Life Lessons...

1. Believe in yourself at least twice as much as you do now.

2. Sometimes it helps to pretend to be happy. You might forget why you're not for a bit and actually feel better.

3. Your successes are dependent largely on your outlook.

4. If you want something enough you can achieve it (short of resurrection of course).

5. If you aren't getting what you want, maybe you're looking in the wrong places. Maybe you don't really know what you want.

6. If you can't answer why you need something, then you don't really need it. You may need something else.

7. The biggest social handicap is worrying too much about others reactions to what you do. Just do it (legally of course) and worry less about possible negative outcomes.

8. Some relationships are fixable. But many times we misunderstand which are and which aren't.

9. Don't ever change who you are for another person.

10. You think you can do better than the person that you're with but you're afraid that you'll never find something better. Simply solution... LEAVE. You can and will do better.

11. If you're nervous talk things out to yourself. If you can't talk them out, they're not going to go right anyways.

12. Always, always be honest with yourself. Especially if you don't want to.

13. Don't take things personally. But learn to take constructive criticism.

14. Learn to work with those you don't like.

15. And finally, always ask for help. There are those who have dealt with the same things you do. But remember, they don't necessarily have the right answers any more than you. Get many opinions, but in the end make sure to trust yourself too.

My Review of Brüno!

First I am a gay 22 year old male from MA. So lets get that out of the way. Because, undoubtedly it matters to some people.

The movie was ridiculous in the most amazing ways. The antics of Bruno were completely out there and at points crazy (and very naked), but there was an underlying point to the film which, like Borat before it, tried to expose the bigotry of this nation, from formerly gay ministers to straight over-machismo to showing Ron Paul for the bigot he is.

There are a lot of people who are going to be very offended by this movie because they will say that it detriments the GLBTQ movement. That it is too over the top to be taken seriously. I disagree. I sat in a theater with people my own age, straight couples and gay alike, in a not openly gay town. And we laughed. For the right reasons. There were points during it where two to three hundred people fell silent and stared in awe at the virulent bigotry that our nation of freedoms and liberties hides just beneath its surface. In our senators, in our ministers, as I said, but also in our citizens. They sat dead silent.

This movie helps expose those who don't normally realize there are non-hetero people to them and to their challenges. (Towards the end, Bruno tries to marry a man in California after Prop 8 passed and the minister soberly refused and walked from the room. You could hear a pin drop in the theater.) In the end a bunch of GLBTQ people had their laughs and astonishments (I know I did -- stared agape at the Straight Ultimate Fighter scene) but we weren't the only ones staring and we weren't the only ones cheering Bruno on. More than 95% of the theater stayed for the whole movie, some kind of fidgeting, some really fidgeting, but I think they learned something.

We're not something to be afraid of. We have hopes and dreams too. I think the average viewer (at least in my theater- my location prefaced) and I think it both shows us how far we've come that it could be shown at all in a theater (more than just brief glimpses at penis and all) and how much we can still go.


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Personal notes:

1. The only distraction I had during the movie was the guy behind me pestering his boyfriend (or whatever) for a blow job. Incessantly... for a good twenty minutes. And, well let's just say the movie had a happy ending and so did he. ...With the other people they went with, two straight couples, sitting right next to them. An interesting night in all. Also I'd never before wished I was deaf... for a while I almost considered it.

2. There was a couple in their mid 40's to early 50's sitting next to me who left after Bruno began a good 30 seconds of analingus. I laughed to my self because they stayed for the mechanical dildo scene.

3. I felt really bad for the guy that checked tickets at the gate. He was clearly gay and clearly not quite comfortable with the idea yet. Stumbling over his words and not making eye contact with any of the guys in front of me. Or me for that matter. I hope it wasn't intentional that he was there.

4. I never really realized the knowledge outside of the norm that being gay helps you acquire. You could tell exactly who was gay (or extraordinarily knowledgeable about it) and who wasn't in the theater based solely on who laughed at certain jokes. The same went for anyone who was Jewish oddly enough. (Or smart like that I suppose.)

5. It's so amazing that such a movie will get made and even more amazing it would be shown in a theater legally. And, that straight people actually WANT to see it. It gives me a lot of hope for this country.

Anywho... I give the movie... two big dicks waaaaay up! Hehe!

Foxhole

I dreamed that night of a perfect place,
Sitting out beneath the crescent moon,
Shadows flickering across our faces,
Moonlight dazzling in our eyes as
Our hands begin a slow symphony.

With each heart beat the air grows warmer.
Over the horizon our destiny lurks.
And come what may -- but now, this night
We are the banquet, each other the main course
Tucked away are fears of what dawn will bring.
Here and now we are two souls as one.
For now, the rest of the world has fallen silent.

Please Shoot the Messenger

Some write of darkness,
of pain, suffering, and plight
whose agony knows no bounds or end.

Others pen tales of daffodils, birthdays,
and sunshine, freshly baked cookies,
devotion, friendship and love a plenty.

But my story is not so simple
as light or dark, happy or sad.
I cannot be put to float in a single boat.

I am nine hundred thousand extremes,
fighting for their place
at a table that seats only eight.