Sunday, July 26, 2009

E. Lynn Harris Dies

E. Lynn Harris died Thursday night of a heart attack at 54 years old. He collapsed while on tour for his 11th novel, "Basketball Jones." It's so disheartening to hear this even though I hadn't read one of his books in years. (Unfortunately, I haven't read many books in years.) Anybody black, gay and lesbian --- or especially STRAIGHT, BLACK and FEMALE --- knows of E. Lynn's work. His books, generally about closeted black gay men, pretty much kicked the door open on the "DL phenomenon" (or "catastrophe" as I've often labeled it since so many people seemed to wear their fear and proposed right to secret lifes as a badge of honor).

I went to a couple of his readings and he always struck me as a warm and humble human being, as sweet as they come. He seemed to get so much pleasure out of writing and sharing his work with his audience. Primarily, straight black women. (I could completely dissect their actual interest or motives, but it really isn't that important to me anymore.) I was always happy to see E. Lynn show up on the New York Times Best Seller list. He completely changed the world when it came to black writers and the publishing world's view of the self-publishing independent industry. He did affect my work. I included an intro to issue# 11 of BGBF where a woman reflects on her own homphobic hypocrisy because of her husband's antics as an attempted gay basher. E. Lynn Harris does deserve some credit for making us a little more visible. I'm sorry to hear he's gone.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

UN-Simpsonized

I UN-Simpsonized these characters. So, here they are. And, in case you forgot, the originals below.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

My Brother and his Beautiful Wife

My brother, Billy and his beautiful wife, Frances celebrated 15 years of marriage recently by renewing their vows. Last night, they celebrated Frances's 40th birthday. As I watched them dance ALL --- and I really mean ALL night long (even longer than us gay folks can), I just became amazed at how far they've come together. They have two adorable, beautiful, wonderful children. I'm not just saying that because I'm their uncle, but they are. But, the four of them together are such a wonderful family unit. They seem like one. Billy and Frances are an incredible couple and what I couldn't (okay - wouldn't) say at the mike last night (because I wouldn't get up to do it and ducked behind somebody) is that I am so, so, so happy that they found one another.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Friday, July 3, 2009

Victor E. Hodge X-tended

Okay. I'm finally doing it. I couldn't bring myself to do it on Deviant Art --- which is a lovely site, I'm sure ... but, I'm going to do it here. This blog --- Victor E. Hodge Xtended should really be XXX-tended. This blog is intended to show the things I didn't want to present here. Just in case my family was watching. (Especially, my big brother.) There will be a lot of naughtiness and pure Simpsons-filth. Maybe a lot of Simpsons-filth (i.e. PORN - PORNOGRAPHIC PICTURES). I will take this opportunity to exploit "vanilla" characters and post them in all their unexplored raunchiness. (None of this should be held in conjunction with the BGBF continuum.) This blog has any and everything I'm interested. But, this one well ... will be the most revealing --- not about me --- but, about some of my characters. So, whoever wants to turn me in (prudish jackals) --- maybe I'll do it myself, ---so that I can get that horrific disclaimer about liabilities on front --- from Blogger, might as well get prepared because it's going to get dirty. Real dirty. Not here ... but, there.