I was thinking about your brother last night. Thanks for sharing this story because I totally get that dilemna--how our experience and conditioning shape our prejudices, which can be at terrible odds to our humanitarian sentiments and liberal ideals. I'm sorry, too, for your loss. He sounds like a great guy.
 
Wilda 
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Ganzer [mailto:ganzermark@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 09:25 PM
To: pms_213@sheshere.net
Subject: performance went quite well -- however
no video, no audio ... HOWEVER

I intend to keep playing it there, and keep advertising that I'm playing it there, and I'm gonna start EARLIER ... just to see if all these church folk who are so encouraging (and who live in fucking Cary anyway) are sincere ... or just trying to placate me to make sure I follow up on my committment to sing with the choir on Christmas Eve

OH ... BTW

Since I didn't cry during the sermon on Sunday ... you saved my life
I read your article -- I kneel down before you

Ahkbar, Ahkbar, Allahu Ahkbar, In'shallah

My younger brother John died of a heart attack, complication of AIDS on 3 Dec, 1988.  Jay Poindexter was his last partner, and Jay moved in with John several months before John came down with the killer pneumonia.

Jay's father is a naval officer, and Jay was appointed to the Naval Academy -- but, what can you say, when you're a dancer, you're a dancer, and when your intimacy attractions are for those of your own gender ... well, Annapolis just won't hold thrall for too long.

Jay is also an African-American. So, you might say, my brother was a pretty liberal kind of guy .... NOT SO ... you see, he just could not STAND Puerto Ricans .... BECAUSE ... he got robbed at knife point by a Puerto Rican ... so, that thing both John and I have in common with our severely (but not obviously) flawed father ... is that we can leap from the specific to the general in an instant.

Which makes the making of sense in the world .. well, just a wee bit diffcile.

I like to think, and am pretty sure I have the track record to prove it, that I'm a human being ... and except for finding lovely woman beautiful to look at, and charming women delightful to talk with (and most women are at once beautiful and charming ... and then .. well, then there are other moments)

But, when it comes to race, creed, gender, and most especially socio-economic status ... I've lived in the penthouse, and I've slept in the outhouse (litterally ... I'll tell you about that some time ... when I had the conversation with the devil ... and, well, of course, the devil was me .. is me, I am my own devil)

I've learnt to keep an open mind and listen (except I talk too much) and observe ... the actions, and how consistent the actions are with the words. This may be the greatest gift God gave me.  But it still goes back to the early 60's, those TV images of Martin Luther King and all the beautiful black children dressed in their SUnday finest, walking across the bridge, being pummelled by bricks, by fire hoses, set upon by the dogs ... and the images of those churches burning, with the beautiful little black baby girls dying .... that even now causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble ....

or maybe it was Magnolia Washington, dancing with her, the Virginia Reel in first grade .. she was so tall, and a large girl, but proportionate .. her skin was mullatto color, but her hands .. oh, they were so soft, and she smelled so sweet, and the amzing thing ... the palms of her hands were the same color as the palms of my hands ... I loved dancing the Virginia Reel with her

Anyway ... your PUBLISHED ARTICLE FOR WHICH YOU GOT PAID $$$$$ ... well, it just made me cry. And since I missed my Sunday cry, it's better late than never.

Thanks and God Bless.

Mark



pms_213@sheshere.net wrote:
How did your performance go?
 
I have an essay published today on www.commonties.com/blog titled The Beloved Face of the Enemy. They actually pay a little for essays.
 
Wilda
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Ganzer [mailto:ganzermark@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 06:17 AM
To: pms_213@sheshere.net
Subject: p.s. thank you for your encouraging words
Hi Wilda,

I've emailed over 200 people regarding the performance. My largest mailing list is about 135 of my duplicate bridge students, to whom I send a FREE (cuz I'm a fucking idiot) weekly e-mail (but it's been twice weekly for a while now).

Just recently, one of my students offered to pay me $100 for a one year subscription.  I thought about it, and said, "nope, that's too much ... but, $50 would be okay).

ONE student. (I used to get paid $15 / week from three different bridge clubs to send out the lesson, and to publicize their events.  They all dropped my ass hotter than a pancake after I got "too political" with my e-mailings.

Fucking bastards. And then the other club where I had just started presenting bridge lessons,  AND had collected $53 for a 20 minute presentation (only about one h our of prep time) ... well, I got fired from that too ... for asking the club owner to make the lesson plan photocopies.

It was too much for her to do, what with her obsessive-compulsive son, the ex-minister, who had to stop ministering because he obsessed about it, in a compulsive way, (but I also think he was banging some of his parishoners -- pure speculation on my part) whose wife up and took their three young chitlins and moved out on his sorry ass ... 

oh, yes, these were pretty much my sole source of income, outside of a bi-monthly, which usually ended up being monthly bridge lesson from some ladies from Barrington, IL  (zip code 60010)

Sigh. I was reduced to returning to the golf courses, to carry the golf bags of the rich and powerful ... which is nice ... you always want to keep an eye on THEM.

OH - lest you think I got WAY too much time on my hands, as I said, I e-mailed the Gilgamesh performance announcement to over 200 people.

THREE have responded.  That would be you, whom I probably know better than my own son (the 22-year shit-head .. who hasn't spoken to me in 4 months or so because ... well .. he's punishing me),

my youngest sister Marianne, the lesbian, who lives in Amherst with her wife Stacey, six blocks South of Louisa Mae Alcott's home there on main street. Marianne and Stacey are artisans ... violin, cello, and stringed instrument repair folks, and they also have a daughter ... from Stacey's previous relationship, whose birth mother knew that, when she and Stacey split, Liza belonged with Stacey.

So ... Liza (Styles) is kind of a interenet legend, from a statement she made about age 7 ... hold on, I'll see if I can still google it ...

"A family is a bunch of people, or not so many, who love each other," explains seven-year-old Liza Styles, who has two moms
In celebration of family pride during the Millennium March on Washington, the Metropolitan Community Church of DC is hosting a display of the critically acclaimed exhibit "Love Makes A Family," April 23-May 7.

http://www.planetout.com/mmow/about/press/april/20000417_2.html

Although now, of course, Liza has THREE moms!!

And the third and last person to acknowledge my adventure, Jay Poindexter, my brother John's last lover, who stayed with my brother from the time he came down with the pnemonia, in Washington D.C., while John was performing in Godspell at Ford's Theatre, until John died, December 3, 1988 ... aged 33 and one day short of 10 months.

OK ... so, where does the most popular bridge player in the Northwest Chicago suburbs have to go to get support for his non-bridge endeavors?

Well, the female-christian-dominionist exposing and gay-and-lesbian communities.

Which (well, you see, I also have a mailing list for "MUSIC LOVERS" made up of church folk, pastors, choir directors, brothers-in-law ... blah blah blah) maybe isn't surprising, because bridge players are pretty much focused on bridge

but, what of the churcies? (and mine have always been liberal churches ... U.C.C. here in town is VERY liberal .... you would enjoy the Bush bashing that takes place during Bible Study on Wedensday afternoon from noon until about 1:30.... Roflmfao

But, I digress.

I'll see Marie Bolchazy at the performance tonight. She's one of the publishers of the Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, INC enterprise.

Hmmmmm ... there is actually quite an interesting tie-in between the dominionists .. and one of the books Lou and Marie publish -- The Complete Words of Adolph Hitler ... 

I'd have to go throough 10's of 1,000's of pages of down loaded stuff from the internet ... or maybe not ... yep .. Wayne Madsen reports .. Veride et al .. these CONSERVATIVE, christian dominionists ... the man they admire just about as much as the sun of god jesus christ herself ... that would be,

ADOLPH FUCKING HITLER !!

Okay ... Wilda .. give this some thought ... can you tie the strands that weave through the dominionist movement, nationalism, nazism, zionism (irony of  ironies with that one) racism, and empire building? 

Oh my ... I bet you could.

Give the matter a little thought, and maybe get in touch with Marie Bolchazy .. Lou is in Slovakia now ... although publishing the Hitler (four volume) works was his idea ... and he had a special review by the JDL ... Lou's purpose in publishing those works was to bring adolph's words to the light of day, so that when these hate-mongering god-invoking frustrated artiste's sieze power the next time ... well, we would be able to recognize it ... hmm ... 

Warm regards,

Mark



pms_213@sheshere.net wrote:
That's wonderful and thanks for sending this. I wish I was there and could attend. Any chance of someone filming it and putting it online?

Wilda