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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.
Tuesday 12/02/2003
there would have been a title here, if I had bothered to think of one (part one):
There have been a couple of rude comments on the guestbook, which I've removed, not so much because I'm cowering under the weight of a pithy critique, but rather because of obscene language. I don�t mind negative comments, but at least try to keep the language (fairly) clean. By the way, as a lesson for us all, never, ever use the phrase "man-c*nt," it is not only misogynistic, it's dammed idiotic as well.
Anyway, here's the stuff.
Remember, in the pecking order of sugar plum fairies, chubby girls dressed as dancing flowers are the lowest of the low: The one show that I invariably like while everyone else in our group of Geffen subscription buddies hate, that is, the "holiday show� is playing now. Last year the hate rule meant that I was the only one who even sort of halfway liked Pearl, Debbie Allen's dancing kids version of snow white. This year all heck broke loose, as the rule was broken. This time around Susan, the only woman of the group and thus presumably the only one of us who may have once been a twelve year old girl into ballerina, was also the only one of us who didn't enjoy Sandra Tsing Loh's Sugar Plum Fairy, a one woman show which not surprisingly deals in part with a "coming of age/loss of childhood innocence" story of Ms. Loh being a twelve year old ballerina wanting a lead in a production of the nutcracker.
I enjoy listening to her on NPR and the play was sort of like one of her amusing, sweet, yet nonsaccharine "this is an amusing anecdote from my life" stories, except a much, much longer. The beginning of the show was a bit stiff, but over all it was a good time. The cantankerous old man seated next to me who had a fit the last play, wasn't too feisty this time around, mainly because he slept through most of it, waking up only for a rousing version of muskrat love. A song which does make sense in the context of the story. Um, a least I think it did.
Even though it was relatively cold that night, Susan had a supposedly pregnancy created urge for green tea ice cream after the show. Of course she always has a craving for green tea ice cream regardless of pregnancy. So anyway, cold food on a cold night was had, although I just stuck with a sweetened iced green tea instead of anything actually frozen.
Susan, Ron, John, and I sat near the front of the shop, at one of the "this is a hip joint" obligatory couches having an age appropriate conversation about kids, pregnancy, jobs, and such, while across from us at another couch were a group of young Asian and African American women looking very, very young. Considering our location (Westwood) and their ages (18?), I'm guessing they were UCLA students (freshmen?).
There was a mirror on the wall next to us, and one point I glanced at it while stretching a kink out of my neck, and saw some of the girls quickly look down and start whispering. I did it again a few minutes later, and the same reaction. A third time, and there was now giggling and red faces.
I may be wrong, but I'm thinking that perhaps they were thinking that I was cute or something. So continuing to beat a dead horse here, while I couldn't get a gay man to look twice at me to save my life, straight young coeds on the other hand, think I'm the stuff. It's good (yes sarcasm) to know that if I wanted to, picking up coed girls would be fairly simple. Too bad I'm not straight, a talent like that is probably the stuff of fantasies. Well at least the stuff of wet dreams.
In 1979 I was twelve and wishing I was best friends with Starbuck: I had a day off a couple of weeks ago which I spent being lazy and wasting a few hours wandering around Los Feliz, instead of doing useful things, like yard work or laundry. It was a pleasant afternoon, visiting old hangouts, spending money at local bookstores and used CD stores, and eating a fairly good lunch at the Mustard Seed caf�.
Someone once told me that the idea that all waiters in Los Angeles were frustrated actors was a merely a myth, because in reality, all waiters in Los Angeles actually want to be rock stars. From the band/music/local venue gossip conversations between patrons and waitstaff at the restaurant and at a coffee place later in the day, the joke seems to be true, or at least true in this part of town.
I didn't discuss bands or music with any of the waitstaff; instead I was content to admire the view, the view being all the cute young men walking around that afternoon. It's not a gay neighborhood per say, more of a gay friendly place, so most of the guys were probably straight, not that I really cared. I was just looking after all.
Shaggy, 70's, feathered hair seems to be de reguer for mid-twenties rock musician men, and while I've never really though about it, considering my age, maybe it's not surprising that if you show me an attractive man resembling Dirk Benedict back in his battlestar galctica days, I'll start salivating on command.
The shoulder length hair seems to be an
out-of-school/musician/occupation-goal thing because the next day I was at USC for a meeting, and while walking through the campus, all of the (younger) male students I saw had short hair, or shaved heads. The only long haired men in sight were a pony tailed man old enough to be a professor, and a dreadlocked white guy who had that eternally exhausted grad student look about him, so maybe his hair had less to do with fashion and more to do with hygiene...um, ick.
Some things would be better if they were fiction: A friend of mine met a man a few weeks ago who has had plastic surgery. A gay man opting for cosmetic surgery is perhaps not too unusual, the way "George" went about it, hopefully is. George decided to save some money and go to Mexico for a nose job. He wasn't too happy with the results, so a year later he went back to Mexico to see the same doctor, who then did another unsatisfactory job.
George then went a third time, to see the same exact same doctor, except that this time Marshal, a prospective boyfriend, paid for the surgery. While there he decided to have liposuction as well. I'm not sure who footed that bill. The third time appears to be the charm, since it seems that George thinks he finally has the nose he wants, although it�s still somewhat swollen, so his opinion may yet change.
There are soooo many things wrong about this story that it is hard to pick which one is the worst, although that may simply be that George is still only in his early twenties.
The effects of testosterone overload and tales of people fall from on high and landing on their heads: I witnessed the Cho Revolution once again, this time at the terrace theater in Long Beach, with Barb, Deb, and John as a birthday present for Deb. It was cool seeing Margaret Cho again, and getting a chance to see how the show has evolved a bit. Some things had been removed, some topical, up to the minute events were thrown in, but the overall feel and build up was the same. I still think she's muy intelligent and hugely talented.
The audience was decidedly not. During the entire first act and for the first few minutes of Margaret Cho�s routine, there was an annoying argument going on near us. A man and a woman arrived just after the lights had gone down and an usher directed them to their seats, which is when everything went wrong. The man started loudly, and I mean loudly, as in LOUDLY telling the usher that there people seated his seats and he had better get them out of there. The usher responded back softly and calmly, as would be expected when there's a freaking show going a few feet away, and whatever he said annoyed the man, who then stated yelling for a supervisor.
A similar routine went on for the next few minutes, where despite my efforts to ignore them, that dan man just kept getting louder. I'm not quite sure what the ushers, and bosses, and bosses of bosses were telling him, but from his reaction, I am guessing that they were either pointing out that he had counted the rows incorrectly and his seats were actually in the row in front of where he thought they were sitting, or they were offering better seats in the next row forward.
Either way, he and the woman would end up with better seats, but no that wasn't good enough, he was suffering from a testosterone over dose and was having a territorial fit over not getting to sit where he wanted.
In a sad way, I'm glad it was a man and woman, and not two presumably gay men. This way I can assume he was straight and "disown" him as it were.
We had hoped for dinner at a new PFChangs nearby the theater, but there was a ridiculously long wait (90 minutes?? que??), so we had a surprisingly nonmediocre meal at CPK (california pizza kitchen ). Both meal options surprised me. I didn't know that the city had been building up the area at the end of Pine Street, near the convention center.
Back in the day, when I was actually a young man, the area was nothing but parking lots. Parking lots that filled up quickly every year for Pride, when Long Beach Pride was a much smaller thing held in the lagoon area across from shoreline village. The parking lots are now gone, built up as a new theme shopping center with a look/style that reaches back farther into local history to when the Pike existed.
Instead of rides and carnival games, it looks like there will now be stores and movie theaters. Well, there eventually there will be. As of yet, only a couple of places appear to be open, but the overall structures appear to be finished, including what appears to be a pedestrian bridge disguised as a mock roller coaster (the cyclone racer?).
I was a kid when the Pike was torn down, but I think I can remember walking through it with my parents. Assuming the memory is real that is, and not something I stole from an old TV show (the wax max).
Deb is a little bit older than the rest of us, and remembers stories about the Pike, including tales about people falling off of rides to their death.
As she related one about a relative of hers who managed to survive a near fatal tumble, I remembered that in college I wanted to write something about the lonely ghost of a girl who had fallen to her death from a (nonexistant?) sky tram, and now spent her time walking through empty car lots. Like a lot of things, I never did get around to that story.
OK, enough of this for now. Assuming I can manage it, there will be new entry later this week with more catch up stuff including a mention of Like Jazz, and the Triplets of Belleville. If that proves to be beyond me, then there should be something up here early next week hopefully detailing the Los Angeles Angels in America preview. Maybe.
more later,
nico
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