“Lover” tells a story very rarely told: of the loss endured by partners of gay servicemembers who are killed in battle.
The video features Goss as the bereaved partner of an army soldier (DC actor Ben Horen) killed while on duty in Afghanistan.
Among those playing medics who come to the aid of the wounded soldier are several former service members who were discharged under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy: Mike Almy, David Hall, and Danny Hernandez, all of whom are active members of SLDN. Keith Bryant stars as a fellow soldier.
The video, Goss’s fourth, was filmed in DC and Alexandria. is being directed by DC residents Aram Vartian and Michael Key of DC; Dylan Comstock is director of photography.
What an awesome night tonight turned out to be. Twitter buddies @Airrun, @JHolman23, @jasetrevino and @Marris_Returns came over for wine, bread, cheese, and fun.
It was my first pseudo tweetup since moving back to San Francisco, the first time I had seen Jimmy since he moved here from Missouri and the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Jason or Aaron. We listened to music, watched some hilarious YouTube videos, talked about everything and nothing at the same time.
It was a pretty awesome night. Even Ryan got to join in on the fun which was such a pleasant surprise. Seems any other time we do something like this, his hectic work schedule gets in the way. Now I just can’t wait for the next time I have friends over for wine and a great time.
The photo of the day, way up there, is yet another one from the roof of our apartment shooting into the neighboring backyard. There is something about this particular apartment and their 6000 watt light that shines light pollution across the common grassy space between the buildings that is so romantic to me. It’s what I imagine a Gregory Crewdson photo would look like if he had a crew of one and a budget of none.
My friend Stacy bought this photo at an antique store and shared it with me last night. It is an amazing photo of a gay couple in the late 1800s in America. These two guys, presumably, paid a photographer to set them down in front of a tintype camera and shoot a photo of their love and intimacy.
Yes, an out, gay couple in America over one hundred years ago. Incredible. It definitely gives me hope and the strength to be out and proud in a modern America. Yes, I can’t get married, share employment benefits or adopt (easily) a child, but if these two guys were able to live their lives together, in America, two hundred years ago, I sure can!
It should be inspiration for anyone, not just in the LGBT community but anyone who faces adversity, bigotry and challenges in this modern day America. Which I’m pretty sure is all of us.
I hope this aside from my usual blog post has given you a little hope to overcome whatever obstacle finds its way into your path.
UPDATE: Since so many people have claimed this to be a fake, which is first offensive to me and second offensive to the purpose of this post, here is the original scan, untouched by Photoshop. The original image above was cleaned up in Photoshop to repair some of the damage 100+ years can have on a photo, I ran a “remove dust and scratches”, adjusted curves and uploaded that photo to Flickr. I personally scanned this file in using an Epson Perfection Scan V750 Pro at 4800dpi. It’s a 1.27gb scan at well over 12000 pixels wide when at 300dpi. I have downscaled it to 4800 pixels wide at 300dpi for this post but have done nothing else to it.
I’m not sure why so many people on Twitter and Facebook, especially one from an equality group would cast aspersions, call this a fake.
My professor who dated, preserved and revived photos like these for museums looked at my scan and said he has no reason to believe it isn’t the real deal, that the problems with the photo, the eyes, the focus, the peeling and deterioration all are elements of proof it is a legitimate image. Hopefully we will have it in class on Monday for him to examine in person. Meanwhile, here are 12 tintype images I found on the Internet all ranging from 1860-1920. Notice the similar wear, the oxidation, corrosion, rust, scratches, peeling, the backgrounds, the density, the gradations of light, the compression of the lens and the varying clarity and focus.
I’ve made some wonderful friends through Twitter and just a few weekends ago, I got to share one of these friendships with many of my old friends.
Ryan and Ben, (@rzhale and @joubiku, respectively on Twitter) came into town for a weekend away from the bustling city life that is Kansas City, ahem. The weekend had been heavily anticipated for all involved for a few weeks and as the days closed in the anticipation grew to astronomical proportions.
I welcomed them to their new home for the weekend, my apartment and shortly after their arrival we headed down to Shakespeare’s Pizza (@ShakesPizza) for some dinner, drinks and a fun environment.
After pizza we stopped by Top Ten Wines for a few minutes before ultimately heading back to my apartment for wine, cookies and hours of hilarious YouTube videos. I don’t’ think Phoebe (@fotofobe), Josh (@brooding_soul), Ryan, Ben or I had ever laughed as hard in our lives. One of the most entertaining evenings in I’ve ever had.
Phoebe and I decided we should share our new addiction to Cafe Berlin (@CafeBerlin) to Josh, Ryan and Ben. Amazing breakfast, delicious food, fun, waitstaff and a comically difficult cream dispenser.
That evening was Cake and a Movie Night (#CaaM). I made a Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and a bittersweet chocolate-peanut butter ganache.
Before Cake and a Movie, we headed out for wine drinking at Top Ten Wines downtown (@TopTenWines), my absolute favorite wine bar, where Chase (@clettenberg) performing. Yet again, Chase put on a great show and as per usual, Lauren (@laurenkilberg) proved to be a fantastic wine maiden.
Cake and a Movie had a great turn out, some regulars and some new attendees.
My Ryan (@kaleb1983) finally got to join us for the weekend festivities. We watched Toy Story, the Pixar film that put them on the map. Wow, who would have known how funny that movie would be, over ten years later. I sure wasn’t expecting all the laughs.
The next morning, Ryan, Ben, Ryan and I went to Bleu for a brunch before Ben and Ryan had to head out of town.
What you see in this picture is all that I’d written and inserted into a blog entry from last month. A picture of Ryan, Corey, Chase and myself and the statement that when the four of us get together, Ryan gets drunk.
I have a plugin in my blog that takes the words I type and finds relevant blog posts, new stories, images and tags; makes things much easier for me.
This time though, something weird happened.
Click to Enlarge
If you’ve clicked the image, you’ve seen the tags and the suggested articles, the suggested photos didn’t fit in the screenshot but were mostly pride flags and the like.
What interested me the most was the reference to an article stating, “Newspaper Discovers Gay + Straight Men Can be Friends.” This is of course, a picture of straight and gay, guy friends hanging out.
I’m not sure if I’m weirded out by the accuracy of Zemanta or what. It struck me as interesting, nonetheless. What do you think? Does my blog have gaydar or was it just an incredibly lucky guess?
Frank, an openly gay, Jewish, Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts from responds: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” He then calls her approach “vile, contemptible nonsense.” He closes by saying: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”
Glad someone finally said what was really on their mind about this, way to go Barney Frank. I have a feeling Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri will be the next to open a can of whoop-ass.
One year and one day ago Ryan and I said the big three words.
Last night we enjoyed dinner at Bleu, dessert at Wine and Cheese Bistro and a long walk around town.
Last Thanksgiving my parents came to Columbia to celebrate Thanksgiving with Ryan and I. This year they have invited Ryan to Thanksgiving with the whole family in Texas. Ryan went joined me in Texas, spending several days in Austin and San Antonio with my grandparents and parents.
He’s really becoming a part of the family and that is so exciting for me. To think that just a few years ago I was afraid for my family to know that I was gay and now, here we are, making our life a part of my familys’. It’s awesome.
The family on my dad’s side might be a bit slower in this adaptation. Much slower really. Caymanians aren’t known for their openmindedness. I do have some paternal family members that know about Ryan or that I am gay and have been good about it, but the overwhelming majority I fear would have a very, very bad reaction.
Of course, who needs them. I know Ryan will be by my side through thick or thin; if my blood family won’t then that’s their loss. They don’t deserve what they can’t give.
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