Close to the Knives (17 page)

Each painting, film, sculpture or page of writing I make represents to me a particular moment in the history of my body on this planet, in america. Therefore each photograph, film, sculpture and page of writing I make has built into it a particular frame of mind that only
I
can be sure of knowing, given that I have always felt alienated in this country, and thus have lived with the sensation of being an observer of my own life as it occurs. I have had this feeling ever since I can remember—beginning with a childhood when instead of Heads of State or Politicians, there were Heads of Family: Mom and Dad. Once outside the home, Mom and Dad were replaced with Teacher or Policeman or Store Owner or Land Owner or Neighbor or Priest or God or Arresting Officer or Detective or Psychiatrist or Politician or President. It always felt to me that most people in this country feel a sense of relief when Heads of Family are replaced with Heads of State. I have felt and believe this to be true because most people never indicate otherwise. But maybe it isn't true. As times goes on, I have come to believe that all things are not necessarily what they appear if you judge them only by their silence or invisibility.

If I say I am homosexual, or “queer,” does it make you nervous? I have experienced various reactions to that simple disclosure in the course of life. I often wonder whether my being a queer who asserts his sexual identity publicly makes some people see the word “QUEER” somehow written across my forehead in capital letters. And I wonder whether or not that revelation prevents some from hearing anything else I say, or whether or not it automatically
discounts
anything else I might say. Dismissal is policy in america. Our elected “representatives” have come up with a fail-safe system of symbols based on a prehistoric moral code built by other humans years, decades or even many centuries ago. The moral code is chameleonic in nature. Its design changes and twists on whim by those who wield it. In this country the elected representative has only to attach one of these symbols from the moral code to any social problem and people who are not immediately affected by that problem feel safe and distanced. If there is homelessness in our streets it is the fault of those who have no homes—they
chose
to live that way. If there is a disease such as AIDS it is somehow the fault of those who contract that disease—they
chose
to have that disease. If three black men are shot by a white man on a subway train—somehow they
chose
to be shot by that man. And life goes on and on and on. Most people tend to accept, at least outwardly, this system of the moral code and thus feel quite safe from any terrible event or problem such as homelessness or AIDS or nonexistent medical care or rampant crime or hunger or unemployment or racism or sexism simply because they go to sleep every night in a house or apartment or dormitory whose clean rooms or smooth walls or regular structures of repeated daily routines provide them with a feeling of safety that never gets intruded upon by the events outside. There are scores of the population who either feel safe for the same reasons or else are too exhausted from trying to survive in this society by working dehumanizing jobs to keep a roof over their heads. Or else they feel safe because they are part of the structure that keeps the moral code intact. Or they feel safe only because once in a great while they can enter the illusion of the ONE-TRIBE NATION by stepping into a tiny curtained cubicle and pulling a metal lever that elects a twelve-inch-tall man or woman they saw for a short period of time transmitted across the boundaries of space into the antennae of their television screens.

I grew up in a tiny version of hell called the suburbs and experienced the Universe of the Neatly Clipped Lawn. This is a place where anything and everything can and does take place—and events such as torture, starvation, humiliation, physical and psychic violence can take place uncontested by others, as long as it doesn't stray across the boundaries and borders as formed by the deed-holder inhabiting the house on the neatly clipped lawn. If the violence is contained within the borders of the lawn and does not mess up the real estate in any way that would cause the surrounding properties devaluation, anything is possible and everything permissible.

I had a father who brutalized his first and second wives with physical violence. Any signs of life from the family he supported with his paycheck from his job as a sailor was met with extreme violence. In my home one could not laugh, one could not express boredom, one could not cry, one could not play, one could not explore, one could not engage in any activity that showed development or growth that was independent. I remember the first time I discovered the forests that grew in the distances from my neighbor's houses. Once I discovered the universe of the forests and lakes, I went there whenever possible. In the universe of the forest I didn't think about the Universe of the Neatly Clipped Lawn. I didn't think of what it felt like as a five- or six-year old being dragged down the basement stairs and having my head and body hit with a dog chain or a sawed-off chunk of two-by-four. I didn't think of my father picking up my sister and slamming her down on a sidewalk in front of our home in one neighborhood and I didn't think of the brown stuff that came out of my sister's ears and mouth and I didn't think of the neighbors mowing their lawns and watering their flower gardens without missing a beat when my father did these things. In the forests I made human forms out of mud and sticks. When they dried they fell apart or I would throw them against tree trunks. I climbed trees and smoked pilfered cigarettes until I got so dizzy I would almost fall out of the branches. I found giant birds' nests I could only assume were made by eagles. Or maybe it's just a matter of perspective. When one is small, many things look relatively monumental. As one grows older, things tend to look less monumental, and things looking less monumental doesn't always have to do with vision. It can be affected by thought processes and analysis. As I grow older, my father looks less monumental, both because he is dead now—he hung himself in the basement of his home about fourteen years ago—and because I can see and understand a little better his humanity and his demons. And he looks less monumental because I speak of him and bring the fear-charged memories of him outside of my head and make them public. Sound is so interesting in this way. Words are so interesting this way. Words can strip the power from a memory or an event. Words can cut the ropes of an experience. Breaking silence about an experience can break the chains of the code of silence. Describing the once indescribable can dismantle the power of taboo. To speak about the once unspeakable can make the
INVISIBLE
familiar if repeated often enough in clear and loud tones. To speak of ourselves—while living in a country that considers us or our thoughts taboo—is to shake the boundaries of the illusion of the
ONE-TRIBE NATION
. To keep silent is to deny the fact that there are millions of separate tribes in this illusion called
AMERICA
. To keep silent even when our individual existence contradicts the illusory ONE-TRIBE NATION is to lose our own identities.
BOTTOM LINE, IF PEOPLE DON'T SAY WHAT THEY BELIEVE, THOSE IDEAS AND FEELINGS GET LOST. IF THEY ARE LOST OFTEN ENOUGH, THOSE IDEAS AND FEELINGS NEVER RETURN
. This was what my father hoped would happen with his actions toward any display of individuality. And this is the hope of certain government officials and religious leaders as well. When I make statements like this I do not make them lightly. I make them from a position of experience—the experience of what it is to be homosexual in this country. What it is to be a man who is capable of loving men, physically and emotionally.

Judge Jack Hampton is a judge from Houston, Texas, and although I live in New York I know who this man is because about a year ago an eighteen-year-old guy was convicted of shooting to death two men who happened to be homosexuals. He was given a life sentence in prison for these shootings. Judge Jack Hampton of Houston, Texas, reduced this guy's life sentence to 30 years solely because his victims were homosexual. Judge Jack Hampton said he didn't think homosexuals should be on the streets and that he also didn't think it would hurt his chances for reelection as judge if he said that he believed two men's lives were worth a whole lot less because they loved men. He asked only that the journalist he spoke to that day spell his name right. J.A.C.K. H.A.M.P.T.O.N. He also said he would be hard put to convict someone who dragged prostitutes into the woods and shot them dead. Judge Jack Hampton of Houston, Texas, is just a pimple on the face of a society that suffers from what I consider to be an extreme disease. A disease that shows itself in the prevalence of
FEAR OF DIVERSITY
and is characterized by various symptoms. Among them are sweating palms, angry outbursts, hysteria, the discharging of handguns, the passing of certain legislation, the invasion of foreign countries, the burning down of homes, the running out of town, and ultimately the legalized murder of those who are diverse in their natures.

In the last four years, homosexuals lost their constitutional right against the government's invasion of their privacy. And unless one is homosexual and happened to read that piece of information in the daily newspaper, no one would know. There certainly hasn't been any huge public outcry about this supreme court decision. But life goes on and any time I assert my individual right to explore my feelings of love or desire toward men, I do so at risk of jail. I wonder how many people understand what it is to grow up in a society where one is invisible. I wake up every day and if I turn on the television set or look through a magazine or look at billboards or look at political candidates or go to the movies, I see
no
representation of my sexuality. I see heterosexual plots and subtexts in every media form and it is enraging to feel homosexual longing toward another person in this context. A federal study of suicide shows that
thirty percent
of
all
suicides in the united states of america are gay and lesbian teenagers.
TEENAGERS
. And a congressman from california named William Dannemayer asked president Bush to denounce the results of this study in order to protect traditional family values.
TEENAGERS!
President Bush has not yet made a decision about this request.
TEENAGERS!!
Republican senators have tried to block the passing of an antiviolence bill because it contains the category “sexual orientation.” Given the climate and silence of a
large
percentage of citizens in this country, I can leave this room and step outside and be shot dead by a person who believes in the moral code as set down by politicians and the various organized religions in this country and all the person has to do is say I tried to touch them and the courts will probably set that person free. That act of murder could easily be applauded.

I never have had what could be described as an ART EDUCATION. I am not even sure what an ART EDUCATION entails. As a kid, I loved the places where one could get lost while engaging in the act of creativity, the places inside one's head. Even in the face of wrath that generally came from my father, I would experiment with tracing images out of science books or books about life under the sea, or trace one-liner comics from magazines I could barely read and then color them in and present them as my own. I discovered that making things meant leaving evidence of life behind when I moved on. Making things was like leaving historical records of my existence behind when I left the room, or building, or neighborhood, the state and possibly the earth … as in mortality, as in death. When I was a kid I discovered that making an object, whether it was a drawing or a story, meant making something that spoke even if I was silent. As an adult, I realize if I make something and leave it in public for any period of time, I can create an environment where that object or writing acts as a magnet and draws others with a similar frame of reference out of silence or invisibility. Or that object or piece of writing can give me comfort as well as others. To place an object or writing that contains what is invisible because of legislation or social taboo into an environment outside myself makes me feel not so alone; it keeps me company by virtue of its existence. It is kind of like a ventriloquist's dummy—the only difference is that the work can speak by itself or act like that “magnet” to attract others who carried this enforced silence. It also could act as a magnet for those with opposing frames of reference, as in the recent case of the NEA and Artists Space.

I remember reading Archie Comics when I was a kid and being bored because they dealt with a world that had no correlation with my own. I remember having curiosity about sex and wondering why there was no sex in the world of Archie—the world of Riverdale. I remember taking a razor and cutting apart some Archie comics and gluing pieces of their bodies in different places so that Archie and Veronica and Reggie and Betty were fucking each other. A close-up profile of Jughead's nose on page five made a wild-looking penis when glued on Reggie's pants on page seven. After hours of cutting and pasting I had a comic that reflected a whole range of human experience that was usually invisible to me. But at the first sound of the key in the front door I'd throw everything away. I was curious, but I wasn't stupid.

What I'm trying to say here is that all of my life I've made things that are like fragmented mirrors of what I perceive to be the world. As far as I'm concerned the fact that in 1990 the human body is still a taboo subject is unbelievably ridiculous. What exactly is frightening about the human body? What is it about this society which supports the premature death of so many of us solely because of the fact that we are denied information about our own bodies in the time of an AIDS epidemic. Why can't
every
woman who wants an abortion get one in this country? If a woman who desires an abortion has to travel miles away to get one because of restrictions imposed by the state, can we assume this woman can afford to make that trip? Why is it men who make the decisions that affect these women's bodies? Why is it any other person but myself can make a determination that affects the health or safety of my body? Why are so many people silent in the face of this? Is it because the sky is blue that most people feel safe from this disease called AIDS? To be quite frank, most heterosexuals I know do not use condoms when fucking. Is this because they believe this virus has a sexual orientation and a moral code? Do they think that because they sleep in a comfortable place that this disease will stop outside their walls? Do they think that because the person they make love to is kind and sweet and sexy that he or she could not have this virus? Do they believe that the virus stays within the boundaries of large urban centers even though this is a country of trains and planes and automobiles and this virus travels wherever people travel? Did you know that the
New England Journal of Medicine
recently reported eleven women—middle class and well educated who didn't think they were in a high-risk category because they limited themselves to just one or two sexual partners who were neither bisexual nor intravenous drug-users—contracted HIV from the same guy who didn't know he had the virus and recently died from AIDS? One doesn't have to adopt the stupid line invented by those bozos in the government or media or churches—the
JUST SAY NO TO SEXUALITY CAMPAIGN
—you can fuck in a healthy and safe way with the right information. Does everyone have access to the right information? How many people understand how to use a condom in the correct way so that it doesn't break or tear? How many people know that lubricants that are oil or grease based can cause ninety percent of all condoms to have microscopic tears and that one must use water-based lubricants in order to avoid this? Or that just because a lubricant washes off with water doesn't mean it's a water-based lubricant? How many people know how to negotiate the use of condoms with their lover? Why isn't this information provided on television or in all newspapers? And how many know that penicillin-resistant venereal diseases are reported nationwide as being on the rise again? That this is prevalent among heterosexuals? How often has anyone heard the fact that people with AIDS can and do have sex without spreading the disease? Who has heard the story of the woman in Reno, Nevada, who, right this moment, is serving a twenty-years-to-life prison sentence because she is HIV positive and agreed to have sex with an undercover cop, even though it was on the condition that he wear two condoms, one on top of the other? I believe this woman was incredibly responsible in her actions but the courts decided that she should be charged with attempted murder. Should she be charged with any crime at all? How are one's responses to this formed? If there were a disease that appeared to strike only politicians and religious leaders, would the president hesitate for more than twenty-four hours to allocate more funds for research and health care? Would the president hesitate to shift the entire $350 billion defense budget toward research and health care? How many people believe those who give you information on the evening news? What is the economic class of the people who speak to us every night on the evening news? Do some politicians have a direct communication with god? Do those people on the evening news really believe the version of the world they report on? Should one person's interpretation of god determine whether another person lives or dies? How many members of minorities are afraid to speak? How many are afraid to speak if they think they are the only ones who feel the way they do? If the president's god said that one couldn't feed his or her brother daughter sister mother father aunt uncle grandparents or good friends when they were starving, who would sit by and allow that? Does the denial of information that causes people to become ill and die a permissible thing? What if that denial of information ended up killing hundreds of thousands, even millions—is that still okay? Would it be a crime if that denial of information only killed people that you didn't feel comfortable with? Would it be a crime if that denial of information only killed people of color? If that denial of information only killed people who frightened you? People with strange ideas? Strange because they didn't show these ideas on the tv or the evening news? What does one make of government policies if those policies let people die by saying those people die because they want to? What if those people are screaming for help as they die? Is the government telling the truth in the face of massive deaths that are caused in this fashion? Even if one essentially trusts the government, who would dispute publicly this thing they call truth? Would you? Who knows that the vatican and the catholic archdiocese have issued statements that “it is a more terrible think to use a condom than to contract AIDS.” Should people pick up guns to stop the casual murder of other people? If that casual murder is only of one other person? Ten other people? A thousand others? A million? More? Do laws reflect the diversity in our society? Or do they only enforce the “morality” of a select few? How many people stop to get to know the person he or she sits or walks next to? Does he or she make it comfortable for that person to express ideas that might change his or her ideas? Who cares about these things? Does the fact that one cares or does not care reflect a feeling or position of power?