Farewell to a Friend Dying Too Young

Richard Ammon
The Pines, Fire Island
Long Island, New York
May 8, 2010

This is where the gay boys are housed in their trendy unpainted wood and glass mansionettes surrounded by scrub oaks, wooden sidewalks, sandy beaches and testosterone. It takes a ferry to get here and much money to stay; it's definitely a place for upscale gay males and their less affluent friends, including weekend toy boys. In the small harbor float half a dozen luxury yachts belonging to the really rich.

But I was not there for the scene and neither were the other 15 guys and one woman who gathered one weekend in May at Steven's house on Neptune boardwalk. It was a party of sorts, except the guest of honor was not there. Conrad died a few months ago in Bali. Only his ashes remained, transported here by his 'widowed' partner, Michael, in a carved wooden box (from Indonesia, of course).

Conrad and Michael were a gay couple living in Bangkok (photo left)--busy, compatible, productive and sociable. They loved long-distance living. Suddenly Conrad’s heart stopped. He was 62.

I knew Conrad since he was 18 and I was 26 at Tufts University but we had lost contact for years--resolved with a happy reunion last year in Bangkok, with Michael.

Reaching that far back into personal history is only possible with a rare friend who remembers shared vague moments, fragmented images or fumbling and forgotten passions. It’s a special reach back into the misty swamp of memory that only historical friendship can evoke.

I like the crashing feeling of being yanked backward 40 years to forgotten-yet-not places, people and action normally crusted over with time and re-awakened suddenly with a youth-charged old friend who speaks names and feelings and carnal moments of long ago. Conrad and I did that on our last visit.

Now those particular memory streams that he could re-awaken are silenced. I don’t mind the loss of those memories but I do mind losing him.

Surviving partner Michael (photo right) arranged everything perfectly for the memorial weekend--rooms at neighbors' houses, communal dinners at Steven's and the boat to take us out to sea to spread the ashes, followed by strewn flowers from the friends on deck. The weather was quite fine: some scattered clouds, sunshine, calm winds, warm early May. (A storm followed a while later.)

Michael held open the silken bag and the ashes fell to the sea. It seemed such a simple end to a life that was complex, adventurous, unique--now dust. As I age, illness and death encroach on one friend after another, one family member at a time. I don’t much like it. I’d like my favorite and long-distance friends, lovers, parents and chosen family to answer the phone when I call.

But the way of the world is not my will; there’s only the fading echo of their voices and the ashes in the wake.

Sic transit gloria mundi. (everything changes)

Leo Tolstoy and Russian Soup

Richard Ammon

GlobalGayz.com

I recently traveled to Russia where I visited three cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tula.

Tula?

It's hardly a tourist hotspot, but this industrial city 120 miles south of Moscow is the location of a world renown site that has become a shrine of sorts for intellectuals, students and lovers of Russian culture. Just outside the city center is a sprawling estate of gardens, fields and forests and a few fine mansions. The estate is known as Yasnaya Polyana.

In the middle of this sylvan glen is the house that was once the home of Leo Tolstoy (photo right), the writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. "His masterpieces 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina' represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction." A description of his life an work can be found here.

A mile down a footpath is his grave set among tall pines. He died at a small village train station--Astapovo station--in 1910 after leaving home in an agitated state in the middle of winter at the age of 82.

But the drama of his last year (depicted in a 2009 movie, 'The Last Station', directed by Michael Hoffman starring Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoya) was not in my mind as I toured his house at Yasnaya (photo below left) where his personal effects give the place a feel of still being inhabited, including bed clothes, countless volumes of books, wash pails (he cleaned his own room), walking stick and family photos. And of course his writing desk, an 'altar' for writers, on which he composed his great works as the thoughts came up within his imagination and memory. Late in life his wife purchased a big Remington typewriter. In another room is a phonograph personally sent to him by Thomas Edison.

Next to his bed is a pad and pen in case ideas arose during the night, no doubt frequently. His was a mind alert to nuances, disparities, absurdities, unfairness, dramatic urgencies, futility and the emotional contagion of the human condition.

Walking among his household belongings and feeling the ambience of his life and the breadth of his mind, I felt humbled and rather envious that I have lacked the discipline across my lifetime to create such fine works, writings, that dissected and described human behavior in the poetic narrative form known as the novel--or even in a non-fiction documentary. Great writers and music composers have an immortality among human civilization on this planet that I admire and desire--a feeling dispelled only by looking at the stars in the universe where true immortality lies.

The visit to Yasnaya was inspiring and serene--and grounding. Immediately across the street from the columned entry to the estate was the homey Cafe Preshpekt that served delicious solyanka, a hearty Russian vegetable soup with chicken or beef. It too was life affirming.

Nearby is a language school for modern day students that includes the Yasnaya Polyana Hotel where I stayed for four restful days. There is also a conference center that hosts the International Tolstoy Conference in August 2010.

Gay Pride in Russia

Richard Ammon

GlobalGayz

April 27, 2010

Letter from Russia.

Gay Russia is surprisingly alive or dead according to the view you have from being there.

Dense homophobia pervades the culture. A visitor will not find a public scene. No flags, no parades, no store-front centers or offices, one magazine, a couple of on-line gay sites that list a few venues, one in-the-streets activist organization that tries to mount a gay Pride event each June that's overrun with skinheads and police.

Or, a visitor can point to the vibrant gay night life in Moscow and St Petersburg--a dozen bars, discos, saunas in the two cities. Passport gay travel magazine recently described St Petersburg's biggest gay club, Central Station, as " a veritable maze on four levels connected by several stairways, a half-dozen bars, two stages, a sushi restaurant, comfortable nooks to chat in, and a dance floor. On weekends the club is packed with over 1,000 people. On Thursday nights about 100–150 gals show up for Lesbian Night."

In Moscow, the popular Propaganda bar-disco gets mixed reviews: "Propaganda is really good on Thursdays and really crappy on Fridays and Saturdays. The gay party on Sunday is excellent (not for girls, though). The food at Propaganda is very good and cheap." Or: "people who say that it is a cool place are definitely not from Moscow."

From either perspective, the LGBT scene in Russia is very limited. How could it be otherwise?

This vast country spans eleven time zones stretches more than ten thousand kilometers (6300 miles) from Western Europe to far eastern Vladivostok. There are a mere 142 million people living in 17,075,400 sq km (6,592,800 sq mi) of territory. That makes the population density about 21 people per sq mi! And how do you organize a party in a population where 90% of people do not own a computer!?

The answer is not easy. Nor is the LGBT effort currently under way by a tiny group of LGBT Russians who are trying to carry the modern banner of human rights and equality to the government and people of Moscow and St Petersburg. For the past four years, the gay rights organization GayRussia.ru--led by Nikolai Alekseev--have attempted gay Pride demonstrations at public locations. None of thee had official city approval even though Russian citizens have the right to assemble--with permission. Mayor Luzhkov has refused that permission four times in four years. It would seem the LGBT public efforts were stalled.

But instead of cowering n fear, as they did in communist times, GayRussia.ru has 'fought' back by staging rallies despite the ban. The results are a bit of blood, bruises, arrests and court appearances. And they plan another event this year in June 2010.

This is the new tactic in homophobic countries that are outgrowing their socialist heritages: Baltics, Balkans, Eastern Europe (and Turkey).

Russian activists are taking the middle way. The results will likely succeed since successful membership in the European Union demands respect for human rights for all and non-discrimination toward minorities. Such humane laws will not go backward and GayRussia.ru will succeed over time.

(This is NOT the tactic in extremely homophobic cultures that are deeply entrenched in Muslim heritages. Here the risk is death, not just a street tussle. There, GayRussia.ru members would be assassinated by death squads. So they don't go there. No gay rights activist go there and only work online to help individual sneak out of the toxic countries.)

Support gay Pride Russia in June 2010.

El Salvador and Survival: Gay Life Among the Chaos

Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com
San Salvador, February 9, 2010

I am often amused and irked at how the gay community in any one country is portrayed both in the majority media and in the gay media as well.

El Salvador is another one of those ‘throw-away’ countries in Central America that is mostly ignored unless there is controversy happening such as a civil war, death squads disappearing priests or a full-scale gun battle in the city center. In the wake of a decade of bloody violence in the 1980’s that left 75,000 dead the anti-government guerrillas (FMLN) eventually became a political party, gaining regional power, and are currently in power with the election of a FMLN president in 2009.

Unreported in any of the press, this once violent, once anarchist party is showing itself to be somewhat gay friendly, as measured by the degree of harassment against the leading LGBT organization Entre Amigos. During the previous government terms, being openly gay had its price. The Entre Amigos offices were raided more than once and William Hernandez, his partner and his family (two daughters) were threatened enough to warrant police protection.

Currently, although he still worries for his girls now in college, he says there is little need for the guards. When I visited the Entre Amigos offices the other day the name of the organization was proudly emblazoned on the front exterior wall. (photo right)

As I write this, I am reminded of another country with a violent civil war that ended with the leftists becoming a political party and gaining power—Nepal—has also become somewhat gay friendly. Not embracing (homophobia is alive and well there), but tolerant to the degree of having an openly gay member of parliament and allowing a gay festival. Recently it hosted a gay tourism conference.

In the past ten years, local prosperity and remittances from El Salvadoran workers abroad have allowed the construction of modern shopping malls, which in turn have become popular gay cruising venues. One evening’s visit in a restaurant at a window seat reveals a carnival of characters passing by--gay, straight and in between.

Downtown San Salvador, the capital, there are now gay and gay-friendly discos, bars, strip clubs and even a sauna. These don’t happen during civil wars or during eras of repression. One young gay man I met (out to his family) said he has never had a problem meeting other guys and appeared pleased with his ‘history’ of cruising.

Most surprisingly, the gay community also has staged a gay pride march for several years and has an intelligent and informative web site called ElSalvadorg.com with news, events and a forum hosted by a dedicated activist in San Salvador city who posts updates every week. (Not to be confused with gayelsalvador.com which is not current.)

Also downtown in the very congested city center are hundreds upon hundreds of street stalls selling everything from hair gel to pirated DVDs—including a selection of gay porno. (photo left)

So let this commentary be an alert that this tiny Central American country, still plagued with violence and corruption, is also a place of change, a place where gay citizens now have choices to organize, to make friends, hook up, party and educate about HIV and live fuller lives—despite the crowded closets.

Considering the Mayan Ruins in Honduras (and Human Hubris)

Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com
Copan Ruines, Honduras
February 7, 2010

After 1200 years, the Mayan stones tell a mute story of empire and human dominance.

Teased out piece by piece by modern hands from the jungle’s clawed roots, from a millennium of rain and floods, baking sun and vegan onslaught, the exposed stones tell stories of kaleidoscopic religion, political intrigue and military hubris.

Unearthed over the past 130 years, the Mayan ruins are slowly being freed from the obliterating growth, including a 300 year-old banyan tree with tentacle roots outstretched for 500 feet in all directions. The roots lift and heave tons of stone carefully engineered into place by slaves and architects from 300-900 AD.

The stories reveal three hundred and fifty gods who existed, for believing minds, and ruled the known universe, governing harvests, sex and death.

Death came early for certain youthful Mayan men, especially winning athletes in the ball sport of ‘pitz’ as the victors were offered as human sacrifices to one god or another. The blood trickling down the sacrificial altar came from the decapitated head of the virile youth. The blood was collected and boiled. As smoky fumes rose into the air in devotion, the people allegedly felt a union with the divine spirits.

As I walk among these huge ruins and climb the Copan pyramids of power and exalted glory which the Mayans spread across present day Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, I am reminded of the poem ‘Ozymandias’ composed by the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley upon his viewing the high temple of pharaoh Ramesses the Great in Egypt (1303-1213 BC) in Luxor, Egypt.

Before him on the ground, broken into pieces by earthquake and time, lay a colossal statue of the world-conquering pharaoh, about 54 feet tall weighing a thousand tons, covered in dust. I too stood in this place by this statue several years ago. (photo right; see my photo gallery.)

Regarded as Egypt's greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh, he ruled for 66 years and died in his 91^st year. His kingdom spanned nearly the known world, from Syria to Libya. His subjects believed him to be immortal. But time is the great leveler and eventually his body (now mummified in the  Egyptian Museum), his power and his kingdom passed into thin air.

Shelley’s poem is a sarcastic reminder that all human power (and religion) is vain and temporary, whether Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Oriental, Western or American—or Mayan.

So today I stand atop these mighty Mayan pyramids and am reminded again of the vanities of human hubris.

Read on ye mortals:

‘Ozymandias’ by P.B.Shelley (1818)

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Gay Nicaragua and Latino Sexuality

Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com
Managua, Nicaragua
February 1, 2010

As expected, the hub of LGBT activity is found in big cities so it was no surprise to find it in Managua the capital of Nicaragua. What was a surprise was finding so many LGBT organizations and finding them collected in one place. Thanks to Marvin Mayorga of IDSDH (Sexual Diversity Initiative for Human Rights), the leading activist group in Nicaragua, my work was made much easier as he introduced me to all four LGBT associations at once; a fifth group was located in another part of the city.

There is a rights group; a trans group; a lesbian group; and two HIV health outreach groups. Together they make up a central alliance called the Strategic Group for Sexual Diversity Rights (GEDDS)

The numbers are less important than the work they do to raise consciousness; they do it quietly behind closed doors as well as boldly outdoors. The day I visited the 'gay 'center', volunteers from IDSDH were cutting up a huge ‘diversity’ billboard canvas after they had mounted it for a month in the city center as part of their publicity campaign to raise awareness of sexual varieties in Nicaragua. The sign displayed three life-sized pictures, one with a mother and her lesbian daughter, another mom with her trans M2F daughter and the third with her gay son. A diversity slogan under the images advocates that sexual diversity does not matter when it comes to family love.

It’s easy to stereotype Latin American countries as rough macho societies scowling at homosexuals for not being ‘real’ men. But a closer look reveals a very different underbelly regarding male Latino sexuality, a sexuality that pervades these mostly impoverished countries. Not seen in public is a free-floating urge to top, to penetrate, to receive pleasure and experience momentary power in a world where most are ultimately powerless. The unusual aspect of this behavior is that the gender of the ‘bottom’ partner is less important than the conscious feeling (and unconscious meaning) of the moment. Many Latino men will allow themselves a sexual encounter with another man but will not consider themselves at all to be gay because they were the ‘man’ on top. It’s an issue of power not gender.

Try telling that to North American purists.

Letter from Gay Honduras

February 5, 2010
Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz
Honduras

It’s February 5 and the temperature is 100 degrees (F) in the village of Copan Ruines, Honduras where ancient Mayan ruins have baked under the hot sun for over 1500 years.

Honduras is one of those ‘throw-away countries that hardly registers on any international scale of influence, enterprise or tourism.

But once inside the country, it tends to seduce with its doleful third-world cities, the endless rise and fall of verdant mountains, modern Mayan lifestyles (hand labor, handcrafts, hand carvings), and handsome men and women.

The country is generally overlooked unless some crisis erupts such as the 2009 overthrow of the elected yet corrupt president in a civilian coup (with some military assistance). It was sort of big headlines for few weeks until the politicians jockeyed into new positions. Tourism suddenly dropped by half, but 6 months later has picked up again as the former president finally left the country for exile in Dominican Republic. For most people in Honduras nothing changed except a few names. The buses still run, the streets are hand swept and fresh bread is baked daily and narcotics move though on the way north.

And nothing much changed for the homosexual community in Honduras other than a less friendly attitude from the new leaders.

One of the surprises I found in the capital city of Tegucigalpa was the bubbly half dozen LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual. transgender) organizations that thrive in this sea of (alleged) homophobia.

Each of the organizations has a specialized mission regarding human rights, health education, HIV prevention and social support. With funding exclusively from abroad they each serve to create a camaraderie that coalesces on weekends at the gay disco ‘Zunzet’.

My most lasting impressions from visiting these organizations are the faces of the young LGBT kids, laughing and worrying, thoughtful and silly, eating and dancing, decorating for a valentine’s party, making posters, playng cards, hugging and kissing, practicing a dance, cruising or fooling around with friends—the usual things people do in the course of a young life.

Except here they shed their pretensions, their masks, their imposed family roles and imposed standards of heterosexual behavior and attitude. For those who find their way to these safe havens, life is made easier as they come to realize they are not deformed or sinful or shameful. They come here to be normalized and gain confidence in their sexual identity; it’s the only place this crucial formative process can happen ‘naturally’ within this sexually hypocritical society.

Like other Latino countries, homophobic posturing gives way to secretive homophilia when no one is looking. A staff member of one of the LGBT groups thought that “more than 60 or 70% of men here have had sexual experiences with other men--before and/or after they got married.”

Welcome to Latin American sexuality the land of the machista.

(An unusual police harassment case was reported in September 2009 but the details remains uncertain. Ill report on this later.)