Robert StGenis Voice empowered

Designer jeans started to become a fad - which has evolved into a mainstay of American fashion to this day - starting around when I was in 3rd grade. Gloria Vanderbilt  was the pioneer of the industry, creating a line of denim jeans for women bearing her signature on the back right pocket and a swan on the front right pocket. The audience targer for these jeans were geared towards women, not girls. So people like my teachers and Mother. At this point, I don't think my Mother even owned a pair of denim anything. My Father had always looked at jeans as something for farm workers and other "laborers." Some of our teachers did get pairs, but to this point, the idea of jeans on a teacher at school was definitely not part of the dress code. I think Mrs. Edwards, our school Librarian, might have led the "charge for change" and been the first to take that leap and wear designer jeans to work. Keep in mind that women wearing pants was relatively new in the work pla...

I was on the phone with someone at USAA about my insurance and he asked me "how do you like L.A.?" Noting his genuine curiosity, I paused for a moment. I responded "it's a perfect place to have a love/hate relationship with; if you have never been, you should come." I gave an explanation of how it was vast and amazingly different than most anywhere else, but hard to get around, expensive but you at least most often convinced yourself worth it, and usually the weather is amazing. I have lived here most of my adult life, with brief times in the city of Riverside (the Inland Empire a large extension of L.A.) and the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs), a nearby getaway. A friend of mine from Berlin whom I have known some 30 years said to me years ago visiting me that L.A. was "one of the most unique cities in the world." I don't think that it was his first trip to L.A. when he said this to me. He has been back multiple times and repeated it since and he...

In my post  Being a Junior , I discuss two "washed-up hookers" to whom I would bring doughnuts and coffee daily when I briefly stayed with my Father at an apartment on 79th and 2nd Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. New York had a homeless crisis with mass numbers of unsheltered people and the city was at the early stages of gaining any control over the crisis, one which they were forced into addressing after the settling of a lawsuit  Callahan v. Care y in 1981. In that consent decree, the City and State agreed to provide shelter and board to all homeless men who met the need standard for welfare or who were homeless “by reason of physical, mental, or social dysfunction.” Thus the decree established a right to shelter for all homeless men in New York City, and also detailed the minimum standards which the City and State must maintain in shelters, including basic health and safety standards. In addition, Coalition for the Homeless was appointed monitor of shelters ...

Bruce Springsteen became a huge iconic figure during the 1980s. He was already a successful musician but his  Born in The USA Tour  really made him a household name everywhere. In New Jersey, he is patron Saint to this day. I remember people for years raving about the fact that if you went to The Stone Pony, a bar in what was largely desolate and deteriorating Asbury Park at the time, Springsteen might stop in for a jam session. I never went to The Stone Pony , however. I seem to recall trying to go once but it had a huge line. That and I think I was a little leery of using my fake ID there. I had no concerns using it in New York City just about anywhere, but a bar down the shore, especially "the bar" in many ways at that time, I thought was taking too much of a risk.  I do also vaguely recall that some friend or perhaps Laura and I went and sought out his once former home in Long Branch at some point while I was attending Morristown High School. Although Spri...

Most recently, I've been writing almost exclusively on my junior and senior years of high school. While laws and in turn, parents, were more permissive, my experiences were not the ordinary; good, bad and otherwise up for discussion. The 80s were all about excess and our generation probably screwed it up for future ones, or saved you, depending on how you look at it. There were a great deal of questions about testimony given and statements during the hearings... I thought it was highly questionable then, all the more now, that most people remember without a doubt who attended a high school party 30 years ago, let alone what might have gone on in a bedroom they were not in at the time. I do believe and have had experiences where certain things stand clearly in my mind. If you read Being a Junior , I remember that the guy that entered my bathroom stall had a classic London Fog or similar rain coat and black or dark brown curly hair. I remember I had a patchwork patterned sweater w...

I don't even recall exactly how Laura and I rented a cabin in the Poconos, though I had a failsafe fake ID and a credit card. My parents seemed to most of the time allow me to do most things without much concern, even at 17 years old and still in high school. Laura came up from Toms River and we traveled some 75 miles or more into the Poconos in Pennsylvania. My close friend Steve in Baltimore whom I knew from the beach (in DelMarVa they refer to "the beach" while "down the shore" is purely a "Jersey thing") at the Sea Colony and his Catholic School buds were coming to the Poconos on a school trip and I was determined we would all be there. We met on February 1, 1986 or perhaps it was the Friday evening prior, January 31 which would be logical. (I only know this because I wrote it on the back of photos. I hardly have that good of memory!) Laura & Steve We all had a great time, to my best recollection, but I had to get them back to...

This will not mean much unless you first read: Summer 1986. Part Two. In Liberty & Reality The lower right photo shows 2 bad decisions on my part. A horrible perm and smoking. I first started smoking as a freshman in Cross Country when my friend and I would sneak into the woods and smoke during a run. A few of us also tried chewing tobacco while cycling in the same period. Difference then, at my private school, they simply had designated smoking areas for students. We were told it was bad, not that we couldn't under any circumstance. Meanwhile, the video below was being shown during the school year in NYC public schools. It most definitely was not in the Morris School District.

Please also read: Summer 1986. Piers & The Cure. Being a Junior Along with any and all other the rest of my posts. I greatly welcome your feedback. Post anonymously, that is more than fine. I would love to hear from you!  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Statue of Liberty was given to the United States as a gift from France in 1886.  Liberty Weekend , the 100th anniversary, was to be a spectacular weekend and I must say, while I was incredibly fortunate in my circumstances throughout that weekend, I have never had any other experience yet that left quite such an indelible impression. New York and New Jersey were in a turf war starting before I moved to the East Coast in 1985 with New Jersey claiming that Liberty Island was actually in New Jersey waters. They ultimately lost this war and as huge an advocate as I am for New Jersey, this one was bullshit. New York made ...

Please be sure to read  AIDS 1. Junior year  and  AIDS 1-Senior Year. Part One  prior to this entry. It brings my story all together. You may also want to watch my short  It Gets better  video which is also a blog post on here as well. Then, you will have my years as a teenager, the fun, the sad, the good and bad. The collection of these posts bring together a formative part of who I am, as it is an important period of growth for all of us. You will likely find some of my story shocking, some entertaining, interesting, doubtfully boring. I didn't overall spend time writing about time on swim or soccer teams, or even much about going to school except a bit more in this last one. I wrote mostly about what you aren't expecting to hear from a teenager. My girlfriend Laura and I will also spend a great deal of time in New York City. Because Laura lived down the shore in Toms River, she was about 90 miles away. Getting together was never running up or down t...

If you have not yet read, please go back to  AIDS 1-Being a Junior  and read prior to this entry. Since I had moved to Morristown, New Jersey I was living two lives, in two ways. There was Robert the suburban high school student with a girlfriend down the shore and simultaneously Robert the closeted gay man and in many ways a recent arrival to New York City. Most people around my neighborhood at that time lived and worked in New Jersey and went into the city at best a few times a year for a play, for a concert or game. They might once or twice go in the course of a decade to a museum. I was there almost every weekend and any other time I could find a chance. My Father was initially commuting into the city everyday. I had to use bridges and tunnels, I was a not a bridge and tunnel boy. I was sneaking off into Manhattan on a fairly frequent basis and going to happy hours at Uncle Charlie's and popping into Julius in Greenwich Village; sometimes, well, often, that leading t...

Just over a week ago, on September 9, my therapist and I were talking about this blog and about memories. I alluded that many memories came into play during the Kavanaugh hearings during the summer of 2018. As I discuss in my earlier blog,  AIDS 1-Being a Junior , many of my premature "coming out" adventures occurred in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware where Christine Blasey Ford visits her family at their vacation home each year. Ford specifically said she was in a  Walgreens parking lot in Rehoboth discussing potentially testifying at one point and I have a visual in my head of that store and its location from many years ago, albeit I could be wrong, it's not a "hot spot" I just feel like I am certain I have been there. Rehoboth Beach, DE Boardwalk Kavanaugh also vacationed in Delaware and Ocean City, MD.  He was accused of misconduct in Ocean City, MD during Beach Week but it was never investigated, and brought to surface later by attorney Michael Avenatti. ...