Fig. 1: The guy I get half my genetic material from. People say we look alike (especially in the hair).

Today is Father’s Day here in the U.S., a holiday I haven’t observed since I was 13. Now at 32, I’m thinking about what kind of a man he is, what I know about him, and what he might be doing now.

The last time I saw my father was in 2006. He was in the hospital recovering from what I thought was a heart attack. It was at that time that I met his wife — I refuse to call her my stepmother; I barely know the woman — and his son. His son who was four years younger than me (meaning he was around while he was still married to my mother). A few more family secrets came out that short time I was back home, and that experience pretty much closed the door on our relationship from my end. We still don’t talk to this day.

I don’t really know much about my father’s life before he met my mother except from anecdotes cobbled together over the years. I know he’s the oldest of six, and has four younger brothers and a younger sister. They had different fathers — all absent — and when his mother died, he was put in the position of having to care for his younger siblings at the age of 11. It took a year before his grandmother stepped in, and they were split among their older relatives for the rest of their childhood.

My father was a handsome troublemaker in high school. He was athletic and good looking, but stuck in a small country town in Alabama he only had one real choice after graduating — the military. He joined the Navy shortly after turning 18 and stayed there for a few years. Five or six years, I believe. When he got out — I’m not sure the reason why — he made it back to Alabama, palled around for a bit with girls he knew from high school, and eventually knocked up one of them. Nine months later, I was born.

Fig. 2: This was sometime in the mid to late 70s, I believe.

My father wasn’t ready for kids. I don’t know if it was because he was 26, or because he still had his looks and the attention of many women, or because he still had his whole life ahead of him after the Navy. But he married my mother, adopted her son (my half-brother Smokedawg), and had a newborn son. He went from bachelor to family man in less than a year, and in hindsight, he probably had no idea what he was getting into.

The memory of my father when I was a child is a little hazy. I know he had a job as a plastics engineer manufacturing Lexan for General Electric, and he always used to bring home these plastic lamina and other shapes from work. He and my mother always argued, and it got physical most times. He lost his job from GE when I was around 8 or 9 years old, and he did odd jobs around town for money because he really had no marketable skills and just a high school diploma.

Fig. 3: I think he’s showing my brother (lower left corner) how to take a drink.

Alcohol was my father’s vice of choice most nights. I remember he would stumble home three sheets to the wind, get into it with my mother, and then we were dropped off at my maternal grandmother’s house to spend the night. I don’t think I remember a time when they weren’t fighting. He would be abusive to me and my brother, pawn our belongings, and just be an all-around jackass no one wanted to be around. I remember one time waking up and finding him stealing the money out of my piggybank, no doubt taking it to support his emerging penchant for crack cocaine.

As he neared 40, he tried to change. He turned his family against him, his sister and brothers didn’t want to help him, and I think he finally started to wise up and try to get his life right. He went to rehab, and when he got out things were seemingly good for a while. He and my mother were separated at the time, but they tried to get back together again, bought a house, and we all made a half-assed attempt at being a family.

That lasted for about 2-3 years before they got divorced. I don’t know what caused him to relapse, but he slid back into his old habits like a glove once we were all in the same house again. She kicked him out for good, and…that’s it. We ended up moving to a two-bedroom apartment in the north part of town, but I don’t remember seeing much of my father after that. My mom already had a handful with my brother who was now picking up all of my father’s bad traits.

Fig. 4: This is the last picture I have of my father, which judging by that wood panelling and his size must have been taken sometime in the late 80s.

I don’t think he was even present for my high school graduation. He definitely wasn’t there for my my college graduation. (My mother wasn’t there for that either, but that’s another story for another time.)

In 2006, he had a heart scare, and that’s when I met his wife and my step-brother. Within a year, they were divorced and had moved across the country to get away from him. A year after that (around 2008, I think), I got this letter from my mom:

I talked to your father last week and he asked me to contact you for him. He is living and working (Federal Job) in [redacted], GA. He would like to have some type of communication with you. His cell phone number is [redacted]. I know that you have strong feelings about him from the past but now that you are an adult, you should try very hard to put those feelings into perspective and move beyond any negative feelings you have from the past.

Your father is older now and really regrets all the times that he was not there for you and your brother. He cannot undo the past but he would like to rebuild a relationship with you know. Please forgive him. I did a long time ago. He’s your father. He loves you and he always will. Keep this number. You may need him one day. Call him for father’s Day and show him that you can forgive.

So…here’s the thing about regret. It’s something we all try to avoid, but it can show us who we are and serve as a way to spark change for the better. Of course, in order for this to happen, you actually have to do the things you regret in order to get rid of that nagging feeling. You can’t just wallow in the shit and wish and hope things get better unless you get off your ass and do the work.

My father doesn’t want to do the work.

Fig. 5: My father is smiling, but this was taken in the middle of an obvious fight.

But I get where my mother is coming from. She wants to have a tight, close-knit family like she had as a child. She’s the second oldest of four (two older brothers, one younger sister), and her mother and father are still together and in her life to this day. She has a very close relationship with her parents and siblings, even if it’s not always the most amicable.

That family life ain’t mine.

Now I know some of you will misread this and think I’ve got some burning furnace of hatred towards my father, and you’re entitled to that incorrect opinion. You’ll probably also think I’m an ungrateful son because I don’t accept my father for what he is. But the thing is that I do accept him; however, it doesn’t mean he gets to be a toxic presence in my life with my permission. I’m not allowing that.

Dad, you are nearly 60 years old and have successfully managed to estrange a sister, two wives, three sons, four brothers, and a score of nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

The common denominator in all of this is you.

And if you want it to get better, you gotta fix it.

You gotta fix it.

Fig. 6: Happy Father’s Day, wherever you are.

Fig. 1: Numbers don’t lie.

So…this is something which has been a stick in my craw for a minute now. This is a little stream of consciousness, so bear with me.

During the 2012 election season (and beyond, really), the big issue out of the gay community has been about marriage equality. And yes, it’s very important. However, I’ve always felt like repealing DOMA and passing ENDA was a much bigger deal, and I’ll tell you why.

Don’t get me wrong — I think marriage is great. Wonderful. Stupendous! But for a G like me, it’s not really something I can visualize for myself right now. I think the right to get married would be awesome, and should I happen to meet a fella and he sticks around long enough for us to get married, having that option would be dope.

But I’m not doing cartwheels over it at all. And I have a feeling that for a lot of gays, marriage isn’t as huge of an issue to them as having the ability to provide for themselves and have a comfortable way of life without the risk of them getting fired for their sexuality. As of this post, there are still 29 states where you can be fired for being gay. (Yes, it differs based on individual employers, but we’re talking about working anywhere.) Georgia is one of those states — a right-to-work state.

Fig. 2: Is your state in the blue? Surprise! You could be fired for no reason!

Marriage equality still gets the lion’s share of media coverage (particularly through protests and social campaigns). Victor Hoff of Men of Color Blog agrees:

 But what puzzles me is why the battle to end employment discrimination – a form of discrimination that affects a far wider swath of the LGBTQ public – isn’t been addressed, let alone met, with the same aggressive public outrage that same-sex marriage is fielding? I mean, didn’t a recent poll declare our community’s overwhelming concern for the economy? If it did, we sure aren’t translating that into action.

A lot of the gay men I know — particularly gay men of color — are a helluva lot more concerned about finding stable employment than they are walking down the aisle. Even when I was younger, I was concerned a lot more about a good job and money in my pocket than getting married. (Oh hell, who am I kidding — marriage wasn’t even on my radar after The Why, but that’s a story for another day.) In my mind, I felt like getting myself in a place where I was comfortable with life was more important than a possibility of marriage. Romance without finance has no chance, amirite?

Fig. 3: *bloop*

I’ll leave you with this final excerpt from Victor:

Why does it seem like the LGBTQ community is so much more concerned about marriage rights than employment rights? I’ll tell you what I think. I think that’s what happens when our agenda is set by a bunch of mostly middle-class white people many of whom have jobs in progressive companies or who are entrepreneurs and who are gainfully employed. I also think that the criticisms lobbed at Presidential candidate Mitt Romney – he has no sense of the struggles of the middle and lower classes and that he’s uncomfortable around people of color – can be equally applied to the white middle-class of the LGBTQ community who currently set our agenda. And unless you are born into wealth, have inherited a large sum of money or have won a lottery, I see you going a lot further in this lifetime without a spouse than without a job.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Fig. 4: What do you think?

Fig. 1: Quitting BGB when I turned 30 was something that came up unexpectedly when I found I just wasn’t blogging as much anymore.

Along with relationships, I also talked a lot about my extremely dysfunctional family on BGB. There’s my strict mother, my absent father, my older and younger half-brothers who are always in trouble with the law, my pious grandmother, my silent grandfather, and the rest of the menagerie of misfits with which I happen to share a blood relation.

Sometime around 2006, I decided to start tracing my family tree to see just how far down the rabbit hole I could go. I did that on and off for a few years, and I talked a little bit about that in this post called With Royal Blood.

Putting those setbacks aside, I’ve started tracing the family back using a few sites (Geni, Ancestry, MyLife). Geni has been great for actually building the tree out, Ancestry has census records and birth and death certificates going back forever, and MyLife helped me fill in some of the blanks of people who are still alive with their ages, addresses, and any other relatives.

Now before I proceed, I need to step on my soapbox here for a minute on the importance of taking the census and of not being a dick to your children.

Fig. 2: I always keep one handy.

The US Census only goes back to 1790, and for a large part of its history, has been done orally (you know, door-to-door). This year, I heard a lot of people bitching and moaning about the census, why we still need it, why they need to be counted (I’m looking at you, unwashed Williamsburg hipsters), and all that sort of rot. Well, when you’re dead and gone and your future kin are trying to find out where they come from, they’ll actually find out who you are and what you did instead of being some greasy blank spot in the family tree. Don’t do your future fam a disservice because you couldn’t be arsed to fill out ten questions in less than ten minutes. Slacker.

Oh yes, while I’m at it, being a dick to your children kinda ensures that you will probably end up alone when you get to be too old to take care of yourself. I’m not saying that the notion of filial piety doesn’t apply in modern culture, but denying your kids rights they should have just because you can’t get your shit together or because you’re still holding some deep-seated grudge against a family member doesn’t mean that your kid has to inherit that baggage.

Fig. 3: I’m tryin’ to tell you.

For example…while tracking back my family tree, I discovered that a lot of things I thought about my family true were just lies told to me because my parents were still salty about some shit that happened when I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye.

On my father’s side, I discovered they all don’t have the same father (but share the same mother). There’s lots of animosity between the siblings because they look down on the others with different fathers. Half of them have kids they don’t even claim (i.e., my first cousins). Their mother’s siblings (great-aunts, great-uncles) throw shade towards the kids not in the “direct” bloodline, which explains why they treated me like crap as a kid at family reunions (smacking and pinching me for no reason, telling me I’m adopted, etc.). Some of them went to the grave carrying that catty behavior.

[I later found out after obtaining my father's birth certificate and my paternal grandmother's death certificate that she died at a young age (36), had six kids within five years (all in her 30s), and died of cervical cancer. Further investigation showed me that she was buried in my hometown and I never even knew about it. You know who did know? My mother. And when I confronted her about it her response was "well you never asked about it, so I never told you." But how was I even supposed to know? I just found out when I turned 31! -- karsh]

It’s no better on my mom’s side. Her younger sister has apparently been married like four or five times, but only told the family about one of them (I found the marriage licenses). My great aunts also have a mess of unclaimed kids (more family I don’t know about) and always looked down on my grandmother and her family for staying in the South and not moving to Detroit like they did. (Joke’s on them now, huh?) That explains why as a kid, I’d get suitcases full of musty old clothes from the 60s and 70s three sizes too big. Guess they felt like they were throwing their country cousins a bone by offloading their Salvation Army-bound vestments. I was also told a lot of fake names of some of my relatives, further confusing things.

[Another familial tidbits I discovered during exploring my mother's side of the family was that her older brother Uncle Buddy is actually her half-brother, and he doesn't know who is real father is (and was never told). Now I don't know if he knows this, but if he does, it would make so much sense why he left home at 18 and rarely comes back to visit. And whenever he does, he doesn't bring his family. Although I'd imagine the other reason he doesn't bring his family is because his son is a raging homothug...but that's another story. -- karsh]

So you can imagine that when I went to start tracing the family, I ran into a lot of issues. What was different this time was that my mother actually seemed to be willing to help me out. And she did too — she supplied obituaries, birth and death dates, photos…all kinds of shit she had stashed in an album and never shared with me even when I asked. Her reason? “Well, I guess you’re old enough to know now — you’re about to be an adult.” I figured I crossed that threshold when I was 18, but what do I know?

With research, I found that my family tree went back on my mother’s side as far as 387 B.C. You read it right. We went from Mesopotamia to Finland to Sweden to France to the UK to Massachusetts to Virginia and then all through the South ending up in Alabama. And there’s some famous people in my tree as well. Here’s a few: Lady Godiva, Charlemagne, and William the Conqueror. Going back even further showed that I’m descended from the Seleucid Empire, one of the many empires formed in the Hellenistic period after the conquests of Alexander the Great. There’s even a Cleopatra in my timeline, the daughter of that Cleopatra.

On my father’s side, the research stopped at my grandmother. I don’t know her actual name, and I don’t have a close enough relationship with any of my uncles or aunts for them to tell me. It’s a bummer, but I’ve decided to take a more scientific approach to finding out the truth.

That’s right…a DNA test. Stay tuned!

[I did find her actual name, but it was completely random -- I had been given up to six different names for her by relatives and just kept mixing and matching them until I found the right combination. That's how I was able to find her death certificate and her tombstone. -- karsh]

This post was originally published on April 29, 2010. Help celebrate 10 years of BlackGayBlogger.com by tweeting your favorite memories of the site using the hashtag #bgb10.

Fig. 1: I designed every version of the BGB website except for the last two; I relented and used two themes: Bionicjive and Wu Wei.

Remember this?

It’s been a little over five years since Loren Feldman’s “Where Are The Black Tech Bloggers?” video brought the ever present issue of black folks in technology back into the forefront. There’s a lot more activity and diversity now (Black Girls Code, Blacks in Technology, Revision Path, NewMe Accelerator, etc.), and frankly you can’t swing a Timbuk2 bag without bumping into a black person in technology (even though I feel that’s been grossly conflated, but that’s a post for another time).

Still, the mainstream tech community is pretty damn white, and frankly, I’m tired of the pathetic lipservice towards diversity efforts for outreach for conferences and such that ultimately fall flat or never happen.

Every year there’s an outcry, then an apology, then some fuck ass excuse like “we’ll try to do better next year”. Blather, rinse, repeat. I’m afraid that sorry won’t cut it anymore.

(Actually, that’s the name of this next piece from the past!)

My grandmother has a rather direct statement for me whenever I tell her I’m searching for an object and can’t find it. If you’re looking for something, it’s exactly where you think it is. Granted, the saying doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there’s a truism in there. If you need to find something, start in the most obvious place.

I thought about that yesterday as I read the tweets and saw the pictures from the Blacks in Tech Meetup at SXSWi, sponsored by Ogilvy. Seeing it reminded me of the Blogging While Brown Conference from last year and how utterly awesome it is to be around other Black people in design, social media and other facets of Internet technology all in one place. It’s now become remarkably easy — commonplace, even — to find Black people in technology, even outside of these conferences and meetups.

So why in the hell haven’t the rest of these tech conferences gotten the memo?

Like clockwork, every time a conference rolls around, the question about racial diversity in tech panels rears its head. And every time, the same empty lipservice is paid towards the issue, usually in the form of a reflective pledge for change or worse…an apology.

“Oh, we’re sorry there’s not enough people of color represented in our speaker lineup. Next year we’ll…”

We’ll what? Repeat the same thing and issue the same apology? Because that’s what’s been happening. And so because of that, we have conferences like the Blogging While Brown Conference, as well as meetups like the aforementioned Ogilvy-sponsored Blacks in Tech meetup at SXSWi. Even attendees at this year’s SXSWi have reported it as the most diverse one in the conference’s history.

Look at two galleries from EJ and Cheryl below from last night’s meetup:

Tell me again why there’s such a lack people of color to speak at tech conferences? Clearly, there’s a gang of them here. Via Twitter, Blacks in Tech moderator and Ogilvy partner Jeffrey Bowman reported 205 attendees. And those are students, teachers, designers, developers, and more. People who work in this industry at various levels of exposure, influence, and expertise.

Again…why are they so hard to find for these speakers and panelists for conferences?

Some people may wonder why diversity for tech panels is even an issue. I mean, they go to conferences for the speakers and the knowledge, right? Well let me flip that on you. Allow me to go a little hopey/preachy for a bit. Say you go to a conference for an industry that’s largely not filled with people of color. At this conference, you’re probably one of the few people of color out of the attendees. You get along well with the attendees and make some great contacts. But the speakers there are not people of color. You go to the same conference year after year and it’s the same deal. But then one year, there’s a person of color on the conference. And maybe in years after that, there’s more people of color. For that one attendee, it can be a great thing to see the diversity, but it also instills a sense of hope and could inspire them to one day be a speaker at that conference. It could push them to go further in their craft just based off of that one small gesture.

(Alright, that might’ve been a bit too much, but you get my drift.)

The point of the matter is that apologizing for the lack of diversity on tech conference panels is now a lame excuse. That’s why events like the Black Weblog Awards, the Blogging While Brown Conference, and the Blacks in Tech Meetup are still needed. Rather than decry these events as separatist or racist, why not change the current system so they become obsolete?

Hey, stranger things have happened.

This post was originally published on March 14, 2009. Help celebrate 10 years of BlackGayBlogger.com by tweeting your favorite memories of the site using the hashtag #bgb10.

Fig. 1: #FF7D00 is the official orange color of BGB.

My dating trials and tribulations have always been one of the main threads of BlackGayBlogger.com. Boyfriends, bad dates, sometime-y relationships…it was rough, y’all.

And as much as I’d like to say it’s gotten better now that I’m on the other side of 30, it really hasn’t. I’ve found the same shit just happens at a different age bracket. I think my date earlier this week was a prime example…but we’ll get to that later.

Speaking of age, now that I’ve gotten older I’ve been attracting more younger guys (looking for a daddy…can you imagine?) while the men my age and older won’t give me the time of day. I explored this paradox in an entry I wrote called “Don’t Let Your Gramps ‘Round Me.”

Age can be such a peculiar variable when it comes to gay dating. Now that I’m making the way towards 30, I’m seeing how age (or the perception attached to it) has changed. Hell, you can look through this blog and see that.

At 23, I was too old for guys under 21, but too young for guys over 25.
At 24, I was too old for guys under 21, but too young for guys over 25.
At 25, I was too old for guys under 25, and too young for guys over 25. (Yes, you read that right.)
At 26, I was too old for guys under 25, and too young for guys over 30.

And now at 27, I’m still at that weird too young/too old inflection point which makes dating someone close to my age a challenge (unless I’m a total slut). I still get the “too young” thing from guys older than me (most recently, it was by someone just six months older than me). Throughout my dating tenure though, one thing has been constant: men over 50 can’t get enough of me. And as I’ve gotten older, their fervor has only increased.

Fig. 2: Gurl…I know.

One recent communication involved a 63-year-old Black man in the advanced stages of multiple sclerosis who got his niece to post a message on Match.com for me. How do I know? Well he stated it in his ad text, had a picture of him sitting while his niece (in a muu muu and wild, unstyled hair) was staring off camera, and there was mention that she would “finish this up when she gets back from the store”.

He’d been inactive for three months. Something tells me she might’ve gotten lost on the way back.

The latest guy, a White 52-year-old man, made the whole “I love Black guys because of the contrast in color” move. And then came the rest of tricks out of his bag.

Him: Oh, why not? Is it because I’m White?
Me: No, I’ve dated White men before; I don’t have a problem with that. But you’re out of the age range of what I’m looking for.
Him: With age comes character and depth.
Me: That’s also true for cheese, but I’m lactose intolerant.
Him: Is that supposed to be a racial joke?
Me: No, it’s a “why is this guy still trying to talk to me because I’m totally not interested in him” joke.
Him: How about for $200? $300?
Me: Are you serious?
Him: That’s a drop in the bucket for me, and I bet you could use the money. Just think about it.
Me: Goodbye.

The killing part is that someone else would probably fall for that, and then enable this guy to think every young Black dude has a price. Afterwards, he went into some spiel about his “philanthropy”, but I’ll spare you that tired drivel. I’m heading to the theatre tonight, so maybe I’ll do a write-up about it.

Young gay men still go to the theatre, right?

Fig. 3: Yes? No? Tell me the stereotypes are true!

This post was originally published on August 29, 2008. Help celebrate 10 years of BlackGayBlogger.com by tweeting your favorite memories of the site using the hashtag #bgb10.

Fig. 1: I stopped on the 10th version of the site. And soon it will be 10 years old.

Today’s flashback entry isn’t that much of a look back, but it’s still one of my favorite entries. Nowadays, blogging seems to be less about telling personal stories (those are found more in longform journalism) and more about how your work can be commodified for a brand. When I started BGB, I was never trying to be famous or build a brand or an audience. I just wrote and figured if people liked it, they would stick around. I think this is definitely the case when it comes to black gay bloggers, who are now mostly blogging about celebrity gossip and the like.

Things have definitely changed since those great, carefree blogging days of the mid-aughts. A while ago I answered an important question: Do the Kids Not Read Anymore?

Anthony over at The Black Sex Master posed a few interesting questions at the end of one of his latest entries.

So is the goal now to become an internet/mini celebrity (ala B. Scott)?
Did people have trouble monetizing their writing and that’s why they quit?
If you still wish to tell your story, is video the only format to go with if you want a sizable audience? (or at a minimum audio)
Do the kids not read anymore?

I dunno. When I started out, there were not that many Black gay bloggers online. I remember having a conversation with nOva about this back in 2003, and during an IM conversation I came up with the name for this blog and my pseudonym. But even before I started this site, I had been blogging online for about seven years between Geocities, Blogger, and LiveJournal before starting BGB. Trust me when I tell you, the things I were talking about were hardly legendary. For example, take this shit I wrote back in 2001:

There is no true peace, merely a tranquil existence, for as our job, we must weigh the consequences, judge the life, and live the verdict. If we betray or are betrayed, life will continue, and no end will come. For there is but one end; the final end when all is null and the worth of all that is living goes unseen. Passive involvement, or so it’s called. One day upon another, until they pile into weeks and weeks into months…and still we go on with our passive involvement. Hour after hour we look through the book of time, the pages of our mind. ‘Tis an effort to reveal the hope, uncover the darkness of the light we seek…yet we still go on with our passive involvement.
Involvement, the path of life.

Fig. 2: And no, I was not high when I wrote that.

Anyway, after several years of blogging my personal ish online and seeing many others come up and burn out quick, I’m fortunate to have sustained for as long as I have. I think it’s necessary that I do so, because many other Black gay men before me wrote just as fearlessly to tell their stories. Why shouldn’t I tell mine?

There’s never been a time in my life when I wasn’t writing. My first grade teacher used stories that I told as part of her Ph.D. thesis. I was writing in Highlights Magazine before I turned 10. I was writing editorials to my local newspaper before I turned 16. I was in literary anthologies and published works before I left for college. And while I was never able to write for my college paper, *cough*bastards*cough*, I still freelanced for several magazines and of course, blogged. So telling stories — my stories — has always been second nature.

However, who’s reading those stories?

As I’ve said before, I’ve never written online for page views or to an attract an audience. If it comes, so be it. In terms of other BGBs out there, I’m certainly seeing more video and audio than written text (video on YouTube no less, which means Google owns your shit), and even then, it’s more about comedy/parody/celebrity gossip than anything else. To each his own, I s’pose. I’ve dabbled briefly in it, but it’s not my thing unless I’m roasting live (which of course, many have evidenced on Twitter).

With the lack of personal blogs out there, it makes me wonder if our stories are really getting told and shared. Too many folks fought to tell our stories in the past for us to just take that sort of freedom for granted and post about Beyoncé and Rihanna’nem.

Fig. 3: Still love ya, Bey.

One interesting thing that Anthony did in his post was look at past winners of the Black Weblog Awards to see how Black gay men blogging online have progressed.

2005: Bernard Bradshaw/Sex and the Second City: I met Bernard once when I visited Chicago back in 2006. He was very erudite, and also very handsome. We had talked on the phone several times after meeting, and then one day, the calls just stopped. He had announced on his blog that he was diagnosed with HIV. I hadn’t heard from him since.

[OK...so I found Bernard Bradshaw, and he is even more erudite and more handsome than I remember him all those years ago. How is this even possible? I need to get in touch with him soon and see how life's been treating him. -- karsh]

2006: Rod McCullom/Rod2.0beta: Rod and I had communicated a lot over the years, back when he was still on Blogspot and I was still on Movable Type. Rod is smart and VERY resourceful. That man has levels of access to people I wish I could get. I met him and Bernard at the same time when I was visiting Chicago. We kept in touch, but Rod’s frequency with travelling and writing is crazy busy. We haven’t talked in years.

[Still haven't talked to Rod in a long time. I think he's still in Chicago. -- karsh]

2007: Keith Boykin/The Daily Voice: Never met Keith, but there was an incident when I got bumped from an NPR segment because — as the producer told me — we need a more famous Black gay man. And chile, you know they only give us a few people in the media every so often.

[Still never met Keith. -- karsh]

2008: Darian Aaron/Living Out Loud with Darian Aaron: Never met Darian, even though we both live in Atlanta. I’ve never been the activist type, so it’s rare you see me out and about talking about this blog and it’s stature in the community and all that jazz. Kudos to those who do though. I’m just more of a behind the scenes guy.

[Still never met Darian. -- karsh]

2008: Pam Spaulding/Pam’s House Blend: I think I bumped into Pam or met her at SXSW in 2010, but I don’t remember. Of course, people are always surprised when they’re like “Oh, you’re Karsh.” LOL – that never gets old. We may have met before, but I don’t remember. It’s not for lack of trying though.

[I think Pam and I met again in 2010 at SXSW, but I barely remember most of SXSW because I was sick as a dog and hopped up on allergy meds. Fuck cedar fever and fuck my allergies. -- karsh]

2009: Xem Van Adams: Never met Xem either, although we do have some common acquaintances in the Baltimore urrea. I’ve seen a few of Xem’s videos — they’re funny and entertaining. And he does a good mix of talking about personal things as well as celeb news and such. You know how they say “if it bleeds, it leads”? Nowadays it’s like “if it’s shade, you’ll get paid”. Look at the top ten urban/Black blogs these days, and I guarantee you they’re pretty much all entertainment/celebrity related. What is that saying about us?

[Still haven't met Xem either. So let's see who won in subsequent years, shall we?

2010: The Skorpion Show; TransGriot: I've never met Kevin and Makael, although I think we have several mutual acquaintances. I have yet to sit through an entire video -- most of them are over 30 minutes, and my attention span tunes the fuck out. I think Kevin lived in Atlanta at one point of time (if not, he's got a doppleganger here). I've not met Monica of TransGriot either, but I have been a faithful reader for years.

2011: Pam's House Blend; The Skorpion Show: See above for both.

2012: Ken Like Barbie: This one is a YouTube profile. I watched a few videos and the content feels like a resurgence of the old personal blogging of yore. He's handsome too, which definitely doesn't hurt when all your content is video. His KLB Loving WomiE II video is so freaking adorable. -- karsh]

This is the way I see it: if you’re waiting for validation from Gay.com or Logo or [insert predominately White gay media outlet here], you’ll be waiting forever. There are more tools and avenues available now to create the reality you want to see and attract others who are interested. Blogging is really just the beginning of all that, but in terms of syndication across many different mediums, it’s still the most accessible. It’s a shame that there’s not as many personal Black gay blogs out there anymore, but I really hope it makes a comeback. For history’s sake.

Fig. 4: Let’s only hope, right?

This post was originally published on July 20, 2010. Help celebrate 10 years of BlackGayBlogger.com by tweeting your favorite memories of the site using the hashtag #bgb10.

Fig. 1: Remember this?

On June 15, 2003, I started Black Gay Blogger, a website which was really just an extension of a few other web properties I had at the time (my LiveJournal, my blogger, and my two columns I wrote for Backwash). It quickly grew into something much more, and I really wasn’t expecting that. It was just supposed to be a place for me to rant about men and work and life in general, and it ended up inspiring others to start their own black gay blogs.

Even though I stopped writing for the site in 2011, I still felt like recognizing the ten year anniversary was a big fucking deal. So I’m doing that by shouting out some of my favorite posts from the blog (and I’ll reveal a few secrets as well).

This one is the post that sort of skyrocketed BGB’s popularity: the tale of how I got fired for blogging at work.

Prepare to get Karshed.

As I’m sure as most of y’all know by now, I no longer have my job because of this website. Management had monitored my computer for over a month, tracked what sites I visited and blog posts I wrote and tried to place me between a rock and a hard place over things said on this personal site about people at work (even when said people and said work was never mentioned explicitly).

I was dooced…sorta.

Fig. 2: Spoiler alert! This is where I worked. Fuck ‘em!

The blow-by-blow happened so fast that I blinked and was out of a job. Awesome in a surrealistic sort of way. I was trying to finish up some contract issues before the end of the day so I could leave work at a respectable hour when I got a phone call. It was one of my customers that needed some contact information changed. That’s when I saw the terrible twosome Skeletor and Wednesday Addams walking towards my cube.

The feeling that I was in some deep shit set in quickly. Normally when they’re about to can someone, it’s either at the beginning or the end of their shift. I wish it had been at the beginning so I could’ve swung by Chick-fil-A for some breakfast, but alas…can’t win ‘em all. Just as I was finishing up the call Skeletor said, “When Karsh gets off the phone, can you tell him to come to Snake Mountain?”

[Skeletor was the director of customer service, and Wednesday Addams was one of the team leads on the floor. Snake Mountain was Skeletor's office...you know, like in the cartoon. -- karsh]

I watched as the two made their bee-dance around the cubes, both glancing over to see when I would get off the phone. I purposely prolonged the conversation to make sure the customer’s issue was thoroughly resolved and ended the call. I took a deep breath and made my way towards the lair.

As I closed the door and sat down, I already knew what Skeletor was going to say. It’s not that I necessarily knew I was in the wrong at that point, but I know I hadn’t done anything extraordinarily spectacular recently to warrant two-on-one kudos. This is what made the retorts so easy.

Skeletor spoke at length about her great disappointment in me while Wednesday Addams crossed her arms and nodded for effect.

“And I don’t even know what this ‘black gay blogger’ thing is. I mean what is that?”

I stifled my laugh as best I could. Columns of numbers and posts from my site were photocopied, stapled and collated as she emphasized “we have the proof”. I almost felt like I was Law and Order or something, getting busted for using the taxpayer’s hard-earned money on a new BMW X5 and a summer home in the Hamptons. As she spoke and the other manager nodded, I slouched down in my seat, giving Skeletor a look which said “I can see your point, but I still think you’re full of shit.”

Fig. 3: GPOY

“I’m just so disappointed because you’re a tremendous worker and a real asset to the department…we’re going to have to take you off the GDAM program. We’ll just say that because of the number of accounts in the region, we decided to consolidate our agents from three to two.”

Lying ass. No secret though, I wanted off the gotdamn program when it cost me that sweet tech position about a month back. I wanted to say “I have plenty of talent and vision…I just don’t give a damn”, but it only came out as muffled cough. To add insult to injury, she read off a signed “final written warning” sheet everything she just said.

[The tech position was for a business analyst position. I knew PHP and MySQL and even learned Toad for the position. They gave it to some white boy with no degree and no experience or talent, then that motherfucker ended up not even being able to take the job because he was allergic to the building the job was located in. So you know what they did? They set it up so he could work from home! -- karsh]

Jesus Christ, now this was just getting ridiculous. I had to say something.

“If this is the final written warning, then how come I never received a warning before, written or otherwise?”

“You have the company handbook, right?” Skeletor asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s the first warning.”

Fig. 4: Uh huh…

Of course. She tells me I have a choice — a bit of a misnomer considering that I was only given one option if I stayed: get pulled off the GDAM program, get demoted two ranks, take a pay cut, become ineligible for bonuses, incentives, promotions and/or transfers, and take down my site.

Hindsight is something else. With all the change which went on at the company, new technologies worked by even newer employees, a managerial structure which changes more than Fox’s prime-time lineup…I thought that the fact I was not only able to perform my job well enough to be company-recognized and promoted, but also churned out excellent blog posts without breaking a sweat damn admirable.

But then I thought about the inverse.

How I always had to sober myself for at least 30 minutes before my shift just so I could adequately digest the nonsensical bullshit and mindless e-mail forwards and silly office gossip.

How the company-wide peer pressure made work seem less like a professional venue and more like high school.

Not to mention the idiotic catch phrases.

Three-letter acronyms every-fucking-where.

And fantasy football.

Crack-iced birthday cakes.

The god-awful catering from the Killaroach Café downstairs.

[The downstairs café was named that after seeing someone chopping veggies, kill a roach with the knife, then continue chopping without cleaning the knife. -- karsh]

The goddamn Smoker’s Union and all the promotions because of it.

[Smoker's Union = those people at your job who stand outside and smoke and always have a one-up on office gossip because of their shared nicotine addiction]

The pride-obliterating gimme-fives (seriously…I hadn’t consciously “given five” since 1988, and even then, it was before saying “up high, down low, too slow).

Hearing about Home Depot, people’s itinerant mutts, and folks getting married.

Baby showers.

Team meetings.

The sight of people’s heads popping out of the half-cubes like a Whack-a-Mole! game when leftover food from this morning’s corporate meeting arrives in the kitchenette picked over, breathed on, and sometimes covered in mold.

The ever-present pungent funk of tobacco.

These were a few of my most-hated things.

Fig. 5: How I feel about “team building” and shit like that.

You know how in cartoons the protagonist has the little angel and the devil sitting on their shoulders? The angel was me at seven years old. Fresh-faced and talented, all he wanted to do was write and be free. The devil was me in college with my 7″ ‘fro, fistpick jutting out like a wannabe ?uestlove and wearing a red shirt that says “I’m having a Nat Turner kinda day.”

The angel says, “You need the money. How else will you pay your rent?”

The devil says, “Man, fuck that shit. Fuckin’ crackas wanna call you out on some shit? Tell ‘em ’bout all the other people you know at work that blog on the company dime. Give them the URLs. If you go down, take everyone with you.”

[There were at least three other people who also blogged on company time, and one of them was a manager. I'm not saying it was racially motivated, but it was totally racially motivated. -- karsh]

Hey, I was in college. Cut me some slack, ‘mmkay?

The angel told me I didn’t have a plan. He told me to wait.

The devil told me I was never in their plan. He said I was expendable.

Skeletor broke the imaginary dialogue with, “Do you have anything you wish to say? An apology?”

Apology? I gave her a confused look and turned towards Wednesday Addams, who nodded in agreement.

“An apology…for what? This is my personal site. I apologize for doing it at work; that was sloppy on my part.”

“And?”

“And…that’s it.”

Fig. 6: Like the prophetess Sweet Brown would say…

I said the it in a higher tone than the rest of the sentence. This is what some writers would call a “defining moment in a character’s development”.

The space between what I had just said and what would come next felt like an eternity. Some writers would call that “cliché”, but seriously…I had time to not only plan on what was going to come out of my mouth next, but decide what I’d have for dinner, and what I would be doing over the weekend. I could either take my punishment like a bitch and find myself living the plot to Office Space day after day, or I could take my life back. I could surrender the shackles of corporate design and pursue my dream. My passion. I could be free as a bird.

Some writers would call that bullshit.

“…I resign.”

“Are you sure? You sure you don’t want to think about this…”

I laughed. “Dead serious.”

Skeletor went on about how I would have to surrender my badge, how my computer would have to be shut down and that I would still receive my last two direct deposits (salary and annual bonus). I walked out of Snake Mountain feeling 200 feet tall.

“Do you need a box or a bag for your desk?” Wednesday Addams asked.

I scoffed at her. “Oh no. Just let me get my coat, hat and scarf, and I will be on my merry way.” My voice was shaky, and could have been misconstrued as me being sad over the information they gathered and my eventual decision.

Oh no…my voice was shaky from excitement because I wanted to scream! I wanted to scream to the top of my lungs and pump my fist in jubilation. I wanted to kiss the fine ass Jersey boy who sits yards from me and then snatch the bad wig off of Sheneneh‘s ghetto head. This. shit. felt. good.

Fig. 7: Freedom!

The management duo and I went down to the second floor and they told me I should receive information concerning my insurance in 7-10 days. I inquired about the money owed to me again, this time with my trusty phone recording this moment for posterity (or Exhibit A, whichever stands up in court the best).

We exited out the lobby’s huge glass doors, and as I stood in the foyer looking out into the night, I felt a real sense of empowerment. No more bitching and moaning about this job…I was out. I handed my badge to Skeletor, threw my scarf around my neck (hitting Wednesday Addams in the process, oops!), and stepped out into the crisp January air.

Three hours later, over a forty ounce and some pizza, I thought about my first few days at the company.

The shoddy “training”.

The scores of employees who were just as dissatisfied as I was, if not more, but too afraid to do anything about it.

The talks of dreams deferred as they sigh about their settling into a corporate America call center, probably one of the last not outsourced to India.

On my first day, someone told me that working there was more than a job, it was a career.

I thought I wanted a career there. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

This post was originally published on 1/29/2005. Help celebrate 10 years of BlackGayBlogger.com by tweeting your favorite memories of the site using the hashtag #bgb10. 

Fig. 1. “Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

I’m not really big on taking photos.

My mother has told that me that the reason I have so few baby photos is that they always had to catch me by surprise or when I was sleeping in order to take a good photo of me, otherwise I’d make a grab for the camera, run and hide, or just make faces until my picture wasn’t taken. She thought I had snapped out of it by first grade, but when she got back the proofs from my school day photo and saw me not smiling, she tore into my ass. School day photos for the next few years included a fake smile and a half-hearted gaze that said “can you just take this shit so I can get back to my school work?”

Fig. 2: My first grade school day photo.

Fast-forward to now; I still don’t really like having my photo taken. I’ve had boyfriends and other randoms try to psychoanalyze that feeling as a manifestation of low self-esteem, but that’s not the case. I have very good self-esteem, but I don’t like how I look in photos. My face is always too big, the angle is wrong, the lighting is bad — I’d have to take about 10-20 shots before I find something I’m comfortable with, and even then, that’s no guarantee I’ll like it.

Naturally, this means I’d be the perfect person to get buck naked for a photographer’s lens.

Having nude photos taken wasn’t what I initially set out to do. I needed new headshots since the current ones I’ve been using are from about five years (and five inches of hair) ago, and I knew I’d need updated ones for presentations, press releases, speaker panels, etc. Rationalizing to myself why I should pay for a photographer when I have a mobile phone and a bathroom mirror was a challenge. Chalk that up to my general DIY nature.

Finding a photographer was the easy part. He actually found me. He hit me up on one of these mobile dating apps one night, we struck up a conversation, and about 30 minutes later we had a barter agreement; he would shoot me and I would redesign his website. I generally don’t even entertain barter agreements, but I was already feeling some kind of way about paying a photographer, and I thought adding a photographer’s website to my portfolio would be nice since it would be a departure from my regular work. Then he dropped the bomb on me.

“Well you’ve seen the photos I take. Would you be open to maybe taking some nude photos for an upcoming exhibit I’m having?”

“I don’t know…I really just need and want the headshots, thanks. But if I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”

We agreed to meet a few days later and discuss the details of the shoot and the website redesign.

That meeting went pretty well. The website redesign was more like a complete overhaul since he wanted it on WordPress, but I figured it would maybe take me a day or two to design and code from scratch so long as he trusted my creative vision (which luckily he did). Then came time to talk about the photos.

“So have you decided on whether you want any nude photos?”

“For now, let’s just go with the headshots. I haven’t really decided yet if I want any nude photos.”

He said that if I changed my mind, he could let me know in the shoot and it wouldn’t be a problem. My mind immediately went to the numerous porn scenes I’ve watched with the hot hunky photographer and the nubile young model. I didn’t want that type of situation happening, but as long as it was professional and I felt comfortable, I might be up for it.

I hemmed and hawed for almost two weeks over whether or not to drop trou for the shoot. Surprisingly, no one tried to talk me out of it.

“Yeah, go for it!”

“You only live once!”

“As long as it’s tasteful and it’s not porn, I don’t see the problem in doing it.”

Sure, why not, right? I’ve never been ashamed of my body, and this would be something just for me. It certainly wasn’t for a man’s approval (although I did think of how many guys always ask for fifty’leven pictures online, especially nudes). When I’m old, I can look at them and say, “Damn, I was hot.”

Fig. 3: Damn right!

The night of the shoot arrived and I was nervous. The Uber cab pulled up to his studio, which I soon found out was his townhouse. Anxiety levels started to rise.

He came out and greeted me, and we went inside and he fixed me some tea and we chatted about his new website.

“I love it! I’ve already booked six jobs since it went up last week. You are really amazing.”

“Thanks,” I said while tepidly sipping my tea. “So where is your studio?”

“Oh, it’s in my garage. I parked out on the street so we’d have enough room.”

Somehow when I thought of a photography studio, I imagined an airy and open loft with hardwood floors exposed brick. Instead I was getting a cold dim garage on a 30 degree night with oil slicks on the floor. Lovely!

Fig. 4: GPOY

The headshots went pretty well. I was most concerned that my hair was going to look a mess after all the shirts I had to change in and out of for the different outfits, but he told me that he could straighten that out in retouching.

After I had looks in about five different outfits, the moment of truth came. Would I strip or would I dip?

I reached into my bag and pulled up a tangle of underwear. “Well I brought all these jockstraps from home. Do you think we could ease into it at first?”

He blushed. “Well the photos are full nudes. No underwear. And I don’t do any frontal shots or include your head or face unless you really want them in the shot.”

Thank goodness for that. Did I mention this was in a cold dim garage on a 30 degree night? That shit might fly in a Raging Stallion film, but not in the real world.

Overall, the experience was harmless. We did a bunch of different poses, and I got to check out the photos after each different set.

“You have a nice ass,” he says.

I tilt my head to the side. “Yeah, I do. Especially in that pose.”

After about 20 photos, I got dressed and he even offered to drive me back home since the shoot ran until midnight.

In hindsight, I spent more time fretting than was really necessary. The shoot went pretty well and I was very pleased with the photos (clothed and nude). Does this mean that I’m going to start disrobing for photographers now? Probably not, but I’m glad I did it nonetheless.

Plus I can be content that somewhere in an art gallery in Atlanta there’s a print of my ass on full display.

Fig. 5: And what of it?

Fig. 1: “Sorry, my cam is broken. I’m really bad with technology.”

One of the disturbing perils of online dating is the possibility that the person you’re chatting with is not who they say they are. While it might just be human nature to embellish yourself a bit to someone you’re interested in, some folks spin a web of intricate lies and even flat out impersonate someone else under the guise of “getting to know you.”

This practice has been brought to the mainstream by an MTV show called “Catfish.” Max and Nev, the ambiguously gay duo, answer letters from lovelorn singles who have fallen in love with someone over texts and instant messages and photos, but their paramour seemingly has issues with doing a live video chat to show they are who they really are. The Hardy Boys do some digging, bring the lovesick idiot to meet their Internet hottie, only to find in most cases they are an internet nottie. They laugh, they cry, and I guess the viewers at home are supposed to feel sorry for all parties involved in the situation (although some of them are a bit tragic).

One takeaway from the show is that it illustrates just how easy it is to suss out someone’s identity given very limited information about them. Facebook Graph Search, Google Image Search, Spokeo — these are just a few of the tools that are available out there that anyone can easily use. Even a well-written search query can help you out (and Google will teach you how to do this for free).

And yet, people are still out here getting catfished! And people are still doing the catfishing.

I should know because it happened to me a few months ago…sorta.

As y’all know, I work a lot. I’m not a fan of the clubs and bars here, so my opportunities for going out and finding eligible men are pretty slim. So I downloaded a few dating apps — Grindr, Scruff, Jack’d, and Growlr; also known as the Four Whores/Men of the App-ocalypse™ — and decided to give a shot at meeting men on my mobile.

Fig. 2: The visual captures it well, don’t you think?

I quickly learned that each app had its own vibe and etiquette. Grindr was more for twinks and Midtown white boys, Scruff was full of muscle marys with a stick up their ass (or a protein suppository — who can tell?), Jack’d was where the brothas were, and Growlr was an interesting mix of all three, plus bears. (And I do love the bears, but that’s another post for another time.) I quickly struck up a conversation with a few guys on each service before meeting Mr. T. on Growlr.

Mr. T. was everything I was looking for in a man at the time — tall, handsome, thick, geeky, and into Marvel comics and trash television. We hit it off well, and I soon found out he was a recent transplant to the city and played for one of the local gay rugby teams. A tall, handsome, thick, geeky man into Marvel comics and trash television AND plays rugby?

Fig. 3: I’m sayin’ ‘doe.

We continued chatting. And chatting. And chatting. Soon it had been nearly a month of back and forth messaging, and I was ready to take this tête-à-tête offline and into the real world.

He wasn’t.

First he only wanted to meet at a club. He knew I didn’t like clubs, but seemed to pick places he knew I wouldn’t want to go in order to meet. Cute.

I suggested coffee, but he said that sounded too much like a date. (Remind me to blog about what is and isn’t a date, because dudes are clearly confused out here.)

I asked about maybe grabbing lunch near his job, but yeah…still too date-like for him. He suggested meeting at the Eagle, and I really do not like the Eagle.

We were at an impasse. A dumb ass impasse.

The good thing about these mobile apps is that they are based on geolocation, so you can really see the people who are in your area. You’d think this would increase the availability of actually meeting guys…but it doesn’t. The app can create a safe space for interaction without doing actual in-person work. To let Conner Habib and Dr. Chris Donaghue tell it, some romantic and sexual relationships can exist entirely online without any physical contact. This type of shit is prime for catfishing.

That don’t work for me. If the guy I’m chatting with is in the same geographic area as me (neighborhood, side of town, city, etc.), I usually want to go ahead and meet as soon as possible and get it out of the way. What happens sometimes with prolonged conversation is the tendency to project onto the other person certain traits and characteristics that don’t exist because you haven’t had real-world interaction with them. (Plus I’m 32 years old and way past doing the penpal thing.) I find that the longer a guy stalls on this, the less likely the chances are that we’re going to meet.

And so that’s what happened with Mr. T.; he talked a good game but never wanted to meet. Eventually I found out he was in a relationship, but was saying he was single online because he wanted to find new friends outside of his boyfriend. But if that’s the case, why lie about it?

I’ll never know.

Fig. 1: You know you done fucked up, right?

I’m a firm believer in the idea that there’s a time and a place for everything.

Precisians would call this “effective communication”. I think everyone else would just call it common sense.

I thought about this last week at a coffee meeting with Hot Chocolate, my new business mentor who’s just a year older than me, but is extremely well-established in his professional and personal life. I had been trying to pin him down for a one-on-one meeting since January, and our schedules finally aligned to meet up one chilly afternoon in April.

He gave me some good leads and ideas to try with my business, but then he threw this in: “Now just because the people I’m telling you about are black and you’re black doesn’t mean you can talk to them any kind of way.”

Fig. 2: Whut?

I was a bit taken aback by the statement — I mean, Hot Chocolate and I have known each other for the better part of a decade — but I got what he meant. Sometimes people can be overly familiar with others, especially when one is in a position of needing something from another.

I certainly got this disparity a lot when I was teaching, especially from my black students. Being greeted by students via email for the first time with “What’s up my nigga?” or being called “son” or “boy” by my older students as a shock at first. It’s always good to make that first impression, so why spoil it by acting like we’re just kicking it on the block?

The same goes for pitching to your peers — something I’m finding out now with one of my latest projects. I try to keep it super professional with everyone unless I know them really well, but that same level of professionalism isn’t mirrored back in their responses. I’m getting replies with absolutely no tact observed and certainly no manners. It’s like reverse IBIBSI or something.

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t think this is strictly a “black thing,” but I certainly observe it more with my fellow peoples than anyone else. I remember a story one of my friends told me about how badly a fellow peer of ours pitched him for a magazine piece.

“Karsh, you would not believe how bad this email was that he sent me. Full of misspelled words, the tone was too familiar, and it was just wrong. I acted like I never saw it.”

My friend said he never responded, but now the guy with the shitty pitch writes for some of the top black magazines on the web.

Guess it’s working on someone then.

Fig. 3: Your mileage may vary.