In Remembrance

Last week, one of the pioneers of the Gay Rights Movement, Danny Garvin, passed away after a long battle with hepatitis and cancer.  In 1969, Danny, along with his partner Martin Boyce, were homeless LGBT youth living on the streets of New York City.  Danny and Martin were there on June 20,1969 when the modern Gay Rights movement was born out of the riots caused by the raid on the Stonewall Inn by the NYPD.  He was there when Miss New Orleans, the homeless trans girl uprooted a parking meter and used it as a battering ram to destroy the door of the Stonewall Inn, behind which the police had retreated in fear.  Many of the warriors who ignited our movement that night were homeless LGBT youths, who then, as now, made the West Village their home.  Danny overcame his homelessness and built a life with Martin, but he never forgot where he came from.  His time as a homeless youth helped shape the man who became a tireless advocate for homeless Gay youth working closely with the Ali Forney Center in New York.  

"I wish there had been something like the Ali Forney Center for me when I was on the streets. Maybe I would not have had to live so many nights of out lockers in Port Authority on 42nd St. Or sell myself for 8 dollars to have a bed to sleep to in and a place to shower. Just some place to be hidden from the world until the next day when it would all start all over again. I know I would have robbed less food from stores just to get something to eat."

Danny contracted hepatitis while he was homeless and it shortened the length of his life, but did not sap him of his resolve to advocate on the behalf of our young people.  Danny was featured in the PBS documentary Stonewall Uprising, speaking about the consequences of that momentous night:

"We became a people. We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd Street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. There was no going back now.... We had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. "

Last June, Danny and Martin were welcomed to the White House Pride Celebration by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (see photo below) in honor of their many years of selfless advocacy over the many years since that fateful June so long ago.  In 1969, as in 2014, to be open about being LGBT put youths at terrible risk of homelessness. Then, as now, LGBT kids were suffering on the streets. Then, as now, many had to turn, like Danny, to hustling in order to survive.  The Stonewall uprising was the birth of our LGBT movement. That night the street kids and hustlers and scare queens helped create the space for the rest of us to be out, to be proud.  We should never forget those who came before us that led us to where we are today.  The journey is not yet finished, but we are so much further along because a homeless street kid helped birth the movement that has brought us from then to now.  RIP Danny Garvin, you will be missed.
(For original source article and additional photos: click here) 

Your Musical Moment for today features the Music of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach with his Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano and his Concerto for 2 Harpsichords.  Today performance is by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra featuring Ton Koopman on Harpsichord and Conducting and Tini Mathot on Piano and Harpsichord.   You may also hear C P E Bach's Cello Concerto in A Major with a performance by Ensemble Baroque Limoges featuring Christophe Coin as your Cello Soloist over on my tumblr.

Finally for today, to decorate out lives and inspire us is this week's edition of Tuesday's Temptations.  In my selections, I sought to once again choose models who while vying to lead you down the garden path are prime candidates for anyone's Erotic Christmas Wish List.  Additional inspiration may be found in your Hottie of the Day!, Kris Kranz over on my tumblr.  Thank you for the visit see you tomorrow for Christmas Eve.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!  

Notes on the News

I had a pretty good day off yesterday, taking care of some things that needed it and catching up on my rest.  I caught up on some of my reading also and I ran across some things I thought I would share with you today.  From The Daily Dot come the story '5 Things you can do to counter protest Michael Sam trolls'.  When the Dallas Cowboys signed Michael Sam to their practice squad, there was a lot of positive feedback.  There was also a lot of negative feedback from Internet trolls, homophobes and red neck assholes.  Author Samantha Allen discusses this and then gives some really good recommendations for actions anyone could take to combat the trolls who would otherwise cast severe shade over the Cowboys in general and Michael Sam in particular.  There are some people around here we are going to have to drag kicking and screaming into the 21st century.  (either that or just kill em all and let God sort them out, lol!)

Then there was the story on Mind Body Green, 'I'm An Otherwise Straight Man (Who Fell In Love With His Best Friend)'.  Author Mike Iamele tells the story of how he, an ordinary yet open minded straight man, suffered a debilitating illness only to be nursed back to health by his roommate and best friend.  In the process, somewhere along the way, he fell in love with his best friend.  He goes on to relate how they both worked to build a relationship that would weather the storms of life together.  Interesting and romantic, you will be glad you read this one.  

The final story I would like to share with you today is from the current issue of Rolling Stone: 'The Forsaken: A Rising Number of Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families'.  Through a series of interviews with homeless Gay Teens, Rolling Stone shines a much needed spotlight on this growing problem.  As the love and dogma fight it out in the hearts and minds of many religious families when confronted with the inconvenient truth of their child's Gayness, a great many Gay Teens are cast out of their homes and left to their own devices for survival.  There are some success stories of youth who have made it off the streets and into a better life, there are far, far too many stories of neglect, abuse, drugs, violence and even murder of those who really are to young to be where they are.  The sad truth of the matter is summed up in the concluding paragraphs by one of the interviewees who put it this way:

"(She) doubts she'll ever speak to her family again, though it's still hard to think of holidays spent without them, of childhood stories that will remain untold, of the jarring lack of continuity between her existence then and now. "I spent the past four years paying for that one sentence I uttered," she says quietly. "People ask me all the time if I hate my parents for everything they've put me through, but I really don't. If anything, I just feel sad for them because I'm sure it hurts so bad to have chosen their religious values over their child. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, they suffered through it just as much as I did, just in different ways." She sighs and looks out the window to where the shadows will soon lengthen into night. "I think, in the long run, no one won.""

A sober but important story to which we all need to pay more attention, if we don't take care of our own Gay Youth, who will?

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Your Tuesday Musical Moment features the Music of Giuseppe Tartini.  Tartini took a gavotte written by Arcangelo Corelli and wrote 50 variations on Corelli's theme.  Today's featured works are those 50 Variations for Violin on a Gavotte by A. Corelli written by Tartini with a marvelous performance recorded in 2005 by Nikos Karagiannis.  You may also hear Tartini's Concerto for Cello, 2 Horns, Strings and Basso Continuo with a performance by Ensemble 415, on period instruments featuring Roel Dieltiens as the Cello Soloist over on my tumblr. 

To accompany the musical variations as you scroll down the page are this set of virile variations on the male theme all of whom wish to lead you down the garden path in this week's edition of Tuesday's Temptations.  You may also appreciate the Red Knight who is your Hottie of the Day! over on my tumblr.  Thanks for the visit, see you again real soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!