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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Play, Party, Party and a Musical

It has been a rather busy week and an even busier weekend. Work was spent watching the piles of paperwork on my desk grow ever larger. Unfortunately every time I tried to catch up, I would end up having to deal with some other more important project or crises. I am so miserably behind in everything right now. Lets just skip straight to weekend:

John and I saw The Weir at the Geffin Friday (03/02/01) night. Five characters tell ghost stories and tales of personal loss in an Irish pub. The play was fairly good, but it did have some problems. A couple of the actors had problems keeping their Irish accents consistent. Accents went from heavy to nonexistent to something sort of Irish like. Despite this, the audience laughed when they were supposed to and felt sad when required. Maybe that was a problem as well. I don't mind being manipulated emotionally by a play, in some respects it's supposed to, But this felt somewhat heavy handed.

It probably didn't help the whole "theater experience" that there was a ton of traffic that night, or that the ushers were directing patrons to the wrong seats, or that I was tired that night. I actually did enjoy the play, but I left thinking that it could have been better somehow.

Saturday (03/03/01) was a day spent driving. Far, far too much driving. John and I had to go down to Huntington Beach to a kids theme pizza party place thing for a birthday party for one of the nephews. The animatronic figures in the main dinning room were decrepit and lame, but the kids seemed far more interested in the games and rides than anything else. The entire time I kept thinking that in about ten years the nephews would be bored angsty teenagers and would most likely hate having the family gather 'round like this for their birthdays. I would also be in my forties by then. Depressing.

As usual, John and his cousin Jake spent most of the party gossiping 'bout stuff. I'm sure that they would object to my use of the word gossip. To bad.

After the birthday party in the middle of Orange County, we drove all the freaking way up to Thousand Oaks in way the heck out there Ventua County for a dinner party that Anna and Bruce were having. I had fun that evening, but I don't know what the heck we were thinking when we agreed to go to both events. I'm fairly sure that John was thinking "Must get Nico to drive." Somehow he did end up convincing me that it made more sense for me to drive. I don't exactly recall why anymore though. My John is tricky that way.

It was the first time we've seen the Anna and Bruce's new place. Nice house, nice pool, nice neighborhood. Very, well, nice. I found out that Anna et al moved back to California from Virginia because was a lot more easy dealing with the Hawaiian and East Coast relatives if they were more centered geographically. That and no snow and better weather and better produce and the like.

The party that night consisted mainly of the Monsters (John's college friends). So there were remember back when type conversations. As usual, Anna made a wonderful dinner, Pork something or another with great mashed potatoes, green salad and a red fruit salad. I haven't eaten that well in while. The drive home was long and involved several freeways I've never been on before. The entire days driving put on over a hundred fifty miles on my poor little new car. I was also totally exhausted by the time we made back home

It rained off and on for most of Sunday (03/04/01), which made most of the day fairly depressing. I am so tired of rain. That night, We saw Mama Mia at the Shubert theater. I enjoyed myself far more than I thought I would. Of course, it was a very determinedly peppy, you must have fun and dance and sing kind of a musical. No one was allowed not to have fun. The premise was fairly simple, use familiar ABBA songs to tell a story of a marriage and answer a question of paternity. Some of the song choices were more contrived than others, but overall it wasn't to bothersome. I grew up with my mom playing ABBA in Spanish, so while the songs were familiar, they all sounded a little odd to me. I don't think that to many people in the audience had the same problem. There were a couple of understudies that night, but they did a good job. Apart from the fact that the stage was set up in such a way that no one were I was seated could really see the far right portion of the stage (stage left? I always forget), it was a good experience. Mostly.

John and I bought the tickets off of some friends of ours who couldn't make it that night. The thing was that they were part of a larger group who had planned to make an evening it. We ended up taking their place for the entire night, not just for the show. So instead of a group of gay men and a token straight couple, there was a group of gay men and two more gay men. Anyway, we all met a Russ's place for leisurely cocktails (I abstained, I'm not much of a drinker), then had a rushed dinner at a fairly decent Indian Place before heading over to the theater with only a few minutes to spare.

I tend to forget just how "suburban married couple" John and I are. All the other men that night were successful single professionals (lawyers and "Industry" folk with vague titles). They were also all white men in their latter thirties/early forties, who had the "look" and lived the "life." Which is to say that they all wore 'spensive fashionable clothing, worked out, looked good and they all lived in WeHo. Well, except for the one guy who was visiting from Washington D.C. and lived in Dupont Circle. Same difference.

John and I are friends with Russ and the other guys were all fairly friendly and well, nice, but I still felt kind of out of place that night. I've been in other situations were I was the youngest, or the only male, or the only latino or the only whatever, but I usually don't really notice it or let it bother me. I'm not really sure what was making me feel isolated that night. I guess I'm in a mood or something. I'll blame it on the rain.

More later, nico.

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