Paradise Found, Paradise Lost...only to find guilt

Have been thinking this past week with the phone off the hook. And of the literally thousands of books I have read.... there wasn't much for a young gay person with any postitive message. And movies? Well the characters were so fucked up, they committed suicide, or became homicidal murderers, and were killed. Not much to aspire to, in my days growing up. James Baldwin's 'Giovanni's Room'. Beautiful, but oh please...


Nothing had a happy ending, not Gore Vidal's terrible novel, and especially not John Rechy's stellar 'City of Night'. I was about fifteen when that one fell into my hands, and it rocked my world.... the wrong way. It was about a very lonely young man who is so hurt, he prostitutes himself to anyone willing to pay. He wants love, but can't give it. It was gritty, graphic, but not pornographic, and horrific to read. It covers the major American cities where male prostitutes virtually eked out a living, and there was a time stamp on it, as long as they were young. It's a brilliant book... with so much packed into it you ended up breathless. The end was tragic, but not in the traditional sense. The main character meets someone who really wants to love him during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and is honest with him... and the main character just doesn't dare, and walks out on him on Ash Wednesday. Crushing. No, no happy end.

Later, authors got really 'out there', but I cannot think of one that was life-affirming, or offering any sort of hope. And the end-Seventies came, along with AIDS, just when people felt they were on an even keel, and wow. Just wow. Larry Kramer started it with his novel 'Faggots'. It was very controversial. He was alarmed at what he saw in that hedonistic time in New York, and although his novel was hilariously funny, he thought things had gone too far. And got a mess of flak for it. And his thesis was correct. There was was this explosion of freedom, and people did what they did sexually. And in the end, he warned about everything being too EASY, and the attitude of if you didn't hook up or someone had a wart or something... there was always a better one around the corner, and there were few commitments. Funny as it was... it was a warning. And came just as the first AIDS cases were reported.

So yeah, retribution from on high, or something. As if people hadn't had enough to deal with, guilt much? Terror? Just when you thought, hey... the world came crashing down, and people you knew were dying like proverbial flies being bombed with some sort of aerosol. Including a brilliant young man of 30 whom I wished would have been my real brother, because he was that to me.

Well yes, the world goes on, and the books came out. Andrew Holleran wrote the incredible 'Dancer From The Dance' in 1978. An wonderful epitaph of a culture that grew up, bloomed, and was obliterated. And very beautiful, but not positive.

Felice Picano wrote the stunning novel, 'The Lure', a pseudo 'krimi' which explored the dark side of that culture from the same time.

And there was the wonderful Edmund White... (who was sort of a snob, if erudite...) who wrote a wonderful trilogy. I couldn't get through his last one. Peter had that in German, and the title was 'Abschiedssymphonie'. (Departure symphonie.) He was ill. I couldn't finish it. It was too hurtful. That must have been in 2003 because he wrote about an artist who designed 'the island in the Mur for our cultural year. According to the book... he was nuts. An 'actionist', which I basically hate, and he would lie under stairs in an office building in NY, and masturbate to looking at ladies' underwear as they descended, and spill his seed into little boxes with soil, so to speak. And then sell them. I found THAT really odd. 'Where's the ART, hey?' That was in the Seventies, in 2003... he was a sensational architect.... go figure. Some people get success if they are brazen enough.

There was the devastating film 'Long Time Companion'. Great movie, but not if you're already depri. Or Torch Song Trilogy... which was uplifting, but more in the I will survive mode, although Harvey Fierstein knocks me out every time.

What I mean is.... every cultural reference I ever grew up with was negative in the end. You don't GET good references, or books or movies, and everything is 'you're gonna kill yourself and die, because you aren't worth anything.' That is the message, and it came from the gay authors, and movies, and the news.... How could you not help hating yourself?

I have YET to see something positive on that score. And I do NOT think the people mentioned above did much to better anything. You can write beautifully... and kill people with it. Kill their hope.

You can make people laugh till they hurt... but they end up hurting.

I've met artists of all kinds in my life. I've been intimate with them if our minds were on the same page. Writers, composers, theater people in my salad days. Connecting physically doesn't mean you will connect in your minds.

I would love to see something with a positive message of hope. For the next generation so that they do not despair.