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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.
Wednesday 08/20/2003
nico lives in Southern California and other stories:
I have fallen behind in keeping this thing current. Big whoop.
I have fallen behind in keeping up with folks I normally read, so I have missed people bowing out of the entire blogs thing, someone vacationing in Vegas, someone else giving up on the Catholic church, and another getting his thingie pierced...ouch. I really need to get back up with my correspondence �cause well...ouch.
I haven't been keeping up with the stats to the site, not such a bad thing, because finding multiple daily hits from people looking for sneezing porn videos was not exactly the high light of my day. The porn entry was a joke people!
Sneezing, yeash. Anyway, enough with the intro, here's nine things I've failed to mention here:
One:
John and I saw Camp in WeHo with Alex and his friends, Don and Max. It's been a while since I've been on that side of town. I am definitely not used to walking streets filled with pretty boys busy pretending they are not looking at each other. Dinner at a Baja Fresh (pseudo-healthy fast food Mexican chain) before hand was like being at a bar where everyone was practicing the art of attitude.
Hanging around outside the theater before the movie was similar in that each man who walked by headed to the gym next door was more primped, styled, and dressed to be admired than the last. As everyone else in our party complained about how the movie/shopping/gym complex had the worst parking structure possible, I idly wondered if the gym queens strutting past us spent more time getting ready to work out than they did actually working out.
While the parade of chemically enhanced muscle boys prancing by were attractive enough in an abstract plastic way, I was naughty and decided that Max in his nonstylish clothes, nonquaffed hair, and real man body was by far the sexiest looking guy there. If nothing else, besides looking as if he knew what to do in bed (or the floor, or a table, or wherever), he also seemed to be the kind of man who would not need a mirror to get it up.
Anyway, the only point to all that is besides being a nice guy, Mr. Max was sexy as all get out, and I'm married, and I was a good boy, and didn't do anything more inappropriate than allow myself to admire the view. So, the movie. It was cute little thing about teenagers at a music, acting, theater summer camp, where the big summer romance the story followed was not between two boys, but between the apparently lone straight boy and one of the not so popular girls.
It was a fluff thing, but still amusing, with some good singing, and only mildly pushy with some of the "accept me/love me as I am" messages.
Two:
The first time I heard the title for R.O.D. (read or die), I joked that it sounded like a literary campaign gone mad, I've now finally seen it and luckily it was much better than I imagined. The story involved secret service organizations, spies, stolen books, super-powered and very well armed librarian field agents, clones of famous historical figures, world wide threats, and was topped of with some nice vague lesbian/questionably close female friendships.
There were several plot points that were never explained, such as how Agent Paper got her ability to make paper do whatever she wanted, and just exactly why was there a need for a top secret British Library Special Forces organization, but ultimately it doesn't matter, the thing was good and it looked great.
Three:
Our friend Susan was hosting (or whatever it's called) a Southern Living party, so John and I were dragged along into the melee of mail order Southern Home style so that Susan could get whatever free or discounted items one gets for hosting (or whatever it's called) one of these things. Because Susan was in charge of getting people there, the guests were a mix of women and gay men, and practically everyone was a lawyer.
The other common theme to the guests was that several folks had been on television, which maybe had less to do with Susan and more to do with our being in Southern California. Even though Susan was the official host lady person, the party was held at the home of a friend of hers who had just been on Designer's Challenge (kitchen remodel). One of the guests had been on Landscapers Challenge (hilly backyard landscaping), another two had spent the previous day trying out for the new Donny Osmond version of Pyramid, and Susan herself has been on a few low budget game shows. We had no famous people, just slightly well exposed ones.
The selling style party was interestingly low key and soft sell. It turned out to be more of an opportunity to catch up with old friends, for some mothers to network on parent stuff (which local preschools to avoid and the like), for food to be eaten, and for some "purty" stuff to be purchased. All in all, a fairly painless ordeal.
Four:
I never did mention watching League of Extraordinary Gentlemen nearly a month ago. I was surprised that I enjoyed it. It wasn�t a great film, it wasn't even that good, but it did do what summer hollywood flicks are supposed to do; distract you for a while. I�m a fan of the comic book, and after seeing the trailer for the film a few too many times, I went in to the movie prepared to be disappointed. The reason for this being that in the book, a decidedly more human version of Mina Hawkins is the leader of a group of men which includes some scary amoral fiends in a world where literary references are overwhelming and thrown out so fast it�s sometimes hard to keep up with it all.
The trailer for film made it seem like a run of the mill action flick staring Sean Conery and his big gun. Luckily there was at least a little bit more to the flick than that. Interestingly, from what little I have read, the literary references that have survived the transition to the film are exactly the reason that critics panned the flick. In one review I saw, the writer spent half his article complaining that it was wrong, wrong, wrong! to have �Dracula�s Bride� and Dorian Grey in the same story. It�s amusing that comic book readers would be more flexible in their thinking than the movie going public.
Five:
John and I spent the day with the niece Nicky a few weeks ago. It was fun playing the doting uncle, it was less fun that the outing included seeing Spy Kids 3. The first movie was weird, and it was a kid�s flick, but it wasn�t demeaning and the pro family aspect wasn�t preachy or annoying.
This third movie was not as good. Mainly because I wasn�t interested. Also, the danged 3D glasses gave me a huge headache. There were several times were I had to take the dang things off and turn away from the red and green blurry images on screen.
I had far more fun the rest of the day, helping Nicky help feed the Mochi kitten, and eating at a spaghetti dinner fundraiser for a local police department�s toys for underprovided kids program.
Six:
After watching a few episodes and having read a few online opinions of Queer Eye for that the Straight Guy, I have nothing original to add. Except that it has been an educational experience.
I have learned that the secret of being properly dressed is shoving my shirt and jacket sleeves up past my elbows, and the secret of good food is spending lots of money at trendy foody stores.
I have also learned that straight men are terrible slobs who while incapable of even basic hygiene, always manage to get great looking girlfriends. Conversely, gay men are all skinny well groomed men obsessed with costly details and love nothing better than to constantly touch straight men.
Additionally, I�ve found out that gay men of color are interchangeable, so I guess I better be good or Johnny might replace me with another culture consultant and no one will ever notice.
Um, OK, it�s not all that bad, it�s just that I wonder if there will ever be a �gay� show that doesn�t play up to stereotypes.
Seven:
I have also been watching Boy meets Boy, and well, I�ve been wondering why. John has been having fun playing pick out the gay boy, which seems to be the only reason anyone is watching, but truth is the show is sort of boring. Boring and more than a little bit white.
Considering that the show has been stacking the odds to keep at least one straight guy in the final grouping, it�s probably obvious who the final straight boy is, but I don�t care if the main guy chooses him or not.
While I don�t care about that, I am somewhat curious what the consequences of the Military guy who coming out on the show in the first episode. Is he still with the Navy? If so, is anything going to happen to him?
I think the producers of the show missed an opportunity here. If there had to be a straight twist to a gay dating show, then they should have gone all the way and have made everyone straight. Imagine the cattiness, the nellyness, the drag, and the drama that would ensue watching a group of heterosexual men all trying to convince each other they are gay. Big time hilarity. Besides being more interesting, I think it would have given us some insight into how the straight world views us, but no, that route wasn�t likely since the joke would not have been at the expense of those silly gays trying to find love and we can�t have that.
Eight:
The Producers was a fun show. Jason Alexander was good, which according to a friend who know about such things is not a surprise because he is known for being talented. Martin Short was well, Martin Short.
There is group of bears who have the same subscription as John and me, so I am used to seeing a group of very large men sitting waaaay in front of us in much better seats. For this show, they sat right in front of us. When the guys sat down, I lost all sight of the stage. Looking over the shoulder of the person in front of you was not even an option for me, because when i tried that, all I saw was his back. Not fun, but lucky for me, a couple of them weren�t happy with their seats so they moved, and I could suddenly see the stage again.
Having seen them from a distance for a while now, I had decided that one of them was cute. Seeing them close up, I realized I was wrong, two of them were rather GRRRRR, while the others were uh, large.
Oddly, this was the first time I have ever seen a man with a french manicure.
Nine:
I�ve been working out of a different office the past couple of weeks and will continue to do so for the forceable future. So I am now in an office with a view of a trash filled alley, a pawn shop, and in the smog filled distance the Hollywood sign.
At least I�m not in sitting on the other side of the building with a view of the crack whore working the street corner. She starts her working day at 8:30 in the morning, and well, that�s much too early in the day for me to deal.
more later,
nico
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