My new video “Turn Me Out” is featured over at PQ Monthly today alongside the announcement of the remix contest. Check it out HERE or just keep reading below.

From PQ Monthly, 8/1/2012:

“Local electro-pop musician Logan Lynn (perhaps better known locally as the public relations and innovations manager for Q Center) released the music video for his new single “Turn Me Out” last week. Lynn described the inspiration for the song and the video, which is scheduled to air on MTV and LOGO, in an interview with Sugar Bang:

The song is about longing for your partner to want you, about the complexities of intimacy between two people who are very close…ultimately it’s about my wanting to get fucked and be loved by the man I love. As for the video, the concept all gets credited to Director Curtis Speer. It was his photography which led me to working with him on this video. He has a very particular point of view which I think is great. There’s something so haunting about his photographs.

The single is part of Lynn’s upcoming album “Tramp Stamps & Birthmarks” (due out Dec. 4). The album includes contributions by writer David Appaloosa (THE HUGS) and producer Gino Mari. Lynn is extending that collaborative spirit by holding a remix contest. The winner will receive Lynn’s entire discography (1999-2012). If the remix gets released, its creator will get 50 percent of the profit from sales. All entries will be featured on Lynn’s website.

Check out the carnival-themed video below.

(This month marks the relaunch of Just Out, Oregon’s only LGBT glossy news magazine. I have a monthly column in the publication called “In The Trenches” which is on stands now or you can click HERE to read the online version. I have posted the original version of the piece, titled “Forgiveness Is A Huge Pain In The Ass”, here as well. Be sure and pick up your copy of Just Out all over Oregon or click on the cover below to download the PDF. I happened to write this month’s cover story too, which you can check out HERE if ya wanna.)

From Just Out, June 2012 Issue:

Forgiveness is a Huge Pain in the Ass.

by Logan Lynn.

There. I said it. My hurt is my hurt. As so many of us do, I carry it on my back, bring it with me to bed, and keep it fed and alive so it can grow alongside me as I make my way through the years. I notice more and more that there is deep sense of my identity found in and around my own history of suffering and that I still sometimes guard those old feelings with my life even now, years after the initial infliction occurred. Much of the connection I feel to my humanity seems to have been formed during sad times, more than once having had the experience of stepping closer to my true self in moments when all had otherwise been lost.

Recently, after I reviewed Lee Hirsch’s documentary “Bully” for another gig and recounted my own horror story of being tortured by my peers as a young man for being ginger, queer and different, I received a message on Facebook from a name I had not seen for nearly twenty years but instantly recognized. In a flash I was transported back in time and broke into an all-too-familiar sweat, my hands cold and clammy with panic. The message was from one of the ringleaders of this group of mean kids I had grown up with and I have always counted him as one of my primary tormenters from back then. Suddenly I was 14 again and all alone in the world, just me and my teenage fear.

As I had done many times before in locker rooms, classrooms and hallways when I spotted this particular bully, I puffed myself up and prepared for the worst. Once I had worked through the acute PTSD around even seeing his name in my inbox, I opened the message and, to my surprise, took in the following words: “Hey Logan, I read several of your stories on The Huffington Post. In short, I just wanted to say that I’m very sorry for any bullying that I did when we were younger. I know that’s not much (if any comfort), but I wanted to say it. I sincerely hope my own kids are more tolerant. Congrats on your sobriety and best of luck with your community work.”

It was strangely comforting. I burst into tears. This jerk had made me cry before, no doubt – but this was different. Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 4/18/2012)

I went to see filmmaker Lee Hirsch‘s new documentary, Bully, this past weekend, and even now, days later, I still find myself deeply affected. When I say that, I’m speaking not so much about the film (although it was beautifully made and completely moving) but to the extreme heartache I have felt since watching it. I started sobbing about 30 seconds into the movie and didn’t really stop until the following morning. I cried for the parents who have lost their children to bullying, I cried for the bullied subjects in the film, and I cried for myself, having gone through an amplified version of all of this years ago.

Yesterday, after reading reports of yet another 14-year-old queer kid being bullied to death in America, this time in Iowa, the feeling turned once again from sadness to anger. My own growing-up-gay-in-the-Midwest story reads like some sort of fucked-up textbook for how LGBT kids come into the world, how we maneuver through, and often how we go out. The torture I suffered at the hands of my peers as a closeted child and then as an out teenager is one that is shared by many in the community. In reality I was quite lucky to have survived back then, although I almost didn’t survive the years that followed.

I took in violence as a young man like a sponge takes up water. It came in many forms, but I always did the same thing with it: I absorbed it and made it part of me, every mean thing anyone ever called me believed, every punch thrown my way shaped into my being. I spent years reacting to other people’s hate in a variety of colorful ways, living out the disappointment of everyone who had ever known me in real time. I was driven by uncontrollable rage, crippling fear, and a sense of mourning for the person everyone else thought I should be but whom I knew I would never become. Over time I grew used to the abuse, said goodbye to my sweetness, and let the violence take me over.

Even as an adult I am still dealing with this very old idea about myself and a world that says that I am nothing; that I somehow deserve to taste blood in my mouth, because I am not actually a person; that I need to hide in order to stay alive. To this day, when I encounter homophobia, my first reaction is often to fight; sometimes the motivation is to protect myself or the man I love, but sometimes it’s because I just want to see that look of surprise on the face of some mouthy jock who didn’t expect this particular weak, pussy-faggot to be scrappy and fight back. I’ve spent countless hours in therapy working on this very thing, but having spent my formative years defending myself both physically and emotionally, it’s sometimes hard to turn that survival reflex off.

Just this past weekend, as we walked by a group of meathead bro-dudes with tribal tattoos and spray tans, one of them mocked what I had said to my boyfriend as we passed, only he did it in full-blown sissy voice. I stopped. My initial instinct was to Read the rest of this entry »