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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 09/29/2003
Middle man, that is, Nico at thirty-six.
So the birthday has come and gone, and I�m now a late thirties man. Thirty-six doesn�t sound to bad an age to be, but as of yet, I don�t appear to be too different than the thirty-five model. Maybe that wisdom with age thing will come later.
I�ve once again gotten bored with the journal, which is why I haven�t posted anything in a while, and why I�ve done silly things to it such as turning it green and putting up jpegs of 70�s era super heroes who wouldn�t look too out of place in an especially kinky leather bar back room.
We�ll see how long it lasts. So anyway, while avoiding this moldy little site, I managed to get over the funk I was in the last time I posted, which is not exactly true. I�m still somewhat �funky,� but I�m ignoring it for now. Which is also not entirely true, because I�m not that sad. I may not be overly happy, but I�m not overly depressed either. Middle of the road man, that's me. Ugh, boring sounding that. Middle of the road, middle of the life, middle, middle, middle man. Yeash, I better stop this before I really do get depressed. Anyway, enough with the blue moody/moldyness, here's the past few weeks, sorry but it�s a long one:
Torn felt and tissue paper as material for building scale models:
I knew I wanted to see the Frank Gehry exhibit at MOCA, but since I�ve been busy practicing being an agoraphobic hermit, I knew it wasn�t very likely. So as a form of self motivation, a couple of Fridays ago I decided to "thrill" it up a bit by taking the metro line into Downtown. OK, taking a train isn't exactly the definition of thrilling, but hey, this is Los Angeles, and anyway I hadn't been on the Gold Line yet (the Union Station to Pasadena line). So Gold Line I went, except that to get to a station with easy parking, I ended up driving about the same amount of time as I would if I had just jumped on the freeway into downtown, thus sort of negating the entire idea of efficient public transportation, but let�s just ignore that.
It actually wasn't that bad a situation, since I had errands to run in the neighborhood the station was in, and would have gone there anyway, but since that eliminates the barely existent, minuscule amount of humor in this story, I won't bother to mention it if you don't.
The train trip was pleasant, and the walk to the museum from the civil center station was brief and filled with clusters of jurors heading back to court after lunch, and gaggles of people taking photos of the new Gehry designed Disney Concert Hall, which was an appropriate sign I guess.
The computer or register or something at the museo was on the blitz, and I was waived in for free, so feeling uncharacteristically charitable, I paid for the audio tour. Were I straight, I think I would have had the hots for the tattooed, art/hip woman who helped me with the tour radio thingie, I couldn't place her accent, but she had a beautiful speaking voice.
The Gehry exhibit was mostly interesting, if a bit odd. This is the first time I've ever spent time looking over blueprints and architecture models in a museo. It was also a little odd in that the advertising for the thing seemed to imply that the exhibit consisted entirely of projects that had been built/were in the processes of being built, but this was not entirely true, since there were several that have been axed or passed over by developers (including a design for the New York Astor Place hotel, which would have been an interesting thing simultaneously soaring tall while also looking as if it were in danger of sloughing apart into the city streets below).
A couple of projects which caught my interest were the Venice Gateway project, which looked airy and soft despite being huge and massive; a library for the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, which consisted of a glass �coiled snake� spiral structure that will be simultaneously open to the environment (because of building material) and hidden/cloistered (because of the shape).
The most striking part of the exhibit though, was a huge sculpture/fiberglass study for construction of his now characteristic curved walls and forms. It was massive and hung from the ceiling, dominating the room, and looking vaguely alive, to my eye not so much like a horse head as the audio tour suggests, but more like an amorphous sea creature floating in the sea.
After finishing the exhibit, and returning the audio tour thingie to the woman with the beautiful voice, I made my way through the rest of the galleries, which had a mid-century art thing going on, which meant Polloc's and Rothco�s. You see so many reproduction�s of their work, from postcards, to screensavers, and I always end up forgetting that the copies never capture the texture and energy of the originals.
I spent a fair amount of looking at James Rosenquist�s Shave. It impressed me for reasons I haven�t been able to completely identify yet. I was not as impressed with Maurizio Cattelan�s Charlie, a remote controlled robot resembling a boy ridding a tricycle, which wandered through one of the galleries, buzzing people. I looked at it rolling around the room. I looked at the employee controlling it. I looked at people reacting to it, and for the life of me, I just could not decide if it was gimmick or art.
the first mention of murderous queeny men:
John got it into his head that I really wanted to see Party Monster, and knowing that Alex wanted to see it as well, plans were made for dinner and a movie with Alex. The only problem, and ultimately an unimportant one at that, was that I had no interest in the flick. Decadent, self obsessed, drug-hazed murderer party boy movies are not exactly my thing, but eh, whatever, we saw it.
John and Alex thought it was great, and I, well, I thought that perhaps it was not so bad. I have to admit that Seth Green was good as James St. James, even with that creepy devil child smile he�d flash the camera every once in a while, which gave me the willies.
Even though I admit it was good for what it was, I still wasn�t too taken with it, and about two thirds of the way through, I was seriously ready for it to be over. By the time it was finished, I was glad that I would never have to hear Macaulay Culkin speaking in that nelly voice ever again. One more prissy word and I�d have gone into a not so internalized homophobic rage in the middle of the theater. Someone would have been forced to kill me with a hammer.
Repeated garden imagery and the force of failed language:
The first play of the Mark Taper season is Homebody/Kabul, a rather long, long, long, loooooong play. John and I first realized something was up, when reading warnings that late arrivals would not be seated until after the first 55 minutes. We then found out it was going to be a 3 hour and 40 minute long production and wouldn't end till nearly midnight. Joy.
When we got to the theater, there was a sign in the lobby notifying everyone that there were two intermissions and the first act was 90 minutes, followed by a 45 minute second act and a 55 minute long third act. I took one look at the sign and starting giggling like a fool.
Our seats were different this year, and when the woman sitting next to me introduced herself and her husband, she added that there was no excuse for a play to be almost four hours long. Roberta and her husband Mort gave up after the first act, and quite frankly I'm surprised that John and I made it through the entire night. I was exhausted from a week of not sleeping very well, and John had been up since five that morning. If the play had been bad or even the slightest bit dull, we would have both fallen out of our seats and rolled down the aisle snoring loudly.
The play wasn't dull. It was bleeding long, but it wasn't dull. The first part of the first act consisted of a huge, rambling, seemingly never ending monologue where a woman (the homebody) using the most obscure and high fallutin' words possible, tells the story of Afghanistan and the city of Kabul, and in the process shares some of her own English Middle class life. She's the reason latecomers had to wait nearly an hour to be seated. As she spoke, I was amazed I understood half of what she was saying, the language was so purposely oblique. As she spoke, I decided that the she was going to get the loudest applause at the end of the night, no matter how good the rest of the cast maybe, simply because the audience would in awe of anyone who could have successfully memorized a speech that long and convoluted, and I was right.
The rest of the play dealt with an English man and his daughter trying to deal with his wife's' apparent death in Kabul at the hands of "rough boys" (this all takes place (and was written), post Talliban, pre 9/11, pre U.S. invasion). The story was not simple, and it forced the audience to think. When we left, people were tired, and they were trying to figure out what was true, what had really happened.
It was a few minutes shy of midnight when we got home that night, but it was long while before I fell asleep, because my mind would not shut down for the night. Ugh, How dare a play try to make me think.
It was September 21st in case you wanted to know:
My birthday was a more or less quiet day that involved a couple of errands, and hanging out for a little bit at the Pride Picnic in the Park deal that Pasadena Pride turned into. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon after most folks had left, but there was still a not too small crowd of people, with pets and kids and food. It was a low key thing, calm and relaxing. Well, not that relaxing, L.A. Cheer was performing, raising money for the Aids Service Foundation and it may not be too accurate to describe watching cheerleaders running and jumping around performing routines involving throwing people into the air.
A company had some recumbent sport bicycles there for people to try out (and presumably fall in love with and want to buy), and that was hardly relaxing for me either. I tried it and was terrible. I could barely ride the thing, and after some near crashes and falls gave up. I felt the very macho athletic, when everyone else, young and old seemed to catch on quick and rode by without problem.
Pale and pasty imitations:
Since we had the long, long play Thursday night, John taped a bunch of shows, including the new American version of Coupling. I like the original version, it�s witty, fun, and not too stupid. I watched the tape of the new version last night, and while it wasn�t horrible, there was something missing. A warmth maybe, or maybe the problem was the horribly loud laugh track, necessary of course because we Americans are too stupid to realize when to laugh.
Remaking British shows for American television is hardly new, considering that�s how we got All in the Family and Three�s Company. But it doesn�t always work. Queer as Folk started to flounder as soon as they ran out of story lines and had to come up with something original, which considering the length of American seasons, verses British series, happened fairly quickly. Keeping this in mind, I don�t have very hopes for the show.
the second mention of murderous queeny men:
A few weeks ago I watched an old (1939) Nancy Drew movie on TV. Being in a weird mood, and somewhat bored, I amused myself by queering it up. The two elderly spinster sisters in danger of losing their home unless Nancy Drew helped them were actually an elderly Lesbian couple who called themselves sisters to escape the disapproving eyes of the community. The older bachelor man, who apparently did not have the self decency to marry a woman like a real man is supposed to (if he was married, I missed the dialogue explaining so), was in realty an old murderous queen, because older bachelor men are always old murderous queens. He was also jealous of Nancy Drew because he desperately wanted to shtup her boyfriend. Which brings up a couple of questions, mainly just what the heck was going on with Nancy's boyfriend and exactly how "friendly" was he with those cops?
I don�t remember his name now, not that it mattered, since it was her movie and not his, but Nancy didn't seem to especially like her boy and was constantly setting him up to get arrested.
Despite his protests, he seemed to like it, he certainly did it often enough. Maybe he liked being treated rough or maybe it had something to do with his inability to keep his clothes on around his police buddies. The first time he was arrested, he was pantless (Nancy took his belt), and for some reason or another, after sending some �quality� time at the jail house, the police were kind enough to let him go scott free. The second time he was arrested he was dressed in drag (don't ask), and the police were once again very helpful when it came to setting him loose.
Nancy managed to get him arrested yet again at the very end of the story, serving as the final joke of the movie, but as he was soaking wet at the time, had the movie continued along following him, I'm sure a whole bunch of officers would have jumped at the chance to help the poor young man right out of those sopping wet clothes, and they would no doubt have done their very best to get him warmed up again in no time flat.
From the site I linked to this movie, besides being the last of the Nancy Drew series, this movie was also considered the best one. I don't think I'm going to view any others because I am obviously an old pervert who can't be trusted to watch innocent entertainment.
more latter,
nico
music:
Fat Boy Slim Halfway between the Gutter and the Stars
google trap:
my brain smells like old plastic explosives