Category Archives: Principles

Nothing to Say

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F. Murray Abraham in his Oscar-winning role as Antonio Salieri in “Mozart”
F. Murray Abraham in his Oscar-winning role as Antonio Salieri in “Mozart”

I have nothing to say. On paper. Probably in person. Mute all my life except brief bursts of productivity. Newspaper/school PR work 1088=1994. Northpoint Communications internal PR 1998-2000. That’s work. But what can I write personally? There’s a story about eternal life I’ve worked on for years. Another book about plane crashes— midairs this time. That’s it.

I don’t need immortality. No problem with dying. Just want to express … something.

I am Salieri (in Mozart). Many loved Mozart, wanted to be him. No one wanted to be Salieri, especially not the one in the movie. I would love to be even that good. Be at least the patron saint of mediocrity. I loved that line. Of all I remember of Amadeus, that’s the line.

I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. It’s my epitaph, along with “Yet Another Patron Saint of Mediocrity.”

No problem doing a variety of things through life. I am not just one thing. But it would have been nice to be good, even great, at one thing during a lifetime.

“The potential for greatness lives within each of us,” said American track star and Olympic medalist Wilma Rudolph

Well, it might live there within us, but it rarely goes from potential to actual greatness. Especially in folks like me. Or in 99.99% of us.

I’m the “Incredibly Average Vernon Persons” from M*A*S*H, the hometown mediocrity who was always in the newspaper from Hawkeye’s Crabapple Cove. Hawkeye hated that guy. Except I don’t get even Vernon Parson’s recognition (Not that I need it-I just want to do anything that would would be worthy of anyone’s notice. I’m not even average and recognized. Just average.

In a majority of deaf, dumb, blind, scentless, touchless  people often incapable of feeling even adequate in life.

So yes, without hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell. That’s me.

I don’t want to “just feel something.” I feel too much already, but I don’t feel with greatness. I don’t feel anything of greatness.

“Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude,” said writer and entrepreneur Ralph Marston, who is probably incredibly average, but gets quoted in books.

Excellence is attitude? No, it means actually excelling at something. Actually doing it.

I’m not competitive. I don’t have to be the “best” at something. Best whatever is often fabricated, artificial.

I hate competition, actually. And “excellence” is subjective as hell. Just as one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so too is it that one man’s “Excellent Best” is another man’s “You suck.”

Which puts me on another old man tangent: To us gays, “You suck” is a compliment not an insult. Yes, I suck, but I also SUCK. It’s fabulous. But to straight boys, it’s the feminine role, it’s submissive. And real straight boys don’t do that, they believe.

I seriously don’t understand straight guys. They’re kinda filthy all the time. Now I’ve met a couple of gay slobs over the years. But they can’t hold a candle to a straight guy. When they live alone, they have no taste for creating a comfortable environment whee=re they live. Their laundry probably hasn’t been done in weeks. Dressing means a sniff test. Which rarely passes, but they wear it anyway.

But the biggest question I have is, “Why do straight guys think we gays just want to get in their pants?” What is their obsession with butts and their terror that something is going into their butts? I don’t get it. First, they’re missing out on some really awesome fun. But why, with so many gay men around, would I want to violate a straight guy? Good god, boys, get a grip.

The very large majority of us want nothing to do with straight guys. We’ve been bullied by them all our lives. They grow up and try to get us arrested, eliminated through legislation and terroristic assaults. Some of them are admittedly pretty. But you, the gay guy, will always get stung if you touch. Stay away.

More quotes: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity,” said Albert Einstein, who is described in the notebook as a “German-American physicist and Nobel Prize winner.

Yes, the opportunity to fail or succeed. The opportunity to just roll with whatever result comes from the difficult moment.

Another quote: “Always do right.  This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest,” said Mark Twain, described simply and without excellence, as an “American writer.” I can get behind this one. Do the right thing is more important to me that doing what others perceive as the “excellent” or “best” thing.

It is good to do right. That’s all the best excellence I need.

I guess that’s the end of tonight’s stream of consciousness. As usual, drying up. And as usual, I suck. 

#EmptyThePews

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I posted this elsewhere and on the bird site first, but it also belongs here on 70West.

Why my pew has been empty since 1982: A long thread for anyone who may be interested, et al. Perhaps someone may relate or need to hear. Inspired by @C_Stroop and #EmptyThePews on Twitter.

It starts in 1975. I’m 12. A budding little gay boy. At the C. of the Naz., we get a spiffy little sermon, which runs like this: “Speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession!!!” Amens, claps, whistles, “Kill the Devil!”

Fast forward a week later. Someone in charge of our family’s spiritual development decides to follow info bestowed by the Holy Spirit Fairy, an entity which seems to act rather … impetuously. Or at least that was my experience with Him.

The Spirit has moved someone that we must immediately abandon the C. of the Naz., where, remember, I’ve just been told on the authority of the church into which I was born and raised that speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession.

[An aside: 12-year-old me had memorized the 1960 Church Manual so I could know how to perform weddings and funerals because … get this … I thought I would become a C. of the Naz. preacher.]

Given a choice about which church to attend would have been lovely. Alas, it was not to be. I was the young, stupid child who couldn’t possibly be trusted to know what was good for him, spiritually speaking. At best, a “baby Christian.” (These buzzwords sound familiar?)

Actually, after just one hour of being exposed to the new church’s … shall we say, bizarreness and cultish overtones … I’m confident I would have scurried back underneath the skirts of the mother church (of the Naz.) if I had a driver’s license and a car. But I didn’t.

So I wasn’t given a choice. Remember the previous sermon, supposedly delivered by a stern God to CotN Leaders possessed of “Utter Sanctification” and who are therefore qualified to speak on subjects Most Weighty: “Speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession!”

Again, I was 12 years old. Puberty was dawning. Teenage outrage, hatred of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, inflated sense of injustice, and general all-around questioning and boundary-pushing are imminent. I needed constancy. But the Spirit had spoken and must be obeyed.

The next Sunday, we don’t drive over to be with the sanctified who hate devilish tongue-speaking. Instead, we head straight for the new church, an Assembly of God knockoff/alleged “non-denominational.” “We’re going here from now on,” says Parental Dearest.

What happened the first Sunday at the new church to which we had been led by the Holy Spirit? Well, I’ll set the scene one more time: The previous week, the church of my birth told me speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession.

This week? FRICKIN’ HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD! JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH! POPE PAUL VI AND ALL THE SAINTS! AND DEAR GOD WHY ARE ALL THESE WOMEN IN EXPENSIVE ULTRASUEDE DRESSES RUNNING UP AND DOWN THE AISLES SCREAMING THEIR FOOL HEADS OFF???!!!!!

Then: The kicker. If I am to understand the main belief point through hours of gibberish, a complete lack of any catechism, no orderly service of any kind, no regular communion, and a multitude of other things, a central belief is this:

“If you do NOT speak in tongues, God is withholding His greatest blessing from you and therefore there is something wrong with you if you don’t immediately babble in tongues in ‘the presence of the Lord.'”

In other words, NOT speaking in tongues was evidence of God withholding his greatest gift from you & you were opening yourself up to … you guessed it, demonic possession. As soon as I hit 16, my pew began to be empty. By 18, only bribery could get me in it. So…bye!

It would take a long thread to describe coming out (yeah, the Spirit got involved there, too), getting away & being an adult in charge of myself & the joys of life since I got myself to #EmptyThePews. Thanks for the inspiration, @C_Stroop and thanks to everyone who read!