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Parents - Three of Each

Parents - Three of Each A humorous introspection by Desmond Rutherford © 2012 I’ve been asked for a short version of little Dessie's early years of parental influences. It all seemed to me, even back then, to be rather ordinary really, but in reality my early years were a minefield of historical precedents setting our cultural taboos and traps. How's that for an opening sentence? Okay, don't get excited, here are the details. Most of the time my mother and her sister suffered from the mala

DesDownunder

DesDownunder

About me coming out.

I found a site that I am worried about called When I Came Out. This site is a place inviting people to submit their story, in five sentences or less, which describes their coming out. Sounds good? Don't get excited. The site conditions state that they reserve the right to refuse posting a story. Okay that's fair enough. However they also state they will edit the story for length or grammar. It's only five sentences, how short do they want it to be? What really annoys me is that they claim th

DesDownunder

DesDownunder

February celebrations

Just a reminder of important February celebrations: Entire month: Pull your sofa off the wall month 2/7: Wave all your fingers at your neighbor day (not just the one you commonly use) 2/9: Read in the bathtub day 2/11: Don't cry over spilled milk day (requires spilling milk) 2/18: Thumb appreciation day (I think in the UK it's opposable thumb appreciation day) 2/23: Curling is cool day 2/28: Public sleeping day

bi_janus

bi_janus

My Life in a Rocky Horror Picture Show

For 50 years my working life has been involved with motion pictures...on film. It is therefore not without some sense of nostalgia that I saw the headlines about Kodak filing for bankruptcy. I knew when I came out of retirement late last year that the cinema I am working at would succumb to the deadline, in about 18 months, when all new movies will only be available for digital projection - no more movies on film. From what I can see all cinemas including large screen format theatres will be d

DesDownunder

DesDownunder

Yes, we have our own journal and apparently some Australians read it

For most of my adult life I have tried to destroy heteronormative myths about gay couples: that gay men are promiscuous and incapable of long-lasing monogamous relationships. Notwithstanding the fact that I have known more than a few gay men who were promiscuous with no interest in stable, long-term relationships, most of my gay male friends are living lives that look a lot like those of many heterosexual couples (different plumbing excepted). Ann and I, resisting the common slanders, have be

bi_janus

bi_janus

Reader Feedback and Personal Philosophy

This might be a long one. I'm going to preface this by saying that this is all the opinion of EleCivil, the eccentric weirdo whose advice you probably should not heed for any reason. It in no way represents the views of the site admins, etc. etc. legal stuff. I recently got an email from someone telling me that they enjoyed my short story, Fistfights with Flashlights - this was a short story that I wrote while in the middle of Leaves and Lunatics, when I was about 18 years old. To be honest, I

EleCivil

EleCivil

Subtle Emanations

When I learned Tai Chi exercises, the old man always began facing the North. When I asked why, he told me that he was able to feel the interaction of the subtle emanations of Earth’s magnetic field and the field of his own Chi. Then he laughed and told me about the dangers of habit. I have never felt this interaction, but since the old man never lied to me, I begin the exercises facing North. Who knows? One day . . .

bi_janus

bi_janus

Ann comes out

Ann came out as much as I did. If you imagine that people had trouble with my sexuality, you can guess that a lot of people thought she was naïve at best and nuts at worst to stay with me. She saved my life and discovered that rather than occasioning loathing, my affinities struck an erotic chord in her. In fact, we share the same taste in men. I’m sure strangers would be confounded if they overheard her, out on the trail or on a walk along the river, point out some particularly attractive g

bi_janus

bi_janus

My Teenage Missing Link

Like old people tend to do, I was recently aware of reminiscing about my early teenage years; in particular about my school days, and specifically, my high school nickname, 'De-link'. Now you might actually think you can work out how I was given this name, but I'm willing to bet you'd never get it right. As fate (and my poor study habits) would have it, I had to repeat my second of year high school. I was pissed, to say the least; another year of being bullied and tormented by both teachers an

DesDownunder

DesDownunder

Strange Creature

A mating pair of Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis pratensis) lived part of the year at the back of our lot, which butted up against an old orange grove. Cranes represented long life and prosperity in old China. I have had long life and know the difference between wealth and prosperity. Each year we looked forward to seeing them move across our back yard, at first alone and then with a pair of youngsters. They were tall birds with grayish feathers and heads that, capped in bright red, came up

bi_janus

bi_janus

Crying

I am surprised that crying is the most difficult matter for me to write about. If you’ve read any of my entries, you know that writing about death, sex, and love are pretty easy for me. When you’re wounded as a kid, you become very careful about crying. When I was fifteen, Tyler cried once when we were together after an afternoon of instructing each other on the finer points of fellatio. His tears, I learned, weren't the result of the lessons. Tyler was fifteen and overwhelmed by confusion

bi_janus

bi_janus

Confusion? Dispatch from the bisexual corespondent on the last half of the twentieth century

I was never confused, as many people think bisexuals are. I liked to eat pussy as much as I liked to suck dick (both at the same time is the sweetest spot). I liked to fuck girls and boys and be fucked by both. I wish that the lack of confusion about what I was had extended to how to live what I was, but that clarity was dearly won. I would have benefited from models. Either sex could set me aflutter and I suspect that I could have made a life journey with one of either sex. The intimacy I

bi_janus

bi_janus

Before the ambulance arrived

We went to a call for a woman in labor at an apartment complex. We were met by a four year old at the bottom of the stairs to a second story apartment. Silently, he led us through the open door of an apartment that was unfurnished except for a king size bed in the master bedroom. We asked the police officer who trailed us to watch the boy. In the middle of the bed was a young woman of remarkable composure given the circumstances. She was pushing, and I asked her to try to stop until we w

bi_janus

bi_janus

Combat

The practice is not about eastern philosophical mumbo-jumbo or moral education, yet both happen. The practice is about combat. When I practiced with the old men, no confusion or internal argument clouded their actions. These compassionate and loving men would destroy in an instant. Here was the example experienced. Avoid combat, but once joined, someone dies. If your partner in this dance disengages or can no longer dance, then combat avoided. But, while joined, the roles were set; they w

bi_janus

bi_janus

Personal Questions

Personal Questions A boring look into the existence of Jason Rimbaud In the forums of GayAuthors, in the Games and Humor thread, there is an entry called Personal Questions. Basically it’s a forum game where each person asks a personal question and the next person answers the question before asking his own personal question. As I read through all the questions and the replies, I realized that there was numerous questions I would have love to have answered. So I thought it would be a g

Jason Rimbaud

Jason Rimbaud

Water from another time

In the mid-1950s when I was seven or eight, we lived on a dead end street that stopped at a creek bed. The garbage trucks would head down the street, nose-in, and then turn around in the driveway of the last house before heading back out. The crews were made up of a white supervisor who drove and two black men who handled the garbage. In the hot Florida summers, they often waited after turning around, and took a short break in the shade. The driver would remain in the cab with its fan while

bi_janus

bi_janus

Persistence

One day when I was thirteen, during teisho, the old man, even then universally admired, recounted Okazaki Teruyuki’s definition of the relationship between teacher and student. Okazaki-sama said, “Student here (indicating his knees), teacher here (indicating his head), no steps (indicating the space between).” I told the old man that I had no notion that I could reach his level of skill, and that I imagined that he had been a prodigy. He told me that many of his fellow students were more tale

bi_janus

bi_janus

Ple-ize, stop!

I write to you on behalf of a dear old friend near death in a shabby linguistic hospital ward for the aged, replaced by a newer, longer, less precise but more scientific sounding, and newer version. . . . the short words are the best, and the old words, when short, are best of all. — Winston Churchill (Speech on receiving the London Times Literary Award, November 2, 1949, Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches) Use use, do not utilize utilize.

bi_janus

bi_janus

Fire and Rain

The first two fires I attended were in the rain. After the Fire Academy and three weeks of department training I was a probie in the cab of a ladder truck, seated between the driver and the officer, headed to my first fire. I experienced a little boy’s delight as I worked the electronic siren. As we approached, the single story house’s roof was collapsing, a dark hole spreading from the center of the fire’s first penetration through the shingles. The engine companies had matters in hand, and

bi_janus

bi_janus

ghost-net

It's been over a month now since my grandmother died. This past weekend was the 11th anniversary of my dad's death. I had a really close relationship with my family. That's no matter what I say about being gay, my feelings about that. The past few weeks, after doing a lot of immediately necessary things, I then sort of retreated into my shell. I know I can't really do that. My house is a mess. And by mess I mean something beyond pigsty. Pigs would be offended. My grandmother's house is still to

blue

blue

Alphabet Soup and Unlabelled Cans

Gay. Straight. Both. Neither. Transgender. Intersex. Queer. ... Just how many letters are in that alphabet soup, anyway, and what happens if you don't have enough letters? There's a scene in one of my favorite shows, Firefly, where River Tam has taken the labels off most of the canned goods in the ship's pantry. Some of the crew (Jayne, for one) object. River's brother, Dr. Simon Tam, and the preacher, Shepherd Book, say they'll just have unlabelled cans for a while, pot luck, it'll keep things

blue

blue

Tuning

At the University of South Florida, in the small gymnasium, on a platform draped with hand-woven rugs and supporting pots of burning incense, Shankar and Allarakha sat and began to play. Lines of raga and percussion pierced me. After a few minutes, the music stopped; the crowd applauded wildly. Shankar smiled toward Allarakha and said, “Thank you. If you liked the tuning so much, we hope you enjoy the concert.” The tabla playing that evening was virtuous, and like lightning striking. Try t

bi_janus

bi_janus

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