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Syracuse men to marry today after 52-year relationship

Frederick Marvin keeps a day book for every year. The 91-year-old Syracuse concert pianist has boxes full of the little blacks books where he wrote what he ate, what music he played, where he traveled and who he met.

In his Syracuse house on a recent afternoon, he pulled the book from 1959 out of his basement. He was 39. Marvin flips to April 22. Halfway down the page, amid details about his travels, is this: met Ernst Schuh. It was a meeting that would change his life.

They two men found each other in the Abbey of St. Florian, an Austrian monastery. They both were there to see the grave of composer Anton Bruckner. Marvin was traveling across Europe, playing concerts. Schuh, who survived the battle of Stalingrad in World War II, was an opera critic in Vienna.

They have been together ever since. Now, 52 years later, the music lovers with matching hearing aids are getting married. Today in Syracuse’s City Hall, Mayor Stephanie Miner will perform the ceremony.

Read more of this beautiful story at syracuse.com

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TX High School cheerleader kicked off squad for kissing a boy

From KRISTV.com: A high school male cheerleader in Alice, TX, said he was kicked off the squad and suspended after he was caught kissing another male student on campus.

The young man spent countless hours practicing every day for years to make the varsity cheer squad, and he had it all taken away from him in an instant.

Perhaps most surprising, is the way the student was caught. Not in person by a teacher, but by surveillance camera, leading the young man to believe he was being watched and targeted by school officials simply because of his sexual orientation.

“They never check cameras for anything unless something is stolen,” the young man said, asking not be indentified. “We would be the ones getting caught because I’m sure we were the only ones, sexual orientation wise, being caught like that.”

The boy said public displays of affection are a relatively common occurrence at Alice HS, and he believes that the principal would not have targeted him had he been caught kissing a female student.

“In this school [kissing] is everywhere, if that were the case, suspending everyone for that, half the school would be suspended,” he said.

The district superintendent said he couldn’t comment about the matter because of privacy issues.

The family said that they were told during a meeting Thursday with school administrator’s, that the principal’s decision will be under review, and if there are any changes to that decision, they will be notified sometime at the beginning of next week.

They say if their son isn’t put back on the cheerleading squad, they will pursue further action.

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New “Charlie’s Angels” cancelled

ABC’s new incarnation of the 70’s hit TV show “Charlie’s Angels” has been cancelled.

ABC has announced that the network will air all of the episodes shot, but will not order any more.

I personally couldn’t get through the first 30 minutes of the first episode.

Go watch the original.  I loved the original.  You can download the episodes on iTunes.

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Henry Rollins new book of photographic essays: “Occupants”

Terrific interview with Henry Rollins on Advocate.com by Winston Gieseke. Rollins is famous for being the sexy frontman for the punk group Black Flag. He’s also an extremely articulate spoken word artist, writer, photographer and LGBT ally.

Hoping to inspire positive action, the rocker-writer-actor-activist-spoken word poet has unleashed the visual fruits of these efforts in his first photo book, Occupants. Accompanying the images are essays in the former Black Flag front man’s unmistakably forthright and often angry voice.

Here is an excerpt from the interview. I encourage you to read the entire interview on Advocate.com.

One of the most pervasive themes I took from the book was resilience, which in a very different context is something the gay community is familiar with.
Yeah, you’d have to be.

But does having seen so much destruction in the world make something like the fight for marriage equality seem insignificant in scale?
No, it makes it part of a rich tapestry of what keeps me optimistic about humans. As deplorable as some of these locations have been, the upshot of all of it is, it makes me like people more. I see how heartbreakingly friendly these people can be and how they will always skew towards dignity, generosity, and compassion — even when their surroundings are abysmal. And that, to me, is marriage equality and civil rights for gay people in America.

You’ve been very vocal in your support.
I personally think all marriages are crazy, in that I would never be able to give half my record collection away just because of some stupid contract I signed, but I think Bill and Leon should be able to take that mad plunge if they see fit to do so. If you’re lucky enough to find someone that you wanted to make that wild promise with, who the hell is anyone to stop you? This is what the Founding Fathers — who Michele Bachmann says she loves so much but seems to know so little about — were strangling each other over in hot rooms in Philadelphia all those summers ago. This is what so many people took a musket ball in the face for. And this country should be the leader on all of that.