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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.
05/07/2003
This is not the Asian chicken salad of my people
With neither rhyme nor reason, here are algunas cositas:
Stress and drool.
Work is growing overwhelming by leaps and bounds as we approach the end of the (fiscal) year. Reports, goals, projects, deadlines are all multiplying like rabid beasts intent on devouring me whole. In these troubled times, it no longer feels like everything is a priority, because everything has been declared a priority. In case you ever wondered, the answer is yes, when everything needs to be done first, nothing gets done.
On it�s own, I could deal with the stress, unfortunately there is also the problem of uncertainty. I have no idea what's going to happen to me. No one does. Possibly upper management does, but they ain�t telling. My office may be moved to another location, or it may not. We may be consolidated with another office (as a way of saving money), or we may not. We may switch functions, or we may not. I may be transferred, or I may not be. About the only thing I do know, is that I will not be getting the promotion that I wasn't sure I wanted anyway.
Upper management believes in the "Shock 'n Awe" method of motivating it's staff, which maybe why we have trouble holding on to people, although officially no such problem exits. In the queer (old sense) mind view of my branch of government, people leaving my department in droves is not a problem because the majority of those leaving just move to different departments while staying within the same larger agency, hence the number of employees for the agency as a whole don't change much. Therefore no problem exists.
Don't worry about that not making any sense. It's just bureaucratic nonsense, and worse, it's just a bunch of whining. So instead of moaning and bitching about work, let me switch focus a bit and mention that my work counter part, Work-Denise has been promoted and replaced with Work-Sandra.
The hetero men in my office got quite happy when we found out who the new person would be. I had never met her before, but it seems that she is "gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, oh, and nice too."
Work-Sandra has been here a week now, and while she is nice, and even attractive, I don't believe that she is worth all the drool. Possibly because I'm a big homo.
After all, during a quick lunch at a fast food place, while the other male coworkers were all staring at her, hanging on her every word; I was busy trying to look over her head at the two Mexican guys sitting at the table behind her. Now they were drool worthy.
Slug Fag?
Due to mass consumerism on both our parts, John and I found ourselves in need of more space again. So we did the Ikea thing for bookcases. Granted, we could have just gotten rid of stuff and made our lives a lot simpler, but somehow, that never occurred to us.
We wandered through the store a bit, and I amused myself by counting the other gay couples. There were lots of men there I would assume were gay, but oddly, there were only eight other couples. It was a slow day or something I guess.
At least one of the other couples did not seem to be having very much fun. I noticed a forty something Indian man showing a plate of some sort to a woman I took to be his mother. She was mighty unimpressed with his selection. That was when a white man, also in his forties dumped some junk in their cart, then immediately took off again. I saw them again later in the check out lines, standing together, all not looking at each other. A fun filled weekend shopping to whittle away time with mom in-law I'm thinking.
John and I got our bookcases and despite a hassle with getting into the loading area (the Burbank store parking security guards have gotten mean and didn�t seem to believe me when I told them that yes, I really am there to load purchases, and not to steal parking), they are now up. Sad thing is, they are already filled with books, dvds, toys, and random tchotchkes.
I'm avoiding looking at John in case he suggests another trip for more furniture.
I mentioned all of this to a friend, who suggested that the next time I count off gay couples, I should play the slug bug version of it and smack John for each �hit�. I think if I slip up and make eye contact, I'll tell him this as a deterrent to keep us from ever shopping again.
This is not the Asian chicken salad of my people.
I have joined the CHO REVOLUTION, or at the very least, I saw her perform at the Wiltern last Saturday night. John is currently fed up with ticketmaster, so it was just Kristen and me that night.
We did the dinner thing at Wolf Gang Pucks (Salmon on garlic mashed potatoes with artichoke sauce, since that's the only thing I like there) and did the wasting time thing doing the wasting time at Virgin thing. I even did the purchasing thing, thus adding to lack of shelf problem I've already mentioned. This time it was some random lounge CD, a book of late nineteenth/early twentieth century photographs of male nudes/porno book (on sale), and the bizzaro soft cover (amusing). The clerk looked liked he was about to comment on my selection, then decided not to. I think I frightened him.
After the wasting time with food and retail was over, we did the wasting time in the lobby before the show starts thing. We gossiped about local queer politics, analyzed why big gay bellies are the in thing in Britain, shared scary stories about scary possibly gay people we don't want to come out of the closet, and in general, just scooped out the other folks milling about.
The show itself was good. It was cool. I did have a problem with our seats though. Filming was taking place, and we just happened to be sitting in a spot were a large camera on a boom blocked our view of Ms. Cho for nearly half the show. There was a video screen of her though, so it wasn't that bad, and anyway, we were high up enough, that we would not have been able to clearly make out her face for some of the routines. With her, there are lots of times were everything is about her facial expression.
The last time I saw her was at the Improv in Irvile, so it was interesting seeing how the bits that made it into the revolution show changed, tightened, evolved, and became funnier. Most comics are not this good. If you watch a comedy show on TV, it�s usually a machine gun approach to humor. Toss out joke after joke after gag after gag to see what �sticks.� None of it really related to each other. Some will be funny, but not always.
Not here though. It was all funny as sin, even the parts that make you squirm in your seat as she goes to and beyond the limits of good taste. You can tell that a lot of work and skill has gone into this show so that everything flows from and builds on each other until you are swept to the end where she shows that besides humor, this woman has brains as well. Margaret Cho is a master of her art.
The dreaded mention of google.
I have not mentioned weird google searches leading folks to the site because nothing has been too out of the ordinary, just the usual porno stuff. Well, except for one search for flatulence porn and another for NRA fags. This wouldn't happen to be one of the signs of the apocalypse, would it?
Safe film.
My friend the high school teacher who also happens to be the faculty advisor for the Gay/Straight student alliance which now calls itself the Unity club, instead of the Gay/Straight student alliance (because that's just too embarrassing), is still having problems finding movies/short films he can show his kids. There are plenty of queer/gay/lesbian films out there, but invariably, there's foul language, or nudity, or sex, or drugs, or severe violence. Not exactly something a teacher can get away showing students during lunch, or after school. Not unless he wants to get fired anyway.
So no kid runs away, ends up a hustler and dies movies; no tortured old man &/or PWA who lusts after straight men who beat you movies; and no my girlfriend has serious issues and ends up dying of a heroin overdose by the end of the flick kind of movies either.
His kids have asked to see Days, but since that appears to be a film about barebacking, it's probably not going to happen. My question for you all is, can anyone think of a "safe" movie/short to view with teens/students? Other than in&out, Birdcage, But I'm a cheerleader (kind of pushing it with some of the language), or Trevor?
The secondary effects of baby oil as a fire retardant.
My teacher friend told me a story a while back, which I forgot to mention here. For simplicity sake, let's just call him Mr. T (a nice and embarrassing name).
A couple of months ago, his school held Samoan Day, as a means of celebrating diversity on campus. This meant that during lunch, several boys and girls performed traditional dances while wearing very little and slicked up with baby oil. Not to be too stereotypical here, but imagine half neeked shiny teen girls and very, very large football player sized teen boys and you'll get the picture.
After the performance, my friend ran into one of his gay kids, and asked him how he enjoyed the show. Adolfo (a short, terminally perky, tenth grade Mexican boy with ambitions of being on the cheerleading squad) said very excitedly, "Mr. T, that was absolutely the best thing I have ever seen in my entire life!"
Way back in the cretaceous era, when I was in high school, we had similar events. Different groups would do traditional performances, and one of the more popular dances was a fire dance that was always done by one of the Football players. I remember the young teenage me watching oily half nekkid boys leap about on stage and having a very similar reaction to Adolfo. Some things are just, well mesmerizing to horny young gay boys. High school is not something I would ever care to repeat, although I do have to admit, it did have some moments.
In an earlier entry I wrote that I intended to write something about lust during April. I never did. Lust seemed too frivolous a topic with everything that has been going on, although compared to the subjects I have written about, that is not a very good excuse. So let the memory of a teenage nico, trying not to too obviously stare at boys be my bit about lust. A fearful lust. A quiet lust. An eager lust.
More Later,
nico
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