Skylight Musings

I'd been hosting events at Skylight for over TEN years now. I'd had some great times there. Indeed, a big part of my writing community is because of that bookstore. The picture above is of me and a fellow skylight staffer Kevin. See other pictures here.

What's great about Skylight is that there is a great bunch of weirdos who work there. They even started a Skylight band! The band is called Staff Juice.

I was cleaning up after a book event when I saw some of the guys fiddling with some recording equipment. They wanted to know if I'd like to sing.

"Sing what?" I asked.

"Anything."

"Anything?"

Well, I sat down, put the mic to my mouth and recorded this song. I totally made it up on the spot! It's coarse and funny. My voice is wacked, but, hey, it was a blast. You can also hear our store cat "meow," along with other staff folks chiming in. Hear us screech here.

To hear other Staff Juice songs, click here.

I'm not in a couple, but I played one in a parade

I got married! Well, not really. In the Lunar New Year Parade earlier this month, I was asked to be in a pretend a gay marriage. That's my friend Alan above. A lesbian couple marched next to us. It was to raise awareness about the marriage issue to the residents and visitors of Chinatown.

I was a little afraid at how we might be treated at the parade. Afterall, this was rather bold for a rather conservative community. And, you know what? It was great! We weren't booed or anything. It was actually quite...liberating. We were cheered and appreciated for our actions.

I remember five years ago when we hoped to march for the very first time in the oldest parade in Los Angeles. There was some tension among the organizers. But we were given permission and away we went.

Someday, this will be looked at with such folly. People will wonder what the big deal was. As I marched down the parade, I truly felt like a young groom looking toward his future.