Gooden Gone, Going On Good

So there I was running the self-pitying story about being unfuckable, when the seriousness of stories was brought fatally home.

Two Sundays ago, my friend Marc Gooden texted me indicating a high level of distress with the world. He was angry about the money “pissed against the wall” by the well-off at the World AIDS Conference in Canada, while he suffered in dire AIDS poverty with tragically inadequate support or services. He was angry about the stupidity of the general population. Well, that’s the way it is if you climb out of the delusions of the masses, if you look back, they look distressingly stupid and infuriatingly complicit in the destruction of their planet’s future, the wellbeing of themselves and their descendents, and their vindictive jealousy and relentless persecution of the sensitive, the creative, and the exotic or diverse.

I phoned him and talked him down from his rage and despair, and urged him to focus on some things that did not infuriate him. Someone else visited him in his home in country Victoria that Sunday night, left at 4am Monday morning, and Marc was found hanged dead later that day.

Now, the late visitor looks sus in these circumstances, but presuming the Police did their job right in ruling out foul play, Marc died because he was stuck in telling himself a very distressing story.

Yes, there are horrible things happening everywhere. Bombs subsidized by US taxes have flattened towns and killed mostly children and cows in Lebanon. The average child molester, the thirty eight year old heterosexual married man, is molesting the average victim, his twelve year old daughter. And millions of children are orphaned by AIDS because the money for AIDS Prevention is being wasted on junkets or counter-productive abstinence campaigns.

Who wouldn’t get suicidally depressed looking at nothing but the bad stuff?

Yet, there are also wondrous miracles happening everywhere. Every morning and night there’s a stunning sunset or sunrise in breathtakingly beautiful full colour panorama. A hardened crim is moved to tears by the fragile beauty of a newborn baby. A dance floor comes alive with a perfect blend of sound and light and movement and happy smiling people experiencing the joy of their shared humanity and their shared connection to the source of All.

I have a choice about the stories I tell myself. I can focus on the sad story of being too weird for normal guys to fancy (which is true), or on the happy story of physically manifesting the androgyny that underlies humanity (and indeed the Source of Creation), and thus appealing to those special folk who have evolved beyond the grey trappings of normative gender expectations. The more I shine, the more normals are blinded and shy away, and the more exotic and talented people are attracted to me. No offense to normals; they vote for Howard because its the best they can do, and I bear them no ill will, as I bear dogs no ill, but I don’t want to ever ever ever fuck them.

So, I’m unpartnered, but that’s because I choose to not settle for a Normal, and Angels are not just waiting on the shelf. They’re out there, some of them still too traumatized from the brutal Normals, but some of them notice me and maybe wink.

From a certain point of view, the world is perfect, and I am perfect, and I have all the love and everything else I need right now right now. If I focus on this, and appreciate the stunning beauty the Source Of All has created in me and my body and my talents and my dancing, I shine, irresistible to All that is Good and Joy and Love.

If I look at my lovelife like a scorecard, whine about the lack of any recent entries in my sexual history, and think of my chances in terms of how I appeal to Normals, I could end up as suicidally depressed as Mr Gooden.

No way, folks. Marc’s death was a wake-up call for me, and I’m not looking back, I’m taking no prisoners, I’m not compromising on second best, I’m not settling for less than a talented androgynous Angel deserves, and I’m here to do justice to Shiva, both male and female, dancing with one leg raised, the Dancer and the Dance.

I may still end up home alone, but it is because I choose to not settle for Normal, and I will sleep with a divinely beautiful soul and body, and nothing Normal will be allowed to bring me down!

I Shine with Joy and Love and Bliss and Endless Blooming Effervescence!

It’s a much better story, and it tells itself as I walk down the street and the worlds reads my walk and eyes and reflects the story back.

And let the Dead bury the Dead.