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Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
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Too Busy To Write
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@HOME. Well it's that time again. Summer is almost here in Phoenix and I'm not spending practically zero time in front of my computer. The past weekend was spent doing yardwork, trimming the hedge, and wiring new accent lights in the front of our house. Justin and I did manage a little time away on Saturday evening to join all our friends in celebrating Andrea's 30th birthday at Los Dos Molinas. Although I literally did not touch the computer all weekend. Anyway, I'm still alive and kicking and I apologize but the posts may be a little sporadic for a bit while I finish getting things done around here. Cheers!
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Going P.B.Loco ... Or Maybe Just Lunch
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@HOME. Justin and I went to lunch with Anthony and Tracy today. Justin and I work with Tracy and his partner Bruce, and we met Anthony a few weeks ago through Tracy and Bruce during the Phoenix Pride weekend festivities. We all hung out at the Adonis party, and what a fabulous time we had.
Anyway, Anthony drove down, picked the 3 of us up from work and we headed over to the Left Seat for lunch. Now mind you, the Left Seat is a small dive of a restaurant over off the commercial runway of the Phoenix Airport. It's a scary, yet kind of cute, restaurant and lounge. The food there isn't too bad either. Anthony brought Justin and I a jar of P.B.Loco Dark Chocolate Raspberry Peanut Butter. "OH MY GOD CHOLOCATE ... I LOVE CHOCOLATE" ;-) That was really sweet of him. We tried it tonight and it's yummy. Anthony and his partner Keith are about to open up 3 locations of the P.B.Loco chain here in the Phoenix area. The stores will sell "Gourmet Flavor-Infused Peanut Butters." I think it sounds like such a great concept and I know they will do well. (God ... This entry is starting to sound like an infomercial) Anthony just moved back here from Vancouver to get things started with the chain, while Keith continues to slave away at his job in Vancouver until he can move back in the fall.
Lunch was quite fab but much too short. It was a beautiful 80 degrees outside and I always hate having to go back to the office on such a nice day. Ah well, such is life. I really like Tracy, Bruce and Anthony. Justin and I are both looking forward to spending more time getting to know them all a little better. As always I'm looking forward to this weekend. That's all for now kids. Cheers!Labels: P.B.Loco
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Phoenix Corporate Pride Group Meeting
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@HOME. Last evening was the monthly meeting of the Greater Phoenix Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce's (GPGLCC) Corporate Pride group. The Corporate Pride group is a network of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) employee resource groups (ERG) at corporate, government, and higher education employers throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. Our mission is to provide a forum to exchange ideas and best practices for the mutual benefit of all member ERGs; To provide a networking opportunity for GLBT business and academic professionals; and to encourage stronger ties between our employers and the GLBT community with the goal of increased business for our employers and increased support for our community.
We typically meet on the third Wednesday of the month, and this meeting was held at Hamburger Mary's in Phoenix. Usually the meetings consist of a 1/2 hour of networking and then a guest speaker. Our guest speakers last night were from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). They included Linda Elliot, local retired business woman, member of the HRC Board of Governors and chair of the HRC Phoenix Steering Committee, and Donna Rose, local business woman, author and member of the HRC Business Council. They spoke about the HRC and the HRC's Corporate Equality Index which is a tool to measure how equitably companies are treating their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors
The meeting was very informative and inspiring. Donna Rose spoke about the Equality Index, the changes that the HRC Business Council has been making to the Index questions, and finally about Transgender rights and issues in our workplace. For anyone who has not seen Donna speak or has not read Donna's book 'Wrapped in Blue', Donna is a post-op MTF Transsexual with a great story to tell. You can find out more information about Donna on her website at http://www.donnarose.com and more information about the HRC's Corporate Equality Index at http://www.hrc.org.
Justin and I had a good time and as always it was nice to be able to hang out with some of our fellow GLBT co-workers and friends. We also met Mel, a friend of Donna, who was visiting Phoenix for the weekend from Philadelphia. She too was very interesting and it was funny to find out that she was living very close to where I'm originally from in Pennsylvania. It always seems like such a small world. Many thanks to Curtis, owner of Hamburger Mary's, for allowing us to once again have our meeting in the restaurant and also for the great food and appetizers he provided.
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My Blog Posts On Gay.Com
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@HOME. This is really sweet ... So last week I was contacted by the Metro editor at Gay.Com / Planet Out regarding my Blog. Somewhere he came across it and wanted to know if I would be interested becoming a contributor by having some of my Blog entries published in the new Metro section of the Gay.Com site. Of course I said yes and we spent the rest of the week going back and forth with the details. They are expanding the Metro section and adding more "On the town" and "city scene"-style articles. He told me they would be interesting in metro-appropriate topics I write such as local play reviews, a night out bar-hopping, the gay pride celebration, or anything else tied to the local scene. This would include Phoenix and any cities I write about while traveling.
So anyway, the agreements were signed today and my first article, my weekend Blog entry, was published on the site this afternoon. Check out the article here! I know it's not really that big of a deal, but I'm pretty stoked about it. Alright I'm off to relax for the evening. Cheers!
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Phoenix Night Out
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@HOME. Another Saturday night spent on the Phoenix scene, or what we like to call our 'Saturday Night Gay Circuit'. Actually we ventured out from normal this time. Justin and I headed up to the city for dinner. Not really knowing where we were headed, the choices seemed endless. Even so we usually end up at one of our usuals, but not tonight. I remembered a small little place called TexAZ Grill on 16th street and Bethany Home that I used to frequent when I lived on 16th street. They have the best Chicken Fried Steak in all of Phoenix. I know what you thinking, I probably didn't need the Chicken Fried Steak, but it was quite tasty. Justin and I both ordered it. So after dinner we decided to drive around a little looking for some of the houses that were sale in the Central Phoenix area. We printed out a listing before we left home so that we could check out some of the areas. Not that we're going to turn around and buy a house up there tomorrow, however we are considering making the jump to the Downtown area in the next year or so.
Following our house search we decided to head down to Amsterdams. It wasn't as crowded as usual, but that may because we got there a little earlier then normal. We immediately ran into Mark and chatted with him for a few. He is (or was) one of the barbacks there and last night was his last night. He was in a great mood and enjoying himself. We didn't really know anyone, so we pretty much just stood around for a while people watching while we enjoyed our fabulous Mandarin and Seven's. Around midnight we decided to pack it up at Amsterdams and head over to Charlies.
It's weird to go into Charlies now because the city is making room for the Light Rail line which is going to go right down Camelback Road to Central Avenue. This means the front of Charlies is actually going to get shaved off here shortly. The building next door has been completely torn down already and most of the building on either side of Charlies are abandoned and fenced off. I guess Charlies is holding off as long as possible before shutting down the front part. From what I hear they are going to be able to keep the back part of the bar open and have bought the lot next to them so they will eventually expand as well. It will most likely be a mess for them for a while since they will have to wait out the construction of the Light Rail itself, but once that happens I think they will be in a prime location for more business since the rail is going to have a stop right in front of the bar.
At Charlies we ran into the usual crowd, our friends, Don, Paul, and Brett. We also saw some other familiar faces in the crowd. Charlies is really turning into the place to be on Saturday nights. They turn into a dance club starting at 1:45 am and all the boys from earlier at Amsterdams slowly started to make their way to Charlies. We stayed until around 2:30 am and then decided it was time to head home for the evening.
Not too much of an adventure this weekend, but it was a fun time nonetheless. Alright, that's it for my update of last night, we didn't take and pictures this time so I apologize for not having anything to post. (I'm always afraid I'm going to annoy people by taking pictures in a bar, so I usually don't unless I'm with friends. Last time I was taking pictures Justin and I had several people come over and try to pick us up because they thought we were tourists. They just couldn't understand why locals would be taking pictures ... My point exactly) I'm off to finish up cleaning around the house. Cheers!
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Open Mind and the Non-Homophobic E-Five Girls
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@HOME. So after the 'Queer' debate I followed the link from Jude's Blog to OpenMind and joined the site. On their links page they have some great Anti-Hate, Race & Ethnicity Related, GLBT Related, and other resources. Check it out if you haven't done so yet. Ok, so after checking out OpenMind and getting my 'Stop The Hate' webband, I found this image today on the E-Five Girls web site and thought it was a pretty cool image ...
Kudos to the E-Five girls for trying to help stop the hate. If you can't see the image it states: 'If you're a Racist, Sexist, Anti-Semitic, Homophobic, Bigot you're not welcome here!" I have to agree, you aren't welcome here either.
Alright I'm out of here to clean up and go do something productive for the day. It's officially 91 degrees outside right now so I'm going to go outside and enjoy it. I think we are going to head out for our usually Saturday night gay circuit, so I'm sure I'll have more to post later tonight! Cheers!
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Is The Word 'Queer' Offensive?
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@HOME. Ok so my fellow 'Queer Friendly' blogger, Jude, brought to light this question with me and her readers. 'Is the word Queer still considered to be offensive?" I posted this comment on her Blog, but I think it's valuable, so I'll repost it on here as well ...
Since you asked, here is your language lesson for the day. Queer is one of those words we consider to be a 'reclaimed' word. For many years it used to have highly offensive overtones and was considered to be a slur, but for the most part that has changed in our community. Activist Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people and groups such as Act Up! started to use the word 'Queer' over the past two decades as a positive term of self-reference. This use really reclaimed the word for us as a reference for the entire LGBT community as a whole.
We find it more common these days to use the term 'Gay' in reference only to homosexual men. Many Lesbian women, Bisexuals or Transgendered people do not want to be referred to as 'Gay' anymore, even though we sometimes still use the term 'Gay Community' to be completely inclusive. These days 'LGBT' is the politically correct way to refer to the entire community. 'Queer' is also acceptable for this use and is becoming more mainstream since things such as 'Queer as Folk' the TV Show, and 'Queer' based websites have become mainstream as well. It really comes down to usage. As long as it's not intentionally used for the purpose of trying to be a slur or offensive, it's not. No one is going to think that an image saying 'Queer Friendly' on your site is offensive at all, they will actually probably think it's pretty cool for you to put something like that up. However, if you go walking up the street yelling 'you stupid Queers' then people would probably find that offensive :-)
Everyone has their language choices these days, and it seems like 'Gay' only refers to homosexual men, 'Lesbian' only refers to homosexual women and so on, it's all really dependent on the individual and their choices. Certain people prefer one word over the other, and it's still pretty confusing to even most of us in the LGBT community.
I personally used to hate the word 'Queer' because of the way my father always used it as a negative reference such as 'your cousin is a queer ...' It used to make me cringe, but gradually as things started to change and the community started to embrace the word, I became completely comfortable with it and also in turn myself. I use the word in several places and links on my own blog and website.
So I say, don't be afraid of the word, as we have reclaimed it and embraced it, but more importantly, thanks for your caring and support!
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Golden Gate Chinese Restaurant
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@HOME. Justin and I went over to the Golden Gate Chinese Restaurant which is just a few blocks from our house in Mesa. Just as an FYI for anyone in the Phoenix area, Golden Gate is the Best Chinese Restaurant in all of the valley. We had Eggrolls, Fried Dumplings, Kung Pao Shrimp and Garlic Chicken. As always the food was incredible and I'm stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005 |
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The Matrix and Philosophy
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@HOME.  Ok so I finally finished my last book, The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell last week and I'm proud to say that I'm now happy. Actually I wished I would have finished the book sooner then I did, but with everything that's been going on I haven't had much time or motivation to sit and read.
I'm now moving on to The Matrix and Philosophy by William Irwin. It's about the movie The Matrix and how it relates to Philosophy. Amazon.Com Summary:
The Matrix conveys the horror of a false world made of nothing but perceptions. Based on the premise that reality is a dream controlled by malevolent forces, it is one of the most overtly philosophical movies ever to
come out of Hollywood. These thought-provoking essays by the same team of young philosophers who created The Simpsons and Philosophy discuss different facets of the primary philosophical puzzle of The Matrix: Can we be sure the world is really there, and if not, what should we do about it? Other chapters address issues of religion, lifestyle, pop culture, the Zeitgeist, the nature of mind and matter, and the reality of fiction. I've started it and it seems pretty interesting so far. I used to think it had quite a bit of religious metaphors however from what I've read they are actually more of Philosophical metaphors. Anyway, I've really gotten on a Philosophy kick lately so we'll see how long this one takes. I enjoy reading, but just don't find too much time to do so. These type of books give me a change from the monotony of my daily technical reading, otherwise I would go insane. One can only read so many computer programming books and technical manuals. Alright, I'm really off to bed this time! Cheers.
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A Walk and Blogshares.Com
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@HOME. I just got back from a walk with Justin and Berg. We walked down to Sonic, grabbed some food and then walked back. It was a few miles walk and it was nice even though it's starting to get pretty warm out. After getting back to the house it felt pretty hot in here, so I checked the thermostat and indeed it's 82 degrees in the house right now. Ugh ... I think summer is here already.
So I don't think I've written about this yet, but one of my obsessions for the past few months has been Blogshares.com It's a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links. I've been playing since February and I've managed to turn my fictional $500 into a fictional $387,160,265.18. I find it fairly interesting, even though Justin constantly asks me why I bother since it's fictional money. I guess it's just the thrill of constantly trying to see how much fictional wealth I can build. Not much different from any other game I suppose.
So for those of you who have a blog and haven't checked it out you should. It indexes pretty much every Blog that exists and chances are that if you are linked to me, I already own stock in your Blog. (Except for Charlie's Blog ... Someone already beat me to it) Check it out and search for your Blog. If I own stock in it, you'll see how much I've been able to inflate the price per share of your blog and how much money I've made from buying and selling your blog so far. Click Here to View my profile on Blogshares. Alright I'm off to bed. Cheers!
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Busy, Busy, Busy
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@HOME. Yes I'm still alive. I haven't written for a while because I've been really busy with my social life and trying to get some things done around the house. I literally haven't spent more then 10 minutes in front of my computer at home and I've been too busy at work to post or read anyone's blog. I'll have some time this weekend I should be able to get caught up. Cheers!
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Gay, Catholic & Remembrance of Pope John Paul II
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@HOME. One last post before I head off to bed. In amidst of all the fun and partying I've done this weekend, I managed to catch much of the documentary of the death of Pope John Paul II. I worked from home on Friday, so I watched as his health prognosis worsened. I caught some more news in the morning on Saturday before we headed out to the parade. I returned home to find out that he had passed away. I watched some of the documentary of his life before going out again on Saturday night. I can't say that I'm not saddened by his death, however I feel that he can finally rest.
Now, I really could write much here about my opinion of the Catholic Church, but out of respect for the late Pope, I'm going to save that for another day. As much as I have felt that Pope John Paul II has fostered intolerance and hatred with is anti-gay remarks, and how much he's torn apart the Catholic community with his conservative views on just about every topic including condoms, birth control, and how a 'good' Catholic should live their life, I do realize how much of an impact he has had on the world and politics in general.
Yes, I am gay and I am a Catholic. I may no longer choose to attend church, however I was raised Catholic, I was an Alter Boy in my Church growing up, and I believed in much of what the Catholic faith taught me. As I've grown older and had the opportunity to learn more and see the world, I was able to come up with my own conclusions regarding faith and spirituality. I now see religion as a personal issue. I would still consider myself to be a Catholic, perhaps not the type of Catholic 'the Church' would prefer or expect, but as I already said it's a personal issue to me and me alone. No one else has the right to tell me how to live my life because in the end I will be the only person responsible to answer for the choices and decisions I have made.
I do feel compelled and genuinely interested in watching the news coverage on the life of Pope John Paul II. As a child I remember him becoming Pope and what a joyous time it was for those in my family and my church, being that I came from a predominately Czech, Slovak and Polish family and parish. I do think he has done this world much good. I am not so narrow minded to see beyond my own wishes for respect, tolerance and acceptance to know that even through his discriminatory remarks, he has been a positive influence for many and has spent his life doing what he thought was best for the Catholic church. With all that said, I hope he can finally rest in peace.
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Winding Down Pride Weekend
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@HOME. Well, the 25th Anniversary Phoenix Pride Festival (Pride in the Park) and the weekend is coming to an end. Justin, Philip and I made some final rounds of bar hopping tonight. We started at Roscoes, had dinner at Hamburger Mary's, went over to La Rocca and then on to the Padlock to finish the night out. We all have off tomorrow and Philip will be flying back to San Francisco. It was a great weekend overall and a good kick off to the summer season here in Phoenix. I'm looking forward to our summer trips to Europe, San Francisco for Pride and whatever other fun this summer will hold. Happy Pride Everyone! Cheers!
 | Justin & Philip
before our bar tour |
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Happy Pride Weekend
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@HOME. So as luck may have it, I get sick just 2 days before Phoenix Pride weekend. Ugh. I'm actually feeling a little better right now, maybe it's just all the cold meds I've been loading up on. Anyway I'm not going to let it spoil my weekend, it's supposed to be 85 degrees here and my friend Philip is flying in from San Francisco for the weekend. Anyway, Happy Phoenix Pride Weekend! Cheers!
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