GA’s 2009 Out Artist: A Year In Review

2009 brought the LGBT community some great work by some great artist…Many of which are either part of, or an ally to the LGBT community. One commonality they all share is they are working diligently, not only to provide the LGBT community with great books, music and movies, but to promote equality for all members of the human race.

This is a tribute to those artist who so graciously gave their time to speak with gayagenda.com in 2009!

Click on the name below to find out more about the artist and how they are contributing and making a difference to the LGBT community!

• Derrick L. Briggs – Actor (Best known for “Finding Me”)

• Smiletone – Actor (Best know for his YouTube Advice)

• Carl Capotorto – Actor/Author (Best known for the HBO Series,”The Sopranos”)

• Stanley Bennett-Clay – Author/Playwright (Best known for “Looker”)

• E. Patrick Johnson – Author (Best known for “Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South)

• Alex Oryan – Author/Photographer (Best known for “The Nude Book”)

• Ryan Field – Author (Best known for “An Officer and His Gentleman”)

• TimPermanent – Recording Artist/Musician

• TJ Cass – Recording Artist/Muscian

• Gaye Adegbalola – Recording Artist/Musician

• Scottie Gage – Recording Artist/Musician

• QB of da’ Midwest – Recording Artist/Musician

• Bry’Nt – Recording Artist/Musician

• JayBezz – Recording Artist/Musician

• Jana Mashonee – Recording Artist/Musician – an ally to the LGBT community!

*Artist are not listed in any particular order.

Stanley Bennett Clay Reviews “Shaming the Devil”

SHAMING THE DEVIL

Collected Short Stories
By G. Winston James

Reviewed By Stanley Bennett Clay

Poet G. Winston James makes a remarkable fiction debut with SHAMING THE DEVIL, a collection of short stories that examine black, predominantly homoerotic experiences with beauty, passion and a boldness that renders it both transcendental and deeply personal. One need not be gay or black to enjoy these well-honed nuggets of literary art that twist, turn, enthrall, and provoke in ways that only a poet can. Mr. James is not merely a fantastic storyteller and thinker but a wordsmith Michelangelo whose nearly every sentence is painstakingly crafted into well-cut diamonds. Forgive the hyperbole, but I am simply overwhelmed.

The collection opens with UNCLE, innocently, even sweetly, narrated by a little boy celebrating his sixth birthday while his body celebrates feelings for his uncle that he does not understand. An empathy-inducing reminiscence of new and uninformed sensations, desires and longings, it will take many a reader back to those first frightening and fantastic pre-pubescent shivers engendered by the very presence of a hero-worshipped same sex relative.

While RAHEN (my personal favorite) boldly tackles gay bashing and rivets until the heartbreaking end, CONFINING ROOM flips the script on homie-sexuality. And take note of this beautifully written phrase from THE SPACE BETWEEN: “He opens her with four fingers. He speaks rivers inside her. She does not know what to do with her hands. The rest of her body. Or the thoughts, like famine and harvest, roiling in her head.”

UNDER AN EARLY AUTUMN MOON is the tale of a late night tryst with a surprising twist set in the fuckable landscape of a public park. PATH and SICK DAYS are thematically linked both in tone and content; tracking the light hearted—-in fact downright hysterical—escapades of a metrosexual homosexual’s quest for transient trade and the attended consequences of infidelity.

JOHN poignantly examines a self-loather’s confrontation with his demons via a therapist and a hustler, and although I’m not much of a fan of sadomasochism, I found SOMEWHERE NEARBY brilliant in its mix of cruel sex, brutal assault, intellectualism and the power of brooding self-examination at death’s door.

A seventeen-year-old boy weathers a violent physical and psychological storm in his native Jamaica as his older gay brother, banished years earlier by a now-absent father, lays dying of AIDS in the brief but powerful STORM. And CHURCH returns a prodigal world traveler to his hometown congregation where his moving revelation restores faith in a true and loving God.

This twelve-story collection ends with THE EMBRACE, a bright and buoyant story of three friends and their sexual fantasies that slowly turns erotically haunting when one of them introduces another to a mysterious lothario. THE EMBRACE is sure to leave you breathless.

As in any story collection, some are better than others. But there is not a week one in this bunch, as the author gives each narrator a unique voice, each story its own fascinating twist, and writing as appealingly grandiose and artful as Morrison and Baldwin.

Indeed, Baldwin and Thomas Glave are the only BGM writers to win the prestigious O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction. Based on a couple of the best stories in SHAMING THE DEVIL, it would not surprise me one bit if G. Winston James was chosen to make this a literary trinity.

You can but a copy of the book by clicking here. Find more about Stanley Bennett Clay by clicking here or listen to gayagenda’s interview with Stanley Bennett Clay by clicking here.

If you’re interetested in attending a special Los Angeles Black Pride Celebration performance of Stanley Bennett Clay’s “Armstrong’s Kid” followed by a champagne reception Sunday July 5th, request information by sending an email to: sbcpublishers@earthlink.net

Conversations with Stanley Bennett-Clay

Previously we had scheduled award winning author and playwright Stanley Bennett-Clay as a guest on our Wednesday night Blog Talk Radio program, but unfortunately due to technical difficulties, he was not able to join us.  But, he was kind enough to come back and join us and talk about his latest novel “Looker”!

Listen to the podcast here

Join us each Wednesday at 8 pm EST (by clicking here) as your host James brings you the latest in LGBT news and special guest!

Feel free to call in with questions or comment at 646-929-0506 or join us in the chat room!

Stanely Bennett-Clay

A Message to My Black Family

By: Stanley Bennett-Clay

God birthed me black, left-handed, artistic and gay; four things that the majority population rejected. Well, I reject your rejection. God made me special and you don’t get it.

The majority said that I’m inferior because I am black, that blacks are supposed to be slaves, are supposed to be inferior. I reject that. God made me special and you don’t get it.

The majority said, three hundred years ago, that left-handed people were demonic, and should be burned at the stake, and they were. Thirty years ago, parents were forcing right-handed behavior on God-given left-handed nature. God made me special and you don’t get it.

A hundred years ago hotels posted sign that said “no niggers, Jews, animals, or actors allowed.” I am an actor. God made me special and you don’t get it.

I am in love with the man that I’m in love with, yet I am not allowed to enjoy the sacredness of marriage enjoyed by others. I pay the same taxes, but I am resorted to a separate but equal taxation without representation inhumane clause that allows religious beliefs to trump the constitution that clearly states that there should be a separation between Church and State so that we do not duplicate the tyranny of the Spanish Inquisition, and other faith-based persecutions. The constitution clearly states that the minority should be protected against the tyranny of the majority. Marriage between a man and a woman is a faith-based agenda and should not be a legal standard. Marriage between consenting adults should be law-protected.

You would think black people, considering the discrimination they have endured, would know better. But, alas, it has come to pass: the abused become the abusers. The discriminated against become the discriminators. The enslaved and damn-too-hell by the Religious Right become the holier-than-thou.

Your churches have every right to practice the beliefs they believe. That is a civil right guaranteed by the government. But that should not intrude on the civil rights of others. Every American is guaranteed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Where are those pursuits for same gender-loving (SGL) people?

When you deny rights to others, it is only a matter of time that precious right you cherish will surely be denied. What goes around comes around.

Remember, if it were up to a popular vote, you would still be in slavery. If it were up to a popular vote, interracial marriage would be illegal. (83% of the population was against it when the Supreme Court legalized it).

The same Bible that condemns same sax relationships, also condemns a slave’s disobedience to his master, a woman’s menstrual cycle, the mixing of cloths, and praises Lot for giving up his daughters to sexual gangbanging in order to spare two male strangers from being sexed by both men and women.

God birthed me black, left-handed, artistic and gay; four things that the majority population rejected. Well, I reject your rejection. God made me special and you don’t get it.

And if you don’t get it soon, it will get you. We as a community cannot afford to divide our house. We are many God-created things. If we don’t understand and respect that, then we have a total misunderstanding and disrespect for who we are and who we’re supposed to be as God’s perfect imperfect children. And the ‘not-getting’ will doom us all!