#gay in the nineties

[xtrablak674]

Meet Trevor Brown

[Video review of an interview I did back in ninety ninety-four]

What can I say about this particular video? I do have mixed feelings about it. It was shot sometime between '94 and '95 when I was living in my first apartment in Williamsburg Brooklyn. I have to admit I haven't even pressed play yet, because as much as I enjoy seeing images of my first adult abode my behavior feels a bit cringe. This was a time I felt a need to perform and not just be, my energy was very restless and exasperating.

I can recall that I think a young woman wanted to shoot me for a class project or something, I must have met her through one of my friends at the time. Beyond that I can't really recollect any other context of why I was being interviewed. My personal belief is you never turn down an opportunity to be in front of a camera or in print.

Still haven't started the video, I am totally delaying. Suspending the feelings I know I will have when I start the tape. #😬 Lets comment on the screenshot and what I can see. To the left is my music collection, I can see a lot of cassette tapes which means this has to be sometimes after '93 because I inherited my father's jazz collection on tape and vinyl.

Above the cassettes I can see my collection of CDs that only had another four years of existence before being burned up in the fire in my next and current apartment in '98. On the right I can see the Madonna poster I bought in college that followed me to Brooklyn. Below it looks like one of the Camel cigarette posters from the subway which I was notorious for taking before the MTA changed how they displayed the posters.

I am wearing a red kerchief, a grey sweatshirt that may say Ithaca College (okay it doesn't, I did say 'may') on it and overalls? I have to say not the most glamorous of looks, but comfortable. And it seems I am crocheting, more than likely a scarf, because those were the easiest and quickest things to knit.

Finally let's press play. Now I am being playful and coy, avoiding the question and not telling my age, which I still don't do. I am young and beautiful albeit I am sure I didn't feel beautiful at the time.

It was a curious choice the director/editor of this film chose a graffiti type as the title card. Nothing about me is urban, hood or street. And albeit this time in the nineties is the sweet spot of hip hop I am not and nor have ever been highly influenced in my personal style by rap music. I wouldn't say the choice is offensive, but not well thought out. Just because I am Black doesn't automatically mean that I should be represented by street culture.

'My mama's womb', has been my response to where I am from for decades, its a way to defuse the obvious questions of heritage. Even at this time my presentation of Blackness was confounding for the whytes. I am not saying that this director had that particular position, but asking a Black person where they are from especially if this conversation is happening in America is a very loaded question and may bring up all kind of baggage and unresolved feelings. #ijs

That laugh, still kills me. #🤣 She clearly didn't like my deflecting humor and asked a follow up about where I was from, which I didn't feel was relevant so didn't answer. This was the thing about me, folks would underestimate me in interviews like I didn't have my own agenda no matter how candy-coated I appeared.

Maybe this is what she was curious about the young gay Black man. Let's see how this progresses. I drop my voice a few octaves as I talk about being gay in a very humorous way but also acknowledging that I am also Black, less we forget. I can tell you this definitively I was being interviewed by a straight cis whyte woman.

Then we cut to a wider shot with a clear costume change, I am now rocking that ratty shake and go wig with two red ties forming very dry pig tails. #SuchACheapWig A red and white horizontally stripped shirt, this meshy black dress and an artificial sun flower in my hands.

We can now see the red and purple theme I had for this room especially with my purple IKEA curtains. To my left my fathers old stereo which also perished in the fire in '98. In addition to all the music on the walls I notice that just like my current apartment there isn't much bare wall space albeit now, its not found objects but actual framed artwork. I have covered up just about every piece of white space with something colorful. I think we are about to get a show.

Wow there's a voice-over going on that is really low and hard to hear, I am going to see if jacking into my stereo pushes up the volume. I seem to be talking a bit more about being gay in the nineties. This was clearly a technical difficulty, she didn't get good audio and still decided to use it.

In the background I can see Poopsie my late cat on the window sill, she would be with me two more years before my aunt forced me to reduce the number of cats she would care for in my absence as I traveled Europe for work on a tour. Poopsie would be left in a field near residential houses right outside of Co-op city. I would be devastated for months having to part with one of my two cats this way.

Then there is an abrupt cut to RuPaul's classic "You Bettah Work (Supermodel of the World)", back when I still really adored Ru before she became too problematic for me to continue to mess with. I can see I didn't try to do any huge make-up but I do have on some red lipstick, the least I could do for this fast-drag look.

Cut-to the dry shake and go blonde wig and me in the hallway of my apartment, our interview has turned into a video shoot! I have on the same dress but now a short cut military jacket, that I was just dreaming about last night. There's the old beaded curtain behind me that is represented in my new apartment by a smaller version from the beads that survived the fire.

Back to the bedroom, the sweatshirt says 'Tompkins Cortland', I have no idea what that is. I have stuffed both my cats beneath this large sweatshirt and they are struggling to get out. The cats are even funny to the director, when I joke this is what happens when you don't wear a bra. Hmmm is that misogynistic, I don't think so. I think its common knowledge that if you don't bind your breast they may start to sag especially after having kids. I am open to the fact check here. I will admit that I have never had titties and don't know the true way of breast!

Anastasia who was the cat that was with me the longest peeks her face out of my sweatshirt being coaxed out with the string I dangling in front of her. Clearly the director likes this moment because we are on this scene for over a minute. Ana has been dead I think over a decade, I miss her. I had her for about fifteen years quite old for a cat, she was very affectionate and attentive.

There is a framed portrait of my late friend Tim Fischetti and me, I can see in the background as I search for the GMHC Young, Hot & Safe poster that me and him both helped to develop and starred in. Curiously its also purple like the theme of my room. Then the director shifts to the controversy around the campaign and the posters. I think the New York Post had something derogative to say about it. I mean this was the mid-nineties we weren't where we are with gay rights as we are now. Albeit it feels like sometimes we're moving backwards.

She asked me a question about how I feel about the poster and at first I deflect with humor than come back to an answer that was in line with my HIV/AIDS educator background at the time. We then do another cut and I have changed the scarf on my head to a more mammy-like tying straight out of Gone With the Wind. I do a brief mammy skit obviously the conversation had turned to Aunt Jemima or the representation of Black folks in media or I had directed it there wanting to educate this young whyte female.

I also got a glimpse of the cock-ring Ken doll I had back in the day. I can't say I knew what happened to him. Then I perform the Paul Laurence-Dunbar poem In the Morning. Which I had first learned in church while performing it with my Aunt Mary. I also at the last minute decided to switch my monologue for my audition at Performing Arts (née LaGuardia) to the Laurence-Dunbar poem which I think cemented my spot at the specialized high school.

As I perform the poem I can hear that I have some Björk playing in the background. I love my somewhat eclectic taste in music and for me these add elements to who I am because these were my choices not the directors and in that way they say something specific about me. She likes the poem, she stays on it with me for a minute, with I have to say some mediocre camera work on the zooms and close-ups.

Then there is a pause and we get outtakes or unused footage in the final piece or maybe that was just a really bad transition. I am not sure I even knew these were here. There's a David Dinkin pride poster on the wall behind me. Go on Mayor Dinkins! Oh this looks like the full RuPaul video! Well my version of the video...

This is so trashy I love it! We now cut to a close up of those black boots I used to own, I wonder what happened to them, I loved those boots! And I have my black leg warmers on which I have had since I attended class at Dance Theatre of Harlem. The floor is covered, I am not sure why, I never painted in that apartment, but maybe I was doing some kind of work.

Wait now I can see, it was the other bedroom! The one Henry used to occupy, this must be right before Angel moved in. Maybe she had it painted, painting wasn't ever really my thing. The windows are covered and everything. I have on a black petticoat as a dress and my favorite thrift store acquired flannel shirt tied in a knot with the fake flower in my bosom, pretending to paint the wall as the music plays using the paint roller as a microphone.

That shake and go wig! Now I am in my closet pretending to look for something to wear with a black boa around my neck. I gave this bish production values! #CostumeChange

Now I am cleaning the toilet! on my knees in the robe Steve my college boyfriend gave me, with the shake and go back in a pony tail! Four rooms and four different looks! #YesBitch Then to end the video I collapse in the tub wearing those black three inch suede pumps that Tim got for me.

This is what I have to say in closing. I am not sure what this young woman's project or assignment was I can tell she was a novice, but I can also tell you this I was highly entertaining! And a bish was giving body! I did four different looks on this low-budget drag and that dreadful knotted up hayseed wig. But the thing is, I looked like I was having a good time and I sold that good time to the viewer. Bitch, you bettah WORK!

[Video by Brown Estate]

[propussyslayer]

harry: tell me about my parents, professor. did you and my father get along?

remus:

remus, who shared his first kiss with james while high: well we weren't that close but

[outromoony]

"No matter where they would have landed, Remus would have fallen for him, regardless." —Remus Lupin in A black mass over highway ninety; the biggest simp to ever simp.

[cottoncandyofterror]

Still in love with this story, months after reading it: Ninety One Whiskey by komodobits.

[yougonnahateit]

Beautiful thing (1996)

[dailyjamesspader]

— I couldn't hear. I know you were there. I know you meant to warn me. I know you were trying to help. — I'm sorry. True Colors (1991)

[eaion]

DUE SOUTH 3x02 - Eclipse and 3x05 Seeing Is Believing

[shiftythrifting]

Happy pride month

DeLand, FL

[lee-isnotcool]

hiii. here is the link for a black mass over highway ninety in case you still want it:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PktXFdXeLv2lJzrJ2q7bTNCzaqzqLrow/view?usp=drivesdk

ahhh thank you so much! i did find a copy already but thank you anyway! (this is now one of my favorite fics in the entire world)

[immortalbutterflycos]

Hi, I would really appreciate it if people would stop hurting my favorite AO3 Authors. Please and thanks.

Like what the hell guys? I'm tired. It's 2 am and I just found out that Greenie had to private their works?

I'm so sad and angry about this. I can't believe that it happened again and so fucking soon after what happened to Zar! What is wrong with you people???

Literally, all they've done is write things that make them happy and in turn, they've made a lot of other people happy too.

So what's the fucking issue here?

Is it that you think that just because you're on the internet suddenly your actions don't have consequences?

That your words can't hurt real live people?

And if you do this shit with the intention of hurting someone, then you need to go outside, touch some grass, and grow the hell up. Because guess what? The world doesn't revolve around you and your opinions! Crazy, I know.

I haven't been in this fandom for very long. Literally maybe only 6 months. And already I've seen so many people get beaten down by others to the point of leaving the fandom altogether. I'm so fucking mad right now and I don't have anywhere to put that anger and it's so frustrating.

How dare you ruin this for them. Don't you fucking get it? Writing is one of the purest forms of expression. These people are pouring their hearts and souls into their work and they are creating fucking masterpieces! They are turning their pain and their thoughts into pieces of art and all you can think to do is criticize? To be cruel to them because it doesn't fit your tastes?

Fuck off.

Zar didn't deserve this and Greenie sure as fuck didn't either.

I hope that they both end up okay in the end and if they never put their work out there again I wouldn't blame them. Would it break my heart? Yes, absolutely. I love their works. I love their writing. But if it comes at the cost of their own mental health, then I don't fucking want it.

And Greenie, if you see this, I'm so sorry love. I know we haven't spoken to each other and I don't know what exactly went down for you to make this decision, but I hope you know that for what it's worth, in spite of everything, in spite of the people that forced your hand, you have my support and my love.

Please take care of yourself. You deserve the world. <3

[hannahjane3]

waiting for my next depressive episode to actually read the last chapter of a black mass over highway 90 cos that way it can’t send me into one 😎

[misscromwellsmonocle]

Cherry (aka The Gay Nineties) (1906) by William McGregor Paxton

[tbojamama]

Wolfstar from "A black mass over highway ninety" by @greenvlvetcouch

Since I finished reading this fic I knew I was going to do some kind of fanart, and the day has finally come!!

I tried being as accurate as possible, especially with Sirius' tattoos, also; this is how I imagine them after everything, they are so special to me <33

[lucavandort]

"Death Becomes Her"

[astoriachef]

Most of you are too young to remember how much freedom we had before 9/11.