markclindsey.com
follow me
  • HOME markclindsey.com
  • digital drawings
  • facesnewyork
  • blogblog
  • thisweekintheculture
  • info : contact

Keeping It Fresh.

1/14/2015

4 Comments

 
Picture

What defines a movement?  What makes something alive, and of the moment?  I awoke this morning with these things on my mind.

Some of you are following my graphic novel This Gay Life (
www.thisgaylife.net), in weekly installments. When I began the series I was nervous to draw, type or write the word “Gay” every week.  It had me asking questions: is it obnoxious to self-identify as gay over and over again?  Does this let people in, or does it shut them out?  Is it embarrassing?  More importantly – is it interesting?

The excitement of working through my story (semi-fictionalized but grounded in my history) gave me the courage to do something so “Gay”.  I found that the more I challenged myself to be truthful the better the comics became.  As I distilled my experiences onto “paper” (I compose on a Mac) I slowly realized how common my feelings and ambitions actually were.  I wasn’t documenting anything revolutionary; instead I was showing the pains and trials of growing up.  Yes, I am recording my little slice of gay history (sorely needed in this holographic age) but I am also retelling the universal story of becoming who you are while slowly piecing together who you are not; writ small, the story of self-acceptance.

Alack! as they say in Shakespeare.  After 2 Seasons and into the middle of the 3rd that initial thrill has become hard, hard work.  On many days I wonder: if the thrill is gone, why continue?  I have struggled to keep it going.  I do have those moments, when the drawings and story transport me, but then it is back to the grindstone.  Do I really want to grind these out?  Was this my intention?

Well, I guess I do.  Every time I am convinced that I should quit, the story calls me back.  I am never too sure that it will all be cohesive (even though the episodes are carefully plotted) but perhaps this blindness is one of the things pulling me along.  I am also conscious that I am recording my bit of gay history – the 80s into the 90s – because one day it may be important for someone, somewhere to make a connection with this period of gay bars, compact discs, Mtv and the AIDS epidemic.  Back then this potent mix felt so fresh and modern.  The music was so good.  The art was so good.  There was a lot to fight for. Of course this was just another decade defining itself.

Nowadays we are past it all.  With social media it’s Flash! Flash! Superstars, one and all.  No small town gay bars, no smalltown boys and girls.  My fear is that we’re all forgetting where we’ve been.  So I write This Gay Life.  I continue.

By now the word doesn’t seem so Gay anymore.  Gay men and women are being absorbed into the mainstream.  As a result our particular struggle, language, culture, and outsider status seems to be vanishing.  I guess it is only natural – the struggle moves on.  Watching this season’s best new show, Transparent (which tells the story of a straight father of 3 grown kids transitioning from male to female) has shown me how the ideas of straight, gay, and queerness can evolve into new and fresh patterns.  Yes!  Here are people like me still looking for love, honor, and acceptance.  Here are characters like me but not
just like me.  And as they tell their stories perhaps I become a little wider, a little deeper, a little more compassionate. The revolution is indeed still on, but it won’t be televised.  It’s streaming on Amazon.

 
(This Gay Life premieres a new episode each Friday.)

4 Comments



    Author


    Mark Lindsey is an artist and writer formerly from the streets of New York City and now residing in the forests of Connect-icut.  He likes it there. 



    Archives

    June 2022
    January 2022
    July 2020
    August 2019
    January 2017
    December 2016
    June 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    March 2013
    July 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    August 2011
    May 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010



    Categories

    All
    Bazaar
    Blurring The Lines
    Bookish
    Certainty
    Cocktail Hour
    Connecticut R & R
    Early Glamour
    Exhale
    Facsimile
    Goo Goo Ga Ga
    I Hate Bling
    Keeping It Fresh
    Michael On The Radio
    My Bowie
    Rabbit Hole
    Savannah Gardens Part 1
    Savannah Gardens Part 2
    Sex And The Rerun
    Slob
    Slow
    Straighter Than Straight
    Tastes Like Summer
    The Middle Ages
    The Plush Moment
    The Rookie
    Unmarried
    Waiters

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.