So I know it’s been a while.

Life inserted itself fully. There was work to be done. There was more writing and editing. Honestly, I don’t know what I am doing most of the time. I know what I like and I write to that. It’s a contemplative and fairly lonely existence. It is not something I talk freely about. Not that I am ashamed of what I do. I’m not. Let’s be clear about that.

I think that I needed some distance from my last long winded entry. Turning 50 was much bigger than I wanted it to be. Not in the celebrations or in the thick of the moment – they were all well and good. They are what made me what I am today – a collection of experiences and moments that have molded (for better or worse) into the man I am today.

There’s the hubby, our girls, the two cats – all the hallmarks of domesticity. Yet I burn with other thoughts and ideas. I have men coming up to me (in my mind – head out of the gutter now) who have their stories to tell. They burn with it too. I try to put passion into what I do. Tweaking it here, imbuing it there.

*sigh*

So I heard back from a publisher yesterday (one that I had to ping several times to get ANYTHING from them – something the hubby kept asking “Do you really want to work with a group of people that you constantly have to chase down?”) The hubby has a point. I write fiction that is predominantly gay in nature – it’s what I know. It’s what I am passionate about because in a sea of how we are not like everyone else out there (the heterosexual norm) I think our voices are important enough that I can’t help but write from that perspective.

Anyway, the publisher didn’t get what I was doing. They took a pass on the material. They didn’t get that it was more of a character study than a standard cookie cutter narrative. They’re obviously looking only at the profile margin. I am not there. I never want it to be about the money. The comments back weren’t even that helpful. They were conflicted (rushed and fantastical vs. prose that broke momentum – I mean, what the fuck do you do with absurd commentary like that?). It was very evident that they didn’t even really read the material or try to understand what I was doing. It is not your standard cookie cutter formulaic m/m romantic fair. It was never intended to be that. I know it’s different – THAT’S WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO! Jesus, it was evident to me that publishers don’t have a fucking clue what the market will bear.

I have given the book to people I’ve just met – who don’t know me well enough to know what I am fully about or about what voice I am trying to put out there. In each and every case thus far I have heard how they have emotively connected with my protagonist. How his inner monologue was what pulled them in. They got it. THAT’S the audience I am after. Not some housewife who wants to be swept cursorily away on some cookie cutter adventure for a few hours on some vapid inane storyline that will be instantly forgotten the moment the last page is flipped.

I have two beta readers who have read it and both are not avid readers. Both have said that my characters stayed with them. They loved that they knew so much about them that they wrote back and said that they felt real to them. They both said that this was the first book they’ve gotten through that they actually read like a fiend to finish it. One of which hasn’t read a book in 20 years. But he read through mine like a bullet train with no signs of stopping – almost in one sitting. So there is something there. I can feel it.

Another one is a young man in Britain who I met through a LGBT support site. He’s smart, bright and funny. He’s also hard on himself. My heart goes out to him in so many ways. He embodies my main character (Elliot) in so many ways. He told me that he identified with him and that the voice is very much where his head is at and it rang true for him. He’s in his early twenties (just beyond where my main character is).  But the publisher doesn’t consider the market really. They look at statistics, they look at data. And I get it that its supposed to be the business of selling. I get that it’s supposed to be about the bottom line.

My work is epically long for the standard M/M fair. I know it’s not an easy work to market. For god sake you’re inside my main characters head listening to how he processes all of the information that keeps coming his way. And he has issues – it’s what drives the drama forward. But they didn’t get that. I know they didn’t. They just aren’t seeing the work for what it is.

“And it’s only one opinion.”  They said. Yeah, it is – and it’s fairly clear that they aren’t invested in finding new talent as they profess to be. They just are struggling to survive selling the same cookie cutter formula (sorry guys/gals I have bought close to 700 books from the genre – as research on what types of stories are out there) and 98.9% of it is pure schlock. It’s absolute rubbish. But they sell what sold yesterday because it’s just GOTTA sell today too. Well, guess what, eventually they will get tired of the same bland Cheerios that you’ve been spoon feeding them. And no, changing the protag from your last best seller from a fireman to a police man doesn’t count as being creative. It’s the same formula. Shake it the FUCK up, will ya? Or the genre will tank.

In short it was a waste of a very long period of time that they could’ve just piped up and owned their fuckedupness in not managing their time well (at one point they actually used deadlines looming as a reason for the delay). They are a small publishing house. If they can’t manage the deadlines they have now and I got added to the mix… see where I am going with that?

So I realized that I’ll either have to keep looking or self-pub it myself. I have author friends who self-pub. It’s not an easy path because the type of stuff I write (while it is deeply rooted in a M/M (sometimes more) relationship slant and thus carries a bit of erotic undercurrent as all relationships do) isn’t mainstream. It isn’t what I think will sell millions and millions of copies.

But is that the type of success I am looking for? I don’t know. I think I’d much rather be successful at putting out something I think is of quality but may fall by and large completely unnoticed by the masses.

I was contemplating all of this when I came upon this little posting on HuffPo Gay Voices on gay men reading 50 Shades of Grey and commenting on it. Gay boys reviewing straight porn/erotica. I thought it was something that would get me to smile a bit. Gay boys have such an aversion to anything lady part wise… so I certainly expected some giggles over that. I got it.

Now here’s the deal – what I didn’t expect was the actual lines from this world-wide bestseller to actually be as badly written as they were. It seemed very amateurish or slightly – awkward when it came to the sex that was portrayed in the book. I am sure that the context helps but the actual inner monologue that they were reading was like some fourteen year old girl was trying to describe a sexual situation.

I was stunned…

See for yourself –

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I like Neil McNeil’s stuff on YouTube. He’s clever and he’s certainly crafty in telling his amusing slices of life (from a gay man’s perspective) and it’s light, it’s funny but there’s also a thread of really bright and innovative moments where he’s pulling back the curtain on how gay men survive in this hetero-normative world we’re immersed in. I think he’s pretty fucking brilliant and I love that he’s unabashedly gay in a big way. I admire his courage and his fortitude to get his stuff out there. He believes in what he does, he’s passionate about it, he doesn’t accept that someone else may not – or rather, he is unfazed by it all.

Then I think about my musical muse for Angels of Mercy (Jay Brannan) and how he doesn’t have a big record company backing him up. He doesn’t have a marketing department or a promotional touring company to do all of his stuff. It’s just him cranking out what he does because he’s passionate about it. And his passion is infectious. It permeates wherever he is.

I need to take a page out these men’s book. They strive forward. They press when the world presses back. So I will continue to develop Angels because I believe in what I am doing. I believe in the nature of the work. I take heart that the people who have read it want to read more (it ends on a cliff hanger – which by the way I was told by a publisher that series of that nature are not really what’s selling). Yeah, that’s why sequels in film and serialized television doesn’t work. That’s why the Potter series languished in obscurity.

Elliot and Marco will see the light. Even if I have to figure it all out on my own. I may not command a huge audience from it all, but in the end they will be unabashedly mine. They will be my boys/men – telling their own stories. Why? Because they come to me in dreams – both waking and in sleep. They have things to say. They have surprises even for me.

The hubby commented that Thomas Wolfe (who wrote the hubby’s favorite book – Look Homeward Angel amongst other things) that he had to shop his masterpiece around and really didn’t understand what he wrote in its entirety until he sat down with the editor who he would continue to work with during his writing career and they discovered the absolute breadth of what he’d assembled. Even he didn’t know what was in there. He just struck a creative vein and went with it.

That’s what Elliot and Marco are to me. Life’s blood in writing. They feed me in ways I had never imagined. I have to finish their tale; I have no choice.

Will it ultimately find an audience (of any kind)? I don’t know. I may never know (hell, I’m 50 – it could take several years or decades before it finds people who get me and what I am on about). I may get recognized long after I’ve expired from this world. I may never see the success. Or it could languish for all time. But ultimately, does it matter?

I need to tell their story no matter what. That’s what matters. It’s the only thing that matters.

Elliot is a sea of conflicting emotions. He’s an out gay kid who is shy and sticks to the shadows to survive the hell that is high school. It isn’t until the brightest light from that hellish world sees him and says – you’re mine – that he has to deal what a life in the light means. It isn’t easy for him – for them both.

But then again, isn’t the work we have to strive for it worth it? Doesn’t it make the attaining and the having all the more sweeter because of it?

So I’ll press on – navigating waters I am not sure I know how to do. But I’ll press forward and figure it out. I have a brain, I have friends and family for support. What more do I need to make a go of it?

Not a damned thing…

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Drive | Elliot Donahey | Jay Brannan | Marco Sforza | Motivation | Neil McNeil | Novel Writing | Positive Thinking | Publishing | Self-Publishing | Storytelling | Success By What Means | Traditional Publishing

31 Days of Brannan –  Day 22

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Today’s Entry (not playlist) – postcard for my friend sasha from the golden gate bridge

So for today’s entry I wanted something different. We’re just a little over a week away from Jay’s concert in San Francisco. I wanted something personal from him. It’s not meant for us. It’s a love letter to a lost friend. But I get it. Living here you always have that feeling of how much loss there is in this beloved city of mine. San Francisco is an amazing place to live. It’s also a difficult place to live in. It straddles the line between euphoric and complete indifference – between decadence and oblivion.

She’s been called the Paris of the Pacific. I’ve never really thought of her as having a french appeal. She always felt distinctly English to me. Perhaps it’s the cold that whips through the city – reminding me of London in winter. Although you can get that blast of bone chilling cold – you can’t help but feel the indifference. But then, on a fog laden night, the way the city looks – haunting, as if all points in time collide into one moment. It’s truly magical. It’s those moments that I live for in this place I call home.

So back to Jay. To say his work carries a degree of genius is probably one of the greatest understatements I can ever put to digital paper. But that genius, that savoir-fare in his prose, the brilliance of his ability to connect to the root of our collective experiences and give the horrors, the loneliness, the despair but most of all the small seed of hope, it has to spring from somewhere.

I have always appreciated Jay’s brutal honesty. I aspire to that level of honesty – if only with myself. I am not there yet. But I keep trying. Jay’s music reminds me of where I am with myself.

It’s also why my first novel is deeply rooted and inspired by him. My boys go through some major pain. It was important for me to get the ‘will they get together’ question out of the way from the very first chapter. Putting your love interests together has always been the end goal of any tale. It’s the usual formula. Especially with the M/M romance genre. But my story was taking a different tract. My boys are together from the very first chapter – but that is where their adventure begins. Coming together is the least of their concerns. With what they go through in the telling of their tale, staying together is the hard part for them. Not because they aren’t devoted to each other. They are. Completely. Utterly. Profoundly.

But will it be enough? That is where the drama is rooted.

Jay poses the question in Rob Me Blind (which is about a boy who wants the boy of his dreams but ultimately doesn’t think his love is worth offering to the man he is attracted to) – in the song he even says that he expects when compared to anyone else he thinks the man of his dreams would chose another.

So I come back to Jay’s entry today that I am highlighting. It is the last few moments – the pain that is so evident in his eyes. Experiences that are solely his own – though they may be shared with his missing friend Sasha and through YouTube with all of us, but that pain is his. So here is my takeaway: Thank you Sasha. Jay says that you were instrumental in saving him from what appears to be a very dark place in his past. So, from all of us, thank you. We never met. We never had the pleasure, I am sure, to experience your light in this world. But through Jay’s heartfelt postcard to you, I can’t help but feel my own sense of gratitude for your existence – however brief and pained though it may have been. I am only too sorry we couldn’t all be there for you. Or like Jay, that we couldn’t say thank you for helping him when he needed it.

We don’t know the depth of what Jay was feeling – he only hints at it – but I do know he’s also commented about anxiety attacks he suffers from time to time. I’ve seen the tweets. It’s clear he feels things deeply. Painfully so  – which he layers in his compositions. Writing is cathartic – whether it is in standard prose or via a musical composition. It’s the same thing. It allows a release of emotions you carry with you. For me it’s the voices of the boys that inhabit my world. They are born of my own experiences, of my hopes and fears.

There’s a lot of me in them. As I am sure there is a lot of Jay’s experiences in what he gifts us with in each of his creations/compositions. But even with all of that, this creative outlet, the pain is still there.

Is it enough? You hope that it is. You hope that there are others in your life that will be there for you when you need it most. Sasha was there for Jay. And in a very pivotal way, was there for all of us. Can you imagine all of these treasures that Jay has penned that would have never been if he wallowed in his dark place? As the artist in me, I shutter to think about that.

So, though we’ve never met, though I’ve never had the pleasure, thank you Sasha. For helping my favorite artist take another step when he possibly didn’t think he could.

So I too will add my thanks to Jay’s. Though I can’t claim any personal knowledge of what transpired, believe me it is no less heartfelt in that whatever gesture of support you made in his past. You helped him not feel like ‘such a freak’ when he needed to hear it most.

So thank you, in as heartfelt a way a stranger can express and mean it.

And just so you know… no matter what it is Jay, you’re not a freak cause I got news for you – we all are. I’ve been around the block in so many ways (had a very colorful life to draw upon) and I know from freaks. And we all are freaks. Anyone tells you they aren’t – yeah, well, that’s a BIG ol’ sign that they’re MORE of a freak than you’ll ever be.

Hell, normalcy – whatever the fuck that is – is freakish in its own right. The human condition is a collection of freakish moments that we all try to make sense of, try to bring order to the chaos. When it works for us, that’s great. We’re happy. When it doesn’t – some form of damage ensues and we try to cope. Some do better than others. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not worth the love and admiration of others. I don’t claim to know what you’re all about. We only have your postings on YouTube, your website and thankfully, your music. But what I have witnessed, what I have heard, what I’ve been grateful for seeing, is that you are a very complex and deeply feeling man. A creative and emotive individual. Worthy of every thing people say about you (even if all we really know is your public persona).

So thank you for hanging in there. For working through things with your music. It’s clear that your voice is needed in this world or your voice wouldn’t have carried as far as it has. And aside from all of that, I wouldn’t have my boys if it weren’t for you. My craft is blossoming because of Rob Me Blind. The album that meant so much to you when you released it – inspired me and my own journey. That was an unintended gift from you, I know that. I am not delusional enough to think that it was anything but fortuitous that I discovered you back in 2008. I know that. And I am grateful for that discovery of mine.

One that without Sasha I might not have ever had. I wouldn’t have had my boys. My wonderfully sexually emotive and deeply flawed boys of Mercy. My Angels of Mercy. And I just can’t imagine my world without them. The little world of Mercy, California that I invented – that only exists in my head and on the pages of my forthcoming series.

So thank you Sasha – you’ve touched lives you never knew were out there. But I am indebted to you just the same.

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Brannan as Bard | Catharsis in Art | Jay Brannan | Postcard from the Soul | Storytelling | writing

31 Days of Brannan – Day 17

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Today’s Playlist –  Desert Rose  (work in progress)

I think I am fond of this entry for two reasons.

1) It’s a work in progress – writing my own series of novels I get this. I get the desire to put it out there. You want some sort of acknowledgment for your efforts. It’s the battle between creation and acceptance.

2) It’s creation – nothing is more stirring to me than an artist creating.

So I am half-way through my oeuvre, my collective thoughts and gratitude for Brannan’s work as a muse through my own writing experience. His work has fed my own. He never knew it, was never his intention. I don’t think it would be even if he knew he had inspired someone else. He’s simply too busy creating his own worlds, his own emotive and captivating spells with which to cast upon we poor hungry souls. Okay, maybe I am taking it a bit over the top.

Maybe…

But part of me doesn’t think so. Here’s the skinny on why that is.

Art is meant to inspire. Art, when done right, should evoke a response. Jay’s work has done that for me.

Angels of Mercy is a series that I am deeply engrossed in. I am “all in” with my own creative process but I would be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to Jay for giving me a well to pull from. Sure, my characters don’t have anything directly related to his work (other than my protagonist happens to be a fan of his work). But that part I did intentionally – it was my nod to say thank you to Jay for giving me something to work from. His art inspired my own. I feel a kindred spirit in that he does everything on his own. No big record company, no big shot promoter, no real corporate support of any kind. Just an out gay artist hitting the pavement, the airwaves and the net in any way he can to get his stuff out there. I am deeply inspired by that journey of his.

That’s why I am doing this.

That’s why I feel a deep sense of gratitude to him. An indebtedness that I will never be able to repay. His work gave me the momentum to reach for my own. For Angels, he is my muse. He never asked for it, isn’t a part of it directly in any way. But that’s okay. I’m good with that. He’s a busy guy. He’s got a life to lead. I’ll continue to admire from afar and be further inspired by his crafty and brilliant prose. One writer breathing life into another’s work. What greater compliment can one give to another?

I see your work. It gives me the desire to seek my own. It’s truly as simple as that.

So thank you, Jay. It’s a bright and brilliant thing you’ve got going on there. I am bang over the moon that my 50th will be celebrated with close friends and family that night at Bottom of the Hill here in San Francisco. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to do that. My writing muse – simply doing what he does best: spin tales, craft worlds, elicit emotive provocation from those of us who are fortunate to be there – sharing in your journey in a small but vital way to keep you going as you strive for being the best at what you do.

I thank you.

My characters, imaginary though they may be, thank you.

My creative process as I work through Angels of Mercy thanks you. Rob Me Blind is being played to death in iTunes (along with your other work) when I wrote volume one of the work. I don’t mind. That album is the inner emotive core of Elliot Donahey, my out shy gay boy in a semi-hostile environment who suddenly finds himself dating the highest profile jock on campus. A mouse thrust into a very bright light in a room full of cats. It’s a dark work, an edgy work, it’s brooding (as only gay boys can be when danger lurks around every corner). I don’t pull any punches in their relationship. It’s all out there for everyone to see. It’s unapologetic, it’s in your face. But that’s just how these boys are. This is how they spoke to me (and I get how cray-cray that may sound). But as an author writing gay lit fic, your characters are all you have to work with. If they aren’t speaking to you, then you aren’t in the right frame of mind to create.

So thanks, Jay. A deeply profound thanks. This is why I am spending this month leading up to your concert in SF on your work. Because it gave me my own.

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Artist as Muse | Brannan as Bard | emotive provocation | Jay Brannan | peerless writing | prose | writing

31 Days of Brannan – Day 11

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 Today’s Playlist – Denmark

So I am finally getting around to my absolute favorite Brannan piece. More than any other this one speaks to me. First off, because of the title. Having been to Denmark and falling madly in love with that country, I was over the moon to find a song on Rob Me Blind when it was released that bore it as a title. I’ve got a thing for all things Scandinavian. Even married myself a man of real Viking descent – seriously – straight down the line from Blue Tooth himself (yes, he really existed, folks – he’s not just a piece of technology that we all swear by).

So yeah, when I watch Vikings on History Channel – it’s sort of a religion for me. My entire Fae Wars series stems from the Norse origins of the Fae. So yeah – Denmark. It was the first damned song I played when I bought the album on iTunes.

The romantic leanings in the opening verse grabbed me hard and refused to let go. The imagery was tight and emotive – deftly measured and realized.

Hey there, baby, have you got a light?
I’m not smoking, but I’m afraid I might
Have fallen down a dark carpal tunnel and landed in your kiss
And in the water from your big, brown eyes, I swam away from a quarter life crisis

I was listening to this song when the idea of Angels of Mercy really began to take form. Where Rob Me Blind was where Elliot was firmly rooted – having something that you aren’t sure will remain yours, Denmark was where I realized I could root Marco, my stalwart and true to his word jock boyfriend.

It was important for me to write this series with the premise in mind. I wanted to pose the question –

What if the geeky out gay kid got the number one jock on campus –

what then?

And it was important that Marco’s character was the strong one. The one who never wavers. He is the rock that Elliot will come to realize he must cling to if he wants to keep what Marco has become to him. But being the gay kid on campus who keeps to the shadows isn’t an easy thing to deal with when you’re dating the most prominent guy on campus. True enough, Brannan uses brown eyes in the verse and neither of my boys are but, I attributed it to literary license when it came to my story. The sentiment still rang true.

In fact, I buried elements from Denmark into the prose of my book whenever Marco was near Elliot. My way of keeping him rooted to the song.

You told me horror stories in room 426
Of wooden boys falling for girls made out of matchsticks
I shoulda strapped you to me with padlocks and glue
So I could spend the rest of my life wearing nothing but socks… and you

My boys are very sexual (as all teens are when left to themselves). I know I was all over the fucking map (literally) when I left my virginal days behind me. I was fairly insatiable about it. We were boys – we didn’t have to worry, like our straight counterparts, about pregnancies and the like – so we just had at it whenever the moment came up, so to speak. Marco and Elliot spend a fair amount of time having sex in the book. But I was careful to use it when it propelled the story forward, taking the boys deeper into the revelations of what being gay and pleasing another man meant for each other.

But it is in the chorus where Marco’s character truly comes to the fore. This is where my guy grounds himself. He even paraphrases Brannan’s line back to Elliot (even if he has no idea that Elliot is a fan of Brannan’s work – it just seemed the right thing to do. If I were a gay teen, I probably would be celeb crushing hard on Brannan myself. Hell, the hubby thinks I do now – well, not really but he teases me about it from time to time).

We got a lot of maybes to muddle through
But my emotional rabies are fixed on crashing through to you
Though governments and distance stand between us, well be fine
Cuz I’m gonna tear this world apart, baby, until you’re mine

This song is deeply moving, not only rhythmically – which Brannan expands his musicality greatly in this (and the other pieces on Rob Me Blind) piece. It has a drive that serves as the emotive undercurrent. The rhythm of the piece is what really helps sell the song (here we get Brannan’s acoustic version – which is deeply emotive and alluring all in it’s own right). I really fucking LOVE the shit out of this song.

And here we come to the next verse which, for me, is how Marco sees Elliot. Elliot is the magic of life to him. The boy moves about in his world and Marco can’t help but be spellbound. It happens from the first moment he spies him on campus – but all doesn’t prove to be an easy road to the love of his life. Elliot, being the out gay kid, has been taunted, teased and abused by jocks on campus. It’s just the way things work. Just when Marco thinks he can come to Elliot and profess his love he overhears what Elliot thinks of jocks in general. And more to the point, how Marco himself has become the poster child for everything bad about the jocks who have hurt him in the past – even if Marco has never said or done one malicious thing to him in the past. How could he? He’s been secretly in love with him the whole time.

You’ll be an artist, I’ll be your hands
Well go the farthest from our lives we can
I’ll swim the ocean, whisk you away
Til were in Denmark, you’ll hear me say

Love the last verse of this song. It holds every element that I imbued in my boys. Elliot is the artist, Marco is the hand who guides him. Marco keeps telling Elliot that once they’re free of their high school days, he’s gonna whisk Elliot far away from their small town life.

They just gotta get there first.

So yeah, Denmark. For me, my first novel, and the boys who inhabit it, we are all deeply rooted and grow from the lines of this song. Jay couldn’t have given me a greater gift than that – and it isn’t lost on me that it never was the point for him. He has his own story about the song – and now, I have mine.

Denmark – I fucking love the country, and now I’ve got an anthem – a theme song for the series. Thanks Mr. Brannan, I’ll always be in your debt.

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Artist as Muse | Boys are Messy | Brannan as Bard | Denmark | Jay Brannan | M/M Romance | Vikings

Kicking off 31 Days of Brannan…

Robbing Me Blind

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Disclaimer – Okay, first off – I can be a bit of a fanboy when it comes to Jay Brannan. No, strike that – I’m more of a teen gay boy with a darkly amorous affection for my pop hero. No wait, it’s worse than that. I am a gushing teenaged Japanese Hentai fangirl when it comes to Jay Brannan. But it’s compartmentalized. I swear. I am a happily (ahem, older) married gay man (it’s even legal) whose hubby just shakes his head but allows me my teen-girl giddiness over all things Brannan.

And there’s good reason too.

You see, I am a musician (classically trained so my genre of choice is not the same as Jay’s but I’m cool with that. In fact, I am better than cool with it.)  Jay is my creative escape. He’s been my go-to when I want to become inspired. And aside from his music (or maybe because of it) I have come to appreciate him in the best possible light – I mean, he’s one sexy guy  (why hasn’t someone snatched that up has got to be one of the biggest damned mysteries in life). But aside from the way the camera obviously loves him, Mr. Brannan has a brilliant mind and is an incredible wordsmith. As an author known to do a bit of word smithing of my own,  Jay is bang on brilliant with the prose. Nothing short of it.

So why the 31 days of all things Brannan?

Well. I suppose I should fess up here and explain how Jay’s world of all things darkly amorous (“the constant stream of longing” as E. M. Forester put it so brilliantly in Maurice) entered my world.

I found Jay as a reference on some blog back in 2008 for up and coming out gay artists. I was in a particularly bored mood with the musical offerings out there. I mean as gay artists went I had Levi Kraus (who I still love immensely). and Ivri Lieder (another fave), but then I happened upon Jay’s first offerings and a small write up on some blog that I can’t even find any more extolling the amazing gifts and talents that Mr. Brannan had at his disposal. The write-up so intrigued me that I immediately went out and bought whatever I could find online from him (which if I remember at the time was precious little – I think one album (the fiery and brilliant goddamned) and maybe a single or two. So I paid (yes, paid – because as a fellow artist and musician I just can’t see my way to NOT support them monetarily for their endeavors) for whatever I could get my digital hands on.

And then, horror of horrors – they languished for three years unplayed. {Insert mental and emotive flogging here – I still do it to this day over this incredibly stupid period in my life). I liken it to being a parched man working his way out of the desert and being offered the tallest glass of cool crystal clear water and then setting it on the counter and not taking so much as a sip. Yeah, dip-shit moron over here: party of one.

Anyway – so there was that ostensibly bleak artistic period where I immersed myself in my classical world of operas and the like and Jay languished (paid for, mind you) on my iPod, iPhone, and iTunes.

I was living in San Diego at the time and that part of California can suck any artistry right out of a person. So flash forward three years (can it be a flash anything if it takes 3 years?). I relocated with the hubby, daughter and granddaughter to San Francisco (where I truly belong). I’m in the gym and I had put together a song list of out gay artists to keep me motivated as I did my workout because we’re gay and it’s the law.

So of course I had Jay lumped in with the techno and dance stuff (I think by now I had a plethora of gay men crooning in my ear one way or another). If you were gay, a male then you got on the playlist – it was just that simple.

And then ‘Housewife‘ played and I simply stopped… (I wasn’t on the treadmill or that could’ve been disastrous).

But the music just caught me and I was riveted to a world that I had grown up in. Here was a song that spoke of dreams and desires that I had worked my whole life to achieve and it was as if he’d plucked them right out of my existence. I know, a common truth when done right can do this in a song. Musician myself, remember? So I get it but it was that I was completely in my groove of I think Colton Ford or Johnny McGovern or hell, it might’ve been Jason Walker wailing like the righteous black woman he so wants to be (you go Jason… I am still a fan). The point was that I was in dance land groove from hell when Jay’s Housewife kicked me square in the emotive rubber parts. I remember sitting down on a weight bench and just listened to the song.

It was a transformative moment in that, within those words I suddenly found the passion to write some of my own.

Now I have always been the type of artist that doesn’t feel lessened by the greatness of someone else’s talent. Indeed, instead I am inspired to achieve other things that I may have only mused about inwardly, never giving them any hope of solidity in my life. But Housewife changed that. I found I wanted to add my own voice to the gay man’s journey for love and acceptance.

So I started to practice my craft, started honing in on what I wanted to accomplish – how I wanted to develop my characters and watch them take root and grow. While Jay had music as his venue I was turning to writing novels as my path. And words matter, they have weight, they have purpose. I read voraciously any and all things I could get my hands on (so thankful that all of the books can live on one e-reader device).

Jay’s music became the soundtrack for that. His YouTube channel gave me emotive inspiration to try other things. And for that I am truly grateful. And at my age, turning the train around ain’t such an easy thing to do. Old dog’s and all that…

Anyway, I get a big ol’ shit eating grin whenever one artist inspires another. That’s such a cool thing when it happens and everyone can admit it and accept it for the great gift it is and grow and (hopefully) prosper. Well, it is in my book anyway.

So… Rob Me Blind.

Here is the crux of why I am focusing on this song as my first of 31 days of Brannan. Rob Me Blind is a brilliant album in it’s own right. It’s thought provoking, it’s definitely emotive, and profound in how Jay imbues with such clarity and precision the darker qualities and aspects of love and loss. It would be simplistic to say that Jay’s work borders on maudlin. I don’t see it that way at all. Sure there are some dark things permeating every aspect of it. But in that I see such hope and striving for acceptance – and in this age of marriage equality where so many of us are literally fighting to establish legal protections and hopefully acceptance of our relationships, Brannan’s recent works are completely evocative of the time.

Rob Me Blind  is also special to me in that it gave me the gift of my main character in my current story that I’ve been slaving away on for the past six months.

Rob Me Blind was playing in the car as I drove back from picking up lunch for the family as I sat at the intersection to get onto Hwy 101 – I suddenly had a vision of a young teenaged boy, out, gay and terrified to be noticed. Keeping to the shadows in high school because that was how he figured he survived – if no one noticed him at all. Only he never thought in a million years that the star quarterback of his high school football team had been eyeing him for the past two years in school – too afraid to come close, to seek him out. And when he does, Elliot (my shy out gay kid) is not the same ever again.

His boyfriend is magical to him, and he doesn’t know why he says that he is Elliot’s and Elliot is his. He thinks he’ll get through it and enjoy it while it lasts – always an eye to when it will fall apart (never really accepting that when Marco (the QB) says it’s real he means just that). I wanted the jock in the story for once to be the solid one – the one who never wavers, and the out gay kid to be the doubter. Rob Me Blind had a couple of lines in the song that completely distilled that for me. That song gave my first novel it’s emotive core.

From there out the story developed quite quickly. It took me a number of months to hone and whittle down to what it is today. Rob Me Blind gave me something more than entertainment. It gave me these two boy’s voices. Voices I had to put down on digital paper. Voices that sprang from those words of another brilliant writer. Voices I couldn’t deny. So in many respects, my Marco and Elliot owe their literary lives to another artist altogether. And for that I am deeply grateful. Whenever I needed a emotive recharge – this song provided it and got me through.

Writing can be a very painful, cathartic process (even when it’s fiction) – probably because we write what we know (if we’re smart about it) and that can be a very intimidating prospect. You’re putting your shit out there for others to read and comment on – and that can feel very daunting to the point were you can become discouraged to go on. It’s frightening, it’s dangerous in that as you write you discover things long buried and tucked away. But somehow, Jay’s rich tapestry of words (particularly on this album) got me through. I even have Elliot as a fanboy of Jay’s in the book. It just seemed fitting when you have so many teenaged kids (okay mostly girls, but the gay boys, if they were anything like I was back then,  are in there I am sure would’ve been just as enamored with someone like Jay who spoke to them and of their dreams and nightmares). So I get to live out my teenaged dreams vicariously through Elliot. And I get to say ‘thank you’ to Jay for being the incredible and brilliant artist he is.

As an older gay man I am comforted in seeing such brilliance and poise come in one amazing package. It gives me hope that our collective gay history is in such capable hands to keep the story going.

I’ve never had the opportunity to see Jay perform live – due to schedule conflicts and the like  (my daughter bought me tickets this summer for my birthday present which follows two days after he rolls through SF this time around) so I am looking forward to the prospect of seeing him for the first time. I have the Live at Eddie’s Attic album and I’ve seen the numerous video postings of his live performances on his YouTube channel so I know I am in for one helluva treat.  I couldn’t think of any better way to ring in another year of slogging through this thing we call life.

I have a line in my book that is my meager attempt to capture the emotive quality that Jay expresses in his work – at a particularly poignant moment where Marco reveals to Elliot the way his love has history when he thinks of Elliot and how it has weight in his life for everything that is his greatest love – Elliot is overwhelmed with absolute wonder that someone so confident and successful in who he is could even take notice of a boy like him that they end up in a ‘tangle of limbs and leaves, of kisses and unspoken dreams…‘ on the forest floor behind Elliot’s home.

Jay’s world to me is all of that – especially the kisses and unspoken dreams we all carry in life. I can’t wait until we see what future melilifulous dreams Jay has in store for us. Hey the new album drops in 13 days so it won’t be long…

Hit up his store over at HelloMerch. There’s some great items on offer and it will support this guy in getting his message out there to the masses.

So begins my 31 days of all things Brannan.

Please check out his site (jaybrannan.com) and be sure to check out his touring dates (posted to his site and on Facebook). He does all of his own promotions and gets the fans to help out wherever and whenever we can. I just want to do my part to support such an amazing musical talent and a gift to us all.

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Jay Brannan | Rob Me Blind