-
·
Different from the Others
I know how lucky I am to have been born when I was. I know that where I live – Southern California in general and Palm Springs specifically – gives me advantages others lack or can only dream of. Even now, with Trump and Company leading an all-out war against diversity, looking to rollback decades…
-
·
The Warrior Ethos?
I… um… the… it’s… but… there are no words. I’ll try though. I thought it was hilarious – ignorant, stupid, childish, petty, but hilarious – last March when Newsweek reported that pictures of “Enola Gay,” the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan during WWII, were flagged for removal from the…
-
·
1,112 and Counting
It is June 1st. That may not mean anything to you other than “oh yeah… summer’s here.” But to 13.9 million (13,942,200) adults in the US (number reported by the UCLA School of Law – Williams Institute, December 2023) who identify as LGBTQ+ it marks the beginning of a very significant month: the month we…
-
·
The Jared McCain Paradox
I’m the last person to talk about sports in general and basketball in particular. When I was 14 and a freshman in high school, my father “suggested” I try out for the basketball team. So I did. About 20 of us gathered after school on the outside court; my alma mater is built on the…
-
·
The City and the Pillar
Gore Vidal was 21 (photo at left) when he published his first novel, Williwaw, in 1946. He was an out gay man at a time when to be openly gay was fraught with genuine peril – both professionally and personally – though he believed that all humans are naturally bisexual, and this natural inclination is…
-
·
The Myth of Patient 0
On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) entitled “Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles,” describing five cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. Two of the men had died. Click…
-
·
Boys Town
It rained all day. Rain in Los Angeles makes the city feel clean. The smog disappears; the dust is washed off windowsills and handrails. There’s a distinctive smell in the air after a Los Angeles rain: it’s called petrichor, from the Greek words petra (meaning stone), and ichor (from Greek mythology, referring to the fluid that flows like blood in…
Your mileage may vary.