BOSTON MARCH (including OLF's FIRST "spontaneous" march, 1991) SAN FIASCO MARCH (as complacent follower) 1992 (?) MARCH ON d.c. '93 (solo OLF march) STONEWALL/S.O.S. MARCH, NYC, 1994 (near NAMBLA most of the time) MINNEAPOLIS, MN 1995 (OLF's first "official" independent march)
An introduction
NOTE: The reports depicted here are showing a kind of development of your host's activism from a time when I was quite inarticulate to what might be the *best* kind of direct action to do to a time (culminating with the march in Minneapolis, 1995) when I had achieved a much more constructive and socially aware kind of tactic. And while some of you may understand the kind of emotion that I vented out (largely at gay "pride"/assimilationist marches), many seem to misunderstand the value of this kind of "youthful" outrage (i.e. the value of speaking directly to people vs just marching passively). Note that I am really a self-taught "activist" and my message here and in other places on this website is meant for those others who may find themselves on such a trail. It is my desire that my experiences and insights may assist them! (Final note: I have edited this in 2014 for additional clarity)
Let me start with a little background to all of this: i've been a "nonsilent" activist ever since I began catching on, as i see it, to the extreme duping that's been pepetrated on me since i was a young dude (living in a midwestern town in the u.s.a.) by professionals and other highly indoctrinated individuals (including therapists, teachers, parents, and the other adults i was allowed or happened to interact with as a kid).
Only after going through quite a gamut of consequences due to my trust in spoon-fed Authority did I have the luck of stumbling upon NAMBLA/boylove literature--in an anarchist bookstore (i was much too self-homophobic to even visit the gay side of that city! ...But also knew nothing about anarchy and the stigmas attached to it and thus felt freer to explore THAT). And then some blatant hypocrisies by the therapeutrick professionals i had sought, for, what i believed at the time, to be my so-called "sickness".
i had actually gone through about six years of "A War With Myself" in that naive trusting of these professionals, which had included having to once write a letter to a chief of police in order to be able to attend "help" in one special clinic that was only for convicted sex 'offenders'. This resulted in some intensities that I was not prepared for at all, but by luck i was able to navigate through the worst of that.
At first, mere possession of the knowledge of what NAMBLA said for itself was not enough for me to free myself, after all, I had read of NAMBLA in the media i had stumbled across when i first began seeking info via libraries. i remember reading TIME Magazine's article about Charles Dyson, for example, and tho I was drawn to the photo of Charles, I had no reason, yet, not to trust how this "reputable" media characterized NAMBLA. I was still quite enamored to the leash of imposed society as well as the therapi-tricksters i was seeing at the time. But when one "expert" said i'd have to start obeying his drug treatments and that i'd probably have to be in therapy for the rest of my life, while another (who i was seeing at the same time) said that i wasn't a "pedophile" and was "just trying to get attention" (and the entire therapy group agreed), only then did i start to feel like i ought to at leastlook into the third option that i had just recently discovered: these NAMBLA guys who were saying positive things about my desires.
And then right around that time (maybe before i found the NAMBLA Bulletin, i don't recall for sure) i stumbled across a book by Dan Tsang: The Age Taboo (at my town's college library!). Before that, I had educated myself about my feelings only from books on criminology, secretly getting "my jollies" as i read about "cases".
Moving away from my hometown (for reasons i don't recall) i settled into a "more liberal" town where i began the task. Becoming a NAMBLA member (in 1989), i was beginning to replace the self-hating feelings with self-loving feelings. And it was living in that new town, that i began discovering views that i had never heard of before. i was totally blown away... It changed my life! And set me on general course of critical thinking in dimensions i had never considered!
With such information that had been kept from me until now i got heavily motivated into reading and studying the info NAMBLA sent, and seeking the titles they mentioned at my local libraries. It was only at the local university library that i totally stumbled upon a goldmine; and thanks to a helpful librarian, i stumbled across a veritable "goldmine".
Anyway, all this had a very very powerful effect on me. I'm kind of a wild person already (having dared physical and psychological feats few others allow themselves to imagine, much less actually do), so to have such realizations just caused me to want to speak up aloud. This is when i began doing so. Just becoming a member of NAMBLA had been the biggest step, but now i was beginning to go on the road to something like ballistic!
In the NAMBLA Bulletin, i began writing about my interactions with the local gay bookstore, seeking to get them to stock the Bulletin --after noting that they were already selling both Theo Sandfort's and Edward Brongersma's books, one of which i think had been showing in the window! I thought sure that they'd be okay with it, but when I brought the topic up, first to a clerk and then the manager, I was met with unexpected hostility. When i found the university library collection, (having all the Bulletins, all the Paidikas, all the Pans (Dutch) etc. at my finger-tips for 6-8 hours a day was incredible!) the inspiration from all that moved me to make a stand in the local "liberal" Unitarian church.
Well, to make a longer story shorter, the police were called and they tried to investigate me (it was figured that i MUST be breaking some hysteria law to DARE speak up, apparently), but unlike years before when I had experienced police authoritarianism (for similarly specious reasons), i knew my rights now--thanks to an article in an old NAMBLA Bulletin --and could no longer be intimidated into doing what one investigator seemingly sublimely asked: Coming down to cop HQ for a few intimidating questions. i was not breaking any laws, I told him, but found it powerful to break the enforced silence instead!
The consequences for "nonsilence" in the open?
My landlord was visited at work and asked questions about me.
If i had had a job i surely would have lost it due to the stigma of having a police visit and them asking questions about my "interests"; and probably shooting off their often prejudiced mouths about "what" was going on, as NAMBLA media had shared about countless other examples.
The "investigation" included repeated calls and plain-clothed cop visits to my residence. At least one housemate thought sure these guys were f.b.i. agents (he said he "knows") (i find it intrigueing that they never came when i was there).
i was summarily kicked out of the house (full of gay men) that i was living at on the premise that they didn't want their phones to be tapped.
i was unofficially excluded from another liberal church i was attending (the local "Friends" Meeting); officially i could come if:
A) accompanied at all times by someone, until they got to know me;
B) i went on the alternative day. (i should have chosen the main day, because every time i went to the alternative day it was completely empty of people!)
(if i am "smart" i should go live there again and allow them to "get to know me" and see if they can live up to their principles when it really counts, eh?)
It was in 1990, when i'd moved to the Boston area, that i began meeting the NAMBLA activists in person (initially, i was blown away by several of them, one sexually!), and even living with a few. In that spirit of my feelings being so accepted, i began putting out the zine "I AM" (which i now realize was named after principle NAMBLA activist Tom Reeve's words: "I AM a boylover." in the NAMBLA NEWS article "Expect the Worst, Live for the Best", 1981)
At first, my zine was put out as a way for me to express myself as i just wasn't finding enough of a place in existing NAMBLA publications and events, or even amongst the few that i had initially met. In time it grew from just an expression of pent-up emotions and long secretly-kept poems and art to "an internationally-available tool" of alternative high passion, dissent, and possible inspiration for its gutsy readers--who in these times of hysteria dared buy it and read it!
(The "risk" may've seemed more pronounced since for about the first three years, it lacked an "official" stamp of "legitimacy" from the only U.S. group --NAMBLA-- that independent pedos trusted; only after much struggle--yes, that's the appropriate word--did they finally even mention it (in a review by Ishmael Wilkins) and begin listing it in first their own booklist and then selling it via Ariel's Pages. Am happy to say that the two groups were always good about payment.)
i was busy with many other projects too, as well as still seeking increased trust (and thus acceptance as a "legitimate" activist) via the available routes (in NAMBLA and with others as it went). i wrote and recorded a small number of poetic audio tapes ("from the trenches of the living damned") at the apartment i lived at --being careful not to be overheard; --i always wanted to CHOOSE my battles: like when i found the energy to actually read such poetry at public readings! (These readings were greatly inspired by seeing one of our foremost BL poets do his thing in public when he visited town; i have one long-time NAMBLA activist to thank for calling me about it, too!)
There were also the unmentionable underground creative nonviolent tactics in league with Queer Nation's record of wheat pasting, a group i became involved with to only a small, but definitely inspiring, extent. The library "info-saturations" (no censorship tho); the strategic defiance of ignorant remarks made by housemates and parents and other relatives; the visits and with non-NAMBLA groups (like the Indianner Kommune in Germany, a few "Schiz-Fluxers", some folks at "Anarchy" magazine, alternative libraries, etc.). Last but not least, the little hell-raisings (accompanied by electronic loudspeaker which could be heard for blocks) at different gay pride events. --Oh, and how could i forget--my ever-increasing critique of NAMBLA's leadership ideology and organization imperatives, itself. (only later did i see that much of what's critique-able could be coming directly from the after-effects of long-time official and/or private covert action done/being done to this audacious and impressively committed organization of imperfect volunteers)
BOSTON MARCH, 1991
(including first "spontaneous" OLF march)--a folk activist perspective
Reports of Nonsilence from my zine
(NOTE: "Officially" i call this the first unofficial "spontaneous" march by the OLF (Orgasm Liberation Front, coined later in 1995), even tho those participating in it certainly thought of it as a purely spontaneous action, having nothing to do with any agenda/designs on my part; and, at the time i had no such designs. Only now...heh heh...) (further note: i recall having marched with NAMBLA once in subordination to the leadership, but don't recall if that march was in 1991, or what, as i had arrived into the activist scene in somewhere around the fall of 1990; it seems to me that i walked in NAMBLA's typical "passivist" way the first time (in '91), and then, on the second time around ('92?), let out my "cantankerous" and "abrasive", or ANGRY side. A rage that i think mostly had to do with my fear of speaking mixed with all the terrible news i had been reading in movement publications! Note that i also marched in Boston several other times, and probably with NAMBLA, at least up to 1994, tho i'm not sure if i did that consecutively)
From issue #6 of zine "I AM":
The following audacity was in part inspired by Brenda of EIDOS ("EVERYONE IS DOING OUTRAGEOUS SEX") magazine. THANKS BRENDA!!!!
Note: Is RAISING HELL an "appropriate" way to try to tell the public that the injustice their society reserves for us is WRONG? Go here to look at some defending arguments, or e-mail me.
i want to speak up for my experience as an activist loud, proud, and gone not allowed in the NAMBLA Bulletin. (...)
This year's march in Boston's [gay] Pride [march] was the second step in a powerful direction, i believe. Two OTHER [NAMBLA] members took the risk to stand LOUD and PROUD with my so-called "EGO" [(why is "ego" so bad? And is it my "ego" that is coming to the fore in my independence from NAMBLA?? I wonder!)]; one member, an African American, was even the [alleged] victim of [being on legal probation]--but that fear did not stop him!! As the Bulletin reported, i had the NAMBLA bullhorn [(this was the one i bought for NAMBLA; i later bought another from monies collected from the zine for my personal use)] and loudly roared where no boylover-type has probably roared before!!
Fellow NAMBLA members surely [called] me "crazy" for my actions with the bullhorn in Boston (like they do to many others who cannot defend themselves, it seems: take The Unicorn and Miguelito's difficulties, or those labeled "emotional vampires"). But let me say to you what i read [via that bullhorn]: i read passages and messages from the NAMBLA Bulletin, other zines of direct pertinence [like Minor Problems, Empathy, Pan, etc.] as well as rap rhymes from my 'RAPper' persona!!!
As i mentioned before, two other NAMBLA members marched with me during this march (with signs we had made, autonomously from the NAMBLA leadership, even tho we would have LIKED to have their input). We marched with the NAMBLA contingent firstly, and THEN a SECOND TIME! This time behind the gays[main]stream newspaper "Bay Windows" [contingent], of whom one of its writers would call us "the most creative" aspect of the march! There we made our own history, with me (mainly) being LOUD and OBNOXIOUS in the FACE of the cream of gay[main]stream society. Needless to say, i thought it was a liberating experience. and i think that closet dudelovers, and dudes who like them, tho maybe taken aback at first [by our unorthodox approach] probably found energy in our LOUD and PROUD voice. As for my fellow NAMBLA two members that marched with me? They remained in something like support positions, agreeing to pass out the literature we made (one of them had made his own flier!), and carry our artistic signs.
The effect of this bullhorn turned up as it was WAS a sight to be heard...and we were RUINING the day of a community overrun by gay (read: homophile) assimilationist violence. Violence? oh, have you too forgotten all the men and dudes whose unjust jailings and tortures go unreported in our homophile brethren's media??--while they fully accept the scandalous half-truths of the Therapeutrick State?!! And all the adults and youngers who've killed themselves physically or emotionally/psychologically [(the term "turning" oneself "off" in order to "survive"comes to mind here, as well]) because of who they were born as...--yet at least one NAMBLA leader believes that our marching needs to take a "friendly" approach (read: without nerve, pacifist/passivist) within this fucked-up gay[main]stream community...Sheesh!!
What kind of BULLSHIT is that?
Honest history [(read Bud and Ruth Schultz, Howard Zinn, even Studs Terkel)] tells us that every group of humans standing for their rights has had to confront opponents in their face and make them uncomfy with their mindset. It's one thing to choose, as a consenting group within an organization, only to use a quiet, academic-style, pacifist approach, and completely different to coerce/push others--without even an attempt at serious communication of the values of a chosen path. I for one think that groups which claim to represent a wide variety of people should at least be open to serious discussion with all those who want to do something more! (The main thing these managers of the largely middle-class/middle-manager organizations i've always intuitively dissented from was that they would say i WOULDN'T LISTEN! Wow, that felt like a stretch to me! i had educated myself and had been mobilized by their media agitation, and felt WE'D BETTER DO SOMETHING that hadn't been done (?); then had come "into the fold" and listened for about a full year; but the conversation always remained so...what was it...on the defensive (after all, they'd been put through so much already, and could i be trusted? And yet, why should i be relegated to a fixed subordinate position, with absolutely no meaningful discussion?). I FELT weirded out, at the time, by the NAMBLA leaders i knew who wouldn't even try to talk over my intensity (!), even tho i was having sex with some of the principle activists at the time! (Years later, when i was 31, i was told that i still looked 16, so at my age of, what, 25 (?!) then...i must've fit in quite well to these activists' teen-orientations! i certainly didn't mind, tho was quickly tired of what i've come to think of "city" people's norms of sex and little else)
[In the now defunct "radical" zine] Minor Problems [out of the United Kingdom] they state on page 8 of their 1987 issue:
"We do not subscribe to the middle class concept of 'avoid all conflict at all cost.' We cannot, because we are not middle class. The comfortable and well-to-do benefit from the lack of CONFLICT. Those without power are always expected to wear the trouble caused by avoiding conflict. And when such important issues are to be faced, discussed and resolved, of course there will be conflict."
I am not going to try to [further?] divide us up by placing blame on [yet another] group of people, [however]. i think what the problem is is that it is basically a mindset thing. The problem is, i think, how do we persuade those [activists] "with power" or those who disagree with us that our method can be as valid as theirs? How about, by we who have the courage to delve into such acts of self-empowerment, to be empowered to take our own initiative???! That is what [this 'zine] is all about.
i will say that NAMBLA's agreed-upon method of marching works to a certain extent. when i first marched with them in new york city and boston last year (?1990? Hmmmm), i felt pretty damn good--i was [for the first time] standing up and walking openly as who i was among others of my orientation! Wow!
For me, that great feeling evaporated too quickly [whilst i marched with NAMBLA]; we were being ignored, our message was not heard (nor seen on our only official banner); people were shouting things at us that our leadership didn't seem to think [was] worth responding to [nor had they spoken to us about why such tactics might be good]...Finally, i felt that i wasn't doing as much as i could do. [here i was, putting MY LIFE ON THE LINE and i felt that this was our chance to speak to the public directly, without media manipulation/censorship...] [Oh, I had helped make] signs in Boston [for marchers to carry; a group of us "non-leadership" types had met before the march to do this]. [The local gay mainstream paper] "Bay Windows" [insinuated to me that these signs were what made us the] "most creative" aspect of the Boston march.
SAN FIASCO MARCH, 1992
Note: By this time i had been accepted into the NAMBLA Steering Committee, including becoming the assistant corresponding secretary, and thus heard from one of the chapter's spokespersons about the building hysteria promoted by a local last-ranked TV station (the TV station i would later call "KROC TV" in my comix), and a corresponding plea for as many as possible to join him for the march. KROC TV had been aggressively reporting lies for many months by then, so it was assumed that many homophiles (gays) would be especially hysterified this time around. So, with the money i had saved up, i took up the invite and WENT, in solidarity!
[NAMBLA's role in] the
farce
this year in San Fiasco, Caliscornya [(San Francisco, CA)] at SNIDE [(my word for fanged-sheep gay pride/assimilationist marches)] calls [the NAMBLA leadership's prevailing] mindset to focus.
As a marcher who followed the leadership [namely, a former lover, Bill A., one year my junior] complacently in most ways [except for handing out my own flyers], i too was a recipient to roaring sheeple boos spewed by blinded hysteria [and fanned for over a month by the last-rated "kron" TV--aptly renamed "kroc" in my BL cartoon]. But at least i went into the thing expecting the probability of getting our asses kicked.
Other long-time members apparently figured we could once again march and give a "friendly" but silent/pacifist message to the gay community in a sign of goodwill...or something. those were the ones who came out of it really fucking scared--and immobilized i think. and our fellows in San Francisco who took the leadership roles [i.e. tending our booth] also did not rise to par--a baffling sight to me since i had seen his powerful [audacity] at earlier times [(namely, the guy who didn't tend our booth, had, earlier, shown his strength of character when the "k.r.o.n." t.v. crew busted in unannounced at the PUBLICly-invited local S.F. meeting at a branch library in the city, acting as if they had "found them out"; and his non-cowed response spoke miles of excellence to me)], [In my view] all of this [was] based on fear and not having prepared enough for this important NAMBLA exercise.
And true [seems] the notion that some courageous leaders in NAMBLA are better fit for certain roles and less fit for others.
[goes on to discuss the exclusion of an invitation to "protect" our contingent from the San Francisco Trotskyists, whom allegedly 'were always trying to infiltrate groups in order to take them over'. They wanted to form a diverse protective line around our group; they were all longhaired-types, even some women! i was flabbergasted by the leadership's decision on this, needless to say!! Then again, i was extremely politically naive...and had actually been moved in a positive way by some of these Trotskyists, when they had invited me to stay with them, i think before the march.]
Anyway, as it happened, "we" didn't need anyone to fuck up everything and then be blamed afterwards!! Adhering to everything our leadership told us, we fucked up ourselves well enough, "Thank you."...[Or did we? Perhaps, in his leadership role and following classic pacifist methods, Bill and fellow backroom strategists, accomplished the goal as best as is "possible" within their strategy??]
From [Steve R's (author of The Poison River)] gross miscalculation [of much money and time spent on] making sturdy signs that were supposed to be carried by, in his words, "gays who would stand with us in solidarity" --[(luckily for him i volunteered my art services and he saved hundreds of dollars from his earlier plan to hire an art agency)]-- to Bill A.'s seeming miscalculations [concerning more pointed decisions like dealing with the k.r.o.n. tv crew which followed us as we made our way to the middle of the march in order to join it there], it seemed to me at the time that our "leadership" didn't know what to do! [Now, looking back at Steve R's miscalculation, I realize that the signs did serve a very important purpose: they made a nice target for most of the eggs/etc. that might've been used upon us directly if we hadn't had any! Thanks Steve!]
[I percieve Bill's (and his aides')] first [miscalculation to be his seeming lack of preparation for] KROC TV's [antics], and then with the SNIDE march committee. One of the first mistakes Bill made, anyone could have stepped into: Bill spoke facts [to kron] concerning a poll taken by a gay[main]stream newspaper, which later seemed to be untrue; [it was something about how most of the gay community sided with our right to march or something].
Secondly, Bill somehow got bought in on the idea that we could "sneak" into the march halfway through [(though, with kron TV hounding us, it wasn't very "sneaky")], and thus avoid the core of the conflict spewed by organized anti-NAMBLA crusaders he had been apparently tipped-off about. Perhaps [it did] save us a graver time of more eggs, more boos, and maybe even violent hate confrontation with duped zealots...all the same i feel CHEATED.
Why did i have to participate in following [a "leader"] around who really didn't seem to have any idea of what kinds of tactics [in my "humble" opinion] to use in the situation. [And] like other marches this year there was a failure of communication [from the "leaders" onto we "following" participants]. If i was Bill i would have [at least] communicated from the beginning with our marchers and level with them about what was threatened to happen, what might happen, and so on; and allow people, [fully informed] to back out or stay on.[I understand, of course, the problem of possible infiltrators within even the marchers, but it seems that AT LEAST some form of communication and trust could be made!]
At least [they should've] known what the leaderships' basic plan was and have equal feelings [communicated] about the event [to be] shared. And an actual dialogue that was participatory in leadership direction!
Most carefully, we all should have made the time to talk about what the "chosen" leader (Bill) was not interested in doing [in his capacity as "our leader" and spokesman]. To allow these kinds of things to be [completely] ignored in inter-group relations is to add to the dissent and disillusionment i for one felt. [maybe what people like me who are so concerned about these issues should just try to be included, ourselves, in some of the strategey discourse...and not try to include all?]
[Additionally,] we did not [even] use our bullhorn. We could've used it intelligently; not to encourage the froth of the blind sheep hysteria, but to stand up for ourselves against their obvious misinformation.
You won't find me conforming [anymore] to such a lack of seeking to do all in our power, within reason, to [challenge] such sheep [stupidity].
No one is going to get away with veritably chaining me down![if i can help it]
[Despite all the incompetence --as I saw it-- coming from all directions--including psychological warfare-type jabs from the "kroc TV" cameraman, himself (i.e. "You guys are no good" or something like that)] i had a slightly strong time of passing out flyers up in the face of the hateful onlookers and seeking their eyes. i was ready to get my ass kicked; if that had happened maybe [honest gays] (our fellow [homophiles]) might've [found the importance of rising up in some more honest way] on our behalf...Is it worth it? Well, i'd rather be who i am as best i can than be who i am with fear to try the new [and being] immobilized [by it]. [At that time i felt that perhaps by getting beaten up or killed for what i believed, might cause more people to step in and join some kind of REAL defense.]
MARCH ON d.c., 1993
REPORT from "I AM" zine #8; p.82: my solo activism during the national gay community's March on Washington, D.C.(unfortunately, never did find NAMBLA's contingent, and author Dan T, when i happened to see him, may've misled me)
In Country
Morning of the March
Words from the Yell Cards (yelled thru bullhorn)
The Main March
Fasten your seat belts and brace yourself, [because] my so-called "EGO" has not been tamed or lassoed!
i had the severe audacity to prance in and out of the "flames" (as the lone warrior Riff Raff, writer of the now defunct "FAGAZINE" calls the hysteria of the day) in d.c. wearing
a ten-foot-sized improvized ghost costume
in which was concealed an "I AM" [zine]-financed bullhorn [--a.k.a. electronic loudspeaker] at the top!!
The idea had come from a photo in a library book back in Missouri, where i had been living just previously (in order to explore the people behind "Anarchy" magazine) and i copied it using found objects lashed together with string and attached to a pole and my backpack.
Who acted as my unseen support? Well, certainly NAMBLA had originated it with my being virtually "born again" ...[though] after the euphoria extinguished itself, it was fueled by the high passions of many [NAMBLA] Bulletin letter writers and fellow "comrades-at-hearts" [like folks in the "Anarchy" magazine collective, etc.]. [All] the discussions, the correspondence [including] as a one-time NAMBLA assistant corresponding secretary, had inspired me to break from the overwhelming paranoia i too hold, and face the possibility of being beaten up and perhaps murdered [or assasinated?] for standing up for who i am!!!
i came by bus alone, having the good spirit to sit near two special people.
The first was a young dude named Kyle, who's smile style moved me deeply. Especially in the empathy i had for him as he suffered through parental-induced trial after head-cuffing physical pain trial. The yound dude looked over to me for help and all i could lamely say was: "we all had to go through what you're going through." So i showed my desire to care by the only means at my disposal--art. And we drew together; his uncle (whom also treated Kyle with disrespect) was for once not prepared when i deliberately (but politely) moved to put more attention in creativity with [Kyle]! And in thanks, Kyle gave me his toy motorcycle and driver, [which] was the "vehicle" that had first drawn us together; it had a copper wheel and i found that strange, and questioned him. The toy was like a treasure to me, a memory present for a man whose activist carefulness has known few instances of such genuine [caring]--especially at a time when there was [obviously] equal need. [i wore that toy around my neck during my later nonsilent action, in his memory!!!]
The other special person turned out to be a gay man who had appeared on many gaystream [media] after he had taken the city of Cincinatti to court when cops had beaten him up for jaywalking and having AIDS [which they found out only after beating him up the first time].
"In country"
Once in d.c., i checked out [a certain radical/anarchist gay group] at their oval-grounds meeting place. And they used my bullhorn for the ensuing unconventional meeting [pre-]rally of playfully-flaunting queers. Later [in the day, a day before the march] i handed out fliers at the lesbian gathering at DuPont Circle. That was a pretty crazy activism i realize in retrospect, but mostly it was the lesbians who unwittingly asked for what i was carrying.
By eve, i met NAMBLA people [who were] meeting at the phone-spoken site [in the midst of all the gay going-ons; very crowded]. i'm pretty sure this is where a local d.c. TV crew interviewed me, and subsequently aired my very edited comment is a pretty positive way. i had to wonder if my antipathy towards the female interviewer was the reason it got aired, as i had challenged her with my already cynical feelings about the media (and a bystander had backed her up, saying she was a quite reasonable reporter). What had they aired? Me emphatically exclaiming "We LOVE boys!" Yes, and i think that was all it was. i don't recall if others were shown from our group...
i found a place to stay [overnight] with a guy [i] met at Du Pont Circle [earlier in the] afternoon; a man who i eventually fully came out to and who gave me a kiss on the lips when we parted 2 days later. i had gone into d.c. unsure of where i could stay but knowing various spaces had been set up for the parade "homeless."
morning of the march
The morning of the march i set up my costume [just after exiting the subway] as legions of fellow homo[philes] cheerily moved by, many hinting curiosity. When i got into the [main] grounds, Jesse Jackson was speaking and i had half a notion to go rile things up there a little [i liked Jesse but i'm sure he could use a little heckling], as bullhorns have the capacity to do. had i ....met a fellow [African-American] nonsilent activist who [had marched with me before and claimed he] had come down to join me, perhaps i would've. Instead, i wafted through the herds and sought the front.
Near it, i found Dan T. [well-known author of boylove book "The Age Taboo"] and he [said] he took a couple of photos of my [costume]. [Later, it turned out that he had apparently not even taken the pictures, as when i called him repeatedly he stalled and finally said in a dismissive tone that they hadn't turned out...this from a person who i don't think is a novice photographer.]
By this time [i had already been] using my "yell cards" [(which helped me read slogans, etc.)] through the bullhorn
as a "ghost of dudelovers' past" haunting the respectability forces of the assimilation-seeking gay community.
i read short [peices] from an especially powerful article in CHANGING MEN magazine #23, and significant speak carefully picked from various publications such as John Holt's Escape From Childhood (book) and Anarchy [magazine]. Plus the words pocketed from various Bulletin letters and [phrases and thoughts] here and there.
Some words from the "Yell Cards" i carried:
"What kids need we all need--what we all need kids need!"
"Freedom can be measured by the number of CHOICES open to an individual; but kids don't yet HAVE the freedom to say both no AND yes!"
"'let the kid be a kid' means freeing them to the full spectrum of their desire!"
[okay, so it sounds pretty low-key, but i had no one to help me with all this; no long-time activists had shown any interest in helping me, even though i'd shown that i would not be silent for two gay pride actions in a row--both in Boston]
When i saw a kid contingent i said [stuff] like this:
"No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than they who can neither choose nor change, nor escape their protectors."
(more phrases below)
Adversity?
As far as adversity, i met little. i think it had to do with the tactics of surprise that i used--in line with Saul Alinsky's ideas. Few were prepared for the "lone warrior" to step up [alone!] and fuck with their mindsets! There were two exceptions:
1.) The original color art i had with me was torn from [the back of] my backpack and stolen by a lesbian dupe. She obviously hadn't spent any time focusing (or thinking) on it, but as she pranced back to her herd she looked at it and saw that the "dreaded genitals" were funny smiling faces!!! Anyway, even if the art was torn up in frustration it had done its job--someone had found it significant enough to steal it!
2.) The second incident was when another woman dupe met me alone (with the safety of her bewildered herd behind) and proceeded to attack me verbally after asking if i was a NAMBLA operative (ahh, the need to blur my individuality before striking with righteousness). i truthfully said no (i haven't yet paid my dues this year and wonder if i should). Well, she still had to retreat with the "dignity" of spiting me in hysterics (else her peer pressure might question her loyalty or something, i guess)...
"It's as if I described a pleasant sex experience with a woman and that meant I supported forced sex with all women."--Jason McQuinn of Anarchy magazine.
[The woman] seemed to be on the verge of [physical] violence thought one older man (who i didn't even know!) and he trained his speak on telling her that it was not necessary. She reacted that she had the right to speak too; if she had attacked me [physically] i would have made use of the [bull]horn to make sure A LOT of people heard what was going down...if that might make a difference when my [death] made news.
i too find it crazy to even think about facing such irrationality [as people wanting to kill or hurt those they don't agree with] but i was prepared psychologically as the march in San Fiasco [San Francisco] helped shed any last naivety. [Basically] i felt that this was a strong way to
"bash back"
[as the Queer Nation saying goes] at all the insane lies and misinformation prevalent in our society.
"What right do you have to universalize your own painful experience on all the rest of the world?"--Jason McQuinn in a reply to a hysterical letter writer in Anarchy Magazine.
All the rest of the year we cherishers of young human beings must sit through society's orgasmic violence done upon the entire spectrum of older/younger intimacy--so i think once or twice a year [at least] we gutsy so-called "EGOTISTICAL" lone warriors can have a GOOD TIME making the sheep gay community uncomfortable!
This is not about "image" and "respectability," FUCK THAT. This is about our peoples' lives being destroyed on all fronts. It's about dudes being systematically divided away from adults in the most important area of all--the humanness we all share and need--intimacy, trust, affection.
(...) We need, i believe, to use EVERY available resource for not just our survival, but our thriving and legal exercising of all the gifts given us to love!
[back to the march]
Those brushes with adversity stayed within the confines of the start-off grounds, and from there i mostly got people who asked me to "move along"...[hell,] i should've stayed longer, eh? They'd as soon watch idly as our people beg for mercy--"fuck them, because it feels good!"
main march
i first marched with the National Lawyers Guild (or similar lawyers group) without permission, almost all the way through the march; if i was gonna get wasted by hysteria i figured among they would be the best place to get it...
Then i headed back against the current (i had desired to do that from the beginning but thought i might get arrested and give the cops a good reason to kick my ass) all the while using my "yell-cards" to their maximum potential and making the gay sheep uncomfortable.
And then i was zipping in and out of the march; once speaking to a "youth" contingent as they passed. Later, i fucked with the San Fiasco [mainstream gay San Francisco] contingent to avenge the sheep violence many had overwhelmed fellow NAMBLA marchers and i in '92 with. (also, earlier [before the march?] at Dupont Circle i had bullheadedly shot some comments concerning that spectacle upon some San Fiasco lesbians and one had responded [despite another's dismissive remarks that i wouldn't listen anyway] that i shouldn't believe that all San Fiasco lesbians were in on that! Right on!)
At the anti-homo demo of the fundamentalists, i chose to speak with the homo[phile] community in countering them--perhaps a show of what was possible if/when they finally realize that we are in actuality much alike in heart... And it was fun to be so manuverable; the gay sheep herds were visibly bewildered and even (if [only] privately) thankful that i turned my bullhorn to our common opponents.
i can say [that some didn't dismiss me as a complete nut] since one of the parade marshalls felt they could approach me to help direct people when the march was diverted (the official reason that the end was filling up too much; it was diverted, i later heard, at least three times, owing to a possible reason why i never found the NAMBLA contingent!). If i was in fact seen as a complete nut would they have even approached me?
At the end [of the march] one of the main Boston Queer Nation activists (who had earlier seemed skeptical of me and boylove) came up and kissed me; WHAT A GUY! Plus, a few gutsy loners [including one from my hometown, where i had "outed" myself at the local gay group] had come up to me during the march to shake my hand and cheer me on...
It was a day of magic and spirituality for me. And i wondered, my belief in a higher power (tho independent of all identities) got me thinking that maybe such "magic" is possible when one one is on the path that is most honest to their heart...
It was a total adventure all the way from preparation to finish, and i'm hyped for MORE!!! But my idea is towards nonviolent imaginative nonsilence.
Who has the audacity to stand up for who we say we love? Who has the courage to be who they are and leave no stone unturned in the efforts of possibility mongering for this cause in which we all are a part?We've got to prove ourselves, not just idly consume and let our shared fears get the best of us.
Think about it. i feel that it is better to be who i am and speak up (somehow) than to let "the cops in my head" block me from even trying. if you cannot march openly, learn to become a NONSILENT ACTIVIST in some other way!!!
i will stand i will seek justice
i will speak i will strike substance
i will be i will live
i will cry but i shall give
i will seek understanding
i will be who i am
i will not be easily damned.
some more phrases and slogans used during March on Washington '93, by Chuck
"Experts are not allowed to persue the side of the turth i know of!"
"I stant to contradict society's forced wisdom and its modern superstition of kid-lovers!"
"Intense prolonged fear broke you down and prouduced a state of greatly intensified suggestibility--incapacitating you with hysteria--and in this state you have been able to accept authority's pronouncements without question."
"can you validate kids' full humanity?"
"i speak up for dialogue LOUD and not cowed."
"when would-be tyrants treat you to adrenalin-releasing propaganda about the wickedness of your :"enemies"--particularly those weak enough to be persecuted--you can follow with enthusiasm the nature of prejudice and fascism. But I caught on! I scrutinize all dogma! Would you dare?"
"ghosts must haunt when homo[philes] opposing discrimination talk about 'reclaiming' their history and denying untrendy truths."
"I am the soul-spirit of WALT WHITMAN's full being coming back to hauuunnnt the respectability-seeking homos that would keep from the earth my full self."
"I am [list of names who were BLs] (same as above)"
"AS FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, KIDS HAVE ENORMOUS POTENTIAL IN HEALING SOCIETY YET SO MANY ADULTS WISH TO RESTRICT THEM FROM SUCH A POSSIBILITY"
"everytime you denounce dudelove, 10,000 beautiful dudes ejaculate in their best friends' mouth!"
When groups attacked i used these: "Let's take a critical look at this hysteria here---hmmmm, quite incapacitated by their moralism it seems to me!"
"As more people understand how frustration and anger can lead to scapegoating and prejudice they'll be less apt to blame entire groups for their problems."
"To the best of your knowledge you know THE TRUTH about all child abuse. To the best of my6 knowledge i've found a side of the truth you've overlooked. Why is your truth more equal than mine?"
"i'm standing up to say that it is POSSIBLE to find all races, genders, shapes and ages fully humanly interesting and beautiful!"
"I think you are merely marionettes on the dancing strings of the oligarchy of assorted experts. Please make your judgements on individuals not entire groups!"
"kid/adult sexuality, a bond between two people. It's about intimacy, it's a part of the human spirit of love!"
"hysteria merchandizers appeal only to your weaknesses, never to your potential strength!"
"Man/boy love is equal to man/man and boy/boy love!"
"I stand to contradict society's forced wisdom and its modern superstition of kid lovers!"
REPORT FROM THE ORGASM LIBERATION FRONT nonsilent ACTION IN Minneapolis, MN 1995
Commentary before the action
Commentary after
Challenges by officials
BEFORE THE ACTION: (commentary)
Plan to march alone nude (except funny face over dreaded genitals) chanting orgasm cries over my zine-funded hell-raising loudspeaker. Chant/slogans such as: "Consenting humans don't be shy, let me here your orgasm battle crie!" and various other creative voicings of sexual pleasure!!!
Imagine! The
JOY
The giggles, red faces, guffaws of assimilating-type fags watching this youthful-looking dude (me) bouncing/wending/jumping/dancing around in gay pryde marches all over the country. i've primed myself by marching in San Fiasco (1992), Boston, New York, and d.c. My ideahh is to appear suddenly somewhere every year...!
A Little Background:
Unfortunately, I've decided not to speak out as deeply (read: openly) as i would like. My justification [was] that i [was] living with a house full of frothing pedophobes (who really are just duped--one believes that Holland actually cuts the penises off of sex offenders of our nature...).
My attitude may come as a surprise to you, dear nonsilent reader, but i want to say that i am strategic in my 'outness' (especially after so many NAMBLA activists thought sure i wanted to "martyr" myself). If any of these people saw the film i was in or saw NAMBLA stuff they'd know who the fuck i am...and i would certainly endanger myself immediately and uncontrollably as opposed to controllably and more carefully. [i did come out (by leaving notes) to all of these dupes when i left for a new living space, tho!!]
One of the first eves i was living at the place some dupe brought up "pedophiles" and after explaining what we "are" to one housemate, they almost had an orgy of telling what they would do if they knew one...i kept quiet...David T. (fellow BL, and mainline activist) was surprised i didn't speak right up...i did once, slightly, to one guy (who'd just been released from prison for a drug sales charge), saying i thought that was pretty "hysterical" of him when he said something in a similar vein. [wrote a poem about the guy called "Waiting for the chance to Pounce"]
Our landlady (who lived with us) tells us of fond memories of taking showers with "her kid" tenants ( runaways). i suspect she'll be among the worst hypocrites...
COMMENTARY MADE AFTER THE MARCH:
DUDE, what a tiny turnout on that rainy day. Marched with a fellow nonsilent activist ("Pat") and it turned out to be a fun venture in the crucial arts!
My friend Pat was glad to mischievously hand out our strategic little flier (a poem called "BECAUSE", written in the form of the same flyer that i'd gotten in d.c.) while i worked/played via orgasm cries on my loudspeaker--calling very loudly such sighs as mentioned above!!!
The most important thing about this strategy is that those onlookers whose psychological armor usually goes STRAIGHT up (no matter how "queer" they are) when boy lovers march, doesn't have a chance to when such more indirect tactics are done! They're too busy giggling, guffawing, and blushing, and happily--even enthusiastically seeking such fliers...hehehehehe. ...then only later to be fully jOUnced by THE CONTENTS of our "info booby bomb" OR, in Hakim Bey-parlance, "poetic terrorism." (something i thought sounded good at the time, tho today, i'm not so sure...)
Would-be armored doors FLUNG open at the look of the youthful-type guy approaching them with funny face over his dreaded genitals, after their ears traced to whom the delicious orgasm cries emanated from...hehehehehe... The armored doors open, we flung in our little crucial art flier info "bomb"...(oh, sorry, i already said that, right..)
"Irrational Glory"
At one point we even engaged a YOUNG DUDE, in the company of a crowd of smiling, armor-shedding onlookers. These bewildered folks laughed when i asked him if he would like to voice his own orgasm crie into the mobile loudspeaker...(of course, i'd been going down the line of onlookers...) (tho i WAS too wimpy to give him, or other young dudes, our info) Seeing his smile did bring me to new heights of "irrational glory"...though!!!
Found David T. (famed NAMBLA activist) along the way and hoped he'd join me, but i guess he was content with his spectating (and teaching me how to be a "proper" middle class "boy"); his being there did inspire me a little more! (at the time)
Then there was the famous publisher of that one literary journal who was driving some old classic car, apparently running for some kind of political office. Going up to him to engage this alleged "BL" with my orgasm cries (he had not long ago sucked my dick on his summer cabin floor, using force), i was not prepared for his rude dismissal (defensive?). He told me to "Get outta here." i had actually thought he might laugh or offer to kiss my ass (okay, i'm being facetious now). Maybe he was just scared that i might out him? Well, i'd never do such a thing, knowingly!
(note: i did NOT, beforehand, know that i would see either he or David T. during the march)
Challenges by Officials
A homophile parade marshall asked me early on to get on the sidewalk. i did for awhile, but came back soon. Later, near the end of the march, while i happened to be walking on the sidewalk, he returned and threatened me with arrest by "his friends" (the famously fascist Minneapolis cops) if i didn't "turn [my] goddamn bullhorn off right now" and "get the fuck out of here."
i submitted to his threats 'til at the end of the march when i dared to speak quickly through the horn to the gathering gays, etc. Listeners later pointed out that since i didn't pay the $10 fee i really didn't have the "right" to mess with the parade and its obedient fee-payers. Yeah, right...Lame!
While walking around the consumer extravaganza, a man approached me and my fellow marcher, Pat. He wore a t-shirt that was hand-painted with something about LOVING BOYS. Since gaystreamers have totally co-opted the word "boy" i remained careful with my words --and he with his... Anyway, it was he that brought up, with definite guts, the question of whether i include BOYLOVERS...(if anyone knows this guy, i would definitely like to get in touch with him again. His first name, if i recall, was Mark...)
This solo NONSILENT activist self-starter probably never imagined that there could be someone ELSE speaking up on that day!!! He turned out to be an ex-NAMBLA activist, now suffering "two strikes" (general felonies) against him; a third and he would go to state torture chambers for the rest of his life.
Another man approached me, but he only wanted to do some french-kissing with me; we did! Wowsah!
Walking back to our transportation, finally, a drunken womyn recognized me and stated aloud that "[i] must be a Republican" for the way i spoke up...wow. i guess she was at a total loss to find a convenient category to dismiss me into and thus more easily blur my humanity...? (Minneapolis is a hot-spot for Politically-Correct so-called "Liberals" and their left-wing fundamentalist froth (i'm not saying that the right-wing and Republicans aren't any better...they're BOTH MERELY two factions of the business party in my opinion...and not part of any authentic change whatso-ever));)
THE NEXT TIME you get surrounded by hysteria (or frothing media) try these anecdotes:
When they assert their usual dogma, you might try responding with:
"Yes, yes, okay, you're RIGHT, the Sun does revolve around the Earth!" OR "I am truly sorry, you're RIGHT, Black men are so CLEVER--imagine them actually loving a white woman!" OR "My math is suspect, your highnesses! As you KNOW, the Earth is QUITE FLAT!" (any other ideahhs, folks??)
