Honoring Our LGBTQ Black Pioneers
From 1960s civil rights activist Bayard Rustin to newly elected Minnesota councilwoman Andrea Jenkins, black LGBTQ Americans have long been blazing trails and making history. Starting out as Negro History Week in 1926 in public schools in the US to teach black history, the event initially was not widely accepted....
Trump’s Cynical HIV Plan
Today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, so let’s hear it for the Trump USA team behind his master race plan to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. I’ve even included an actual photo of their meeting on January 6th with a diverse group of stakeholders. Oh, wait. Scratch that. I’m sure the...
Love Online
Have you met your soulmate? That is, if you believe in that concept. Or, how do you meet potential partners? Once upon a time, there were matchmakers, good-intentioned family members, friends, and then it became bars, school or college, and even the workplace with its own set of issues. Check...
Music Most Colorful at the BSO
Liszt, Berlioz, Ravel – three exceptional composers in one brilliant concert. On February 16th and 17th, guest conductor Mario Venzago, principal conductor and artistic director of the Bern Symphony Orchestra and artist in association at Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta, and pianist Conrad Tao will join the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) for...
The Work and Why I Do It
A few days ago, I went to trivia night with some new friends. Midway through the game the question asked which composer had written the Hungarian Rhapsodies, an easy win for us because our team includes two trained musicians. We immediately set to the kind of frenzied, whispered conversation that...
Let Us Go to Hell
For the majority of my adolescence, my rock was my faith and spirituality. Even at maximum-angst-levels, when I touted myself a Goth teenage Marxist, my black nail polish and lip-lined self was in the pew every Sunday. In high school I was an acolyte and a member of the praise...
Don’t (Always) Listen to Your Mother
When you tell people that you’re getting married, they often think of the wedding they had, the wedding day they wish they had, the wedding they’d have today, the wedding they want you to have, and maybe, if you’re lucky, they’ll think about the wedding that you want to have....
Wow, What a Weekend!
It is February now, which means that January’s Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend has come and gone. I must not be the only one who had a great time because the entire 880-room Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill has already been booked for MAL 2020 next January! The big leather gatherings...