Cumulus Babylon

"Now I know, that rose trees never grow in New York City."-- Elton John

And now, of a sudden, I’ve found my way back into Captain Fantastic, the greatest English speaking musical album of all the world, which might not have come into existence if the dowager had been the enforcer of Britain’s anti-homosexual laws. They would have had been enforced. Reginald Dwight might have received an ad hoc rupture of the Vas Deferens from the testicles in the necessary imperial need for order, not that this would have cured where his desires led, nor it is as false a dichotomy as you might believe, in my willingness not to fear locking horns over decency and the progressive expansion of artistic force. American rock was a relatively innocent flirtation riding on Elvis Presley’s corn fed hips before the British invasion occurred. The foment of my youth, however, can no longer rise to the sheer delphinic epiphany of “Curtains,” and lesbians in Lancaster, those whom I used to know, might be in danger of my ire in less than a hyperbolic fashion if their circumference shrinks to within striking distance. Last week, a brief wildfire erupted, but even then I knew, as old a conflict as Mann’s Death In Venice, an ironic, if well studied choice, that one cannot defy biology, unless, as in The Ambassadors, where queer genius is obfuscated into the concealed repression of an illicit, if straight, extramarital affair, or The Tempest, which is Shakespeare’s mastery proclaiming the aged wisdom to be paramount, that mature partnerships can only reinvigorate up to a point.

This is not to say conservative reactionaries do not have needs. We’re not monks, but my New Mobility feature, in 04, exposed and attacked this very thicket within attendant care, in which I am now both, conquered by, then turned conqueror of, a sexual attraction inside of it, depending on how I wish to interpret the matter, resolved to turn off the tap as I was, truly believing he was being kind out of pity. He today assures me this isn’t the case, and the lioness in my gonads has stopped lashing about like a wildcat, and remains merely alert in her den, observant, tender, and yes, mildly happy, but it doesn’t change me, nor the way I might see the possible fruition in a father's eyes. 

If I want to go deeper into Elton’s supremacy, however—for me, a specialized supremacy—meaning he is the best among British talents of my era, I will only go deep enough to say that his gifts wouldn’t exist had his homosexuality been accepted as a mainstream biological imperative, as opposed to tolerated, in the late 60’s, and I in turn wouldn’t have been corrupted by his preeminent subversiveness, joined to Taupin’s scathing lyrical narratives. “Alice,” from Yellow Brick Road, still pierces with hypocritical poignancy when it comes to sexual secrets, but that doesn’t mean Bernie’s progressive sympathies have been victorious, nor that I’m the bad guy. I know we can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but there are limits, even things Shawn and I couldn’t share down the road. We’ve already lived a half century in different worlds. My mention of Loving made no dent in our conversations, and since I'm barren, I would not be able to wed, should it come to that, in my faith, but I have to look into that.