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.

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I wrote this a couple of months ago, then never posted it because of indiference and an a vague sense of meloncoly bleagh...which is dippy, as it�s a round up of several months of events I never wrote about here becuase of indiference and a vague sense of bleagh...any way, it already has an introduction explaining all this, so here�s the thing:
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A couple of months ago in a mall bookstore over on the eastside of town I overhead two twenty-something aged cholas talking excitedly about the musical version of Wicked after seeing the book on a display stand.�
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�Dude I need to see that!�
�I do to, but it�s sooo expensive.�
�U know what I would do si yo tenia a lot of money, I�d buy a bunch of tickets and go a lot of times with all my friends.�
�Homes, that would be so cool!�
�Si!� Finding out like, how the wicked witch really got that way would be cool.�
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Then they walked over to the magazine rack and started making fun of People en Espanol or something.
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If I had been more on top of things this past summer, this would have served as a good intro for writing something how John and I saw Wicked, but well I spent most of the summer feeling vaguely bleah and starting but never quite finishing entries about what was going on in my life.� After a couple of paragraphs about a party or play, I�d look over what I�d written and think eh, who cares, then decide to finish it off later when I felt more motivated and less self critical.� Except that motivation never seemed to come and now several months after the fact I�ve a back log of stuff that I feel compelled to mention, but perhaps not exactly write about it detail.
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Obviously there was Wicked, which was fun, a good show, and wildly popular with youngish girls, gay men, and apparently cholas as well.
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Other plays were:
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Apollo: Part I: Lebensraum, which dealt with the early American space program and it�s questionable use of/dependence on former German V2 rocket scientists, many of whom were Nazis, a fact we conveniently ignored when bringing them over here since they were useful.� It was an interesting thing telling it�s story through use of dialogue; video; metaphor (mechanical pens as science, rockets, proof of allegiance); and dance, including the dance of sputnik hysteria, the dance of the search for German nazi rocket scientists (is there a rocket scientist under that chair? No.� Is there one under the table? No), and the tango of the seduction of Von Braun.� Odd stuff, but interesting.
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I am My Own Wife , which was just amazing.� Jefferson Mays did an incredible job portraying so many different people.�� Some of the people I went with said after wards that they at times forgot that there was only one person on stage.
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Radio Golf, the last of August Wilson's decology, with this play involving a man attempting and ultimately failing to reconcile family history and personal ethics with a bid for political power. It wasn�t bad, but I had a couple of issues with it, that ultimately are unimportant.
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The Merchant of Venice , done by the L.A. Women Shakespeare Company and set in a WWII era Italy, with Jewish characters forced to wear Star of David patches, and implying a former (?) sexual relationship between Antonio and Bassanio.� With its story of using the legal system to punish the minority for being so bold as to consider themselves equal, the prejudice, hatred, the idea of being forced to deny your fundamental identity to save your soul, it was all too eerily familiar.� It was a good production, though troubling considering that it was written as a comedy.�
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A nonplay thing was getting to attend private showing of the Tutokhamen exhibit that was done for APLA.� The reception had some faces that seemed familiar, meaning that they were probably actors or something.� I did get to say hello to and congratulate Mayor Villaragosa on his then recent victory.� Every person I�ve this to in person has been mighty unimpressed by my meeting the Los Angeles mayor and more impressed that I only had to stand in line a half hour for an elevator to take us down to the exhibit instead of the couple hours most folks did.�
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Other nonplay things involved a few parties, including John�s photo parties, both of them.� Dos because after several requests from female friends, but still wanting to have a party that was client only, John had two separate photo show/parties on consecutive nights.� Doing it that way was fairly simple since all that was required for the second night was cleaning up patios a little and some minor restocking of drink and food.�
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The first night served as proof that women do like male butts (pics there of recieved the most noise) and was dominated by a loud conversation over when was the right time to start having kids so as to not kill your career.� The second night was all gay men and the loudest conversation involved sharing drunken debauchery horror stories (�and then I realized that the smell was my face!�).� Unlike last year, no one slipped off into the bushes down the hill, which in hindsight may have had something to do with my keeping the spotlights on.
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Another party involved our driving to the hinderlands of the valley.� This one was all gay men as well, predominately couples, and except for John and myself, all the others couples were Asian/Caucasian pairings.� It was a costume party and being a �gay party� it was probably surprising that out of the 36 or so guests a mere 6 were shirtless and only one wore cheek baring chaps.�
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The oddest moment of the night was overhearing a conversation where one of the other couples asked the host about another guest (a cute, short, stocky Japanese/Hawaiian guy).� Was he single and if so what was he into?
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The answers were yes he was, and that he liked big, hefty Asian men, not sumo sized big, but definitely not thin either, which prompted one half of the couple to exclaim �OH, He�s Sticky Brown Rice!�
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I�ve listened to more than my share of nonPC sticky rice conversations, but the brown rice part was new to me.� I didn�t interrupt to ask him for a qualification, and I didn�t bother with trying to figure it out, instead I looked across the room at the man in the Conan the Barbarian outfit and idly wondered how small a loin cloth could be before it�s starts to serve as negative advertising.

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