CHICAGO CARLESS

In the late 1980s, I joined a group of people who came together to survive. A large, proud group of gay and lesbian adolescents who met every Saturday in Greenwich Village, New York, and talked things out. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing for almost 30 years, Gay and Lesbian Youth of New York (GLYNY, pronounced “GLIN-ee”) provided a safe forum for hundreds if not thousands of gay youth to meet, talk out problems of home and school, try to make some sense of life, and see that being gay and being happy did not need to be mutually exclusive.

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Within the past hour, there was a fire on downtown Chicago’s infamous Block 37. I had just left photoblogger-boyfriend Devyn down at Central Camera to shop, while I came back up to D.’s place to plotz. As I walked in the door, I saw smoke billowing out of the half-finished high-rise directly across Washington Street from D.’s ninth-floor windows.

I pulled out one of Devyn’s cameras and became photoblogger for a few minutes (until he came home and got to work himself). Here’s some of what I saw while the fire fighters were working to strike the blaze.

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(Photo: Police harass news media in coverage of Abbate beating case. Credit: Chicago Sun-Times.)

Last week, in light of the Anthony Abbate bartender-beating incident, I declared myself in favor of a balanced opinion about the Chicago Police Department rather than painting all Chicago police with the same, hateful brush of bonehead Abbate. I still stand behind that view. But judging by recent Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times reports, the circle of boneheadedness should certainly be widened. RIght up to the top.

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(Photo: The photo Devyn was shooting the instant that we met. Credit: Looper, Devyn’s downtown Chicago photoblog.)

And much to my amazement, gratitude, and joy, it’s been two years.

Today, Monday, March 26, at 12:09 p.m. marks the two-year anniversary of the day I accidentally met the man of my dreams…on a street corner, wholly by accident, and entirely in spite of myself. It happened at Fullerton and Clark. It happened just like in the movies. And I thank God every day that it happened to me.

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(Photo: Sometimes the harder you try to focus on things, the harder it gets to really see them.)

Cops like bonehead Chicago police officer Anthony Abbate are not the norm. Every city in America is full of stories about graft and greed and corruption on the other side of the thin blue line, and while many of those stories are true, you still don’t find the average, upstanding law-enforcement officer pounding a small, defenseless woman into the ground because he’s not man enough to admit that he’s had a few shots too many. There are limits even those in uniform will be damned before they cross, and attacking a woman for the hell of it is pretty much on the top of that list.

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(Photo: Sometimes art can really pull your chain. Credit: Looper.)

If you aren’t anal retentive, you shouldn’t be curating art exhibits. If the idea of dropped apostrophes, mis-attributed dates, and dog-eared inscriptions doesn’t keep you up at night, you shouldn’t be responsible for the hanging of museum shows in major metropolitan areas. I cannot stress this point strongly enough.

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(Photo: Would you give this man your birthday cake?)

[Cross-posted at ILLINOIZE.]

Last summer, when Bob Fioretti’s campaign to unseat Chicago’s controversial Ward 2 alderman Madeline Haithcock was just getting off the ground, the Ward 2 pretender was making the rounds of downtown nonprofits to drum up support. Now, anyone looking at (or talking to) Bob Fioretti might get the idea that he’s possibly a bit, well, flighty of mind. Lord knows, his (is it or isn’t it) hair decision doesn’t help his case much.

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