How Brokeback affected me

[cwbyx2]

HEHEHE
just watched the "telephone scene" agin...
Thanks to Anne Hathaway! WOW! I still get the shivers!

[Pierre]

hey good job brokeback_1 i know you said you were apprehensive about putting it out there glad to see you did

[Pierre]

Happy birthday!!!!! 

Heath Ledger

Happy birthday!!!!!!! 

Brokeback Mountain DVD

May you both live long, fulfilling, and joyous lives.

[Oregondoggie]

I think it's time and more then time to write how Brokeback affected me.

Before seeing the film I had become increasingly dead inside, a deadness which just seemed to grow no matter what I did to counteract it. Living in the world's most fascinating city, for the last 3 years i hadn't bothered to cross the river at all, except for Holiday shopping. Say 2-3 times, before and especially after Christmas. That was that. In calender 2005 I made exactly ONE trip to Manhattan.

I hadn't been to the movies for years, was increasingly isolated, increasingly cynical. Injured last summer I was the typical guy with too much time on his hands. And I used that time to rot.

I'd wanted to see BBM from the moment I heard about it. A little voice in my head told me that it was important. Yet i didn't want to go alone...and there was nobody that I wanted to see the film with. Why? I don't really know, it seemed like the sort of movie you should see with someone you cared about, not by yourself and not with people who might laugh.


This film shocked the everloving shit out of me in every way possible. To make a long story very short, I found the Forum, started posting, started listening, started living again. This place was the start of it. The responses You all gave me made me feel like I belonged in here. And I do.
 
So, what has changed? What has been done? What am I doing to make my life something worth living?

The second time I saw BBM, I made a decision to get in contact with the guy who had been my one and only. I felt that the worse which could happen was that nothing came of it and at least i would KNOW. Did I want a sexual relationship? No, can't say that I did. What I needed was the emotional closeness with this specific person. So I took the risk and  was called back within 15 minutes, when I had figured that it might take a week....or might never happen. We hadn't set eyes on each other for 4 years. This relationship was so important; I had never had another guy, never had sex with anyone else afterwards, never even wanted to. Was it obsessive? No. My feeling was that nothing else would ever come close to that love and i wasn't going to settle for a glass of vinegar after  wine. This was a male-once-in-a-lifetime sort of love.

The risk was worth it, the feeling was mutual; we met last Monday the 27th and the bond came out full blown on both sides. We are both older and wiser.

 
I started writing again. Some is good, some isn't good. But one thing I wrote got me emailed praise from some people at a major newspaper who saw it...so I guess that when i put my mind to it, I'm good at it and will get better with practice.

I rode a horse again...you have no idea how much I love that and how I denied myself that unique pleasure for dumb reasons...When i get out of NY I may very well spend half my life in a saddle. lol

I'm reading new books---my collection hadn't been added to for years. I read every day again.

I haven't felt this good, this clean and directed, in many years...so a big thank you to BBM and everyone in Dave's Forum. My life will never be the same...Nice, isn't it?

AND THE PEOPLE AROUND ME ASK ME WHAT HAPPENED, WHY AM I ALIVE AGAIN. That's almost best of all.

Time to hitch our wagons to this man's star!  (And I am painting again!)

[Viking]

Has anyone ever read a book called "The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham? It's the story of telepathic children living in a society that reviles mutants. I'm starting to feel like a character from that book.

The masterpiece that is "Brokeback Mountain" has hurt us badly and forced us to seek each other out for solace. We are wounded souls crawling out from under our emotional rocks and into the warm sunlight.

This forum is enabling us to meet and know each other -- it's almost to the point where we can read each other's minds. I've never felt such empathy with so many people in all my life. "Brokeback Mountain" and this forum have given us the courage to heal ourselves -- and to heal each other.

[VermontJohn]

I'm getting tired of reading all these posts and sitting here crying every night   

Therefore, since I have no control over myself when it comes to Brokeback Mountain....I'll be back here to read more tomorrow 

[Oregondoggie]

I'm getting tired of reading all these posts and sitting here crying every night   

Therefore, since I have no control over myself when it comes to Brokeback Mountain....I'll be back here to read more tomorrow 

Some of us will be watching our new Brokeback DVDs instead!  Oh God... choices!

[chris04seattle]

I do not know if these have been posted on this site yet or not
but for fans of BBM and those of us who just can't get enough
then these are a must view for fans - lovingly created by fans of BBM
who have certainly been affected by this BEST PICTURE of 2005 

you are gonna love these tribute videos shared here by fans of BBM and
there are TONS of them to see but catch a few and you might be pleasantly surprised 

Warning: tribute videos contain much of the films scenes so if you have NOT seen this film yet - and I can't imagine anyone on this site who hasn't yet LOL - you might want to wait and view these clips after you see the film.

BBM tribute videos on youtube.com

http://www.youtube.com/results?related=BBM_MV%20Brokeback%20Mountain%20Fanvid%20Music%20Video

so go ahead, indulge yourself for an overdose of BBM heatache - again and again and again
enjoy 

[Zuraffo]

brokeback_1: I am so happy for you. Everything can't seem to go wrong after we've survived the post-BBM trauma, can it? 

[conny]

brokeback -1,very toughing story,sp happy for you!

lots of similar feelings that i had and am having,i only cant get in tough with a lost love,cause i dont know where to surch for her.
But have given my life a switch,just for my own happiness 

[Dal]

brokeback_1 --

Ridin' off inta tha sunset are tha two of ya?  Hee hee -- good going.  Congrats.  All the best.

Dal

[Mejack]

. . . What I needed was the emotional closeness with this specific person.

. . . My feeling was that nothing else would ever come close to that love
and i wasn't going to settle for a glass of vinegar after  wine.
This was a male-once-in-a-lifetime sort of love.

We both have too much self-respect to destroy something else which is good
when there is no need to do so. No desire to do so. It's fine this way.
What we both needed and need is to know that the love is there.
That the love is real. That no matter what, our love is here to stay.

YES!  YES!  YES!   It's fine this way! 

Thanks, Brokeback_1, I needed to hear that.

Paul / Mejack

[Jules]

By the way, does living in Rome not help a bit? Stupid question i know.. with so much beauty around you, how can you not be open to love? Imagine the story if Ennis and Jack would have been in Rome.. cannot imagine it to be so bleak then too.. Does not geography determine our happiness a little too. It sure goes for me; when in Greece i always feel a lot happier.. although the country is an organisational mess 

  Living in Rome surely helps, Erik. Sometimes the beauty around me still makes me gasp, though I was born here and have seen these beauties a million times...Thanks for making me laugh, I really needed a break! 

[Jules]

do you get the feeling reading these posts sometimes that all the [heart] locks are being blown off their hinges???

You're absolutely right. Couldn't express it in a better way.

[Mejack]

. . . I realised that Paul and Billy are not fiction but fact.

Did Ruth give you a photo? Did you visit the grave?
Did you think of adding any words to Billy's gravestone?

JeromeR,

Thanks for the kind words.  Yes, we are real.  Every detail in the story is fact.

In my search for Billy, I wrote to Apalachee, invoking the Freedom of Information Act, asking them to release their records of Billy and me.  I realize that 50-year-old records may be difficult to locate, but those records will contain documentation of dates, our pictures, records of disciplinary actions, etc., which will be helpful as I contemplate a memoir, as many on this board have suggested.

I did not ask Ruth for a picture.  There were no pictures displayed in her living room, and the truth is I was so stressed I didn't even think of asking.  Perhaps I will sometime in the future.

Billy is buried in Stockbridge, Ga, just south of Atlanta.  I did not visit his grave.  I just couldn't.  Maybe one day when my emotions settle down, I might.  But graves are not important to me.  That's not where Billy is, as far as I'm concerned. 

As for adding an inscription, I would not presume to do so.  Whatever inscription is there now was provided by Ruth for her husband.  The inscription on my heart is sufficient for me.

Paul / Mejack