Just in time for the latest STH (#66) party, this bit of news from Andy.
Speaking with Fox Spinmeister B.O’Reilly, Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle “claimed a new library opening plans to have a special section for gay pornography right next to the children’s section. He then corrected himself saying it wasn’t all porn, just some of it. O’Reilly didn’t ask for a better explanation of the so called porn.”
Throwing support in their corner was, of course a concerned Christian.
“I thank God for this mayor who is sticking up for children who, after playing a game of soccer, may wander 50 feet into the library to ask the following questions:
Q: “Mommy?” Why is that part of our library closed off?
A: Well, Johnny, Fort Lauderdale Commissioners Cindi Hutchinson, Charlotte E. Rodstrom, and Carlton B. Moore voted to take out the books that everybody can read and replace them with homosexual pornography.
Q: Mommy? What’s homosexual pornography?
A: It’s what you saw in the public restroom earlier.
Q: Mommy? Why are those people so angry at the nice mayor?
A: Because he wants to protect you from all of it. “
Well, I can only speak for myself, but first I will say – how does she know what’s going on in men’s rooms and on boys’ fields? Then, I will say “Thanks” indeed – but not to anyone in Florida. No, my gratitude is reserved for the tiny public library that sat on the other side of the Hollywood Freeway, connected to Echo Park by a short tunnel. It was in this library that I freely explored books like “Numbers”, and “City of Night” by John Rechy, “Forbidden Colors” by Yukio Mishima, and of course, all the Anais Nin and Oscar Wilde a sensitive, alienated, restless, budding young perv egghead could absorb. One of my book reports in Jr. High was on “Story of O”.
Weeknights after school and weekend afternoons, I spent hours in the stacks, on the floor, back to a wall, reading and finally checking out these blueprints for my coming of age. I studied the books as primers for all the spot quizzes that I was sure awaited me as I grew from precocious young slut to jaded middle-aged monk.
Eventually I moved on to the “Different Light” bookstore at the Sunset Junction and their racier content – including STH, Nambla, that odd series of gay “Romance” Novels that were popular in the mid-80’s. For better or worse, many of those narratives informed my instinct, my internal road map. They may have piqued my curiosity for risky business, but they essentially tutored me through an adolescence that otherwise would’ve been doubly, and unnecessarily clumsy – and possibly more dangerous because of the very naivete these concerned citizens seek to protect. When we deny kids a chance to explore their identities and exercise their imaginations in a safe, sanctioned environment, we may as well just ship them off to the next Straight to Hell party.
Wait – come to think of it….
STH
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 29th
we SLURP
@ The COCK (29 Second Ave.)
HO-sted by Linda Simpson
music by Michael Magnan & Telfar
w/Special Guests & Surprizes!
10pm – ?
MediaJorge 