LIFE: ¡THIS IS WHAT I WANT!

SPIRITUALITY

MEANINGFUL LIFE

HAPPINESS

PEACE OF MIND

PRODUCTIVITY

SELF ACCEPTANCE

MEANINGFUL WORK

LIFE: ¿WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?

THE GAY MAN'S PLEDGE

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO MY OWN SELF-RESPECT AND TO THE RESPECT OF
ALL OTHER GAY MEN ON PLANET EARTH; ALL OF WHOM ARE VICTIMS OF THE ‘SYSTEM’ OF
HATRED AND I PLEDGE TO USE ALL MY LIFE ENERGY, INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVITY, IN
ALL AREAS OF PEOPLE ACTIVITY, TO ELIMINATE THE GLOBAL ‘SYSTEM’ OF HOMOPHOBIA ON
PLANET EARTH AND TO REPLACE IT WITH JUSTICE; SO THAT THERE CAN BE PEACE. SO
HELP ME {INSERT DIVA OF CHOICE NAME OF THOSE WHO SUFFERED BY SACRIFICING
THEIR LIVES TO HATRED}.

PLEASE STOP BARE-BACKING CASUALLY

THIS ENTRY IS AN
E-MAIL THAT WAS SENT TO ME & I WANTED TO GET YOUR THOUGHTS...PLEASE NOTE THAT
NOT ONE WORD WAS EDITED TO SWAY ANY FORM OF OPINION BELOW IS MESSAGE THAT
SPARKED THIS E-MAIL.

Am I the only one to find it extremely
amazing what with all the fucking, kinky fucking at that, not to mention all
the drugging they do, that the rates for Whites miraculously seem to stay
the same, while the rates for us Blacks steadily skyrocket, according
to various reports.  Plus, when you consider the number of Whites who like
to have their Mandingo fantasies fulfilled in the arms of us "highly
diseased and infected" Blacks.....you'd think their infection rates would
rise just a little bit, but no, its just us Black folk. Could it be that more
Blacks go to clinics that file and report their findings, and more Whites go to
private doctors who may be golf buddies with their fathers, etc., and those
results are NOT being accurately documented and reported???  I just
refused to believe, that with as much as Whites do, the infection rates are
that vastly different. My thoughts, anyway....

Actually, studies show that blacks,
along w/ hispanics/Latinos are the fastest growing segments, largely due to
poverty, less education, more cultural homophobia that has led many in both
groups to prefer the term 'men having sex w/ men' & not gay, as the culture
educates, encultures & encourages/demands that men on both groups must be
'real men', that 'gay' is a white 'social problem', that blacks/latinos first
responsibility is to maintain a public image & not embrass/degrade the
'race' by 'misbehaving'. This has led to a great deal of 'down-low'--I'm sure
u're VERY familiar w/ the term, which much like youths' ideas that only VAGINAL
intercourse is 'really sex' & thus take 'vows of chastity until marriage'
or 'abstinence pledges' while believing that oral & MORE problematic, ANAL
sex 'does not count', thus using no protection or worrying about the
repercussions. A black/Latino man on the 'DL' who wants to go have
'man-on-man' sex, feels he CAN'T show up 2 the sex clubs, chance encounters,
bath houses, etc w/ condoms in hand as that would imply/indicate that they KNEW
from the outset that they were going out w/ a specific intent to have sex w/ a
man. This same 'dishonest', 'denial', 'it just happened' mentality leads them
to engage in risky behaviours, NOT ask partners for status--which by itself is
UNRELIABLE!!! when an individual is feeling horny & wanting to get laid
& things the 'wrong' answer will ruin his chances, he may & too often
DOES lie, figuring anybody willing to take a total stranger's word in a
questionable place as honest is probably not playing w/ too much going on
upstairs or whose own lies don't warrant truth from others...--& thus are @
much HIGHER risk, given the partner choices, locales 4 the 'hook-ups',
circumstances, lack of real self-awareness or internal reality & thus @ far
greater risk of infection. Sadly, these same men will all too often return home
& have sex w/ their wives/gfs/etc, perhaps even 2 re-confirm their
'heterosexual natures' b & exposing their partners but certainly NOT owning
any of their risks, dishonest r irresponsible behaviours, etc.

As 4 whites having more elite medical
services...while it IS true that far TOO MANY spoiled whites DO have elite
care, when an individual tests positive, the law REQUIRES that it be reported,
regardless of race, social status, etc. Arthur Ashe, Magic Johnson, as well as
other white celebrities have come out rather than let the media beat them to
the disclosure as such information is going to be 'leaked' no matter who u are,
who u know or how much money u may have to 'buy' another's silence.

@ least here in the States, overall,
whites have had far more infections (& the #'s u are looking @ are 'per
capita' not absolutes) altho economics WILL affect individual health, diet,
self-care, etc, ALL factors that DO play into physical vulnerability as well as
capacity to ward off infections, when the devastation began, it was
overwhelming the white gay population hit hardest & decimated. In fact,
that early decimation may have--MAY have!!--spared others by quickly
obliterating potential partners w/ the disease spreading it. I can only say
that regardless of color--I am white, have been poz for over 25 years, still
managing, w/ meds, & lts of complications to maintain some sort of decent
health (w/ some seriously scary periods) & my eldest brother passed years
ago, & was also positive, from what he shared according to early CDC
studies he was a part of, infected probably even earlier than I was, most of my
early friends, roommates, co-workers, dates, bfs, crushes, tricks, etc have
been dead for OVER 2 decades!!! (while mostly white, many of in ALL those
categories were from many, most or ALL races!! I've never been terribly
concerned by race or rather may ave some strong preferences for men of color,
altho the opportunities due to numbers, separate 'communities' etc, limited the
possibilities). But no matter what color u are, having HIV/AIDS is NOT fun,
easy, better, 'priviledged' or ANYTHING 'better' than being neg!!!

Now it IS true that many treatments
were 1st--& sometimes exclusively...--in the beginning & then presented
to the population w/ no regard 2 different results or side-effects that would
later be associated w/ gender or race! A sad but true fact of medical &
pharmaceutical bias that is only somewhat easing over time. So AFTER u have
tested poz, treatment options, care, social support, etc have often been
lacking for other minority groups. & also, too often, these same
minorities--sometimes due to ignorance of even risk factors (having a partner
who is DL!!), ignorance, lack or information/opportunity/social investment are
more likely to come into the healthcare system in an Emergency room after the
disease is already well-advanced & much more difficult if even somewhat
treatable.

ALL these factors are tragic &
reprehensible. Much CAN be blamed on our power structure & social
programming biases, but @ least some of the responsibility falls on cultural
systems that leave the people being raised in & living amongst uninformed,
often self-loathing & misinformed or so afraid of social stigma that they
continue to live secret lives & fuel the fires of continuing to spread this
awful disease.

FISHER OF STORIES

Last Christmas I visited Hong Kong. This was my first trip to Asia and the cliché "sea of humanity" was never far from my mind (at times it was so much in my consciousness, it crowded out other clichés like, "never kiss a prostitute on the mouth.") Anyway, there are a lot of people there. And one day, while walking through a crowded marketplace, I found myself thinking that every one of these people has a story. Each individual in this endless, teeming throng has experienced joy, heartache, success, failure, fury, and despair. They've all struggled with love, money, work, family, friends, illness and death. Just like the actual sea contains an endless array of living organisms, this "sea of humanity" contains an infinite number of unique, poignant, hilarious and tragic stories. Which is when I realized that my purpose in life, my true calling, is to be a fisher of stories. And all I need for bait is simple curiosity. Armed with this insight, I walked up to an old, prune-faced woman at a seafood stand and asked her if she enjoyed her work. She looked at me with a toothy grin and said, "American?" I said, "Yes." She said, "How you be so stupid to elect George Bush twice?" I shrugged and said I did what I could. She laughed and said, "You try my octopus balls, very tasty, good for real balls." And so I did. Before long we were sharing tales of our childhood, her marriage, my marriages, our children and our jobs. Afterwards I realized that I'd learned a powerful lesson. In order to successfully fish for stories, you need more than curiosity, you need octopus balls.
CLP - Vanity Card #278

U R OLD

You know you're getting old when... You throw your back out on the toilet. You shave your ears. Your second wife calls your first wife “ma’am.” You're genuinely excited when your prescriptions arrive in the mail. You read the obits in the newspaper to check the ages of the dead people. You read a newspaper. You're bummed out that the smokin’ hot chick from Body Heat now looks like William Shatner in drag. You say “bummed out.” Women your age have real breasts and artificial hips. Masturbation leaves you winded. You try to amuse the kid hooking up your Blu-ray player by telling him about Betamax. You pee in morse code -- dots and dashes -- and have to look down to see when you’re done. Your car radio is set to “classic rock” so you have something to switch to during NPR pledge drives. Your doctor says things like, “that’s normal for a man your age” and “consider yourself lucky.” Beneath your chin is what appears to be a neck skin hammock. Beneath your penis is what appears to be two ping pong balls hanging from a flesh-colored bolo tie. You choose your new car because it offers great lumbar support and convenient cup holders. Watching “The Who” perform at the Superbowl made you inconsolably sad. You wonder if the orgasm you're about to have will actually end your life. Your doctor tells you a new medication will reduce the amount of semen in your body and your only response is, “so what.” Your car radio is set to “classic rock” so you have something to... oh, wait, I already did that one.
CLP - Vanity Card #280

JUST BE A MAN ABOUT IT {BOY}

The barbershop,
the smells of masculine tonics saturating a space filled with leather
chairs, displaying the latest edition of KING MAGAZINE; a place
where little boys become men, a place of STURDY moral character. A few weeks ago, I had the
pleasure of being inside the walls of a local barbershop along with a toddler
that was waiting for his first haircut. I sat and watched as the little boy was
taken to the chair. As soon as he was placed in the chair, the tears came. @
This point I was marveled that the barber was looking @ his crying in that he
must be a sissy or something manner. Rightly so, since the male species no
matter his age, is not supposed to whimper during his time in the barber chair.
As I sat there, watching everyone involved try to get the little boy to stop
crying, I couldn’t help but wonder, why
is a little boy being taught such a hard lesson about life @ such a tender age?

How is a little boy supposed
to sit passively and have no feelings about something he knows NOTHING about? Amazing how something simple
like this forces boys to become men that are violent, LOVE hating their enemies and treat women like objects. How can we accept this ‘take it like a man
mentality’ and think it is a must for a little boy if he ought to grow into a
man? This made me wonder if the barber and his mother learned as
children that being a man means you can’t be an innocent little boy. How could they inflict this event on a
child, ignore his cries and not question the way we go about this activity? When
do we as people examine our choices as investments of energy with predictable
risks and returns? When we act in an inhumane manner, I believe we
merely affirm what already is. This is like using a paddle when the stream is
already moving in the same direction. The dishonesty we create about ‘manhood’ in
the barbershops redirects a portion of a boy’s energy against the flow and
create an alternate reality that requires SO much macho energetic input to be maintained.

I get that life
is not always clearly defined, so we may find it useful to follow our choices
to their logical conclusions. And though we may feel that a little trip to the
barbershop is harmless, it can be that small crack that weakens an overall
structure of a boy as he turns into a man. I hope that one day, when a
mother/father brings their son to the barber; they would not try SO hard for that CERTIFICATION OF MANHOOD. I know
this subject matter is so simple and common place to many of us, but can you imagine what this means for a
two-year old whose impending manhood is dictated to him in this manner? 

MONDAY MUSCIAL MOTIVATION: BORN THIS WAY

Born This Way" is a song by
American recording artist Lady Gaga, from her second studio album, Born This Way.
Written and produced by Gaga,Fernando Garibay, Jeppe Laursen and
DJ White Shadow, "Born This Way" was developed while Gaga was on the
road with The Monster Ball Tour. Inspired by the 1990s
empowering music for women and the gay community,
Gaga explained that "Born This Way" was her freedom song. Previously,
she had sung part of the chorus at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards in 2010.
The song was announced as the lead single from
the album, and was released on February 11, 2011—two days prior to its
scheduled date—along side the release of the full set of lyrics and the single
artwork.

I DEDICATE THIS ENTRY TO JAMEY
RODEMEYER

IT GET'S BETTER: ¿WHEN?

Four months ago, Jamey Rodemeyer of
Williamsville, NY, made an “It Gets
Better” video, usually something done by self-actualized LGBT adults
who are happy with how they’ve turned out. But Rodemeyer was just 14 and in his
video he admits his schoolmates often called him a “faggot” and that anonymous
users had been posting vicious comments on his Formspring account—hateful
messages including “JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!,” and “I
wouldn’t care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make
everyone WAY more happier!”

At one point Rodemeyer looks into the
camera and says, “I just wanna tell you that it does get better because”—then
he looks away and continues—”when I came out for being bi, I got so much
support from my friends and it made me feel so secure.”

Near the end of his video, he
repeats, “It gets better” for the third time before adding, 

“Look at me. I went
to the Monster’s Ball and now I’m liberated. So, it gets better.” 

The young
Gaga fan then makes a heart shape with his hands and the recording ends.

He uploaded the video on May 4. This past Sunday, he hung
himself in front of his parent’s house.

In the month leading up to his
suicide, Rodemeyer became a prolific
Tumblr poster, regularly uploading images of Lady Gaga alongside the
occasional image of muscle-bound jocks. But there were signs he was suffering:
On September 8, he posted, “No one in my school cares about preventing suicide,
while you’re the ones calling me ‘faggot’ and tearing me down” and he put up a
separate post letting everyone know it was National Suicide Prevention Week.

The next day, he blogged,
“I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens. What do I have to do so
people will listen to me?” He followed it up with lyrics to the song “The Loss” by
Hollywood Undead:

I just
wanna say good bye, disappear with no one knowing
I don’t wanna live this lie, smiling to the world unknowing
I dont want you to try, you’ve done enough to keep me going
I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine for the very last time

On Saturday night, he posted a lyric
from Lady Gaga’s “The Queen” on his
Facebook page:

“Don’t forget me when I come crying
to heaven’s door.”

Then he hung himself. He had just
started as a freshman in Williamsville North High School.

DEAR ANDERSON COOPER: ¿WHO'S KEEPING YOU HONEST?

Through the windows
of the set, I can see flocks of birds flying over the backdrop of Central Park,
and their freedom seems a tragic juxtaposition against yours. You suddenly seem
to me a man who’s trapped – caged in that metal-and-glass backed set
overlooking Columbus Circle, frantically running up into the audience for one
last question that was actually just a gift: a ragged-looking woman in gold
pleather gives you a rosary and a plastic vial of holy water – the significance
of which no one seems quite able, or willing, to grasp. I don’t know what you
made of the present – was it her effort to save you from a certain unnamed
lifestyle? A simple, genuine gift of faith? A public push to accept Jesus
Christ as your one and only savior? You received it graciously before literally
running off the set with a wave, on to save the world in more important arenas
perhaps.

When I return home
that night, I turn on your AC360 show on CNN, where you are more formal in
jacket and tie. You open by reporting on another suicide due to bullying – a
14-year-old child has killed himself after being bullied for his sexuality. It
is not the first time you have drawn worthy attention to the issue, even if
means being ridiculously perceived as pushing a “gay agenda” – and that’s
admirable of you – but it’s not enough.

You talk of the
loneliness and desperation and how heartbreaking it is. You showed the video
that the boy – Jamey Rodemeyer – made for the ‘It Gets Better’ project – and I
wait for some flicker of whether this is personal to you. There are some things
that only another gay person who has been through that fear can understand and
access. Is that you? Are you one of us?

How sad that this
dead child – this 14-year-old boy who was brave enough to be himself at such
young age, to put his life in danger and ultimately take it himself – has done
more for gay youth than you have done. Make no mistake, you have done a lot in
your own way – just not that one final admittance of truth, that one simple act
that might make all the difference.

Dear Anderson Cooper
– You don’t know me, and while I knew of you, I had never seen any of your work
prior to your viral giggling fit, which, I’ll admit, won me over. (For that
silly reason alone, I got tickets to see your talk show.) I’m more aware of you
from your cat-and-mouse game of dodging the gay question – which is entirely
your right to do, but after seeing your show in person yesterday, I think it
might behoove you to come out – if only for your own happiness.

I read somewhere
that I wasn’t supposed to give anything away about the show before it aired,
but since the topic was of no interest to me, I’m not going to reveal anything
about that or who might have been on it (I didn’t know them anyway). Having
never attended any other talk shows, I don’t really know how they work, but I
got the distinct impression that you didn’t really want to be there. Much of
the time you were short, quick, and almost testy with the crew. You seemed to
be going through the motions, and there was an unhappiness and complete lack of
joy in what you were doing, which begs the question: Why?

I get the feeling
that you’re trying to be both things at once – the serious, hard news reporter,
as well as the likable, friendly, my-life-is-an-open-Oprah-book-of-the-month
talk show host – and you can’t really do that successfully – at least, you’re
not doing it yet, and I wonder at the reason for it. Any sort of reticence to
get personal or revelatory will be seen as disingenuous. The fact that you just
showed an episode of yourself crying and discussing your brother’s suicide with
your Mom shows that you can get personal and still maintain a
professional stance, so your reluctance to address your sexuality is a sticking
point with me, played out almost comically as Britney Spears blasts over the
studio speakers and the seats fill with middle-aged women and young gay men.
There’s no nobility in cowering behind the reporter’s visage, not when you have
a talk show on which you’re revealing the personal side of your life.

You continue to
publicly crusade against bullying, yet your very act of playing it coy and
private with your own sexuality doesn’t seem to be saying that it’s okay for
young people to be gay or for their mothers (who adore you) to embrace them.
I’ve seen those mothers gush over you on FaceBook and Twitter and now in your
own studio, and I know the power you have.

Maybe you’re afraid
to offend and lose viewers. Maybe you honestly feel it is none of anyone’s
business and it shouldn’t make a difference. And maybe you’re right on all points
– but if there’s the slightest chance that it might help someone, why wouldn’t
you do it?

When I was a kid
growing up in the 80’s, my only gay idols were Liberace and Rock Hudson. While
the former enticed with his glittery extravagance and the latter had lots of
luminous lady co-stars, in the end they were two sad, scared souls who had to
hide from the world and die more or less alone. That’s all I had to look up to.
In a People magazine story on Liberace, I searched for a sign
of recognition, desperate to discover whether that would one day be me. Was the
only way through a life like theirs an early death of secrecy and disease? It
would be another decade before I could even face the fact that I was gay.

Far more resonant
than “Stop the bullying” or “It Gets Better” would have been the intrinsic
message of solidarity and acknowledgement in a hero’s proclamation of “I am
like you”. That would have done more to drive away the loneliness I felt than
any sort of pat on the back or other protection would have engendered. By
leaving us without that, you fail in all your other efforts.

If I’d only seen
someone like you – someone successful, someone I admired – living openly as a
gay man – how much heartache and loneliness would that have prevented? How many
other kids might be saved, if not from death then possibly from pain? Why wouldn’t you
come out to help just one person, or save just one life? Knowing the hurt and
anguish that a single extinguished soul can leave, why wouldn’t you take that
chance?

SOURCE: Alan Bennett
Ilagan

THE DAHL HAUS PRESENTS: FALL INTO HIM

BLACK OR WHITE

"Black or
White" is a single by American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson.
The song was released by Epic Records on
November 11, 1991 as the firstsingle from Jackson's eighth studio album, Dangerous. It was
written, composed and produced by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell.

"Black or
White" was written, composed and produced by Michael Jackson and Bill
Bottrell,^[2] and
was picked as the first single from the album Dangerous. An
alternate version was first heard by Sony executives on a trip to Neverland, as
the third track of the Promo (Flight Only) CD
Acetate. It began to be promoted on radio stations the first week of November
1991 in New York and Los Angeles.^[2][3] "Black
or White" was officially released one week later, on November 5, 1991.^[3] The
song has elements of dance, rap and hard rock music
such as Bill Bottrell's guitars and Jackson's vocal style.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} The song's main riff is often falsely attributed to Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash.
His guitar work is featured in the opening skit for the song's track on the
album.^[10]

"Black or
White" entered Billboard's Hot
100 at number thirty five.^[11] A
week later it shot up to number three and on its third week, December 7, 1991,
it ascended to number one, making it the fastest chart topper since the Beatles'
"Get Back"
also won the Hot 100 in just three weeks in 1969.^[11][12] It
achieved the year at number one, and remained at the top of the singles chart
into 1992, for a total of seven weeks, making Michael Jackson the first artist
to get number one popular hits in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.^[12] In
the UK, the single became the first single by an American to go into the singles
chart at number one since 1960, when "It's Now Or Never" by Elvis Presley did
in the same manner.^[11] Around
the world, "Black or White" hit number one in the US, UK, Canada,
Mexico, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and
the Euro Chart Hot 100, number two in Germany and
number three in Holland.^[11][12] The
single was certified platinum in
the US, selling over one million copies.^[12]

Reviews of the song
varied. Rolling Stone's Allan Light in
his Dangerous review,
compares the song unfavourably to "Beat It":
"Neither this slow-burn solo nor the Stones-derived riff on 'Black or
White' offers the catharsis of Eddie Van Halen's blazing break on 'Beat
It'".^[10]

The music video for
"Black or White" was first broadcast on MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox (giving them their highest Nielsen ratings ever)^[14] on
November 14, 1991.^[15] Along
with Jackson, it featured Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper,
and George Wendt. It helped usher in morphing as
a new technology in music videos. The sequence begins with extra, Let Mon Lee,
and features supermodel Tyra Banks and actress Cree Summer.^[16] The
video was directed by John Landis, who previously directed Thriller. It premiered simultaneously
in 27 countries, with an audience of 500 million viewers, the most to ever
watch a music video.^[17]

The first few
minutes of the video featured an extended version of the song's intro, during
which a 10 year old kid (Macaulay Culkin) is dancing to rock music in
his bedroom at night. This attracts the attention of his father (George Wendt),
who furiously orders him to stop playing the music and go to bed. Culkin
complies by setting up large speaker cabinets behind his father's reclining
chair, donning leather gloves and sunglasses, and playing a power chord,
setting on an electric guitar.^[14] The
sound then shatters and destroys the house windows and sends his father (seated
in the chair) halfway around the world, where the actual song begins.^[14] The
kid's mother (Tess Harper), comments that his father will be very unhappy
when he gets back. The album version of the song does not feature Culkin's nor
Wendt's voice; they are replaced by voice actors performing a similar intro.
Wendt crashes in Africa, and Jackson sings "Black or White",
surrounded by various cultures scene-by-scene.^[15]

The video shows
scenes in which African hunters begin dancing using moves from West
African dance, Jackson follows their moves and then they mirror his; as do, in
sequence, traditional Thai dancers, Plains Native Americans, a
woman from India and a group of Russians.^[14] Jackson
walks through visual collages of fire (defiantly declaring "I ain't scared
of no sheets; I ain't scared of nobody"), referring to KKK torch
ceremonies before a mock rap scene shared with Culkin and other children.^[15] The
group collectively states, "I'm not gonna spend my life being a
color." The final verse is performed by Jackson on a large sculpted torch,
which the camera pans out to reveal as the Statue of
Liberty. Jackson is seen singing on Lady Liberty's torch surrounded
by other famous world edifices including The Giza Sphinx, Hagia Sophia, The Parthenon, Taj Mahal, St. Basil's Cathedral, Pyramids of Giza, Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben and
the Eiffel Tower. At the end of the song, different
people dance as they morph into one another (shown as "talking
heads"). This technique, previously executed without digital assistance in
the Godley & Creme video for "Cry", known as morphing, had been
previously used only in films such as Willow and Terminator 2. The morphing visual
effects were created by Pacific Data Images. Jackson's niece, Brandi Jackson,
daughter of Jackie Jacksonmakes a cameo appearance in the
video.^[11] Wade Robson also
makes an appearance in this music video as well as Another Bad Creation's, Mark and Dave.

The music video of
the song appear on the video albums: Dangerous - The Short Films (long
version), Video Greatest Hits - HIStory (long
version), Number Ones (short version), and Michael Jackson's Vision (long
version).

Controversy was
generated concerning the last four minutes of the original music video. Jackson
walks out of the studio as a black panther and
then morphs into himself.^[15] Then
he walks outside to perform some of his most physically complicated dance
techniques, in a similar way to "Billie Jean".
This part contained sexually suggestive scenes when Jackson starts to grab his
crotch,^[14] and
then zips his pants up. In the original version, Jackson is seen smashing
windows,^[14] destroying
a car and causing an inn (called the "Royal Arms") to explode.
Jackson later apologized saying that the violent and suggestive behavior was an
interpretation of the animal instinct of a black panther, and MTV and other
music video networks removed the last four minutes from subsequent broadcasts.^[15] To
make the vandalism and violence more understandable to viewers, racial messages
were digitally added using CGI graffiti to the windows that
Jackson smashes. They are, "Hitler Lives" on
the passenger window with a swastika on the driver's window, "Nigger Go
Home" (the 3 G's form the 666) on the car's back window, "No
More Wetbacks" on the windshield,
and "KKK Rules" on the store door.
The version included in the boxset "Michael Jackson's Vision" is the
original uncut, uncensored version without the digital
graffiti, and does not include the "prejudice is ignorance" title
card.

To date, the uncut
version has generally been seen in the United States on MTV2 only between the
hours of 01:00 and 04:00, as part of their special uncensored airing of the
"Most Controversial Music Videos" of all time. The extended version
is also available on Jackson's DVDs. The original version (without graffiti) is
available on the VHS and Laserdisc releases of Video Greatest Hits – HIStory with
the DVD release containing the "racist graffiti version", and online
at MTVMusic.com. On Sunday, November 29, 2009, the FUSE cable
channel aired the original version of "Black or White" (without
graffiti) on its two-hourRemember His Time tribute wherein most of
Jackson's music videos were played.

It was still shown
in its entirety for some years in Europe.
Indeed, UK channel MTV Classic aired
the full video at 14:00 in the afternoon on April 11, 2010, including the brief
cameo by Bart and Homer Simpson before
the "prejudice is ignorance" image. The version available in
the iTunes Music Store contains neither the
panther scene nor the Simpsons cameo, and is cut after the
morphing sequence.

Starting in 1992,
Nocturne Video Productions began playing the "Panther Segment" of the
video as an interlude during Michael's Dangerous World tour. The clip is 20
seconds shorter than the original with all the violence and the sexually
suggestive scenes removed.^[15] However,
the part where he re-zipped his pants was kept in. On March 28, 2009, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's
music video program Rage aired
the uncensored, non-graffiti original version in its entirety in a 720p digital
broadcast. In January 2011, FUSE on Demand has the full video (without
graffiti) for Comcast On Demand until February 28, 2011. Even though the short,
censored version continues to air periodically to this day, some television
channels still air the complete version but with the racist graffiti in it.

"MOMMY, THEY ARE JUST LIKE ME"

My oldest son is six years old and in love for the first
time.  He is in love with Blaine from Glee. 

For those who don’t know Blaine is a boy…a gay boy, the
boyfriend of one of the main characters, Kurt.

This isn’t a ‘he thinks Blaine is really cool’ kind of
love.  It is a mooning at a picture of Blaine’s face for a half hour
followed by a wistful “He’s so pretty” kind of love.

He loves the episode where two boys kiss.  My son will
call people in from other parts of the house to make sure they don’t miss his
‘favorite part.’  He’s been known to rewind it and watch it over
again…and force other to, as well, if he doesn’t think people have been paying
enough attention.

This infatuation doesn’t
bother me or his father.  We live in a very hip-liberal neighborhood,
many of our friends are gay, and idea of having a gay son isn’t something that
bothers either of us.  Our son is going to be who he is, and it is
our job to love him.  End of story.


He is also
six.  Six year olds get
obsessed with all kinds of things.  This
might not mean anything at all.  We
always joke that he’s either gay, or we have the best blackmail material in the
history of mankind when he’s a 16 year old straight boy. (Take that naked
bath time pictures!)

Then the other
day we were traveling across the state listening to the Warblers album (of
course), and in the middle of Candles, my son pipes up from the back seat.

“Mommy, Kurt and
Blaine are boyfriends.”

“Yes, they are,”
I affirm.

“They don’t like
kissing girls.  They just kiss
boys.”

“That’s true.”

“Mommy, they are
just like me.”

“That’s great,
baby.  You know I love you no
matter what?”

“I know…” I
could hear him rolling his eyes at me.

When we got home
I recapped this conversation to his Dad, and we stood simply looking into each
other’s eyes for a moment.  Then
we smiled.

“So if at 16 he
wants to make a big announcement at the dinner table, we can say ‘You told us
when you were six.  Pass the
carrots’ and he’ll be disappointed we stole his big dramatic moment,” my
husband says with a laugh and hugs me.

Only time will
tell if my son is gay, but if he is I am glad he’s mine.  I am glad he has been born into our
family.  A family full of people
who will love and accept him. People who will never want him to
change.  With parents who will
look forward to dancing at his wedding.

And I have to
admit, Blaine would be a really cute son-in-law.


SOURCE: GETSTOOOBSESSED