(semi) openly gay in Brandon? (Clarksdale: crime, buying, school)

[Mhundred]

Hey y'all. Thanks for the imput but after talking it over with friends and family i decided it was just not worth accepting the position.

[Alluvial]

There's probably a lot more fun stuff to do in Atlanta, to be honest.

[psulions2007]

Originally Posted by Notatwink

Hey y'all. Thanks for the imput but after talking it over with friends and family i decided it was just not worth accepting the position.

If you're looking for a new city in the south to explore and live in, I highly suggest Nashville.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by Notatwink

Hey y'all. Thanks for the imput but after talking it over with friends and family i decided it was just not worth accepting the position.

By an awful co-incidence, a gay man, Marco McMillan, was murdered in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on February 27th. Man Charged With Murdering Mississippi Politician - ABC News

[GrandviewGloria]

Originally Posted by goldenage1

By an awful co-incidence, a gay man, Marco McMillan, was murdered in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on February 27th. Man Charged With Murdering Mississippi Politician - ABC News

Well, I had to go to the Daily Mail to get a photo of the alleged Perp. Not at all the sort of person the mainstream media are hoping you'd think would be named 'Lawrence Reed'. (Sounds like some scrawny, crazed, KKK member, right? Wrong! ) Definitely not a racist attack. And probably not an anti-Gay one, either. Lawrence Reed: Man, 22, charged with murdering Mississippi's first gay mayoral candidate Marco McMillian | Mail Online

But honestly, everything I tried to read was so badly written, I can't make much sense of the articles. So, I'll put my own spin on it. That Tallahatchie County Bridge may have been involved in some way. Can't believe those journalists missed that, what with them dredging up stories about selling souls to the Devil, down at the crossroads, an' all. Now, in the Ode to Billy Joe song, Billy Joe jumped off that Tallahatchie County bridge because of a baby, maybe. But in the movie, it was about that 'Bad Woman' from Yazoo City not gettin' him excited and so he jumped off the bridge because realized he was Gay. See? Now there's a connection! I think maybe 'spirits' are involved in this. Spirits of one sort or another...

But anyway, this sort of thing is just typical life in any Delta town, these days. That's why Delta people try not to go out at night.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by GrandviewGloria

Definitely not a racist attack. And probably not an anti-Gay one, either.......
But anyway, this sort of thing is just typical life in any Delta town, these days. That's why Delta people try not to go out at night.

Thanks. I'll withdraw my implication that it was necessarily an anti-gay attack. Maybe it was just a car-jacking. I also realize that Brandon is a long way from Clarksdale.

[MiamiRob]

Originally Posted by Notatwink

Hi y'all I have been recently offered a decent job located in Brandon I would be moving from the atlanta area to work there. Now my concern would have to do with the fact that i am a gay man and whether that would pose a "problem" in a city like brandon?

I don't flaunt my sexuality but the truth is anyone who's talked to me for more than 5 minutes somehow seems to guess that I am indeed gay (i guess i'm a lot more butch in my head). Are there any neighborhoods you can perhaps recommend that i should check out that would be more "open minded"?

My partner has no plans as of yet to move down with me if i do accept the position but i assume/hope he will be visiting and spending a good deal of time with me there.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Gay and in small town Mississippi? Are you "suicidal"?

[SandiK]

No, he's not suicidal. He's just influenced now by the negativity and lies on this thread. Yesterday I ran by our local flower shop to pay a bill & visited w/the two gay men there, one of whom helped me move some things in my car. Then I came back home to see my gay yard guy working in a neighbor's yard w/a steaming cup of coffee she'd fixed him (probably missed the donuts first) - which would have come from a shop on our main street which has at least two gay female employees.

I had lunch at a local book shop/bistro w/my favorite soup & half sandwich, prepared by the gay barrista. When I stopped by church to drop some things off I got news of the death of one of our gay member's mothers & found out plans for the lunch and funeral. Let me not even go into who all was at community theater practice yesterday evening. Or who does my legal work or who taught my child English. We make our own fun around here and most of us don't worry much about other's bedroom or partner arrangements.

[GrandviewGloria]

Congratulations! You guys have managed to prevent another person from moving to Mississippi!!!!

This particular one, however, would not have been a drain on the state's resources, and a threat to whatever is still good about Mississippi's way of life. He would have been a keeper.

A lot of the more mysterious recent queries on Mississippi Forum have seemed to come from employees of VOLAGS (posing as single moms, young married moms, etc., with rather strange lists of requisites) searching for places to ruin with the people they help 'settle' upon unsuspecting communities. They've pretty-much run out of unspoiled towns in New England and the Upper Midwest, and have now turned their eyes - or tentacles - toward the Deep South.

But Notatwink seemed to be a real person, and one who would have actually been an asset to Brandon. His presence would probably have been a plus.

I'm not asking that you quit making Mississippi sound scary. The state's scary reputation is its greatest asset. But please scare off the scroungy-sounding ones, too!!!! And please stop telling the scroungy-sounding ones about Ocean Springs and other relatively nice places! The community you ruin (by making it sound nice-but-inexpensive) could be your own.

As for Gays in Brandon.... And I've been asking around since this thread first popped-up... My friends of that persuasion say that the Gay 'Social Networking Sites' are full of profiles of Gay men in the Metro's two most viable communities (Brandon and Madison). Those men tend to be the cream of the crop: nonsmokers, totally drug-free; master's degrees or better; men who lift weights four or more days a week; men who own new quarter-million-dollar Acadian-style homes, and new forty-thousand-dollar SUVs. Men who can afford to fly to Bora Bora. "Pretty-much anybody you'd actually want lives in Madison or Brandon. The PNP (Party 'n Play) boys you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot-pole live inside the City of Jackson." Also, I was told to relay, "The Gay guys in Brandon tend to be typical Brandon people: a bit more country, a bit more butch, a tad more genuine. Generally from Pentecostal, Baptist, or Methodist families. You know, Brandon people buy whole rooms full of matching solid-wood furniture, and big, puffy upholstery. The Madison crowd are typical Madison: apt to be ambitious, workaholic, sophisticated, from top families and top-tier religions. They're going to buy their furniture by-the-piece, and it's heavily-weighted toward 'important' and 'antique'. All that stuff the trophy wife antique dealers buy in Europe and have shipped over ends up in Madison, now."

Yes, Mississippi is a depressing place for most Gay people. It's a bleak place for anyone, Gay or straight, not born into a network of family and friends there. And frustrating for a person of modest means not content with the football-watching/church-going/WalMart-shopping/Shoney's Breakfast Buffet kind of existence.

But Notatwink was about to move to one of the three spots in the entire state where a Gay man of substance and means can have a decent life. Also, it's a place where there are a fair number of drop-dead-gorgeous straight (but gay-tolerant) personal trainers. One of them is an internationally-famous fitness model, and one of the most beautiful (and butch) men on the planet. Working-out twice a week with someone of that calibre is not a bad way to spend one's time and disposable income.

I guess I should add that none of my Gay friends even know the names or locations of Jackson's gay bars ("Don't even think about it!"), and none of them have anything to do with 'The Gay Community', which they consider to be, "Toxic. Best avoided." But, like I said: some of the most beautiful straight men on the planet live in Rankin County, and some of those are personal trainers.

The Jackson Metro is a place to move for Gay folk who don't mind living in isolation. It's perfect for those who have demanding goals they intend to pursue, free of distractions. Per my Decorator (sole proprietor of large commercial firm which has not accepted a new client in a decade), who lives in splendid isolation in Madison: "Work, gym, continuing education. That's been my whole life. I wouldn't know how to live in a place where I could have a social life or a love life. How could I get anything done?"

I know Mississippians, Gay and straight, who consider their 'real lives' to be lived outside Mississippi. They live their 'real lives' at their houses in Palm Springs or Palm Beach or Durango or Vail or Malibu. And actually, that sort of thing was even more the case before 9-11 made flying such an ordeal for those who have to fly commercial. However, the stream of private jets using Madison's tiny airport grows by the day.

[Buckeye614]

Slain Mississsippi mayoral candidate was dragged and burned, family says - U.S. News