Lost in music

In a country divided by at least one major language barrier, Belgians have a strange way of showing their unity. Once every two year, we choose a song that has the dubious honour of represented the nation at the “Eurovision Song Contest” (http://www.eurovision.tv/ ) , an event that has become a showcase for the fact that Europe has some problems defining the word “border”.

While everybody knows that the Ukraine is definitely not a part of the EU, we go along with the charade and just “send in our song” – in English, with a catchy song title in French. A stale joke, “straight” from the Belgian heartland.

If you care to watch, he’re a feeds for the Belgian entry, a song that which will undoubtedly be shown in every gay bar in town, preferably on a large screen with an audience hooked on campy performances.

http://exodus.interoutemediaservices.com/?id=b5392050-5bff-4ebb-bd34-ffb2e13c28bf&delivery=stream
[currently down]

Kate Ryan: “je t’adore” - shot on Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand, very “Belgian”.

[notice: clicking this link will invoke your Windows Mediaplayer]

“Accelerated aging”

I’m sure that for some of you Murphy’s Law does ring a bell.  But if you’re one of those golden boys with a care-free smooth ride through an Alice in Wonderland landscape, just skip this part: for some of us, reality does bite.

The day started off with a smile on my face.  My friend Eric (on a peace keeping mission with ISAF, Belgium) actually seemed to enjoy himself in good old Afghanistan and apart from some minor incidents there was not a cloud in the sky. While walking down the stairs to pick up my mail, I did not notice an obscure piece of carton with a ”caution: wet paint” warning.  As a result I spent hours trying to clean up countless paint stains.  Rest assured, wet paint jokes are only funny on tv.

While casually switching channels on my TV, I did stumble upon an item on the local ATV station that provoked more emotions: “Accelerated aging”, yet another televised item about being gay, ànd growing “older” ..

Apparently several studies confirm what we basically all know from experience: our ”open-minded, tolerant” gay society isn’t tolerant at all when it comes to ”aging” - “forever 30″ is not only the latest buzz word for female news anchors, it’s the harsh reality for many gay men.   

To put it plain and simple: we discriminate among ourselves, to the extend that researchers use the term “accelarated aging”: ie we created a ‘community’ that glorifies youth ad absolutum, while blatantly ignoring those who paved the way for all those 20-somethings that strut their stuff at venues like R&B.

Apparently I live in a “community” that simply ignores my fundamental right to grow old(er). Time for a “forever 30″ birthday

Stay tuned. 

Discrimation from within?

[Welcome to my first post at www.antwerp.wordpress.com Some of my content has been manually imported from a blogger account I was most dissatisfied with. Enjoy "]

Quite often, it’s much more easy to copy a concept than to to provide original content. Even more often, there is absolutely no need at all to be original - let’s face it, reinventing the wheel is not only useless, it simply cannot be done.

These meandering thoughts passed by when I stumpled upon  www.sexualracismsux.com, a strange site that elaborates on making choices.  What they’re saying in summary is quite basic: sexual behaviour is no more justified a place for prejudice than any other area of life. Apparently, they use the inflated label “racism”, grossly out of context.

Unfortunately, they have more then one major misconception online . I quote: (about “sexual racism”) “It enforces the myth that we are separate and distinct”. But we are separate and distinct, it’s not a myth, it’s a fact.  I live in a city with about 120 different nationalities, but  if I cross the border into France the cultural differences are so huge that I prefer (a choice) not to connect to French gays on a personal level.

They like to legitimate another part of their logic by quoting the words of Justice Michael Kirby at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Gay Games: “Real beauty lies in the fact that so many are united – not in the negatives of hate and exclusion, so common today, but in the positives of love and inclusion.”

Cute, but if you dissect their logic it must be clear that it carries really some major flaws. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with embracing the concept of love, acceptance and inclusion.  But what if the majority “in our minory” simply doesn’t care for this attitude?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so just try spending a Saturday Night in a random gay disco (www.redandblue.be will do fine).  Now observe the crowd, and try to spot a climpse of what may resemble the glorified values of “love, acceptance and inclusion”.   Sadly enough, you won’t find them…..

You will stumble upon blatant narcism (20 sometings guys strutting their stuff, with an arrogance that needs urgent psyciatric care), glorified materialism and worst of all: an overdose of prejudice towards anyone who doesn’t fit in their obsessively limited, well-defined ”18-27″ age niche.  And rest assured, this attitude is “an ongoing affair”.

Mind you, I believe that issues like “discrimination from within” are improper and show that people unfortunately tend to make choices based on criteria like age, appearance, etc – but as long as these choices are personal, they do not represent “an act of racism”

Gay guys and “inside discrimination”, was it really a problem that turned into a lifestyle?