Can we please do something about this ever expanding alphabet soup of an acronym that we have come to embrace? It’s getting a little confusing and frankly, a little ridiculous. Seriously, every time I turn around it seems like we’ve tacked on another letter! I understand that it’s all part of the inclusiveness that our community is supposed to be embracing — and that’s a beautiful thing — but all it really does is confuse everyone except for those whose letter is represented.
How about choosing one all-inclusive word to encompass everyone? I liked gay but it’s become synonymous with homosexual men. So, it isn’t really all-inclusive anymore.
“Sexual minority” is all encompassing, though probably a little too clinical. You could maybe shorten it to the “SM” community but apparently, there already is an SM community.
Way back in the 1990s, some of the kids reclaimed “queer” but that word still holds negative connotations to me. It’s just as bad as that six letter F word. No, we need something optimistic, something bright, something trendy and cool. Like… “The Rainbow Community!”…No? You don’t like it? To be honest, neither do I. It brings to mind Rainbow Brite,My Little Pony, or worse… the Smurfs! Come to think of it, Papa Smurf does have that ‘daddy bear’ vibe. He’d probably fit right in at your friendly neighborhood leather bar.
The thing is, members of the LGBTQIA community come from all walks of life. Every ethnicity and socioeconomic background is represented within our community. We are a microcosm of the world! As such, each subgroup needs to be represented so that young LGBTQIA people don’t feel isolated within their own communities. It’s simpler than it sounds. Growing up gay, lesbian, or trans* can be a very lonely thing. Isolation leads to depression. Depression often leads to suicide. When you recognize the importance of representation, suddenly the alphabet soup doesn’t seem so bad.
So, I guess I can live with the ever expanding, all inclusive, acronym that has come to represent our equally varied and colorful community.
I have been in a foul mood all winter. It hasn’t helped that Mother Nature also seems to have been in a pissed off mood. Seriously. It’s almost May and we’re still dealing with temperatures as low as 30°F a few nights this week. Will someone please make Ma Nature a cup of espresso or something?
When I’m in a foul mood, I tend to stay away from people. It’s a lot better that way. Otherwise I wind up snapping at folks for no reason. It’s not pretty. Like so many others, when I’m in a bad mood I turn to music. What usually works for me is Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979). For some reason, the Waters, Gilmore, Mason and Wright classic has a way with working out my aggression. It’s amazingly therapeutic. But I couldn’t seem to shake it this time. The winter was brutal. I still have a cold that just-won’t-go-away. On top of everything, cancer took three close friends within a two month period. It’s essentially why I haven’t been writing very much. Three funerals in such a short amount of time sends me right back to the early 90s, when everyone I knew was dying. I sat at my keyboard on more than one occasion to try to express the feeling of loss, but it was too overwhelming. I’d start a draft but then lose focus, which is what this post is about to do if I don’t guide it back to the point. 😉
On a mindless surf though YouTube, I stumbled onto Bette Midler’s cover of ‘One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show’ (Rose Marie McCoy, Charlie Singleton) It’s an old favorite. In this video, she’s performing it at the 1998 Billboard Awards.
It’s a fun song. Bette’s Studio version is better but, as with all of Bette’s live performances, there’s something about the attitude she projects on stage that brings a song to life. I guess it’s the same for most singers.
Because Bette Midler is a vocalist, she’s introduced me to many great artists. I’m always searching for the original singer of composer of any particular song she might have made popular. So of course I wanted to know the who, what, where, and maybe even the why of One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show. The earliest version that I was aware of is the one made famous by the truly wonderful Big Maybelle.
Truly, Big Maybelle doesn’t get the attention she deserves.
My appetite whetted, I wanted to know more. Who was this Rose Marie McCoy? Did she record a version of One Monkey? So… I checked everyone’s favorite source of misinformation, Wikipedia!
Hmmm… It’s not at all like Big Mabelle’s version. It’s good in it’s own right, but where Big Maybelle’s classic is about a woman tellin’ her man, “Buh bye! Don’t let the door hit ya on your way out!”, Stick McGhee’s version is about making your way through life without letting things get in your way. The themes are similar, but… Now I was on a mission.
According to Wiki “…another version was recorded by Joe Tex in 1965. In 1966 it was covered by The Animals.”
Here’s Joe Tex…
…and here’s The Animals.
It’s hard to choose between the two. I can see the appeal of The Animals but I like the rawness of Joe Tex. The most glaring thing so far is that now there are three completely different versions of this song.
But wait, there’s more!
“In 1972 the all-girl group Honey Cone took its altogether different version to number five on the R&B singles chart” – Wiki
Here is Honey Cone on the Sonny Bono Show
If those funky outfits aren’t enough, there’s a coked up DISCO version by Jessie Rogers. I’ll spare you. If you really want to hear it, you’ll have to click the link. I think it’s a little too peppy, If you ask me. 😐
So, what does the phrase “One monkey don’t stop no show” really mean? To me it’s fairly obvious. It’s another way of saying “Life will go on” or “This too, shall pass”. But could there be more? One could find himself deeply entangled within the interwebs, searching for a deeper meaning, but I gave it a go.
Curiosity killed the cat. …and kept this blogger up all night.
In their wordpress post, Yeah, But do you know what that song is actually about? #1 The guys at Old School Record Review put it perfectly. They wrote in part, ““one monkey don’t stop no show” is a perfect lyric for pop music because it shares so much in common with the music itself. It is ambiguous, emotional, catchy and supports introspection and interpretation.” They’re right, of course. Music is art and art is open to interpretation.
But what’s all this have to do with my pissy mood?
Haven’t you figured it out yet? Winter is over. We’re almost halfway through spring. Love and I are shopping for new plants for the tiny patch of concrete behind our tiny South Philly home. With spring comes a new chapter. Hopefully a little brighter than the last, but it’s new. Life goes on.
“There will never be a cure! Big Pharma is making too much money stringing me along from one treatment to another.” – Sam W.
In order to help keep AIDS awareness in the minds of people around me, I thought I’d share some of my personal experiences, and how HIV/AIDS has affected people in my life. The following is pulled together from casual conversations with my friend Sam, whom I’ve known for almost two decades. I’ve entered direct quotes as I remember them. Everything you read here is fact.
Sam, quoted above, has been living with AIDS for a little over twenty years. He tested positive in 1991. His survival, he says, is a double edged sword. He feels fortunate to be alive but, like many LGBT folks our age, most of his close friends are gone. “There’s no one left!” he says. “In the early 90s my friends were dropping like flies, one after the other. I thought I was next. My doctor told my parents to make my final arrangements. I was prepared to die.” Sam told me that when he didn’t die, he went into a depression. Psychologists call it Survivor’s Guilt.
Though ten years younger than Sam, I can easily empathize. At the height of the pandemic, AIDS took most of my friends. But the friends that I lost were relatively new friendships. Sam had known most of his friends for ten, fifteen years. You’re not supposed to lose so many friends at such a young age.
Sam says his biggest lament is the cost of survival. He was fortunate enough to have had a decent enough employer who provided him with healthcare, and who was understanding enough to alter his work schedule as needed. He worked for as long as he could, but by the mid-nineties his health had so declined that he had no choice but to go on Social Security Disability and wait for death. Then Protease Inhibitors came along.
The new drugs that saved his life cost a small fortune. Sam takes three Anti-HIV pills which cost about $900 per bottle, and a handful of medications to handle side effects that cost between $20 and $150 per bottle. And that doesn’t include regular blood tests, doctor visits, and medical procedures.
“Remember the assisted suicide controversy in the 90s?” he asks. “All those conservatives wanted to hang Dr. Kevorkian! Now they want to cut my benefits! (Social Security, Food Stamps, Medicaid, Medicare) Where’s their compassion for the sick and dying, now?? If you don’t want to help me live, then allow me to die!”
Sam assures he doesn’t really want to die. He’s understandably frustrated by a system that has failed him. It would be difficult for him to go back to work. He couldn’t even afford a part time job. If he went back to work, he’d lose his healthcare. If he lost his healthcare, he’d get sick again and most likely die.
In a perfect world, Sam could rejoin the workforce, keep his healthcare, and maybe pay an affordable percentage of his salary back into Medicare. The trouble is the cost of prescriptions. As long as he has to take those expensive medications, he can never leave Social Security.
I reminded him of the recent advancements in developing a vaccine. “There will never be a cure!” he says ” Big Pharma is making too much money stringing me along from one treatment to another! It’s a scam, and the American people are too blind to see it!”
Though careful what I say to him, I can’t help but think perhaps he’s right. There’s no money in cures. The money is in treatment. If you cured cancer tomorrow, all those Cancer Treatment Centers would go bankrupt within months. Susan G Komen would cease to exist. I hate to sound pessimistic, but I have little faith in a system that values money over people.
The best I can offer is try to educate people around me and hope that they pay attention.
Treatment has it’s own issues. Side effects of Anti HIV medication include, fatigue, neuropathy, fungal infections, liver damage, heart disease, kidney disease, body fat re-distribution (buffalo hump), chronic headaches, nausea, vomiting, vision loss, blindness, high cholesterol, diarrhea, constipation, dementia, calcium deficiency, loss of bone density, death and more.
Sounds fun, right? Especially when you consider prevention is as simple as proper condom use.
And ladies, because men are so reluctant to wrap it up, there’s a condom designed just for you. – Introducing… The Female Condom!
Knowing all of this, would you rather protect yourself and your loved ones, or spend the rest of your life at a doctor’s office?
ADignorantium 