Scouts’ Honor

These days, I spend one night a week in the basement of a local church, watching six boys in blue uniform shirts and yellow neckerchiefs. I stand, hand over my heart, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, watching my sons pause their kinetic energy briefly to salute the flag. Somehow, I am a Boy Scout Mom.

When the ultrasound midway through my second pregnancy confirmed my woo-woo hunch that both little people inside me appeared to be boys, I felt like I’d just learned I was going to visit a country where I’d never been before. My firstborn, daughter, had never been a particularly girly-girl, her one princess dress was blue not pink. So we already had the wooden trains, some trucks, and an array of plastic farmyard animals, appropriate for young farmers of any gender. I was used to a highly physical child, an early climber, fearless adventurer with trees and cats, the kind of toddler who, upon meeting a new potential playmate would knock the kid down; if they got up, she’d play with them, if they cried, she’d walk away. I thought I was ready for boys.

I looked forward to raising sons in the same sort of (relatively) gender-bias-free household I’d begun for my daughter. Despite what your Happy Meal tells you, there aren’t ‘boy toys’ and ‘girl toys’, there are just kid toys that you either enjoy or don’t enjoy. I figured that without an everyday household structure that differentiated boy behaviors and girl behaviors, I had a shot. The boys loved the play kitchen we gave them for their second birthday, although I was surprised by how many times I walked into the room to find the little purple telephone being used as a weapon (”pow-pow!”).

As they got older, and their other parent, X, left us and transitioned F to M, I’m sure our family’s discussion of boys and girls was a little different than most preschoolers’ families.

“Is Nigel a boy cat or a girl cat?” “He’s a boy cat.” “How do you know?” “Well, under all his fuzzy, he has a penis, like you do.” “But X doesn’t have a penis and he’s a boy now… you told me he’s a boy because he says he’s a boy. What if Nigel says he’s a girl cat?” Sighhhhh. Five-year-olds don’t like ambiguity. It was an interesting time.

Back when my daughter was born, I had declared No Barbies, and over the years had filled her toybox with various stuffed animals and funky soft dolls. But still the Barbies appeared, from grandparents, uncles, and especially at birthdays from her friends, ensuring her fall from innocence into a world of tiny clothes, shoes, and accessories. In the same way, my sons’ friends introduced them to a world of uniforms and weapons, as well as the idea that some things were Boy Toys, from the World of Men.

When they came home declaring that RED and BLUE were Boy Colors, their sister shot them a glare and pointed out her red shirt and blue jacket. When the dress-up clothes box got separated into one pile of hard hats, firefighter hats, and neckties, and another pile of princess dresses, high heels, and silk kimonos, I made an effort to remind all the kids playing over that it was okay to wear whatever looked like fun. My house was a place where anyone could wear a Darth Vader helmet and a Cinderella dress together. As the parent in charge of soccer trophies one Fall, I selected ones without little boy or girl figurines on them just in case there were girls who didn’t like to be reminded that their soccer skills required a pony-tail. Really, I tried.

But slowly, my kids moved more into the world, and the world crept in in odd ways. Television shows I didn’t mind at all were bookended by commercials that deeply reinforced the World of Girls and the World of Boys.

Through happenstance or temperament, my daughter moved in an existence filled with Pokemon and plastic animals. Her grandmother’s indulgence in American Girl dolls came with storybooks full of adventure and resilience. Even Girl Scouting reinforced a message of empowered self-sufficiency - camping, photography, world-awareness (okay, okay, and sewing and cooking). And the Girl Scouting organization is surprisingly inclusive, its policies written to strive for common character among personal difference. I didn’t even consider that by being a Girl Scout Mom, I’d put myself on a slippery slope to someplace I’d sworn I’d never go.

The Boy Scouts as an institution have planted their flag square on the mountain of homophobia and intolerance. They’ve spent millions of dollars to defend their right to be there, and lost millions of dollars more in support from organizations who won’t endorse their positions. Their requirement that Scouts be “morally straight” has stripped years of accomplishment and recognition from young men who later acknowledge their male lovers. It means no matter how much I love my sons, I cannot be a den leader like some of the other moms. The requirement of a belief in God would now remove my late grandfather from an organization he loved, having spent years as a Scoutmaster, leading his son and many other young men on the path to Eagle Scout. That day when the ultrasound threw us into guyville, we sat for hours and debated the circumcision decision. We were wholly united and adamant: No Boy Scouts.

What I hadn’t counted on was the day one of my sons came running out after school, yelling “Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease can I be a Cub Scout?”

Maybe for him it was an opportunity for that sense of belonging. Maybe it was the promise of events and camping. Maybe it was the spiffy uniform (this). I told him I would consider it. That night I sat and, as the Grinch would say, puzzled until my puzzler was sore. I talked with his classmate’s mom who would be the den leader, a woman who I knew and liked. She understood what the issue was, and tried to reassure me that at the local level the institutional policies had little effect on the great experience of Boy Scouting. In the end, I came to a conclusion that it’s about my son’s life, not mine, and that until I see evidence that he is being taught intolerance, we’d give it a try. At meetings, he looks sharp in his uniform. I always feel vaguely unclean.

Once his brother discovered there were snacks at the meetings, he joined up too, and I’ve watched them rise from Bobcat to Tiger to Wolf. I’ve sewed badges on shirts, and proved to them that moms can build the little wooden Pinewood Derby cars just fine. I accompanied them to Boy Scout daycamp last summer, and we all learned to shoot bb guns together (!). This is about them, not me.

It’s still awkward, though, at area-wide events with families we don’t know, when one of the other parents asks if their dad was a Boy Scout. I launch into the history of Boy Scouting on my side of the family, while inwardly wry that until my sons were four, their dad wasn’t even a boy, let alone a Boy Scout.

Beyond the registration fees, I do not give money to an organization that requires its members to be ‘morally straight’. I question my own cognitive dissonance, and bristle at the implication that I am not good enough. I’m hopeful that in a year or two they’ll move on to some other activity, guitar lessons or some sport, so my two-activity-per-kid policy lets this experience pass out of my world as fluidly as it appeared.

If not, as they get older they’re going to hear from me about the organization and its policies. They’ll have to set their own moral compass. For now, I stand, reciting, hoping someday my children get to live in a world where “liberty and justice for all” is true.

Written by Darby Blue

How do you deal with sending your kids to organizations whose policies you don’t support, such as religious organizations or even, sometimes, Grandma’s house? How do you raise kids to appreciate tolerance when intolerance is taught in so many organizations?

For those of you without children, you likely face the same issues for yourself, such as in the workplace. How do try to live your beliefs when it can be so difficult?

Please join the discussion for this topic on our forums!

The Once and Future Lego Queen - Coretta Scott King

Anyone who has ever tried to play “Montgomery Bus Boycott” at home probably realizes how hard it is to make Martin Luther King out of Legos. First of all, it’s difficult to find black minifigures unless you buy the NBA 3-packs which feels, if you think about it, either deeply insulting to black people or to white basketball players. Secondly, the hair. Put a black minifigure in a suit with accompanying hair and it will look like a second string Eddie Murphy character from “Coming to America”. In fact, Legos are so poorly representative of ethnic diversity right now that the posted versions of Martin Luther King Jr. on Flickr look identical to the posted versions of Will Smith as Agent J in “Men in Black”; right down to the suit. It’s hard to tell, from a distance, if he has a dream or a neutralizer.

As hard as it is to get good Martin out of little plastic blocks, it’s even more complicated to get a good Coretta Scott King. Legos are notoriously bad at replicating women in minifigures as well. For most of her husband’s non-plastic life, you would find her right behind him, supporting him. In reality, Mrs. King had the singular distinction of being witness to every single “Lego Block” that went into building the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s. Each piece of this fight for justice went through her hands at one point or another. If anyone were looking for deeper insights into what King believed and how he followed the arrow of justice, looking through her eyes is our greatest opportunity.

Mrs. King was reluctant to take up the role as leader of the civil rights movement after her husband’s death. In fact, she went to Josephine Baker, asking her to act as leader of this community. When she declined, Coretta Scott King became the soul and heart of American Civil liberties. She fought to ensure that even though Martin Luther King was gone, his dream would be visible, relevant, alive. She made sure that he had a voice even when surrounded by people without her unique insights into his mind. She made it clear to the world that the battle for civil liberties and freedom did not end at the color of people’s skin. Just as Frederick Douglass found that he couldn’t be free as long as anybody remained in chains, fighting for Irish Home Rule and the women’s suffrage, Coretta Scott King explained that the Civil Rights movement was there for the poor, for women, for LGBT people, for everyone.

In 1968, during a Solidarity Day Speech, she called for women to “unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism, poverty and war.” She opposed Apartheid when the word was unknown to most people. In her fight for equality for gay people everywhere she spoke out to say “Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group.”

She indelibly linked the fight for gay rights to the Civil Rights battle in one of her most famous speeches of all, calling out that, “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people…But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.” She was completely unequivocal and absolutely clear. In 2003, she invited the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to be a part of the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington. She crossed bridges to support a group she wasn’t a part of - to honor the dream. She fought for the equality guaranteed to all of us when she fought for equal marriage, calling an amendment preventing marriage equality “a form of gay bashing that would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriage.” She took the hardest road she could and she handled it without falling.

On Martin Luther King Day, this year, I want to honor the woman that he honored when he said “without whose love, sacrifices, and loyalty neither life nor work would bring fulfillment…” There is still a long way to go, but to the woman who got every single building block right, the woman who understood every word he said better than most of us, the woman too beautiful to be constructed out of Legos - to you I want to say thank you.

Jim Marcus is a singer/songwriter, director, photographer, writer, performance artist and social activist. And really, that list doesn’t even touch the surface of all the things he’s done or is doing.

A founding member of the seminal Industrial band Die Warzau, Jim Marcus has worked with artists in all genres, from Bjork to Revenge, Steel Pulse, Pansy Division, Machines of Loving Grace, George Clinton, KMFDM, Gravity Kills, Pigface, Little Louis, and more. Die Warzau’s latest release, Vinyl88. Not the Best of DW, will melt your face and is available wherever you buy or steal your music.

Touched by the brainless, shuffling, rotting reanimated zombie hand of love

Science rocks. Unless you bought 900 acres of Nagasaki farmland in 1943 and were hoping to flip that shit. But let’s assume that this is not the case.

Science rocks. And today on Science and You we’re going to be looking at Dicrocoelium Dendriticum, a tiny microscopic organism that, much like seasoned veteran cult filmmaker George Romero, speaks English poorly, weighs very little, has trouble getting a date, and creates zombies.

Dicrocoelium Dendriticum (Which we will call, for the purpose of brevity, “Dinky”) lays its eggs up inside the ugly bits of a cow. The problem is that it’s a fast and furious world inside a cow and there’s one way out and it’s pretty much the way you would expect. Not long after Dinky eggs emerge from Bessie’s Fire door, a species of snails gobbles them up and hosts the tiny parasite inside it. Please remember this last part when ordering all willy-nilly off the French Menu this weekend.

Like most heterosexual male bulls and a statistically significant number of 15 year old young men from Macomb, Illinois, Dinky wants to get back into a cow. And like most female snails in the wild have discovered, when you need a helping hand, a snail is not the place to look. So Dinky forces the snail to throw it up, along with a healthy dose of ant-attracting yummy phlegm. Ants come along, eat Dinky and that’s where the odd begins to happen.

Ants that eat Dinky find themselves partially zombified. The ant acts perfectly normal during the day but at night, when other ants are sleeping or making the ant with two backs, Dinky ants crawl along slowly, hypnotized, until they find a tall stalk of grass. Then, with their best “please eat me, cow” pose, they hang from the top of the stalk of grass, waiting for nature to take its course. If they aren’t eaten tonight, they just wake back up and do it again tomorrow.

Dinky is interesting because, as I discovered in my “Defiling the dead” class at Miskatonic University, if you inject a human corpse with a RNA bath solution containing Dicrocoelium Dendriticum and a series of other ingredients (one being Diet Dr. Pepper, which tastes much more like regular Dr. Pepper, as a quick aside) you can reanimate the dead. It’s actually a pretty easy operation, but you have to inject the solution directly into the spinal column leading to the brain and, therefore, need a honking big needle.

Here’s the thing. Dead people are like the unending, infinitely sustainable resource of planet earth. There were so many deceased folk to choose from, I had trouble figuring out where to start. So I tried to think like an American and I resurrected someone about whom there is soon to be released an almost assuredly Oscar winning biopic. Upon scanning through IMDB I decided to steal the body of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the State of California, assassinated on November 27th, 1978, almost exactly 30 years ago. In doing this I created a historical first in that the result is the only currently animated homosexual male in America with no idea who Madonna is.

I document here, for posterity, my conversation with the acrid, corrupt, mephitic (thank you thesaurus.com), zombified corpse of famed civil rights icon Harvey Milk.

Me: Harvey. Harv. You ok?

Harvey: Wow. That is, hands down, the worst party I have ever been to. Honestly. And I know Belushi.

Me: Ok, I have some good news and some bad news.

Harvey: Hit me.

Me: Bad news. You were shot to death almost just about 30 years ago today and the guy who shot you claimed it was because he ate too many Twinkies and only served a few years in jail.

Harvey: Well, bad trip. And weird, but not the dumbest thing that’s ever happened. Good News?

Me: That massive brushed gold plated needle hanging out of your nearly severed head matches your bracelet almost perfectly.

Harvey: Sweet. I can work this.

Me: So, I didn’t mean to just dig you up but I figured you’d be someone I could talk to.

Harvey: I’m in, brother, you know it. But I haven’t eaten in 30 years. (Harvey began opening and closing the drawers in the beat up Day’s Inn mid-priced suite I had reanimated him in. )

Me: all right, this might be seen by some as bad news as well, depending on your sense of humor, but the recommended diet for a newly created zombie such as yourself is human brains.

Harvey: Yeah, that’s not going to do it for me. Why don’t we just order up a couple of Kahlua and Creams and let things happen the way they happen.

Me: Excellent. (I dial down to room service, keeping Harvey in sight out of the corner of my eye in the mirror. Hanging out with Zombies gives you this feeling that your brain is absolutely huge and completely accessible)

Harvey: Ooh. And some ladyfingers. I love those. So, fill me in, doc. What’s happening in California these days? How’s Belushi?

Me: Um. Ok, well, for a while we had completely equal marriage in California. Over 18,000 couples were legally and happily married. Many of them started adoption proceedings. It was nice.

Harvey: Groovy.

Me: But then 700,000 signatures were entered into a petition that created a ballot initiative called Proposition 8 that amended the California constitution to prevent Gay people from being treated as equals as far as marriage was concerned. The amendment passed.

Harvey: ok. Ungroovy. But expected.

Me: They spent over 35 million dollars passing that amendment.

Harvey: ok, now who do you mean by “They”?

Me: I don’t know, Harvey. It’s the same they as it always is, isn’t it? I remember how young I was when you were killed. Some of my older friends told me “They got Harvey” and I remember wondering what they meant. It didn’t sink in until later that you were dead.

Harvey: And in a state of the art, silk lined casket, by the way. Comfy. (Harvey eyed the room as though under blacklight. He made a move to fold the sheet over a stain that I hoped was only semen)

Me: Sorry. They say that marriage is a religious thing and that allowing gay people to marry violates their religion. That marriage is a religious institution.

Harvey: Well, that’s untrue. People have been getting married since long before Christianity happened. Characters from the oldest pieces of literature we have were married, and it had nothing to do with religion. Beowulf’s parents were married. American Marriage certificates say marriage but have no mention of God.

Me: And they say that letting gay people marry is redefining marriage.

Harvey: Marriage is being redefined all the time. In this country alone, marriage has gone from possession to personhood to partnership. Consanguineous marriages are the norm all over the world, with polygamy, polyandry, group marriage, secular marriage, all forms of marriage in all sorts of cultures.

Me: They say that homosexual relationships are unnatural.

Harvey: Unnatural? All the animal species we observe engage in heterosexual and homosexual behavior. Some of them are monogamous, but not many. Hell, look at spiders, nasty fucking things. Natural and unnatural is a crappy argument. Eating your partner’s head after sex is natural. (Harvey leaned over to look in the mirror)

Me: Well. Hm. They say that it will cause marriage to collapse.

Harvey: Jesus. Look at my head. (Harvey was staring in the mirror at his pus filled head, large flaps of skin falling down over one eye from decay) Do I put anything on this?

Me: I don’t think it’s going to do much good.

Harvey: Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I have to look like an asshole.

Me: I hear you

Harvey: Besides (back on point) We know what the top ten or so things are that cause marriages to collapse in this country. Time, Money, Children and Childcare, Sex, Jealousy, Work, Household maintenance, Arguing methodology, Extended family, and emotional distance. If we really cared about marriage we’d put the money into newlywed programs that helped create time management skills and fiscal competence, we’d fund childcare facilities, create adult partner sex education and connectivity classes, organize group therapeutic programs to address jealousy and anger issues, offer work-life programs in small communities, teach home economics, household maintenance and mediation skills, help young couples to tell their parents to go fuck themselves and slap everyone until they learned how to cry. How do gay people factor into this unless we get to do the slapping?

Me: Why don’t they understand all this?

Harvey: this is you with the “they” again?

Me: Well, it’s pissing me off.

Harvey: Naw. Don’t fall into that trap. It’s not an us versus they issue. Or even an us versus them issue. This is just fighting bad ideas. Don’t turn it into fighting people.

Me: I think that’s big of you, but what do you say to people who think you shouldn’t be allowed to have the same rights just because you’re gay.

Harvey: I don’t say anything to them, brotherman. I say we fight the bad ideas with good ones. A hundred years ago, being openly gay would get you hung from a tree. Gay people didn’t come this far by fighting with people all day long. Not with insults and name calling. We got here a different way.

Me: Fabulously?

Harvey: Actually, yes. Gay people got everything we have in the most fabulous way possible. By standing next to people and not taking ourselves too seriously. By listening better. By being better friends than anyone ever thought possible. What does it mean now in movies to be someone’s gay best friend? It means the person who doesn’t judge. The person who loves you. The person you call at 3 am because you need to talk to someone and there’s one person who will wake up and talk to you and only half mean it when they yell at you.

Me: Is this going to be in your movie?

Harvey: A movie? About me?

Me: Yeah, with Sean Penn.

Harvey: ooh, the kid on Little House on the Prairie?

Me: Yes (I said declaratively, upon looking through his wikipedia page. Sean Penn was in freaking Little House on the Prairie. How does he not just get constant, never ending shit for that? Why the cover up?)

Harvey: I liked him. Look, gay people got where we are through love. We fought hard for it. We’re not going to give it up now just for the right to hate the people who don’t want us to succeed. We’re going to fight this the way we always have.

Me: fabulously.

Harvey: Ugh. You really need to step it up when you say that word. When you say it, it just lays there. Do you think calamine would help this any? (Harvey now held out part of his arm, below the elbow, which had apparently fallen off during the conversation)

Me: It’s really not a skin condition. More of a… Like a thing that happens when you try to defrost a chicken in the sink and you leave it out for 30 years or so too long. With the water running.

Harvey: This is sucking a little bit now. (as he tried to reattach the appendage)

Me: (perking up after the knock at the door) Oh. Here are those Kahlua and Creams. That’ll make you feel better.

Harvey: Oh yeah. That’ll take the edge off of falling apart in a Day’s Inn Bathroom.

Me: How do you do it? How do you stay so centered?

Harvey: I see the whole road, you know. It goes far back that way (he waved his unattached forearm in the direction of the bathroom) and for ahead this way (As he pointed with the appendage towards the armoire that held the small, old fashioned television.) We have to stay on the road we built. We can’t walk it any other way. (At this, Harvey took a big swig of his Kahlua and Cream, causing a spigot of Creamy Liquid to come spraying from an apparent hole in his gut. He looked at the mess on the floor.) I should probably clean that up, then.

Me: Meh. You can barely tell

Harvey: (He paused for a moment, as if to finish the thought with a flair.) I really probably could use some brains now.

That day spent with Harvey was the first day, in a way, of the rest of my life. In the way that most days that come before at least one other day before you die are. I closed the door behind me, thinking about everything that Harvey had said. The cute young bellhop rushed past me with a plate of ladyfingers.

Bellhop: I forgot. Sorry.

Me: No worries. He’s in there. And hey. ( I thought about the road and what it looked like today. I suddenly felt a little better. I handed the Bellhop all the cash I had in my pocket, about 120 dollars). I bet he could use, you know…A little head…

I winked at him and walked away.

Written by Jim Marcus

Jim Marcus is a singer/songwriter, director, photographer, writer, performance artist and social activist. And really, that list doesn’t even touch the surface of all the things he’s done or is doing.

A founding member of the seminal Industrial band Die Warzau, Jim Marcus has worked with artists in all genres, from Bjork to Revenge, Steel Pulse, Pansy Division, Machines of Loving Grace, George Clinton, KMFDM, Gravity Kills, Pigface, Little Louis, and more. Die Warzau’s latest release, Vinyl88. Not the Best of DW, will melt your face and is available wherever you buy or steal your music.

‘Where’s the anger, the feeling, the fire?’

Depending on who you are and where you come from, the term “lesbian music” likely conjures up one of two images.

The first, a peaceful roomful of queer women with acoustic guitars singing about love, collective empowerment and community.

For others, the idea of lesbian music might bring to mind the image of womyn/wimmin/women with mullet haircuts and plaid jackets singing outdated folk songs on their acoustic guitars, holding each other tight while crying and singing about wombs and waterfalls.

One thing is for certain: lesbian music has - since its initial heyday in the ’70s - gained its place in history as groundbreaking, magical and inspirational to many.

Today, queer women generally don’t have much more than a historically fuzzy perspective on that period, much less a sense of the depth and breadth of its significance. Yet many of the reasons that contemporary musicians are free to be out and proud are because of those lesbian foot soldiers of yesteryear.

Young queer musicians and music industry folks often deem landmark artists, ranging from Cris Williamson and Ferron (who broke ground in the ’70s) to the Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge in the acoustic revival of the ’90s, as “too out” or “too gay” - in spite of their accomplishments.

For many 20-something recording artists, the fight for freedom appears to be over, and as a result, the need to queer-identify in one’s lyrics or to the press seems to them to be a step back - a blinkered approach to their craft that doesn’t begin to describe who they are at their core.

Some see this inconsequentiality of orientation as an indication that equality has been achieved.

However, by not gathering our queer community together through music, and not identifying and singing about it, are we losing the unique and supportive lesbian music community that united and made the scene special?

Moreover, is the lack of queer lyrics and politics in music going to be detrimental to the next generation who can’t find songs and role models willing to talk about what it is like to be queer?

Cris Williamson remembers a time when women’s music and community were virtually synonymous.

Williamson - a pioneer in that scene in the ’70s and still touring actively today - was considered to be at the epicenter with her CD The Changer and the Changed seen as one of the main soundtracks to that period of time.

En route to a gig in New Orleans, Williamson’s voice on the line softens as she remembers that era.

“Music was the centre of the circle, it was the hub around which everything revolved… bookstores, hotlines… at the center of it were these concerts that they called ‘women’s music’ and it was a way to bring people together, a way to create a community where they had none.

“Everybody had been marginalized and horrified, but when we gathered together, it was the closest we could get to church. Nobody had any money but whatever there was we shared. Now, we look back and say, ‘Wow, what a thing that was!’”

Pat Hogan, concert producer and founder of Sounds & Furies Productions, also recalls those days as being filled with power and possibility.

“It was about giving voice to and about women, specifically lesbians. There was nothing like it before. Olivia Records was one of the first - if not the first - record company that was owned, operated and run by women - music that mainstream record companies wouldn’t even touch,” Hogan recollects. “It was amazing and radical. The community then was so strong!

“In a way, I think there is a longing for that. When we listen to younger women talk, it is too bad they don’t have the herstory, because they’ve missed out on what brought them to where they are today,” Hogan laments. “It is because of lesbians who were out there as pioneers that a lot of women have the opportunities that they do, whether or not they know it.”

Vancouver singer/songwriter Kate Reid definitely echoes this sentiment and admits she’s deeply concerned that her fellow queer musicians are being apolitical. She worries about the effect on future generations.

“The thing that I see not happening right now is political stuff in the music women are making. People are saying, ‘We don’t need that, we’ve got our equal rights’ - which is bullshit. I think that there is a false belief that queer women have it made, that it is not necessary anymore, the fight is done,” Reid contends.

“I go to shows as much as I can and I wonder, ‘Where’s the beef? Where’s the substance of lyrics? Where’s the anger, the feeling, the fire?’”

Williamson agrees.

“Women still aren’t safe in the world, so when the young people coming up say they’re tired of it, they are tired of the issues that still are with us, of rape and misogyny and homophobia - those things haven’t changed so much as they’ve been softened, in that the language is less present in the culture,” Williamson suggests.

“There are still women that we don’t know who are being killed because they are gay, and songwriters still need to tell those stories. In the global reach it is really important to talk about it. The feminist revolution is not done as long as some women are dying somewhere - or just being kept from thinking freely.”

Lisa Howell, aka DJ De Lux, is the event coordinator at Lick, a Vancouver nightclub for women. She sees not only political apathy, but the future fallout arising from it.

“From what I see as a DJ at Lick, the younger crowd definitely reacts the most to hip-hop and Top 40; it is really more about the rhythm and the beats, not so much the lyrics,” Howell observes.

“I think that is a sign of the times. This hurts not just queers but everybody. When we don’t have substance to what we are doing, we’re going to start to feel empty,” she argues.

“There’s a lot of younger kids coming up into the scene. Where’s their support going to be? Where will the Indigo Girls of this time going to be when they need that? Where’s the leadership and representation when all the queers just see everybody getting drunk and partying and there’s no substance anymore?”

Across the board, it seems more young queer musicians than ever are distancing themselves from their orientation. In some cases, it’s a conscious decision to play down the queer sexuality in their music.

The reasoning behind it? The word “pigeonholed” almost invariably comes up.

“It was quite a conscious decision from the get-go of me playing music. I didn’t want to be judged as a person based on my sexuality. I wanted to be a musician, not a lesbian musician,” explains Lise Oakley, lead singer of the Vancouver group The Wintermitts.

“I was a big fan of Tegan and Sara but there was a whole gay stigma that stuck to them even when they started their career,” Lise notes. “As a younger lesbian I really looked up to them, but I decided that I really didn’t want to be seen as ‘the lesbian singer/songwriter.’

“We want everyone to listen to our music, but I have always felt that you get pigeonholed if you are considered a lesbian band, queer band or queer-heavy band.”

Sena Hussain, lead singer for Vancouver punk rock group Secret Trial Five, has also noted an increasing trend among contemporary artists to avoid what they see as the bounds of sexuality in the interest of attracting a wider listenership.

“People have been moving away from that [sexuality] label because they want to be taken seriously by all types of audiences. The topics that we cover are not queer; they are in regards to [being] Muslim. I would like to write more for a general audience and then get more specific with it. But I definitely see the potential for it down the road.”

Olympia, Washington-based performer Melanie Free - better known by her band name Tender Forever - feels the gay press shoulders some of the responsibility for focusing more on queer artists’ sexuality than their music.

“I truly hate segregation of all kinds. Who wants to be in a box? I don’t,” Free says emphatically, adding “I’ve always answered all the interviews that I got the chance to be offered. Always. But I found myself more upset with the LGBT press than by the non-gay press.

“Eventually, the interviews always end up to be related to my private life. It’s kind of cheap thinking that I would have to talk about my sexual orientation more than what I do,” Free complains. “It’s like assuming that my first thought in the morning is, ‘I’m gay’ instead of, ‘I can’t wait to work on that new cover song!’

“Being queer is definitely not on my mind and I don’t want it to be ’cause it would give a good purpose to people to make it something different enough to be put apart.”

Yet a number of musicians acknowledge that the lack of present-day queer musical role models could have adverse consequences. Shay Faded, a 24-year-old Vancouver hip-hop emcee says she never wanted to be labeled “Shay the gay rapper.” Still, she admits that it could be more challenging for younger artists if there are few, if any, self-professed queer acts from which to draw inspiration.

“When I was a teenager, lesbian folk music was pretty out there, nothing was being hidden at all,” Faded recalls, adding “I think now it is more about the music than anything.”

She acknowledges that by not self-promoting her queer side, she may be losing a potentially devoted audience.

“There’s a huge gay audience that I have yet to reach out to and I know it is huge! I’ve seen Brigee K emcee at Lick and there’s 250 people running up to her asking her for her music. I would like to do that. As for writing queer songs, though, I don’t see myself doing that.”

Lukas Silveira - lead singer of the major-label band The Cliks - has made his own peace with mixing the personal and political. As a trangendered man whose band has done mainstream gigs (currently touring with rockers The Cult) while simultaneously participating in the True Colors human rights tour, Silveira is disturbed by what he sees as a trend among queers to fully assimilate at the expense of potential future collective empowerment.

“Gays and lesbians - the more conservative side - want to be seen as ‘normal’ people. They want normalcy in living, working, dating, having children. A lot of people don’t want to be associated with queerness which is where the community falls out from under us,” Silveira observes.

“Back in the day you had the Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, Melissa Etheridge, people who brought women together, communities of people who were ready to say, ‘This is something that represents us, this is something that we identify with.’ Now, when you look around and see lesbian artists, they aren’t really coming out and saying, ‘We’re lesbian.’ They just wanna sing, they just wanna play, they just wanna do what they do. Their sexuality is no longer up front.

“In one way, I can totally understand,” Silveira continues. “I’m transgendered, but that is not what I am in the music industry. There, I’m a musician. But I see people trying to remove that ‘I’m a lesbian’ thing because they think that in their minds they can be more successful.

“Personally, I’m very comfortable with what I do. I know that talking about it makes a difference,” he notes. “It is so powerful to come off the stage, go to the merch table and get a 15-year-old genderqueer kid come up to me with his mom and say, ‘I drove for three hours to see you. I’m the only transgendered kid that I know and I’ve come to let you know that because of you, I feel normal.’ Are you kidding me? Talk about healing! That to me is so worth what I do.”

The Wintermitts’ Oakley says she has witnessed the queer community getting smaller as a whole, but believes that it is happening because GLBT musicians are integrating into the community at large.

“I can’t think of a band in Vancouver alone that is fully queer; you’ll have bands where half the band will be queer, half the band’s not. That is community to me, because you are integrating. “For me, being in a band with two straight boys, they are learning a lot about queer community and they are supporting it as well.” Lick manager Jessy Leak sees positives and negatives regarding that trend.

“I feel like the scene is getting smaller and smaller because there is less to fight for,” says Leak. “The queer youth that I see on a regular basis aren’t concerned about a sense of community because it is already there for them. It is just handed to them on a silver plate.

“Our community is branching out and meshing with different worlds,” she explains. I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing. I think it is a bit of both because we don’t have that unity as a community but we are having our individuality.”

Vancouver-based jazz musician Erin Ward, programmer for the Sista’Hood Celebration’s Her Jazz Noise Collective event, is excited that Sista’ Hood - an annual musical gathering that celebrates women - exists. But she wonders why that same sense of collective support doesn’t seem to happen specifically within the GLBT music populace.

“I wish there was more community in the queer scene. It seems like it is not trendy to be political and that is sad.”

As for the future of the queer music community, 61-year-old matriarch Williamson says while she’s concerned about the present day, she has confidence in the lesbian music scenes to come.

“If you studied art history, you wouldn’t be surprised by any of this denial of the previous shape of things. A lot of young artists don’t have a proper sense of history, but because it is a pendulum swing, on its way back it picks up almost all the ones that we lost,” Williamson asserts.

“It skips a generation but the next one gets it. I’m finding that it is the 12 and 13-year-old feminists who are fierce, who say, ‘I wish I lived in the ’70s, that sounded so cool!’

“I’m so glad I’ve lived to hear this instead of hearing, ‘We’re not feminists’ or ‘Who are you old grandmas?’

“Ultimately,” Williamson concludes, “the personal is political. You’ve got to connect it. It has to be in the music, in the language, in the presentation. If we isolate people further by not making community, then I think that is anti-art. If people don’t want to make community, then they won’t. But the young people after them will be the ones sure as shootin’ that will make community. I have faith in the pendulum.”

Written by Denise Sheppard

Denise Sheppard (scribe at shaw dot ca) is a self-employed journalist/editor who likes long walks, candlelit dinners and writing for U.S and Canadian national mags and websites. Her fave topics are human rights-related pieces and entertainment journalism.

Taxonomy of an Apology

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that given a long enough time line, the arrow of human history points towards justice. I would think that was true even if he didn’t say it in that booming, august, alliterative voice he had. He probably could have ordered Chinese food in that voice and it would have sounded epic: “Give me the Potstick-er-er-ers. And the Frie-e-e-ed Ric- ah. And no Em Esssss Geeeeeeeeeee.”

I want to ask people who are reading (people who aren’t? I am asking you nothing, in fact, I’m making fun of your blog indifference even as I type) to try something for me. Today, and only today, the thing I am asking you to do is not sexual in nature and won’t require that you apologize to your parents for embarrassing them in public. Although, would it hurt you to apologize to your parents for embarrassing them in public? Probably not. Imagine that this arrow is an actual giant object. Let’s say it’s made out of wood - a nice polished teak or something. Now, what happens if we get up on top of it? It balances pretty well. It’s pointing that way. Let’s try this. Let’s take 5 steps forward.

I remember a lot of people I knew saying on September 11th, that we, the US should commit ourselves to a non-violent response. That we should take 5 steps this way. That we should shore up our security inside the US, work to build toward a non-external energy-reliant economy and commit ourselves to the ideal that no Muslim-reared child would die because of what happened at the Twin Towers. I was one of those people. We said that we should use the power of the goodwill coming our way to forgive and challenge the rest of the world to do it, too. We could lead by example. If people never learned how to say, “I’m sorry” then we should learn to forgive anyway. We could have made the names of those 3,000 plus people who died that day stand for something real. I still believe this. As strongly as I think anything, I think that we need to be better as a country - we needed to learn how not to act in anger, but to pursue peace with our best tools. At the very least we should have noticed that we were not attacked by a nation, but, in fact, by a small group of people who were likely trying to create the exact result we gave them.

In hindsight it may seem obvious that what happened on September 11th was a large scale case of “suicide by cop”. You’ve all probably seen suicide by cop before. It’s what happens when you get up in a clock tower somewhere and start pumping hollow shells into people until the police bring in the sharpshooter to remove you. You know it’s suicide but you don’t care. It’s what you’re there to do. When a tiny group of people attacks a giant sovereign nation, they have at least some suspicion that the nation will start blowing people up in retaliation. You know it’s going to mean thousands more of your supporters die, but you don’t care. It’s what you’re there to do. And we played along. If Osama Bin Laden had tried to find a way to get the US to destroy any of its remaining credibility in the Muslim world, pitch wildly to the right, remove the civil liberties of its own population and waste billions of dollars he couldn’t have succeeded more. The country has become more religious, more paranoid, more violent, poorer, less concerned with civil liberties and more xenophobic. In essence, we have become more like them. The fact that thousands of their own supporters have died to get there is inconsequential to them. It worked. We did it.

The group of people who believe that internally directed action was the right course of action has grown. The arrow of human history points forward. You are rarely wrong about this sort of thing if you stand on the arrow and take 5 steps forward. When the US attacked Iraq, some people stood up and said it was wrong, unequivocally wrong. The number of people who now admit that seems to be growing every day. Equal rights for women. Breaking down segregation. Defending human liberty. The guarantee that Martin Luther King, Jr. made, beneath the surface, was this: Get up on the arrow and take 5 steps forward - you will be hated today but vindicated tomorrow.

So, eventually, you’ll be right, but not this minute. This minute, people will call you an idealistic idiot. They’ll call you self-congratulatory for noticing that there is an arrow and writing about it. They’ll call you simplistic and stupid and claim that you don’t understand people. They’ll make fun of your hair (Ok, this is me projecting, but kids can be really cruel). But Martin Luther King, Jr. gave us something amazing when he gave us that arrow. He gave us the right - the challenge - to speak into the future. To live in the future. He gave us a tool that lets us take that 5 steps.

I want to tell you what I see if I step up on that arrow and look at Iraq. I hope you’ll take a look and talk about what you see, too.

Ok. Looking.

Let’s face it. Iraq is fucked and so are we. While I’m happy that people are finally starting to notice this, I’m disappointed that they don’t follow the thinking to its conclusion.

It’s time for the United States to apologize for Iraq.

This should not be revolutionary thinking. When you do something wrong, you apologize. Ending this war is a priority and doing it correctly is an even bigger priority. We’ve past the point in history where good intentions are enough. It’s time to end this war in a way that ensures something like it won’t happen again. Really good apologies usually come in three steps:

1. Express your apology for what you did.

You’ve got to say “Hey, I notice this was wrong. My bad.” The “my bad” part is important. You tell Jill that you understand getting drunk and touching all of her cats in an inappropriate way is wrong. Every one of them. Let’s say you didn’t miss one.

2. Commit yourself to fixing your mistake, to whatever degree it is possible.

You’ve got to try to undo whatever damage you can from your mistake. You get the damn cats all the therapy they need.

3. Put machinery in place to make sure you don’t do it again.

This is how people know you really meant it. You make sure it doesn’t happen again. You go to AA. You throw out all your kitty porn. You start dating a human. You do what it takes.

And maybe, just maybe, Jill will believe it. Maybe it will start to make it right. This will make sure that your relationship with Jill isn’t completely destroyed. Cats, however, never forgive. You’re on your own there.

And maybe you saved Jill from a life of cat-entrenched serial despondency, quiet, undercover, solo masturbation and a final will and testament bequeathing everything to “Mr. Mistypaws”, but it wasn’t your choice to make. You fucked up. It doesn’t matter what you meant to do, what you did was wrong.

What we did in Iraq was wrong. We took a sovereign nation surrounded completely by unfriendly borders and forced them to tell us if they had substantial weapons. If they said “no” this left them open to attack by every bordering nation. If they said “yes” this left them open to attack by us. We gave them no credible way to prove anything, failed to exhaust diplomatic options and unprovoked, invaded and destroyed their infrastructure. We killed children, destroyed homes and separated families. We detained people in violation of all known international laws, we tortured people and, regardless of how you view these actions you will likely agree, we engaged in policies that we would decry if any other nation on the planet followed them. We placed them on the brink of genocide and civil war and now have no reasonable plan to do anything about it. To jump in this conversation, I want to suggest how to end it. But I want to suggest a way that is specifically concentrated on justice. How do we get more justice and move the arrow of human history by ending this ridiculous and untenable war. My suggestion:

1. Apologize.

Make it clear that the United States, along with its allies in this war, were wrong to initiate this conflict. Develop a long-term restitution plan that can help fund infrastructure development, personal property replacement and medical care. Explain exactly what we did wrong and commit ourselves to not doing it again. Make it clear that the US does NOT support preemptive warfare and will not any longer engage in it. Completely and unequivocally state that we were wrong. Make it clear exactly at every step. What we did wrong and begin the conversation of how to avoid it. Make all documents regarding this conflict available to the UN. Be more forthcoming than we think we have to be. This is a transparent and clear apology.

2. Place all troops in the area under the authority of the UN.

Shift as many US troops as possible to other UN controlled locations and swap them out for Arab-speaking ones wherever possible. When possible, put Arab speakers in positions of authority on the troop line and create comprehensive oversight through a commitment to the most stringent application of the Geneva conference protocols. Commit ourselves to funding a 10 year plan through the UN that will use the strategies generated in Rwanda and Burundi by Amnesty international to respond to human rights abuses quickly, internally, and stave off the coming civil war. Hire a “Peace Czar” whose job it is to research and determine ways to develop and support the peace in the area. Fund this. Begin humane education and engagement training with all remaining troops, including weekly education in ethics and first response humanitarian aid. Support non-governmental aid organizations in ensuring that people in the area are fed and invite them to provide addition input on oversight.

3. Vote in and attach the following to our constitution as the 28th amendment.

This is in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident as well as to the current war. We have to make it clear that the US will not engage in this sort of warfare in the future:

Section 1. The right of the people to live peaceably is necessary to their ongoing liberty and happiness, and shall not be abridged unjustly or without cause. Given that the United States is a nation that actively seeks out peace and rejects the idea that any nation should wage war frivolously, no war or policing action may be initiated or engaged against any sovereign agency unless the agency attacks first or two independent unaffiliated organizations find that human rights abuses warrant our engagement. No war or policing action shall last longer than is necessary to ensure our safety or mitigate those abuses.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

4. Work with the world community to create a consensus on what happened for inclusion into history books.

For this to be an ongoing lesson, it has to be remembered. We need to stand as an example of what an effective apology really is.

The old adage “Everything happens for a reason” is one of the most evil, stupid ones to make the meme circuit. Little girls aren’t raped for a reason, hurricanes don’t kill children for a reason, Jill’s cats are not sexually abused for a reason (they are cute). The reality is a little more subtle and complex. If we are very smart, work very hard and are exceedingly lucky, we can MAKE a reason out of what happens. It’s time to make a reason for this war. It’s time to put a headstone on the thousands of people murdered. That reason may well be the pursuit of the perfect apology and a new era in world politics: the era of personal national accountability.

Written by Jim Marcus

Jim Marcus is a singer/songwriter, director, photographer, writer, performance artist and social activist. And really, that list doesn’t even touch the surface of all the things he’s done or is doing.

A founding member of the seminal Industrial band Die Warzau, Jim Marcus has worked with artists in all genres, from Bjork to Revenge, Steel Pulse, Pansy Division, Machines of Loving Grace, George Clinton, KMFDM, Gravity Kills, Pigface, Little Louis, and more. Die Warzau’s fifth album, “Supergangbang” is slated for release in October of 2006. Mr. Marcus is also currently at work on his first solo release, entitled “Wonderland”.

Why I Will Not Be the Next President

I am the first one with my hand up explaining why I, Jim Marcus, would make a terrible president of the United States of America. Let’s face it, there’s an army duffel bag full of good solid reasons why you should not vote for me in 2008. First of all, I have difficulty balancing my own checkbook, so I would have to really “hire up” as they say to find an effective money guy. I’ve identified the problem as rampant over tipping, which I can defend thusly:

1. I err on the side of believing everything a waitserver says when serving me food. This is because I have a faulty trust/feed me mechanism, much like those chicks you see on the Discovery Channel who willingly open their little beaks so mom can vomit worm mucus into them. After a week of this, you’d think the little fuckers would be on the phone to Domino’s but, no. Tonight they will open wide again. This translates from bird language into, “I am not dead of starvation yet, so I trust you.” Humans need to set the bar higher.

2. I believe Fight Club, the movie, and suspect that any wrong move on my part will cause the general corruption of my lunch with some sort of human bodily sediment. I tip to fend off Hepatitis B.

3. I have a crush on the waitress.

Further reasons have to do with my inability to remain organized at all times, and my total lack of ability with names. You’ll never hear me call George Bush an idiot for forgetting the name of the prime minister of the Transitional Federal Assembly of Somalia (and it’s totally Ali Mohamed GEDI ) because I can’t remember my mail woman’s name and I’ve had lunch with her. Have I had lunch with Ali Mohamed GEDI? No. And neither has George Bush. The point is:

Names are hard.

Yes, that’s the point. But, there are at least 10 truly sucky reasons why I won’t be your next president (people here who live in America) and each one annoys me a little. They annoy me because I think that each one represents a failure on the part of the people of America to set standards that would allow themselves to be governed sensibly. If we want to call for a better class of leadership, it may be time to call for a better class of followership.

Reason 1. I have not yet declared my intention to run.

It’s still fairly early in 2007. To run a successful bid for the presidency, you have to abandon all hope of performing your day job to any degree of efficacy and start campaigning for people to vote for you 15 months from now. I don’t even know what gender I’ll be 15 months from now. Who needs 15 months to decide how to vote? More importantly, how do these people pull a paycheck for the 15 months they are doing nothing but kissing babies and lying to people strategically? This leads us to Reason number 2.

Reason 2. I did not inherit 100 million dollars.

How do you ride the campaign trail for so long without doing your job? Don’t some of you work in the Senate and stuff? I know none of you are in IT. How about you, president guy? Are we paying for the 1.5 years out of your presidency that you will spend convincing us that you deserve the job again? Have you filed your TPS reports? Is the “My Pet Goat” book report finished yet? You can’t do this unless you were born with a silver spoon running almost all the way to your colon. Or, of course, unless you engage Reason number 3.

Reason 3. I do not have wealthy white Protestant landowning corporate friends who need favors.

My friends come to me with favors like, “Can you get the kink out of my butt” or “I need to talk about my boyfriend” or “Can you help me design my record cover”. It’s rare that any of them come to me and say, “Jim. I need to obliterate an endangered species to build an entry level production machinery plant. Can I get a hand here?” This is bigger than a butt rub and it may be a sign that I’m not truly presidential that I don’t have these kinds of friends. I do like giving butt rubs, though. No money in it.

Reason 4. I am one of those Atheists

In a Newsweek Poll, a whole bunch of Americans willing to actually answer the phone and talk when Newsweek called said they believed in God by a ratio of 92 to 6 with only 2 percent answering “I don’t know.” All well and good. Unfortunately, only 37 percent said they’d be willing to vote for an atheist for president. This is significantly down from 49 percent in a 1999 Gallup poll - which also found that more Americans would vote for a homosexual than an atheist. September 11th did something remarkable. It convinced people that, because a bunch of monotheists flew a plane into a building, it made more sense to vote for one. I know that’s probably a pretty incendiary thing to say. See reason 10.

Reason 5. Additionally, I am one of those Bisexuals

I suspect that we will have an openly gay president, a black president, and a president whose last name rhymes suggestively with an intimate body part before we have a bisexual one. And when president Flagina comes out as bisexual, they will find a reason to impeach him. I think this is because of the confusion around bisexuality. As many people think it’s a lie as think it’s a sin as think it’s a transition to being gay. Of course it has nothing to do with my politics and I ask you, the voters, to ignore it. It’s immediately relevant only when looking for a date. Which I am, by the way. Saturday.

Reason 6. I had a life. Part 1. Sex

I have had sex in public, on video tape, in front of people, with multiple people and in other situations that, while fantastic and a lot of fun, would suggest to the electorate that I am unelectable for some reason. I would have to deny and defend myself and, since some of it’s on tape, it would be an unconvincing and problematic denial process. Having a life is a huge drawback on the campaign trail. Even though there are tons of neat places to have sex on the campaign trail and I would personally consider it a sign of character if a president took the opportunity to get biblical with an S.O. on the Camp David coffee table.

Reason 7. I had a life. Part 2. Writing/Music

I have written a lot of lyrics in my life. Some were awful. Some were actually not bad. About 98% of them would come back and haunt me. Asking people to defend things they said out of context decades ago is the ongoing pastime of journalists who can’t seem to focus on the issues. It’s our fault. We buy the magazines. This is another reason not to focus on silly misstatements made by a president unwittingly while very real civil liberties are being abused by him wittingly. Microsoft Word claims that “wittingly” is a word, even though I have never personally used it before.

Reason 8. I had a life. Part 3. I tried X once

I don’t really do drugs. But I did try ecstasy once. It made me want to have sex with random people. I confess that this wasn’t a new feeling for me. Yes, I was worried about my spinal fluid, but that wasn’t the reason I never did it again. (the spinal fluid thing is a myth.) The real reason is that bottled water is expensive. The idea that unrepentant drug use will preclude you from taking the presidency is interesting. You have to repent. Be sorry. And then fail to inhale.

Reason 9. I am part Jewish

My father was Jewish. I know that this doesn’t make me actually Jewish, but as you get older, you get closer to some traditions and the Jewish tradition is a powerful one. I was sitting Shiva once. This is what you do when you are Jewish and someone in your immediate family dies. Everyone gets together and stays in one house for a week. It’s like a very somber reality TV show in Yiddish. My cousin Irwin came up to me while I was eating, making sure I didn’t put meat and cheese on the same plate. I was a vegetarian and so I was a little confused. I assured him I wouldn’t, but what I wanted to say was, “Dude. I am just exactly Jewish enough to know that. I know who Elie Weisel is, where a yarmulke goes and not to put a piece of cheese on the same plate as a roast beef sandwich. And that’s it. That exhausts my Jewishicity and I go goy past that point, but, up ’til there, I am totally engaged.” I didn’t say that. I think I just nodded knowingly. Le esprit d’ escalier. The point here is that we are likely a few years away from a Jewish - or even partly Jewish - president. The Antisemitism in our country may have gone underground for the most part, but let Lieberman win a presidential primary and we’ll see what happens.

Reason 10. I sometimes swear like Sarah Silverman’s older sailor brother.

And, I have to say, I have no clue what she sees in Jimmy Kimmel. But that is so besides the point. We, as Americans, can’t stand it when presidential candidates get impassioned. We seem to be looking for stoic sociopaths. Howard Dean screams a little and all of a sudden he’s Ted Bundy. Why can’t we jump up and down a little in this process? People’s lives and happiness are at stake. I say it’s time for a few new swear words. And if we can’t invent them while watching this torturous meandering process that our electoral system has turned itself into, then we’re not truly the degenerates I sort of hope we are.

Written by Jim Marcus

Jim Marcus is a singer/songwriter, director, photographer, writer, performance artist and social activist. And really, that list doesn’t even touch the surface of all the things he’s done or is doing.

A founding member of the seminal Industrial band Die Warzau, Jim Marcus has worked with artists in all genres, from Bjork to Revenge, Steel Pulse, Pansy Division, Machines of Loving Grace, George Clinton, KMFDM, Gravity Kills, Pigface, Little Louis, and more. Die Warzau’s fifth album, “Supergangbang” is slated for release in October of 2006. Mr. Marcus is also currently at work on his first solo release, entitled “Wonderland”.

A Season in Hell

Just about everybody had that friend in high school who got busted smoking. Maybe his dad walked in on him and some friends smoking in the basement. Or maybe his mom found a pack in his coat (this was the scariest Brady Bunch episode, ever, by the way - we all knew that the ciggies weren’t Greg’s, though). Maybe he burned down the block with a cigarette, killing hundreds including the entire population of the geriatric home down on the corner, whose inhabitants died scraping their gray, grizzled fingers raw on the bars outside their windows, screaming to be shot in the head by passing policemen so as to avoid the charring, searing agony of having the very flesh melted from their aged, brittle bones. This, as an aside, WOULD have been the scariest Brady bunch episode ever if it hadn’t been for those damn censors.

Actually, I didn’t have one of those friends. But I did have a story from a friend about what happened to his cousin when his dad caught him smoking. Some parents live on the edge a little and I guess my friend’s cousin’s parents lived there, too. His dad made him smoke 2 entire packs of cigarettes at one sitting, while he watched. The idea was “Hey, many smokers smoke 2 packs a day once they’re addicted. Let’s show you what that feels like.” Supposedly, it worked, as my friend said his cousin got so sick he never smoked again. Happy ending, right? Beautiful. Everyone went out for ice cream and all was right with the world. We called this the immersion method.

I think I had my doubts about the methodology, but I couldn’t think of a better alternative. I’d never found a way to talk anyone out of smoking and I’d never seen anyone who had. No one believes they will actually get sick or get hurt in any way. Maybe this immersion works. I lived, later, with a friend named Doug who kept falling asleep in his chair holding a cigarette and lighting various clothing on fire. I soaked his chair in non-flammable plastic at his request. We spent hours out at various clubs talking about how to forestall the inevitable fiery death he faced one day when he fell into a slightly deeper sleep. I was ready to start missing charred little Doug. Sometimes it’s important to get emotionally prepared. We had a little eulogy and funeral at the Metro in Chicago. Great guy. Not much left. Smelled bad on the way out.

So he suggested a radical version of this immersion method. Maybe a group of people should show up at your house and kidnap you, drag you off to a dungeon somewhere where you’ll spend weeks tied to a wall, covered in ashes with ashtray filth and tar-filled water filling the room up to your neck. It would be a very expensive but effective program. A big moneymaker if we could get funding. We called it “A Season in Hell” after a book of poems by Rimbaud. This was not to be the final marketing name, although it did have a catchy logotype.

By the way, this was our second big moneymaking self-help program idea. The first was the Coma Diet Plan. Our ultimate easy weight loss plan. People of heft (politically correct term for the chubby) would sign up for 50,000 dollars a piece and be put into an artificially induced coma for 3 months. During that time orderlies would exercise them by moving their limbs to prevent atrophy and build muscle mass. They would be fed intravenously a minimum number of calories and the weight would just drop off. They would wake up 3 months later, having gone through no extensive trouble, lean, fit and ready to dive right into their new skinny lives. Sweet. And after 3 months away, their families could be expected to be so happy to see them. We even had cards made, for fun. The coma diet plan. My old friend, the photographer Steve Diet Goedde was in a pretty interesting punk band named Coma Diet as well. It’s where the “Diet” in his name came from (There was a time when people in Chicago used to call people by their first names and band names. Eric Spicer was Eric Raygun. I heard myself called Jim Warzau. The first person who ever introduced me to Paul Barker called him “Paul Blackouts” which, disturbingly, made him sound both plural and like a drunk. Chicago.)

So we never did it. The millions of dollars we might have made from our revolutionary self-help plans never materialized. My big idea dreams are smaller now, like entering the Pillsbury bake off (it’s a million dollars if you win, people). But maybe the ideas are sound. Does immersion work? Give people exactly what they want and they realize that it sort of sucks? Can you cure an addiction by letting the person wallow in the results of their addiction?

Whether this works or not has become more relevant to me lately. We have a unique addiction happening in this country. It’s an addiction to magic. This isn’t magic like on Bewitched where we, as a nation, were expected to believe that Nicole Kidman would want anything to do with Will Ferrell. Not like Harry Potter Magic or Buffy the Vampire kind (too bad, really, because I could totally get with a little more Buffy). The kind of magic we’re addicted to is magical thinking.

We’ve seen a growing support for pharmacists refusing to service women because it went against their religion. We’ve seen popes and trains of their followers fight against reasoned, scientifically proven sexual education and contraception because it went against their religion. We’ve seen churches do battle with laws that would protect children from sexual predators because they would potentially force their religion to behave in a reasoned way. We’ve seen attacks on science from all angles because the traditions of various religions are impacted - Muslim speakers advocating beating their wives, Christian speakers fanning the flames of anti-gay violence, Seventh Day Adventist speakers feeding into sectarian genocide, Jewish speakers treating a whole group of genetically near-identical people as de facto inferiors because their religion, again, pits magic against science, revelation against reason, superstition against introspection.

And the addiction to magical thinking seems to be growing. Well over half of Americans now believe that, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, God created modern man as he exists now through the process of creationism. Over 2/3rds of Americans want Creationism to be taught in schools - hundreds of millions of people.

A comparison of peoples’ views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. The widespread popularity of American fundamentalists, aided by politicians who want to curry favor with that influential voting block, has created an environment more averse to science than we find in other countries, even those far less developed than we are. The primary advocates of Creationism are not accredited scientists. They are pundits and laymen, politicians and theologians. Our addiction to magical thinking in this country has created a set of conditions that put non-scientists in charge of the scientific education of the population.

At the same time, a movement has begun to replace the findings of doctors and professional people of compassion with more magical thinking. Recently, in Danbury Connecticut, the school observed a day of silence. This was meant to honor and remember people, gay, straight, black, white, etc. who were victims of violence just because of who they are. Local religious institutions fought for, and won, the right to stage their rebuttal to this idea with a “day of truth” where they advocated for homosexuality to be considered sinful, unnatural and wrong. By positioning their event as a rebuttal, they made it clear how they felt about the Initial event, whose sole focus was to remind people that violence in the service of intolerance is wrong. Valerie Pinnex, the pastor who instigated the Day of Truth refuted the intent of the Day of Silence by asserting, in opposition to the findings of medical professionals, psychiatrists, etc. that homosexuality was a clinical condition and unnatural. An ex-police officer and security guard, Valerie has exactly zero years of medical experience or training. And yet, hers was the medical advice heard by the population of the school. A message of distrust, division and alienation, specifically intended to counter a message of nonviolence. And paid for by tax money.

We have in front of us a strange addiction. But I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a cure. It’s brutal and painful, like the rabies cure, a long string of painful shots. It’s expensive, like the most elaborate cold remedies that involve ground up animals, endangered and rare. And it’s ugly. Sort of like a proctology exam.

Let’s just let them win.

I suppose we need to let the hatemongers into schools to counter the conversations on tolerance. For every Martin Luther King Day or Harvey Milk Discussion, let in the The Ku Klux Klan and a Valerie Pinnex. For every scientifically verified and exhaustively researched finding on the origins of human life, let in the magicians, preachers, pundits, and grade school graduates with dissenting opinions. For every responsibly compiled history text, let in a work of collaborative fiction detailing what might have happened, how we didn’t walk on the moon, the Holocaust didn’t happen, etc.

And when a generation of American politicians have been raised to hate and fear what’s different, the religious right can bask in its triumph. When a generation of American doctors have been raised to elevate wishful thinking above science, the American Religious Right can visit those doctors with joy, prescriptions in hand for antibiotics, taken without respect to the evolution of the various diseases countered. And when a generation of American historians have been raised to think that whatever revisions they want to introduce into history are as valid as what is documented, the Religious right can enjoy the results of their work. As we descend into sickness, intolerance and ignorance, we can light candles along the way, mutter newly learned magic words and forget what tools we sent thousands of years developing, all to make political communication a little more vital - a little more understandable.

What would a country like that look like, just one generation from now? I couldn’t say with any degree of certainty. But maybe it’s time to stop fighting and let the addiction win. Many of the pro-theocratic members of the religious right in this country have never lived under a theocracy - never lived in a place where religion and magic determined the entirety of public policy. If they don’t have the vision to understand what the most vocal and outspoken theological voices in our community would do with even more power than they enjoy right now, maybe we should supplement that vision with empirical experience. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll only sacrifice one generation before the nation wakes up and rises to the countrywide challenge to pass through dark ages swiftly and without regret. Maybe only one group of men and women will have to be sacrificed to absurdity before we wake up as a nation and resume our movement towards the future.

It’s probably time to give the fundamentalist what they’ve been wanting. A true American season of hate and ignorance. A return to superstition and the intellectual jungle. A Season in Hell. Let’s see how they like it.

Written by Jim Marcus

im Marcus is a singer/songwriter, director, photographer, writer, performance artist and social activist. And really, that list doesn’t even touch the surface of all the things he’s done or is doing.

A founding member of the seminal Industrial band Die Warzau, Jim Marcus has worked with artists in all genres, from Bjork to Revenge, Steel Pulse, Pansy Division, Machines of Loving Grace, George Clinton, KMFDM, Gravity Kills, Pigface, Little Louis, and more. Die Warzau’s fifth album, “Supergangbang” is slated for release in October of 2006. Mr. Marcus is also currently at work on his first solo release, entitled “Wonderland”.