On the Eve of Turning 34....

Hot diggity damn, I feel like I was celebrating my 21st birthday just last year. The venerable and now passed on director of the advising program where I was working as a student, Dr. Guillermo Rojas, took me out with the other staff for drinks and, silly viejo, doubted that I could drink a blow job shot with my hands behind my back.

Straight men are so silly sometimes. Sleep well Profe Rojas!

Back then I was a twinky homo living in Minneapolis, finishing up undergrad, and dreaming of one day marrying a strapping man with an ass and penis that would make the Greeks cry, writing books, changing the world, taking care of my friends and family, and living a life to make my Mama and them proud (and all the while eating well and looking good doing it).

I'll be Hot Diggity Damned if I ain't well on my way.

The last 13 years have brought all kinds of ups and downs, changes, dramas, hurts, mistakes, BIG mistakes, BIGGER mistakes, friendships, friends lost, friends and family died and moved on, loves, break ups, lessons learned and lessons re-learned, tons of laughter, tons of healing, some wounding and wound taking, and some life shattering events on a personal and global scale.

I turned 21 in 1998. It was at the height of the 90s prosperity. Clinton was still in the White House. The interwebs was making 21 year olds into overnight billionaires, poor people were poor but richer than poor folks had ever been before, cars were getting bigger, the economy was getting bigger, and I was growing up amongst prosperity and in a cohort of radical queer organizers that helped me believe anything at all was possible.

In the meantime we've had two and a half wars, eight years of GW Bush, the first black president, a recessions almost as big as the Great Depression, an oil crisis, an integrity crisis, and one hell of a collective identity crisis.

But through it all, I have been blessed to know and grow and love and be loved by so many amazing people. And tomorrow I celebrate my 34th birthday and the release of my first book, written with my former partner and friend David Berube (it includes 20 of his prints): It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt.

Life brings many blessings and many lessons. It's brought me amazing family, amazing friends, and amazing loved ones new and old (am happy to have a new blessing in the body of Keith in my life as well).

Thanks to you all that have helped make this journey possible. I love you!
It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't HurtIt Ain't Truth If It Doesn't HurtIt Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt

All is Well

Sometimes life sends you test situations, like the one in which I find myself now. The test is not a knowledge test. There isn't a correct answer. If you get it right, you don't get preferred entrance into Harvard. The test is how you comport yourself as you try to come to an understanding and solution to the task or situation at hand, and the prize is a better and deeper understanding of yourself, the things you need to learn, and the ways you have or have not grown.

I was always very good at taking tests. I had some pretty amazing scores on the ACT and the SAT. Sometimes, I wish I could replace these life tests with one of those. I thought they were stressful, but Lord in Heaven they were Cheeze Whiz on a cracker...nasty...but definitely swallowable on a dare.

The cool thing about life tests is that you don't have to take them alone. Over the years, as I have written and blogged, folks have written to me thanking me, yelling at me, or laughing at or with me. But one thing that has always come across is that folks, whether they agree or disagree with my point of view, have expressed that they had perhaps gone through similar experiences, never would have written publicly about them, and were grateful that I had done so.

In addition to wanting folks I care about to know what is going on in Crazyland aka My Head, I also want to share snapshots of my life story in the hopes that it will connect with either the funny bone or a serious moment that someone else has had or is having. One lesson I have learned good and well is that no matter how alone you feel, no matter how isolated you feel, you are never alone. Your Guiding Power is always with you, and though that is less comfort for some than it is for others, unless you are locked in a cage on a mountain in Tibet, you probably are surrounded by people that care about you, care what happens to you, and are there to support you and send you the love and light you need to pass the test at hand.

I know I have those people, and their love is bright and shining and glorious, and I appreciate all of them. From old friends with whom I am practicing an active spiritual path to a new friend that sent a text asking if he could stop by with some rice and beans, I have been blessed with numerous angels in my life.

Some of ya'll have touched base wanting to know if I am ok. I am actually doing just fine. I got my man. I got my health. I just got a paycheck. I got my God. I got clothes and food. And, as of today, I got my health insurance, which means I got a therapist that don't know about me yet.

All is well.

P.S. I almost had to kill me a homosexual at the gym today, though. So, all may not be well with him in the near future. Lord have mercy. Check back for that blog later tonight.

Poem: These Streets

I wote this poem a while back. Sometime early last year.

These Streets

I’ve been down these streets before
walked them so many times
my feet need no directions
know every sidewalk crack
houses
weeping flakes of paint like sunburned skin
vibrancy a long gone memory
these colors are barely surviving
but the patterns left behind tell stories
plainly
there for anyone that can read the street patois
the pig Latin of the ghetto
that gives young eyes the gift of x-ray vision
lets them see the roots beneath the sidewalk
through the sagging sheets hanging in the windows
beyond the rib cages of yard dogs
skin stretched tight
kinship found in hungry canine eyes

I’ve been down these streets before
walked down t hem so m any times
watched dreams cashed for rent money
watched rent money cashed for a dream high
watched the junky prophet proclaim prophecy
whispered in his ears by the monkey on his back
toothy, grinning, picking hopes like lice
lips smacking
the monkey savors each one, whispers and waves
as the street opens up
swallows them whole
I step over the chalk outline
the street grave marker
requiescat en pace
a memorial
until the next rain
or morning piss

I’ve been down these streets before
seen single mothers press bottles of Similac
into mouths screaming umbilical rage
at fathers that found peace in fists pounded into pregnant bellies
into the girl-next-door, high school sweethearts, white picket fences
that never lined these streets
lined fantasies in heads
nobody told us that white picket fences were meant to keep us out
loan denied
bad credit
pickets turned into red lines
by bodies hurled against them
fences made of white steel
reinforced
indivisible
liberally distributed
one nation
divided in two
all for some
and little for us

I’ve been down these streets before
cuz these streets pave my mind
a city built and peopled by our fears
the can’t dos, and the can nots
the not qualified enoughs
the you speak so eloquently
the relapses
the system tracking
the racial profiling
the unemployment
on these streets there ain’t no schools
only prisons
on these streets every home is broken
and no way to fix them
on these streets segregation has been perfected
it is illegal to sit with yourself
high treason
to ask yourself why
premeditated murder
to come up with your own answers
sedition
to better yourself
your only choices
drugs, jail or death
all available without a prescription

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-Minneapolis, MN
-2008

"What A Fucking Day"

The title of today's blog is a direct quote from my partner David. Thank you David.

The last couple of days have been interesting. I transitioned back into life in Oakland. It was great seeing my roommates again. I really do have an awesome house filled with fierce radical women of color. Not to mention that my physical house is ridiculously beautiful. Last night we had an impromptu potluck. I made homemade chicken soup. Makeeba made baked stuffed eggplant, and Lubia conjured up a fantastic shrimp and rice dish with sweet bell peppers.

Today we had a staff meeting, and basically, by the end, I wanted to log onto Idealist and start looking for a new job. David and I had to deal with some Ex-Factors last night which was, you know, fun. Basically, by the time I got home tonight, I put on my leftover soup, cracked a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, and started writing this blog. Hey Glory.

The universe and life is meant to be easy. That does not mean that there will not be bumps, bruises, and mishaps along the way, but in general, if you are in the place you are supposed to be and doing the things you are supposed to be doing then life tends to work out the way it is supposed to work out. Right now, my life feels very schizophrenic. The good times generally happen when I am far far from home. Which means, perhaps, that home is someplace else. On an upbeat note, I finally mailed my pre-manuscript to my editor in Florida at Summerfolk Press. It took almost a year, but it is in the mail.

Did I mention we had an earthquake yesterday too?

Life will go on. I will go on. And most likely, before not too long, I will move on to the life that I am understanding now that I am supposed to be living.