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Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.
Monday 04/07/2003
Does this happen often?
I seem to be in a rut with these numbered, largely random subject entries. Eh, who said ruts were bad things anyway? Read away.
One:
My mind is wandering through odd places as I sleep and dream. A few days ago, I dreamt that I was crossing a pedestrian bridge* which spans PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) to provide access to Santa Monica beach. It was night, and a man was leaning against a nonexistent streetlight in the middle of the bridge, his face covered in shadow.
He was smoking, and wore a fedora and trench coat, as if he were a film noir detective. When I walked past him, he looked up and in a gravely voice, offered me a job as a ballroom dance instructor at juvie hall.
I ignored him and continued on my way.
There is more to the dream, but since that part involves an ex, a deserted lifeguard station, and um, certain activities, I'm not going to mention it. Although, now that I think about though, that part was less dream and more filtered memories of a night we spent together way back when.
Two:
Walt is going to see Graham Norton. I'm jealous.
Three:
Rebecca Gilman�s Boy gets Girl is now playing at the Geffen. The blurbs for it mention a blind date that forever changes a woman's life, and a Time's review that called it "the finest, most disturbing American play in years."
Disturbing was a very good choice of words. It was very good, but dang was it creepy.
One of the issues it touched on was how our society teaches boys/men to objectify women. A woman is not a person, not an individual, but rather, a hot ass, or a great pair of hooters. Women are things. Women are objects.
Objects have no rights, no value, no voice. You listen to a person. You may not like what HE is saying, but you at least listen. Why bother listening to an object. Who cares if it says LEAVE ME ALONE. What does the noise an object makes matter anyway?
Four:
Young Mr. Bryan recently related a story about how he and some friends had a bit of trouble at a gay bar. Oversimplified, they had to leave because some of their party were straight.
I've heard stories about bouncers having to remove straight men from lesbian bars because they were harassing women. I've also heard a story about a gay bar in San Francisco that would refuse entry to women back in the bad old 70's. Kicking out paying straight customers from a gay establishment is a new one to me though. Granted, I rarely go out to bars and such, but does this kind of thing happen often?
Five:
The high school teacher who told me about straight boys waxing their eyebrows is the faculty advisor for his schools gay/straight alliance. He shows his kids a movie each semester, and is understandably tired of watching In&Out year after year, so he asked me for some help in finding something more suitable.
It wasn't that easy. Most of the Queer shorts we reviewed had lots of "adult" language, drug use, simulated sex, and flashes of people's naughty bits. Not the most appropriate of material for a teacher to show his students. Even movies that were cool content wise had problems such as being in a foreign language. "I have some special Ed. students, and I'm not sure they'd be able to read the subtitles fast enough to understand what was going on."
As we watched teenagers acting angsty on screen, he told me his kids put on a fashion show as a fundraiser. When I made a tackless remark about young queer boys and fashion, he chuckled and told me that his group was almost all girls. Fashion conscious baby dykes. Who knew?
Six:
Geek boy that I am, I was overly pleased when I found the first volume of Excel Saga and Peter Brook's The Mahabharata at a used dvd place this past weekend.
I haven't started the BBC short version of the play (clocking in at merely 5 � hours or so), but I have been going through the anime. Excel is a young woman who is part of the secret ideological organization ACROSS, which aims to conquer the world, one step at a time, first starting with City F.
Excel is very enthusiastic, crazy, and has a tendency to do stupid things that get her killed, thus forcing the will of the cosmos to restart the story. Her partner is a young woman who is deathly ill (tuberculosis?) and is prone to dropping dead every few minutes.
Excel also has a pet dog, Menchi, who is not so much a pet as much an emergency food supply. Menchi gets to sing/howl a lament about this during the show's closing credits.
Even for an obnoxious comedy, this thing is not a normal show.
One of the episodes was a parody of dating sim games. In trying to woo the video game girlfriend, one of the male characters is given such options as (A) Stalk her, (B) Kill her, (C) Stick it in her. I�ve never played, nor do I have any intention of playing this kind of game, so I don�t know how accurate or humorous that specific bit was. Even though, I kept thinking back to Boy gets Girl.
Seven:
I did the PCC (Pasadena City College) Swap meet/flea market thing last Sunday. It was a pleasant day and provided some interesting things to see, including:
-A Goth woman in what could be best described as a black wedding dress was walking a tiny midget of a Chihuahua who became rabidly angry at a passing German Shepherd. The mutt had a potentially fatal Napoleon complex, or no concept of size, or something. The larger dog could easily have eaten the Chihuahua in one gulp, but luckily he was a very mellow fellow. He ignored the yipping thing straining to tear free of its leash so it could ravage the world.
-Several hip rockabilly straight couples. With hipster "I only go out at night" couples, the norm tends to be that the gal is pasty white, while the guy is somewhat vaguely tanned. But these folks were the reverse, with men who were so ghostly white from lack of sun, they almost glowed under their pompadours.
-Waves and waves of gay couples antiquing in seriousness, or just looking for tasteless nicknacks.
-Waves and waves of Japanese tourists antiquing in seriousness, or just looking for tasteless nicknacks.
-A series of 7-up magazine print ads from the late 60's which featured recipes for nasty looking burgers and hot dogs to drink with your soda. Dead cow on a bun, topped with a sliced tomato and for that special touch, mayonnaise browned in a broiler, YUM!
Trust me, it was a fun day. I think.
More later,
nico
*Drew, if you think back, you just may remember the bridge I was dreaming of.
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