imitation as Flattery

Happy Halloween All! It’s all about the Were’s today…

Happy Halloween All! It’s all about the Weres today…

 

That be WERE'S in them thar hills! (And that's a very good thing!)

That be WERES in them thar hills! (And that’s a very good thing!)

 

I am ready and rarin’ to go with my gay werewolf story set in a fictitious town of Sparrow’s Hollow, West VA. It sort of came to me (as most of my stories do) as I signed up for the Nanowrimo event. Gay weres are not a new thing in the M/M (gay lit fic) genre. There are literally TONS of them out there. But I wanted to play with it a bit myself. I love being spooked. I love the thrill of not knowing but fearing it beyond all measure of what’s right around that next corner! EEEKS!

I am totally pantsing it…

What the hell is pantsing, you ask?

It means while I know the characters, the arc and the general setting, I don’t have a planned outline. I don’t have everything mapped out to the nth degree. I have a feel for what I am going to do and I am just gonna sit down and hammer it all out. One. Word. At. A. Time. I am literally and physically flying by the “seat of my pants…”

Pantsing it…

I think it’ll be scary writing it from that perspective alone.

 

Am feelin' the love of the lycan sort today! HOWL y'all!

Am feelin’ the love of the lycan sort today! HOWL y’all!

 

And I’ve got something that is really quite different in my world of weres… I wanted something new to write about if I was going to take it on. I think it’s rather exciting and could reset the genre if I can do it right.  We’ll see. Don’t want to write too much about it until it starts tomorrow.

BUT, what I will say, is that while I am gonna be writing this I will be blogging about the experience too. I don’t know what I’ve bitten into, but it is gonna be epic in its own way, I can just tell. And weres are all about the biting, and the rutting, and the feeding, right?

So on this All Hallows Eve, I’ll just cross my fingers (after I’ve completed the werewolf makeup on the granddaughter for trick or treating) and plunge in at midnight tonight!

It’s gonna be EPIC!

Thar be wolves in them thar hills!  (and that’s a VERY good thing!)

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Finding Your Voice… Then Sticking To It

Finding Your Voice… Then Sticking To It

 

Today I’ve been mulling things around. I do this, as I am sure you do it too, from time to time.

 

But here’s my dilemma, of sorts: I’ve gotten caught up (with my mental ramblings) in a conversation going on with other gay authors and the lack of our representation within the M/M genre and what that means to our voice within our own community. By that I mean real gay men’s voices writing about our own experiences, or at the very least experiences that reflect the reality we all live in. I mean you can have gay vampires, weres or what have you and still have it rooted in what we, as gay men, have to deal with in our lives. How we feel, how we cope.

I know I’ve preached from the Rechy alter before. I just love his work, I have since I was a boy. There are others, but he was the first one I found – sentimentally clinging to his work more than any other, I suppose. The hubby actually found his website out on the net. Well, that’s sort of redundant, isn’t it? Where else would one find a website? Isn’t it funny how I’ve been such a pro-Rechy reader that I never thought to see if he had a website? That really fascinates me. The idea that I can be so vocal about something that has dominated my views on reading for so long and never once seeking him out on the web. I think I know why that is and I’ll come to it anon.

I suppose that some part of it has to do with what I’d built up in my head that was his allure. Well, I’d like to think so – he’s one helluva sexy man – Hollywood sexy. If anything, I am still that 15 year old boy who found Sexual Outlaw on a low shelf in the Gay and Lesbian Studies section of a bookstore. Believe me, I was just as surprised that there was such as section like that in 1979. But there we were…me in my shorts and t-shirt on a hot summer day, and there it was in all of its seedy and semen soaked glory:

 

The Sexual Outlaw as I saw it in 1979.

The Sexual Outlaw as I saw it in 1979.

 

I know I’ve written before on how amazing this work is and how it saved me from plunging headlong into a wanton and lascivious chain of sexual exploits. Exploits and adventures that in that era (we’re talking the cusp of the HIV pandemic) might just as well have killed me. I know I’ve covered that before. What I haven’t said is that while that book “opened doors and windows I never dreamed existed…” (paraphrasing Patrick Dennis’ Auntie Mame now), it also allowed me to mentally and sensually let myself fall into the main character’s exploits. Okay, I’ll be blunt about it. I rubbed several of my own creative juices out while reading it. It was like heady, sperm filled porn to me and I was fucking hooked. The odd thing was, it wasn’t porn by any stretch of the imagination. I was titillated all right, but only because I had no other outlet to explore the sex that was contained in that book.

But it was more than that too.

When my parents found out about me, when I confirmed it to them, my dad didn’t really have a huge reaction to it. Just told me that sex with a woman was pretty damn great, but if I wasn’t into that, then maybe sex with men might be great too. And that was about it. Conversation over. It wasn’t like I couldn’t bring it up again with my dad. I didn’t have a problem with that, nor did he, it seems. My dad was pretty goddamned awesome. I’d like to think he knew that. But even with a great male figure in my house to give me guidance and unconditional love, he was right in thinking that he didn’t have much in the way of advice with what I was dealing with inside.

That’s where John came in. John Rechy became my mentor, of sorts. Not that I put any of the responsibility on him. I wouldn’t presume to think such a thing. But I needed something, mind you. I needed someone male to give me a heads up on what was out there and how it sort of worked. I needed a primer. Sexual Outlaw became that primer. He was like my kinky Mr. Rogers (wow, there’s GOT to be some therapy in that statement somewhere), and I soooo wanted to be a part of his neighborhood.

 

John in all of his Hollywood glamor glory... who wouldn't idolize that?

John in all of his Hollywood glamor glory… who wouldn’t idolize that?

 

I explored that part of my sexuality. I had anonymous sex in the park, I had encounters with nameless men. I had sex. Quite a bit of it too before I ever had my first boyfriend. No one knew about this, of course. I put on a very good face to friends at school and the new gay social friends I’d made. But I still found time to have anonymous sex. I was careful – well, insofar as I could be back then. I didn’t go off to some john’s house or somewhere I knew could literally be a dead end. Yeah, there was a degree of fear in the whole equation. But that also heightened the sexual tension. It made it come alive. That wasn’t Rechy’s fault. I’d already had those thoughts, those desires. Rechy just gave me the wherewithal to admit to them, to embrace them to some small degree and let me know that I wasn’t half crazy with the thoughts and feelings I’d been having. Somehow, I’d survived. Somehow I got very lucky. I know that, believe me I do. It’s not something that I would advise anyone else of doing either.

Women don’t get how powerful and potent testosterone can be. How intoxicating and bewildering and utterly dominating it can be within a man. I saw a documentary on men and their penises called Private Dicks. It was a somewhat humorous way to look at men and how they view their dicks. Sort of the Vagina Monologues but the men’s side of the fence. There was a trans (F to M) man in the film named Spencer. Spencer had spent part of his life as a woman. After the sexual transition, he became acquainted with testosterone very intimately. He said to any woman who was watching it that having been a woman and now was a man, he could say without a doubt, that women have no idea just how potent and powerful that hormone drives men to do what we do.

He’s right about that. It is potent. It is powerful, heady, and lusty. The need to seed is intense.

Anyway, that’s what I want to explore with my own writing. That incredible rush that men get when our sexual potency is heightened. That’s why Angels of Mercy doesn’t shy away from my boys sex lives. It permeates the book because that’s how teenaged boys are. If they could have sex they would – no questions asked. Marco and Elliot have quite a bit of sex in the book. It’s honest. It’s forthright and it is unabashedly male in all of its splendid semen laden fornication. I did quite a bit of research on the topic – mothers would be surprised just how much their teenaged gay boys are having sex – and how much of it they’re posting online. And just to be clear, there was no under-aged stuff within my research. All 18 and above, but there were several postings from these boys that it became quite clear they’d been at it (posting their sexual encounters) for years. Marco and Elliot toy with that as well – sex and social media. These are boys of the internet porn age. They act accordingly but not beyond the realm of their natural characteristics. I don’t call upon the reader to make a huge leap of faith when Marco or Elliot explore their sexual relations. The sex happens organically, as it should.

But, as my hubby keeps reminding me, it is NOT erotica in the sense that I am writing sex to titillate – because he’s quite clear that I am not. The sex Marco and Elliot is very hot and heavy, but it also drives the story forward as these two boys discover how sex becomes another character in their story. The sex they have is varied and pointed and sometimes downright angry. I didn’t want to shy away from it. It’s also why I think it will never get picked up by a traditional publisher. I think it warrants a decent publisher. I believe in the work that much, but I am also a pragmatist – there are too many cards stacked against a ‘gay’ novel already. To use cum play like I do because my boys are into it is definitely pushing the envelope too much. But again, it is a very intrinsic part of who they are – both as a couple and individually.

In Elliot’s book (Volume One of the series) I never really allow Elliot to give voice to how his orgasms are. He says that he has his orgasmic release, but he never gives it any weight – you never get to experience it from his perspective. It’s always about Marco’s ejaculate that Elliot fixates on. For Elliot, it is all about Marco’s release. That’s very much a theme between them. Elliot talks a lot about every time Marco makes love to him. How much he applies himself to learning what pleases Marco as a lover. But Elliot never gives his own desires much voice. My husband says many times over (as he’s had to read it many times over) that what I have is a character study of these men’s lives. Their lives happen to coincide with the love they feel as they come together – BAM! Like a head on collision of two bullet trains – it’s hard, fast and intense – almost to the point of being violent. The hubby also says that I shouldn’t ever refer to my work as erotic. He thinks it is far more than that because of all the little things I’ve woven into Elliot’s psyche. The hubby ought to know – being a retired psychiatrist himself.

Maybe he’s right.

The hubby also did something else: he looked up Rechy’s website and sent me a bunch of blog entries he’d posted. Several of which I have opposing points of view on. I guess this is why I cringed when the links to the blog entries were in my inbox. I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to get me to see why Rechy’s work meant so much to me and how far I’d gone into left field – over thinking elements of my work when I should be just concentrating on the work itself and not the minutiae that surrounds it. He also knew the temptation to reach out to Rechy would be too great. I knew then as I stared into the iphone this morning at all of those links to Rechy’s site, why I’d never looked him up.

Fear – plain and simple. Over the years I’d built Rechy up as a monolithic mentor. He’s never been anything of the sort, just to my 15 year old eyes and in my 15 year old heart. I sort of fell in love with him through his works. He was my first (virtual) boyfriend. I know how that sounds. But I remember that feeling that Rechy was talking directly to me, because I needed it. I needed someone. Sexual Outlaw was it. Then it was City of Night, then Numbers. Yeah, I pretty much did them all. Rabid about it, I was.

So yeah, I was fearful that whatever I’d say I know I’d embarrass myself somehow. And I am not usually like that. I come from theatre and opera. Working with big names in the industry is second nature to me. But John Rechy is different. No one wants to be thought of in those epic monolithic tones. He’s human, same as the next guy. I get that, I do. But my romanticized 15 year old self, yeah, he’s not so convinced. It’s this duality when it comes to him that colors what I write. It’s that strong voice that I am constantly striving for, trying like hell to lock it down for myself. Try to make my own mark – no matter how big or small it may turn out to be.

So yeah, fear… fear that I can’t or fear that I won’t. But I know I have to try. Writing is what I want to do. Writing is what drives me each and every day now. I could lament on the years that I did nothing with that passion, but I’d much rather concentrate on the here and now, right? Rather than the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s…huh?

I hope it wouldn’t be fear of something that I’d say or write – though thinking on it now, yeah I could so gush all over Mr. Rechy and it wouldn’t be pretty. I’d go all Japanese fangirl on him, I’m sure. I wrote him a decent sized email this afternoon (and felt immensely guilty for doing so right after I sent it). He’s a busy guy, I am sure he didn’t need me to prattle on about my life to him. I know I embarrassed the fuck out of myself. I sort of liken it to being that Japanese fangirl walking up to one of those waifish boys from One Direction and just well, sort of fall apart. There might even be some tears involved. How fucking embarrassing would that be? Uh, VERY… he’s gonna think I am some sort of fucktard and will investigate the steps he’ll need to take to ensure his safety from my impending fangirl moment.

Let me lay that to rest for ya, John – I’m too damned embarrassed already. I’ll stay put under my rock if it’s all right with you.

But it’s done now. I’ve had my say to him – thanking him for the inspiration, for being a guiding light in my young gay boy life to the man I’ve become today. I suppose actually, in some strange way he’s left such an imprint upon me that some part of me that was 15 has never grown up. Like a sexually driven Peter Pan, he’s still tucked in there. I still get giddy when I open Sexual Outlaw now. That same feeling never fails to rear its head when I open that book. I immediately go back to that moment when I first found it. My skin sort of tingles, knowing what’s in those pages already – the surprise has long since worn off – only to be replaced by something far greater: my younger self. I am there, trapped and forever lost in those words. Words I can’t fully escape, nor would I ever want to. They’re what gave me the courage to seek out my own voice in this world. Outlaw gave me the balls to seek it out for myself.

So yeah, I may have just fangirl’d all over John (sorry!) in that email I sent to him (I am too afraid to even reread the copy in my sent mailbox because I know I’ll cringe). How teenaged girl can you get? Not that I am disparaging teenaged girls – on the contrary, I am commiserating with them. I’ll take the embarrassment. At the very least I can say that I’ve had my say on it. I’ve told him what his works have meant to me – let the chips fall where they may, right?

Fifty years in and I am still trying to sort out my own voice. I think I am close. Angels of Mercy is helping me get there. And when I do find it, by the gods, I will make sure I stick to it and never let it go.

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[NSFW] Men of Courage – Men of Colors

[NSFW] Men of Courage – Men of Colors

 

-OR-

 

Dealing with the internal emotive pain we men bear.

 

So my Human Sexuality class at school kicked me squarely in the rubber parts. I sorta love it when that happens. Not cause it causes emotive pain on my part – I am just not into S/M (not that there’s anything wrong with it – I get the whole endorphin release shit that comes out of the pleasure/pain dichotomy).

So a couple of blog posts ago I entered a small section regarding the (young) men in that class that went a little bit like this…

… the young men tried to project that they were über cool with it. They had it down. They were bonafied stud material.

Some of those young men walked in with no small degree of swagger – all tatted up and seemingly confident in their skins. Their body language professing their assumed comfortability with the topic and their prowess in the bedroom (or whatever room is at hand).

Yeah, normally I am trying really hard in a new situation to be a bit more open minded and accommodating as everyone in a new class room scenario gets acquainted.  It’s how I was brought up. Be warm and welcoming as you can be or as comfortable as they’ll let you. No need to be pushy about it. right? I mean, we’re all going to be spending quite a bit of time talking about (whisper mode):

S-E-X.

 

Now they're having fun...

Now they’re having fun…

 

And for me, of course, that meant I was focusing on the man on man S-E-X.

Not so for most of the guys in that class. But here’s the rub: I got a little surprise from a guy in class – all tatted up with full sleeves and across the torso, up the neck to his jawline – complete leg ink work too. I didn’t think there was much of him that wasn’t covered in color. From his walk and demeanor he looked like he’d seen and experienced a helluva lot for his young years. He was decidedly young – except for the eyes. His eyes were weary already with a hard life. My heart sort of went out to him without realizing it.

He was the one I had commented before leading the straight male brigade in the classroom. A guy he buddied up with sat one aisle over from him in the next seat and they already started to form a bond. I always like watching two guys do that. Men can do this rather easily. We have to. That brotherhood thing is really something fierce. If we can find common ground and it clicks – it’s pretty fucking intense. I’ve written about this before, and there’s plenty scientific evidence to support this trait amongst males in general.

A part of me felt excluded but I came to realize I was the one doing the excluding. That became apparent when the professor broke us up into smaller groups and the two guys turned to me and asked if I wanted to be in their group. We gathered two other men and a single woman into our little discussion group.

While I won’t go into the details of what was revealed (because we had an agreement in class that we wouldn’t) what I will say is that these young people truly astounded me with their candor. I’d like to think I engendered some of that as I made it clear about my family life and how my parents raised me that whatever topic was at hand at the dinner table – we talked about it. No subject too sacred. I think these guys got that. They liked the camaraderie.

But here’s the rub, here’s where my tatted new found friend (at least I’d like him to be for the duration of the class) kicked me square in the teeth (mentally, that is). In the course of our conversation he relayed how he discovered what sex was about, the abrupt way it was foisted on him at a very young age. The neglect and abandonment he clearly felt to be thrown into that heady adult world well before his teen aged years and mind could wrap his head around it. As if that weren’t enough to lay bare what he’d gone through in those very early years, he expressed how something traumatic had happened to him that relates to the course work (something we’ll study later on) and how his mother, rather than being supportive at a time when her son probably desperately needed it – she laughed at him.

Fuck. Me. Running…

I couldn’t imagine that sort of response to a child (even if by this time he was 13). For fuck sake he’s still struggling at that age to sort shit out – laughing is not going to give him  what he needs to feel like he’s safe to sort it out. The pain from that moment was evident in his eyes.

 

Men of Colors...

Men of Colors…Men of Words

 

Gone was the impression I had of cockiness and swagger. I mean he could definitely put that essence out there. He had it in spades, but for that one moment, he laid it bare. The pain clearly there. Fuck me, that was courage, that was. I knew he’d done some time, even before he said it. I can usually tell those things. Incarceration does something to men that hardens them in a way that only serves to point out how fucked up our “rehabilitation” system is and how epically we’ve failed as a society to see to our own.

Yes, there are some truly bad seeds out there – chemically imbalanced from some sort of birth defect. But those are very, very rare. I think that a great deal of the men (and women) who have had to deal with that harsh aspect of life were put there by forces that were much bigger than themselves, and they were just trying to get along as best they knew how, and with what little support they had to do so.

But here, this young man, reset my every impression about him in those few brief moments. And in that he rose. He said everything very quietly, very intently, with focus. Laser like focus. He said he had a little boy on his way. He and his girlfriend (or wife – we never did clarify) were expecting. Those bright eyes focused and darkened a bit, and he said very pointedly that he was going to make sure he did right by his boy and that he’d never feel that way or that he would ensure that the boy would grow up know how to treat women right. Not make the mistakes that he himself had made (and clearly regretted).

Powerful. Potent. A part of me was humbled by his journey.

And let’s be clear – While I don’t have a single tattoo on my body, I admire those who do. These men of words and images. They fascinate me in ways that I can’t begin to describe. And it’s not the whole bad boy thing that used to accompany it. No, it’s more that they have the courage and fortitude to emblazon their thoughts and desires that are so deeply felt onto the fabric of their skin. They are emotively expressing what it means to be male in their lives with the single canvas they’ve been naturally gifted with – themselves. That’s bang on brilliant in my book. It’s not about the pain they endured to get inked up as much as my classmate did. It was that there was care or thought behind what they expressed and had etched into themselves. It’s a very beautiful thing.

 

Tatted beauty...

A Tatted beauty…

I’ve had it far easier than he. Sure I had trials and tribulations to deal with on my own path to bring me to that moment in that class, but nothing quite like the path that this young man had endured.

I am gonna write about a character like that at some point. It might be skewed to fit into the worlds I write, but he impressed me greatly. His courage and fortitude to rise above what life had handed him, this man of colors, emblazoned on his skin, was awesome. And it was decidedly male. As a writer, nothing is headier than that to me.

In addition to this whole thing, my teacher has asked for assistance from a technical sort of level, and given that is my area of expertise, I offered to assist. Hey, I got out of an exam for my troubles – so what the hell, right?

One problem, the survey is a series of open ended questions on sexual experiences. Now, given that most scientific oriented surveys are stipulated and built upon common answer questions (Gender: M/F –  that sort of thing), this one seems to present a problem that could skew (at best) the results or (at worst) be nearly impossible to draw any real tangible evidence with which to adequately report. So yeah, while I think the idea of gathering other’s experiences is rather a treasure trove of ideas to mine from, obviously I will keep my eye to the task and our original agreement of non-disclosure of specifics.

But all of this got me to thinking about sex – and in particular – sex of the M/M variety.

The best way to get messy - er, uh, clean...

The best way to get messy – er, uh, clean…

In my stories, the men have already moved past the am I gay or not. That quest, while each journey can be rather interesting doesn’t always inspire me to write. I’d much rather come from the standpoint of – They’re together (already) – so then what happens?

Of course there’s gonna have to be forces that conspire to draw them apart. We humans love our drama (even when it devolves into melodrama) – no one comes to a happy Opera, right? What would be the point? We respond to strife. We respond to rising above adversity.

And part of me is just tired of all the straight pairings going on. I want a much more queer world. Jeezus, I’d like it to be come so common place that the social construct would just become inured to it like most straight couplings. See people for being people rather than the sex they’re having, ya know, sex with.

 

All Inked up... hotter than fuck...

All Inked up… hotter than fuck…

 

But sadly, my new friend in class is not the only one to bear pain. Despite how much we’ve progressed – we still have instances like this:

[NOTE: This video exhibits extreme violence against a gay person by HIS PARENTS – it is as horrid as it is reprehensible. BE WARNED!]

A gofundme.com fund has been set up to support this unfortunate young man (Daniel) and he has responded to those generous and caring people. If it truly takes a village to raise a child, then this village rose up and met that challenge. Daniel’s response to what has happened to him from the greater global community follows the horrific exchange between him and his parents:

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Daniel's tearful and heartfelt response.

Daniel’s tearful and heartfelt response.

Please give what you can to this young man as he is truly alone at this point from what I can tell. Let him know that there are others in this world who will embrace him and give him the respect and love he deserves.

Gofundme.com account for Daniel

We must truly stamp out this abhorrent and reprehensible form of parenting and child rearing. If the village must rise to meet the challenge, then rise we must. I truly hope that Daniel (and so many others like him) find a helping hand in this world.

It is what has been burning within me – what has been pressing at my insides to help people like Daniel who are forced out of the only home they’ve known.

I truly want to find a way to contribute to that cause on a very personal level. I just feel this desire to let them know – I see you, I feel for you and I want to help.

While Daniel might be coming out of the worst part of his life over this, it won’t be the last time we hear of such a story.

It’s those poor souls I am terrified for. Those poor kids who don’t deserve what’s coming. It’s to them that I think about often.

I know it may sound cliche, that it might even sound trite, but if I won the lottery, I know I’d put a good chunk of it aside to do something about this. I’d want my legacy to be that I rose up and provided a path for others as unfortunate as Daniel.

For their sake, I’d like to think I’m up for the challenge.

Until next time…

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It’s all about the story – Part Deux

31 Days of Brannan – Day 29

 

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Today’s Playlist – The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

 

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’ll come clean  –  I am a HUGE Jay fan. Epic Japanese fan girl type of fan (not like I’ve hidden it at all – I mean, really.

31 days of talking about the same damned guy? I mean, even this hubby of mine has got to be a bit suspicious with me rambling on and on about some musician that lives on the other side of the country. But he’s (the hubby, that is) my number one – so no worries there.)

So yeah, Jay fan. BIG TIME. So you’d think that would be the confession, right? Not something terribly surprising given the month-long blogfest on him. But no, that’s not the admission. It’s not. In fact, given all of that – of all that I’ve written, collected, blogged about, you’d THINK that I’d be so Jay’d out that I’d know his shit fairly well. That I’d have his YouTube channel memorized so I could pick out my favorite video of the day and click on it blindfolded, right? Yeah, you’d think… only, well, I haven’t and, uh, I couldn’t.  I know, I know. Japanese fan girls would be kicking my ass for letting down the corp or the group or the cult of fan girls everywhere, huh?

I mean, Japanese fan girls are notorious for being the epitome of fans. They are some serious ball-busting hard core fandom. Cause when those girls gush about something there is nothing on the planet that can stop that vag-laden bullet train from splashing their love goo all over the object of their desire.

Okay, so maybe I am not a fan girl. For one I’m not a girl. So yeah, I lose on that score already. Though I suppose being gay might get me an honorable mention, no?  Perhaps not.

So the whole reason why I am rambling on about this like I am was that about a week or so ago (in my infancy of writing about all things Jay related) I included a clip of Jay doing one of his ‘story’ songs. In it I compared his work to other such classic ‘story’ songs of pop music’s past. One of them was Vicki Lawrence’s The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (she was the first to score with this song, Jay – not country goddess protector of Nashville – Reba). So you’d think back then I woulda played this little ditty as a comparative. Yeah, that’d be the obvious choice. Only I hadn’t ever clicked this particular video on his channel yet. I know, I know – what kind of rabid fan can you be if you’ll watch his 6+ minute video of him at a supposed haunted church and yet not even listen to the video I’ve included here.

So you can imagine my embarrassment when I did click it tonight and found the title: Jayba McEntire tests out a new digital camera by sangin’ ’bout murder.

I saw that and thought: oh no, it can’t be…  But you see, I knew it was. Country singers have been covering that song since it hit the pop charts back in ’73. So if Reba was the version that Jay was riffing off of, and it was a song about murder – well, there could only be one real possibility.

[Cue: Face-Palm moment]

So yeah, not so good with the whole I am a fan girl (or honorable mention) sort of fan when it comes to Jay. It’s embarrassing. Sorta negates my whole 31 Days of Brannan uber-fest that I’ve had going on here, right? I can be such the fucktard when I’m not looking out for myself – sorta like now.

Oooops. Sorry bout that.

So anyway, sang your lil’ ol’ heart out Jayba! And give ’em what fer…

(BTW, from a musical standpoint, very interesting chord choices for the chorus – don’t know if that was Reba’s rendition of it that he was doing or something he came up with himself. Not quite what I’ve ever heard whenever someone else sang the song.)  – Just sayin’…

ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT TIL SAN FRANCISCO! I can’t fucking wait!

N-Joy! – Or should I say – N-Jay! (Okay, that sounded better in my head when I first thought of it.)

 


 

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay's Website - jaybrannan.com
Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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LIVE FROM…

31 Days of Brannan – Day 28

 

Today’s Playlist – ANYTHING LIVE! (We’re only a few days away from his performance in SAN FRANCISCO!) 

 

Up first – Bä Bä Vita Lamm  (Live from Stockholm, Sweden)

 

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This is brilliant because it’s Jay being somewhat whimsical. A giddy moment, if you will – and he got the audience involved (always a good thing). Brilliant!

 

Next Up – Arim Roshi (Live From Tel Aviv)

 

[embedplusvideo height=”329″ width=”400″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/UyF5W8″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/l_uODndK5to?fs=1&vq=hd720″ vars=”ytid=l_uODndK5to&width=400&height=329&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=0&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep1890″ /]

 

You can tell by the audience in attendance how much they appreciate Jay performing something of their world, of their culture. It’s these little touches (despite how much Jay laments his poor Hebrew pronunciation) – they didn’t care one bit from the sound of it. In fact, it seems they were quite touched by the offering. Just lovely. How many artists these days do this any more – especially Americans when they tour? My guess? Not very many. But Jay’s a classy guy that way.

 

Moving on –  Molly Malone  (Live from Dublin, Ireland)

 

[embedplusvideo height=”329″ width=”400″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/UyFxUk” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Ocl-LYC5XGw?fs=1&vq=hd720″ vars=”ytid=Ocl-LYC5XGw&width=400&height=329&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=0&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep8957″ /]

 

A bunch of happy, (probably tanked) Irish lads and lasses, a great Irish tune – what could possibly go wrong? Under Jay’s spell – not a goddamned thing. This is a lovely interplay between artist and audience.

 

Rounding it out – Femme au Foyer (Live from Paris, France)

 

[embedplusvideo height=”329″ width=”400″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1k4WsJS” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/PL_Mz3tq2kI?fs=1&vq=hd720″ vars=”ytid=PL_Mz3tq2kI&width=400&height=329&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=0&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep8337″ /]

 

The French (as well as most of the countries that he does this with Housewife in various languages) just loved the shit out of this rendition of his own gay boy anthem – Housewife. I never tire of hearing this song, no matter the language, the setting or the time of day. It’s a brilliant and very heart felt piece that every gay boy can relate to on some level.

 

So now he wends his way down the coast from Seattle (and their fanny packs of granola), Portland (visit that killer donut shop, Jay), TO SAN FRANCISCO, BABY! I can’t wait. I am going to Japanese fan girl all over the damned place (it’ll really be pathetic). I’d like to say my granddaughter and daughter (and other friends in attendance) would keep me sane and normal. Yeah, probably not.

Sorry, Jay – I’ll start apologizing now. It’s heartfelt. You help put me on a journey that I can never repay. Rob Me Blind was life altering for me. It nudged me along a road I kept putting off. For that I will always be grateful and I will sing your praises to anyone who will give me the time of day.

 

 


 

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay's Website - jaybrannan.com
Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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