This is, of course, a serious blog from a serious writer. I don’t give it the attention I’d intended, but when I do point my virtual pen this way, it is for some dire purpose. Some pressing issue. Something terribly important that absolutely demands my chiming in.

But this entry is different. Today I noticed a discarded copy of O magazine and found myself wondering, "What are my favorite things?"

Oprah’s twice-yearly list of her Favorites Things has become an  event of some cultural significance. Manufacturers court her for years, fans salivate in anticipation, and people commit murder for tickets to the tapings of her Favorite Things episodes. Probably cause she gives stuff away. Nice stuff, like cars. And really really really good scented candles.

In compiling my own list, I wonder if it's necessary that all my favorite things be tangible objects. Must it be actual stuff that can be bought and sold? Noting that 26 of my facebook friends like 'Music' and that many who like 'Movies' also like 'Walking', I figure pretty much anything goes. Of course, I am not giving away any cars.

Or candles. But here it is: The official list of My Favorite Things for Summer 2010.

SUMMER SOUND & VISION:
When I heard opera star Renee Fleming's version of Tears For Fears' 'Mad World' I thought, "Okay that's it. No more cover albums, by anyone, ever." Cyndi Lauper's 'Memphis Blues' changed my mind. I am also digging the retro-cool of Mayer Hawthorne and the latest soul stirring LP from Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings.

Madonna's hard-rocking 2009 live version of Borderline. When my Guy keeps pushing my love, I get on the treadmill and work it out to this. “Just try to understand: I’ve given all I can...MOTHERFUCKER!”  It's a bonus track on the iTunes version of Sticky & Sweet. A related fave: Detroit native, YouTube sensation, P’town celebrity, and my Slap & Tickle cast mate Aaron Tone performing Express Yourself at a recent Showgirls night at Crown & Anchor. Aaron's star turn comes at 1:40. It brings me endless joy. Also it is hot.

World Cup Football. Of course it is over now. But it remains one of my favorite things for Summer 2010. And
Jason Statham. Just in general.

Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly Last Summer. A hot wet hand-wringer about sex, sanity, and psychoanalysis. Okay the 1959 film differs greatly from the stage production, most notably in that Sebastian's homosexuality is, well, cloaked. And the whole thing may seem rather overwrought to a modern audience. Still it has tremendous style and spellbinding performances. Hepburn's  entrance alone is so outre that Rocky Horror later paid it homage.

HOT TICKETS:
Slap & Tickle  is a sexy and powerful play about how drugs, politics, HIV and the internet have changed the sexual and emotional landscape for gay American men over the last twenty-five years. Set in a New York City bathhouse, six actors play twenty characters whose lives intersect in surprising ways. I am very proud to be one of those six actors. You can see my junk live on stage through August 14th at The Provincetown Theatre.

OTHER P'TOWN TIX:Tom Judson's Canned Ham at The Art House. Tom is a multi-talented musical theatre artist who, at the age of 42, found fame as porn star Gus Maddox. This is his one man multi-instrument show telling that tale. It is smart, sexy, surprisingly moving AND he plays the accordion in a jockstrap. ALSO: I don't really like drag shows, let alone lip-synching impersonators, HOWEVER, I had a blast at Post Office Cabaret's ICONS show. Reluctant at first, cast member Dennis Williams charmed me into attendance. This boy is out on Commercial Street promoting the fuck out of ICONS every day. He works his ass off and is probably deserving of a smarter show in a better venue. His Tina Turner alone is worth the price of admission.

Big Dance Theatre's Commes Toujours Here I Stand is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Now, not content to wait for the world to get its ecological shit together, Big Dance has instituted their very own energy policy. Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar’s dynamic and very conscientious dance-theatre company has implemented a zero-tolerance policy on trash for its month long rehearsal residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Reusable containers, cloth napkins, composting. Brava.

New York Classical Theatre free shows in Central Park. They stage Shakespeare and other classical stuff in public spaces. The audience follows the actors about as scenes play out against an ever-changing backdrop. I saw Richard 3 recently and it was magical. Next up is Much Ado About Nothing.

TASTE IT:
The Leavitt Corporation's Teddie Old Fashioned All Natural Peanut Butter. I’m very picky about peanut butter. I only buy the kind which contains but two ingredients, peanuts and salt. Even so, the taste of the stuff varies widely. Teddie won the Men's Health taste test in every catagory, plus it has a cute bear on the label. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it outside Massachusetts and I know I’ll miss it when I’m back in New York.

Despite what a certain online interview would have you believe, I do not actually enjoy ice cream very often or all that much. My biggest problem is one you just can’t get around – it's cold. Once in a while I will make an exception for a really exceptional coconut gelato, but I actually prefer Liberte brand Mediterranee coconut yoghurt.  Yes I am comparing it not to other yoghurts, but to actual dessert. It is not as sweet or nearly as cold (though I suppose you could freeze it) as ice cream, and that is part of why I love it. It sounds fancy but I get it at Food Emporium all the time.

Speaking of coconut, I love Natural Hive lip balm from Morgan & McHale. It is all natural, petroleum free, with an spf of 15. And 100% of it's profits are donated to environmental charities. They have other flavors but the coconut is my favorite by far.

GET IT OUT:
Watching nothing in 3D except actual life. Go to a National Park for G-d’s sake. An annual U.S. National Park Service pass will get you into every Park in the nation for about what it would cost to take a date to the movies if you include popcorn and a Diet Coke. And really, do you want to remember this as the summer you saw The Last Airbender?

Reading classics by local authors instead of beach trash. Not that there is anything wrong with a fun read, but this summer bring something a little more serious to the beach. On Cape Cod? How about Henry David Thoreau or Eugene O’Neill. If you’re anywhere on Long Island it’s Walt Whitman. South Florida is Hemingway territory. For the West Coast, Steinbeck and for Gulf beaches maybe Harper Lee or Larry McMurty. Not that anyone will actually be frolicking at on the Gulf of Mexico this summer…

Chipmunks. Just in general. I really like them.

WEAR IT OUT:
I’ve decided to wear as little clothing as possible this summer. (My job actually requires tan lines.) But if I must…

Marc by Marc Jacobs ‘Stinky Rat’ long-sleeve t-shirts. Nice to have when a hot afternoon becomes a cool summer evening. I don’t go to clambakes but if I did, I would wear one. They’re really soft.  Also, one-of-a-kind silkscreened vintage tees from Rogues Gallery  in Provincetown. Actually, anything from RG is hot, including the dudes who work there.

Pinaud Clubman Aftershave Lotion. I like to smell like an old-fashioned barber shop any time of year, but it is especially nice in the summertime, I think.

Hunky guys in nerdy spectacles. Especially if they also have tattoos. Dumb just isn't sexy anymore. I like a guy who benches 250 and reads Kierkegaard.

BUT SERIOUSLY...
Educating and empowering Malawi's nearly two million orphan and vulnerable children. Raising Malawi.
Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. The Sing Campaign.
Civil rights and human dignity for LGBT citizens throughout the developing world. IGLHRC.

...and having an unforgettably meaningful, creative, transformational season wherever you may spend it. Here's to summertime.

At the moment, I am in Provincetown acting in a play set in a men’s bathhouse. I’m away from my partner and the apartment we share in Greenwich Village. Last week I was lucky enough to see porn starGus Maddox perform a Kander & Ebb classic on accordion.

My life is so gay.

Which you probably assumed by the first sentence of this blog entry. Even this city’s Portuguese Folk Festival, celebrated last night with a parade, has a certain queer bent. I overheard a couple of twentysomethings discussing it:

“What’s all this Portugal stuff about?”
“They just legalized gay marriage. They’re only like the seventh country in the world.”
“Oh yay Portugal!”

No doubt Gay Pride - Portuguese or otherwise - is worth a celebration. Having the freedom to live as openly as I do is something for which I am very grateful. It’s extraordinary if you think about it. Forty-one years since the Stonewall Riots, which happened just a few blocks from where I live, gay and lesbian Americans have achieved tremendous visibility. We are out at work and to our families. We share homes and raise children. Today we will take to the streets on fabulous floats and shake our jock-strapped asses to Lady Gaga without fear of imprisonment or execution because we don’t live in Uganda.

Yeah. I’m that guy.

I’m the guy that reminds anyone who’ll listen that it was a march before it was a parade. All you wanted to do was enjoy the party and I had to show up and point out that, for all our progress, most of the world’s LGBT population still live in constant fear. For gay folk in the developing world, marching for their rights is dangerous. And a parade is pure fantasy.

And yes I am well aware that we are still second-class citizens here in the States. Of course you wouldn’t know it to look around Provincetown. Married gay couples sport rings, share homes, hold hands and push strollers along Commercial Street, their unions fully recognized by the state of Massachusetts. In a place like P’town, it is easy to forget that one’s federal government still hasn’t caught up with the cottage industry that is destination gay weddings on old Cape Cod. It’s easy to forget that most gay folk don’t have it so easy.

But in other parts of the world, life is not quite as lavender:

In Uganda, a bill has been tabled that prescribes the death penalty for gays and lesbians deemed ‘serial offenders.’ The law would also criminalize the ‘aiding, abetting and promotion’ (read: condom distribution, psycho-social care, etc) of homosexuality, as well as punishing anyone who fails to report homosexual activity to the authorities. It is easy to giggle at the YouTube video of Pastor Martin Ssemba explaining the devious plan by Western homosexuals to coerce Ugandan boys to ‘eat da poo-poo’ – complete with visual aids and scat porn! But it’s also terrifying to know how many poor and uneducated people take him quite seriously.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famous assertion there were no gays in his country may one day be true: gay teens there are hanged for ‘homosexual acts.’ And Iraqi militias are torturing and killing gay men by super-gluing their rectums shut and force-feeding them laxatives until their insides explode.

Arrests are on the rise in Senegal, not only of LGBT citizens but also of AIDS service organizations who minister to gay folks. Charges of ‘inciting debauchery’ and ‘creating a network of homosexuals’ will land you five years in prison.

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe blames many of his nation’s ills on homosexuals, who he characterizes as “sexual perverts lower than dogs and pigs.”

The beating, slashing and murder of Jamaican gays continues to go unpunished, perhaps because such atrocities are often committed by the very officials meant to prevent them.

And then there is Malawi and the curious case of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimablanga.

In December 2009, following their chinkhoswe, or engagement, ceremony, Monjeza and Chimbalanga were arrested and eventually charged with gross indecency. For six months they were repeatedly denied bail, suffered beatings and fell ill in Blantyre’s notoriously overcrowded Chichiri prison, and were subjected to humiliating anal examinations meant to determine whether the men had, in fact, had sex. (I know. As if.)

I took great interest in Malawi years ago, and have been fortunate enough to do some writing for the Raising Malawi foundation. While working for RM, I learned a great deal about the challenges facing that nation: endemic poverty, chronic disease, a million plus orphan children desperate for health care, education, and a little love. Naturally I became curious about the gay male population there. It took me quite a while to find anyone who’d talk to me but eventually I hooked up with a tiny organization called CEDEP. They function primarily as a healthcare outreach group to Malawi’s sexual minorities, particularly MSM’s (Men who have Sex with Men). I helped them to launch a website just before Monjeza and Chimbalanga were arrested.

Then quite suddenly CEDEP was thrust into a spotlight. They were initially the only organization helping Chimbalanga and Monjeza with legal aid, supplemental foodstuffs, and moral support. ILGHRC came on board, as did Amnesty International (eventually). But most of the world had little to say until after the couple were found guilty of ‘buggery’ and ‘carnal acts against the order of nature’ and sentenced to fourteen years hard labour.

What happened next was extraordinary. Some credit the many activists working tirelessly for the men’s freedom. Some say it was Madonna. Most likely it was a visit by UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and the round condemnations by donor nations like the US and UK that did it: President Bingu wu Mutharika pardoned the pair and ordered their immediate release.

Since then I’ve been asked why I hadn’t written anything about the case. Actually, I’ve written a great deal, just not in the form of a blog entry, until now. The truth is that I became rather involved with the whole drama, at least in a peripheral way, and I can tell those of you who haven’t kept up with recent episodes that this sad saga is still hardly resolved.

After the pardon it was quickly made abundantly clear that Steven and Tiwonge were not to see one another, on pain of re-arrest. In their separate villages, the men were hounded by reporters and ostracized by neighbors. Trans-identified Tiwonge was defiant. Steven was drunk. Both found solace in a CEDEP safe house in Lilongwe, and there were discussions about seeking political asylum in another country.

Then it all got really weird.

Steven Monjeza announced his plans to wed Dorothy Gulo, a biological woman and, typically, Tiwonge was among the last to know, reading it in the Nyasa Times with the rest of us. Businessman Sudi Sulaimana gave Steven 200,000 kwacha to get on his heterosexual feet, and Steven issued a statement that he’d been coerced into the ‘gay life’ by Western activists. (Now we hear that Steven’s engagement to prostitute Dorothy may not pan out any better than his betrothal to Tiwonge did.)

There has been, in some camps, a feeling of betrayal towards Monjeza. It is hard for those of us who have the luxury of living out gay lives to understand his abrupt about-face. But things are different in sub-Saharan Africa. It is impossible for us to fathom the kind of pressure and fear this very young man has been living with. Identity is a very complicated matter for African men. Most MSM’s marry women and raise children. They’ve every right to.

Or at least they should have. Gay rights is human rights. And everyone should give a damn about them.

But gay Westerners especially should take notice and, however they can, take action. It is our responsibility as relatively free queers to champion our brothers and sisters who do not have a voice of their own.

While many see Steven and Tiwonge as pioneers, the two never set out to be activists of any kind. They didn’t really have a clue what they were getting into. They were only trying to live true to themselves and do so in a way that hurt no one. This is something that many if not most of us take for granted. Of course there are people in my own country who don’t like how I live my life. They have the freedom to support things like Proposition 8. I have the freedom to very actively oppose it. In other countries, there is no discussion. There’s no vote. There is life in prison or death by hanging.

Why should we care? It’s a small world and getting smaller. We’ve done better than okay in the years since June 27, 1969. A lot has changed. For one thing, our village extends far beyond Christopher Street, or the Castro, or Soho. Ecology and economics are showing us everyday how we are all connected, globally, for better or worse. We cannot ignore the plight of LGBT people in the developing world. They are part of our not-so-far-flung family. If any one of us is not free, then none of is. Not really. Not yet.

There is nothing ‘complicated’ about my facebook relationship status. It’s all out there. I always say that when the neo-Conservative Right Wing fanatics take power, I will be in the very first boxcar off to the camps. I am only half-joking.

Because a wave of homophobia is sweeping across the continent of Africa with deadly effect. I believe that we are on the verge of seeing all-out genocide. You often hear people say of the Holocaust, “never again” without taking into account that there hasn’t been a moment since WW2 when a minority population wasn’t being persecuted somewhere. You hear people say of the Third Reich’s ‘Final Solution’ that “We didn’t know.”

Well now you know. If you are reading this, you have no longer have the excuse of ignorance.

So what can you do to prevent the extermination of gays and lesbians in the developing world? More than you think!

First, check out the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Sign up for their newsletter and participate in their online actions. You don’t have to take to the streets – just click!

Write emails to your own social and political leaders and to those in other countries as well. Letters sent by post are even better. It is easy to get the addresses of elected officials via the web, but if you really need help doing it, contact me and I will hook you up. Added bonus: thank you letters from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama!

Educate yourself and share what you learn with others. Set a Google alert for ‘gay Uganda’ and you’ll soon have the latest news on the status of the draconian Bahati Bill. Then repost articles via facebook.

And if you want to learn more about the situation in Malawi, visit CEDEP's website.

But at the very least, please take a moment out of Pride Month to consider homosexuals in places like Malawi, Uganda, Iraq and Iran. They are not as far away as you think.

Please don’t get me wrong. Rainbow flags and Cher impersonators are great. But the men and women at Stonewall stood up for a great deal more than that. The pioneers of the gay rights movement fought tirelessly, lived, and in too many cases died so that you and I could enjoy a modicum of human dignity. We must do the same for LGBT people in the developing world.

And we must do it now, before it is too late. Put down the glow stick and take up that torch.

Stonewall Baghdad. Stonewall Kingston. Stonewall Kampala. Stonewall Lilongwe.

Stonewall, still.

The following is a preview of my program notes for the national premiere of The Jamb at Eclectic Company Theatre, opening January 15th, 2010.

It’s been twenty winters since I first stumbled into Gramercy Park and became mesmerized by my adopted hometown. New York has changed a lot since then, and I hope I have too. Certainly my life looks different now, and my priorities have shifted. I question my life’s purpose much less these days. But I still struggle every moment with how best to manifest it.

Change is hard – it’s supposed to be – especially when you feel like there’s no road map for where you’re going. The Jamb’s Tuffer and Roderick have each arrived at a kind of spiritual limbo where quick fixes no longer bring any fulfillment. We all go up against it. A few of us break through it. At a certain point, there is nothing left but to take real responsibility, not only for ourselves, but for the world in which we live. Gay Americans face a great many issues these days but, to me, this is the most important. It’s beginning to look like we may get our place at the proverbial table – so just what do we want to bring to it?

I sometimes have tiny panics while bringing in the groceries, or pulling weeds, or watching soccer as my partner folds bath towels. I must confess a phobia of khaki pants and white picket fences. Sometimes, for two seconds, I wonder what the fuck I am doing all grown up and settled down, and I long a little for my days as a horny longhaired bar-hopping hooligan.

But only a little. Because while change is hard, it’s also tremendously rewarding. And the great thing about personal transformation is that there’s always more of it to be had. I’m not crazy about the new LED lights they’ve put on the Christmas tree in Gramercy Park, but I don’t have time to bitch about it. I’m turning forty this year and, like the characters in The Jamb, I am finally realizing that life is less about growing up than growing constantly. We’ve got stuff to take care of! May we all learn more, and do more, and become much more than we can now imagine.

It’s tough to be stuck in the jamb, but it’s also a great spot to find one’s self. It’s a place of infinite potential. From here, anything can happen. It just takes one big step – and a willingness to take full responsibility for whatever you create on the far side of that threshold.

Thanks to everyone at ECT for giving my play its national premiere. I also want to acknowledge those who inspired or fostered The Jamb in its earliest forms: Mike Albo, Darrell Blackburn, Hunter Gilmore, Robert M. Lohman, Lue McWilliams, McNeely Myers, Michael Villane, Jonathan Warman and, most especially, Moshe & Ruthie Rosenberg and all my teachers at The Centre in Manhattan.

J.Stephen Brantley
New York City

 It was a chilly forty degrees at 7am on a Saturday morning, and my friend Chris Cuddihy was standing outside the CBS studios in a kilt. You may be thinking he must have been doing so for a very good cause, and you'd be right. But those of you acquainted with Chris also know that he might have done it just for fun.

Chris has rowed across the Atlantic Ocean (yes, rowed, with like, oars) and run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. He does these things for charities like the Wounded Warriors Project and Isaac's House, an orphanage in Uganda. His latest adventure will take him from New York City to Washington DC. On foot. He's running a punishing 250 miles to deliver a petition for a Veterans Bill of Rights to our Congressional Representatives.

Understand that Chris is not a professional athlete. He's also no spring chicken. He came back from his 7 in 7 on 7 trek with some very messed-up feet. You don't even want to know what rowing an ocean will do to a guy's ass cheeks. It takes a very determined and rather remarkable sort of man to undergo such things.

But Chris is a middle-aged guy who lives on Long Island and works for the county. He is a husband and father. He taught me how to design this website. He goes to church.

Not that I want you to think he's 'just a normal guy'. He sports a ponytail and tattoos, and can rock a peace sign and a 'Support the troops' sign simultaneously. He is quintessentially American despite his Scottish heritage. (And don't think his ancestry explains the kilt. He likely just enjoys wearing skirts.)

Chris and his family come over for dinner sometimes and he and I talk about all that's wrong and how we will right it through grassroots philanthropy. We have great discussions about the importance of backing up one's spiritual endeavors with actual work. More than most I know, he puts the 'active' in activism. There's is no doubt in my mind that his mad stunts do save lives and improve our planet's future.

His greatest legacy may well be with his son. Ryan has apparently inherited the active philanthropy gene. He recently hiked the entire Appalachian Trail south-to-north through rain, cold, mosquitoes and loneliness for the Wounded Warriors Project. And he did the whole thing in a kilt.

Of course the true hero is wife and mother Pat. During our Sunday dinners, she and Robert are forced to listen to Chris and I drone on about all the ways we'll save the world with just one more step. One more signature. One more dollar. One more day.

You don't have to be Madonna or Bono or Desmond Tutu or Bill O'Reilly (chas v'shalom) to make a difference. You needn't run seven marathons either. Your impact can be simple and immediate. Just find a way to share your passion.

Share ridiculously.

Do it now.

JSB

Please visit http://www.nydcrun.com/ to track Chris' progress and add your name to the petition for a Veterans Bill of Rights.

It's happened again.

I was at the gym, ruminating on the plight of gay Ugandans while  going rather aggro on a pair of unsuspecting dumbbells, when it occurred to me: I'd just turned thirty-nine the day before. I'd marked the occasion by shearing my blue mohawk to a brutal looking crew cut. I had, once again, become a character in one of my plays.

Now it's not that odd that I should have a few things in common with the fictional Roderick. When I wrote The Jamb, I imagined that role for myself. Chances are that I will never play it. That's fine. Especially now that I've actually become am an increasingly regimented and generally self-righteous quasi-activist with an ego-driven need to save everyone but himself...in real life.

Roderick is way too judgmental. He's addicted to anger and to turning bad boys into pet projects. He has no patience for your processes.

But he's also driven and disciplined. He's passionate. He's doing his best to turn all his perversions and peccadilloes into something useful. He is fiercely loyal. Roderick's motivation to change is an unflagging faith in the power of love.

I like my crew cut. It suits my soldier mood. In this last year of my thirties I am getting down to business and kicking some ass. Fast. Clean. Strong.

Yeah I have become one of characters yet again. Thank G-d this one's sober.

Anyway, it's high time I had a damn website so here it is.

JSB

By the way, you can see someone else in the role of Roderick when The Jamb opens at Eclectic Company Theatre in January 2010.