Arizona Goddamn!

Yesterday I had to send a prayer up to my beloved Nina Simone and let her know that to Mississippi Goddamn...we now have to add Arizona.

First the Arizona legislature lost their goddamn minds by coming up with this heinous bill that actually makes it illegal to be an undocumented immigrant in Arizona (and, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, basically directs the Arizona law enforcement officers to engage in blatant racial--and clothing--profiling). Secondly, facing an election year, Republican Jan Brewer, waiting until the last possible minute, steeled up her bright red ovaries and signed the bill into the law.

I expect legislators, especially white racist legislators in territory that legally belongs to Mexico and that has consistently violated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to try and pull some fucked up shenanigans, but the fault for this bill becoming law lies squarely in the lap of that blocked headed creature of darkness called Jan Brewer.

Not only did she signed the damn bill, with a straight face, she said as she signed it, and I quote, "I will NOT tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona." (Emphasis is HERS and is included in the full text of her speech--the link to the full text is in the box at the bottom of the page).

I almost never ever use the following word in reference to a woman but...excuse me, bitch?

Jan Brewer just signed a law that explicitly makes being an undocumented immigrant in Arizona illegal. Already, we have heard about advice to police from California Rep. Bilbray suggesting that an undocumented immigrant can be identified by his or her clothes (read sombrero y chancletas). And, frankly, there are reams and reams of research that shows exactly that racial profiling is the ONLY way that law enforcement has used, outside of raids into particularly employers, to track and arrest undocumented immigrants. Again. Excuse me. Bitch.

And let me clarify my use of language. When you decide to demonize, demoralize, and establish laws to make a human being illegal (up to this point they were undocumented, now, in Arizona, undocumented immigrants are actually illegal) then you have no more sense than a common wild dog. If you act like a dog and raise your leg to piss on people, then you have earned the use of the term bitch as an apt noun and adjective to describe you.

Already there are calls to boycott Arizona. The Lakota and Ojibwe nations have released a poignant and beautiful statement establishing the rights of indigenous people from across Turtle Island to migrate as they wish as the borders themselves are illegal constructions created by an illegitimate occupying power that used genocidal practices to create their political and military hegemony. And even Shakira, today, has turned her ojos asi towards Arizona and rolled them so far up in her head that she can see her brain.

And, of course, GOP Chairman Michael Steele (who should, as my Mama used to say, be held up and have the black beaten off of him) along with other GOP turd faced pundits called President Obama's condemning of Arizona's idiocy "playing the race game."

This is a race game mother fuckers, and it was not started by President Obama or any other person of color in this nation, but I swear before God that we will finish it either by Malcolm's plan or Martin's, but the shit is on. Bitches.

Arizona goddamn.

(P.S. Just to be clear, if you ain't native...you are undocumented.)

Rookies versus Diablitos: Attack of Captain Prison Porn

Last weekend marked the official start of Summer. Don't look at me crossed eye bitches. Summer starts when the first softball is pitched in the opening game of the queer Summer softball season. Mother Nature is a drag queen, and she will not be denied.

On a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, the Ladies of the Rookies (and assorted cheer-wives) gathered at the newly renovated, highly sparkling, goose shit covered softball fields of Randall's Island. With hope in our hearts, we started off with a little practice on a field which amounted to a giant Port-a-Potty for the Canadian Water Fowl nation.

This year we are joined by two Nookies and on sNookie. Only two of the three were there, and I have not yet met our new Gaysian. I super duper heart both Scottie and Roy...and they both bring Super Secret Special Powers to our team. Roy has the power to mesmerize any man within two yards of his Shimmy Shake and Scottie has magic booty shorts that cause spontaneous orgasms when he rubs his stark albino white (yet firm and shapely) thighs together.

With these new magics added to our team, you would think we couldn't lose.

But we did. Twice.

This week we played the Diablitos (for those of you that are Spanishly challenged that translates to "Little Devils"). Los Diablitos had been in a lower division last year, but after he was discovered that they recruited half of their team from Yankees that had been suspended due to steroid use, they dropped out of the season last year and moved up a division this year. The game started off with a bang, and the Rookies scored a number of runs. At first, I thought we had the game in the bag. The opposing teams defense was about as firm as a roofied sorority girls at a sex offender special invitation taping of Girls Gone Wild.

Then we met their secret weapons: Latino the Hun and Captain Prison Porn. These two got up to bat and acted like they were offspring of Superman and the Bionic Woman. I bet they could both shoot lasers from their dicks and shit radioactive turds.

The worst was Captain Prison Porn. He was like 8 feet tall, probably had a 5 foot dick, go go gadget legs, was tatted to hell, and literally every time he hit the ball it landed on the far side of the neighboring softball field.

For those of you that are sports challenged, you are not allowed to position your outfielders on the pitching mound of the field behind you as that would be rude to the team playing on that field.

And we are all about manners.

Frankly, and I ain't afraid to say it, the other team should be ashamed of themselves. For real. Those two dudes could easily play in the highest division of our league, and we are smack dab in the middle. If I wanted to play with a Yankee, I would drape myself in needles full of anabolic steroids and have Roy teach me how to do the Man Shimmy.

In the end, we had fun, and we did mighty well considering the genetically engineered opposition. We had some awesome plays (and some not so awesome plays), and I learned to never listen to Reggie when he is coaching third base.

I can't wait until this weekend's games.

P.S. A special thank you to our cheer section which included two of my besties from Minnesota that were visiting us, Rodrigo and Nubia, as well as Scottie's Hotty Boyfriend Brendan (wife swap anyone?), my very own love David (pictures by him), the ever sexy Rich, and also a surprise visit from Dan's Mom, sister, and nephew!

They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab...and I wrote Poetry

Well...I actually went to rehab...five years ago at the Pride Institute. Those of us that went to Pride and met each other there, often refer to it as our extended time at the spa. If only I had spent that five months getting facials, seaweed wraps, and Swedish massages by a man named Thor.

Instead I spent five months up to my ears in therapy, the 12 steps, meetings, relapse prevention classes, self reflection, and, I believe, I filled about five journals with thoughts, feelings, emotions, rants, raves, and poetry.

Anyone that claims to be a poet and insists that he or she is completely well adjusted, has never had a problem with any sort of mind altering substances, and/or comes from a functional family...is either lying or is an alien and should be reported to the Men in Black. Poetry is the way that marginally crazy people that have seen a little or a lot of the beauty in the ugliness of this world share what they have seen, felt, or experienced...in this waking world or in some other altered or dream reality. Poets go places that other people can't go or wouldn't survive if they went there.

The earliest recorded literature that still exists are epic poems. The stories of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Odyssey and The Illiad, fantastic tales written by folks...some of whom that didn't survive too well past publication of their works, yet live on, despite their personal struggles, in the beauty they left behind.

When I was at Pride, a friend of mine was graduating from the program, and I decided to write him a poem to express to him what his friendship meant and how he had touched my life during our time together. That one poem turned into a tradition during my stay at Pride. Soon, folks that were graduating were asking me if I would write a poem for them. Some of these people were folks that I can say with an almost 100% certainty had never voluntarily read a collection of poetry, gone to a reading, or could name more than five working, living poets. Yet, these same people saw something in poetry and something in poetry woke up something in them that made them want to be a part of it.

I am currently doing 9 hours of classes a week in what basically amounts to rehab refresher courses. There are people in the group sessions that have been sober for 13 years and there are folks that were using two days ago. Some are straight up kids, 18 years old, and just in or just dropped out of college. Some, like me, are professionals trying to keep ahead of their addictions, and others are grandmothers and grandfathers trying to make sure they are around to see their grandchildren grow up. Some people walk in that are obviously people of means and others are obviously working poor.

I see poetry in all of these people.

These rooms are filled with folks that come in with their pain, fear, anger hurt, joy, triumph, hope, inspiration, sadness, ambivalence, and frustration. Some have stories that make my struggles seem downright easy, and others have stories that are milder than my own, but each person, it is obvious, is in pain and that pain is real without needing to or being measured in severity against an other's. Some folks have managed to get on my damn nerves straight from the gate, but, I can say with all honesty, I love these people for the poetry in them. They are living, truly living, because they are struggling against their circumstances in a fight to LIVE differently.

In this city of millions, I watch people coast through life every day. I watch living automatons moving about their day, oblivious or sedated to the point of oblivion. I watch them do the same things, in the same way, each and every day. Rich or poor they have accepted what they have, without examination, or having examined where they are and what they have, they have chosen to make peace with stasis or at least have chosen the route of apathy.

I want to live, I want to grow, and when I leave this world, whenever that may be, I want to look back on it and say that I struggled against what needed to be overcome, accepted all the love that was freely offered, and returned love freely to those that needed it.

And so I write poetry, because it is the way that I love myself, love the people around me, and love the world. Openly, as honestly as I can at the moment when writing, and wishing only that someone, somewhere finds something in the words I write to help them live a poetic life of their own.

Dating Preferences/Racial Preferences

While I don't think that preferences in and of themselves are racist, I believe that how we come to many of our preferences are a product of the isms under which we live. As a young brown man growing up in Minneapolis, I was told, oh so many times, to my face...almost always by white men (though it was sadder when it came from brown men) that I was "cute," but he (the man in question) didn't do black, brown, dark men (and I am by no means dark, so I can't imagine what would have been said to a dark skinned black person).

Our standards of beauty are absolutely based in race and racism just as is our fetishism and what each individual finds attractive is crafted and shaped by those forces just as much as the messages they got at home and from family. Sometimes family and personal messages/community messages can counteract societal and media messages but not often and never completely.

And, frankly, though I am with a white man now, for five years I refused to date any white men because I understood that it was radical, in our society, to love a brown man...particularly when I came to understand that as a product of where I grew up, when I grew up, and the messages I received that I had been taught that brown/black/yellow wasn't beautiful unless it was exotified.

POETRY: Therapy I

For a clown
muting color
and avoiding notice
is a Herculean task

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-April 14, 2010

POEM: Canis Familiaris

For Mimzy

Perched, she stares at me with challenging eyes
Like old Smaug on his stolen gold
It’s a challenge
to describe how she speaks without words
a sure touch to the leg
can mean so many things
depending on the tilt of her eyes
the heft of brows
the way she tests the air
but it always has meaning
even if I am sometimes too stupid to understand.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-13 April 2009

POETRY: Chardonnay

Cool she slips tartly
over my curled tongue
then boldly
this dryad sinks oaken roots
into the back of my throat
she slides
deftly fingering my soft palette
This is the closest to heterosexuality that I will ever come.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-Bristol, CT
-12 April 2010

Rest in Peace Dixie Carter

I am a child of the 80s. Whenever that email forward comes around and lists 100 things from the 80s that should resonate with those that grew up in the 80s, I resonate with 115. From the Monchichis and the Smurfs to Different Strokes and Designing Women, I grew up in a time when all the world's problems were solved in 30 minutes by Mr. Drummond, Mrs. Garret, Mr. Huxtable, and the Golden Girls.

I grew up wishing desperately that I lived with M'am and George in a house with secret rooms and a hidden stairwell behind the grandfather clock in the living room. I reveled in the fact that Punky Brewster's dog's name was Brandon and my middle name was Brandon. I can still, to this day, sing the theme songs to just about every 1980s sit com, Saturday morning cartoon, after school cartoon, and children's show from Sesame Street to the Great Space Coaster. And in high school, when Bob Ross (aka the Channel 2 Art Guy...the white man with the Jewfro that drew happy trees) died...I went into three days of deep mourning.

But, other than Nell Carter, no TV female personality from the 1980s impacted my life more than Dixie Carter aka Julia Sugarbaker aka Mr. Drummond's wife and the mother of Sam on Different Strokes.

I have had three step-father's in my life in addition to my birth father. So when Mr. Drummond decided to remarry and brought a step-mom into the house, I finally felt like I had found a home on prime time television. Add to that the fact that Dixie Carter was as sassy as my own Mother and had a beautiful Southern accent like my Father, and it was love at first sight.

When Designing Women debuted, I was hooked. There was a black man on the show that I loved (Meshack Taylor), and it was four strong, independent, and funny women that took life by the balls and lived it according to their own desires. I watched my Mama doing the same thing, and I loved the show for validating her existence. Since birth, I have been drawn towards strong, sexy, independent, powerful femme women, and Dixie Carter was my goddess. And when the episode aired wherein Dixie stands up for her sister (Delta Burke...another favorite of mine)...I too knew why that Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia.

I know that Dixie was a conservative Republican, but the fact that she, in her art, addressed issues such as blended families, multi-cultural families, valuing ex-convicts, feminism, and sexuality...I can forgive her for being a product of her geography. No one will remember Dixie the Neo-Con, but everyone will remember the Designing Woman.

We lost a great actress and a strong woman yesterday, and I, for one, will always remember her fondly. Say hello to Bea Arthur for me, and do some dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze...one day we will all hang out, have a mint julep, and reminisce about the decade of Greed and the popular culture that forced America to start seeing some realities that it had tried to hide or deny for a very long time. Rest in peace, Dixie. I love you.

POETRY: Spring II

The young girl in the green dress asked the robin, "Have you seen an old man in a long white coat pass by?"

"Every year, but he hurries away just before I arrive," said the robin

She sighed warmly, "That's my grandfather."

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-Bristol, Connecticut
-10 April 2010

POETRY: Spring

Each curled green tongue
hesitantly licks
the reborn sky
quivering, reluctant
at first opening
the soft note
crescendos to an emerald chorus,
Spring.

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-On the train in Connecticut
-9 April 2010

Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry

Dear Friends:

I am happy to announce the first ever spoke word poetry award (really the first award ever) from My Feet Only Walk Forward.

The Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry will be awarded to a poet that demonstrates the power of spoken word to address issues of class, sexuality and race in a way that transcends rhetoric and creates movement.

The winner will receive $150, and the winning poem will be published at My Feet Only Walk Forward (www.myfeetonlywalkforward.blogspot.com). Two honorable mentions will also be named.

About the Prize:

Alfred C. Carey was a hard working man from Northern Minnesota. He worked in construction, specifically roofing, while raising a family of 8, including three children not biologically his own. He represented a series of beautiful and sometimes hard contradictions in race, class, and history. He also, without a vocabulary around race and sexuality, accepted all of his children and grandchildren for who they were without judgment. This award is named in the honor of my grandfather.

Rules:

You may submit up to three poems no longer than a combined total of six pages double spaced.

You may also submit audio recordings in CD format. The recordings should not exceed 9 minutes in length.

Along with your submission please include a cover page that states your: Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address, Website Address, and a brief biography of no more than 6 sentences.

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE POSTMARKED BY JUNE 30, 2010. WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCE JULY 15, 2010.

Authors retain all copyright to their works, and if you would like samples returned, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Make submissions to:

Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry
c/o Brandon Lacy Campos
462 W. 52nd Street #3N
New York, NY 10019