Thank you for visiting.
On this site you will find the following essays:
Abu Ghraib: Postcards From the Edge
October 14, 2004, openDemocracy
January, 2005, revista Debate (in Spanish)*
http://www.postcardsedge.blogspot.com/
There's Something About Outing Mary
October 21, 2004, openDemocracy
http://www.outingmary.blogspot.com/
Good Morning, Heartache
November 11, 2004, openDemocracy
Election Blog 2004, Truthout
http://www.morningheartache.blogspot.com/
George W. Bush's Iraq War Freedom Cake
August 29, 2004
http://www.recipeforwar.blogspot.com/
An Open Letter to Paul Wellstone
September 10, 2004
July 14, 2005, Commentary Slam, The Brian Lehrer Show (audio clip)
September 1, 2005, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood
http://www.lettertowellstone.blogspot.com/
Jesusland
December 7, 2004, Democratic Underground
January 2005, The Bottom Line*
February 2005, Times .10
April 21, 2005, Outlook Weekly*
May 2005, Gay Times*
June 2005, Political Affairs
March 2006, Antithesis Common Literary Magazine
www,americaforjesusland.blogspot.com
Bringing Down the Hope: Condoleezza Rice, Black Capitalism and War
January 6, 2005, Democratic Underground
February 2005, Z Magazine*
http://www.bringingdownhope.blogspot.com/
Martha X: The Radicalization of Martha Stewart
January 5, 2005, Democratic Underground
http://www.marthax.blogspot.com/
That's Entertainment: Oprah, Eminem, and Homophobic Representations in American Media
February 8, 2005, Democratic Underground
February 13, 2005, Snap Magazine Online
http://www.oprahentertainment.blogspot.com/
Michael
August 24, 2005, Snap Magazine
http://www.memoriesofmichael.blogspot.com/
Watchers and Witnesses: Oprah, Zora and James
http://www.watchersandwitnesses.blogspot.com/
The Possibilities of Pleasure: Why I Feel Like Getting High Tonight
http://www.possiblepleasure.blogspot.com/
Wonder Woman vs. George Bush
July 2, 2005 - Democratic Underground
(as an excerpt entitled "Father Knows Best")
http://www.wonderwomanvsgeorgewbush.blogspot.com/
In This Moment: A Brief Response to Katrina
September 23, 2005 - (from the In This Moment series on Boyan's Blog - Published by the English Majors' Office at Brooklyn College)
http://www.katrinamoment.blogspot.com/
This Hostile World
June 12, 2007
http://www.hostileworld.blogspot.com/
FROM MAX'S COLUMN AT SAPIENCE MAGAZINE:
June 2005 - It's A Family Affair
http://www.familyatsapience.blogspot.com/
July 2005 - Help Me I Think I'm Falling:
Finding A Way Out of Despair When You Are Black and Gay
http://www.fallingatsapience.blogspot.com/
August 2005 - Strange Fruits: Bille, Bessie, Bayard, Baldwin and Basquiat - Art, Anger and the Search for a Black Gay Aesthetic
http://www.artatsapience.blogspot.com/
December 2005 - Why the Hell Am I Still Alone: Getting Serious About Serious Gay Relationships
http://www.aloneatsapience.blogspot.com/
January 2006 - US: On Black Gay Men, Masculinity and Our Fathers
http://www.usatsapience.blogspot.com/
February 2006 - Racism: If They Won't Change, Change Your Mind
http://www.changeatsapience.blogspot.com/
March 2006 - Audre
http://www.lordeatsapience.blogspot.com/
April 2006 - Porn
http://www.pornatsapience.blogspot.com/
June 2006 - Addiction, A Gay Perspective (unpublished issue)
http://www.addictionatsapience.blogspot.com/
Audio - Max's comments on Brokeback Mountain (The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC - call in)
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/01182006
(if you scroll down to the end of each essay, you will find a link, whenever possible, to where it appeared online. Some online sites require a subscription. An asterisk designates that a piece was slightly different when published in print than the version that appeared online.)
Not available here:
A History of Survival, Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos, ed. David Schoem, University of Michigan Press, 1991
Babylon, Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-American Lesbian and Gay Fiction, Ed. Shawn Stewart Ruff , Henry Holt, 1996
Couples: A Photographic Documentary of Gay and Lesbian Relationships, John Gettings, University of New England Press, 1996
Max Gordon is a writer and activist. He has been published in the anthologies Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos (University of Michigan Press, 1991), Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-American Lesbian and Gay Fiction (Henry Holt, 1996) and Mixed Messages: An Anthology of Literature to Benefit Hospice and Cancer Causes. His work has also appeared on openDemocracy, Democratic Underground and Truthout, in Z Magazine, Gay Times, Sapience, and other progressive on-line and print magazines in the U.S. and internationally, as well as in translation. His poem "Sword and Shield" was recently performed in the Cool New York 2011 Dance Festival. He lives in New York and is currently working on a novel.
Contact Max Gordon at maxgordon19@hotmail.com
Max Gordon is also a professional natal astrologer and psychic using the tarot. If you are interested in learning more about his practice and setting up your own private consultation, go to
www.natalastrology.blogspot.com
To be notified when a new piece appears on this site, please leave your e-mail address at maxgordon19@hotmail.com
For more pictures click here:
Max Gordon - The Blues Sides
http://www.maxgordonphotography.blogspot.com/
On this site you will find the following essays:
Abu Ghraib: Postcards From the Edge
October 14, 2004, openDemocracy
January, 2005, revista Debate (in Spanish)*
http://www.postcardsedge.blogspot.com/
There's Something About Outing Mary
October 21, 2004, openDemocracy
http://www.outingmary.blogspot.com/
Good Morning, Heartache
November 11, 2004, openDemocracy
Election Blog 2004, Truthout
http://www.morningheartache.blogspot.com/
George W. Bush's Iraq War Freedom Cake
August 29, 2004
http://www.recipeforwar.blogspot.com/
An Open Letter to Paul Wellstone
September 10, 2004
July 14, 2005, Commentary Slam, The Brian Lehrer Show (audio clip)
September 1, 2005, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood
http://www.lettertowellstone.blogspot.com/
Jesusland
December 7, 2004, Democratic Underground
January 2005, The Bottom Line*
February 2005, Times .10
April 21, 2005, Outlook Weekly*
May 2005, Gay Times*
June 2005, Political Affairs
March 2006, Antithesis Common Literary Magazine
www,americaforjesusland.blogspot.com
Bringing Down the Hope: Condoleezza Rice, Black Capitalism and War
January 6, 2005, Democratic Underground
February 2005, Z Magazine*
http://www.bringingdownhope.blogspot.com/
Martha X: The Radicalization of Martha Stewart
January 5, 2005, Democratic Underground
http://www.marthax.blogspot.com/
That's Entertainment: Oprah, Eminem, and Homophobic Representations in American Media
February 8, 2005, Democratic Underground
February 13, 2005, Snap Magazine Online
http://www.oprahentertainment.blogspot.com/
Michael
August 24, 2005, Snap Magazine
http://www.memoriesofmichael.blogspot.com/
Watchers and Witnesses: Oprah, Zora and James
http://www.watchersandwitnesses.blogspot.com/
The Possibilities of Pleasure: Why I Feel Like Getting High Tonight
http://www.possiblepleasure.blogspot.com/
Wonder Woman vs. George Bush
July 2, 2005 - Democratic Underground
(as an excerpt entitled "Father Knows Best")
http://www.wonderwomanvsgeorgewbush.blogspot.com/
In This Moment: A Brief Response to Katrina
September 23, 2005 - (from the In This Moment series on Boyan's Blog - Published by the English Majors' Office at Brooklyn College)
http://www.katrinamoment.blogspot.com/
This Hostile World
June 12, 2007
http://www.hostileworld.blogspot.com/
Text from the dance performance "Armide's Revenge", BALAM Dance company
Premiered February 3, 2011, Cool New York 2011 Dance Festival, John Ryan Theater
http://www.armidesrevenge.blogspot.com
You Hold On: a message to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth
October 10, 2010
www.youholdon.blogspot.com
Can't You Take A Joke?: On Tracy Morgan and Free Speech vs. Hate Speech
http://www.morgansjoke.blogspot.com
FROM MAX'S COLUMN AT SAPIENCE MAGAZINE:
June 2005 - It's A Family Affair
http://www.familyatsapience.blogspot.com/
July 2005 - Help Me I Think I'm Falling:
Finding A Way Out of Despair When You Are Black and Gay
http://www.fallingatsapience.blogspot.com/
August 2005 - Strange Fruits: Bille, Bessie, Bayard, Baldwin and Basquiat - Art, Anger and the Search for a Black Gay Aesthetic
http://www.artatsapience.blogspot.com/
December 2005 - Why the Hell Am I Still Alone: Getting Serious About Serious Gay Relationships
http://www.aloneatsapience.blogspot.com/
January 2006 - US: On Black Gay Men, Masculinity and Our Fathers
http://www.usatsapience.blogspot.com/
February 2006 - Racism: If They Won't Change, Change Your Mind
http://www.changeatsapience.blogspot.com/
March 2006 - Audre
http://www.lordeatsapience.blogspot.com/
April 2006 - Porn
http://www.pornatsapience.blogspot.com/
June 2006 - Addiction, A Gay Perspective (unpublished issue)
http://www.addictionatsapience.blogspot.com/
Audio - Max's comments on Brokeback Mountain (The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC - call in)
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/01182006
(if you scroll down to the end of each essay, you will find a link, whenever possible, to where it appeared online. Some online sites require a subscription. An asterisk designates that a piece was slightly different when published in print than the version that appeared online.)
Not available here:
A History of Survival, Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos, ed. David Schoem, University of Michigan Press, 1991
Babylon, Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-American Lesbian and Gay Fiction, Ed. Shawn Stewart Ruff , Henry Holt, 1996
Couples: A Photographic Documentary of Gay and Lesbian Relationships, John Gettings, University of New England Press, 1996
Max Gordon is a writer and activist. He has been published in the anthologies Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos (University of Michigan Press, 1991), Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-American Lesbian and Gay Fiction (Henry Holt, 1996) and Mixed Messages: An Anthology of Literature to Benefit Hospice and Cancer Causes. His work has also appeared on openDemocracy, Democratic Underground and Truthout, in Z Magazine, Gay Times, Sapience, and other progressive on-line and print magazines in the U.S. and internationally, as well as in translation. His poem "Sword and Shield" was recently performed in the Cool New York 2011 Dance Festival. He lives in New York and is currently working on a novel.
Contact Max Gordon at maxgordon19@hotmail.com
Max Gordon is also a professional natal astrologer and psychic using the tarot. If you are interested in learning more about his practice and setting up your own private consultation, go to
www.natalastrology.blogspot.com
To be notified when a new piece appears on this site, please leave your e-mail address at maxgordon19@hotmail.com
For more pictures click here:
Max Gordon - The Blues Sides
http://www.maxgordonphotography.blogspot.com/
posted by MAX GORDON at 1:09 PM
15 Comments:
I just read "Jesusland". WOW It's a powerful statement on your life (I can only assume it's autobiographical). Your trials and travails make my life seem idyllic in comparison.
I have known gay people, and they all seemed like good folks to me. If a man wants to marry another man,I really don't care. Spousal benifits should apply just as in a straight marriage.
I just ask that you, like straights, keep the sex in private. I really don't want to watch.
Just read Jesusland... very compelling. I am an affluent, straight, heterosexual middle class white male - the status quo, if you will - and daily I am becoming more ashamed at the lack of acceptance in the world for an alternative to the blandness. Jesus DID stand with the outcasts, and the very fact that his name is used for purposes of hatred and cruel divisiveness in America is one of the darker ironies of life.
Max, sui generis here from DU --
Just read the Jesusland article - you have your finger on the pulse of this issue, and I think it will get worse as our "ownership" society comes to realize that more and more it is undeniably responsible for its own immediate future, whether by political choice or not. When our generation realizes that it has no social security, health care, housing, or civil rights left, I think the seduction of religion will become overwhelming for those who are predisposed to that, as well as the handy personifications of evil that church and political leaders so readily pin on racial and cultural minorities such as ourselves.
If only most gay bashers would bash honorably -- one on one, no shooting or stabbing in the back, no arson while you sleep, defenseless, no doublespeak from the bully pulpit, no poisoning your dogs or slashing your tires. I think if they fought fairly, Gwen Arrau would be alive today and ONE of them would still be recovering in the hospital. What are they so afraid of? They really are cowards and pack animals, and they think we are subject to the cull. And the irony is their claim to moral superiority, when their children are in the garage squeezing the trigger because the promise of a brief flash of pain seems much easier to endure than the promise of a life of shame and fear and disappointment and terror.
Like pack animals they tend to pick on the ones they think are weak and defenseless; like the hardwiring of a dog, they will chase whatever runs, and children are the most vulnerable. Moral superiority.
But fighting back also means recognizing that not every arena is physical, and like fighting in real life you must martial every resource at your disposal.
We are the sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and sometimes dads and moms of entire families who love us and respect us and side with us. Our complaints and our travails must not remain within the community, must not be preached to the choir alone. It is up to us to talk to our families and educate them and deputize them when a law impacts us as personally as being unable to manage our own last will and testament; as personally some day as being unable perhaps to board an airplane or qualify for a mortgage or an apartment lease, merely because we are gay.
It is up to us and to the people who believe in us to make a difference among the people who are not like us and who don't believe in us.
I just read Jesusland. I am an older white heterosexual male and I have a son that is about your age. I also had a half brother who would have turned forty last weekend except that he shot himself to death at the age of twenty-one. He was apparently afraid to come out of the closet and no one knew he was gay except his wife and his gay friends. I have confronted bigotry almost everyday of my life since then and I will continue to speak out for as long as I am able to do so. Gay people should understand that not every heterosexual person means to harm them; and all people need to realize that religion is the problem......it is not the solution.
Nice article about Jesusland, you Fag
Ummmm. A constitutional amendment is "unconstitutional?"
Let us hope you aren't a constitutional lawyer, but rather just your garden-variety dimwit.
EJ
I am a white middle aged heterosexual male. So what! I find the current atmosphere in this country just shy of 1930's Germany. I just can't figure out why fundamentalists are so afraid of people different than them and gays in particular. Is this just a way for the leadership to galvanize their flock? I think the best way to deal with this is education. Your article "Jesusland" is a good start. We need to have more of this type of material in the public purview so that the "flock" can see that gays are not evil but just people trying to live their life. Good luck to you and keep on writing.
I read Jesusland from a link on a board I frequent. I was quite impressed. I am postively amazed by the number of fundementalists who actively oppose the teachings of Jesus. I think you were dead on as to who Jesus would accompany were He around today. Please understand that some Christians beleive that God loves all of us, just the way He made us. The people who teach hatered in the name of faith are worshiping evil, not God.
Though a previous poster made the lawyerish statement that it is indeed impossible for a constitutional amendment to be unconstitutional, I read it as being 'contrary to the ideals of our nation's founders and directly opposed to the fundemental concepts of freedom'. Only one amendment has ever decreased rights - the 18th - and that one got repealed.
Please, keep fighting the good fight. People like you are America's best hope to move forward and away from the new dark ages some of the reactionaries seem so hellbent on establishing.
Max. I read 'Bringing Down the Hope', my concern the way Secretary Rice dodged accountability with her blithe dismissal, "Who could have known they'd use airplanes as weapons, (moi?)". Was this not a blatant lie? She and other Bush administration members could have or should have or most likely did know about the threat terrorism posed before 9/11. Looking to comment on this article, I read Jesusland and find your talent consistent, your insight remarkable.
Recently, I heard an alternate interpretation of a bible scripture typically used to condemn homosexuality - referred to in Old Testament Sodom and Gohmorra. This interpretation suggests a condemnation of predatory sex, abusive sexual fulfillment, not homosexuality per se.
However, even in this approach to understanding our spiritual nature, there is danger in questioning orthodox interpretation. No matter how a scriptural intent is questioned, authority figures have reputations and institutions to protect.
My personal feeling is that we are embroiled in a class war. And, most political issues, including racism and homophobia, are tactics that divide lower-income classes. And, the top rungs of the economic ladder are inhabited by the elite of industry and finance structuring controlly monopolies over dependent consumers.
I blame The Car, an abused technology for mobility, closely associated with war and weaponry, an environmental and thus social degradation, our most expensive dependency stealthily squeezing budgets. Corporate media cannot bite the hand that feeds it and so idolizes the automobile, no matter how reckless the dependency of this non-negotiable way of life.
Hey Max don't quit your day job.
Max,
My best friends in my adult like have been gay men with whom I worked in the theater. Many of them have since died of AIDS, some of the first people to contract it before we even knew it existed. I am in favor of gay marriage and try to vote accordingly.
I read your article on the Oprah show etc...wondering if you would comment with understanding on the women who were married to these gay men on Ophrah. After all they too are victims of society. Not only did you not speak of them with understanding, but you were actually quite misogynistic and vindictive towards them. You lost me at "whores".
Hi Max,
Just found Jeasusland and thanks for writing many things I've been mulling over these days. Only thing keeps me going is the idea all hate subsides under it's own weight some day...just not likly to be today! Thanks again! Sara (who is a transwomen in Va)
Why are all these articles done as separate "blogs"? This doesn't make any sense, and certainly can't be a sensible way of distributing your articles (if anything, it cheapens their real value by being associated with Blogspot). Try and get the good folks over at Sapience Magazine to get you your OWN domain where you can keep your articles for YOUR posterity. Because if Blogspot goes belly-up, then so do your articles. Above all, just trying to help a fellow brotha out to do the professional thing instead of leaning on the crutch of mediocre availability.
Anon.
I just read your column, Why The Hell Am I Still Alone: Getting Serious About Serious Gay Relationships, and I wanted to say thank you. I usually avoid blogs in general but after reading your column it brought tears to my eyes. I know it sounds idioticly cliche, but the column gave me hope. I'm a 26 year old gay man and so many of my relationships have been terrible. I've been floundering, trying to figure out why I can't find the right person, leading to feelings of undesirability.
Your column made me realize so much, significantly more than well wishing friends have, althought they tried. I have much to work on and consider, but now I have a base to start from. I can build from that. Again, thank you for writing this column. You've helped me and I am grateful.
hello to max frm sean curran
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