s horrendous Rust Belt recession.

Gratefully, I was accepted into the CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program during its last few months of existence before Reagan destroyed it — replacing it with a most pale reflection — Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA).

When the Ottawa County CETA counselor saw my resume and sheaf of clips of op-ed pieces and poetry from gay and left-wing journals, she smiled and placed me at the local Chamber of Commerce…. CETA trained me in lifesaving skills such as (what was then called) “word processing” in the days before PCs replaced the ubiquitous IBM Selectric. They also got my typing speed to a marketable level AND I was able to cope outside the queer and leftist bubble in which I had existed in East Lansing.

With my very first paycheck from CETA, I plotted my escape. Going to Grand Haven’s Loutit Library, I looked at the various banks in the Manhattan Yellow Pages and wrote to a few in the Village, inquiring as to which would allow the opening of an account by mail. The first to respond was the Metropolitan Savings Bank at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street.

I opened a savings account with that first CETA check and — like the proverbial squirrel — deposited those CETA checks from May through September 1983 into that New York bank account. Each deposit represented a step toward freedom and a new life.

When I arrived in NYC on October 1, 1983 (at the age of 24), I had that small nest egg with which to start that new life. Though that bank and its East 8th Street branch are long gone, every time I pass by that location, I think of its crucial meaning in my life.

Remembering Ed Rogowsky

September 15, 2016

While in Park Slope on Sunday (my first time walking through the neighborhood during the day in two decades), I came across this street named for Ed Rogowsky — someone I knew well in my 20s as a resident of Brooklyn and a member of Gay Friends & Neighbors (GFN).

As Ed was a stalwart Democratic Party “Regular” while I was a in the very most left regions of the so-called “Reform” wing (for instance in the 1984 Democratic Party primary, he supported Louise Finney while I supported Jim Brennan), he and I obviously had many disagreements politically.

However, he was a very supportive person — an older gay political man who had much advice to offer me (some of it welcome and some of it NOT).

What I will most remember about Ed is a conversation I had with him in 1984 or 85 on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon in Prospect Park at a GFN volleyball game. A bunch of us were sitting on blankets watching from the sidelines. As usual (in my mid-20s), I was eating a pint of ice cream for “lunch.” (I can’t remember which kind, but my two favorites were Häagen-Dazs Sorbet & Cream Orange & Vanilla and Frusen Glädjé mocha chocolate chip.)

Sighing, Ed asked whether I intended to eat the entire pint myself. When I nodded, he sighed again, shook his head, looked me in the eye, and told me that he had just experienced his second heart bypass surgery — and how horrible an experience that was.

I stopped my daily “routine” of ice cream pints that very afternoon.

I last saw him in the mid-1990s at a subway stop in Lower Manhattan. He died early in 2001.

The Struggle Carries On: First Year Anniversary of the JFK Airport Demonstration & Rally, January 28, 2018

“We ask that we continue to accept as many refugees as we have in the past, recognizing the need is greater than ever. We ask that refugees from all countries receive consideration to come to the U.S. and not to ban those who come from countries most in need of our assistance.”

 

— Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, The Episcopal Church

 

Those who organized the JFK Immigration Detention Rally & Vigil on January 28, 2017 (1800 – 2000 hrs JFK Int’l-Terminal 4 Arrivals) literally saved my life.

 

From the election of #45 on November 8, I was in total despair — and suicidal. I could barely leave my apartment. I cried, raged, ate too much pizza, and watched silly home design shows on ION TV nonstop.

 

When I read about the demo on Facebook that Saturday afternoon, it cracked through (though didn’t alleviate completely) my despair and thoughts of self-destruction. I knew I had to go — despite not having the subway fare! I just took my chances and went willy nilly, hoping that I would make it home. I just summoned faith and took the next right action.

 

Scared that I would not have enough on my Metrocard amd not knowing what to expect, I boarded an A train at West 4th Street. Luckily, I had enough to get into the JFK shuttle when I made it to the JFK Howard Beach Station — allowing for the charge to exit the shuttle later on, only one dollar remained on my card.

 

Going out to JFK had been a wise decision… I was energized and heartened by the thousands there who felt as I did. I realized I wasn’t alone and saw so many of my fellow citizens resisting an illegitimate regime;

 

On the way I connected with activists from Democratic Socialists of America– an organization I had been involved with since being a member of its precursor group Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee as a student at Michigan State in the late 1970s. I even received an invitation to speak at the YDS-Young Democratic Socialists conference in February (on a panel about “Socialism & Queer Politics.”)

 

I ran into my friend Esther from ACT UP and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice [JFREJ] whom I hadn’t seen in nearly two decades. It dawned on me that all was not lost or hopeless — and I was reminded that I belong to a longstanding and historic progressive community to be found in the United States. I found my tribe yet again.

 

I returned on the JFK Shuttle to the subway station — sweating it out the whole way… After sitting down, watching the police harassing young demonstrators, and realizing I had to ask for help, I got up and did just that. I sheepishly went up to a (relative to me anyway) young trio and told them I didn’t have the subway fare to return home. One of the three — an observing attorney — eagerly and quickly swiped me in with her Metrocard.

 

The subway ride back was filled with comradely banter. A young woman saw me editing my photos on my laptop and told me her favorites. When I arrived at the West 14th A stop in Chelsea, I impatiently uploaded four of my favorite photos on Facebook that gave a sense of how momentous that action was. A young man I know saw me eagerly “receiving validation” from the responses to those photos — that seemed to pour forth.

 

That JFK demo brought me back to the world again: A bit of “sun” managed to crack through the gray clouds. I found my tribe of resisters.

Print Edition of the Village Voice (1955 – 2017)

From August 22, 2017:

As long as I have been alive (actually longer), New York’s Village Voice has issued a print edition. I purchased my first issue of the Voice – at the more expensive (out-of-town) rate – as a 13 year old during the summer of 1972 [at a “head shop” in Grand Haven (Michigan) called The Zodiac].

During junior high and high school I found various outlets to obtain that once cranky (yet exhilarating) journal. I would pore over the apartment rental ads in the back dreaming of a life in NYC. (Ultimately I found two rental situations through Voice ads: my very first share in 1983 in the “South Slope” and my current Chelsea digs in 1991.) Rare trips to visit family in NYC in junior high and high school allowed me the thrill of buying the Voice at the local price of 35 cents (the one on the stands upon arrival and the one on the stands the morning we departed). [During my undergrad years at Michigan State, I regularly purchased the Voice at the Paramount News Center on Grand River Avenue.]

Despite their various political idiosyncrasies and contrariness, I was drawn to the compelling prose of Nat Hentoff and Wayne Barrett – even if I didn’t always agree with them In my 9th grade English (1973) class, I discovered that two of Nat Hentoff’s novels were available – I’m Really Dragged But Nothing Gets Me Down (1968) and Jazz Country (1965). Familiar with his work in the Voice, I read both and enjoyed them heartily. In that class one could receive extra-credit by writing to an author and GETTING AN ANSWER. Two weeks after writing to Nat Hentoff, I proudly brought his response (and my reminder to the teacher for my extra-credit). The teacher remarked that I was the only one to avail myself of that option. I shared Hentoff’s views on civil liberties – though never his views on abortion. I was always saddened by his squeamishness with queers. As to Wayne Barrett? Being highly engaged in reform Democratic Party politics, I found his column indispensable.

Upon moving to NYC, I found getting the new Village Voice on Tuesday night was always a highlight of the week – using it to map out my week from the Cheap Thrills section and notices for booksignings and free readings in bookstores. The Voice was a quick run from both my first job in NYC at Children’s Express (Charles Street) and my perch at Village Independent Democats on the other side of Seventh Avenue South (where I was publicity chair and a member of the executive committee in the mid-1980s).

With regard to my own queer identity, a number of writers at the Voice were especially important to me in the early 1970s as I struggled in my teens with sexuality issues. Of particular note are “Lesbian Nation” author Jill Johnston (1929 – 2010) and founding member of the Gay Activists Alliance Arthur Bell (1939 – 1984) who authored Dancing the Gay Lib Blues (1971) and Kings Don’t Mean a Thing in (1978). I was later able to “thank” them for so contributing – through their writing – to my survival

When Bell died in June 1984 from diabetes related complications, I took the morning off from Children’s Express to go to his memorial at a movie theater on the Upper East Side. (At 25 years old – and my chin dropping to the floor – I oohed and aahed at the sight of people I had only read about!) That morning I made the wonderful acquaintance of Marc Rubin (1932 – 2007) and Pete Fisher (1944 – 2012).

With Johnston, that “thank you” was much more personal: At a reading and talk at the 92nd Street Y in the mid-1980s, Cynthia Ozick referred to Jill Johnston as a “weirdo.” Afterward, I let Ozick have it as she autographed her book for me by giving her an earful of a rousing defense of Johnston. I actually ran into Johnston waiting for the light at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street in the spring of 1986: I turned and was surprised to see Johnston and her partner wearing identical white button-down shirts. I immediately thanked her for her work over the years. At the time I was running for office for the very first time (though unsuccessfully): a Brooklyn school board seat. I handed her one of my fliers and grandly opined that there would’ve been no such campaign had it not been for the work of pioneers such as herself. I cited her columns that I read in the Voice as a teenager. Smiling, she responded to my gushing thanks with a wonderfully nonplussed “You’re welcome.”

When I read the pieces in this last June’s Pride edition, I thought about how much has really changed for our community…. That issue had been an annual high point for me during the 1980s and early 90s… One of my very favorite pieces in the Voice was a description of ACT UP in 1987 as “the Jetson’s generation take to the streets” in (what I thought) a wonderful piece by Richard Goldstein. As a bona fide member of the “Jetson’s Generation” (late Boomers), I continued to love it – despite the grumbling of others in the group…

Wow…. three generations as a printed newspaper… You had a great run Village Voice! Good-bye old friend…

Notes on Greg Lugliani on the Day of His Funeral Mass: August 10, 2017

Central Park Pride June 1989 Stonewall 20

March on Washington for Reproductive Freedom, Washington, DC 1989

“Otter Colony on Avenue A (1989)” Pendulum SUNY Purchase December 11, 1997 Read my poetry at the SUNY Purchase art center for World AIDS Day 1997.

Today was the funeral mass of  Greg Lugliani …

During a brief period about 26 years ago, Greg and I often hung out at Tunnel Bar (First Avenue & 7th Street) on Tuesday and Thursday evenings (“Jägermeister nights”). It was on those particular nights that Greg – smiling – would get me to tell our “otter story.”

The story was basically this: That those of us in ACT UP New York were – in a previous life countless millennia earlier – a rogue otter colony basking on sunny shores, gallivanting, frolicking, and feasting on abalone. And that – after an intolerably long interval and many unfortunate twists and turns – we finally found each other at the main room at the Center on West 13th Street, on the streets of the East Village, and in assorted government and corporate conference rooms. The story was a tad different every time. Greg loved (and was amused by) the story.

Sometime in the mid-1990s – in Scott Hightower’s poetry group at GMHC – I morphed the story into a poem just to get it onto paper. While in Scott’s group during that period, we were asked a couple of times to read our poetry on December 1 (World AIDS Day) at SUNY Purtchase’s Neuberger Museum of Art. On one of those occasions, I read that poem about the reincarnated otter colony frolicking in and traversing the East Village in our motorcycle jackets and Doc Martens. A staffer of the student paper at SUNY Purtchase asked me afterward if I had a printed copy of the poem I read. I pulled it out of a folder and eagerly handed it over. It appeared in the next issue of the paper as part of their coverage of the event. Today I regret so much that I never gave Greg a copy because he was so much its inspiration.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1085866785087&set=a.1081510796190.13736.1178921718&type=3&theater

Greg introduced me to my first tattoo artist in Washington Heights (at a time when tattooing was illegal in NYC and trying to find a tattoo artist akin to finding a drug dealer). Greg was always intrigued that my first tattoo was a seahorse (particularly because I chose that animal due to male seahorses “carrying their babies to term”). My second tattoo? An otter floating on its back – leisurely cracking abalone shells on a rock that lay on its belly. In a way, I “wear” Greg on two places on my skin.

30 Years Since the First Public Display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall, Washington, D.C. October 11, 1987 – 2017

From October 10, 2017

It is beyond reason that 30 years ago I was rushing to the DC Metro to make it back to my ACT UP bus returning to NYC. A shortcut was through the AIDS Memorial Quilt – then showing for the first time in our nation’s capital. In the final approach to the October 11, 1987 Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights I had derided the AIDS Quilt as something akin to those silly candlelight vigils that we did with such regularity in the early days of AIDS. In fact, I had actually called it the “doo rag of death.”

But I wasn’t really thinking about any of that. I was thinking about getting back to NYC after a momentous day and catching my flight for Luxembourg the next day (and my vacation in Amsterdam and Berlin). My only regret was not being able to participate in the civil disobedience action planned for the next day at the Supreme Court. I was with a friend from Michigan State who was taking the same bus back with me and would catch a flight back to Los Angeles.

In one very quick second, everything changed. That it happened amid that cornucopia of names was nothing short of miraculous. But it did. Somehow I noted the quilt panel I’ve posted here. “John Mathieson…” William John Mathieson (July 22, 1943 – August 5, 1985). Mathieson grew up in Grove City, Pennsylvania and attended graduate school at Michigan State University. He later worked as an instructor at San Francisco Community College. He died of complications from AIDS at age 42. But I am ahead of myself here as I didn’t know those facts yet. (I only found out about them recently thanks to the research of Tim Retzloff.)

“John Mathieson,” I cried – dumbstruck – frozen above his panel. John Mathieson – that very kind, handsome, and sexy man who lived in the apartment upstairs from Lieberman’s (East Lansing) with the Vietnam era anti-war sign in the window. John Mathieson was really the very first man I had sex with in a civilized, adult way. We made love – and he didn’t enable my 19-year-old clumsiness. He insisted that I learn to give backrubs as per his instructions. We fucked in bed naked in the safety and luxuriousness of home – rather than in the disheveled furtiveness of sex in a car somewhere. We held each other and talked. It was October 1978. Proposition 6 was on the ballot. And Harvey Milk was still Supervisor and George Moscone was still Mayor. Around John’s apartment, boxes were packed: He was exiting East Lansing to live in that heralded city of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.

That damned AIDS Quilr had brought me to my knees sobbing without control. Evan tried hugging me during this moment in which I was inconsolable. I thought of that magic encounter in that apartment upstairs from Lieberman’s. I wondered at the universe that made it possible to find John’s panel out of so many thousands. Out of nowhere a kindly lesbian dressed in pastels appeared with a welcome box of Kleenex. In the horror that was our nation’s capital under Ronald Reagan, this encounter had made me a believer in the Names Project.

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, often abbreviated to AIDS Memorial Quilt, is an enormous quiltmade as a memorial to celebrate the lives of people who have died of AIDS-related causes. Weighing an estimated 54 tons, it is the largest piece of community folk art in the world as of 2016.

The idea for the NAMES Project Memorial Quilt was conceived in 1985 by AIDS activist Cleve Jones during the candlelight march, in remembrance of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. For the march, Jones had people write the names of loved ones that were lost to AIDS-related causes on signs that would be taped to the San Francisco Federal Building. All the signs taped to the building looked like an enormous patchwork quilt to Jones, and he was inspired.

The project officially kicked off in 1987 in San Francisco. At that time many people who died of AIDS-related causes did not receive funerals, due to both the social stigma of AIDS felt by surviving family members and the outright refusal by many funeral homes and cemeteries to handle the deceased’s remains. Lacking a memorial service or grave site, The Quilt was often the only opportunity survivors had to remember and celebrate their loved ones’ lives.

Notes on the Birthday of Cesar Chavez

That today is Cesar Chavez’s birthday brings back a flood of memories…. When I was in junior high (the early 1970s), I would pluck out the lettuce from salads that my mom served at the table and only eat the chick peas, tomatoes, or whatever was left. Concerned, my mother started to buy endive and other kinds of greens that I would be willing to eat instead. It would be the 1980s before I could bring myself to eat lettuce or table grapes. (I still eschew iceberg lettuce. Yuck!)

An enthusiastic member of Senator George McGovern’s “children’s crusade” in 1972 (and aged 13), I enthusiastically watched that year’s Democratic Convention. (The national conventions to nominate Presidential candidates were then televised gavel-to-gavel.) Festooned throughout the convention center were banners in support of the strikes of farm workers with that notable black Aztec eagle  insignia (on a red field). There were also banners throughout decrying the “bombing of the dikes” in Vietnam, but – alas – that is another story.

I received my very first button with that black Aztec eagle in the autumn of 1974 at the home of a girl named Naomi  (who lived in nearby Norton Shores, Michigan). Naomi and her family were hosting a temple youth group meeting. The speaker? A UFW activist named David Hernandez who was on hunger strike. In the Naomi’s family room, we watched a film on the struggles of the UFW (with a real film projector). He spoke to us afterward. We were brought to tears and many of us enthusiastically worked on supporting the UFW, which was our NFTY region’s social action project for the 1974-75 school year.  That and various other UFW buttons with the black eagle would often be pinned to my backpack – not just during my high school years, but also during my years at Michigan State.

[What happened in that local Reform Temple Youth Group meeting in a small Michigan city (Muskegon) was typical of what was going on in youth groups and social action committees in Reform temples, UU churches, mainline Protestant denominations, and Roman Catholic churches (in those pre-John Paul II years) throughout the United States during the 1970s.]

— Jon Nalley
March 31, 2016

Who Owns Our History in a Time of Concurrent Horrors?

If nothing else, I am most grateful for Hillary’s so-called “misspeaking” <chuckle> because it unveiled the horror of the Reagan administration for those not even born then in ways we could not have possibly imagined. Her “kind words” on behalf of our evil former first lady and our resultant rage have helped to cement – in the minds of many – the putrid political stench ever emanating from the Reagan administration. With all that, only the most benighted, reactionary, and obtuse among us can deny that the Reagans were AIDS war criminals.

A beautiful experience related to this occurred at an “open studios” held during this period at the art department of a local collage. To receive a very beautiful free poster produced by the students, one was required to “create” a piece of  art as part of a larger “communal” piece. What did I draw with a handful of crayons? An eraser wiping out history, of course. When I began – without prior solicitation – to volunteer to those students involved what the story represented, they knew instantly. I was deeply heartened by the awareness of the issues surrounding “Nancygate” with these people in their twenties. And their vehemence besides! Indeed, I was struck by the awareness of people in general – particularly young people – to the horrendous situation of people living with AIDS in the Reagan-era “House of Horrors.”

As one who has been involved in Democratic Party politics since my teenage years in the 1970s – and who served officially in the party as an officeholder in the the Party apparatus (club officer, county committee member, etc.) both before and after ACT UP – “Yes!”  – we did suffer at the hands of the Reagan Administration. But the perpetrators went well beyond the government and the Republican Party. Other than in certain isolated pockets, Democrats weren’t all that wonderful either. Neither were all straight people horrible and all “gays” and people with AIDS wonderful, supportive, and / or ennobled. I learned the hard way that one can’t judge things by their appearances or labels.

But some things I have been seeing and reading on Facebook and other places in that last few days have troubled me deeply.

First – and most heinous – were those disgusting individuals who said in no uncertain terms to “Get Over It,” re: my reactions and postings regarding “Nancygate.” It pains me to add that such obscenities (which resulted in “instant blockage”) came not from Republicans nor heterosexuals, but rather from fellow gay men whom I’d mistakenly considered “progressive.” And I thought I had major issues with self-hatred and internalized homophobia! No, on this score, I found myself ruthlessly shown up! I was rudely reminded  about not being deceived by labels and appearances.

Any gay man who can dare “go there” is – for the time being – forever “dead” to me: I’ve been engaging in a number of instant “black-candled shivas” in the last several days. The stakes are too high on this one. I won’t allow anyone to re-write history in which the Reagans are seen in anyway benevolent. We have seen how “The Big Lie” works historically – and in the present day with our corporate media.

One very difficult post came from a (now former) Facebook friend in the last few days that castigated progressives, socialists, and leftists for their fury about the “Nancy Reagan remarks.” He had the nerve to ask where we leftist and progressives were in 1987 – accusing us of being disingenuous.  “What had we done about AIDS?” he taunted. This particular socialist has been politically involved with AIDS since 1983 – when (as a 24 year old) he visited the staff of US Senator Don Reigle on their visitation day at Grand Haven (Michigan) City Hall and demanded money for research and other action. I ended up telling him about testimony I gave at governmental bodies (such as that at the NYC Council in November 1985) and my first arrest for AIDS activism in July 1987. Then I proceeded to tell him that we leftists owed him no apology or response whatsoever – and proceeded to de-friend him.

The horrendous story  of what occurred vis-a-vis AIDS during the Reagan years is but the tip of the iceberg of the concurrent outrages going on in that “House of Horrors.” AIDS was far from the only pressing issue. Yes, the scary death toll and the vicious reaction of those around us (yes – even in NYC!) made the issue very personal and compelling. Yes, our friends  were dying in NYC’s St. Vincent’s Hospital, Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital, and San Francisco General. Yes, hospital staffs were often abusive to our dying friends. There is no sugar-coating what happened then in the way AIDS affected communities were treated – with the resultant hostility of many “birth families” of the dying, the evil connivance of landlords, the brutality of certain hospital staffs, and the criminal neglect of the government. These aspects of that period – and many more – leave me livid even today. The personal became acutely political.

Sadly, progressives of all kinds had their hands full in those days. Yes, people with AIDS were dying like flies – many times with violence, neglect, and horror – but so too were death squads (supported by our tax dollars) killing people daily in Guatemala and El Salvador. Reagan’s UN Representative, the odious Jean Kirkpatrick lauded mass murderer and US puppet Augusto Pinochet.  Reagan’s policy of “constructive engagement” played footsie with the regime killing people in Soweto. “Webster v. Reproductive Health Services” – which occurred during Bush I, but accomplished with Reagan’s SCOTUS appointees – threatened women with deadly back-alley abortions.

Progressives toiled on overdrive at the time: We prevented – through the grassroots auspices of The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), US Out of Central America (USOCA), the Pledge of Resistance, and the Nicaragua Sister City Project for example – US service members from being killed in a war “on the ground” that Reagan so ached for in Central America.  I am still rankled and appalled by the cheek of the “question” posed by my former Facebook friend. To hell with him. What we on the left did to sabotage Reagan administration initiatives and objectives was nothing short of miraculous.  And I find the sniping of an ignoramus on this score insufferable.

Closer to home were the following: the virtual avalanche of homeless onto city streets (many of them Vietnam veterans), the Iran-Contra affair (and its elevation of such walking excrement as Oliver North), the indignity of our President laying flowers on the grave of Waffen SS murderers, the evaporation of what still passed for federal housing policy, the destruction of mental health care services and tried-and-true job training programs such as CETA, the implementation of taxation of people’s unemployment benefits while the rich had their taxes cut, implementation of Reagan’s socialism for the rich that had radically distributed wealth upward, etc., ad nauseum. I won’t even go into the efforts of the Nuclear Freeze movement with which I was personally involved. Writing about and reporting on AIDS activism and lesbian and gay liberation issues for the US radical newsweekly The Guardian (not the august British daily) in the 1980s gave me a bird’s-eye view into much of this.

To my former Facebook friend: That’s what we socialists and those on the left were fighting throughout the 1980s, you dimwit. Those of us who were progressive, gay, HIV+, etc., were doing double-, triple-, quadruple-duty and more at the time. Again… No explanation is required: I say this to set the record straight (no pun indended).

Last of all was a Facebook missive by someone of whom I am very fond. His point was that only those who were around in that time and  place and personally affected have a right to call politicians and institutions into account for their misdeeds. He was obviously referring to the “Nancygate” controversy in the last few days and the resultant (and apropos) criticisms of Hillary.

With all due respect to this very gifted man, I must vehemently disagree. History is not proprietary, nor our personal domain. It belongs to all of us – or none of us. Again, I have such gratitude to the young persons who weren’t even born at the time of the Reagan era who have been so animated in their outrage about the carnage they weren’t even alive to experience. I am even more grateful that they have included it in their socio-political vernacular. “Bravo to them!” That is what history is SUPPOSED to be about. Why else would we have a “Day Without Art,” Visual AIDS, World AIDS Day, etc.?

While I was only 10 years old (and living several states away) on that December AM hour in Chicago when Fred Hampton was murdered by the forces of “law enforcement,” I have every right to be outraged about what happened and to demand justice.  No, I was never in Terezen nor Sachsenhausen, but to me issues surrounding the Holocaust are very personal for me. The Kent State / Jackson State massacres have invigorated and colored my political life for decades in important and moving ways. The sit-down strikes of 1937 in Flint? The Haymarket Rebellion? The killings of Schwerner-Chaney-Goodman? The lynchings of African Americans? The massacre at My Lai? The vicious 1973 US-sponsored coup d’etat in Chile that removed the democratically elected Salvador Allende and killed thousands? No – these historic events and the issues they bring to bear in the present are not the property of those personally affected. Sorry, but I feel those taking up the cause of what you and I experienced in the 1980s should be encouraged and lauded – not remonstrated and condemned.  I say “Carry on!” to those you angrily lectured this weekend.

I am so energized that so many of us stood firm to speak personally of our history and grateful that we drew an important line in the sand! Thank you to Garance​, Michael, Kevin​, Matthew​, and many others who shared of your experience! It has meant a lot to me to read about how we lived in our own ways at that time, and the things — similar and different — that we took out of that experience

Sunday night
March 13, 2016
New York City

[“Who Owns History? And Why?” Collage. JN. Saturday evening, March 12, 2016]

In Memory of Edward C Paolella

The inimitable Edward C. Paolella, a retired professor who taught for more than 30 years – faithfully serving students at Brooklyn College – died on February 11, 2016 at the age of 74 after battling leukemia. At Brooklyn College, Ed was known for his witty, brilliant and provocative pedagogical style. A most dedicated bibliophile – with books sometimes three deep on his shelves at home – Ed donated more than 10,000 volumes to that institution he served for so many years.

Ed saw an article I did as a cub reporter for the defunct Long Island gay paper “The Connection” on Donna Shalala adopting a sexual orientation non-discrimination policy at Hunter College in the mid-1980s. He told me he took my article to authorities at Brooklyn College asking why – if Hunter had done that – they couldn’t follow suit. According to Ed, the president at Brooklyn College shrugged his shoulders, concurred, and – indeed – followed suit.

Ed was the one who told me about (and introduced me to) Gay Friends & Neighbors (GFN). I was talking with him one Friday night over coffee at the “Tiffany” diner in Sheridan Square after Friday night services at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in December 1983. Mentioning to Ed that I’d found a room to sublet at the corner of 15th Street and 7th Avenue in the then “burned out” South Slope, Ed insisted that I plug into GFN as soon as I was settled. Indeed, I attended a GFN meeting in that Park Slope church on my very first Monday night in Brooklyn in January 1984. And I continued to spend my Monday nights there for years until ACT UP (with their large Monday night meetings) came along in 1987.

(Gay Friends & Neighbors/Brooklyn was established in 1983. GFN was a social group of about 400 people living primarily in the Brooklyn area. The main purpose of the group was to provide the gay & lesbian Community with a social outlet such as parties, potluck dinners, game / video nights, a writers’ group, holiday dances, etc.)

Also, Ed is also the one who told me to document absolutely everything — to save every letter and photograph…. The reason I do Social + Diarist and have an 8 ft. long collection of personal papers in the archives at the The LGBT Community Center can be credited to Ed!

I last ran into Ed at The Dish on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea a decade ago and had a lovely “reunion” with him that evening and meeting his new collection of admirers. Ed will be sorely missed: He exemplifies for me the true meaning of community and community-building!

¡Presente!

GFN’s Archive Papers
http://www.gaycenter.org/community/archive/collection/038

Ed’s Death Notice
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx…

[Two photos from my 29th birthday party, 46 South Oxford Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn. January 26, 1988. Ed is wearing the pink/blue combination.]