This is an essay for my upcoming book entitled John Selig Outspoken (The Book). The essay is called “Today Was the Day from Hell.” On January 12th 2012 a newspaper article in Canada’s Globe and Mail Newspaper indicating that same-sex marriages in Canada, like Rodolfo’s and mine where the couple lived in a country or state that wouldn’t perform or recognized same-sex marriages would be invalidated in Canada and treated as if the never occurred. I was in a state of panic all day until I received a joint press release from several LGBT and mainstream organizations including Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and Freedom to Marry assuring same-sex couples married in Canada that our marriages were not in jeopardy and not likely to be. I decided to send an email to family, friends, activists, executive directors of LGBT organizations, elected officials and media friends (over 250 people). and I posted it on my Facebook page for more than 2,000 friends to read The purpose of the letter was to share my feelings of frustration and panic. As many of the people receiving the email were straight I wanted them to understand the challenges that gay people face over issues that straight people take for granted. I decided to turn the email into an essay for my upcoming book.
John Selig’s & Rodolfo Arredondo’s marriage ceremony being officiated by Justice Harvey Brownstone in Toronto Canada
on April 17, 2004
John and Rodolfo signing marriage registration book with instructions by Justice Harvey Brownstone
John and Rodolfo signing marriage registration book with instructions by Justice Harvey Brownstone – Glen Peirce (Rodolfo’s Best Man is behind John) and Dr. Gus Krucke (John’s Best Man is behind Rodolfo)
John and Rodolfo holding their Marriage Certificate. We are legally married in Canada!!!!
John Selig is writing a book of and will be reading the essays on the podcast before compiling them into and eBook and printed book. Episodes where John reads essays from the book will be interspersed between regular John Selig Outspoken episodes with guests. This episode features the Introduction to the book and a discussion of changes in technology called “The Growth of Technology Has Exploded Since I was a Kid. Future essays will focus on his work as a gay activist, writer, photographer and podcaster as well as his coming out after 13 year of marriage, raising his son, marrying his husband Rodolfo Arredondo, growing up as a baby boomer in New York in the 1950s and 1960s, his extended family and his observations about the world around him.
John R. Selig, CC 2011. By Rodolfo Arredondo.
IBM System/360 Model 30. An entry-level IBM 360. CC 2008. By csixty4 (Dave Ross).
Tape drives used to store data on the IBM 360. CC 2008. By Erik Pitti.
Keypunch machine circa 1950s. CC 2009. By Marcin Wickary.
IBM Keypunch Machine from the 1970s. Notice the hot pink punch cards, most punch cards were manila folder beige CC 2009. By Flominator.
Keypunch operators hard at work in the keypunch department most likely in the late 1940s or 1950s. CC 2008. By born1945.
IBM electric typewriter similar to the one my mom used to type tax returns that my dad prepared for clients. CC 2010. By Poughkeepsie Day School (Josie Holford).
IBM Selectric Typewriter, this model didn’t have the self-correcting feature. CC 2010. By tomislav medak.
IBM Selectric Typewriter, newer more expensive self-correcting model. Notice the self-correcting key is on the bottom row to the right of the space bar. CC 2008. By Marc Smith.
The IBM Selectric Typeball was a revolutionary typing element. Instead of using keys connected with a character on them that would individually strike the paper and would sometimes jam this element would spin around and type each character when typed. Typewriters had one font on their keys. The IBM Selectrics enabled different fonts to be used simply by switching type balls. The type ball in the photo printed using the Prestige Elite 72 font. Xerox developed a different system which was called a Daisy Wheel and it was a flat round disk that had the characters on outside of the wheel on thin spokes that would strike the paper. The disk spun very quickly to keep up with the typist. Daisy Wheels could be changed to use different fonts.
Telex machine was used to send messages overseas. Messages were sent by typing the message which would type out on the paper above the keyboard and also on the ribbon to the left. When you wanted to send a message you would dial the Telex machine you wanted to contact (anywhere in the world) and then the paper tape would quickly passed through a reader and transmitted to the other Telex machine minimizing connect time (phone charges) CC 2010. By ajmexico (Jamie).
The TI Silent 700 portable terminal was a workhorse in the late 1970s. A phone receiver was attached to the two black cups located just behind the top of the paper. Most of today’s phone receivers aren’t shaped to fit but they all did in the 70s. The terminal transmitted and received at 300 baud which was very slow. And the paper was a chemical paper that turned dark when the typing printing mechanism passed over it. The paper was terrible! A co-worker spilled a Coke into one of these terminals and it fired on the spot. Note to self – Don’t spill liquids on tech! CC 2008. By bee pettis.
Xerox 860 Word Processor I saw in use in 1980 at my office. It enabled documents to be stored on floppy disks as well as software updates and it also allowed documents to be seen on the screen which was a big step forward. CC 1988-2012. Bruce Damer/DigiBarn Computer Museum.
The Xerox Star was the precursor to the Apple Macintosh. I was part of an office automation team that was a beta test site for Xerox in 1982 and 1983. After Steve Jobs saw this at Xerox’s PARC facility in Palo Alto, CA he came with the concept for the Mac. CC 2007. By darthpedrius.
This is a manual for a portable mimeograph machine. The mimeograph machines used in schools not portable and were much larger. CC 2008. By goosmurf (Yun Hoang Yong).
I sat through many filmstrip presentations all the way through high school. The film strip would be put on the holder above the lens, then threaded behind the lens with the end looped onto the holder below the lens. To advance the filmstrip one of the nobs on the left was turned. CC 2009. By Angela Anderson-Cobb.
We used a reel to reel tape recorder in school to play tapes accompanying filmstrips. The brand that we used was the Wollensack made by 3M which looks a bit different from this one but operated much the same. This tape recorder is a Grundig from West Germanuy. CC 2008. By Canny McL.
My parents had a beige desk phone in their bedroom and a black desk phone on the desk in tour den. CC 2011. By DennisSylvesterHurd (Dennis S. Hurd).
My parents had a white wall phone in the kitchen. CC 2009. By RightBrainPhotography.
A pink princess phone is perfect for Barbie to call her Ken. CC 2006. By Lorelei2950.
Trimline phones became popular in the late 1960s and 1970s. By ProhibitOnions.
Bell Telephone Pavilion at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair where I saw my first picture phone. Surprisingly they never became viable until video cameras became popular on computers. CC 2006. By Maverick74 (DJ Berson).
Pocket-size transistor radios were very popular in the late 1950s and 1960s. One of my dad’s relatives had a hearing aid that looked just like a transistor radio, complete with an earphone. I was about 5 years old and thought he was listening to the ball game and I asked him who was winning. My grandparent’s living room grew silent until he started laughing. CC 2010. By alexkerhead.
Early RCA color television taken in Rockefeller Center in New York by NBC headquarters (NBC was owned by RCA at the time). CC 1967. By Tim Faracy of Bklyn.
The Bonanza TV Show on NBC along with Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color were two of the first TV shows broadcast in color. This vintage photo was taken from a frame of a 1964 Bonanza View Master Set. photo tCC 2005. By flashbacks.com.
Swanson TV Diners were the vogue when color TV became popular even though Swanson stopped using the name “TV Dinner” in 1962. They were really terrible but I loved eating them as a kid. We had to go out to eat once because the TV dinners were frozen onto the side of the freezer and my mom couldn’t get them out until she defrosted the freezer the next day. Pretty lame excuse if you asked me but it worked. Yeah mom! CC 2005. By Shannon Coffey.
Clothes line similar to the one my mom had in our backyard until we sold my parents house in 1977. CC 2011. By Nina Matthews Photography.
This is exactly like the Chambers Stove that my Grandma Be a had in her kitchen in Queens. This stove was purchased when my grandparents built their home in the mid 1930s and it was still be used when the house was sold in 1985. I wish that Rodolfo and I had Grandma Bea’s stove today! CC 2005. By Bill on Capital Hill (Bill Walsh).
Ford’s 1965 Mustang ways introduced at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair when it opened on April 22, 1964. My dad’s folks were there opening day along with my grandmother’s sister Aunt Hedi who was visiting from Switzerland. My dad got this exact car in 1965 and this is the car I learned to drive in. Such memories. CC 2010. By Timothy Wildey.
Glen Maxey, part three of a three-part conversation. Glen Maxey is a legendary AIDS & LGBT Activist who worked as an aide to a Texas State Senator in Austin, then started the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby in Texas and was the first openly gay legislator to serve in the Texas State Legislature. He served for six terms. Glen just worked with a reporter from the Huffington Post on a story outing Governor Rick Perry’s sexual encounters with men. According to Glen Maxey The Huffington Post was all set to run the story when its parent company AOL killed it out of fear of a lawsuit by Perry. Glen Maxey decided to publish a book on the investigation of Rick Perry. This episode focuses on Glen’s assisting Huffington Post journalist Jason Cherkis uncover the story of Governor Rick Perry’s same-sex trysts and eventually publishing the story himself..
Glen Maxey helping register voters
Glen Maxey at his book Signing at Tapelenders in Dallas on December 28, 2011
John Selig with Glen Maxey at his book Signing at Tapelenders in Dallas on December 28, 2011
Former Texas State Representatives Terri Hodge, Glen Maxey & Harryette Ehrhardt at Glen Maxey’s book Signing at Tapelenders in Dallas on December 28, 2011
Head Figure Head: The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry by Glen Maxey, December 2011
Glen Maxey, part two of a three-part conversation. Glen Maxey is a legendary AIDS & LGBT Activist who worked as an aide to a Texas State Senator in Austin, then started the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby in Texas and was the first openly gay legislator to serve in the Texas State Legislature. He served for six terms. Glen just worked with a reporter from the Huffington Post on a story outing Governor Rick Perry’s sexual encounters with men. According to Glen Maxey The Huffington Post was all set to run the story when its parent company AOL killed it out of fear of a lawsuit by Perry. Glen Maxey decided to publish a book on the investigation of Rick Perry. This episode focuses on Glen’s friendship with Governor Ann Richards, his election as the first openly gay legislator in the Texas State Legislature and a run in that he had with George W. Bush when he was still Texas Governor.
Glen Maxey, March 6th 1991- being sworn in to the Texas House of Rerpresentative by his friend Governor Ann Richards
Glen Maxey, March 6th 1991 – with his mom and his friend Governor Ann Richards having just been sworn into the Texas House of Representatives
Governor Ann Richard’s inscription in the bible that was used by Glen Maxey when he was sworn into the Texas House of Representatives
Head Figure Head: The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry by Glen Maxey, December 2011
Glen Maxey, part one of a three-part conversation. Glen Maxey is a legendary AIDS & LGBT Activist who worked as an aide to a Texas State Senator in Austin, then started the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby in Texas and was the first openly gay legislator to serve in the Texas State Legislature. He served for six terms. Glen just worked with a reporter from the Huffington Post on a story outing Governor Rick Perry’s sexual encounters with men. According to Glen Maxey The Huffington Post was all set to run the story when its parent company AOL killed it out of fear of a lawsuit by Perry. Glen Maxey decided to publish a book on the investigation of Rick Perry. This episode focuses on Glen’s working as an aid for State Senator Oscar Mauzy, Glen’s success at derailing dangerous AIDS patient quarantine legislation and founding and serving as the first Executive Director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby in Austin Texas. Get to see how legislation is passed and blocked told by an insider.
Glen Maxey, May 9th 1989 – Glen was Executive Director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas – announcing the filing of two complaints against lobbyists that he said gave misleading information to the Legislature about bills pertaining to AIDS and homosexual rights. Photo by Bob Thomas
Glen Maxey, April 25th 1993 – on The Mall at the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights. Photo by John R. Selig
Head Figure Head: The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry by Glen Maxey, December 2011
Wynn Wagner, the second half of a two-part conversation with Archbishop Wynn Wagner, who is the retired Archbishop of the Old Catholic Church and a celebrated author of amongst other books, a 4-Part homoerotic trilogy about gay vampires. Wynn discusses his writing and then we talk about Apple and the contributions made by Steve Jobs. Wynn then shares 9 voice mail answering messages.
Wynn Wagner right after our interview
Wynn Wagner and me taken by Rick Wagner during our interview
Wynn Wagner, the first half of a two-part conversation interview with Archbishop Wynn Wagner, who is the retired Archbishop of the Old Catholic Church and a celebrated author of amongst other books, a 4-Part homoerotic trilogy about gay vampires. Yes you heard that right and for those of you who know Wynn a 4-part trilogy makes perfect sense.
Wynn Wagner right after our interview
Wynn Wagner and me taken by Rick Wagner during our interview
Archbishop Wynn Wagner Charicture
Wynn Wagner’s ordination as a priest in the Old Catholic Church on May 29, 2004
Patricia Nell Warren, bestselling author discuses her new book, My West: Personal Writings On The American West – Past, Present & Future.” Discusses growing up on the Grant-Kohrs ranch near Deer Lodge, MT (now a National Historic Site run by the National Park Service), the art of storytelling and putting together this collection of 47 commentaries written over five decades. Be sure to listen to Episode 71 (Part 1) before listening to this episode.
Patricia Nell Warren having lunch with Rodolfo and me in Malibu when we visited Patricia several years ago
Cover of My West, I was honored that Patricia used one of my photos for the book cover
Patricia Nell Warren, bestselling author discuses her new book , My West: Personal Writings On The American West – Past, Present & Future.” Discusses growing up on the Grant-Kohrs ranch near Deer Lodge, MT (now a National Historic Site run by the National Park Service), the art of storytelling and putting together this collection of 47 commentaries written over five decades.
Patricia Nell Warren having lunch with Rodolfo and me in Malibu when we visited Patricia several years ago
Cover of My West, I was honored that Patricia used one of my photos for the book cover
Nikolai Alexseev is a lawyer, journalist and gay activist and both the leader and face of the fight for LGBT rights in Russia. Nikolai discusses his fight for gay rights in Russia at great personal risk and often resulting in him and others being arrested.
Nikolai Alexseev with a pack of applications for the Moscow Pride 2009 during a May press conference
Nikolai Alexseev’s arrest at the first Moscow Pride on May 27, 2006
Nikolai Alexseev being interviewed after Moscow Pride 2008
Nikolai speaking at an LGBT conference held in Minsk in September 2009
Nikolai Alexseev at Warsaw Europride during the Summer in 2010
