Born On This Day- February 7th... Olympian Mark Tewksbury

2012... Leap Year, Republican & Democratic conventions & the Presidential Election, The End Of The World, & the London Summer Olympics!

Johnny Weissmuller, Ian Thorpe, Matt Biondi, Michael Phelpes, & of course Mark Spitz... I am zany for Olympic swimmers! Olympic medalist Mark Tewksbury was closeted throughout his competitive swimming career, but since coming out has become an advocate for GLTB rights. Going into Barcelona, Tewksbury was ranked 4th in the world & most experts picked one of the powerful American swimmers to win gold. Tewksbury's gold medal was Canada's first at the Barcelona games and the first Canadian gold in swimming since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which Russia boycotted. Tewksbury also won a bronze medal in the relay event in Barcelona. He made the cover of Time magazine. He was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, & the International Swimming Hall of Fame & was named Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year.

In December 1998, Tewksbury announced that he was gay. He was the first Canadian athlete to voluntarily state his homosexuality & his announcement drew great public attention. In 1998, he lost a 6-figure contract as a motivational speaker because he was "too openly gay."

Like many gay athletes, Tewksbury competed for years while in the closet. Tewksbury: "The only gay swimmer I knew of was Greg Louganis & he was spoken of terribly behind the scenes because of his sexuality. So in that regard, it pushed me further back into the closet."

In 2006, Tewksbury wrote an book: Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock, in which he speaks of the infighting among organizers of the Olympics, as well as the Gay Games & newly formed Out Games. He resigned from the International Olympic Committee over the lack of accountability, accusing the IOC of rampant corruption. He was also part of a group of former Olympic athletes who pushed for the resignation of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. Only months after the scandal surrounding the Salt Lake City Games broke, Tewksbury became known as a critic of the IOC & demanded reforms to the system.

Tewksbury: “I gazed around the room slowly. The best swimmers from Russia, Cuba, the United States, Spain, Germany and France were in front of me. & I was different. I was the fag. & in that moment I owned my truth completely. I thought, ‘If these guys knew how hard it was for me to get here, they wouldn't believe it. They have no bloody clue what I have been through. Or how strong I am.’ ”

Tewksbury is candid about embarrassing, humorous & unflattering things about his personal life, including his involvement in a serious 3way relationship with a gay couple & his persistent pursuit of a professional male escort.
 In December 2008 Tewksbury was invited by the government of France to speak at the United Nations in NYC on the day that a declaration was introduced that affirms gay rights & seeks to decriminalize homosexuality around the globe.

In 2009 Tewksbury was inducted into Canada's LGBT Human Rights Hall of Fame, the Q Hall of Fame Canada, in honor of his outstanding achievements & efforts to end discrimination in the sports world. he has been named the chef de mission of the 2012 Canadian Summer Olympic team.

Tewksbury lives on Canada with his husband- Benjamin Kiss, a Swiss figure skater. He turns 43 years old today.

Born On This Day- December 31st... Canadian Polymath Douglas Coupland

I certainly love our neighbors to the north. Margaret Atwood, Kurt Browning, Michael Bublé, Raymond Burr, Kim Cattrall, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, k d lang, who would want a world without Canadians? The Husband & I were married in Vancouver BC on our 25th anniversary of couplehood.

I first came upon Vancouver B.C.’s Douglas Coupland when the vacation home he shares with his husband was featured in the NY Times. The article revealed that the couple’s second home was directly behind their primary residence. In Seattle, The Husband & I had a second home, a 150 square foot barge on Lake Union, that was within walking distance of our 700 square foot cottage in the Wallingford neighborhood. I knew that I would dig around & get to know this Coupland fellow.

Coupland’s first novel- Generation X was published in 1991. I guess the title had some impact on our culture, giving a name to the post-Boomers & the term McJobs. In the next 2 decades, he wrote 13 novels, a collection of short stories, 8 volumes of nonfiction, the official guide to the Vancouver Olympics, stage plays, & screenplays.

It isn’t enough that he has created books & scripts, Coupland is a visual artist. Recently he designed the Monument to the War of 1812 in Toronto, iconic sculptures in Canoe Landing Park in downtown Toronto. His tribute to Canada's fallen firefighters in Ottawa is unveiled in March, 2012. Coupland, in collaboration with Roots, designed a popular collection of summer streetwear.

Hornet Nest 1 & 2

Downy Bottle #1

Blocks

Coupland claims to work 7 days a week & to never have taken a vacation.

Coupland has written a series of suggestions for surviving the future. Here are a few that I have taken to heart:

“It's going to get worse .No silver linings & no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop.”

“The middle class is over. It's not coming back. Remember travel agents? Remember how they just kind of vanished one day? That's where all the other jobs that once made us middle-class are going – to that same, magical, class-killing, job-sucking wormhole into which travel-agency jobs vanished, never to return. However, this won't stop people from self-identifying as middle-class, & as the years pass we'll be entering a replay of the antebellum South, when people defined themselves by the social status of their ancestors 3 generations back. Enjoy the new monoclass!”

“North America can easily fragment quickly as did the Eastern Bloc in 1989. Quebec will decide to quietly & quite pleasantly leave Canada. California contemplates splitting into 2 states, fiscal & non-fiscal. Cuba becomes a Club Med with weapons. The Hate States will form a coalition.”

“Your sense of time will continue to shred. Years will feel like hours.

“It is going to become much easier to explain why you are the way you are. Much of what we now consider “personality” will be explained away as structural & chemical functions of the brain.”

“You're going to miss the 1990s more than you ever thought.”

“Stupid people will be in charge, only to be replaced by ever-stupider people. You will live in a world without kings, only princes in whom our faith is shattered.”

“IKEA will become an ever-more-spiritual sanctuary.”

“Dreams will get better”

“Being alone will become easier”

“Expect less… Not zero, just less.”