Badpuppy Gay Today Monday, 14 April 1997 By Jack Nichols When Allen Ginsberg died a week ago I got to thinking about how he'd lived. Peter Orlovsky had been with him through most of his life, a loving companion. I'd visited their Lower East Side apartment once, retrieving photos to run with one of Allen's poems, Jimmy Berman Newsboy Gay Lib Rag. A handsome woman answered the door, while hunky Peter peered out at me over her shoulder. Yes, Peter was, at least, bisexual, and he was also, from what I could gather, boinking this lovely lady. After observing a myriad of marriages among straights, the gay pioneer, Lige Clarke, told me long ago how he regarded the "sacred" words, husband or wife. "Husband or Wife are words without meaning," he said, "unless they mean Friend." He knew that most of what goes by the name of romance can be just as irrational and silly as is a conversion to some religious cult, accompanied in like manner by a host of hopeful, projected illusions. When these evaporate under a clear light, so does the quick-started romance. Lige's philosophy affected me profoundly. I noticed he politely refused to attend straight marriage ceremonies. He was not, after all, the ritual-loving type. Ritual, as he saw it, kept people locked in the same old boxes. He eschewed it in favor of an adventuresome approach that changed its course regularly on the way to new, unexpected discoveries. If I was to keep up with Lige, to really be his friend, I knew that I too must open myself to such changes, and that I must love myself too, giving attention to my own body, while listening well to what he said; being willing to share the excitement he felt as he traveled to new places on the spice and variety map of human consciousness. | |
|