Hell's Kitchen Journal: Celebrities and My Mom

 

 

Shirley MacLaine and daughter Sachi

My mother, Mary Mixner, passed away in 1986 and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her. Contemplating what would have made her happy today since I know she is with me, immediately I knew she would be thrilled to be included in a gallery of 'celebrity moms'. Mom, so loved meeting celebrities and hearing about the one's her children had the honor of meeting over her life.

 So Mom, here you are right between Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor. This one is for you Mom!

Here are some famous celebrity moms from LIFE Magazine!

Jackie Kennedy and Caroline 

Mary and Ben Mixner 

Elizabeth Taylor and Daughter

Joan Crawford and Children

Judy Garland and Liza

Natalie Wood and her mother 

Nancy Reagen and her son Ron, Jr.

Jane Fonda and her daughter Vanessa 

Hell's Kitchen Journal: Travels With Patsy (1970)

 

 

 

 

Many of my friends and allies in the LGBT community know my sister Patsy. They just know her as Patsy like Cher or Madonna. She has always had my back and shares my wicked sense of humor. Throughout our lives we have had many wonderful moments together. Visiting this weekend with her in Denver, we started to reminisce about a trip we took throughout remote Utah and Western Colorado. The time was September, 1970 and the states had not yet been overcome with their rapid population growth.

Patsy brought out some notes she made on the trip and I thought I would share them with you. Here are Patsy notes from our journey in forty-three years ago.

"Clearly, Toto, I am not in Baltimore anymore. I have flown into Denver to meet David who is working on the Craig Barnes 'peace' campaign for Congress. The two of us rented a Ford Bronco and took off into the remote wilds of the West.

We have just gotten out of the foothills and into the mountains have run out of gas.

Upsetting? Annoying? No. We can't stop laughing.

We hitched a ride to the nearest gas station, got gas and the kind folks drove us back to the truck. I love the fact I was standing on a mountain road 'hitchhiking'!

We laughed even harder when the gas station guy said, 'Did you two know that there is an auxiliary tank that it is totally full?"

Once again, we set off. We are giddy as if we have been set free of the world problems. We are in our best hippie clothes.

We talk non-stop. We stay in cheap motels and do mean CHEAP motels!

We are eating in wonderful diners, with the juke box connection right on the table. We are playing country music. We are playing cowboy songs. Singing along with Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, we are eating non-healthy and raging delicious dinner food.

We are on dirt roads that tightly hug the sides of mountain leaving little margin of error. A piece of big earth-moving equipment has plummeted off the side of the steep cliff.

Coming upon a deep stream, we are wondering how deep and if we can safely travel across it. I got out to test the depth by slowly wading into it. As I was doing that, a pickup truck pulled around the Bronco and went on through. It had only been a few inches deep but look how brave I have been.

The day is hot and sunny and we are on a long, flat dirt road through rock formations and in the middle of nowhere. Earlier another truck approached us with three men inside. One of them on the passenger side had a gun and was leaning out the window pointing it at us. Acutely aware of our hippie appearance, our hearts stopped in fear! As they got closer and closer, we felt that there was no place to hide. We prayed hard and it worked! God is good!

Our final stop is Lily Lake which is high up on the Western side of the Colorado mountains. The cabin was is so perfect we have changed from hippie to settler mode. It is quite chilly in the mornings and the mist lingers over the lake. Trampling through the woods, we are too disorganized to call it hiking, we are falling in love with this place.

This cabin is high up in the mountains among many peaks. They are covered with brilliant yellow aspen trees. From the front of our cabin is a big lake with lily's and wild ducks. There is no heat except for a wood burning stove. No electricity in any room except the kitchen and fortunately high water for my bath. Although it is a little hard to read in the tub by kerosene lamp. it is snowing tonight and we must chop wood for the wood stove or we will freeze to death!

This trip is exactly what we both needed at this time. Colorado is beautiful and it does look like the 'Sound of Music'. Utah, however, absolutely has wiped me out. I cannot begin to tell you how overwhelming it is to me. It is so desolate. It is very much keeping with my mood and I feel very tuned into it. The area is really cowboy country filled with tumbleweed, ranges, deserts, mesas, rocks, dust and cactus. There are millions of wildflowers, big birds and native Americans. I have taken many pictures but know they will never begin to capture what I saw. and certainly not how I feel right now"

Hell's Kitchen Journal: My Love For Animals

 

 

 

From my earliest memory, I loved animals. Growing up in the country we had cats, dogs, chickens, deer, rabbits, squirrels, pheasants and many birds that have long since disappeared. The kids in the family were taught to take care of our animals and be responsible for their well-being. As you know from my writings over the years, that I am in love with wildlife.

If I hadn't followed my current path, I most likely would have been a veterinarian for endangered species and be living in Africa. Either that or the Willard Scott on the "Today Show" dressed as Carmen Miranda!

Very early on I was assigned the task of getting the eggs from the chickens. Taking the task very seriously I would collect the eggs, put them in my pockets and then weary from the hard work sit down with the eggs still in my pants. What a mess! Besides I loved to watch them and their habits. Fell in love with baby chicks and was so excited watching them crack through the egg shells.

My brother Melvin had two beagles named Betty and Benny who he trained to be hunting dogs. He loved to go hunting with my grandfather and father. When I as ten my dad gave me a shotgun for my birthday so I could join them on their hunting trips. Terrified at the thought of killing wildlife, my mother caught me crying and convinced a not happy father to excuse me from hunting.

God, they should have known I was gay then!

My great love has been cats. My Grandmother Grove loved cats and taught me the love of them. My first one was named Igor and he as followed by Gigi. They were devoutly loyal and followed me everywhere and snuggled into my bed every night. If my brother and I would wrestle, Gigi would tear across the lawn and attack my brother.

My sister had a mutt of a dog named Judy and it was not allowed in the house. My sister demanded equality for Judy with the cats but failed in one of Patsy's first human rights ventures.

We even had a parakeet named "Mr. Peepers" (after the Wally Cox character on television) who would nose dive my sisters boyfriends. Mr. Peepers hated her boyfriends and really go after them. The parakeet never had a cage and loved to fly around the house. It would sit on my mothers shoulders as she worked in the kitchen.

Often at night we would go 'spotlighting' in the Pine Barrens to see the deer at night. We literally would see close to a hundred in a night. The back dirt roads of the Pine Barrens were desolate and foreboding and I loved every minute of it.

The wild birds were magnificent with Red-wing Black Birds, Goldfinch, Ducks, Woodpeckers, Cardinals, Blue Jays, yellow warblers, pigeons, doves, owls,etc. The colors were vivid and there were thousands of them. In South Jersey now, the marshlands have become a huge stop on migrating birds and it is a sea of birds at peak season.

Of course, there will always be my beloved Turkey Hollow years with my friends Attila and Kate the deer, Benny and Betty the bear and Franklin the Bald Eagle. 

Over the years I have graduated to Africa and take well over a dozen safari's in a number of nations in Eastern and Southern Africa. The elephants, rhino, lions and others are on the verge of disappearing in a less than a dozen years. The thought that my great nephews and nieces might not ever be able to see them in the wild is devastating to me.

We all have to act now to save them before it is too late and it is almost too late.

OUT Magazine Picks Fifteen 20th Century LGBT Legends

 

 

Alan Turing

 

Recently 'Out Magazine' picked 15 people who they chose to call "20th Century Legends'. In a 'Hall of Fame' type section, the magazine reported:

While our annual Power List ranks the most powerful LGBT people in America at this moment, that influence upon the national and international conversation was built upon the backs of giants. We have selected 15 personages from the past 100 years who have also had a broad reach—both for positive change as well as negative results—and one who may just change the lives for 21st Americans in unknown ways.

Here are the 15 people in a somewhat 'interesting' list:

- AIDS Activist Larry Kramer

- Mattachine Society Founder Harry Hay

- British Mathematician Alan Turing

- San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk

- Author and Activist David Mixner

- Senator Joseph McCarthy Aide Roy Cohn

- Journalist and Best-Selling Writer Randy Shilts

- FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

- Activist Frank Kameny

- Former Mayor New York Ed Koch

- Activist and Communist Party Leader Angela Davis

- Transgender Pioneer Christine Jorgensen

- Author Gertrude Stein

Hell's Kitchen Journal: My Life With 'The Bomb'

 

 

 

All my 66 years has been lived under a constant threat of nuclear bombs.

Almost exactly one year before I was born, the United States dropped the first ever Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. Never before had there been the capacity to cause some much death and devastation with one single weapon in one single second. From that moment forward, that single blast has defined my generation.

There was always sitting somewhere some nuclear threat that could change our lives forever. The Korean War was dominated by a debate on if nuclear weapons should be used against China. Even in Vietnam there were those yelling 'Nuke Them" as a way to win an immoral war. Smaller international confrontations like the Berlin Airlift, Hungarian Uprising and others always put us just on the edge.

Then came the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Suddenly the possibility of a nuclear war was no longer a remote concept on paper or an event that would take place on another continent. The possibility was 90 miles off our shore and the missiles could reach all the major East Coast cities. As a child, I remembered Mom creating a messy 'shelter' in our basement with some food and blankets just in case. People were building bomb shelters everywhere. When Americans jets flew low over our cities people hit the floor.

Ironically the crisis brought to American youth the sense of a limited life. Combined with the escalation in Vietnam, the spread of nuclear weapons hung over the heads of future generations. Young people protested the war. They also celebrated as if there was no tomorrow. Sex, drugs and rock'n roll became a way of life in the counter culture.

As access to knowledge became readily available through computers and media, other nations joined the nuclear club. Suddenly it wasn't just a small club of four or five but India, China and Pakistan joined the elites. The movement began to limit membership and tell other emerging nations that they were forbidden to develop them.

Massive protests against nuclear weapons and power took place in the early 1980's with millions upon millions around the world taking part in anti-nuclear demonstrations. People were frantic to rid the world of these weapons of mass destruction, Despite these massive pleas from the people not one nation dropped out of the nuclear club or any other nation stopped their research and development.

After 9/11, America knew how vulnerable we had become to outside forces. No longer did oceans and mountains separate us from the troubles of the world. The terrorists had brought it home to America. Now, the threat of nuclear weapons being smuggled in and set off in a major city was no longer the stuff of action films.

Even the hint of having nuclear weapons is enough to take us to war. President George W. Bush used that fear to lie and move us into the Iraq War. Pakistan, day in and day out, has the possibility of having their nuclear weapons taken over my Islamic militants as a side product of the Afghanistan War. Israel could soon bomb Iran because of nuclear weapons. A 29 year old idiot in North Korea has the ability to put us on the brink of a major nuclear episode.

After 66 years of living under the threat of nuclear weapons, does an entire city has be destroyed like Hiroshima to finally bring sanity back? God, I hope not but nothing seems to move leaders to stop this craziness. The escalation and fear just keeps growing and growing and growing.......

Hell's Kitchen Journal: Burnt Out

 

 

 

Over the years, I have had to struggle with many difficult situations that required great strength for me to survive. Of course the devastation of HIV/AIDS defined much of my life. There was also a bankruptcy, a nervous breakdown, alcoholism and a huge organizing failure called The Great Peace March. Being a flawed person has taught me to understand other people's struggles and demons.

This week, in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., activist Dan Choi seem to be struggling with personal demons. This should not come as any surprise to those of us who have spent years in one movement or another. Time and time again I have seen people traveling at high rates of speed to create change only to suffer 'burn out'. Many, when they have recovered, never return to activism and others return with a new fire and vision.

Friends of Choi said he could be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other related demons that come from it. He deserves our compassion, love and support. From my personal experience, it is important that his close friends ensure that he receives excellent care and treatment, lots of rest and not enable him to ignore his personal situation.

The Washington Blade describes Choi's appearance in the court room:

“I apologize for my emotions but I don’t apologize for my humanity,” Choi told Facciola as he represented himself without an attorney.

When Facciola pronounced Choi guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, Choi replied that he would appeal the verdict. When the judge announced the sentence would be limited to a $100 fine, which many of Choi’s supporters considered a rebuke to prosecutors, Choi shouted, “I refuse to pay it…Send me to jail.”

“You have a right to appeal,” Facciola said before adjourning the trial without responding to Choi’s assertion that he would not pay the fine.

“This trial began in August 2011 and was suspended, and what do you think Dan was doing for the next two years,” asked Choi’s friend, former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo, an attorney who provided Choi with legal help. “This case was basically crushing him to death. And you saw the result of his mental state in there today.”

Pietrangelo told supporters before the trial resumed on Thursday that Choi was struggling with a recurring bout of post-traumatic stress disorder. Choi has said in media interviews that the stress disorder stemmed from his combat duty in the Iraq war, where he served as an Arabic linguist and field engineer.

*******************

After losing the appeal, Choi dismissed his lawyers, who had been providing pro bono representation, and announced he would represent himself going forward in an action known as pro se representation.

Over the past several months, Choi — with help from lawyers behind the scenes — introduced a flurry of procedural motions that Facciola denied. Choi also filed subpoenas to call 21 government and law enforcement officials, including Secret Service agents, to testify at the trial as defense witnesses. Facciola granted a series of motions by prosecutor George to quash the subpoenas for nearly all of the witnesses Choi sought to call.

At the trial on Thursday, Choi called just four witnesses, two U.S. Park Police officers who played a role in his arrest at the White House fence and two people who supported his defense – lesbian former Army Sgt. Mariam Ben-Shalom and Rev. C.T. Vivian, a nationally recognized civil rights leader and colleague of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s civil rights movement.

Choi asked Vivian on the witness stand about his philosophy on civil rights and what he thought about Choi’s arrest at the White House. Vivian acknowledged that he was not present at the protest in which Choi was arrested and could not offer an opinion.

“As far as I’m concerned, you were there in my heart,” Choi told him.

Ben-Shalom, who was among the protesters arrested with Choi at the 2010 White House protest, testified that she supports Choi’s First Amendment right to participate in such a protest.

Choi questioned U.S. Park Police Lt. Robert LaChance and Park Police Sgt. Timothy Hodge, who he called as witnesses to discuss the procedures and actions surrounding Choi’s arrest at the White House protest. Both played a role in Choi’s arrest. In response to Choi’s questions, the two said they did not single out Choi for his political beliefs and had no knowledge of whether higher ups at the Park Police sought to target Choi or any of the other protesters for their political views related to DADT.

Choi also pressed the officers on what he has claimed all along – that the order by police directed the protesters to leave the sidewalk in front of the White House when Choi and some of the others were standing on a ledge to which the White House fence is attached. In what Choi and his supporters acknowledge is a technicality, Choi has argued that he could not be legally charged with disobeying an order to leave the sidewalk if he was not on the sidewalk when the order was issued.

Facciola, however, said when handing down his verdict that prosecutor George established sufficient evidence through police witnesses that the order called on Choi and the other protesters to leave the area of the fence, not just the sidewalk.

One of the most dramatic moments of Thursday’s trial session came when Choi played a video, while LaChance was on the witness stand, of the 2009 interview of Choi by Rachel Maddow, in which Choi came out as gay. He said the video would provide evidence helpful to his case.

But with the lights dimmed in the courtroom and the video playing on several screens, Choi began to sob uncontrollably before shouting to the judge, “The defense rests!” He then called on Facciola to immediately begin the closing arguments for the trial.

Facciola responded by calling a recess for lunch, prompting Choi to lie on the courtroom floor yelling and cursing. At Facciola’s orders, two U.S. Marshals lifted Choi from the floor, carried him out of the courtroom and into an elevator. It couldn’t immediately be determined where they took Choi.

But when the trial resumed about two hours later, Choi returned to the courtroom with Ben-Shalom helping him walk. After George delivered her closing argument, Choi delivered a 40-minute closing argument in which he discussed his views on civil rights, religion, the First Amendment, the Iraq war and strife between Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions, among other topics that Choi said touched on his theme of justice and equality.

At various times during the trial and in his closing argument Choi spoke in Arabic.

“The lesson we learned today is we need to start taking care of our activists who are willing to stand up and fight back against injustice,” Ben-Shalom said after the trial ended. “Today we have as pure an example as I can ever come up with about the toll it takes on a human being to stand up and fight back,“ she said.

My heart goes out to Dan and hopefully with needed rest and excellent care he will be back among the ranks of warriors. We need him but most of all we need to care for him and love him unconditionally. It is a great healing force.

Really, Justice Alito? My Struggle For Freedom Has Been Around Longer Than The Cell Phone

 

 

 

"But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?"

-Supreme Court Justice Alito

Perhaps we could forgive such a miserably inaccurate statement from Justice Alito because he is a devout Catholic, the older generation or just plain doesn't know any LGBT Americans. Because if he had the right information, knew LGBT people and understood the pain of the closet he would have never made such a stupid statement.

The Justice might think that his first awareness of the issue was the beginning of the struggle for freedom and full equality. He, as usual, could not be more wrong.

You see Justice Alito the reason you were not aware of the issue until after the wide spread use of the cell phone is that people like yourself begged LGBT Americans to lie, not tell the truth and stay in the closet. You most likely were among the group that used to say "Don't really care what you do in the privacy of your bedrooms but don't tell us about it". In a nation that places great value on truth that it sends people to prison for lying, you urged us to be dishonest, hide our very beings and lie to you and your friends.

If you believe that marriage equality is a new issue you can not be more wrong. From my first awareness of being gay, I yearned to be accepted, free and be able to have the same joys that loves offers every human being. Yes, from my early years I wanted a wedding where my family and friends could celebrate my love. You see Mr. Justice, the issue has always been here since time began. The urge to belong and celebrate is never a 'new issue'.

What marriage equality is, Mr Justice, are people filled with the American dream who will no longer lie to make you comfortable. A people so determine to be free that no matter what you rule in June we will have the ultimate victory.

Why? Because your children and grandchildren are no longer buying your desire to have us lie to them. Because your children and grandchildren just simply want to go to the weddings of their fellow LGBT Americans.

By the way, Justice Alito, do you know how to use an IPHONE?

Hell's Kitchen Journal: GLAAD Things Have Changed; Growing Up Gay Without Information

 

 

 

Sitting and watching the nominated shows last night at the GLAAD Awards there was no getting around the stark fact of LGBT Americans successful journey. Over and over again doing the packed dinner we were shown clips of television shows that had healthy whole LGBT characters who have a sexuality.

It wasn't always this good.

In my childhood there was nothing positive for me to embrace as a gay kid. There were no magazine stories, movies, television shows nor coverage in the newspaper of successful role models. In fact, it was just the opposite.

LGBT Americans weren't even allowed on television as characters until Billy Crystal in "Soap". In movies we were portrayed either as the comic lonely side kick to the female star or the perverted and dangerous figure lurking in the dark ready to kill the main lead.

If you were gay in the media you were likely to be the target of blackmail or destruction by the press. Newspapers only published stories when gay males were arrested in the parks. They published their names and addresses often leading to suicide or total humiliation.

In high school, the only definition for me was looking it up in the dictionary. Never will I forget looking up the word homosexual. First of all, I thought everyone in the library might see me do it. Second, when my hands stopped shaking I found that I was 'perverted', 'sick' and 'dangerous to society'. That wasn't exactly a builder of my self-esteem.

Last night the media clips showed over and over again two men or two women kissing. Never will forget the first time I saw two men kisses in public. I thought they might explode right there on the spot and vanish forever. When I went to see the ground breaking movie 'Making Love' and the two leads kissed all the straights in the audience booed the screen.

Don't ever doubt our progress and over the years GLAAD has made it better. They are working now to include more positive portrayals of our brothers and sisters in the Transgender community and they are being successful.

Times have changed dramatically. Young people today can see openly gay stars playing straight roles, straights playing gay roles, passionate kisses on screen that come from love and healthy successful LGBT Americans at every level of life.

It is indeed a wonderful world.

Why I Loved Elvis!

 

 

 

Alright, so for many of you I am coming out of the closet as a hopeless Elvis fan.

In my youth, he got me going with shaking his hips, his sultry looks and incredible talent. Even today listening to his music I find myself taken back into time of true greatness. The songs like "Love Me Tender" and "Can't Stop Loving You" are among my favorites. Who can't feel the urgency of "It's Now Or Never"?

Mail Online has a photo essay of Elvis of pictures taken when Elvis was just 21. The photographer Alfred Wertheimer went on the road with "The King" in 1956. Elvis had just signed his contract with RCA and had yet to make his famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

These photographs by Mr. Wertheimer will explain to you why I fell in love with the bad boy Elvis (Always loved those bad boys!).

Join Me In Times Square At Sunset on March 24; Bring A Candle

 

 

 

 

The week of March 24 will be a historic week for the LGBT community, family and friends. For two days on that week, the United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments on both the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases. Rarely has a time called for dignified reflections and 'giving witness' to the moment.

Not acknowledging the importance of those hearings in our lives is unacceptable. All over America at sunset either on Sunday March 24 or Monday, March 25 there will be vigils, visits to Congressional offices and editorial boards, LGBT couples seeking marriage licenses and even some getting arrested.

Show up and be counted somewhere in America. Just do it.

On Sunday evening (March 24) at 7:00PM, I will be taking a candle to Times Square - the window to the world and standing silently for one hour to give witness. I will be standing behind the half price ticket booth. There will be no speeches (although music is always welcomed) and no anger.

Have zero idea if it will be just me standing alone with my candle or just me and a few friends.

However, I am inviting you to come and stand with me to give witness to the nation and the world how important that week will be for LGBT American obtaining freedom and equality.

If the spirit moves you and you in New York City come on down to Times Square with your candle, your determination to fully equal and spend an hour with me.

Much love and peace.