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Post subject:
 Posted: Apr 10, 2007 - 04:41 PM
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Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1195
Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
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Well, I'd heard "recruitment" stories before, but I always thought it was a myth, and that what was really happening was the putatively "straight" lad coming to terms with their "inner gay boy". But an entire bar?!
(And here I thought the "inner gay bar" was that room in the back, where they did all that ... y'know... fun stuff!   ) |
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin
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Post subject: Editorial: The Hidden Power of Guerilla Cocktails
Posted: Apr 10, 2007 - 04:08 PM
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Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 290
Location: USA
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From the Gay Republic Daily Editorial desk: There's an old newsroom adage that says just as soon as reporters find out about a trend, it's already over. But reports in the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and most recently, ABC News haven't manage to kill of an American phenomenon called Guerrilla Queer Bar... a phenom that one group of organizers call "a combination of flashmob and the French Revolution. Only gayer. [And with] fewer decapitations."
The concept is pretty simple: gay and lesbian folks who are tired of going to the same old gay and lesbian bars choose a putatively str8 bar in their town and descend on it en masse. The once-a-month invasion is co-ordinated by websites, MySpace pages and email lists.
The effort started, as so many gay things do, in San Francisco in or about 2002, which goes to show that even dozens of gay bars does not make a city immune to cocktail restlessness. It spread. Boy, did it spread.
Now there are regular GQB nights in big places like NYC, Washington DC, Detroit, Denver, and Philadelphia, but also smaller burgs like Austin (TX), Charlotte (NC), even Allentown (PA). It's spread to Canada, Australia and some spots in Europe, as well.
With such popularity, its seems obvious that GQB outings are fun, but are they good for the gay community? The first question that pops up is... okay, technically it would be the second question, wouldn't it? Fine, now it's the third question: Don't the str8 bar owners get a bit miffed? The answer appears to be 'sometimes,' But gay money is green, after all.
How about the str8 patrons? Isn't GQB sort of dangerous? Well, to start, the GQB organizers aren't idiots; they don't exactly choose hillbilly bars or places where steelworkers gather. So far, there have been no big problems reported. No fights, no car-keying, just a few nasty comments about str8 people's shoes, I imagine. It's all right, they can take it.
How about the gay bar owners? Don't they resent the loss of trade? Most of them, probably. The increased visibility seems to me worth the loss, but then I don't own a struggling gay bar in Allentown, PA. The argument could be made that there are closeted gay people in every str8 bar, and the arrival of the GQB crew just might induce one of them to want to check out the regular gay scene... okay, I admit, that's kind of weak.
But something stronger is this tale from long ago. Once upon a time (in the 1980s) there was a town called Lancaster, PA. Yes, the one in Amish land, where Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford got all steamy listening to Sam Cooke. It was a town, was Lancaster, a town so repressed, so Republican that the residents' buttocks made squeaking noises when they walked. And, of course, there was no gay bar in this town.
One day, in downtown Lancaster, there re-opened an old theatre, and people came to work there putting on plays. It came to pass that after a long day of putting on plays, those people would gather at a nearby str8 bar called the Tally Ho. It became the hang-out for the theatre crowd. Shockingly enough, a great many of those theatre people were gay. Well, it turned out that the guy who ran the Tally Ho, coincidentally, was also gay. And lo, buoyed by the newfound company of so many of his People, that guy decided then and there that the Tally Ho was now and forever to be a gay bar.
As far I cant tell, the phenom that is Guerrilla Queer Bar hasn't done that yet-- turned a str8 bar gay-- but it does have the power to do that, I'd wager. If it does it, just once, it's worth all the hub-bub.
KT |
_________________
"That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something."
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Post subject: Re: Editorial: The Politics of Playing Army
Posted: Apr 09, 2007 - 08:52 PM
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Site Admin
Joined: Aug 26, 2006
Posts: 440
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Kyleovision wrote:
It’s AK-47s and a few RPGs versus our guns, our grenade launchers, our tanks, our mortars, our rockets, our artillery, our planes and helicopters, our tactical missiles... versus this gigantic array of our Stuff That Kills People...
Sir,
I have to protest against some incorrect reporting which occured on GRD today's editorial. Just what exactly do you mean by "our guns", "our grenade launchers", "our tanks", "our mortars", "our rockets", "our artillery", "our planes and helicopters" and "our tactical missiles"???? Never was aware any tactical or strategical forces under the command of Gay State were deployed against any country so far...
Talking about US Government and US Army, good Gay Nationalists shoud avoid using the terms like "we", "us" and "our". Them are foreign governments and foreign armed forces.
GRD's Rule Nr. 1: Homocentrism. |
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Post subject: Editorial: The Politics of Playing Army
Posted: Apr 09, 2007 - 04:40 PM
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Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 290
Location: USA
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From the GRD Editorial desk: It’s just two sentences in a story about US troops patrolling in Afghanistan. After stopping a local man that they think looks shady, a US soldier pats the guy down for contraband. At that, the Afghani trembles. "'Ask the guy why he's jumping around," [the] suspicious soldier tells the interpreter as he slides his hands up and down a farmer's pants. 'He thinks you are gay,' the smiling interpreter responds."
The reporter meant that as a toss-off. We’re supposed to chuckle at one of those ‘farcical’ little things that happen in a war. But it’s a more telling anecdote that I imagine the writer, AP embed Denis D. Gray, meant it to be. And it reveals something about the attitudes of both the so-called good guys and the widely alleged bad guys.
We’ll leave aside what it says about Mr. Gray. That is, the notion that never accorded to him. That is, the possibility that the soldier doing the frisking actually is one of the thousands of GLBT soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines now serving. Surely Mr. Gray can be forgiven for it, right? That would be petty to bring up. So I won’t do it. Forget I said it.
No, let’s stay fixed on the big picture. It’s Afghanistan. We’re told that the bad guys are these lightly armed insurgents fighting the whole menu of American firepower. It’s AK-47s and a few RPGs versus our guns, our grenade launchers, our tanks, our mortars, our rockets, our artillery, our planes and helicopters, our tactical missiles... versus this gigantic array of our Stuff That Kills People... and yet, what the Afghani is worried about is whether it’s a gay guy who’s trying to find out if he has ammo stashed in his britches. Never mind getting blown to bits, hey, I think there’s a fag touching my bum! Somebody do something!
It sounds mad. It sounds backward. It sounds hopelessly unsophisticated. These Afghani guys sure are weird, aren’t they?
One would be quite tempted to think just that, to feel secure in one's Western liberalism, and move on to more interesting news, except... remind me again why the US military summarily discharges all the gay guys they can possibly chivvy out?
(GRD Eds.) |
_________________
"That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something."
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Post subject: Editorial: The Limits of Reasonableness
Posted: Apr 09, 2007 - 01:19 AM
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Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 290
Location: USA
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From the GRD Editorial desk: Detroit News columnist Roland S. Martin means well. There's no doubting that. He meant well when he penned a recent commentary urging Christians to 'take back the faith,' writing, "[w]hen did it come to the point that being a Christian meant only caring about two issues -- abortion and homosexuality?" Of course, the literal answer is an easy one: just as soon Christians in the US organized politically as Christians. But, if that be so, why is it so?
The flippant answer to that one would be because it's easy to organize people around a pre-exisiting hatred that you, as a crass Christian politico, know is already shared by nearly every one of your potential followers. Why take the time to build a coalition around a cohesive set of political ideals, then take more time to sell it to the skeptical, when you can strip the thing to its raw, base impulses and run with it?
Fair enough. It works spectacularly well for the political Christians and who can argue with success?
So no arguments here. But as far as I know, no one has ever asked why GLBT people don't do the same thing. Certainly one would be wrong to think that there are no easily accessed, visceral feelings of resentment among gay people. Heck, get a couple of cocktails into any gay man over 30, and that viscera slithers out to form perfect, little, angry rosettes all over the bar, the floor and assorted passers-by, doesn't it? It seems a shame to waste it-- and we do waste it.
There have been a few refinements in the anti-gay Christian message over the years-- like, say, since the days when Jerry Falwell was comfortable wearing a 38-inch waist. (Okay, yeah, that's a cheap shot, but I'm setting up a timeline here, people. I needed a visual.) Since those wasp-waisted days, the political Christians have cobbled together the so-called War on Christianity. That was easy, too. Play up a few AP stories about banned Nativity scenes and you're off to the races.
In short, despite all sorts of friction with the real world, that initial political Christian furor has never worn off. Those leaders have made sure that it doesn't, no matter how silly they have to be (re: the Tinky Winky and Spongebob conspiracies).
Maybe we gay folks ought to give it a try. We've been so patient and so reasonable and so understanding and so 'tolerant of difference.' Let's see what unreasonable gay demands will do. What have we got to lose? |
_________________
"That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something."
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Post subject:
Posted: Mar 23, 2007 - 11:34 AM
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Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1195
Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
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re: MN: What If We Allowed Gay Partners Hospital Visits?
This is one of those things, along with the mistreatment and abuse of queer youngsters, that makes me insanely angry. I am no longer even shocked by it; I have almost come to expect it. But I have never understood *why*. I mean, even someone I supremely loathed, like Pete Knight, or James Dobson... hell, even that maggot Ronny Ray-gun -- I wouldn't seek to prevent them from being with their loved one on their deathbed. That's just bloody evil, there is no other possible word for it.
~*~*~*~
re: Big Bazooms & The Pride of Jerusalem
lol... it made me titter. 
You being a hockey fan though, KT (and presumably familiar with Danny Gallivan-isms), I'm surprised you never managed to work in the word "cannonading"... 
All in all, yer off to a good start, laddie... I look forward to more.  |
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin
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Post subject:
Posted: Mar 23, 2007 - 08:54 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Aug 26, 2006
Posts: 440
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Post subject:
Posted: Mar 22, 2007 - 11:03 PM
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Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 290
Location: USA
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Post subject:
Posted: Mar 22, 2007 - 05:22 PM
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Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1195
Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
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| Oh, goody.I will be looking foreward to it. |
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin
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Post subject: RE: From the GRD Editorial Desk
Posted: Mar 22, 2007 - 02:02 PM
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Site Admin
Joined: Aug 26, 2006
Posts: 440
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| Guess, we need an "Editorial" category soon. |
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Post subject: From the GRD Editorial Desk
Posted: Mar 22, 2007 - 01:29 PM
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Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 290
Location: USA
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| For those who follow such things, I will be trying to write a mini-commentary every day, to be posted on the GRD main news page. Hope you enjoy them. |
_________________
"That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something."
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