Larry Craig

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), what were you thinking? You knew that the Idaho Daily Statesman was investigating rumors about your sexuality. You knew that gay bloggers were trying to "out" you. What were you thinking in that men's room in the Minneapolis airport? And, what were you thinking when you plead guilty to a crime that you now claim you didn't commit?

I'm no proponent of public sex (although you were in a locked bathroom stall). Your explanation sounds contrived and deceitful that you were entrapped and that you had a "misunderstanding" with the undercover cop in the next stall. Your claim, "I'm NOT gay" sounds like a desperate, closeted homosexual. The whole affair smells tawdry and disgusting, although Mitt Romney used the term "disgusting" before I did.

At this point in your political career, I should be gleeful, but I'm not. Even though I disagree with just about everything you stand for, I'm sympathetic to your personal plight. Public humiliation isn't pleasant. I feel sorry for your wife and children, and their public shame that you dragged them through by your incredible lapse of judgment. I feel sorry for you, too, because I imagine that you feel some painful remorse, despite your tough I'm-not-GAY stance.

And I'm angry, angry at you, and angry at the Senate Republican leadership. I'm angry at you because you can't admit that you made a mistake and say that you're sorry for it. I'm angry at the leadership, because it acted like sharks circling in for the kill. The comments of Mitt Romney and Senator McConnell are just as disgusting as your behavior in Minneapolis. The family values of concern, sympathy, and understanding were noticeably absent in their discourse. The Christian values of forgiveness and compassion were forgotten. Romney's comments sounded positively Pharisee-like.

So I leave it like this: I hope you can repair your personal life, finding the honesty and dignity to care for the needs of your family. I think you've been politically shredded, but I hope the people of Idaho see through the hypocrisy of the Republican leadership. Of course, the people of Idaho should hold you to account for your own hypocrisy.

Links

Idaho Daily Statesman Invesitgation

The officer who arrested Senator Craig (he's hot...)

Transcript of man who claims to have had sex with Senator Craig Another men's room tale

Interviews: remember those page boys in 1982?

Short Bus is the Other School Bus

Short Bus really packed a wallop for me. Its frank sex is shocking on the screen, but only because you never see sex like this except if it's pornography. The film has a very clear message about people who are trapped in themselves, and about people who can't talk to the ones they love.

While the context of the movie is sex and sexual pleasure, I think the message is finding the right way to experience and express desire. Love means taking chances, giving up, being hurt, and feeling out of control. Love is a queer universe, naughty and chaste, naive and experienced. It's a scary destination. Short Bus examines the place in detail, and I squirmed a lot.

The movie gets it's name Short Bus for being the other yellow school bus, the one for kids with special abilities and needs. Short Bus is the name of a New York sex club where much of the story takes place. The people who inhabit this world are special, needy, a little off-kilter.

The other thematic context of the film is the animated cityscape that ties the various storylines together. It's childlike and inviting, and the soundtrack for the cityscape draws the viewer into the soul of the film.

I didn't know any of the cast members, but the performances were very strong and engaging. They seemed real, rather than acted. I was especially impressed by Paul Dawson as James, and Sook-Yin Lee as Sofia. Both of their storylines were compelling and mysterious. Finally, Justin Bond as Justin Bond is a fabulous performer.

I cried when I watched this film.

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Devil Worshipers

This week, nearly 300 Yazidis, a Kurdish religious community, were blown up by Islamist insurgents, apparently because the Yazidis are "devil worshipers." Many small religious groups, like the Yazidis, face increasing persecution in Iraq, accused of being anti-Islamist, being government sympathizers or collaborating with foreign troos. Also, some of these communities just happen to be in the wrong place, in a part of the country into which insurgents are being pushed by the US troop surge. The killing and persecution of these religious minorities, though, is more about religious bigotry.

These communities are often insular and isolated. When it comes to religious freedom, an irony of the war in Iraq is that these communities have survived for thousands of years in a very dangerous place, but may not survive the American war, a war America took to Iraq to bring the Iraqi people democracy and freedom.

This Islamist ethnic genocide in Iraq is evil. The American attempt to impose our president's cultural and religious values on Iraq is evil. America has stepped on a hornets nest, and indeed we are being stung. But the pain, misery, and death that has been unleased against Iraq and its religious communities is much greater. It makes me wonder who are the real Devil Worshipers in Iraq.

My Summer Vacation, So Far

Trevor,

I hope things are going well for you. I'm having a summer that's just flying by. I got a buy-out offer at work, so I'll be retiring at the end of the year. Just your typical summer. Jesus and I haven't done much with each other, but I met a podiatrist who's interested in having a religious experience. I'll let you know how that turns out. The guy is a lot of fun, and I help take his mind off his medical practice. I feel like I'm making a valuable contribution to the medical establishment.

In July, Ron, and I went to the IMEN (International Men Enjoying Naturism) gathering. There were a heck of a lot of naked body parts. Quelle surpise! We stayed in cabins that were not air conditioned. The food was pretty basic camp food. On the other hand, it had a large swimming pool, and cocktails at 4:30 every afternoon. The gathering also had square dancing, very basic square dancing. Some of the guys have been coming to this gathering for 13 years to square dance, but the only time they square dance is at the gathering. Well, you get to know 16 basic calls VERY well. I danced because they needed a body to fill out a square. When they had enough dancers, I helped push other dancers around the floor. It was brutal.

The camp also had a "play" cabin, but every time I would go there, nothing was happening. I was beginning to think that I was wearing (probably up my butthole) a secret radio transmitter telling people, "Warning: Happy's heading for the play cabin." Finally, the last night of the gathering (this thing dragged on for a week...) I went to the cabin, and it was full of writhing, moaning, lubricated men. I immediately freaked, and walked out to the porch. I struck up a conversation with a cute little leather guy who turned out to be a germaphobe. He'd suck me if I wore a condom. He'd jerk me off, if he could wear a glove. I politely declined (although I was really tempted), and he and I had an interesting and engaging conversation about obsessive-compulsive disorder, which he abruptly ended by saying, "On your right...." I turned, and another camper kissed me, escorted me to another cabin, and well, we went off and had sex. A couple of times, we were part of a museum exhibit, and at one time another camper even tried to participate, but it did not dampen the white hot spark of the moment. The cat drug me in very late the next morning.

Oh, please don't think that my life is only one continuous sexual episode. I've even had time for culture. The Corcoran Gallery recently had an exhibit on Modernism. I was thinking that all those clean lines and sharp angles remind me of fascist/stalinist architecture. And sure enough one gallery of the exhibit was about fascist/stalinist architecture. Modernism is really about a radical romanticism that knows too much about what's good for you. It's a lot like chocolate: a nibble here and there is wonderful, but I wouldn't want to drive it to work. Of course, Tim and I went square dancing afterwards. I think he's taken it upon himself to provide a cultural context in my life. (I'm grateful.)

On the other hand, sometimes my life is one continuous sexual episode. On Friday, I went over to Tim's house, and basically f**ked his brains out, then we went downtown to the Hirschorn Gallery to hear one of the museum curators talk about the Wolfgang von Tillmans exhibit. If you get a chance to see one of his exibitions, by all means do so. The exhibit is photographs and photo papers, but that's telling you that the seashore is sand. part of the exhibit was a large gallery space of images of soldiers. In one part of the space is a series of three pictures of a soldier, his weapon, and the uniform he's either getting on or taking off. Another very small picture shows a torso of a hot guy wearing only some very neon blue briefs. Finally, the space has a very large picture of two women soldiers and next to them is a very large picture of two men in a very serious lip lock. So, the curator talks at some length about the formalism of the exhibit. She talks about the structure and the juxtapositions of pictures (and we're talking here about dozens of images). Finally, I can't take it anymore (and maybe it was just because I was so f**king horny), I ask her, "Can you talk about the sexual tension apparent here, and the homoeroticism that is so present in Tilmanns' work?"

She sputtered a bit. I don't think it even dawned on her that the whole exhibition is dripping with a sexual subtext, and with an incredible homoerotic undercurrent. I mean, you really want to jerk off in the gallery, because you'd feel like you are creating art. I'm guessing that the curator is a heterosexual woman who doesn't see the sexual context of the exhibit. And the irony of it all is that she was the person from the Hirschorn who curated the exhibit with Tillmans. It's a giant joke that nobody gets. Very weird. So afterwards, we went back to Tim's house, and he basically f**ked my brains out. Culture is important, and I'm going to do everything I have to do to preserve it in its proper context.

Religion is important too. Like Jesus. And whatever you do with Jesus, it's always feet first.

Love,

Happy