 March 10, 2006 Hey there, world. Well, I was pretty bruised up by the Academy Awards results. What a travesty. A film almost universally honored and acclaimed by the top critics and their respective associations, which also had a decent groundswell at the box-office: DEFEATED. And by a film which garnered neither extensive critical acclaim nor mass popular interest. Homophobia, folks! And those neo-con (artists) had us thinking Brokeback was part of the gay agenda- a nefarious enterprise foisted from above on poor Middle America by the Hollywood liberal elite. Oh well. I guess us commie pinko fags still have quite a ways to go before we can manage to completely dominate the world. Do I sound bitter? How bout this poster I put on my car window: "Jack and Ennis are not a joke. The Academy Awards are. Homophobia is cowardice. I wish we knew how to quit you, Bigotry." Yup. I'm a little angry about this thing. To be completely honest, though, I'm what pyschologists would call an ego-dystonic homosexual, or at least to an extent. In layman's terms it means I don't accept myself. I don't jump out of bed every morning thinking: "Hey, I'm a gay guy and I accept myself, and this is the way God wants me to be, and I'm going to live my life in full freedom." Would that I were such a stranger to doubt, anguish, and confusion! Nevertheless, I am self-respecting enough to recognize that Brokeback Mountain is a remarkable film and that despite its deeply tragic nature, it tells the story of gay guys in a way which beautifully makes a case for our dignity and basic humanity. This was a movie, however sad, that validated me as a human being. And as silly as that may sound to a "real man" who doesn't pay attention to "psycho-babble" about validation, emotions, and what not, it means something to me. And I've been through a lot. All gay people have been through a lot. I have no desire that we conquer the world, recruit the innocent children of straight people-- hell, I even have doubts about gay marriage, which is certainly heresy to most of my openly gay peers-- but watching the way that Brokeback, the so-called "gay cowboy" movie, was lampooned in the national pop-culture and finally rejected by the Super Bowl of Entertainment Awards: I feel that this was a slap in the face that went too far. We lost against a patently inferior film, one which was not bad in itself, but simply had no right to be honored over Ang Lee's masterpiece. Brokeback wasn't a political juggernaut. It for the most part merely told a story; one which is obviously too real, too tragic, too close to home, and too incriminating for most of us to handle. Not every gay guy cruises for sex with abandon in the Castro district of San Francisco. Not every gay guy has a plush condo in West Hollywood and drives a BMW. Not every lesbian couple has a spruced up two story house in a gentrified neighborhood, two adopted kids, or even worse, kids created through artificial insemination. Gays exist among all ethnic and social groups. Countless gay men are married to women and bravely raise families, often at great inward emotional cost. The inverse is true with lesbians. They live all over the country. Most sexual minorities are not wealthy and talented Truman Capotes. Perhaps the majority are humble Ennis Del Mars; people of little means and few words. The closet is a constricting force like no other, and yet its scope is gigantic. Brokeback Mountain is the story of love destoyed by the closet; love persecuted by a society which sanctions the closet. I did not find this film about the closet (and the deeply vulnerable people who live under its weight) to be a very comedic one. But I do not control society. All I can say is: Mock on, world, mock on. I can not readily forgive your ilk. Pray that God does, "for they know not what they do." March 15, 2006 I'm not angry anymore. In fact, I feel fine and dandy. Chalk it up to an abstinence from liqour and weed, a good psychiatric medication change on top of that, and the fact that a Jesuit faculty member at Loyola Marymount University said I'd have no problem getting admitted into that school. Super duper. Loyola may be a way off, with perhaps a fair measure of community college before I go (if I go). It's not a cheap school. Right now I'm jazzed on my own private studies, intellectual pursuits which are pretty much selected entirely by me. I hope that my feeling better doesn't make me a worse person. Paul says somewhere that he had learned the important secret of knowing fow to abase and how to abound, basically to both prosper and suffer in ways which were spiritually fruitful. God, I thank you for lightening my load and may somehow this selfish being, Brian Gonsalves, do all things (or at least some) to your greater glory. And thank you, God, because I just read that Brokeback fans have raised over 26,000 dollars and may even be able to place an ad congratulating the cast and crew in the NY Times! Pretty darn cool. Peace be with you all. March 20, 2006 Things are going fairly well for me. I hope that doesn't mean that disaster is just around the corner! My latest addition to my drug regimen, Parnate, seems to be having an effect. I've been told I might get to go to a good university. A cutie I like flirted with me recently. I'm almost done reading this anthropology book which was taking an eternity for me to read. Anything else? Anyway, yeah.. I hope I'm not jinxed for having too much good fortune. Oh, I'll be going to visit some old friends at the Catholic College that I dropped out of a few years back. I guess one negative is that I've become an internet whore and am totally addicted to blogging. Ha Ha. Good night, dear universe.
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