"When you say you love me..."

I came across this image today; depicting the first same-sex couple to be legally married in New York City: Phyllis Siegel, 76 & Connie Kopelov, 84. It evokes a million feelings, but what stands out to me the most is the simplicity. There's no white dress, no huge party, no expensive cake...just two people that are enjoying the right to finally be together and have their love officially recognized by society. And in the end, that love is all that matters. One step closer to equality. ♥ 

Never alone.

"Why weren't we given a normal childhood, like all the other kids?", they might ask. And at that moment, I pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt, that they will say to themselves: 'Our daddy did the best he could given the unique circumstances that he faced. He may not have been perfect, but he was a warm and decent man, who tried to give us all the love in the world." ~ Michael Jackson

Prince, Paris, Blanket...he will always be with you.

Will you be there?

The friendship between Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor spanned decades. Starting out carefully on the phone, because Michael was more comfortable that way, it turned into something so strong and so special that it would last their whole life through.

Our childhood shapes all of us, but when it is stolen from us, it shapes us even more. For the two of them, childhood didn't equal birthdays, basketball and friends. For the two of them, childhood equaled hard work, expectation, and the greed of adults that would only love you when you delivered the way they expected you to. This is something none of us on the outside could every fully understand. It is something that you can only truly understand the damaging effects of if you have lived it, and it is also through sharing your pain with someone that truly understands it that a true connection is established .

Elizabeth Taylor spoke of Michael often, and once said that she "doesn't think people understand how much they truly love eachother." Intensely, completely, and with the purity and innocence of the many children they both invited into Michael's Neverland, they shared each other's lives, and their connection is something I don't think could ever be explained in words, as much as they would praise eachother.

Everyone in this world have people they care about, and a part of that, is feeling whatever they do. We're happy for them when things go well, and we hurt for them when things don't go the way they planned. For Elizabeth, this was particularly true in the way that she was forced to watch someone closer to her than her own heart suffer, inhumanely, for decades. She watched a friend and someone who would never raise his voice be lied about, accused, and viciously attacked by an entire world. I am sure many nights were spent trying to soothe an calm his soul, and she fought tirelessly and passionately to clear his name. Because that's what friends do. They pick you up when you fall down and can't keep walking; they throw your arm around their neck, and they carry you, drag you if they have to, until you have come through your trials and tribulations safely on the other side. They cover your heart with theirs, they come running when you call, and most of all...they know the real you. In spite of facades, a million "I'm okay"'s and little white lies told by us to spare them worry...they see us. They see us, as we really are; perfect in all our imperfections, and they accept us. Fully, unconditionally, and with no strings attached, they share your life and everything in it, simply because you're you.

When you're the most famous person in the world and constantly have to defend yourself against the tabloids and lies of the world, that kind of relationship is difficult to establish. A person can only take so much before their trust in other people is forever damaged. But slowly, two hearts were opened to one another, and two people learned to share their laughter and their pain throughout everything the world would throw at them. Mockery couldn't touch them, lies couldn't touch them, and fabrication couldn't touch them. Because they had eachother, and they knew: "my heart is your heart, and whatever happens, I won't let go of your hand. My life is yours, my soul is yours, and I offer you everything I am. See me in all my imperfection, and love me anyway. Because life is bigger than what the world will throw at us to try to bring us down, and I am more than who they try to make me out to be." They had eachother, and through gut-wrenching pain and childlike innocence and happiness, they saw the key to what makes our time on this planet worth the effort. They saw...and they knew.

This world is not an easy place to live in. It can be cold, complicated, and scary, and people will hurt you if they can, simply because they're scared too. But if through all of it, you manage to find just one person that will tell you you can when everyone else says you can't...you're on to something. If you can find someone that makes you willing to ask the question, "will you accept me for who I am and not try to change me into who you would like me to be", someone that will tell you the truth without hurting your feelings, and who will fight for you with dignity and respect when you cannot because you are only human...you have seen a glimpse of what it's all about. If in this life, you can let your guard down once after having been hurt repeatedly, if you can still see the possibility of gaining understanding and tolerance for all that you are...it's worth it. It is. Because as someone very special once penned down on paper late one night up on the branches of his Giving Tree:

"In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair
Will you still care, will you be there?
In my trials, and my tribulations
Through my doubts, and frustrations
In my violence, and my turbulence
Through my fear, and my confessions
In my anguish, and my pain
Through my joy, and my sorrow
In the promise of another tomorrow...
I'll never let you part
For you're always...in my heart."

........
You were two of the most special people on this Earth. I looked to the sky today, and I could see him waiting for you. He is there, and he is waiting. Go now, and don't look back. Your heart is his, his is yours...and you are finally together. Thank you for everything you did, and for showing us what this life is all about. I will honor and remember you both in gratitude and respect for as long as I live. We miss you. 

"I see you."

"Close your eyes so you don't feel them
They don't need to see you cry
I can't promise I will heal you
But if you want to I will try."


Relationships with other people is something that has always confused me greatly. Life taught me from an early age that other people will hurt you if they can, and I've had severe trust issues for as long as I can remember. Because of what life has been like for me, the way I see the world and the people in it has very much become jaded and cynical. At the same time, I have always been so very compassionate. Sometimes too much, according to some. Alternating between despising humanity, and experiencing compassion to the point of tears for the suffering of an individual, is a very ambiguous way of being, but it's who I am. Sometimes I hate the world, other times I want to help. And tonight, because of some beautiful music and some truly good writing...I want to help.

I wish people could understand that they are never alone in what they are feeling. Whatever you are feeling...I have felt too. People take the words "I understand" far too lightly, but I really do. Life will never be perfect, but life gets better. I promise. Whatever you are going through...this too, shall pass. It's a cliché, it's old...but it IS true. Lean on friends, lean on music, lean on art. Something will see you through...somehow. Promise.

"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty." (Mother Teresa)

It's my fault, I'm female

This article in the New York Times came to my attention earlier today. Reporting of the brutal (and recorded) gang rape of an eleven year-old girl, it is full of the little insinuations about the victim's responsibility in the matter that we have grown so accustomed to as a society.

The article, complete with pictures and details of the run-down trailer where parts of the assault took place, wastes no time in making sure the reader knows that this was not the vicious, conscious deciscions of eighteen boys and men; but something that just happened. As if the men in question were victims too; victims of oh-so-tragic and unfortunate events in which they ha no control. Those poor, poor boys, who will, like the article continues to mention, "have to live with this for the rest of their lives."

Well, guess what? Somewhere in America, now in a hidden location to avoid the media and the shameful glances of peers and town citizens, is an eleven year-old girl. Somewhere out there is an eleven year-old girl who, too, has to live with this for the rest of her life. A girl that not only very likely has physical damage so bad it will scar her for life, but whose innocence has been crushed and whose world has collapsed. Trust in adults, trust in men, trust in justice...all that may well be destroyed, or at best a massive task to build back up. And that's without the New York times deciding that things may have ended differently had she not worn so much make up or "hung around with boys at the playground." (Exactly, at the playground. She's a child.)

The article continues with the comments of "Ms. Harrison"; a neighbour whose opinion the New York Times somehow decided was relevant to the news value of the story. Ms. Harrison, clearly shaken, exclaims, "Where was her mother?", and continues along the publication's line of finding someone, anyone, to blame but the eighteen boys that carried out the rape of which the article is about in the first place. It is interesting how no one - while we're blaming the parents here - seems to be asking where her father was, but I guess this is just about the potential mistakes of females. It usually is.

And while everyone is wondering where the mother in question was while her child was being raped, no one is asking where the mothers or fathers of the boys and men were when their sons held a child down on a bed and the floor of  a bathroom while raping her and filming their abuse. But, as the article also mentions; one of the boys is a basketball star student, and one father is a school board member, and I guess we don't want to mess with those. They are, after all, popular, powerful men in powerful positions. The mother of the eleven year-old girl, on the other hand, is just female trailer trash; not worth more than the filthy sofa on which her daughter was raped. Well done, New York Times. I hope you're proud.


To sign the petition demanding the New York Times apologize for their biased reporting, please visit http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-new-york-times-to-apologize-for-blaming-a-child-for-her-gang-rape

Unintentional performance art

I promised myself I wasn't going to comment on the whole Charlie Sheen circus, but it's too socially and psychologicall interesting to ignore. And the reason I say that, is because for once; the media isn't in control. They're not making anything up to sell more, they're not writing half-truths...they're just waiting, like dogs, for their master to give them that bone.

Everything that's been printed about Charlie Sheen for the past few weeks has been what HE has created. Statements he has made, actions he's committed, information he's shared. Willingly, openly, and decadently. People are on the edge of their seats waiting for the next big thing, and he knows it.

Sheen registered on Twitter eight days ago, and his account reached one million followers in its first 24 hours alone. People love a trainwreck, and he is inviting us all to watch from front row. His vlog "Sheen's Korner" was set up after his downward spiral became newsworthy, because he knows people will want to hear what he has to say - but he is not about to help the mainstream media and daytime television earn their ratings. This is the Charlie Sheen Show, and he runs it. He calls the shots. Public intoxication, felony, and substance drug use are things the tabloids usually love to sniff out, but in this case they don't have to. In this case they don't have to; because he is offering it to them. Proudly. Because everything is "winning". Because HE is winning. Because tragic as his demise may be, what's even more tragic is the way the media and the general public are, once again, sensationalizing and indulging in it. We are sheep and simple-minded fools, so easily led to follow, and he knows it. He is holding up a giant mirror to us a society, showing us perfectly through his imperfection, what we have become. And we are too stupid to realize it. We will never learn.

"And the rain, when it comes, it tastes like nothing."



"I know what it's supposed to be like to be young
But it is not the way I thought it would be
My paranoia functioned like a broken mirror
To distort and destroy any clarity

I want you to give back to me
The child I never was
'Cause I believed what I was told
Like everybody does."

~ "L.O.S.", The Czars ~








‎"Diana Ross told me that people in show business can get hurt. I don’t see how...maybe one day I will." - Michael Jackson, 1971

Artist of the day

...is Nathalia Edenmont. Minus the animals.

The right to love a child

Gay adoption.

Two such emotionally charged words in separate, and even more so when put together. I overheard someone debate the issue today, and as usual, I need to vent.

In the world today, there are thousands of children in desperate need of a loving home, or simply a roof over their heads. Yet these children, already having suffered more in a few years than anyone should have to do in a lifetime, are denied the stability they so desperately crave because someone, somewhere, got stuck when looking at the biological process of child conception, and decided that that is what determines how capable you are of providing someone with love, values and attention. So. If the only healthy thing for a child is a mother and a father, then that argument, in order to be consistent, would also mean that all single mothers and fathers out there...are unfit parents. That no family where one parent has passed away, whether be it from cancer, a traffic accident, or violence, should be called a healthy family anymore. Feels kind of illogical, doesn't it?

Sweden recently became the 14th country in the world to allow gay couples to adopt. The problem is that the countries that have the highest number of children in need of a home, are more often than not very traditional and religious, hence will not allow "their" children to go to families that consist of same-sex couples. And to be blunt, it blows my mind that someone can be so cruel as to deny a child in need of love and stability those things because of their own twisted morals and backward thinking. That is pure selfishness. And to then, on top of it, say that it's "with the child's best interest at heart"...is laughable.

The "think of the children" argument is not only the most popular one, it is also highly illogical and inconsistent. This argument is mostly followed by some "well-meaning" person bringing forth the B word. Bullying. Like it would automatically follow, and like it's an inescapable fact.  Here's a newsflash for you: kids get bullied for everything under the sun. To deny gay couples the right to be parents out of the fear of their child being teased is like dying your ginger child's hair blonde or putting your overweight child on a diet before they start school, because ginger hair and extra weight stands out, which - gasp!- might lead to bullying. Yet no one in their right mind would ever consider doing that. That's just crazy talk, right?

So as usual, you are putting the responsibility on the possible victim, instead of the bully. It is not the gay couples that need to refrain from having children to avoid bullying from taking place; it's society that needs to change, and it is the other parents in the society we live in that need to open up their closed minds and teach their children that you do not pick on others and that love is love no matter your gender. That will solve the bullying problem before it even arises. And it also raises the question...if straight people are so much more suitable for parenthood than homosexual couples simply because they're straight, explain to me then, why it is their children that will very likely be responsible for the bullying of the "gay" kids that their own parents - and our so very hetero-normative society - so seem to fear will take place if we let gay people adopt? Hmmm. 

(And while we're on the subject of teaching your children the right thing, who better to teach their child love and acceptance of everyone, than parents who have lived to experience their fair share of the pain that judgment and bigotry can bring? Call me crazy, but in my world, that's what parents do: take their own experiences and use what they have learned from them in raising their child so that they will be prepared for what may come their way one day.)

Ignorance and judgment does and will always take place. It happens every day. Some children growing up with two parents of the same sex will tell you it made their lives horrible because of other people's intolerance, and some will tell you it didn't affect them negatively whatsoever. Why? Because it's the same with this as with everything else. In the words of Chuck Palahniuk:

"You grow up to become living proof of your parents’ limitations. Their less-than masterpiece. Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will fuck you up, every time."

All parents will make mistakes, whether they (or we, when that day comes) want to admit it or not. But no one ever tells a straight couple that the mere fact that they've decided to have a child might lead to that child being bullied - in fact, no one would ever dream of saying such a thing. We have to wait and see, right? Let them try first, at least. Yet gay couples aren't even given the CHANCE to fail like the rest of us, and all they are told is that they will, automatically, ruin their children's lives. Because of who they are. Because they happen to love eachother. Now tell me how that makes sense?

Ode to my family

Because without you, I'd be lost.

Music & me (or the post also known as "why so many shows?")

Since today is Valentine's Day, and people seem to expect that you recognize it (sigh), I'm going to write about the love of my life: music.

People often ask me why, when I go to see a band or a singer that I love perform, I go to so many shows. I usually try to go to as many in one go as I can afford, often two, three or more in a row. Explaining to people why I do this is tricky, mostly because when I'm at a show, it's all about emotions, and I find it hard to put those emotions into words sometimes. Also, there's the simple truth that if you know what it felt like, you would understand completely and I wouldn't need to explain it to you - but if you don't, there isn't anything that I could say that could fully make you understand the ecstacy.

When I am at a concert, it is so much more than just a good night out; so much more than listening to someone sing. Because I don't just listen to the music; I feel the music. To every song that is being performed, I have a memory and a feeling that goes with it. I re-live all my gut-wrenching pain, all my ecstatic joy, and everything in between. It is a hugely emotional experience for me, and it's like that every single time I hear the song to which I have a memory attached. And it's because of that that I don't find it boring or repetitive to go to several shows in a row. ”My” bands and performers have shared the ups and downs of my life for years, some of them for decades. That does unevitably create an emotional bond between my heart and their art.

There are so many things I love about a concert crowd. Those that know me know that I am hugely fascinated by large, enthusiastic audiences. It is something about the way they sound (that differs depending on where in the world you are, or if the crows in question is largely male or female) that really gets to me. Then there's the roar it makes when the lights go down and people get pumped up for the big release that happens when the performer in question finally enters the stage. From that moment, and for two hours on...nothing else exists. Nothing matters. All your troubles, all your insecurities, and the memories of anyone that has ever hurt you or let you down...are erased. It is a world within a world, where reality is left at the door when you check your ticket. It is tears, laughter, sweat, confetti that clings to your damp skin, rhythm, lights, and racing heartbeats. It is arms in the air, goosebumps, unison and symbiosis, and an exchange of energy where the performer and audience feed off each other. It is acceptance and belonging and being a part of something; of that audience that becomes like one big, breathing organism and life force of its own.

Some of the most amazing and memorable moments of my life have been during concerts. I have heard Take That perform ”Love ain't here anymore” under a sky pink from the summer sunset, with 60,000 people singing along. I have seen an entire arena rise to its feet at Céline Dion hitting that high D in ”All By Myself”. I have felt my seat vibrate from the impact of the tapping shoes of fifty dancers in flawless unison at Riverdance. I've seen Marilyn Manson on his knees, holding on to bassist Twiggy Ramirez's shirt sleeve so hard the knuckles on his gloved hands where whitening, screaming ”let me show you where it hurts!” during "Pretty as a Swastika".

I have queued for hours in the blistering cold and the scorching heat to secure my place at the front, I have refreshed the ticket sites non stop for hours on end for the hope of that one ticket. I've held the hands of strangers, sung at the top of my lungs, looked around me at a crowd of twenty thousand people bathing in light prisms and hues of green, yellow, blue and red. I have closed my eyes with tears streaming down my face at the sound of my favourite singer's voice breaking with emotion. I've had my favourite performers and inspirations look straight in to the lense of my camera creating stunning shots, I've had them sing to me, I've had them touch my hands when I've reached out to touch theirs. I've seen them laugh, cry, scream and whisper with broken voices thick from emotion. Some artists I've seen shortly after discovering them, others I've waited years to see. Some I never will, as their lives were tragically cut short before I was lucky enough to get to experience their magic in person.

Music is my oxygen, my prison window, and my sanity. It's how I live, how I die, how I am resurrected, and how I survive. Inside the walls of an arena or on the grounds of a stadium is the only place where I can be who I want to be, and feel what I want to feel. It's where I feel accepted and part of something, and where that huge label screaming "OUTSIDER" that I have always had atatched to my skin is ripped off in one quick go like a bandaid. People will hurt and leave you if they can, but music...never will. Without those moments of acceptance and sense of being okay and for once belonging, even if it's just for a little while...my soul would wither.

You ask me how I can go to so many shows, but with everything I've just tried to explain to you...I ask you how I could not.

"The Chocolate Donut", Fred Einaudi

(http://www.fredeinaudi.com/)

“Don’t you know?” Sheila says. “The damaged love the damaged.”
Cyanide and sugar. Poison and antidote. Like maybe we balance each other out."

Gaga posted this on Twitter ten minutes ago. I exclaimed "holy fuck!" out loud. <3 Trois jours, mes petits monstres!

"Play with me and fly with me, I’m addicted to you like sex and religion"

Those who know me know that although I'm an atheist (and proud of it), religion is one of my greatest interests - especially so in combination with sexually charged imagery; for the simple fact that sexual urges have always been seen as unwanted by the Church; and tried to be controlled and stifled. Human nature being what it is; that has failed miserably for centuries, which, in my world, means that the urges in question grow even stronger; hence combining the two in art is always a successful combination.

Below is the set "Nun Head" by the amazing Sebastian Faena.

Today's artist...

...is Sergei Bizjaev. Enjoy.

Proposition h8

One thing I have been feeling lately, when thinking about the world...is frustration. I am sincerely fed up with bullshit. Proposition 8, the gay blood donation ban, straight parents being able to breed right, left, and centre without any kind of parental suitability control whatsoever while gay couples don't even have the right to be tried as adoptive parents...seriously. STOP. It's 2010 for God's sake, we were supposed to fucking evolve!

I recently came across a shot of "Prince Poppycock" creator John Quale and his long-time partner, Shawn Smith. I looked at the image, and it hit me: it blows my fucking mind how some would look at that picture and think it's wrong. How can the love and tenderness portrayed in that one shot ever be wrong? It completely baffles me. Surely,in a world where people feel increasingly alienated and alone, more love should be desired, not opposed, and ridiculous concepts like gender and social norms irrelevant. Some people aren't seeing the forest for the trees, me thinks.

Never be afraid. Be who you are, love who you want to love...rise up and shout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64DgkTL89T8