Good riddance!

People with strong religious conviction often say things based upon their belief system. I’m not going to make this into a religious debate, because there are so many others who have made incredibly strong arguments on both sides of the issue, and it is not a debate I wish to get into. But I will say that I believe that any Deity who is supposedly loving, and kind and omnipotent would not hate any of his or her creations.

And so, with many gay people attempting to gain acceptance for their homosexuality from family and friends and the like, and often facing rejection, hatred and ridicule from “society”, this morning I was taken aback to read a comment posted on the picture of myself and my pups during the pride parade.

The comment (now removed) was “fucking stupid” and the person who posted it, did me the favour of removing themselves from my friends list after posting the comment. And well they should.

I make no apologies for who I am and some of the many things I am into. I like a LOT of things – some which people may find weird or “out there” or just different. But then again, I know people who like things which I think are different and don’t turn me on, but I DO believe in their fundamental right to enjoy what they enjoy without judgement and snide remarks.

Which brings me to my point. As gay people we are often discriminated against, hated upon, and generally mistreated by people from all walks of life. Should we not, therefore, be more accepting of one another? How can we hope to gain acceptance from society as a whole if we don’t accept ourselves as a whole?

We are all different. We all have interests and turn-ons and kinks and fetishes and quirks which make us the unique individuals we are. So why spread hate and disdain for one another? It’s only going to perpetuate hate for the gay community if we hate ourselves.

So to the gay man who posted his hateful words, I say learn to accept that which you don’t understand, and learn tolerance, and love and respect for those around you, or you will never truly feel that acceptance from others. I'd rather not have you on my friends list, thank you.

Show Me!

Firstly, to the uninitiated, or those who simply don’t know, I am gay. SURPRISE! I am qualifying this remark by writing today about a piece of music from a classic musical, most often the domain of fabulous people such as myself. Quoting lyrics from musicals is common-place for me, so hopefully none of this will come as a shock. But now down to business.

In ‘My Fair Lady’ Lerner and Lowe wrote a song called ‘Show Me!’ In the song, Eliza is frustrated with Professor Higgins’ inability to express his emotions, and when Freddie starts to profess his love for her, he gets mad, and sings, in part: “Haven't your lips Longed for my touch? Don't say how much, Show me! Show me! Don't talk of love lasting through time. Make me no undying vow. Show me now! Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme! Don't waste my time, Show me!” and so on.

Her angry tirade is appropriate to how I am feeling at the moment, although with a few slight differences. Firstly, I realize I live in the far off land or Canada, and also in the boondocks, according to just about everyone, so I don’t expect everyone to show up at my door. Secondly I strongly believe in the power of words, as I spend most of my day using them. Having said that, let me try and explain what I mean when I say to you “Show Me!”

When someone professes to be my friend, I find it so frustrating to have to always be the one who picks up the phone, or starts the conversation. The joy of communication in a modern age is this: communication mediums work both ways. Granted, I talk a lot. I write a lot. I blog quite a lot (some would argue I should blog more, other less). But if I am your friend, shouldn’t you put in the effort too? Shouldn’t you also check in to see how I am doing? Shouldn’t you want to know what’s going on in my life? I know I post stuff on Facebook etc, but (and sorry to disillusion anyone here) I don’t post everything about what’s going on on there.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand we all have our own lives to lead, and things happen beyond our control to prevent us from communicating with friends. But when that one day of being out of touch turns into weeks on end, don’t you think about your friends? Don’t you wonder how they are doing? What they are doing? Don’t you wonder if they are ok? Or wonder what lies beneath the facebook statuses? Or, indeed, between them?

I know this sounds a little like an attention seeking plea – and I suppose it truly is, but as someone who places a very high value on their friendships, I don’t feel it is too much to ask. I guess in some way, I feel tired of playing second fiddle to people who I care about on many levels. I find it hurtful and painful that while I sit somewhat alone on a daily basis, other people who are friends don’t seem to be arsed about how I am. It leaves me feeling alone and isolated, and not very valued at all. Am I placing too much value on my friendships? I don’t think so, but perhaps I am.

So there is a lesson here for those of you who have friends in your life: take a little time out – say ‘Hi, how are you’, reach out and communicate – I DO believe in the power of words to brighten a day, to change a mood and definitely to save a life – I have seen it happen. This is important, because if you ignore your friends when things are good in your life, don’t be surprised if they ignore you when you truly need their support in bad times.

Just sayin.

Another pet perv - I mean peeve

OK – I know I have said this sort of stuff before but holy crap it frustrates me. I AM NOT A PIECE OF MEAT ATTACHED TO A PENIS. Dear god, people! I breathe. I have a pulse. I have a brain which is NOT a part of my penis. I think. I do. I feel. I learn. Not only that – I’m probably one of the few people you know who has SO much information about themselves out there. I have a webpage, I have blogs, I have facebook, twitter, tumblr, youtube, you-fricking-name-it, there is something about me at almost every corner of the internet universe.

SO why do people still ask my stats? Why do people still ask the basic questions about me which are clearly written in not one, but multiple places around the web? Furthermore, why do they bother to contact me if they obviously want to know NOTHING about me. I would say it drives me nuts, but the smartass friends I have would say something about that. It is, however bloody annoying.

If you want to talk to me or message me, then do some leg work. Find out WHO I am not just what I am. READ – don’t just look at the pretty pictures. I get conversations by IM or email which start off with “I’m so horny right now” – I’m glad you are. I am horny too – all the time. And while its nice to be looked at as a porn item, there is so much more to me than that. If that is all you are interested in me for, then please keep moving.

I am funny, and witty, and mischievous, sometimes kinky and bordering on perverted. I love to laugh – I openly admit I can be moved to tears – both good and bad, sometimes at the drop of a hat. I love my friends, I’m passionate about a number of things, including kink. I don’t like mushrooms and I don’t do phone sex. I don’t own a cell phone, and I won’t send you pictures by email text or courier pigeon. There are more than enough pictures of me available out there on the web – and I add new ones constantly. If I can make the effort to read the profiles of you I can find, you can do the same.

/end rant

Love 101

Right. Here we go.

Abuse of the English language aside, one thing a lot of people seem unable to grasp is the concept of love. OK, OK, OK…. Keep your hair on. Let me be clear.

There are many different forms of love. And there is a VAST difference between loving someone and being IN love with someone. Also some people seem to confuse LUST with love. (I could name quite a few people here, but I shan’t)

So I love my biological brother. He is family and there is a bond there. But, honestly, I don’t like him very much. That’s a kind of love. I love my family differently than I love my friends.

I *DO* love my friends. And I tell them that. I say “I love you” – sometimes during conversations – and it freaks some people out. So for the record, here is what I mean when I say to you “I love you”.

I mean that I care about you. That there is a place in my heart for you. That I miss you when you aren’t around. That I feel a bond to you. That I care about what happens to you. That I want only the best for you. I mean that seeing you happy makes me happy.

I am not *in* love with you. And, honestly, I don’t know if that’s something I will be able to feel again after my past – but things change I guess. When I’m in love, I can’t get the person I am in love with out of my mind. And my heart physically hurts to be separated from them. And that scares the shit out of some people, apparently, especially if that same level of love and devotion is not reciprocated from them.

So to my friends, know what I mean when I say ‘I love you’. Because I have a heart larger than you can fathom. And each and every one of you holds a little piece of it in your hands. It’s delicate, and it hurts easily. So don’t abuse it. Don’t treat it with careless abandon. It’s a treasure. And once it’s been wounded, that piece dies, with very little chance of revival.

So thank you to my friends for accepting my love. And for those of you who return that love – thank you. When you feel alone – remember: I love you.

Just sayin.....

Facebook Fury

Ok – so I’m partially a facebook junkie. I admit it. I do with facebook what I do with my refrigerator. I return every once in a while to see if something new or appetizing miraculously appeared while I was gone. And usually – not much. But lately – two things have been occurring which seriously piss me off!!

/Start rant

I was intrigued by a notification which read “Whatshis Name has tagged you in a picture”. And I clicked on the notification to see a picture of Whatshis Name. And I noticed he has tagged not just me, but like 30 other people in his picture. And I found my blood boiling.

Firstly – the picture was clearly not me. (Not that it matters, but it was nothing like me). So don’t bloody tag me in it. Secondly – I then had to try and figure out a way to UNTAG myself. This is quite an endeavor on facebook – because they keep changing the rules. I managed to untag myself and then promptly deleted Whatshis from my friends, and blocked him permanently, and uttered a curse to the universe upon his fake-tagging ass.

What troubles me is the motivation. Now don’t get me wrong, I am flattered someone thought of me – but don’t tag me in something I am not in. Don’t try and boost your friends list by piggy backing on other peoples friends who will want to see the picture they are tagged in. Is it just me? I mean – how would you feel if you were tagged in a picture of someone else you are clearly not in?

I DO have to state though, that I have before been tagged in pictures which were of a humorous nature – as a way of a friend saying “I think you are like this” – I get that – and I can smile along with the rest of them. But not when it shows questionable motivation like the incident I mentioned – which – I may hasten to add, happened twice in a week…..

The other part of my rant today is still a facebook subject, and I have seen a number of people complaining about the same thing recently on their walls.

Almost every day, someone randomly adds me to a group they are in. Now don’t get me wrong here – Its nice to have some groups on facebook to which you can belong and meet  people with the same interests/likes etc, but it frustrates me that facebook allows people to add you automatically, without permission to a group which you have no interest or nothing in common with.

Now some of my Facebook friends have really taken offense to that – they have not only left the group immediately, but they have deleted and blocked the person who added them, and sworn the wrath of the gods upon them. That may be a tad extreme, but I see their point. It’s frustrating being added to a group without having the choice. Maybe facebook will change that policy – who knows.

In the mean time, as a courtesy, ASK ME – message me on facebook – say to me “hey, I’m in this group, would you like to be added?” and I can tell you right away yes or no.

JUST SAYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/end rant.

“Treat others as you would like them to treat you”

Often I find myself getting so frustrated at things that I want to reach out and bitchslap some people. I guess it’s a pet peeve of mine to some extent, but it touches on a larger subject.

My mother always said, when I was growing up, “Treat others as you would like them to treat you” – and as far as I know – most people have at least heard that phrase sometime in their lives from someone with some wisdom and experience behind them. So that begs the question – why don’t people bloody listen?
I lead a relatively dull life by comparison to some, perhaps, and I spend a great deal of time interacting with people online. Living in a very small town where one could count the gay people on your two hands and have fingers to spare, means that my social life has pretty much been relying on those people I meet on the internet.

Now I’m not going to go into the whole dis-functionality of that last statement – I know that’s not an ideal way to form relationships with people, but sometimes ones circumstances don’t leave you with much choice. But let’s at least be clear on this – it is well known that people on the internet are fickle, right?
However – going back to my original statement, I wonder if people wish to be treated the way they treat others online. Imagine, if you will, yourself in my shoes. I post a lot of pictures online, and videos. People like them. They drool over them, fawn over them, and often do unmentionable and unconscionable thing to their private parts over them. They are nothing more than visual stimulation. I get that – I enjoy porn too.
But in a world where sex has become easy to find – the internet is a wonderful tool for this – have we forgotten other life skills? How often do I run into someone online who wants to “chat” and then only wants to actually have a wonderful fantasy session with me and then slips back into the dark reaches of the web, never to be seen or heard from again?

We appear to have lost the ability to care, and to treat others with kindness and understanding, and sometimes in our real lives, we have forgotten how to be a good friend. Now the gay condition dictates that we think with our genitals, and want to impregnate anything we can as often as we can – but there is so much more to life.

Should we not be constantly building relationships with people – supporting one another – and not just in times of crisis? Life is too short to not indulge in the richness that makes up people.
While this all seems somewhat random – my point is this. I make effort every day to get to know people better – the people I interact with – my ‘friends’ – be they in real life or online. (And yes, people one only knows online CAN indeed be friends – good friends). But I notice so many people do not take the time to reach out and understand and know others. Sometimes, they even ignore those people who might be a rock of support and caring in a time of need when they are not in crisis.

Friendship – true friendship – means being a friend constantly and consistently – in good times and bad times – its taking the time to listen to their rants, their gushes, their stories about their day – and not because you have nothing better to do – rather because you care about the friendship, the relationship and them enough to give one thing we all ultimately don’t have enough of on this planet: time.

We all want to feel valued. We all want to feel loved. We all want to be accepted. We all want people to genuinely care about us and our lives and what happens to us. So treat those you meet as you would like to be treated. After all, you never know when engaging in conversation with an acquaintance could mean the start of a life-long friendship or more. And showing kindness to someone could actually save their life that day. Treat others as you would like to be treated, give of your time and of yourself – even if it’s just a little every day – because you can have a good or bad impact on someone else’s day by doing so. Wouldn’t you want someone to make you feel good? Wouldn’t you like someone to make you feel good? Sometimes, a little effort goes a long way.

Just for the record....

Just for the record.... this blog page is my tongue in cheek, ranty/ravy/invoking discussion blog. It is not for the feint of heart and certainly not for those easily offended. All I can say is - don't take what is said here personally or as an affront. 99% of the time, it is not about you personally.

I love to laugh. I like to be happy and share things which make me smile or think. So here is a thought.
What if people stopped for a few more moments before the post stuff online? What if we reverted back to the "old ways" of thinking. of manners? or respect for one another? What if we decided that starting today, we would treat others with the kindness and respect and caring we would like to be treated with?

I say this, because I notice how it seems to have become the norm for people to find humour in putting down others. I have noticed that some people go so far as to purposely try and stir the pot as it were - spreading rumours and false-hood, and generally making the lives of others miserable. And I don't really get the reasoning behind it. I think perhaps its just for some kind of twisted satisfaction. But what does one actually gain by doing so?

Now I'm not saying that we cant all have our own opinions about people - that's perfectly  normal - but some of these people create these opinions based upon some lie they have created or some suspicion that have. Someone online recently, a victim of such cyber bullying and false rumour spreading, feigned his own suicide to try and expose to the purveyor of these rumours how serious spreading falsehoods about someone could be. Now - granted, I may not agree with the method - but is that what it takes for people to take notice of how they are treating other people? I truly hope not.

Perhaps its just my upbringing, but I cant see the purpose in trying to put others down, or trying to point out their flaws. What do we gain by hurting others? Nothing but some kind of feeling of superiority - based upon our own insecurities?

When I was a kid, other kids used to say "don't point a finger, because there are 3 fingers pointing back at  you" - and while that may sound infantile - i think it holds water. Pointing out the flaws in someone else doesn't make us a better person - it simply points out that we have 3 times as many flaws ourselves, don't you think?

Just sayin....

Pet Peeve and the reason why I don’t have a cellphone.

Pet Peeve and the reason why I don’t have a cellphone.

Once upon a time, there was no internet. I know some of you youngsters may not believe me, but its true. There were also no cell phones. And, most importantly, until relatively recently in this timeline, there was no Facebook.

I’m relatively easy to please. I truly am. I am a nice guy, who goes about his daily stuff and does what he has to – without needing to check in everywhere I go. I notice on Facebook I am constantly barraged with people’s every action - like they are trying to rub your nose in it. Most of this is coming from their cell-phone app. So I thought to myself, in my day, what would my “check ins” look like? So here is what I think it may be like:

9:48 am Johnny Naughty checked in at The Porcelain bowl, with URINE.
9:50am Johnny Naughty checked in at the Coffee Maker, with CREAMER and SUGAR
9:51am Johnny Naughty is Smoking with HIMSELF @ The Computer
9:51am Johnny Naughty is sipping coffee and checking emails @Home
9:55am Johnny Naughty is taking a SHIT @ The Porcelain Bowl with ToiletPaper
9:59am Johnny Naughty is Lighting a Cigarette and Reading annoying statuses on FACEBOOK @home while his HAND is on his…

See what I mean? I mean seriously. WHO GIVES A DAMN? Do we need a blow by blow of everyones day?

OK OK – rant over and maybe I am over re-acting. But do people not think? I mean lets put it this way. For a moment, imagine you are single. Or – better yet – imagine you just broke up with your boyfriend. And you are sad, or lonely, or depressed. And you go to facebook because that is your habit. And what are you barraged with? Happy couples telling you how they had lunch together at such and such, or how they are cuddling on the sofa watching romantic movies and eating popcorn, or wiping each others arses in their palatial home on a tropical island.

I’m not saying don’t be happy with your relationship or proud that you managed to eat at McDonalds today without throwing up because of pink slime, I’m just saying think a little more of the impact what you say has on other people and their feelings. And – the scary thing about that last statement – is that I have said that before in other blogs. Damnit – why isn’t anyone listening?