Naked is the Night

Hola Everybody,
Some of the worst, most atrocious examples of writing can be found in the social sciences. I think a large part of the reason is that social scientists try too hard to make their writing sound “scientific.”

Every once in a while, however, you run into some great writers who also happen to be great social scientists. Case in point, Luc Sante’s Low Life, the story of New York's Lower East Side, circa 1840-1920. Sante may not be a social scientist in the strict sense of the word, but damn! his insights and how he brings to life the culture of the streets that continues to influence our contemporary popular culture, is a rare and wonderful fusion of art and science. Check this little gem of a paragraph…

The Naked Night

The night is the corridor of history, not the history of famous people, or great events, but that of the marginal, the ignored, the suppressed, the unacknowledged; the history of vice, error, of confusion, of fear, of want; the history of intoxication, of vainglory, of delusion, of dissipation, of delirium. It strips off the city’s veneer of progress and modernity and civilization and reveals the wilderness. In New York City it is an accultured wilderness that contains all the accumulated crime of past nights… and it is not an illusion. It is the daytime that is the chimera, that pretends New York is anyplace, maybe with bigger buildings, but just as workaday, with a population that goes about its business and then goes to sleep, a great machine humming away for the benefit of the world. Night reveals this to be a pantomime. In the streets at night, everything kept hidden comes forth, everyone is subject to the rules of chance, everyone is potentially both murderer and victim, everyone is afraid, just as anyone who sets his or her mind to it can inspire fear in others. At night, everyone is naked.

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My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

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Naked is the Night

Hola mi gente,
I have so many topics I’m juggling that can’t decide on what to write about! LOL However, my current situation doesn’t lend itself to good writing.

Speaking of which, some of the worst, most atrocious examples of writing can be found in the social sciences. I think this is in large part due to social scientists trying too hard to make their writing sound “scientific.”

Every once in a while, however, you run into some great writers who also happen to be great social scientists. Case in point: Luc Sante’s Low Life, the story of New York's Lower East Side, circa 1840-1920. Sante may not have been a “social scientist” in the strict sense of the word, but damn (!) his insights and his ability to bring to life the culture of the streets that continues to influence our contemporary popular culture, is a rare and wonderful fusion of art and science. Check out this little gem of a paragraph… 

The Naked Night

The night is the corridor of history, not the history of famous people, or great events, but that of the marginal, the ignored, the suppressed, the unacknowledged; the history of vice, error, of confusion, of fear, of want; the history of intoxication, of vainglory, of delusion, of dissipation, of delirium. It strips off the city’s veneer of progress and modernity and civilization and reveals the wilderness. In New York City it is an accultured wilderness that contains all the accumulated crime of past nights… and it is not an illusion. It is the daytime that is the chimera, that pretends New York is anyplace, maybe with bigger buildings, but just as workaday, with a population that goes about its business and then goes to sleep, a great machine humming away for the benefit of the world. Night reveals this to be a pantomime. In the streets at night, everything kept hidden comes forth, everyone is subject to the rules of chance, everyone is potentially both murderer and victim, everyone is afraid, just as anyone who sets his or her mind to it can inspire fear in others. At night, everyone is naked.

* * *

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

From Here to There & Back Again

¡Hola! Everybody...
I see y360! has finally died. It died a slow, painful death. Some things need to fall by the wayside... I see some eulogies being passed around, so why not?

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-=[ How I got Here from There ]=-

I have been writing for the 'net since waaaay before blogging was ever invented. Most of my earlier writing came in the form of “interactions” on newsgroups (if you have to ask... ). Actually, I’ve been on the ‘net since the early 90s when I used mostly to connect with social scientists, psychologists, and researchers.

Man! How I marveled at how some were able to cite studies and pull up stats defending one particular policy or theory over another! How I wanted so badly to become as conversant and at ease with method and analysis as these people.

Writing on the ‘net made me a lot smarter, quicker, and also a lot more confrontational than I am in real life. But man was it fun. LOL!

After several legendary flame wars involving everything from relational psychoanalysis, economics, and cultural studies to whether the Yankees were better than the Orioles, I decided to stop writing. School was almost over, my life had changed, and it was time for this flame warrior to hang up the old gloves. What shocked me was that the day after I announced my “retirement” I received literally 100s of emails from people telling me I was like their morning cup of coffee and that my writing would be missed. I was quite honestly flabbergasted.

Over the years, I have met, through my writing, people from all over the world. A journalist from Australia came to visit NYC twice, for example. An actress from Cuba stayed at my place when I was married. A dancer from the Netherlands, people from all over the US. I met a salsa fanatic from Germany (“Der Salsaholic”), and my friend met and married a woman from Spain. I met a Marxist professor from India teaching at Michigan and a photographer who eventually wrote a book on salsa. I met musicians, many of whom were my personal heroes, and artists of all kinds.

I was also threatened and stalked by Cuban-American reactionaries, and Christian fundamentalists, as well as white supremacists, and black separatists. LOL

Suffice it to say that my earlier ‘net interactions were quite rewarding. But I realized I had to stop writing for the ‘net and fighting all those wars. Ask anyone who knew me at the time and they will tell you I was formidable -- people didn’t really want to fuck with me too much. LOL!

I stopped, though, and I’m glad I did. Then one day many years later, I posted an article on death on, of all places, a singles site. Again, I was shocked at the number of personal messages I recieved. I may not be a good writer, but damn, sometimes I can reach a heart.

So I began writing again. All this was before blogging and as my interest in matters sexual developed, the more I wrote about it. I kept getting thrown off sites because my subject matter was controversial: sex and religion. By then I think I attracted a small group of fundies who seemed to want to shut me down. Eventually, I started my own website and for a while I had a pretty good following -- over 150 registered users, but then the guy who was doing the tech part was trying to make money off my popularity, so I shut it down. anyway, a friend told me about this site where I could blog -- actually do what I had been doing for while, but on a platform made for the kind of writing I was doing. He sent me a link to y360, and the rest, as they say, was history. I quickly had a following. Some people have been reading me for years and, as I said, sometimes -- sometimes -- I can touch a heart, or make someone think or get pissed off. LOL!

I was kicked off y360 about 6-8 times. I forget the number of times. Now, mind you: I never hassled women, nor did I stalk anyone, for that matter. My content was, however, controversial and I love to say shit like “fuck” and “goddamn” and shit like that. But mostly, I noticed that I would get deleted if I posted too much on sex and the religious persecution and repression of sex.

I met quite a few people on 360. I think 360 was OK... it wasn’t all that. You know how it is: someone dies and all of sudden, the muthafucka was a saint, right? Shit, people will probably say nice things about me when I die, which proves that it doesn’t mean squat. I met some wonderful people, yes. But gawd! I met some seriously deranged muthafuckas! LOL

Anyway, long before I was kicked off y360, I had created an account here and on Blogger before it was co-opted by Google. I just never really put the effort into nurturing these sites. With 360 being treated like an unwanted stepchild and its users acting like gluttons for punishment, I decided not to return after the last boot and stayed here. Someone suggested I turn my attention to my blogger site (thanks Rip!), and since then, I’ve given some half-hearted attempts at driving traffic there. I think eventually I’ll stay at blogger (or start my own site). Well, that’s how I got here.

Good riddance to the rabble on 360 and I hope those good souls I met there stay connected with me somehow.

Love,

Eddie

My Left Nut

¡Hola! Everybody... True story: I had to travel downtown late in the afternoon yesterday, taking me by City Hall. And lo and behold, there were the Tea-baggin’ Cons! All 500 (mostly white men) of them! LOL

I got this look on my face and my friend, noting what she knows as my mischievous side, begged me not to misbehave, but I had to! So, I yelled out, “Long live socialism!” and Man! I thought they would eat me alive! Several people were screaming at me, when I made the observation that many of them rode in on socialized highways to protest taxes in a park paid for by taxes. That went over really well... “Commie!” Yelled an adorable little blonde-haired girl. LOL! I felt bad for her because you can’t be a socialist and a communist at the same time -- it’s ideologically impossible. But before I could teach her the difference, the cops asked me to keep it moving.

I’ve been protesting and practicing civil disobedience since before many of you were born, and people? This was one paltry protest. I mean, c’mon, Obama attracted more people at one rally last year than this campaign did nationally.

What I saw was yet more anger from a section of the population that has allowed itself to believe that the “other” is to blame for its misfortunes. Look over there! Terrists! No, over there! Messakins! Under the rug! socialists... pirates behind the curtains... The enemy, my friends, is Ignorance and a media machine controlled by a handful of conglomerates that happily manipulates that ignorance to the point where you to go out and protest for the interests of the very people who have co-opted your government. Finally, the current Texas governor just lent enormous support to my assertion that no one from Texas should be allowed to run for national office.

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Everybody's fave homie, Jesus, getting ready to teabag a muthafucka

-=[ Tea Bags, My Left Nut & Why I Blog ]=-

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

-- Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American woman suffragette Speech, Jan 1896

I am an incorrigible flirt. I will and do flirt with anyone: young and old, gay or straight – shit, if animals could understand, I would flirt with them too. For the most part, my flirtatious behavior is a thinly disguised form of self-deprecating humor. It’s an “inside” joke and you’re in on it. Just because I flirt in the manner I do doesn’t make me a “playa.”

I am intensely serious and passionate person and I take my work very seriously. During my workday, I’m serious, dedicated, on task. In my social life, I reserve the right to be the crazy muthafucka I choose to be and those that are uncomfortable with that persona can choose not to associate with me! For whatever reason, I seem to attract people (many unstable, LOL) and I genuinely love people. I love em all. I especially love the “unforgiven”: the socially unacceptable, the outsiders, the broken, the nymphos, psychos, the sad, and cheerful -- all of the ones that don’t somehow fit into preordained molds. I truly love people, which is a lot rarer than you think, folks. I am uncomfortable among those too concerned with keeping/ upholding social conventions. The very ones that claim sanity are usually the ones that are the true playas.

I blog mostly for myself.

I might be reading a book, studying an issue, or reflecting on life and I take notes. Most of what I write here is gleaned from those notes as well as (obviously) my life experiences. Sometimes it’s academic and boring; sometimes it’s erotic and fascinating. Shit, I would dare say that sometimes I could be downright inspirational and insightful. LOL! I don’t blog in order to garner page hits, nor do I compose my blog so that someone could read it in a certain amount of time. Fuck that! Stretch your fuckin’ brain, or move on!

I would blog even if no one read me because it’s part of my process, not yours. I write partly because I enjoy taking complex subjects and distilling them in terms that are more easily understandable because that helps further my understanding. What you see here is someone who dares to be transparent. When I open my heart, you can look and see me for who I am as no one else can. It is a torn and scarred heart, but no less beautiful because of it. Some people won’t see this part and choose to linger instead on my inability to suffer fools easily or my hostility towards those who would defend of deny injustice. And that’s OK because it’s part of who I am also. Just don’t come here trying to analyze my shit. Shit, I would bet my left (lower hanging) nut, that the vast majority of those who attempt to analyze others, need to turn that gaze inward.

I will meet you exactly where you’re at and you can walk with me as far as you care. There is no artifice here, this is who I am, not because I want to be popular, but because I strive to be as honest as I can be on a daily basis. Sometimes I pretty much successful and other days I fail miserably. But life isn’t a race to be won, it’s a journey.

Bottom line is that I am a genuinely happy person at a point in my life where it all seems to have come together. What I bring to the table is an invincible joy and a living example that life doesn’t suck -- life is fuckin’ good, even if at this moment you’re an ingrate who can’t appreciate that fact. Come in and enjoy or not, that is obviously your choice. Just don’t get it twisted.

Love,

Eddie