Tag: Friendship

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So which is it?

Armed protesters stand guard outside a drag show at Anderson Distillery & Grill in Roanoke, Texas. (Kelly Neidert)

Antifa is looking a LOT more like the Fascists than the “Enemy” they’re supposed to be worried about.

Anti Drag Shows for Kids protestors

Of the two groups which looks more like a paramilitary group?

Are guns only bad when they’re in the hands of conservative leaning people? Is the take away that ANTIFA is protecting decency, which is arguable at best?

Was it ANTIFA that attacked the Federal Building in Portland or not? Weren’t they the folks blinding officers and throwing fire bombs trying to kill folks assigned to protect the Federal Building?

Who was it that beat Andy Ngo damn near to death? Oddly it wasn’t normal law abiding folks. But apparently that’s to be swept under the rug.

This is all about a drag show for children in Texas.

I never thought I’d be writing a sentence that contained the words Drag Show and Children in it.

WTF?

I remember being in a gay bar late one night in Laguna Beach where a child came up to the 6’5” tall, muscular as all hell, ex military demolition specialist, doorman, asking for help.

The doorman scooped this frightened child up off the ground, walked into the bar told the bartender to stop selling booze, the Saturday Night Crowd made a path to the bar. The whole downstairs bar emptied out and this scary giant of a man, tended ever so gently to the child’s scrapes.

In his deep baritone he asked what had happened.

When he and several others nearby who were providing wet clean towels, who’d grabbed the first aid kit, and an unimpaired RN, heard;

“Daddy and Mommy are fighting bad”

The doorman very gently asked, “Can you tell me where they are?”

“We’re on vacation. The hotel is across the street. I came over here because it sounded happy.”

“Are they still fighting?”

“I guess so, they fight a lot.”

“Okay little one, I’ll go check on them.”

He and several other men went to the door. Over his shoulder he called to a bartender, “Get some juice for her, don’t sell any booze while she’s here, and call the police.”

There are a lot of things that made me proud of the community that night. The short list is this.

The men that followed the doorman out all knew how to handle themselves. They were either military, ex military, bikers or fighters of various stripes.
All the men in the bar stopped drinking
They all put their glasses on the upper Bar
They changed the music to something happy but not blaring.
The patrons adopted proper decorum and spoke quietly among themselves.

After 10 minutes, the doorman came back with bloodied knuckles, carrying a small boy who’d obviously been smacked around, followed by a dazed battered woman.

Without question the RN moved on to address the bruises and scrapes on the woman and little boy. The doorman, with easy familiarity grabbed a clean bar towel, filled it with ice from behind the bar and wrapped his right fist.

The little boy was watching the doorman closely, obviously curious about the towel and ice.

The doorman, smiled. He got up and made a smaller towel with a little bit of ice. He handed it to the little boy, “Hold this against your eye. It might hurt at first but the cold will make it feel better.”

The doorman rewrapped his fist and sat quietly watching the RN taking care of his patients. Eventually the RN got to the doorman’s scrapes & cuts.

The doorman tried to wave the RN away.

“Thad, let me do my job!”

The doorman sighed, “Okay, but I’m fine.”

The police arrived. They were obviously a little stunned. Usually, when they came into the bar it was rowdy and they were enforcing a noise complaint. Yet this time, the lights were on full and everyone was quiet and respectful.

The doorman, spoke briefly to them. A few minutes later an ambulance pulled up in front of the hotel.

Statements were taken and the woman and her children left with the police. Before they left, the children ran back to the table where the doorman was sitting and climbed onto him. They hugged him tight and he hugged them back with tears brimming.

“You’re going to be alright children. Take care of your mommy.”

Their mom said, “Thank you so much,” then collected her kids and left.

That is the gay community I remember. Yes, hated by many, but good men and women.

We at the time, were fighting for our equal place in society. We knew that equality would only come when we demonstrated in all other respects, except who we peopled our bed with, we were just like everyone else.

Drag shows are not the place for children. Gay bars are not the place for children. The LGB community knew that instinctively without question. The story above illustrates that simple fact.

What the fuck has happened to this community? Just because we were outliers then doesn’t mean we have to keep being outliers.

I know of no folks in the LGB community who would think for an instant that a Drag show should be attended by children. It’s adult entertainment for adults. You wouldn’t take children to a strip show. You wouldn’t take children to a bar with half naked go go boys dancing on the bar.

Hell, if you’re a responsible person you wouldn’t even show a movie with such depictions to children.

It’s not even about morality or puritanical religious squeamishness.

It’s about protecting a child’s innocence!

We all find our various kinks when we’re of age, when we’re ready for it, and when we’re old enough to handle it.

Let a child be a child, for God’s sake!

Then we have in Texas, a drag show with armed ANTIFA in black out clothing forming a perimeter. What the hell kind of message does that send?

What does a child think of that?

Especially after Uvalde and all the noise about AR-15s being dangerous. ”Only bad people carry AR-15s, run and hide if you see someone with one of those”.

Then 6 weeks later that same parent is saying, “come on in here don’t worry about the rifles.”

You’ve already got a confused child, then you subject them to bad drag.

If that doesn’t cause a fear of clowns and makeup, I’ll be surprised.

Pennywise from IT

It’s long past time for the LGB community to stand up. It’s time for us to put a stop to this because we’re uniquely in a position to do so. The trans activists have hitched their wagon to the LGB community and the community has allowed it.

So now it’s our responsibility. We allowed this mess to be made it’s on us to clean it up!

Are we willing to let everything we fought so hard to gain be corrupted and stripped away by the actions of a fringe group of trans activists?

Are we willing to be shamed back into the closet by 1% of the population who simply choose to hitch their wagon to ours?

Will we allow all that we’ve accomplished to be degraded back to things like; Gays can’t marry, can’t have jobs, can’t have places to live, sodomy laws, and all that we managed to fix so that we can be thought of as equal?

I for one refuse!

I like being LGB and being treated with respect and normalcy. I like being able to get my freak on without worry of someone ratting me out to the cops for immoral behavior.

This trans activist bullshit has got to stop.

There are things that Trans folks need to have addressed. But not everyone is Trans!

How dare Trans activists imply that if someone likes the same sex they’d be happier transitioning to the opposite sex. There are little boys and little girls right now who would probably grow up CIS and LGB and be quite happy about it.

Those children deserve to discover their preferences in their own time, in their own way. How many boys and girls will have that joy of discovery ripped away from them by people deciding for them?

Isn’t that the same thing the Trans activists are saying is so wrong, when they say things like a Doctor assigns sex at birth?

Where have all the heroes gone? I’m sure as hell not a hero but if I’m all there is, then I’ll do my best.

Not Thad. But they’re cut from the same cloth

Thad – where ever you are now. 40 some odd years ago, you taught a green young man being gay or bi didn’t make you less a man, as men we still had responsibilities to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. You taught me that gay or bi didn’t have to be my whole personality, it was just a part of who I was. You gave me a memory of decency and strength. I’m eternally grateful.

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It’s been 10 days or so since Parler was taken down…

I’m sad to see it go, but I was able to go cold turkey from social media.

I know the good folks at Parler are working hard to get the site back up, but I’m questioning if I’ll return to any social media.

I maintain Linkedin only for job stuff and don’t interact on the site too much. I’ve never been comfortable with HR departments searching for social history, and Linkedin just makes it easy for them to judge you based on an arbitrary set of nebulous criteria.

I’ve been enjoying my HAM radio much more than social media anyway. There was a gentleman the other day who described HAM as the original social media and I think he’s right. The focus is much more local (although with radio sometimes you can get astounding distances, depending on conditions in the upper atmosphere.)

I’ve been catching up on local events in my immediate area. Figure about 100 miles or so. There are ways to get much farther reliably due to a network of specialized radio systems placed on mountains throughout the country or countries across the planet.

These systems are not funded by government, they’re generally free to use, and are funded by the good will of HAM operators and HAM clubs. Sure, using them is a little more difficult than clicking “Tweet” on your phone, but it does provide a bit of a barrier to the riff raff.

Since Parler was taken down, I switched on my radio and discovered there’s a mountain lion wandering through the town I live in.

Social media on a global scale wouldn’t have necessarily warned me about that. The lion has been seen in multiple locations and appears to be looking for food. The general warning is to make sure that you keep an eye on dogs, cats, and children, even in a fenced yard.

That’s good to know! Especially since Jesse and I sometimes take early morning walks and we’re generally on trails in the forest.

Were I in most any state but California, it would be appropriate for me to be armed while out on a walk in rough areas. Most of those other states would look at being armed as a prudent precaution. But California is so damn twitchy about guns, they’ve made it so that you can’t defend yourself against apex predators, (Human or Animal).

In my local area, there are bears, bobcats, coyotes, rattlesnakes, and as stated, mountain lions. Any one of which could attack if it perceived you and your dog as a threat. This is particularly so if you were to come around a boulder or through a stand of trees and surprise them.

California would prefer to clean up the bloody mess and airlift your body out, rather than allow you to have a fighting chance. Many Californias would shake their heads and tut, tut, your foolishness in being out of the oh so safe, city.

Many of them would say you got what you deserved for being in the wilderness in the first place. That’s one of the weirdest things about living here. Lots of Californias ask, “why would someone have been out in the forest?” I ask, “Wasn’t the person armed and prepared?”

Californians live under the constant threat of sudden destruction from an Earthquake, or a fire, but they are astounded that anyone would want to live where hurricanes or tornados may occur. I actually prefer hurricanes or tornados because you can see them coming and get the hell out of the way. Earthquakes provide no such warning. Fires, you can avoid if you know where they are.

I guess it’s just preference.

Oddly, social media rarely provides any real time useful data about disasters. It’s almost always after the fact. I’ve always assumed that was because of internet outages.

That is why I took the time to get the HAM license, and with recent events, I’m considering taking my license to the next level. This would open my ability to communicate on a wider range of frequencies legally.

Note I said legally. I could talk on those frequencies now, but I’m a law abiding citizen and believe in obeying rules which have a logical purpose and provide a clear benefit. Radio rules typically fall into that category.

There are a lot of other rules that I disagree with because they don’t seem to have a basis in common sense, logic, or science, and simultaneously don’t provide a clear benefit.

Parler was uncensored. Twitter and Facebook are very censored and not in a consistent way. Parler was/is about protecting the First Amendment. Twitter and Facebook say they are proponents of the First Amendment but demonstrably are not.

Parler was taken away from all of us by people that don’t believe in free speech and had the will and capacity to effectively silence a large percentage of Americans. If some people choosing to use Parler were offended by what they read or saw, they had the option to never go back to the Parler site.

But these people, who choose to be perpetually offended couldn’t abide differing opinions. They demand conformity of thought. I suspect that in time they’ll demand conformity of race too, since everything in their world revolves around racial identity politics.

On the radio there is no race. Only the content of your words. If you’re not good at putting your thoughts into words there’s no-one that will stop you from saying something but you might find yourself talking to dead air. Other people listening may simply find another channel, you know, old school… Don’t like what you’re hearing turn it off…

More people need to learn that.

Our house has been remarkably quiet over the past 3 weeks. We both tired of the news, we got tired of Hollywood celebrities shooting their mouths off in hateful tirades about Trump and frankly it’s made it so that watching their movies aren’t that enjoyable. Even music is only turned on when we want to listen to something particular. It’s tougher to relax or suspend disbelief so you can just enjoy the music or movie.

We’re hoping that in time as we distance from this season of chaos we’ll be able to enjoy these things once again.

In the mean time, from the radio chatter I’m hearing, we’re not alone. It appears that streaming movies and music over the fiber network here has dropped off significantly in our local area. But the Library is seeing a slight uptick in usage.

Something else I’d never have known from just social media. But it was on my HAM Radio this morning.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of local HAMS who get together every morning over their first or second cup of coffee.

They just get on the radio, and chat about local stuff. The weather, someone older who needs a little help with a project, the community center asking for books to lend, issues with snowplayers, and when the next community meeting is. The day after a community meeting, someone will summarize what was covered for those that couldn’t attend. It’s nice and somehow comforting.

Perhaps it’s time for us all to act more locally, and stop paying attention to the collective idiots who have found voice in social media. Maybe we should be more concerned about the people in our local area who are trying to do the right thing, and could use actual hands to do work that makes our community better?

It costs you nothing to comment on troubles in another state. But when you comment about something locally, there’s a certain expectation that you’re willing to put your money, or sweat equity, where your mouth is.

I suppose that too is old school…