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This is one of the “Hell hath no fury” blogs, so as it is a bit of a rant, if it is not your cuppa tea today, you might just want to mosey on by and miss the tea.

In previous blogs I have lamented the loss of real history in the Gay Community.

Again, I use “Gay “as it is only 3 letters, not 12 or more, and faster to type and more of an acknowledgement that the rights we have now were won under that word for both men and women as well as those groups that were unknown or unexplained in the past. If the young ones can demand I accept being Called “Queer” regardless of history or the baggage the word carries, they can just accept that I use the word “Gay” and they need to read the real history to learn why.

I took that cross country trip in the spring, arriving in cities where I had been a Gay Rights Activist and wanted to see how far along each place had come and what they did with what the earlier warriors had won for them.

Sadly, as noted before, the further I went back into my past and away from the present in a sense, the further away from true history were the stories that replaced reality because reality was sometimes nasty and people would prefer the rainbows and lollipop version of events.

Stonewall was a nice bar for Gay people. No, it was a mafia run dump serving a need illegally by serving Gay people alcohol.

Gay people ignored Transgender people back then and ignored them that night. It was 1969 and Gender Dysphoria was as unknown to most Gay people as it was to the general population. Information that is ignored today when it is easily accessible was not that easy to come by in the actual historical time of 1969.

There was neither a brick nor shot glass, and the offered defense of the shot glass reveals further lack of history by claiming this was seen from the street when the bars in those days had the blind wall entry so no one could be seen from the street, something the youth seem not to know and the person who threw it, by her own admission, had arrived after the bar doors had been closed by the police. You cannot begin something already in progress, you can only join in.

In my case, from 1997-2009 when advocating for the non-heterosexual students being included in school policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination, I had advocated, was dismissed by the school board for that, got the job back in a court case, the district added the words “sexual orientation” and “gender identity”, harassed me for another year and a half, I left when the language was secure and I was superfluous, and eight years later, having experienced no problems, with no broo-ha-ha, the district added “gender expression” when its education had led them to see the need on their own without pressure.

It was evidence of growth.

When I read the draft of the biography that was to accompany an exhibit by a university of my art and legal papers from the advocacy years which would be the one that remained after I am dead, it had me advocating and then leaving after having accumulated all the necessary information which enabled others to add the words “sexual orientation”, “gender Identity”, and “gender expression” at the same time a few years after I left. They had lumped the two language additions into one in spite of the first addition happening years before the second and denying the importance of the first addition and that of the second that was its own story of growth but would not be seen as that if people thought it had happened at the same time as the other words. They had accidentally stripped me of my real history and presented a history with a totally incorrect timeline, and, upon my objecting, I found that basically these three terms, being common in 2023, were assumed to have been so from 1997 to 2009 and because they did not realize vocabulary grows over time, two of the terms were included as they existed, the third could not have been advocated for because the term was not as solid then as it would become.

Other less friendly terms that we had to deal with in those days were changed to less triggering ones and as a result, the warm fuzzy, non-triggering history was totally wrong and had to be corrected.

They also used terms whose modern meanings may have changed somewhat over time and they saw no reason why, for the sake of the modern audience, they should not use the modern terms and not the ones that applied at the historical moment. The end result was, after reading the biography I had no idea what I had done or why it mattered.

It took time, but history got restored.

The people at the front desk of the umbrella LGBTQ Community Center, which should be aware of Community history, are unaware that from 1985-1996 their own city had a very well respected Gay Men’s Chorus that, among other things, had been the first non-Disney entity to be allowed by them to perform songs from Little Mermaid for which they gave approval at the opening performance which allowed us to continue that section of the show in later performances, being under 30, had no idea that the chorus had existed and only knew of the one that took its place in another city when a large number of the members of the original chorus, who had been very active when it came to all the AIDS business of the time, succumbed to the virus and are now unknown. They were aware the knew chorus and assumed it had been the only one and never checked on that.

Pitiful.

I found that whaling ship log entry I wrote of previously and had sat on it for a while, putting out feelers to see if my claim of having found the first written record of homosexuality on a whaling ship would be refuted, and after returning from my trip, and after coming upon another entry in another document regarding a woman, I began formulating the proposal to have a committee of volunteers at the New Bedford Whaling Museum who will delve into the historical documents and find us.

There is an LGBT umbrella group in town, as in most cities, so I contacted them to see if they had a history committee to make sure I was not stepping on toes and could perhaps get them involved in my proposed committee, and was informed that they had a Heritage Committee and I was welcome to join. I wrote back asking to join and was informed the first meeting would be in the middle of August.

I know a blow-off when I see one. An “Oops, we gotta do something to look like leaders” was what this was as, if an active committee existed and did not come into existence until I asked my question, they would have been meeting or they would have at least met once. As it was, this meeting was schedule for two months after my inquiry.

I collected the information I had, attaching it and the blog on Steward Scott and Captain Weeks to my return email so they could see what I had found and how we could get the New Bedford Whaling Museum to help as the charter of its parent organization, the Old Dartmouth Historic Society, says it exists to curate the history of the Community and we are part of that community, and sent it to the people listed in the address box of the email I had received and received silence in response.

This year was the first time since Covid that buses of people from Ne3w Bedford would be going to the Provincetown Carnivale, the town’s big Pride event, and I had put my name in for a ticket. It is a don’t miss community event, both the bus ride and the event itself with good local people. When I saw the committee meeting was scheduled for the same day, I wrote to the committee suggesting a schedule change to avoid the conflict but was assured in an email the meeting was still on and people would be there.

I canceled my ticket to Provincetown.

On the day of the meeting, I arrived at the meeting place a half hour early so I could calmly greet the other people and not have one of those last-minute, dash greetings before business, and sat there for an hour waiting for no one else to show up.

I finished the last pages of my e-book and rode my scooter over to Le Place to have a beer with the other person who was not in Provincetown but by choice.

Not only was there no meeting, but I had given up my plans to attend the meeting that wasn’t.

Remember, the only response to the request for a schedule change was the assurance the meeting was still on.

When I arrived at the bar I sent off an email to the committee voicing my anger, and received the standard non apology apology for any confusion while telling me my input is valued and the meeting will be in a week.

What am I, twelve?

What confusion?

They announced a meeting; they confirmed it.

I cancelled plans and showed up when they didn’t.

There is nothing confusing about it.

The apology had nothing to do with the offense.

Like claiming an existing Heritage Committee, it was a dismissive blow-off delivered to someone who knows them all too well but who was assumed to be an inexperienced neophyte in a field he does not understand so about which he can be fooled.

I was at the rodeo with Crawford.

They obviously just picked a “keep him happy” date, while having other plans, not really planning to have a meeting, but getting to say they had a Heritage Committee. Looks good on paper when in reality it does not exist and is of no real interest as was shown by this insulting fiasco,

I had already submitted a tentative proposal to the New Bedford Whaling Museum to have a Gay Committee just as it has for other community groups like the Cape Verdeans and Azoreans, also sub-communities in the larger community, and have a real meeting toward the end of the month with the President and Head Curator, neither of whom claimed that the Museum already had such a committee. I have also spoken of my proposal with other members of staff for input, and, so far, it is positive.

We transcribers, besides being taken off one project and put on another because the other might be subject to a deadline, are allowed to take on pet projects so long as they are relevant to the museum and add to its information, and I intend to get permission to put aside the rather boring assignment I am on now to do some follow up research on another person from the city’s past whose contributions to the country are great, but may be seen only through the tunnel vision of code words like “companion”, “roommate”, “close personal friend” and could be actually much greater.

Instead of leading the charge, the disinterested Gay umbrella group can help in the curating and archiving. If they show up.

They had their chance.

I am not a fan of organizations. Even the good ones get to a point where there are control freaks competing for the top of the hill and so limit what could be accomplished. They were of no use in Oklahoma and in 2023 were responsible for Trans students in Oklahoma City losing their inclusion in school policies that they had won in 2009.

They did not help get them but had no problem, when they ignored local history in favor of established and generic bullet points, losing them.

Locally for Pride Day, this organization had the one Gay bar in town and the only one on the South Coast of Massachusetts until you get to providence collect a ten dollar cover charge at a bar that rarely has them as a fundraiser for the organization so that in order to celebrate Pride with others in the Community, you had to pay to do it so the organization could continue to remodel the building they bought to be the Center without telling the Community we were going to be paying for it any way they could get a dollar.

They usurped Pride for money, limiting Community participation.

Other old fogeys in the Community and I, who earned our right to be proud, arrived before the cover charge was to start and passive-aggressively sat having drinks and conversation daring them to toss us out if we didn’t pay up.

That blog never had to be written. They took the hint

Once you got inside you could have your official Pride picture taken in front of a huge rainbow butterfly not bearing the word “Pride” as one would expect, but the name of the organization, so every happy Pride picture is an advertisement for them. The word Pride may have been on small flags at the festival, but the stage backdrop was the organizations logo.

We were not celebrating Pride, we were getting fleeced. We were a cash cow. They used our joy and our pride first to collect money for themselves with a cover charge and have a commemorative picture taken, but then, whenever anyone showed or posted their Pride Picture, there was nothing saying it was Pride related and could have been taken at any event, any place, at any time where the organization found a way to make money. It was just as useful for a Christmas card and any occasion as there was no specific theme just the name and logo.

They used Pride to raise money from a captive audience while locking out members of the Community their name claims they serve.

It was one thing to pretend there was a committee, select the day for the already functioning committee to meet for the first time, insist on the date even after a suggested date change with assurance of attendance, and then not show up, something that shows a tepid interest in the subject at best and total disrespect for the people involved, but it is another to treat someone like that, to have them sit and wait while not being able to do what he had planned because this was something that had to be done, but was of nominal importance to the committee, obviously.

They had other plans. I, apparently, did not.

How do you work with people whose first interaction consisted of this?

Do I really want to walk into a room of people who left me sitting in a lobby waiting while they were off doing whatever, perhaps doing what I had had to cancel since they did not change the date knowing they would not be there, pretending we are a cohesive group with the same goal, preserving history.

Perhaps they did not take me seriously enough as I did not require a cover charge.

In light of this and previous self-serving acts, I wonder if this soon to be but already existing yet to meet committee has as its goal a true, faithful archiving of the complete history of the Gay Community in New Bedford going back to when Bedford Village was all there was, ships and all, or will it be a glorified high school yearbook committee where the staff makes sure their memories are preserved.

Having the experience to suspect the latter, I will work with the Museum.

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During my whole teaching career, the majority including Union work, I found whenever there needed to be budget cuts, the “manly things” were left alone. A school without sports teams and inclusion in expensive leagues whether municipal or state with the expense of insurance, venue upkeep, large staffs, and the bills for officials at the games was unimaginable, but the “less manly” pursuits, such as the arts in any form, went right to the chopping block. Statistics show that more students who had to struggle to get an arts education entered some profession that utilized what they learned in numbers far exceeding all those student athletes with dreams of a million dollar professional sports contract, who could not transfer such skills as that of the field goal kicker to a job not involving kicking things.

In every small town, small city, large city, those too big to be realistic single cities, School board members in the majority had two things in common, the relationship to a jock and no appreciation for the arts.

They were once high school jocks, had kids who were, were married to one, jock not kid, and saw the value in the theory of what sports are rumored to teach, sportsmanship, unit cohesion, teamwork, which they actually do not unless your assessment comes from a jock and not the general school community, but have nothing but a rudimentary concept of actual education and, so, cut programs according to what would have been, had it existed in my time, a social media understanding of education.

More or less as the experts who are not in the classroom ignore those who are, teachers, still do today.

They see sports promoted on TV for a few hours each week on specific days and yell and scream a lot. But then it is over and they celebrate like they get to share in the athletes’ salaries and championship bonuses and say “we” a lot when it comes to scoring, until the next season while they spend the sports hiatus watching cable show after cable show, movie after movie, music video after music video, without it ever occurring to them that they are seeing the work of more people repeatedly who took their art and made it a career than the number of students that went through schools as athletes.

Like most big cities, Boston had Filene’s and Jordan Marsh, New York had Macy’s and Gimble’s, New Bedford, Massachusetts, had The Star Store, one of those multi-story, ornately appointed, sandstone buildings that gave late 19th and early 20th Century stores their impressive look of strength and durability with one of the first escalators in the state because the building had grown so tall.

Like most big downtown department stores, with the flight of shoppers to malls, it closed as a store when most of downtown died.

The city has a vibrant arts community in all genres and media. There are multiple art galleries. Melville’s sister’s house became an art school and is now a bed and breakfast, if I have my story straight, and many fine local artists began there and like the ships in the city’s whaling days some went off to foreign climes, and not just in recent times. There are schools of art throughout the country based on artists from New Bedford.

It made sense, therefore, when the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth needed space for an improved arts program some 20 or so years ago, a huge empty building in a downtown area that supported the arts and had places for students to eat, study, and hang out, along with being an accessible gallery for special showings, the Star Store became the College of Visual and Performing Arts at UMass Dartmouth.

When downtown was on life support this became one of the biggest factors in the revitalization of it.

According to the then head of the Chamber of  Commerce, there were many benefits.

“One is it really amped up the amount of higher education that became available to New Bedford residents in our community and specifically in downtown… And so you began to see those students from all around the area, Greater New Bedford, coming into downtown to take those classes. You began to see those who worked at UMass Dartmouth come in. And then, right around the same time, maybe a year or so later, Bristol Community College came into the building as well. … Then I would say probably the most significant and most lasting impact it’s had is this emergence of the arts and culture industry in the city of New Bedford.”

Little businesses and night spots popped up. Coffee houses, non-chain eateries, places for a good bowl of soup at a reasonable price that you would never forget.

While not the commercial hay days of the past, the new businesses, while serving a need, also kept the city from becoming totally dead.

It was the arts and all those who benefited from learning about it, producing it, and experiencing it that resuscitated the city and brought it out of its coma.

Yes, there’s a “HOWEVER”.

The lease between the state and the owners of the building ran out as did the extension, and, although there had been a clause in the original agreement that the university could purchase the building after the lease for maybe a dollar but would then have to assume the expense of running such a building as the landlord had done, that did not happen so UMass Dartmouth will transfer its College of Visual and Performing Arts back to the main Dartmouth campus this fall semester.

Surprise students!

Surprise Downtown businesses who will lose customers.

Surprise New Bedford! What kept your downtown going is about to leave.  

Before the train starts up, DATTCO cut service to Boston so, instead of going from reliance on a couple of buses per day until the train started and DATTCO could ease out with the switch, there was a total cut off so there would be months where getting to Boston would be tough. 

Now another bridge to prosperity over the ravine of failure is being removed from the city as, before all the gentrification, revitalization, wind farm trickle down, State pier renovation, Route 18 Boulevardizing, and other city leaders dreams and schemes can take root, the state up and rips the College of Visual and Performing Arts out of the heart of the city just as the Zeiterion Theater on the next block on the same street closes as a caterpillar to reopen as a state of the art performance center in 18 months.

Does no one see this?

What is their problem with New Bedford that DATTCO and the state would do us like that?

The official reason proffered is the state’s decision not to fund the New Bedford campus in its Fiscal Year 2024 budget. There are more important things.

Classes will be moved to the home Campus in Dartmouth, way out in the middle of nowhere, but anyone who has been inside knows this present building is perfect for its purpose, and anyone just walking by and seeing what is on display or what can be seen in the old store windows, at times students working on projects, can see the value of the present location.

I bet if some sports team needed something, a new stadium, the money that could be used on the down town New Bedford Star Store campus could be found.

I spent 38 years as a teacher. I know how the game is played. No books but look at the new stadium.

A part of me is thinking that in order to keep the campus in its present location, doing for the city what it has been doing until such time as the other dreams kick in and can take its place after a successful job, to do so might mean using some of those funds we get from the state to spruce things up so things look good from the train in order to bolster what the state might be able to spare after a second thought. 

It can eventually become luxury apartments and condos once we are sure the other dreams and schemes pay off, and perhaps a way will be found to keep it here as part of the city’s future regardless of any overt and covert modernization plans. Universities downtown add to the area.

Once again, the arts lose out. Not sure to what this time, but it won’t be to something that helps as many people as art education does for those who produce and those who enjoy.

When I move somewhere I usually end up falling in love with the place because, after all, something drew me to it in the first place, and when I learn about the things that give a place its character, I resent attacks on them. 

As I stated earlier, there is a vibrant arts community here. Students at the College of Visual and Performing Arts are a part of that. I live downtown and see the difference when school is out, or at a minimum. and when the academic year is in full swing. Going to a local coffee shop, bistro, the soup place I mentioned, or just walking from my place to the Whaling Museum for some transcribing, I see familiar faces and those that grow familiar as the semesters go on. The head nod and mumbled “s’up?” takes on familiarity over time.

The school teacher in me, though, sees some dark humor. I support the governor on many levels and admire her for what she has been able to accomplish on those levels. That is why I find it ironic that, in simply doing her job and making sure priorities are addressed, signs the state budget as presented by the legislature, and as a known athlete cuts the arts program. 

I certainly hope the downtown campus can be saved.

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I lived in a state that was so beholden to fossil fuel that when I rode my bicycle anywhere, I often had things thrown at me, regardless how close to the side of the rode I was hugging, while getting yelled at for some reason. Once or twice I was run off the road. 

Sharing the road with anything not reliant on an internal combustion engine made you less of an American.

I was never sure if it was done purposely to dissuade people from riding bicycles or relying on wheelchairs for that matter, or just assuming no one rode with thin wheels on the street close to the gutter, but the grates on sewers were not perpendicular to the curb so you could ride over them but parallel which meant that, in order not to get thrown from a bike or trapped in a wheelchair, the users of either would have to swerve a little more into the road, and this was met with road rage because people driving cars might have to slow down or swerve a little themselves.

The situation was exacerbated by the city having no sidewalks anywhere but down town.

A friend in college had been killed in New York City when he rode his bicycle over an improperly replaced sewer grate and was thrown from his bike striking his head on the curb stone.

After having traveled by train to cities where scooters were for rent all over the city, I purchased one for myself when I got home and my car died.

Like any motorist, I cursed every pothole, one being the final death knell for my car, detour, and crack in the road that made the car shake and rattle and presage a future repair job. We know the cracks and potholes are there and they are just an inconvenience we get used to but still complain about them like it helps.

One’s relationship with potholes becomes more intimate when, being on a scooter, you are only two wheels and four inches above them and must be aware they are there so you do not get thrown.

Even at a top speed of 12 MPH, the damage from getting thrown can be tremendous.

And, so, people on bikes and scooters being slower and closer to the road with nothing blocking a complete view of the road ahead see the potholes and cracks and attempt to swerve around them taking up no more room than a person walking toward the side of a street and often for a mere few seconds to go around a pothole. It is not a long or space gobbling movement, but a quick swerve.

There is no need to honk the horn as if the person on the bike or scooter is in the middle of the street for blocks, and having to slow to 15 MPH on a city street is not all that inconvenient as time can be made up once the scooter is passed.

Drivers in cars do not see the extent of the potholes they just bounced over, but the scooter rider sees their depth.

Remember that every pothole you run into and curse at is a pothole you expect people on bikes and scooters to voluntarily drive into for your convenience.

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We saw it happening. It is no surprise.

Since Jerry Falwell started his Moral Majority, which was neither, religion became more obviously political than it had been. There had always been the unwilling acceptance of the assumption that religious leaders were those who could not inherit the family wealth so were sent to be part of the church and become a leader in its political form, but Falwell made the clandestine political machinations public, and soon, their political views were those of Jesus, and the Bible verses could be found to bolster that idea. Of course, that meant the verses that went against what the growing evangelical movement wanted were simply ignored.

Feeding the hungry gave way to restrictions on that with assistance programs being cut, ended, or not allowed in the first place. Strangers among us were no longer welcome and treated as neighbors as they restricted immigration even of those fleeing for the lives. Instead of welcoming people as openly as Jesus did, religious leaders began pointing out the people to whom evangelicals should address their anger and hatred because the religious leaders needed to scare people to Jesus because their presentation of the Message was failing.

They killed the Good Samaritan.

Atheists, agnostics, “fallen aways”, the casually religious , the indifferent towards religion saw Christianity become a political movement using the Bible as a weapon and substituting the teachings of Jesus with the ideology of hate and division, and now many evangelical pastors have become alarmed now that the beam has been removed from their eyes and what they had been working for all these ears has come to fruition and their congregations have become militant.

Pastors have found those in the pews being upset when they read from the Sermon on the Mount because of the principles of forgiveness and mercy central to Christian doctrine.

Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore has lamented,

“Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — ‘turn the other cheek’ — [and] to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?'” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.'”

Jesus has become weak in the eyes of evangelicals. He’s too lovey-dovey apparently and this whole Prince of Peace thing just has to go.

That explains their love of trading cards with politicians wearing military garb, clutching a flag surrounded by flames with weaponry and bald eagles. The manly man.

Peter before Jesus told him to put the sword down in the Garden.

And with beam and scales removed from their eyes, pastors have begun to admit,

“When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis,”

according to Moore.

Many Christians, members of the largest religious belief system in the country whose members of the government are of that religious tradition who make the laws and basically run the country, feel alienated and lonely. Being in charge while telling people those in charge are out to get you, or at the least ignore you, seems a little off to me.

“The roots of the political problem really come down to disconnection, loneliness, sense of alienation. Even in churches that are still healthy and functioning, regular churchgoing is not what it was a generation ago, in which the entire structure of the week was defined by the community.”

By their fruit you may know them.

They got what they wanted and lost Jesus in the process.

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