Oxymoron.

The richest country in the world has About 3.5 million US residents (about 1% of the population) , ...Statistics for homeless families are even graver -- 52% were turned down by homeless shelters. Change means stepping up a war and paying more money to Huge Insurance Corporations so that the rich can get richer. Moderate means Right Leaning. Right is using fascist scare tactics to pass unconstitutional laws in favor of bigotry and hate and having very little resistance from the liberal media. Nor any opposition from politicians who are hired by the people to take care of the people. More people know who Kim Kardashian is than who the Vice President is and we can't find funding for schools. Texas; since they buy the most books for schools; gets to help right history for our countries public school system.No wonder we are all as fucking stupid as George Bush!

Wake up! Put down your soda and open your eyes. We can not fear change because what we have is not working. We are killing the planet. Killing ourselves. Killing each other. Not only in the US, but all over this world. Not in the name of democracy but in the name of capitalism. Our country is being held hostage by corporations that are paying the government to ignore the people in their interests! Hillary Clinton in the 80's and now Obama have been shut down by special interests. The current health "reform" has us putting MORE money in the pockets of Insurance Conglomerates! We have been taken over and they are running the government and its all our fault. If we do not stand up for ourselves we are going to be taken advantage of! That is NOT what we deserve and we know it! Tell Pelosi to stop selling out! We want abortion covered because who the fuck are we to tell a woman what she can or can not do with her body. That is her decision to make. Nobody has abortions for fun so get the fuck over it!

Where is the anger and marching in the streets by true liberals? The idea that if we stand up for ourselves is going to do our cause damage is ludicrous! Those Tea Baggers got exactly what they went down there and protested for! The morons have taken away the ability for progressive thinkers to make policy and create a better US because they are being fed fear. They are consuming the fear and they are using it to "their" advantage! Yet because they are being educated by the televisions they have no idea what they are saying. Yet neither do we!

There is only rhetoric out there right now. So many people are so afraid that they are going "moderate" in their lives so as to please the most people. Our government is being squashed of all purpose just because there is no actual liberal power. Liberal power is not to be feared. Anger is not to be feared. Just because there is a confrontation created with the right? This confrontation has to be started in ernest again. Our apathetic view of what grass roots can do must change. Look at what the right's grass roots campaign has done. It has changed our country to a hate filled barbaric trash bin for Jesus and lets poor people die, kills fags and non believers, and is single handedly the most selfish self absorbed country on the planet.

It is because WE are not doing any thing! It is because we would rather not or are too "busy". Just because you are on a cell phone you are still ALONE! No one is actually there with you. The person that is there with you is the person who you just stepped over in disgust. You are inside an SUV and can't see us, but We still exist. Its time to let people know we exist!

This city is becoming a gentrified playground of mediocrity and we should not stand for it. Newsom wants us all to own a condo or leave. There can be 200 condo conversions a year and it is decided by lottery. Imagine if anyone could convert to condos! That would be the most horrible thing to happen to this once proud city. That is exactly what is happening in Newsom's fevered brain right now. Just so Newsom can reward his rich friends who helped a spoiled little boy get into office. We are being governed by selfish voices who care nothing about the people. I personally find it infuriating! Just think what would happen to all the bars that are too loud, night clubs, trannies, freaks, and the people who make this city great! We had to leave suburbia and we don't want to go back!

Why is the government not taking care of ALL the people? Why is the entertainment commission taking away the reason young people come to this city? Why must our city be like a suburb? Why can't creative people and families find affordable housing? We are the ones who gave Paris Hilton all that money and now we are paying for it. We are spoiled and rotten and so selfish as a culture that people hate us. I mean do you like the "Marinaization" of this city? Of the state? Of the US? We don't want to live in a city of mini skirts and orange tans and bleached hair? We also don't want to live in a city of codo's! We don't want more homeless on the streets because they used to live in a high priced "new" condo. We don't want to have our well being left in the hands of corporate bosses! It's like Dickens era England right now in the US! Why are we not asking more questions? Where is the accountability? Lets show those bastards what a REAL Teabagger can do! It is time to get active because this current situation is so not working for us!

1 State, 2 State, Red State, Blue State.

I keep reading about how we are really a Blue Country but are being blind sided into believing we are red. What with the lack of back bone from the truly liberal movement and apathy at an all time high I might believe it. I know better though. It's not red and blue; noting ever is this or that. Mix some red and blue and you get the brown area. Yep we are in the shit and its all our fault. We have been asleep and uninvolved and we deserve the brown that we are currently wading through. Everyone keeps saying where is the money going to come from that is needed to fix where we are? You know the answer..... YOU.

I know why we are pissed by that answer also. Major corporations have stolen our money and blown it at the race track in get rich quick schemes and we are handed pails to clean up their brown. Health Care has been bleeding Americans dry for ever and now when we see the problem we still get only the slightest improvement. (An improvement if your an insurance company). Bigotry and hatred have combined to create fascist laws against gays in many "liberal" states. The state can't pay for ADAP and yet there seems to be room to pay for lots of press secretaries and still not raise taxes on the rich. Yep Its been a year of change and this is what post Bush has left us with. Ineffectual government that still cares noting about the people and only about the bottom line and we have to pay for their gross spending and back room deals. However if people are the government then we are just as responsible for what has happened to our city, our state and our country.

We as environs in San Francisco have watched as our city has become a playground for trust funds and condo owners while squashing the creative and underground scene. "What about the children?"; we hear it all the time. Myself; and most of my friends; were thrown out of your suburban safety nets and sought refuge and community here in this city. It became a refuge where we could gather and create and find family. We are not leaving without an fight and were not going to let an entertainment commission, drunk on it's own power, destroy the world we have worked to create. We am not going to stand silent while our places are taken from us by selfish condo owners who move next to bars and whine until they get their way! That person who moved next to the Cinch and started complaining was only there for one year or less and the Cinch has been a bar SINCE ITS INCEPTION! Anyone who has seen the place in the day knows how old it is! Yet one selfish person can complain and because she has money and isn't a degenerate gay dictates the actions taken. If I wasn't a lady I would have some very choice words for people like that!

So hey policy makers if you are looking for income I have a few suggestions.

1. Decriminalize pot - A projected 1.6 Billion in tax revenue. Not to mention if we let no violent offenders out of jail, pardon them and wipe the slate clean, we could save millions there. Plus we would have more people out of jail serving as farmers helping to stimulate our economy even more.

2. House the homeless - It costs 2 times as much to keep a person on the street. Police, Fire, Sanitation all work over time due to our lack of compassion. The argument that you would "not want one or several of them living by you or your bar (Marlene's)" makes no sense! I hear that people are afraid there will be excrement and needles in their bushes. Who poops on the street when they have a toilet? Would you shoot up in an alley if you had a home? These problems exist because we allow the dignity to be stripped from our fellow man and believe if we shared the wealth there would be less for us. ABSURD! Wake up there isn't any for you unless your an insurance executive and you steal it.

3. Charge Large Car Owners MORE! - More to cross the bridge more to park more for healthcare more for insurance more! we could call it the selfish and heartless tax. The I'm so selfish I have a giant car tax. The I do what I want and I don't care give me some McDonalds so I can throw the containers out the window later because I'm so ignorant tax. The Me Me Me tax. A tax for America.

4. Charge a fee for every menu and club promotional card that litters the street. Make it so people can collect these cards, turn them in and the clubs and restaurants can help the local ecology and community. These invites and menus are not recyclable because they are covered in plastic. This is left all over the sidewalk after a busy night, or in the case of menus wind and rain, and end up in our sewers and the bay and the ocean. We can help people, build community, and help the ecology in 1 foul swoop.

5. Property taxes on Commercial real estate must be raised and the state policy changed. There is a Prop 13 from 1978 that has stripped foreign investors of their responsibility to our community and they used little old ladies to do it. When you house or property is Assessed it is given a fair market value and you pay taxes based on that assessment. In Ca the property taxes were actually going up so fast that elderly did loose housing. Yet here is the down side. The Gate Residence Hotel has had the same owners, investors, who have owned the property since 1978. They pay 2% increase annually since 1978. The rate of inflation is usually 3.5 or higher. Cheep property taxes for prime down town location. The Hotel goes out of the business of being a residency hotel and many poor are out of housing that many have been in as long as the hotel has been around. Now the Hotel is owned by the same people but a new Leaser is found to open a Commercial Hotel, the Infusion Lounge, and a Chinese restaurant. All booming and doing very well. Still owned by the same people. Still only a 2% increase each year for a property assessed as a residence hotel. Get the picture. What do you think the Fairmont pays in property taxes as compared to a new home owner in the city? So why do young couples and singles and the poor not have an easy time staying here and yet foreign investment gets breaks for holding on to property?

6. Tax the Churches. Listen they are making policy, owning vast tracks of land, doing business from their offices, and paying to advertise their views on propositions. Tax them and start treating them like the lobbying groups that they are. The Christian Right and Mormon's have put their hand in deciding law and influencing votes on a national level, why not treat them like any other business. Unfair policies for bigots doesn't wash and neither do the laws that they pay for.

With all that said I would like to remind us that we can change these unjust laws and we can do it soon. The trick is to be responsible and take part and do it. Grass roots still works. Vote, read a paper, get involved and hold people accountable. Hold yourself accountable. That way we can have some other color that brown. We can have a government that works for us not special interest. Wouldn't it be better if we turned off the TV for a second, got off our cell phone, stopped texting on our blackberry and remembered we are part of a world that was happening right here and now? I mean look what's happened since we've been away.

Something Coming

The very best part of this Holiday is that I am seeing lots of people who I have not seen in some time. I have really been feeling the loss of Charlie Horse because the part that was absolutely the best was seeing the people I loved almost every week. The people of the city that inspired me came out and played and I got to play with them. This Holiday I miss that. Now is the time when we look back on the year and think about what it is that has happened to us and how we have changed. For many of us it was a galvanizing year and one that saw an end to the apathy and an awakening of our spirits. Until last year my drag had mostly been in the clubs; but with the passing of Prop 8 it is in the streets and it's angry and it's not giving up. I have taken what I learned in those bars and started to make it a reality every day. It's the people around me that help me remain free of the shame. It is the spirit of the Compton Riots and Harvey Milk that live in SF that reminds me that We have the power. It is the tranny magic that my sisters share with me, and it has set me free.

This year really owning my voice is a personal triumph. As I have discussed before my parents are ardent anti gay right wing christians. All my life they told me they loved me and that is why they were working so hard to try and understand and save me. They prayed for me. When I released myself from accepting their shame I blossomed. I had been working towards it all my life but this year I know it to be true. I think we as a community have cast off a lot of shame that we have had placed on us by years of conservative oppression and our own apathy. We feel our voices rising again.

I am not really speaking to the general we I am talking about the so called "rebels". The political organizations that I am often fortunate to work with or meet at protests are not doing enough. When I hear people say "we have been working on being a part of society for a hundred or so years and we must have patience", I want to pull my hair out! How can a lesbian woman talk about only 100 years when we have been around for EVER and we have only truly been oppressed as a cross cultural plague in the last 100 years! Has she never heard of Sappho? It is mind boggling to see how gay culture has been so oppressed that even our leaders are fooled by the lies and plead for understanding and patience as people get used to us. Really? Lets be patient while bigotry is voted on state by state and we are held helpless by the courts to "Find a way to get our rights". Is that really what we are being asked? You have got to be shi**ing me. Pardon my french. Besides lets make it real and admit its bigotry not marriage that is the issue. Bigotry is wrong not law! Lets get real!

It is this voice that I am hearing now. This voice that like mine can't quite figure out what the heck is up with this government. A governor who can't find funding for ADAP and hasn't paid a bunch of his own taxes ? It is the voice of the people who are starting to see what oppression by the governing states can be like when they hold our health care ransom so that they can continue to line their pockets on our money. The Health Care issue is the most infuriating issue ever. We the people know that rights should include healthcare and gays and poor people and marijuana users and well everybody. We know this to be the truth. Yet because of special interest and hollow promises by our leaders, we end up with something that is not even for the people any more. It is now to satisfy the "most people"; those most people are actually large corporations run by some of the most selfish self invested people on the face of the planet. War Poverty and Bigotry so that the rich are happy? They want us to be afraid of socialist ideas that may just save our country because they would loose billions. We already use socialist ideas like PUBLIC SCHOOLS! Not that that is a shinning example because for some reason we can't find money for them either. Our collective lives are being flushed down the toilet because of their greed. We also know this isn't right. Now we also know that this is something we can do something about.

I was reading that at the Climate talks in Copenhagen that the US and China hope to reduce emissions like 20% by 2050. Wow. I mean come on. What exactly are we supposed to say to that? "Sorry our country is to selfish to stand up and be counted but we may do something by 2050." No wonder other countries hate us. I think at this rate if we all live to 2050 it would be a miracle.

Or how about a president who was supposed to bring about change. The world believed him so much they gave him an award in his first year that many people who are proven great leaders never get. Yep a hero. A hero who steps up war and says it is just. I don't want to wage war. I don't want a war on drugs. I don't want a war on terror. War is TERROR. I want a government for the people and to stop all the lying and manipulating just to continue in the way we are going. What is so great with the way we are going? The direction must change and very soon. 2050, the thought is frightening! By then we could walk to Australia on all the plastic in the ocean. I think that we realize that this is wrong and our wasteful life style is killing us, giving us cancer, destroying the wildlife and so forth. I think we know that. So why are we fighting a war to gain control of oil and opium in Afghanistan? (Well I get the opium but the oil I'm at a complete loss). Shouldn't we be becoming independent and finding ways to use solar and wind more efficiently? Oh yeah right we are protecting big business interests. How silly of me.

The difference this year is we are starting to ask for accountability. We are seeing the direct correlation of our obsession with the Kardashian's and the fact that our government has been getting away with murder for too long. We are not wearing blinders any longer. Its out there and we are talking about it. Personally I can't believe that the voices of the people who are not tea baggers; nice name dip shits; are not taking over the streets. I remember the day before the war broke out and the city exploded. It just exploded. That day I saw how many people were angry about how things were going. I know that voice is out there and I think this past year we have started to hear it louder and louder. We must use this voice because that is how change is created. There needs to be support for this genesis. The year that we have lived has been; well less that stellar. There have been disappointments in droves; but the good news is we see it and we don't feel helpless any more. I am hopeful for the year ahead. I am plugging into my Ravonettes CD, casting off shame, and moving into 2010 determined as hell! Last year I had Charlie Horse stolen from me so this year its out of the bar into.......

Cannabis

This past night my eyes were opened by a group of people who spoke of charity and compassion and really meant it. I know they meant it because they were actually doing something about creating this compassion. It was different from the meet and greets that I had experience so fat in my 2 weeks on the campaign trail. Although the stunning revelation that the people with the least to loss and the most to gain has always been apparent in politics. Suffragist, people of color, gay and lesbians, immigrants all groups fighting to find a place in society where their voices can be heard. I thought I knew what these well scrubbed voices looked like but I am coming to find that I do not know what they look like and I had no idea who was really doing the work behind the machine.

Every meet and greet that I go to are the legions of unscrubbed, unhoused, unsung heros of the street that are placing their lives in the hands of the powers that be so they can advocate for their lives. It is not the beautiful perfect smiles of faces warmed in large homes or even the young in college that I see in these meetings. Sure there are some of those faces scattered amongst the crowds; but it the limbless and those without teeth or a place to live that are out there every day making the world a better place for you and I to be a part of. These people with nothing are finding within themselves the great compassion to put themselves last when they are the ones who suffer the most. Thank you Elise Conners for opening my eyes to the organization Compassion Behind Bars. Imagine the rehabilitation of repeat offenders if all our efforts were created and carried our with compassion instead of hate and fear and apathy for the men and women incarcerated in our institutions. I think the outcome would be different. I think we could have greater success returning these misunderstood people to society. I do not advocate giving everyone in jail cannabis but from someone who has recovered from having 11 t cells and being on the brink of death how medical cannabis help regain my appetite, eased my pain and anxiety, and gave me rest when there was no chance of these things before its use. It allowed me to stand the harsh regiment of antibiotics and pills by keeping my stomach at ease as I made my recovery. This was only 7 or 8 short years ago and look at me now. Healthy and vital.

At the Harvey Milk Cannabis Town Meeting I met a black woman who is shy and withdrawn to meet nut has created an entire program that takes medical cannabis to 10 non violent offenders behind bars in San Quentin. This heavy set woman with a number of disabilities herself battled the legal system time and time again to take these non violent offenders who could not eat or sleep due to the ravages of HIV medicinal cannabis so that their lives would be better. A woman who appears on the outside as frail and encumbered by her own hardships in life has found the passion and compassion to step up and speak out and make a change.

Last night at the Harvey Milk Cannabis Town Meeting the stories that Dr Mike Aldridge and his wife who talked about the connection between gat rights and cannabis rights. In 1972 the first bill was placed on the table stating " No person over the age of 18 should be arrested for growing, selling, or possessing marijuana." It was in 1972 that this law was put on a ballot measure. It lost 33 to 65 but it had gained a new and soon to be powerful mans attention. Harvey Milk took up the call for legalizing cannabis and was very close to putting it up for a vote with Mayor Moscone and other powerful SF politicians; in the forms of Prop W and Prop 215, when both men were shot and killed. Dianne Feinstein who became mayor after their deaths killed these initiatives and scrapped along with it many other forward thinking measures like need exchange and compassionate care. It some or all of those measures had passed I wonder now how many fewer people would have contracted HIV due to dirty needles, ability to eat on harsh medicine, and get the rest so needed when it was needed and in a natural holistic way.

The continued struggle to show people who suffer from chronic pain, HIV, and many many other debilitating diseases, is being led by AXIS of Love, Champs,Lynn's Compassionate Co-Op ( Started by Elmar Lynn and his partner who would die of HIV and Hep C complications but before they did started compassionately sharing their home grown medicine with members of their hospice helping us all to realize the benefit of medicinal cannabis),WAMM, MediCann, and many other such organizations is beautiful to see. Its not about getting high and recreational use, instead about compassion for those who suffer.

For many in this day of politics toady the bottom line is what is most important. The figures of CA State deficit are looking at over 10 Billion in shortages. These shortages could cause more people to go homeless as jobs become more scarce and the price of housing continues to rise. More and more people with HIV and other catastrophic health concerns will go without medicine and proper care. Hospitals will be forced to close and may not have access to medicines for the people in their care. The middle class will be whipped out and forced to scrounge to keep their families a float. In San Francisco and Oakland through tireless courage and compassion regulated marijuana has created hope and revenue. AB390 will regulate its sale state wide. This is needed because there are places like LA and San Diego that without regulations create grey areas that undermine the work of advocates and growers across the country. Tom Ammiano has been championing this cause and here in SF we are seeing that regulation can and does work.

This bill, AB390 is coming up for a vote and two women in the bay area have the power to help it pass. Please contact the offices of Fiona Ma and Nancy Skinner to help get AB390 through the State Assembly . This bill will regulate the sale, growth and possession of marijuana in the state of California. Also this bill is thought to raise at least 1.3 billion dollars for the state coffers. Where is the state going to find some of its money to balance the budget from some of the most compassionate people on the planet, marijuana growers, distributers and the doctors who believe in its medicinal use. Cannabis can save lives, ease pain and create revenue for our already troubled state. Pot may very well be the miracle needed to save more lives than just its users.

My first week on the trail

Well during my first week of throwing my boa into the political ring I have watched as NY has made gay marriage illegal like just about every other state. The fact that bigotry is up for a vote and winning is disgraceful and makes me ashamed of My country. The fact that a Nobel Peace Prize winner hasn't stepped up his game and taken this bigotry to task on a NATIONAL level and granted human rights to everyone is beyond abhorrent. Hollow speeches and promises without dates for a solution will not wash with me any longer. At a Christmas party recently I was told by a young straight man how gay rights are inevitable and that with patience I will see that day come. People argue that it will happen if I just relax and wait.

I am 42 years old and the gay rights movement started in 1968 with the Compton Riots in the Tenderloin. All my life I have been told just wait it will happen. Well It isn't just going to happen in fact just the opposite. In California and New York two of the most liberal states in the US Gay people are not given full rights just like their counter parts in the straight world. Exactly how am I supposed to see this as a step towards equal rights? From what I can tell there is no real movement to gaining equality just hollow promises from people in charge while we are facing even greater threats of violence and bigotry than any other minority, except maybe the poor. Besides that gay people have been around since there were people and we have a rich history that goes without notice due to this bigotry. I heard someone with Marriage Equality say that our movement has only been around for 100 years or so. Has she never heard of Sappho? How about Oscar Wilde? Our people have been around as long as the straight people and we were considered great thinkers and leaders not pariahs and it is time to reclaim these beliefs as our own! To believe that we are a new people with a new voice is wrong! We have been here and queer since the dawn of time. There is no "new" to our history and to limit it to the last 100 years does a great disservice to the people who lived freely as gay people and made the world beautiful by doing so. The real significance of the last 100 years is that we have been brutalized without laws to protect us and bigotry has had a place in this and other lands with no recourse to stop it. We have been ghettoized and killed as if being gay makes us less human and that is just not the case. We are not new but the ability to try and destroy us legally is.

I have also been told that no one is really going to take me seriously as a drag queen. I have always said I am not here discuss my outfits but to get things done. Why can't my strongest voice come from a place in me that feels more comfortable in a dress? Why is it so strange that through my becoming comfortable with my gender variance and the power it feeds me that I have found the voice that makes me want to make a difference. Can someone in a dress not want to repeal property tax on commercial real estate set at 2% in 1978 with the passing of Prop 13. Why does wearing make up make me incapable of understanding that we need just cause to be extended to all buildings in SF? How does this make me less of a fighter for people who are forced to live on the street because the rich and mighty feel that it would cost too much to actually restore their dignity? Guess what it doesn't! The fact that I can stand up to the ridicule and bigotry and move forward and face the public as who I am makes me a strong viable leader in my eyes. I'm doing this to make a difference not to discuss my chosen style of dress and presentation.

Drag is where I found my voice. It is through the gay and lesbian, transgendered communities in SF and NY that I stopped abusing myself at the request of others and became who I am today.... A strong gender variant person on a mission to right injustice. I feel that if I was to turn away from this voice then I would be like many other leaders willing to compromise my integrity instead of standing proud and moving forward. It is an injustice to believe that I am any less capable to lead because of how I dress and how I celebrate my person than any other person on this planet. I have never seen myself as less but instead found myself proving time and time again with the aid of a understanding community that I am a success and fighting for what is rightfully ours. Equality. Not just for gays and lesbians but for all peoples. At a meeting of the Harvey Milk club someone said "Oh your the drag Queen." Let me say this. Thats right Mr and don't you forget it!