The International Homosexual Conspiracy

I. On Community

A Society in Dazed Denial

I often have the feeling of wandering through a city of zombies. People have certain pre-programmed destinations and activities, and don't venture beyond them. There is no way I can conceive of that would allow me to enter into the lives of any of these people. What do they ever do to open the way to new social interaction? Do they volunteer, go to social events, attend a church, or participate in local politics? Or is life an endless cycle of work, TV, and inebriation?

The reason for this enquiry is that there is every sign of the world's imminent end… but to keep sane, people must deny this. So they trudge through life with their gazes fixed a short distance ahead, oblivious to the larger landscape.

There's any number of reasons to be fearful. One fear has supplanted the next but the reasons for each fear have not dissipated. Instead, each fear is buried beneath the next like a layer cake with a frosting of denial. Back in the days of Reagan, the fear was nuclear war; added since then have been environmental disaster, disease, unemployment, displacement, and terrorism, among others. Everyone feels helpless to forestall the impending collapse so they keep their heads down and soldier on. Mutiny isn't seen as an option. Such passivity doesn't improve the situation.

On the other hand, the options given for activism are so pathetically ineffective that disillusionment and cynicism are their strongest results. The elation of participation in a huge march gives way to depression when a few hours out on the streets doesn't seem to blunt the drive to destruction that was protested. SUV-burning, lab-bombing, tree-sitting vanguards don't seem to dissuade the purchasers of gas-guzzlers, torturers of monkeys, or choppers of redwood forests.

We've got a society with Stockholm Syndrome; people end up identifying with those who've kidnapped them. We work more for the benefit of the rich than for the common people. We eagerly buy things we don't need, vote for candidates who don't represent our best interests, and pay taxes that make the world a worse place.

Time to clear away the mental debris, try to think without clichés, and see beyond the denial. Time to do our best to stop the runaway train headed down the tracks to destruction

Creating Community

In our alienated world, we are in search of lost community. We crave connections with other humans. We want to not just be individual bubbles which bump against each other but which do not mingle productively. It's not enough to simply search for the longed-for community. It may not exist yet. Which leads me to this dictum: don't just search for community… create it.

The social frameworks previously created may not contain a place in which the individuals with whom you would wish to relate can find a niche. So it becomes necessary to become an initiator of new social forms. While this may seem to be a difficult task, it is ultimately rewarding.

For example, you may find yourself organizing a spoken word event, a neighborhood organization, a crafts fair, or a discussion group. You'll tailor it to fit a perceived social gap. Hopefully others will also identify with the new niche you've created, and interact in the social space for which you've made room.

Sometimes the form of a social gathering actually prevents interaction. For instance, someone may have organized a dance event that targets a particular type of people (e.g., queer punks). However, because the noise of the event precludes much conversation and no form of icebreaker is provided, the event tends to be cliquey and insular, not allowing for new social interactions to occur.

These same people could be invited to an event like an open reading where they would be able to hear each other speak and then decide to have further interaction with one another. All that would be required to make this a more socially productive experience is a change in venue and activity.

Among the things that I have been involved with that built connections between people are zine publishing, helping to plan queer music and culture festivals, and hosting spoken word open mics. I have also been a participant in other events that have fostered community like open potluck brunches, volunteering to send books to prisoners, and helping out with political campaigns.

Disappointingly, I have persisted in participating in activities that have repeatedly proven to be less than productive. I have still gone to bars at which I knew no more people at the end of the night than at the beginning. I know I should concentrate on attending more socially interactive events but more and more, I am determined to spend my efforts on the more difficult, but ultimately more productive, creation of community-building events.

I encourage people to experiment with initiating these sorts of social outlets. The rewards should be self-evident.

Getting to Know People

What is your calling card? What is the way by which you differentiate yourself when you meet somebody new? How do you introduce yourself and what you do?

My calling card is my zine and website. I can offer an insight into my taste by giving someone a copy of my zine or a card so they can later look up the website where events and my writing are posted. Others can give a CD with their music, or can show a portfolio of their visual art.

In Japan it is supposed to be good manners to keep calling cards in your shirt pocket. This is why: your calling card is like your face. Keeping your cards in your front pants pocket is like keeping your face by your genitals. Keeping your cards in your back pants pocket that is like sitting on your face. You hand your card to someone with both hands, take theirs with both hands, examine it carefully, and then put it by your heart.

How do you introduce yourself? Are there any lines you can say to someone to jump to the place where you have common ground? Whom else do they know? Where else have they seen you? Remind them if they do not remember. Make friends and influence people, and be influenced by them. I don't like to introduce myself by what I do for a living, but rather by what I do for creative activity. I also like to find the same out about other people.

I curate a set of acquaintances, a social circle. A scene. I have published people's writing and art. I list people's events and try to get people to attend them. When I'm at an event I introduce people to one another. Everyone you know now was a stranger to you once. How did you meet them? How did you get to know each other better and more?

If I analyze my phone list and try to recall how I initially met people, the top method turns out to be through zines. In some cases, they're people whom I mailed my zine to and then met in person later, either at events or by arranging to meet. Closely following is the method of being introduced by mutual friends. Next is through electoral politics. There are a few people I have met through the music scene, comedy, work, and volunteering, among other areas. There can be some overlap—the people I've met through friends may also be interested in zines or music, and some of the music scene people I know because of listing their events on my website.

While I have been sexually monogamous, I am socially promiscuous. I have a lot of acquaintances, perhaps not so many close friends. I have a strict definition of friend; I use the term to mean someone to whom I could talk about deeply personal issues, whether my own or theirs. I tend not to make plans to go to events with people, but rather go to the events and talk to people with whom I am acquainted who are there coincidentally. I am not so interested in being famous—i.e., superficially known about by a lot of people whom I have no knowledge of—but rather in knowing a lot of people in a mutual way.

Talking to Strangers

A couple of weeks ago I was on a bus at night in San Francisco, a 1 California to be specific. There was an old guy in one of the front seats talking about baseball with another passenger a few seats away. The man had white hair and some white bristles. He was talking about the difference between then and now, Babe Ruth eating 25 hotdogs and drinking beer before the game. This guy grew up in an orphanage in Ohio and Babe, an orphanage veteran himself, came to visit, pitched a ball, a nun hit a home run and Babe offered to recruit her. This was printed in the paper, a Scripps-Howard paper.

Discussion of the press ensued. The old guy said the job of the press is to report and it's for us to decide if it's true or false.

He made a quip, Let he who is without a stone commit the first sin. I said, Nice twist.

The guy asked, Who was the general who died in 1944 at Normandy? Turns out it was Theodore Roosevelt's son (though when I looked it up, I found the junior Roosevelt actually died of a heart attack in his tent a month after the famous battle). Roosevelt lost two sons in war; another son had died in an air battle in World War I. The guy asked, Which other presidents lost sons in battle? Someone guessed Washington. (Washington had no biological children, though a stepson died of dysentery soon after enlisting. So far as I've found, no other presidential children died in the line of duty.)

The guy asked, What's the fifth article of the Constitution? Someone asked Declaration of Independence or Constitution? Constitution. Nobody knew. The fifth article of the Constitution allows for amendment. People say if you don't like it here, leave, but I say if you don't like it, change it. He pulled out a pocket copy of the Constitution the size of a checkbook. Where do you get one of those? It was his stop and he got off.

After he left, I said to my traveling companion, loud enough to benefit others, Why should we sit bored on the bus when we could talk to other people? We are all intelligent adults.

Maybe that man sparked something in me because I've been talking to strangers more since that night.

The other night I was walking down Castro Street and there was a punk panhandling outside the burger place by the ice cream store asking for money for a veggie burger. I stopped and reached in my pocket, mentioning that I was a vegetarian also. I was asked if I'd be interested in buying this person a burger and staying around to eat together. I had nothing much better to do, so I said yes.

I was told, I just got off the train, hopped a boxcar. We ordered our burgers and took a booth to wait for them to be ready. My dining companion showed me pictures of the train-hopping journey, pictures taken inside a boxcar of traveling companions including 12 and 14-year-old runaways who had jumped the train without sufficient blankets or food but were fortunate to meet more experienced travelers. They had ridden at times in boxcars and at times in Canadian grain cars that have little alcoves in which people can huddle. At one point, the train went through an eight-mile tunnel. People have died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the tunnel but if you know what to do— breathe through a water-soaked cloth and stay warm in your sleeping bag—you'll be fine.

We took our hot burgers to the condiment bar that enables you to load your burger with extras like onions, peppers, and so on. I hadn't eaten here before. It was nice to find a new place to eat.

We started talking more and I revealed my connections in the queer punk scene. It became clear that we had commonalities. Although my comrade had initially told me a female name, he revealed that he identified as a guy. In the Castro, he wasn't sure of acceptance. A lot of people had ignored him panhandling. He had read that there was a study showing gay people were less accepting of trans people than straight people.

He had lived in Philadelphia and worked in an anarchist bookstore I've visited. He silkscreened patches to sell. He had been riding the rails for five years. He'd been at a San Francisco concert I'd attended at Tire Beach during the Dirtybird Queercore Festival in the summer of 1996, seeing the band Behead the Prophet and slamdancing with their singer who had declared the kid, Queen of the Pit. We had also both been at queer punk band Limpwrist's last Minneapolis show in December of 2002. Someone looking at us, differentiated by his tattoos and my Dockers, might not realize it but we were kindred spirits.

Last night on a Haight Street bus headed downtown there were three punks, two guys and a girl. One of the guys had band patches for Crass sewn to his pants. They asked me what was the best way to get to the Castro. We'd already passed Divisadero. At that point, we might as well continue to Market Street so they could take the underground or a streetcar back there. They had just gotten to town; last place they were at was Santa Cruz. One was from Wisconsin, the other two from Arizona. I gave them some recommendations for what to do in town: Tribe 8 was playing at the Eagle Tavern that night. (They initially didn't know who I was talking about but then one remembered the story of the band's ride on rapper Luke Skyywalker's boat, when they freaked him out with their strap-ons.) I suggested a visit to the huge record store, Amoeba, though they were probably too broke to experience much besides commodity fetish frustration from such a visit. I also mentioned Rainbow Grocery and a certain underground music venue. They got off the bus and we said our goodbyes and headed off in our own directions.

Later that night on the Haight bus home I started talking to what looked like a straight couple I had overheard talking in a non-English language in hushed tones. They were visiting from Amsterdam. I volunteered that I hadn't been there but mentioned my other European visits. After I'd gotten them talking, two other people on the bus joined in who might not have otherwise participated in the conversation. A young woman mentioned that her best friend had recently married a guy from the Netherlands and was living in a small town there. She had visited there but hoped that they would move back to San Francisco. She herself wasn't interested in living in Holland. There was a young guy on the bus too who started talking, not too articulately, about some music venue in Holland—perhaps he hadn't been there himself but knew of bands playing there. He suggested they visit Golden Gate Park. The couple was staying with the woman's sister near the park, actually. As I got off the bus, there was still a flame of conversation going which I'd sparked.

We all have information, and our knowledge can be useful to other people, and their knowledge can be useful or interesting to us. Why sit on the bus alone in a crowd? Start