In Grateful Recognition of Your Support...

To commemorate my second year of philanthropic fundraising for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and in support of HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Advocacy Services throughout the Bay Area (incl. Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.), I am overwhelmed with both pride, and – of course! – gratitude to have the distinct privilege of announcing that the TOTAL $575.00 USD in funds I raised for AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 (as of Sunday, July 17, 2011 @ 5:30PM PST) well surpassed my initial $500.00 USD pledge, in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

All AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 charitable funds raised to-date by Board of Directors & Staff Members of San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partner Beneficiary Organizations will be allocated directly back to those benefiting nonprofit organizations. 

Therefore, I am equally privileged and honored to confirm that, in light of my AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 fundraising successes, I have exceeded my own professional philanthropic fundraising obligations to Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. : San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partner Beneficiary (Team #8088), as a Member of the organization's Board of Directors.

In an effort to recognize my grateful appreciation for all donations contributed directly to my AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 Fundraising Portal: http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf, I have designed, composed and distributed another MailChimp.com HTML email communications campaign: http://eepurl.com/eNIJQ (as summarized below):

Matthew Blanchard (a.k.a. QHereKidSF) expresses immense gratitude in recognition of your valued contributions to AIDS Walk San Francisco, benefiting Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

25th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco

A Thousand Times, THANK YOU!

In Grateful Appreciation of Your Contributions
Supporting Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

The Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. is now (and always has been) indeed immensely grateful to our Benefactors, for their impenetrably selfless support of our organization's mission, of its meaningful work; and, of course, for their contributions to the long and lasting lives of all the beautiful youth survivors whom we proudly call "members."

May you relish in knowing with some certainty that your recent charitable support will go far in sustaining the planning, administration, promotion, and development of an integrally effective and successful program of HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Youth Advocacy services offered by Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., as means to fulfill the goals of our noble mission: to help HIV/AIDS infected and/or affected youth of the San Francisco Bay Area to live longer, happier, healthier, more productive, and quality-filled lives.

PLEASE NOTE: Incentives will only be distributed to those donors who have provided Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. with an authentic destination shipping address. Trust that your personal contact information will be kept strictly confidential and will never knowingly be shared with any third party. If you would like to decline respectfully any or all of your due incentives, please respond directly to this email with a clear and concise message confirming your polite refusal of specific gifts.

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Ever so rare in life are moments in which we may boast both honor and privilege enough to witness firsthand the direct impact of considerable generosity as exhibited by others' charitable support of one's own personal philanthropic cause. As a representative beneficiary of your significant generosity, I find myself now in a position of such honor, privilege, and even – of course! – responsibility!

Blessed to be able and invited to delight in the pleasures of my immediate professional obligation to respond to your recent gestures in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., I savor the challenge of weaving together the gold-fleece thread of my thoughts into a meaningful expression of most sincere thanks to you.

The immensity of gratitude felt in recognition of your charity truly overwhelms me! Thus, on behalf of the very grateful Board of Directors, staff, and "youth member" constituency of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., I proudly proclaim tremendous thanks to you, in honor and appreciation of your most generous gestures of good-willed giving to our cause: "Thank you ever so much! A thousand times, THANK YOU!!"

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Regarding the status of the incentives you, as a distinguished donor to my cause, so wholeheartedly deserve, I am obliged to report that thank you notes will be written and distributed as soon as feasibly possible (e.g., within a month's time). Those more substantial incentives that may be due to you, in recognition of charitable contributions of $50.00 USD or more, will be grouped together and shipped to you via first class priority mail, as single incentive packages. I humbly beg you to recognize my plans to group individual incentives into single packages as a necessary, albeit inconvenient, cost-saving measure.

Also, please keep in mind that Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's anthology of queer cultural criticism essays: WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, will not be available for distribution until after its official release date of Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Consequently, depending on the value of your individual contributions to my cause, your incentive package may not be set to arrive to you until well into next year.

Rest assured! I plan to keep all of my generous donors well informed of the shipping status of their incentives, through a timely distribution of regular updates via email. Such updates will also include donor impact reports that detail just exactly how your contributions are serving the administrative programming needs of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

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In closing, I would like to reiterate how honored and privileged I am to be able to delight in the welcomed challenge of communicating both eloquently and expressively the immensity of gratitude I feel in appreciation of your most valued charitable contributions to AIDS Walk SF 2011, supporting Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

Please know with confidence that your donations to my AIDS Walk SF 2011 fundraising efforts will go very, very far in sustaining, promoting, and developing the vital HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Youth Advocacy services that Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. provides to San Francisco's community of HIV/AIDS infected and/or affected youth.

In appreciation of your considerable generosity, I say to you again: "Thank you so very much! A thousand times, THANK YOU!!" Stay safe, sane, and sober, my friend! Cheers! Ciao & Namaste: I bow to the gods within you..

With most sincere gratitude...
Respectfully yours,
Matthew D. Blanchard

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Matthew D. Blanchard
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.
matthew@baypositives.org

Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

Matthew D. Blanchard

matthew@qherekidsf.com

San Francisco, CA USA

[20110717T181534PST] 

WHY I WALK? (Part Two) : @AIDSWalkSF

HELP SUPPORT My Week-Long Fundraising Pledge...

http://eepurl.com/eJmaI – PLEASE HELP Matthew Blanchard (a.k.a. QHereKidSF) SURPASS his week-long $500 fundraising pledge in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.!

AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011

WHY I WALK? (Part Two)

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HELP SURPASS My $500 Fundraising Pledge!

Donations directly benefit Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

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With a soft, unpretending and polite voice: a voice ripe with care, compassion and empathy, my younger sister described to me the “difficult challenge” she and other of my closest family members faced back in late 2007 – at the dawn of a miracle and at the dusk of my demise! – when they were forced to confront the very real possibility of my overdose-induced, HIV/AIDS-related death.

Once my diseased, decomposing & comatose body was rushed to the hospital, doctors began their valiant efforts to alleviate my pneumonia, to restore function to my failing kidneys, and to combat – in hopes to conquer! – the poly-microbial necrotizing bacterial infection that had already succeeded in turning the once gentle and happy contours of my handsome smile into a putrid mess of blackened corroded flesh.

The initial prognosis of my critically weakened health was so bleak that doctors were compelled – if not forced by a strict code of ethics! – to contact my family. A triage team of medical care providers informed my closest relatives of my terrible condition, urged my loved ones to ready themselves for my impending death, and requested that they thoughtfully considering together exactly how I would have liked the final directives of my life to be executed.

The story my sister told of my family's own insufferable worry in response to the dreadful possibility of my death fell from her thoughts with surprised suspense:

It was incredible! One day, we were being told that it’d be best for us to prepare for the end. A week later, doctors called again to report that you were stabilizing. Days later, you were still critical but were responding to exterior stimuli. After another week, your foggy eyes peeked open into consciousness. Then, soon enough, you were responding to visual stimuli and were taken off life support.

Before we could catch our breath and put away thoughts of your possible death, you were on the phone with us trying so desperately to communicate your excitement, without a mouth, in spats of very happy giggles, grunts, and moaning. What a roller-coaster; you can imagine! It was a miracle – no question! And, that’s a lot to be said coming from a twenty-something military wife who had long-ago lost her faith. But, only God does miracles; right?

In the glowing radiance of my miraculous rebound back to life from death, I can only attest to the life-saving, life-sustaining force and potential of the myriad members of my social-support and care-provider networks who have remained committed to empowering my continued growth and holistic healing beyond the uncertainty of fragile health, forward toward psycho-social and physical wellness, and in the direction of a complete fulfillment of my ideal future self.

Thanks to vital contributions by countless community-based HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Service agencies, such as those throughout the San Francisco Bay Area who will most directly benefit from the fundraising efforts of over 25,000 AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 participants, I have been empowered to make good of these miracles of prolonged life and second chances that have been gifted to me either by God or by science – or both! Who knows?

Without the unrelenting and selfless support of the numerous humble heroes of both my care-provider and social-support networks, I would surely not have been able to sustain my course toward prolonged survival and eventual success in life. This is why I walk!

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Thanks to each of my friends, family members, care providers, and colleagues for your enduring compassion and support! At present, with $450.00 already raised in just under three days, I find myself rejoicing in this unique opportunity I have to witness the direct impact of your generous contributions to my cause.

In grateful recognition of the valued generosity of donors to my cause, each of my supporters who contributes a charitable gift in the amount of or exceeding $25.00 USD, via my Fundraising Portal, shall receive a special note of thanks hand-written on stationery that features a high-quality digital print copy of one of my limited edition hand-crafted rubber block-cut floral prints – in periwinkle and white on brown (as featured above).

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

Likewise, I hereby commit to keeping all of the many generous donors to my cause well informed of their impact, as the Board of Directors and staff of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. strives to thrive for several more years to come, in support of all Bay Area youth infected and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. Thanks again!! Cheers! Ciao & Namaste...

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In grateful honor of those innumerable heroes who have helped me redeem my right to live, to survive, to strive, and to thrive in hope, while faced with a disabling AIDS diagnosis, I am planning to participate in the 25th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco - July 17, 2011!

As a Member of the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., one of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partners (Team #8088), I am committed to raising a minimum of $500 for my organization, during this week prior to the event.

All charitable funds raised by board members and staff of AIDS Walk Beneficiary Organizations will be allocated in full directly back to those participating nonprofit agencies. So, please consider contributing to my fundraising efforts in support of BAY Positives, via my personal Fundraising Portal:

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

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AIDS Walk San Francisco is organized by and benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, as well as HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Services throughout the Bay Area.

San Francisco AIDS Foundation works to end the HIV epidemic in the city where it began, and eventually everywhere. Established in 1982, our mission is the radical reduction of new infections in San Francisco because we refuse to accept HIV as inevitable. Through education, advocacy and direct services for prevention and care, we are confronting HIV in communities most vulnerable to the disease.

San Francisco AIDS Foundation is guided by a strategic plan with three ambitious goals aimed at radically reducing new infections in San Francisco by 2015.

GOAL 1: Reduce new HIV infections in San Francisco by 50%
Leveraging scientific research and community knowledge we will devise new approaches and ensure that federal, state and local legislation supports a climate hospitable to effective HIV prevention.

GOAL 2: Ensure all San Franciscans know their current HIV status
We are expanding advocacy and public education about the benefits of testing, determining the feasibility of citywide HIV screening, and optimizing our own and others’ capacity to provide HIV testing.

GOAL 3: Ensure access to proper care for all HIV-positive San Franciscans
As the epidemic evolves, we are evolving our targeted programs to improve the health of people with HIV and AIDS, from housing and medical referrals to group support and services that address mental health and substance use among populations most vulnerable to HIV.

© 2011 San Francisco AIDS Foundation | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
1035 Market Street, Ste 400 | San Francisco, CA 94103
www.sfaf.org | +1.415.487.3000 (main) | feedback@sfaf.org

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Matthew D. Blanchard
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.
http://www.baypositives.org
matthew@baypositives.org
+1.415.487.1616 (main)
+1.415.487.1617 (fax)

http://eepurl.com/eJmaI

COPYRIGHT © 2011 Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

baypositives.org | 701 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 | info@baypositives.org

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com
San Francisco, CA USA
[20110713T061237PST]

WHY I WALK? (Part One) : @AIDSWalkSF

Help Support My Week-Long Fundraising Pledge!

http://eepurl.com/eGH7I – Matthew Blanchard (a.k.a. QHereKidSF) has pledged to raise $500 in one week to support Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011

WHY I WALK? (Part One)

Over the course of the last four years, as many of my most intimately supportive friends, family members, professional care providers and colleagues well know, the critical prognoses of my HIV/AIDS-disabled health had left me teetering to and fro, back and forth between the perniciously presumptive promises of death and the disastrous delirium of drug dependency, depression and disfigurement.

More recently, however, the courage of my convictions has kept me devoutly dedicated to a steadfast and surefooted pursuit of positive change, growth and progress in my sero-positive wellness.

Thus, reconstruction, recovery, and rehabilitation have proven to be, for me, the rightfully redemptive remedies I have needed in life, in order to resolve and ultimately reverse the very real-world rotting corrosion of both my smile, my spirit, and my surety and sanctity of self. This is why I walk!

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In grateful honor of those innumerable heroes who have helped me redeem my right to live, to survive, to strive, and to thrive in hope and in faith of self, while faced with a disabling AIDS diagnosis, I have registered to participate in the 25TH Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco – July 17, 2011, organized by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

As a Member of the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., one of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partner Beneficiaries (Team #8088), I am committed to raising a minimum of $500 for my organization, during this week prior to the commemorative event.

All charitable funds raised by board members and staff of AIDS Walk Beneficiary Organizations will be allocated in full directly back to those participating nonprofit agencies. So, please consider contributing immediately to my fundraising efforts in support of BAY Positives, via my AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 Fundraising Portal:

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

With most humbled humanity of spirit and in hope of sustaining the impact of my own small, but significant, HIV/AIDS Youth Prevention & Care Advocacy Nonprofit: Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., I am proud to be able to entice the generosity of your giving spirit.

In recognition of your superiour contributions to my personal fundraising campaign for the 25TH Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco – July 17, 2011, I offer to reciprocate the unmatched generosity of my most valued donor(s) with various significant incentives.

$50.00 - $74.99 Donations – In recognition of all contributions of between $50.00 to $75.00 to my personal fundraising campaign in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., donors will receive an example of my own personal exploration through visual art of the limitless bounds of my new-found beauty. DONATE NOW!

$75.00 - $99.99 Donations – My supporters who contribute donations between $75.00 and $100.00 will be invited to chose to receive as gifts either my literary work or my cinematic work of creative self expression, accompanied by an example of my creative expression of self through visual art. DONATE NOW!

$100.00 Donations & Above – Those of my supporters whose generosity compels them to contribute most substantially to my cause will be awarded in recognition of their charity with a combination of all three gifts depicted below. DONATE NOW!

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Creative Expression as Self-Portraiture

Since waking from death and after staring straight in the face of my ubiquitously brutish and unbecoming ugliness, I have endeavored to reclaim, through external manifestations of creative self-expression, the full-measured immensity of my own innately internal, yet outwardly actualized, "beauty beguiled, BEGODS!" Consequently, my recent corpus of creative works of self-expression, through self-portraiture on stage, on screen, and on paper, is meant to further foment our shared recognition and rejoicing in the serendipitous resplendence of my "beyond-all-odds" auspicious survival, as we struggle together to find solace in the peaceful reflections staring back at us from there, where the ferocious face of trepidation, self-loathing, and contempt very well once could have, should have been!

– Matthew D. Blanchard,
CONSTRUCT (narrator),
IT GETS BETTER? (author)

Creative Expression as Film Performance

STILL AROUND : A Short Film Compilation (2011, USA, 82 mins.)
distributed as an Outcast Films Release
prod. M. Smolowitz & J. Fockele | The HIV Story Project

funded in part by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation  

"STILL AROUND" is a compendium of 15 short films on the theme of HIV. Most of the protagonists are positive, but the ways in which they deal with their status – and associated issues, like coming out to family or getting politically involved – are wildly different. In some of these shorts we're treated to performance pieces – slam poetry and inventive filming that can tease us, as in Daniel Cardone's "CONSTRUCT," in which poetry about physical disfigurement is intensified by shots that hint at (or briefly show) a body ravaged by infection – and a spirit that has moved toward self-knowledge.

– Kilian Melloy, Edge | edgeboston.com


Creative Expression as Literary Narrative
WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS?
feat. "IT GETS BETTER?" : An Essay by Matthew D. Blanchard 

ed. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (AK Press, Feb 14 2012)

Mattilda has again provided us with a collection of urgent, intimate, powerful essays that upend the horrifying hyper-visible and invisibilizing bandwagon of today's pro-military, marriage-obsessed white gay politics. These essays excavate masculinity, unearthing the complex and pervasive structures that police and construct it and exposing the beautiful resilience of its self-avowed refusers and failures. These pieces ... [provide] complex and badly needed ways to imagine and reimagine faggotry.

– Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law

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POSITIVE OUTLOOK : A COMING OF AGE!

Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

Together for 20+ years, BAY Positives' Peer Education & Advocacy Team has served SF Bay Area youth infected and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. Today, we aspire to sustain & grow our vision through dynamic inter-agency collaborations, engaging & accessible prevention interventions, and strength-based youth empowerment & mentoring.

Over the past 20+ years, the invaluable, lifesaving work of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. has been supported in great part by significant public & private sector grants, including awards direct from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), and numerous health-promoting business corporations, as well as by the indubitably reliable gift-giving and grant-making of countless SF Bay Area Charitable Fund-Raising Organizations.

The Board of Directors of BAY Positives is now (and always has been) indeed immensely grateful to our Benefactors, for their impenetrably selfless support of our organization's mission, of its meaningful work; and, of course, for our contributions to the long and lasting lives of all the beautiful youth survivors whom we proudly call "members."

FANATIC FOLLOWERS!
Social Media Sharing

    
http://eepurl.com/eGH7I

Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. gladly encourages social media interaction with (and amongst) our constituents. Our Board of Directors actively engages in Web2.0 Communications, in an effort to promote and disseminate positive HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care messages, particularly amongst youth.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Matthew D. Blanchard
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

matthew@baypositives.org
+1 (415) 487-1616 (main)
+1 (415) 487-1617 (fax)

COPYRIGHT © 2011 Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
www.baypositives.org | 701 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 | info@baypositives.org

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110712T193457PST]

EPIC FRIENDSHIP : Upward, Against Gravity!

Earlier this evening, I sent a random Google® Talk instant message to my dear, dear friend and former Shanti Project Social Support Volunteer, Wallace "Wes" Smith: my WALL•E!! His status icon displayed as idle, so I assumed that, perhaps by an off chance, he'd be free to join me for a spontaneous chat: a followup to the random instant messaged salutation he sent to me over the weekend. Little did I know that my spirited loquacity would suddenly seem to turn into a prosaically soliloquized epic ode to our friendship, of legendary mythic proportion.  

I felt so inspired to lavish my friend with lips-puckered, ass-kissed licentious lauding that what he struggled to read of my tenaciously frenetic fervor in typing seemed so awfully awkward in the contrived sophistication of its aggressively astute and alliterative prosaism and sophistry; so much so that I feel obliged to commemorate this haphazardly sententious and Homeric confession of best-begotten brotherly love as a disastrously dimwitted, maniacally meandering monologue, rewritten and posted in its entirety, herein below.

Heya WALL•E!! You totally left me hanging the other day, after you IMed me and then ditched in 10 mins, never to return to chat that day... Are you gonna have any time today to chat it up with me a little? I "yearn" to talk with you!

VOLUNTEERISM : SOCIAL CO-DEPENDENCY & WITHDRAWAL

Adrienne asked about you today, when we were walking to collect my weekly income check from my payee at Lutheran Social Services... She started the conversation by asking me my thoughts on finding another Shanti Volunteer.

I told her in a straightforward, matter of fact tone, "Well, thing is, I'm not sure how I feel about investing so much of myself into what's presumably meant to be a very important relationship in my life, if its just gonna end all of a sudden, and I am forced to lose a friend... again. I just don't think I could do that, at this point in my life."

She responded by asking, "Is that what happened with Wes? I thought you two were supposed to have stayed connected. Wasn't that your intention?"

So, I answered, again in a stoic, almost careless voice, "Yes, it was. But, Wes kinda just stopped responding and pulled away."

Her reply: "Oh, I can see how that could have been frustrating... [pause] ...and disappointing."

What I failed to mention to her was that I too hadn't made such a concerted effort in pursuing a sustained friendship with you, so it may have come across as me shifting blame all on you, Wes, which I regret. So, I commit to clearing things up the next time I talk to her, this week.

I just want to apologize, and say that Adrienne reminded me today how much of a giant gaping hole was left in my life after we ended our "professional" relationship. I MISS YOU!

Now, go take care of that "not so minor" issue that you're dealing with at work.

PETTY CONTRIVANCES OF A PSYCHO-UNSTABLE MIND

IF YOU'RE SCROLLING, YOU CAN STOP HERE NOW AND START READING AGAIN...

While you're off addressing that "not so minor" work issue for the next few minutes; a moment or two well spent by you, but better left unspent by me, I'm sure... I'll just continue my garrulously loquacious, leave-nothing-left-unsaid, babbling banter 'bout all the bizarre and contrite contrivances of my psycho-unstable mind, which have me anxious and worried of late, so that you can or may have an intimate and long-over-due peek into my perilously perverse and pessimistic personality! Hmmmm... Where did I leave off RE: Adrienne? Oh yeah... somewhere along the lines of:

So, I will be clearing you of the blunt force of blame for our reprehensibly reciprocal responsibility and our mutual misgivings vis-à-vis our dually shared and accepted failure to sustain our friendship past the point of its "professional" end.

I just don't want Adrienne to think that you were a bad choice as a volunteer. Heck, Adrienne already knows (I presume – and, if she doesn't, then she damn well should!) what an integral role you have played in SAVING MY LIFE! I owe so much to Adrienne for having stuck to her gut at the get go by pairing us together as client and volunteer... as would-be, could-be, forever-and-always "friends!"

RESPLENDENCE : AS "TACKLE-ANY-THREAT" TRIUMPH

But, more so, I owe much of my present success – my "Thank God! I'm thriving," tackle-any-threat, thwart-all-trials-&-traumas, tremendously triumphant and resplendent resilience, reborn amidst the tumultuously twisted travails of my recovery, rehabilitation, reconstruction and restitution of self – to you, my dear friend!

At the get-go, my joyous journey toward good health and happiness was gladly guided by the gentle and giving hand of a stranger turned beloved confidant, who courageously ventured well past reason, into a realm beyond responsibility where the rightfully righteous regalia and splendor of spirit dwell, to share his wisdom with a wounded, woebegone, godforsaken gay boy wanting of nothing more than exactly that which was delivered: LOVE!

My WALL•E!! Wallace "Wes" Smith
Facebook Photo, posted: June 16, 2010
© COPYRIGHT 2011 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SISYPHEAN STRUGGLE : AS PANTHEON TO FRIENDSHIP

I OWE ALL THIS FOR WHICH I HAVE TO BE THANKFUL TO YOU, MY DEAR FRIEND!

That is why I feel obliged now to persevere through the challenges of time and temerity, of entangled temperaments, of trials and tribulations brought 'bout by the blatantly bold, always bogus and unbecoming bastions of best-not-a-brick-wall-between-us "business."

To conquer – in a Sisyphean struggle steep & unsound enough to shake all shame, pride and courage from me – the cold, heartless and selfish demands of "convenience," in order finally to build the perfect pantheon to our still living, still thriving and resilient friendship, up atop the mythic mountains set between us

Let us together carefully carve, with courage & compassion, this megalithic monument to ME & MY WALL•E!! right from the Acherontic behemoth brimestone boulder that we together were once forced to push persistently past a presumed point of no return...

In a moment of inspiration, I lay claim to the rolling rock of our friendship as the necessary foundation of a forever extant and extraordinarily exultant temple, built to honor our two chance-selfless, yet yearning, souls. Thus, ad infinitum, we witness our two souls, serendipitously united by the unbreakable, ne'er tarnished bonds of brotherhood, made beautiful by perfectly platonic LOVE AND DEVOTION...

THE LACHRYMOSE, MOST LEFT SIDE OF MY MIND

LOVE AND DEVOTION duly deemed determined to destroy the could-be, would-be reckless and caustically corrosive contrivances of that aforementioned obstacle we've confirmed unspoken to speak of as "convenience." Agreed? And, don't worry, Wallace... I myself do not know what to make of all of this bombastic banter, either. It's all just "spewage" straight through the levies of the "last-ditch, last-chance, leftover" and lachrymose, most left side of my mind.

There, where my creative compass spins sporadically lost in all directions, a lasting light continues to shine. Despite the trifling trepidation and turpitude that has threatened to thwart the forever flamboyantly flagrant and fervid flame of our friendship, such incessant fear and intimidation still shall not stomp out our fire, nor even wash it away with waves of wearily woeful worry and doubt.

CONCEDING TO THE "CONTRIVANCES OF CONVENIENCE"

At very best, be it not 'bout time that we together concede to the "contrivances of convenience," admitting altogether that this could-be, would-be, whenever, wherever compelling of raucously chaotic commotion – preposterous pandemonium that continues to create a chasm of disordered discord straight through the center of our still quite celebrated and cherished friendship! – must be quenched, harnessed, muffled, exhausted, breached, and bridged before our bonds be beyond all possibility or chance of reconstruction, rehabilitation, recovery, and as well as – of course! – of redemptive restitution, in their own right?

My response to such discordance, as I hope would be yours as well in return, is this: THE TIME IS RIPE FOR US AT LEAST TO EXHAUST ALL OPTIONS!! The time is ripe for us to explore all earthly passages toward a point of position, where such a presumably implausible possibility of peace together might take its proper place ahead of all our pettily plebeian, yet boulder-like and burdensome, "CONTRIVANCES OF CONVENIENCE!!" Yes! The same phrase is refrained, as if for effect again, with emphatic force; of course!

I myself chose to remain courageously committed to the notion that naught near nothing aught keep us – Matt(e)o and his wholeheartedly happy-ever-after, astounding and amazing friend, WALL•E!! – from catapulting together the ungodly gargantuan boulder up atop the snow-capped cresting summit of a good-godly majestic mountain, there, where we have been meaning for a mighty long time to leave our lasting mark. Only this time, the behemoth rolling rock of our Sisyphean struggle should no longer conveniently contrive to create could-be, would-be impenetrable barriers and obstacles between us; instead, however, our mark shall be sculpted from that stone into the shape of a pantheonic monument, as previously described.

A SPLENDID TORCH : OUR STILL LIVING, THRIVING STORY

Tell me, dear, close friend and confidant – you, who once bravely buttressed the stumbling, fumbling, crumbling facade of my "fagged-out, ferocious, Fog City Freak Show," with naught near nothing more than mighty words of wisdom and a regular barrage of hugs...

Are you ready, willing and able now – dear friend! – to join in my cause courageously, compassionately, and without any cute and quaint "contrivances of convenience," to excavate, dust off, cleanse, polish and restore to its resilient shine the splendid torch of our still-to-be-told, living, thriving and triumphant story?

For, this story of ours, and ours alone, is the only chance we have together to inculcate our worse-off and ignorant brethren, by inspiring in them, as exemplars, an understanding and appreciation of the importance of our stolidly shared, striving, and thriving efforts to extend the life of brotherly bonds between friends well far past a few expectantly forgotten farewells, and all the way infinitely onward and upward, toward Everest or Olympia; there, where every man atop each his own majestic mountain may finally rest together, basking in the company of other likely heroes.

With this, our legendary tale of triumph through travail so quite unlike and contrary to others' staid or saturnine stories of dissolute dysphoria, we may finally and forthwith fill our heavenly hubristic hearts with the ne'er forsaken but full-force fuel of the forever-lasting flames of friendship: a fire from whose embers the diamond-crystalline core essence of our energetic enthusiasm, our exultant exuberance, and of our dutifully indestructible do-good-only devotion to and love for one another erupts as a miraculously mythical, flame-tailed fowl aflight.

A PHOENIX a'FIRE ... OF FRIENDSHIP!!

From the smouldering ashes of what could have been our failed, forgotten folly, "A PHOENIX a'FIRE ... OF FRIENDSHIP" shall burst forth in explosions of celestial brilliance and be reborn into so-white-hot-she's-red, resplendent glory.

This fiery immortal and all-knowing animal-prophet will take flight with unmet and outstanding wisdom, through the telling of our tale as an oracle of obligation and duty for those few who, wanting such to sustain the boundless and unbroken bonds of brotherhood, shall serve so many could-be, would-be countless, courageous others, as god-sent, spellbinding, and brilliantly living beacons of fire's light: the immaculately inextinguishable exemplars of faith in friendship and devotion to hope!

We must share with the as-of-yet ill-fated throngs of death-defyingly isolated, outright tormented and lonely others of the world our own unique unhampered hope in happiness, exponentially multiplied by the mutually endless and perfect power of our platonic love!

For, it is now, in writing and reading this quasi-Homeric epic enunciation of our shared story, that we bear witness to the very real possibility, the probability or perhaps even persistent truth which, pondered in properly mythic proportion, tells a time-willed and wistfully whimsical tale of the forever-lasting and eternal life of our fraternal love; such that is rightfully redeemed through the rapturous resilience of friendship's bond. 

NEAR TO UTOPIA : DANCING UPWIND OF DOOMSDAY

Through reincarnate duet dancing, such brotherly bonds that we share do tenderly touch our flat-footed heels and toes to the dew-dropped golden petals and emerald green glowing grasses of heavenly Elysium.

In our loving embrace of a fraternal order, our spirits sprint a fervent and inflamed, mighty marathon heat: a mad, mad mercurial dash upwind of Doomsday! Together, we freely frolic forward – as desultorily dithyrambic dancers do! – to unfold the footprints of those propitious gods who unknowingly lead us ever more near to Utopia. 

OUR WILDLY WOVEN & TENDERLY UNTANGLED STORY

It is this, our untold story – composed of a tightly wound, full-colored dreamcoat of woolen, silk and linen threads – which we must commit to continue telling, not only through its own wildly wondrous weaving, but also eventually through its tenderly touching but tough-knuckled untangling, as time doth pass.

We must commit to continuing our story, born of our passionately platonic and brotherly bonds of fraternal love and friendship. As long as there still remain even the most random and unreasonable threads of debauched, clashing hues to be woven into the coat of arms that sheaths and enshrines the time-worn epic corpus of our friendship against all brief abeyance and absconding of pages, we must never thread sparingly the spindle but only weave on with gusto, grace and gratitude.

Even now must our story continue, as – or, at last, until! – we stumble together surefooted, in our first few eager steps, high o'er the chaotically libidinous currents of the rivers Acheron and Styx. May we courageously coax ourselves onward, in our tumultuously trying trek, to conquer the Sisyphean mountains and the 'bout-to-be-bested boulders before us.

Let us gladly, gracefully, and with genuinely gregarious gratitude, thank gods for the heavenly happenstance and dear twist of luck that brought us together...

MS. ADRIENNE ELIAS : OUR SOLE HEROIC INTERMEDIARY

Or was it more, perhaps? Yes, indeed, I posit proudly and am pleased to say that we owe all for which we are thankful – which has made us far more fortunate than all but a few of our brave brethren esteemed and emboldened by love! – to the arguably naive and innocent, albeit wonderfully wise and bright-witted, instinct of our sole heroic intermediary: she, who carefully and cajolingly navigated us both each in the direction of the other... God bless Ms. Adrienne Elias! She, who brought us together!

Dear friend, I challenge we two to courageously commit as well to gratitude. Let us duly express our thanks to that "hip and happenin' queer grrl" from whose innate social instinct and stellar performance on the job was born serendipitously our most saliently stoic, solemn, and sometimes flat-out fervidly phlegmatic bond of brotherhood!

NOTE: Please, leave room for some "limp-wristed, fagolicious, and freaked-out," irreverently licentious PIZAZZ! Lest we forget to exaggerate such sibilant fricatives with our good, godawful "gay lisp!!" Hehehe! Even if I've added in an ounce of my own outrageously unrelenting and vulgarly splenetic sense of salacity... 

In honor and respect of the immensely lasting impact of Ms. Elias's offhand, off-the-cuff, but consequently on-target decision to pair the two of us as Shanti client and volunteer, may we permit ourselves to be empowered, me and you: Matt(e)o and WALL•E!! (a.k.a., Wallace "Wes" Smith), to continue our journey together!! 

PARADISE : LOST, FOUND & RIGHTLY RECLAIMED AGAIN

May we only pause to ponder past pitfalls and triumphs, as we resolutely commit still to climbing up skyward, toward the heavens, where at last we may leap together and dive dancing into the blissful beauty of the full-blooming and fruitful fields of our own emancipated Eden: Paradise Lost, Found, and Rightly Reclaimed Again!! by you, able-bodied and by me, with my "miscontoured" mouth and cane!! 

THE INDOMITABLY STURDY STANCE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP

Dear friend, Mr. Wallace "Wes" Smith, won't you please take your place once again right next to me? Would you so kindly permit me please to pass my arm under yours, so as to lock us into an indomitably sturdy stance, poised shoulder to shoulder, heal to heal, ready and raring to risk all our "contrivances of convenience" and to step simultaneously a few feet forward, toward our best-begotten yet unfurled future of good fortune in friendship, as confidants and family, as brothers and ... best friends? 

IN CLOSING : FRANTICALLY FUMBLING FOR WORDS

Eager to know all the thoughts which my epic prolix prosaism has left you to ponder, I now frantically fumble over a proper closing salutation, so that you may have the chance even to consider a reply!

Despite the tremendous chasm that has been carved between us by time, distance, and yes, even "convenience," I continue to cherish the profound loyalty and trust, which still – I hope! – defines our personal relationship, together.

Furthermore, with utmost confidence in the potential of genuine friendships, like ours, to remain resilient in their compassionate and caring capacity to reap reason from duly deserved recompense, restitutory requital, and redemption. Despite things gone a wry, I do very much happily hold you in the highest esteem. 

SISYPHEAN MYTH : A REFRAINED MOTIF OF RESILIENCE

While I wish we could be closer and have more time to spend together in each other's company, I still am very much devoted to seeing this expansively epic, Sisyphean myth through to the end of our long and illustrious, sometimes challenging, but always courageously and compassionately careful, caring and, of course, carefree journey together through life.

Wherever the rock of our friendship may roll, I hope, plan, and pray to be by your side, as we toil over the physical, intellectual and emotional mechanics of putting that damned boulder back into motion against gravity, by pushing and prodding it to the zenith of life's myriad mountains. With honest and unhampered hubris enough to mimic Homeric myth, may we own for ourselves together the ferociously thunderous and omnipotent force of faith, courage and pride in humanity; in other words, let us proclaim our pride in the human kind: a kind in which the God of all gods so often dares to boast believing! 

May we, like the God of all gods, one day boast, as unabashed and deep-bounded brothers do, of that piously peculiar Promethean fire, which has lit our flaming-feathered wings – where wax once was! – and which has lifted us into flight, skyward toward the heavens. There, settled contentedly into the soft, sumptuous comforts of Elysium, shall we have the untried and true contours of our still boyish busts carved out of alabaster marble stone, and beset – as if by birthright! – with perfectly pantheonic and divinely illustrious laurels dipped and gilded in gold.

Together, after a long life of shared stories – good or bad, iniquitously ignominious or spectacularly resplendent and successful – may we conquer all mythic challenges that good-natured guardians chose to cast o'er we two as shadows of sullen gloom, by holding tight to our godlike friendship with a powerful grip of fervent loyalty and trust, by climbing and cresting mountains with boulders before us, and by flying sky high toward the heavens as reborn birds of glory, with inflamed wings. 

TRIUMPH : AS CROWNED LEGENDARY EXEMPLARS

Ultimately, together, we will triumph and be crowned legendary exemplars of bravely bold and beautiful brotherly bonds, as we gawk and goggle mockingly in the face of those fastidiously funereal and dolefully despondent, godawful, good-for-nothing naysayers who near as never relent in their efforts to foul our flight and drag us down from the skies into petulantly vile, outright opprobrium. 

So, join me! Or not! Dare I fly, trek or climb this heroic journey alone? I pray to the all-present, all-knowing and all-powerful divine forces which guide us through life, with or without compliance, from birth to rebirth a thousand times fold, until finally we transcend all earthly contrivances and courageously trek through a frenetically fantastic phantasmagoria of all things transmundane.

Only then, once triumphed and transformed, may we yet be transeuntly transfigured into incomprehensibly perfect and indubitably divine demigod creatures meant to compliment the cosmically stellar, celestially surreal Olympian menagerie, where all other blessed, immortal chimeras eternally rest and reside. Join me? Lest I falter and fall, alone!

IN ANTICIPATION OF YOUR LOSS OF WORDS

As I anticipate your loss for words apropos of your likely quite surprised, yet delightfully honored and impressed reaction to my, as stated, ranting and railing "Homeric prosaism," I leave you with a poignantly simple and straightforward request: Please, respond if you would like, but only at your leisure!

The rest is better left unwritten, and shall stay that way, safely kept in the caressing arms of angels, at least until a time when the echoing voice of prophecy doth guide me (or you!) to give into garrulity once again and to wrench open our hearts with words of epic grandeur.

As one would say in French, my surrogate mother-tongue: À Très Bientôt, mon cher ami!! – Until So Very Soon, my dear friend!!

Ever most fondly,
Matthew

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110601T234738PST]

RE: LONG LOST FRIEND!

Indeed, “long lost,” but never in a moment forgotten! Throughout the span of a decade, with a mind tempered (or tormented) by “what-once-was” well-wishing nostalgia, remembrances and a deep longing desire to redeem the unearthly, unending exuberance of youth, I have often found my thoughts drifting towards you, my baby blue-eyed, porcelain-paled, lusciously lipped lil’ lady friend of times far past & gone. Indeed, “friend,” but oh so much and so many things more!

April Manteris, you were my Perestroika as Millennium Approaches; you were one above many of my arch-guardian Angels In America! How fitting that in my later, more recent life, I would battle with disease-induced malediction & delusions of messianic manic psychosis, much like the enlightened torment of Prior Walter told by Tony Kushner in his “Not-Yet-Conscious, Forward Dawning,” damned devilish drama staged as “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”

My own, personal, proprietary and unprecedented “Gay Fantasia,” told as follies of the mind and frailty of the body, was rife buttressed by more universal themes. In a demented state of holier-than-thou HIV/AIDS-instigated happenstance and insanity, I foresaw a full faith reconciliation of all conflicting religious around the world; the real-time cultivation of a post-apocalyptic, new-growth Garden of Eden; and my transsexual impregnation as an irrationally self-proclaiming, prophetic “Gift of God” with Christ Child incarnate.

Delusions of near godly grandeur galloped as chariots of fire along the strangely strung-out or awkwardly wrought and wired synapses of my parasitically enslaved psyche toward a new and evermore illustrious Elysian Fields. I was a hopeful, kindhearted and jubilant psychotic; not a criminally paranoid sociopath.

In my lonely, lachrymose, lunatic madness, I believed that all humankind would fall down under the watchful rule & gaze of intergalactic warring Angel/Alien brigades, led by Michael, Gabriel, Beelzebub, and Lucifer, only finally to be throttled full flight into a world far more beautiful, blissful and serene that anyone could have ever imagined before.

Funny thing for me though, during my drug-delayed, disease-induced delusional psychosis, I actually possessed the superhuman scope of mind and intellect to imagine the unimaginable as actual and real! What a harrowingly exhilarating experience! Moreover, you were there with me in spirit, all along the way.

For, I was convinced that you, April: my dream dancing “tell-it-to-snow” Eskimo named Harper Pitt, were suffering from a simultaneously paralleled, prophetic psychosis there, on your side of the world.

In my dreams, I imagined our union as beleaguered, but still sun-beaming and boisterous, biblical brethren, once each of us (and countless other young-spirited saints, psychics and soothsayers) had rightfully sown the heavenly seeds of a new beginning for our separate communities, cultures and societies on this dying-to-life, righteously reincarnate Earth of ours.

So much coincidental quizzicality has shaped the “nefand, sullen languid stories of my last-ditch, last-chance life,” including the serendipity of that first meeting of our two minds.

Our two submedially mature yet still quite sycophantic student souls were somehow, at some point, so mutually confounded, mesmerized and inspired by the truly enlightened intimacy we would go on to share, that we often (if I remember correctly!) smothered each other in self-obsessed, other-opposed & ostracized narcissism.

I fondly reminisce, remember and recall just exactly how we together, as the closest of friends, dealt only in the immaculate intimacy of trusted truth (or truthful trust). Tantamount to our unfettered ferocity of faith in one another, such truth tightly intertwined our hearts & souls together in both telltale-tangled threads of deliberately disgruntled dysfunction or malcontent malaise and sumptuously bittersweet stories of irrational, unreasoned, and misguided boy/girl romance gone awry.

Truth is, all throughout our first two years of undergraduate, I tormented myself terribly in confused and conflicted recognition of the dichotomically opposed binary between mainstream, most fortunate and “full-worth-the-effort” male-female love and its exact opposite: gay love, or “queer” love, since there was nothing “gay” about such love for me, during those years, or even ever after!

Truths is, that one occasion of my coming out that you so fondly remember in email, could have panned out in two very different ways; and trust me, when I say that you would not at all have been pleased by the alternate “outcome” of such proceedings!  WINK! WINK!

Oh! I should scream it from my rooftop! I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU, APRIL MANTERIS! I always have been and always will be! Never once have I not regretted the decision I made to proclaim my homosexuality to the world, because all that led to was me being pigeonholed in to a nasty, putrid, pestilent and perverse segment of society, where I subsequently succumbed to a lifestyle of depression, then deviance, then drugs, then disease, then delusions, then death, then disfigurement.

And, all that’s been done to me without my ever having witnessed once again the trusted truth (or truthful trust) of such mutually equitable & reciprocal platonic intimacy as we once shared, let alone anything remotely resembling the romantic!

So, that said, I’ll conclude in recognition of how immensely blessed I am to have found you meandering back into my life with such a generously opened mind and heart, with such forgiveness of the trifles of the past, and with such dignified poise, to reclaim our friendship from the exact point where we once left it off.

I welcome you into my life with widely opened arms, April! Moreover, I do ever so hope that we can rekindle that platonic intimacy that once existed between the two of us and that defined our very profound and beautiful friendship!  I look forward to a future with you in it, and I hope you do of me, as well…

With fond memories…
And, In fond regards,

Most sincerely…
Your dear friend,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard

matthew@qherekidsf.com

http://www.qherekidsf.com

http://bit.ly/qherekidsf

San Francisco, CA USA

[20110401T223247PT]

Romance's Ripe New Reason...

Love Is Like A Flower | © COPYRIGHT {peace&love♥} | 23rd May, 2008 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Accessed March 21, 2011 by QHereKidSF (a.k.a. Matthew D. Blanchard) on Flickr®

Inspired by the well-wishing of a college mentor: Adjunct Theater Arts Professor & Acting Coach, David Doersch, whose warmhearted wisdom woven into a few simple words beamed bright as day in my mind, I read his "Happy SPRING to All!" message on Facebook, while sitting blinded by the light of my computer monitor in the dark of well-past dusk.

Despite the dark and dreary evening that has befallen & befogged all of San Francisco, my heart & mind were filled with the warmth of the season by these, his welcoming words. And thus, such warmth, well-wishing & wisdom from such a distant friend & role model performance artisan or craftsman inspired in me a deep desire to express creatively exactly how I gladly envision the season to blossom into rebirth such beauty as romance in spite of ridicule, and love in light of sensually dew-dampened lust & longing.

What a beautifully bespoken first few lines of lyrical rhymes & reason have I set to poetry, as my poem is presented here poised below a quite provocatively romantic photograph, which I found via a Flickr® Photostream™ Key Word Search of "buttercups." I am pleased to recognize the talents of an anonymous artist: peace&love♥, and to thank the photographer for making available their significantly sophisticated & valuable works of photographic art for blogging direct from Flickr®.

I do hope that in posting Love Is Like A Flower, I will earn a right to download this particular image by permission of the photographer, him or herself, because I'd very much like to have this photo image at my disposal for future noncommercial & unaltered, shared-alike use. But, we'll just have to wait and see on the outcome of that such request. For now, I am still ever so proud at least to present the poem I wrote in response to David Doersch's Facebook® remarks and inspired by this photograph posted above.

SPRING! SPRING! What beauty this season brings
From slothful doted days to a few love-labored flings
That be right wondrous, yet ne'er more as pleasing,
As day’s blessed birth doth savor splendid seedling:
Few to many-petalled gorgeous golden blossoms
Of four-leafed clovers and buttercups so lithesome,
That doth glimmer, glow and shimmer as none before
Upon the tender-to-touch bosom in beauty’s open door
Of a fair merry-weathered, mischief-minded maiden
For whom the goodly fruits of spring be not forbidden.

Here upon doth the season's sweetly stunning affect
Forever bold and bravely full on forthwith reflect
The delightfully bright and brilliant sun’s fine speck
That doth in gleaming traces of sparkled beauty bedeck
Such sweet-nectar dew upon her delicately dimpled neck,
To be kissed off and caressed by a truly “très beau mec,"
As the only daring, dashing young dapper son "français"
Who doth so love, adore, long for and desire with to stay
The dewdrop damsel and her dazzling buttercup breasts,
As she, with toes dipped wet in water’s tiding crests,
Doth also long for and desire love — come what may!
Thus, so flowering, a fine romance is born this day!

Two lovers dance to life, in light of unending union,
The colorful reflections of romance's ripe new reason
Wound and woven, as a festive time-tinted silk ribbon,
Round the maypole, at the hands of all towns-children.
While the joking jester doth flagrantly flout Love’s luster,
His fickle halfhearted flaunter be echoed by such laughter.
Still yet two lovers dance ‘til lips tenderly touch as one,
Thus, their longed-for love doth live from dusk 'til dawn;
And be no more foolish, frolicsome, dumb nor dafter.
Than desire be that doth last still more ‘til then thereafter.

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com
http://www.qherekidsf.com
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110321T200037PT]

MY BRO' BRAD: Comeuppance as Prodigal Son

When U.S. Navy Musician First Class Bradley Blanchard was in his adolescence, he was a typically rambunctious deviant child who liked to disobey authority at every opportunity he could find and with all the force & fervor he could ever possibly muster. As his younger brother, with a fork scar slashed down my belly to prove it, I often was on the receiving end of the blunt blows of his teenage boyhood violent rage.

YOKOSUKA, Japan (Feb. 1, 2010) - Musician 1st Class Bradley Blanchard of Virginia Beach, Va., plays a trombone during a 7th Fleet Rock Band rehearsal held at Fleet Activities Yokosuka. The 7th Fleet Rock Band, ORIENT EXPRESS, deploys with USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) and supports events throughout the entire U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet area of operations

http://www.c7f.navy.mil/imagery/galleries/monthly/2010/02-February/index50.htm

February 01, 2010, U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Mike R. Mulcare; 

(accessed 13:45 UTC March 19, 2011 via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Music_Program)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C7FBand_MUBlanchard_20100201.jpg

Call it angst or anxiety over never having amounted to much as a child, compared to his overachieving brown nose of a brother! Or else, call it simple recognition of & rebellion against the authorities' inability to control, confound or even cajole into question the genius of his intellectual & artistic talents!! Whatever possessed my brother to give up in school, act up at home, fall into miscreant criminal behaviors, or in the very least to joist a fork into me just above my bellybutton, we may never know! But, I do have my suspicions...

You see! It is my understanding (albeit naively biased and begrudged under boyhood battery) that my one-year older brother, Bradley, came across as an awkward, tubby, ill-tempered & tough-taught teenage trouble child by choice, as if simply to cover up his own quite coveted prodigal musical talents, as well as to scoff in the face of his younger brother's exhausting track record of academic excellence & extracurricular achievements from early elementary school through to high school graduation.

As I'd expect to hear from any critic on the matter, it would be inappropriate, pompous & self-conceited of me, that younger "better than, but best unbegotten" brother of his, to venture any conclusion which conceives to acknowledge and/or appraise (however lowly) the pantheonic pedestal upon which I was so uncomfortably perched by parents, teachers, and fellow pupils alike.

A comparison between the idolatrous accolades & aplomb that I received as an academically overachieving adolescent and the unfortunate reputation Brother Bradley earned for being a lower life do-dumb deviant denigrate who didn't know the a-squared from b-squared or c-squared of the Pythagorean Theorem, or else, who didn't care too much to make it known what he really knew for fear of risking his supposed illicit & ill-natured set of mores & morals revealed as quite the opposite, would serve a great injustice against my brother, while only reinforcing my naive bias as his battered, yet so long beloved, younger brother.

For, my big, bold, daring & now quite dapper do-good brother, was then during childhood (just as we all might witness him to be today) quite as prodigal in his musical talents, as I was in my scholastic, artistic & leadership-related achievements. Unlike his young brother, Matthew Blanchard, however, big brother Bradley didn't cringe and crave for the positive affirmations of attention & accolades as a child, adolescent or teenager.  Bradley was kindly humble enough to recognize that recognition & a reputation of positively perfect accomplishment was all I lived for as a student; and, therefore, it seems to me that at an early age, Bradley relinquished any possibility of positive achievement to me, the younger of us two, out of mere kindness of heart and perhaps even in a awkwardly silent attempt to express love to his kindred spirit, his family, who forever so seemed his foe.

Nevertheless, true talent cannot (should not) forever go unnoticed or unappreciated by the masses. For my elder brother, Bradley, recognition & reputation for his prodigal musical gifts came only finally when he made what should have been a quite difficult decision between serving six-to-nine month stints underwater as a nuclear technician of a U.S. Naval submarine or traipsing around the globe on a better-than-average rock star salary as a U.S. Navy Musician First Class and lead vocals of numerous U.S. Navy Rock Ensembles throughout the World.

The decision between the substantially better pay-grade and advancement patterns of an enlisted submarine tech or the hyped up happiness and good humor incumbent upon a career in music for the Navy was instead quite simply a matter of greater-than & less-than logic for my brother, who valued his happiness (obviously) well over his pay rate or the terms of his possible rank advancement. Obviously, my very intelligent, very impassioned musical prodigy of a brother chose love over logic; such was the logic behind his decision to follow the passion which had dutifully & determinedly defined the unfathomably focused good fortune that befell him at every awkwardly successful instance of achievement during his young life, while in the arms of music.

In honor of my elder brother, Bradley D. Blanchard, I am privileged to offer this living testament to the tremendous talents possessed by this one damned terrific young man. Not only is Brad an extraordinary father and husband, much loved by his wife & son, but he is also an ungodly gifted musician, who could, should & will one day take the world by storm; what if not to the likes of America's next popular television talent search or else by the grace of one or two generous celebrity patrons of his art who might promote and make possible an on-air performance by my brother, as lead vocals of the U.S. Navy Commander, 7th Fleet Rock Band (Twitter® - @C7FBand / Facebook® 7th Fleet Band) : ORIENT EXPRESS.

U.S. Navy 7th Fleet Rock Band: ORIENT EXPRESS (August 7, 2010; YokosukaFSD, JAPAN)

"I'm Yours," lead vocal by MU First Class Bradley D. Blanchard

http://youtu.be/CnTbD5bCmyc

 

It is with great pride that I post this video of my brother singing lead vocals to "I'm Yours," with the U.S. Navy Commander, Seventh Fleet Rock Band: ORIENT EXPRESS. I remember vividly the first time I heard my brother sing. It was on the occasion of my visit from Florence, Italy (where I was studying graphic design, at the time) to Naples, Italy (where my brother was stationed with the U.S. Navy Band, at the time). 

We were both in our mid-twenties. I was reeling from a "GREAT DEPRESSION," brought on by my then relatively recent sero-conversion and diagnosis as HIV-positive, though I didn't muster up the courage to tell my brother this until after the trip down south.  My brother on the other hand was glowing happily, unabashedly in his youth, and tried with all his might to share his happiness with me, to let it roll off his husky, well-built shoulders on to mine.

His manner of sharing was unique to me; I'll say that, in the least.  Bradley invited me as a special guest to a gala performance showcase for his U.S. Navy Rock Band somewhere up the western coast of Italy, near about to Cinque Terre. The band set up amongst the lavish & luxurious decor of the sumptuous entertainment hall at a hanky-spanky swanky five-star Italian riviera hotel, and I was their surrogate helper or stagehand for the day...

Once the equipment was set up, the musicians (not the vocals, i.e., my brother & his female counterpart) began to rehearse. I settled in to a deeply intriguing discussion about my brother's soon no longer to be boyhood lifestyle contrivances with the wife of one of his military cohorts, but was to my astounding delight brashly interrupted by the sweet, melodic, perfect on pitch and in tone sounds of my brother's voice singing "Stand By Me!" That was the cover number with which he chose to open the show, and he honored me in singing it, "I dedicate this song to my only brother... God knows I love ya'Man!!" God knows, I love him, too!!

So, now that I've gone ahead and made this video available to my blogsphere of fans & followers, either via http://www.qherekidsf.com or else via my Facebook Profile Notes at http://facebook.com/mblanchard79, then I hope to receive comments & feedback from all y'all folks out there with opinions on the matter that I might maybe could share with my big Southern Puppy Brother, Bradley!! Please be courteous & kind; although, critical remarks are not uninvited!! I look forward to hearing back from some gentle, tasteful souls!! Cheers! Ciao & Namaste: I bow to the gods with you...

Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

Matthew D. Blanchard

matthew@qherekidsf.com
http://youtube.com/qherekidsf
http://www.qherekidsf.com
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110319T07:4513PT]