May 6: The Year of the WriteDudes™ Metallic Neon Gel Pen

Fiendish Friends,

Happy Sesto de Mayo. I hope you’re all doing better than I am. Not that I’m doing poorly, but this year so far has been subpar. After a gorgeous year like 2016, I’m afraid all years are going to look a little inferior.

So far, 2016 was the most exciting year of my life (even counting those years before 1985 when my hyper-memory began). Childhood sucked. It was more like a miniature adulthood. But what can you say about the year you began transforming into the beautiful horny swan you were meant to be? Just good-bye Bowie, Prince, & Princess Leia, hello me.

This year has been full of worry, anxiety, injury, inertia, and lack of inspiration. And yet, I’m not complaining. My life is still very good—I’m just worried about the bigger picture because, ya’ll, it looks a little … forged, vandalized, just an empty quadrilateral on a dusty wall.  <<< [I’m trying to do an art heist metaphor here & it’s failing.]

Speaking of Art, I’ve already done 100% more art this year than last year, and it’s not because I’m inspired. It’s because art is my therapy & I didn’t need it last year.

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Friends, I was watching Ellen the other day as I often do in the afternoons and I didn’t realize it had been 20 years since her “coming out” episode.

I never saw the episode even though I did Identify as a queer woman back in the 90s. I was very, very busy in 1997: going to school, working two jobs, drinking full time & hiding the fact that I was trans. Oh, the things you can do in your 20s!!

But I was aware of the episode. I heard all about it from those people who did have time to watch TV. Wow, it was such a big deal! But what I really didn’t know about was the huge backlash Ellen’s coming out cost not only her, but all gay people.

I was too busy in the real world—and there wasn’t The Internet back then—to feel the surge of conservatism that followed. But Ellen reminded us all of it on her daytime talk show last week. 

Not only was her sitcom canceled, not only did she receive death threats and become the butt of the late night comics’ jokes, and have to go underground for her own safety…

…but all the other actors on the show were targeted as well. And they weren’t even gay. Oprah and Laura Dern (who had cameos on the episode) were deemed lesbians-by-association. Dern couldn’t get any film roles for 2 years after that. Oprah was allegedly having an impure love affair with her best friend Gayle and lost a lot of viewer support.

Violence against gay people escalated—the brutal slaying of Matthew Shepard happened the following year. Not to mention the less-publicized incidents that we remain oblivious to.

2 versions of Tiptree Art

After the episode aired, Oprah did have Ellen on her show to try to talk through some of the backlash that was happening—

and Ellen showed some of that footage on her current show—These angry god-fearing, big-haired Xtian ladies shouting “Go ahead and be gay in your own home, but why do you have to announce it on television??? I don’t want my CHILDREN to see that!!!!”

Oh the fucking CHILDREN.

It was hard to watch. It was hard for me to learn that while I raced around in my own hectic, self-medicated world, all that was going on in the queer community. Part of me is glad I was unaware, but another part of me is like—why wasn’t I out there fighting, protesting, standing up against the ignorance? I was getting my own taste of sexist/homophobic treatment in the workplace, but I thought that was just what I deserved for…being.

The scary thing is, that’s what I hear the conservatives saying about transgender people now—

“Go ahead & dress up in your queer little uniforms behind closed doors, but don’t you dare bring yourself out in the light of day where my CHILDREN can see you [and possibly identify with you].”

Keep yourselves on the down-low, you perverts.

Not Suitable For Children

There are people in my own family who don’t want me near their CHILDREN. And that’s okay—I made up my mind quite awhile ago that I am a *Not Suitable For Children* adult.

But that doesn’t mean all gay & trans people are not suitable for children. Or that even unsuitable people like myself shouldn’t be seen by children. There are ALL sorts of people in this world, and you can only force your precious children not to see them for 18 years, then you’re out of luck.

Your children do become gross adults one day. Maybe gross gay or trans adults, no matter how closely you monitor their lives or gate their communities while they’re young. Gay & trans people do exist within conservative families—HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO LEARN THAT LESSON??? How many gay/trans kids have to end their own lives before we get it?

(and I know some conservatives will say, hopefully all of them)

Not Suitable For Children

I know lots of gay & trans people who do embrace Xtianity. A disturbing number actually. And that may be its own sort of backlash—like, look at me, I may be gay/trans but I accept the Lord & I know the Lord loves me as I am, so na-na-na. I don’t think I’d understand religion no matter how I identified, so it’s hard for me to understand why any marginalized group would embrace the institutions that marginalize them.

ANYWAY…back to ELLEN. I have always loved & appreciated her for her humor and kindness. But now I really do know how brave she was in the face of hostile criticism, mockery, potential danger. How much she deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It’s hard to tell how much things have improved when they keep going forward then backward—how much our cultural awareness has expanded when it suddenly contracts once again.

But, when I look at the big (stolen, forged, vandalized) picture, I can see that we are, mostly, moving in a forward direction. 

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All right. That’s enough of that—I got kind of EMOTIONAL watching Ellen’s 20 year anniversary show, and I know you all love emotions.

But I’m trying to embrace my emotional nature lately rather than suppressing it. I’ve tried to suppress my emotions all my life, for your benefit, and I’m not doing it anymore, because it does not benefit me.

Not Suitable For Children

What I will be doing, however, is Taking your poetry submissions!!!!

That’s right. I would like to share this Octopus Space with other poets. It will be a total Vanity Project, so I expect I will get ZERO submissions from anyone, but here are some

OCTOPUS DIARY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Send me your tired, your poor, your literary stepchildren rejected by all the other reputable journals.

I am open to a wide variety of topics and styles, but here’s what I don’t like:

▶︎Preachy stuff — the I-have-heard-the-voice-of-God-and-here-is-what-it-says type poems. 

If you use vague, general words like Universe, Fate, Chaos, God, Nature please get more specific—which aspect of nature? which of the many gods? Describe the chaos in great detail, don’t leave me hanging. I was a doomsday poet in my youth, but I at least managed to nail some of the details. Please give me details so I know what to expect from the current era’s day of doom.

 ▶︎Derivative stuff — I like Bukowski as much as the next guy, but what I want is YOU. I love the personal—can’t you tell? I don’t want copycat styles unless you want to try to copy e.e. cummings (that might be interesting). I know many publications frown on using the word ‘I’ too much, but I do not. I want your I’s. 

Just think, in this day & age, using capital letters and punctuation is rebellion at its finest. Use them rebelliously and I’ll love it.

▶︎Boring stuff about flowers or how pretty the sky is. Just don’t do that to me.

▶︎I don’t LOVE rhyming poetry, or formal styles (sonnets, ghazals) but if they’re good I DO love them. So it’s not an absolute ‘no’ on those, but please…make them interesting & personal in some way.

▶︎I like stuff ABOUT sexism, racism, homophobia, etc..just don’t BE racist, sexist, homophobic, capiche?

Give me your pain, your fears, your triumphs in a cruel world, your bizarre point of view and I’m sure I will enjoy it.

Send your darlings to me via Facebook messenger, or if we’re not friends on Facebook, friend me, then send them to me via Facebook messenger. That’s the only way I will be taking the first round of submissions. I would love to hear from my writer friends of course, but I would also like submissions from people who don’t usually submit poetry or even write it. I want you to dig deep and challenge yourself. 

It’s for the Octopusses. And the CHILDREN.