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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One Play
We saw Mamet�s Boston Marriage with some friends (weeks ago, months ago?) at the Geffen.� It was a story/farce featuring some famous women as upper class lesbians and servants.� It was amusing, the actors did a good job, the set was well done, and despite remembering liking it, I�ve already forgotten most of it.
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Getty Villa
The secret to getting into a tour of the Getty Villa a couple of weeks after it had reopened (which due to a limited number of reservations has become an �in thing� to do among a certain crowd) is to have a husband who went to a private collegio with an active alumni association, or at least that�s how I got in.� The tour was interesting, the new construction and rearrangement of the villa work well, and I�ll eventually have to go back when things are less crowded, because with the time constraints put on visitors, I didn�t get to see everything I wanted to.
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The funniest bit of the trip was overhearing one rich, white, older woman talking to another rich, white, older woman describe a handkerchief she was using as �a do-rag, as the youngsters are want to call them.�
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A �Los Angeles� moment:
John and I were having dinner with some friends at a Thai place in Culver City when a bearded older man was sat at the table kitty corner to us.� It took me a minute to recognize him as Harrison Ford, and even longer to realize that the really skinny woman who joined him was the Calista Flockheart.� Of the few people I told this to in real life, only the women crushed out on Mr. Ford have been impressed.
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Another Play:
Lynn Redgrave� is, or rather was (I think it�s already finished) the big draw star name for The Importance of Being Earnest at the Almanson.� It was good, amusing, well acted, and I�m glad we went.� I�m also glad that I was able to mostly ignore two recent college grad former sorority girls seated behind us.� According to John they kept talking nonstop before the play started.� When they weren�t talking about how they loved the theater, they were talking about plans for spending the summer in Europe and spending their parents money.
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I was able to ignore that.� What I did notice though, was their silence during the show.� While everybody else in the place was laughing nonstop, they never made a noise.� At one point I surreptitiously glanced at them and saw that one was staring at her lap while text messaging someone, or playing with her cell phone, or something, while the other was propping her head up with her hand in a body position of utter bordom.� Since they were so uninterested in the play, I was surprised that they didn�t leave during intermission, although I guess for folks like that, you better bragging rights for seeing an entire play, even if you don�t like and/or get it.
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Museo
Seeing the more modern half of the American Comic Masters exhibition at MOCA was eventually followed up with a trip to Westwood for the other, more historical (and perhaps more interesting) half of the exhibit at the Hammer.� Like the other section of the exhibition, it didn�t really change my opinion about any of the featured artists.� I�m a huge fan of Winsor McCay (Little Nemo, Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend) and George Herriman (Krazy Kat), and I still am.� More so, seeing pages from the comics section of hundred plus year old newspapers left me with the impression that what we have now is a pale, unimaginative mess, compared to what comics were able to achieve in it�s first few years.
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Anyway, I was a bit surprised at how violent some of Popeye strips were (though thinking about it, I really shouldn�t have been); I wanted to like Milton Caniffs Terry and the Pirates, but I don�t; early Shultz is totally a result of it�s time and oddly it�s clean lines reminded me of mid-century modern design; and thanks to my limited exposure to Little Abner, I am utterly incapable of taking Dick Tracy seriously.
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I did find Frank King�s Sunday pages to be more colorful and imaginative than I expected.� I bought the 1st Gasoline Alley collection last year and while I�ve learned to enjoy his stuff, the fluidness and novelty of his later work surprised me a little.� I never wrote about getting the book, but while it got somewhat mixed reviews, I enjoyed it a lot, though part of that was due to getting to see a slice of American history from a contemporary view point.� I remember in Junior High school covering how the introduction of mass production of affordable automobiles changed American culture, and those changes are the focus of many of the storylines in the Gasoline Alley comic.� Cars helped lesson (to a small extent) the separation of classes (or helped establish the middle class depending on who you listen to), and lead to more well traveled population.� The ideas of freedom and off road travel that are basis of nearly every single car commercial these days (utter fiction, since few ever take their SUV�s out of the cities) had their origin in early 20th century America, where people really did load up their cars with tents and supplies and drove through the countryside roughing it.
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Singing and Storytelling:
The absolute gayest thing John and I have done lately has been seeing Bea Arther�s one woman show.� Surprisingly the audience was not solely gay men, but was dominated by older straight couples, with a sizable minority of gay men and lesbians, although there was one sort of creepy straight couple seated in front of us, creepy because the man was more than old enough to be his date�s grandfather, if not her grandfather�s much older brother.� Um, anyway, Bea Arther sang songs, told stories, and was entertaining.� One of the funniest bits of the show was when she started talking about Angela Lansbury, calling her a foul mouthed woman found of dirty limericks.� A funny anecdote made more humorous because Ms. Landsbery was in the audience a couple of rows ahead of us.
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Flick:
I went into V for Vendetta assuming that I would probably like it, although with some minor or major reservations, so I was pleasantly surprised that I thought it was a really good movie and that it did the comic justice.� Granted, it�s been a very, very long time since I�ve read the thing, so that�s most likely part of my enjoyment.� Additionally, given the way most movies based on comics turn out, I also tend to go in with very low expectations, so my thinking that it�s a good movie may be biased.
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more later,
nico

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