When you receive your book...

[whiplash]

I received my single copy that I ordered from the publisher today - yippeeeeeeee!

[killersmom]

Just wanted you to know there are a lot of books folks brought to the BBQ, and many getting their copies signed, me included.

Also wanted to let you know that a member of EnnisJack, Jack (jstephens9) bought a copy. He is not a member of DC and ordered his copy direct from Wingspan. He is trying to remember what site he saw the link on to order it.
I'll let you know if he remembers.

So the word is getting out there!!! YAY!!!

[KittyHawk]

Just wanted you to know there are a lot of books folks brought to the BBQ, and many getting their copies signed, me included.

Also wanted to let you know that a member of EnnisJack, Jack (jstephens9) bought a copy. He is not a member of DC and ordered his copy direct from Wingspan. He is trying to remember what site he saw the link on to order it.
I'll let you know if he remembers.

So the word is getting out there!!! YAY!!!

That's great news, Linda! From the list it looks as though there are MANY volunteers and authors there to provide autographs!

- KH

[Janie-G]

My copies were waiting for me when I got back from a trip away and.....it is just beautiful! Honestly,reading through these stories brought back so vividly the whole Brokeback experience and reminded me of why I'm here in the first place.
Thank you all so much for producing this tangible evidence of our shared experiences and feelings.All that hard work and time was well spent.I know that the movie cast,writers and production team are going to be as impressed as I was by the way this turned out.Well done!Hopefully I can get a copy into my local library.
Janie

[Ironwood]

I hope this post is in the right place.....it's intended as my response to reading Beyond Brokeback, which I finished just yesterday.  If nothing else, I suppose I am indeed long winded  - so please forgive the length of this one:

My screen name on the Forum is Ironwood.  Those who followed the Forum in the early heady months after the release of Brokeback Mountain or who have recently read my story - which I was fortunate to have included in the book “Beyond Brokeback”, might recall enough detail to guess that my screen name is taken from an event on the garden isle of Kauai that at age 47, forever changed my life.  Others might assume the name connotes some set of personality traits: a staunch, hard-nosed, un-emotive guy, stingy with tears and phobic of displays of affection.  I’ll admit this description might just well fit my exterior appearance but it is so far from what’s inside me that folks are sometimes puzzled when my soft self pops out.  I think such times are possibly disquieting to them - creating a perceptual dissonance about which is the “real” me.  This may even be true with my oh so stoic, so Buddhist partner of nearly eleven years now who sometimes seems a good example of my personality in reverse:  he impresses others as soft and approachable, but, on the inside, he’s so reticent about displays of emotion that in all these years I have only seen him shed a tear or two - and then only if I looked quickly.  He never has broken down into the flood of emotion that can overcome me…sometimes for no other reason than listening to a piece of stirring music.  I think he may have used up all his tears before we met. He was even uncomfortable holding hands when we visited San Francisco and walked down the gayest street in the Castro district.  He is, without doubt, a living Ironwood.  But, I still love him.   

So I’ve been reading Beyond Brokeback.  I’ll likely finish it today sitting on the back deck (if it’s not too hot) while waiting for family and friends to show for our Memorial Day weekend cookout.  Some of the posts reprinted in the Book I remember from my time on the Forum.  Others are new to me.  I think I discovered the Dave Cullen Forum sometime the week following my first viewing of Brokeback.  The film finally made it to our small West Virginia city around the end of January 2006 and I was immediately struck with Brokeback fever.  After 10 visits to the big screen, listening to the unabridged audio book a million times, reading the short story and being obsessed with the Forum……my fever broke sometime several months later.  Afterwards, I’ve only visited the Forum occasionally. I did come away with a new friend however.  She and I have communicated by phone and email so many times. We have shared so much.  Brokeback brought us together.  Another one of those crossing of paths that seems so important on reflection.   I have also kept track of the progress on the book’s development and was overwhelmed when I received an inquiry about including my own story in the final product.  I don’t think I can find any honor in my life to compare with this.

Still, with over 400 posts, I felt I had said all I could or wanted to and also wanted to avoid too much analysis of myself, others or the entire Brokeback experience.  Analysis being a bad habit of mine – the inherent remains of thirty years as a counseling psychologist.  I’ve written elsewhere on the Forum that, for me, getting too deeply into the “story”, the characters and their meanings and nuances was like approaching the beauty of Van Gogh’s Starry Night using a high powered magnifying glass held but an inch from its surface.  I had to pull back or risk diminishing the experience of Brokeback.  It has now been well over a year since we viewed the film last - even though in August, we bought an LCD HDTV in anticipation of seeing it again.  Our five copies remain unopened.  I’ll know when the time is right to visit with Jack and Ennis again.

But reading this book has reawakened the magic of Brokeback.   So many beautifully written and shared emotions.  I’m reminded of the diversity of people impacted by this film and still in awe at its power to evoke so many divergent yet similar reactions.


Interlude:   I began writing this early today, Sunday May 27, 2007 while planning and getting things ready for a cook-out with family.   By late afternoon, with temperatures hovering in the mid-80s, I fired up the grill and began a mad dash to have all the food and drinks ready for our hungry guests.   There weren’t that many but the house seemed a beehive of activity even without the nervous barking of our pets, JJ, a Tibetan Spaniel who still operates under the assumption he guards a monastery and his best but excitable pal Maggie, a lady rat terrier from the streets abandoned and left frightened and alone in the backyard of a nearby apartment some three years ago.

In the middle of it all, the phone rang for the umpteenth time.  The name on the caller ID was not familiar but I thought it might be for one of my family guests.  I answered.  A woman’s voice gave her name and ask if I remembered her. I did.  It was a call from someone I had treated well over 20 years before and had not seen in all the intervening years.  She explained she and her husband were in town and she recalled I had moved here.  She looked to see if I was still listed in the city directory.  She found my name easily.  She spoke so graciously of how important my care and concern for her and her family were to the directions she afterwards took while I anxiously searched my memory for the details she mentioned.  The daughter she was visiting was yet unborn in those years but was now a student at the University in town.  Karla (not her real name) wanted me to know her daughter was studying to be a psychologist and credited me with having somehow helped set that course.  She mentioned other things, we chatted a few more minutes while my company continued loudly buzzing all around.  Tears came to my eyes and a catch to my voice as I mumbled a thank you and encouraged her to call again the next time she and her husband came to visit her daughter.

I was not a great therapist.  I kept very bad case notes (if at all), I rarely did much of a treatment plan.  I let sessions go on way past the 50 minute hour and even on occasion, made home visits. I would not have passed muster as a Medicaid provider nor been invited to present a paper at a Best Practices conference.  I really remembered few details of Karla's situation thought she spoke of things I had said to her with clear recall.  I sat stunned for a moment after hanging up the phone.  It reminded me of what it was that had kept me going during all those years of listening to the sad stories presented in the quite of my office. Given my own struggles to become an authentic person, I sometimes marveled that I had any positive impact at all.  Defensively, I had said early on in my career and several times afterwards that if my work with people helped just one or two lead more productive lives, I would be satisfied. I really hoped it would be more than one or two but that number would be sufficient in a pinch. 

Karla's out-of-the-blue call today left me feeling a big warm fuzzy - and very thankful too.  Thankful that whatever I had done or said and only dimly remembered now had impacted so positively on this woman and her family. Thankful for her consideration and willingness to look up my number and make the call.  It also reminded me of how a movie like Brokeback Mountain can affect people now and in the future - some future young person sitting alone and wondering if there is something out there for them.  Wondering if love is possible.

What a wonderfully nice thing to have happen today …to me, an aging old therapist whose legs and knees no longer work too well and who can’t sit cross-legged on the floor without significant discomfort when trying to get up and who could no more last a minuet on a racquetball court than fly to the moon.  As I look around and see my juniors driving expensive cars and living in luxurious homes, I will  remember my Karlas.  Doing this puts life into a perspective that moves me beyond those old self-pity blues that can creep up with age and the realization that while there may be less life ahead than behind, the thing that is really important in living, in addition to love, is just how well we perform our charge to be our “brother’s (and sister’s) keeper.

In many ways, my own reaction to Beyond Brokeback and its sincerely told stories and comments, is not unlike the feelings that flooded my heart and mind in the moments after my call from Karla.  The Brokeback stories help frame a perspective.  They give grounding and allow for firm footing.  They remind me and others of the importance of love and caring, expressed directly or held close and private. They offer hope.  They point a direction.  I can only think at this moment what a difference reading this book would have made in my life had it dropped from the sky when I was 17.  Then I think of how wonderful it is for people today to have such a great resource.  They all will have a better shot at becoming authentic so much earlier than many of my generation. The short story, the movie and now the book all are stars crossing our paths.  We can only hope to make the most of what the Maker makes.

Our guests have gone, John and I have cleaned up the dishes, put leftovers in the frige and finally settled down for the evening.  He and the pups are watching TV and I’ve returned to the keyboard. 
 
Despite the day’s hubbub, I still managed to finish Beyond Brokeback.  I want more.  I want Beyond Brokeback II. Or name it differently like “The Magic of Brokeback” or whatever.  I don’t want the stories to end.  When I reached Mejack’s story “A Separate Peace” near the end of the book, I remembered it well from the time it first posted on the Form - sometime in February or March of 2006.  It devastated me then and though I thought I had used up my quota of Brokeback tears, I fell apart again, almost sobbing while trying to finish Mejack’s story as the wetness of tears blured the print on the pages when I read the lines where he describes sitting alone in a motel room reading the short note Billy left for him from years before.   That such love can and does exist is a magnificent testament to our species.  It must be the force that keeps us from blowing ourselves off the planet.  And if there is “salvation” to be had in this place, no doubt it will spring from the kind of love that Mejack and his Billy had.  I am so glad their story was included.  Months ago I printed it off from the original Forum entries,  read it to my partner John and entered it lovingly into my Brokeback Memories binder now sitting on my library shelf.  So many, many touching stories of love, devotion, hope, determination, sadness, reawakening, discovery, courage and giving.  It makes me proud again to share living with my fellow human beings.  May we all find our own "grassy place" where we can lay down, close our eyes and be whole.

Dave Muskera, Huntington, WV


 
 

[sweety02]

Hurrah!

I got my copy yesterday (Northern-Italy)!

I just read Dave Cullen's introduction and I kept on reading this evening. I feel so excited!

Thanks to you all!

Laura (sweety02)

[Basqueboy]

I received my book almost a week ago, on May 18. As I see, I was one of the first ones getting it, even though I live overseas, in Basque Country (EU). I got the two copies I had asked for, paperback and hardback. And, yes, I was one of the lucky ones in having my story in the book (at least, part of it).

I am again amazed by the testimonies of so many people -friends by now- who kindly shared a bit of their lives in the book. My tears flood again, like when I would come to these threads every day, one year ago.

Now, one year and four months after I saw BBM for the first time, I can truly assure that this movie changed my life for good. I won't be the same again, ever. I am freer, more open, confident, happier. I've met some good gay friends as I came out to almost everybody who matters to me.

And yet, it has just started...

[desperadum]

Dear Ironwood (Dave) -

That is a fine post, and if you've read other forum posts you needn't worry about longwindesness. It is certainly appropriate for this thread, but you might also adapt it for How Brokeback Affected Me so that it will reach a larger audience.

Thanks and all best -

Des

[bbmbliss]

Still no books, and no reply from Wingspan to my email.  Any suggestions?

[KittyHawk]

Oh, Bliss, I just hate it that you've not gotten your book yet.

Can you PM me with any and all details you have about your original order and I'll see if I can find out anything about it.
Has your credit card of PayPal been charged for the book?

- KittyHawk

[john john]

I finished reading our book a week ago and have been putting off writing this ever since because I can't find the proper words to express how much it touched me. I feel an urgent need to do it so here goes in bits and pieces.
 
In today's world of selfishness I find it so very refreshing to realize that simple sincere sentiment and honesty can lift us up to become the glorious human beings we are. Our failings become the source of our progress. Our tears become as useful and refreshing as water.
Through humor, artistry and love, the book exemplifies how much Brokeback Mountain as touched a nerve so many of us didn't know existed. We ended up realizing it existed right here in our hearts. Jack's and Ennis' hurt came searing in to meet ours.
The longing and sadness has been turned into words that scream for compassion and empathy for all of us to share. The loneliness and the ache are glaringly reflected all across the pages. My eyes had to turn away in tears.
It is truly poignant for me, a gay man, how a cyber community of strangers united around BBM can all be so very in tune with each other on the subject of men in love and homophobia. That that community would be so generous and loving as to undertake the task of publishing a book about it is where the words fail me. I feel my heart squeeze  when I think of this.
Our beloved Ennis and Jack have been redeemed through this community's generosity for the world to see and that is truly remarquable.

The only words left are thank you.

[atruant]

I now have three copies of this wonderful book. Two that arrived AFTER I returned from Estes Park, and the one Chuck bought for me at Estes Park for signing and first reading.

We are indeed a tightly knit group united in cyberspace, and for those of us fortunate enough to attend a reunion or two, united as new friends. Jean puts it beautifully: "It is truly poignant for me, a gay man, how a cyber community of strangers united around BBM can all be so very in tune with each other on the subject of men in love and homophobia."

I am now reading Beyond Brokeback slowly, savoring each entry, wondering at the diversity of experiences from all the contributors, some of whom I met in Colorado. Tears flow, but happy ones in the end since, thanks to Jack and Ennis, people have moved on in their lives.

This book puts it all together for me, in one beautiful package.

Lydia, I so enjoyed meeting you. You and your crew done real good with this 'un!

A thousand thank yous.

John

[bbmbliss]

Oh, Bliss, I just hate it that you've not gotten your book yet.

Can you PM me with any and all details you have about your original order and I'll see if I can find out anything about it.
Has your credit card of PayPal been charged for the book?

- KittyHawk

I'll PM you - thanks.

[jack]

lovely post, jean.

I finished reading our book a week ago and have been putting off writing this ever since because I can't find the proper words to express how much it touched me. I feel an urgent need to do it so here goes in bits and pieces.
 
In today's world of selfishness I find it so very refreshing to realize that simple sincere sentiment and honesty can lift us up to become the glorious human beings we are. Our failings become the source of our progress. Our tears become as useful and refreshing as water.
Through humor, artistry and love, the book exemplifies how much Brokeback Mountain as touched a nerve so many of us didn't know existed. We ended up realizing it existed right here in our hearts. Jack's and Ennis' hurt came searing in to meet ours.
The longing and sadness has been turned into words that scream for compassion and empathy for all of us to share. The loneliness and the ache are glaringly reflected all across the pages. My eyes had to turn away in tears.
It is truly poignant for me, a gay man, how a cyber community of strangers united around BBM can all be so very in tune with each other on the subject of men in love and homophobia. That that community would be so generous and loving as to undertake the task of publishing a book about it is where the words fail me. I feel my heart squeeze  when I think of this.
Our beloved Ennis and Jack have been redeemed through this community's generosity for the world to see and that is truly remarquable.

The only words left are thank you.

[bbmbliss]

My books have arrived at last...

I am too delighted for words!